The Boyhood of Cain (2*)

A gay coming-of-age novel that focuses primarily on childhood development seemed inherently interesting, given how many homosexual authors more typically embroider same-sex longing and the coming-out process.  Unfortunately, young Daniel is a whiny pill so it's hard to have a lot of sympathy for his predicament despite his precociousness and independent thinking.  The kid embraces ambivalence as a creed, bleeding any real joy out of his early life.

Michael Amherst capably conveys how Daniel perceives his family, from the time he idolizes his father as a young child, proud to hold his hand and eager to take advantage of the privileges afforded the headmaster's son.  That pride curdles into contempt when circumstances--his father's alcoholism--force the man to become an inept farmer in the same community.  Even as a pre-teen, Daniel appears to value status above all, which leads him to betray his father more than once in order to curry favor with the men who drink nightly with Daniel's family at the local pub. Needless to say, all but the pervert recoil.

For most of this mercifully brief novel, Daniel treats his mother, a failed actress much younger and more vivacious than her husband, with the degree of sympathy you would expect from a hard-core mama's boy perhaps because she allows him to stay home from school a lot more than he should.  Vivacious here is the key word:  by the book's conclusion Daniel finally understands the depth of her skillfully sketched bipolarity. Still, he reacts with more fury than sadness at her stagy suicide attempt which calls to mind the death of Lupe Vélez in Hollywood Babylon.

Neither religion nor education provide Daniel with much comfort as he struggles to find where he belongs in the world.  When Daniel chooses Judas as his favorite apostle, the vicar isn't surprised given how the budding intellectual has previously tried his patience with persistent questions about Christian dogma.  Amherst invests Daniel's relationship with Mr. Miller, his tweedy (and single) English and art teacher, with the most freight. Miller offers Daniel a private, after-school drawing lessons but readers expecting either pedagogical nurture or sexual molestation will be disappointed unless, perhaps, they inhabit the groves of academe which clearly weaned this exercise in mostly aesthetic conflict.  Miller bullies Daniel for his appreciation of "The Hay Wain," a nineteenth-century painting by John Constable that depicts their rural English environment.

Miller also invites Philip, a popular but solitary athlete, to join their sessions.  Although Daniel initially resents having to share his special status the boys become both friends and rivals for Miller's favor until puberty intervenes.  Drama ensues when Daniel complains to his parents about Miller's behavior.  Gay solidarity--expressed by either generation--is absent from this classroom. 

Here's the rub, although that metaphor is completely absent, too: men, whether straight or gay, are often accused of "thinking" with their dicks, not their heads.  Amherst takes pains to distinguish Daniel in this regard while pinpointing the exact moment that self loathing rears its ugly head.

He would like to be this boy [Philip]. Or to have something of his. If he could be someone else, then he would be this boy. This is the boy he is meant to be.

I recognize this passion; its expression not so much.  I didn't want to be Kim Posich, who similarly embodied many of Philip's qualities, in the fourth grade; I desperately wanted him to kidnap me. 

But that would have been a different, less highbrow book completely devoid of strained Biblical allusions.

Still Proud

In the end, isn't this what Pride is all about:  same-sex couples being able to walk in public holding hands without fear of harassment?  Imagine the changes these two women have seen in their lifetimes!

 

But in the wake of the 2024 elections, our community has to ask how much longer it will be OK for less heteronormative folk 

. . . or people of color to fly their freak flags.

Like the sign carried by the woman at the back says,  If you're not ANGRY, you're not paying attention.

As a direct result of "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" rollbacks mandated by the federal government, corporate America has begun to cut budgets for Pride sponsorships or eliminate them entirely.  Props to Bank of America (#Love Has No Labels) and Starbucks for not caving.  Yet.

 

(Still, not even a hunky barista could get me to overpay for my morning Joe.)

Local businesses capitalized on the opportunity to raise awareness.  Despite their liberal use of the bubble gun, these little girls looked as if they'd recently availed themselves of the service advertised. "Aquamation" was new to me, but I guess it makes sense on a peninsula surrounded by water.

Participation by red state law enforcement in a county that also includes Mar a Lago is encouraging although I can't quite shake the image of mounted members of the NYPD clubbing students with batons at Columbia in 1971.

Speaking of my beleaguered alma mater,  a Jewish group made a pretty big splash to muted cheers. 

"Love Is Kosher" can be a tricky message to convey right now, even in the context of a gay pride parade.

If there's a silver lining to the cloudy future of Pride corporate sponsorship, it's the renewed focus on community groups, organized around activities that bring LGBTQI+ people together, something that already had begun to happen in New York City for better reasons. Bikers

. . . and readers for example.

My favorite new discoveries:  The Imperial Sun Court of All Florida

 . . .  and Witchy Hippies for All.  Who knew?

They're part of a "Femininomenon," that's for sure!

My neighborhood association sent a golf cart, one of many.

National politics and overcast skies did little to diminish the enjoyment of either the marchers

. . . or spectators.

But I couldn't help wonder:  how will this young father and son remember the 2025 Palm Beach Country Pride Parade in a decade's time?

All Fours (5*)

How many times have I heard You've got to get out of your head! but Miranda July gets about as deep into her own as anyone probably ever has, turning this unique novel into performance art of the most introspective kind.

As I texted Magda, with the same uncontainable enthusiasm I shared for I May Destroy You, "I feel like I'm a spy in the secret world of women."  At least the kind I've always enjoyed befriending:  smart, funny, questioning, empathic, sexual and most of all perceptive.

The novel's narrator--a semi-famous "creative" (There was nothing on my person that revealed I’d just been paid twenty thousand dollars for one sentence about hand jobs) clearly based on July, recently separated from filmmaker Mike Mills, who directed Twentieth Century Woman, an unheralded masterpiece--embarks on a road trip with the blessing of her husband, who theorizes people can be categorized as either "parkers" or "drivers."  Counterintuitively, she seeks to become the former.

Her quest takes her a lot of different places, almost none of them geographic, through a series of ups and downs, including the rarely depicted world of perimenopause, a subject that proves to be extraordinarily fertile ground for July's unflinching imagination or perhaps just the actual reality of her own extraordinarily rendered life.  What resonated most for me, as a gay man a generation older than she, is her revelation upon meeting the woman who claimed the virginity of her much younger fantasy lover.

It seemed unlikely that my entire view of older women could be changed by Audra. On the other hand, people were always referring to the one person—the gay teacher, the animal rights activist—who had changed everything. Wasn’t this the great hope and folly of humans? That we were all so influenceable? Not weak or flimsy but actually interconnected at the root level, like trees—we took everything personally because it was personal.

I instantly identified with Audra's role because of an encounter I had had decades ago while walking on the beach in the Pines.  A younger man whom I didn't recognize approached to say hello.  "You probably don't remember me," he said, but you and your boyfriend changed my life.  You told me to read Anna Karenina and our three-way showed me there was a different way to be gay, that monogamy didn't have to be essential to a relationship." Alrighty, then.  Little did he know!

There's so much to unpack in this book.  Although I was known for posing provocative questions to housemates and guests to liven up things in the Pines (i.e. who was your female role model growing up?), here's one I never thought to ask:  are you body-focused or fantasy-focused during sex?  Good news:  All Fours insists you don't have choose.

The metaphor behind the title, alluded to by Jordi, the narrator's best friend, a sculptor, also harkens back to the Pines,  because of the exploration that promiscuous environment fostered. Often anonymous sex required assigning nicknames to partners, at least in my head.  Among the most memorable was "Fucked On All Fours," my au courant homage to an unforgettable Native American hunk sometime after Dances With Wolves won the Oscar for Best Picture. Fortunately, perimenopause did not loom on my horizon and the party lasted almost 30 more years thanks to my two best friends, darkness and distance.

I'm not entirely sure about July's open ending, after an edging session that lasts almost for the book's entirety, because it suggests that people can change, that parking may be in your future even if you do go through hell finding a space.  But that's a small quibble given how much fun I had reading this exhilarating account of a woman's sexual journey.

Sometimes I could hear Harris’s dick whistling impatiently like a teakettle, at higher and higher pitches until I finally couldn’t take it and so I initiated [sex].

*  *  *  *

His name was Davey. I offered the chair across from me and he sort of half sat on it, while biting heartily into the sandwich and describing the history of the Hertz franchises his uncle owned. He usually worked at the counter, so moving cars was comparatively fun, “especially when I can time it with my lunch break!” He didn’t question whether any of this was interesting; I supposed all handsome young men enjoyed a minor-celebrity treatment that they were unaware of.

*  *  *  *

Each person does the amount of lying that is right for them. You have to know yourself and fulfill the amount of untruth that your constitution requires. I knew many women (like my own dear Jordi) who simply couldn’t handle the feeling lying gave them—it wasn’t their bag.

“What you see is what you get,” these women said about themselves. For me lying created just the right amount of problems and what you saw was just one of my four or five faces—each real, each with different needs. The only dangerous lie was one that asked me to compress myself down into a single convenient entity that one person could understand. I was a kaleidoscope, each glittering piece of glass changing as I turned.

*  *  *  *

We would touch a little bit more each day, drawing it out as long as possible, and then one day we would allow ourselves to be overcome. And it would be real life. Real smells and wet tongues and cum and pubic hair and this would be astounding. The crossover into this land of physical intimacy would be like breaking the sound barrier or a plane lifting off, babies learning to walk. A new world would open up and yes it would be rife with new problems but oh the joy that would come from pausing, midsentence, to kiss.

*  *  *  *

She was doing that thing that women do; begging for what you want by not asking for it.

*  *  *  *

I only need my lesbianism held and kept, like a person who buries little bits of money all over the world—it’s never on me, but it’s never far.

*  *  *  *

I felt untethered from my age and femininity and thus swimming in great new swaths of freedom and time. One might shift again and again like this, through intimacies, and not outpace oldness exactly, but match its weirdness, its flagrant specificity, with one’s own.

*  *  *  *

It was the kind of climax that needed another one right after to scoop up the leftovers and then another to lick the plate clean.

Lake Okeechobee Bike Ride

I've wanted to ride the Lake Okeechobee scenic trail ever since Thom and I took a hike on it in 2022.  Now that I have a car big enough to load my bicycle, I can.  South Bay parking is a little more than an hour's drive away from the Folly.

The flat, narrow berm, often paved, runs for 110 miles surrounding Florida's largest freshwater lake. Bikers and buzzards were equally scarce during my round-trip ride of 15 miles in the midday sun.  I saw only two of each.

U.S. Highway 27--the same one we took to Sarasota in February--runs parallel to the scenic trail.  A squadron of pelicans can be glimpsed in the cloudless sky.

A pumping station forced me to take a detour to cross the Miami canal.  Water released from Okeechobee flows south to the Everglades.

From a distance, I thought the antique pumping machinery on display in nearby John H. Stretch Memorial Park was a child's playground.

Would you believe this diesel engine could pump 1,861,392,900 gallons in 24 hours, reducing the level of the lake by 3/4" over an area of 144 square miles?  

My father would have been in heaven checking out this equipment, retired in 1989.

Half a dozen people and a couple of pelicans fished the Miami canal.  When I asked one woman why her pole was so long, she replied "Because I'm scared of gators down there!"  

Next time I'll start my ride from an access point where the view of the lake--so big that you can't see across it in places--is less obstructed.

 

Night Watch (5+*)

 

Individual goodness thrives, even in the worst of times.  That's my takeaway from Jayne Anne Phillips' densely written, melodramatic tale of the Civil War, set primarily in a West Virginia mental asylum where, one character observes, "it is still unspooling like a malignant thread."  Any relevance to contemporary America is purely intentional; almost prophetically, Night Watch won last year's Pulitzer Prize.

Star-crossed lovers, raised on a southern plantation but unaware they are related by blood, flee to the hollers of West Virginia with the older woman who has raised the young man from birth.  Dearbhla, whom some believe to be an Irish witch because of her expertise as an herbalist, dresses like a man and holds the all-too-common secret of the couples' origins close.  It does not diminish her love for their oddly named daughter.  As the story--which alternates between two time periods, separated by a decade--begins, ConaLee is accompanying her mother, a woman first known as Miss Janet, to an asylum run by a beneficent Quaker physician whose progressive ideas don't sit well with some of the entrenched staff.  Like Jesus, he turns out to be just a man, after all.  

Night Watch mostly concerns the women left behind by a character first introduced as the Sharpshooter who enlists to fight for the Union with a fervor that Miss Janet cannot comprehend.  What happens to her is no less traumatic than the brain injury suffered by the Sharpshooter who loses a piece of his skull (and most of his memory) in a battle described in detail so precise and confusing that the reader emerges with an unusually vivid sense of what it feels like to fight in a war.  

That feeling, however, seems familiar because the specifics of that experience have been depicted thousands of times in books and movies, unlike sexual assault.  Phillips and her boundless imagination give equally horrifying time to Miss Janet's consciousness while a Confederate deserter initially rapes her without using his penis.  Eventually, he returns for more assault of the conventional kind, initiating a years-long long nightmare that plagues ConaLee as well as the ever-resourceful Dearbhla.  News flash:  rape can be as different as the men who perpetrate it.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into the author's metaphorical intentions, but the mental asylum where Miss Janet finds refuge--which actually existed--seems like the kind of place America ought to be.  Patients--who can be admitted for conditions as mild as "novel reading" and "politics"--are treated respectfully, humanely and fed a diet that would now be described as farm-to-table.  It's where the forces of good and evil finally come together under the watchful, mismatched eye of Weed, a foundling who nevertheless manages to thrive by adapting to his less-than-ideal circumstances, forming alliances and keeping his own counsel.

In Night Watch, Phillips appears to be showing her readers a path forward for a nation's untainted, sustained recovery once the man who cynically impersonates Abraham Lincoln has been vanquished.

Endurance was strength. The courage of the lost swelled and moved, a force separating the days, clearing the way.

We can hope.

More Bunker Playlists

We hit the Bunker Art Space again, almost exactly a year after discovering it.  This season's playlists were less anodyne than last, which included The Endowed Chair, Citrus and Odalisque.  Times have changed, for sure, with the importance of art in my life increasing in direct proportion to the intensity of the assault on our democracy.

"Klick" by Robert Arneson (1965)

The lobby offered a sneak preview, with a painting by Erika Rothenberg on the stairs declaring Democrats fear snakes more than Republicans do.  Hmmmm.

"Monument to the Known" by Radcliffe Bailey (2021)

A Wing and a Prayer

The curators assembled more than 300 objects under this hopeful, if scattered, rubric. They clearly have not embraced the anti-DEI backlash that's so au courant in much of the rest of the America.  Many of the works, including the "Soundsuit" (2011) by Nick Cave (right) were created by people of color, women and gay men.  The docent instructed us not to step on Lita Albuquerque's "White Pigment Rock Removal" (1978) as if we were in elementary school.

The Bunker eschews wall labels, encouraging visitors to reach their own conclusions about the art.  I don't consult the printed brochures which identify the works until after I've taken them in.  I never would have guessed John Ahearn created this monochromatic sculpture

"Open House #2" (1999)

. . . or that this colorful wall hanging was by Faith Ringgold even though I've seen fairly comprehensive retrospectives of both artists' works.

"Feminist Series:  Of My Two Handicaps #10 of 20" (1972)

Kyle DeWoody and Zoe Lukov, the daughter and goddaughter of the collection's owner, remind viewers that the name of the exhibit harkens back to the early days human flight, when safe landings weren't always assured. 

 

Untitled (Prayer) by Brittney Leeanne Williams (2018)

"Great Lengths" by Rose B. Simpson (2018)

"Lasiren" by Myrlande Constant (2021)

"Seaside Figure with Closed Fist" by Che Lovelace (2018)

Who knew that queer filmmaker Derek Jarman also produced three-dimensional collages?

"Eyes" (1987)

or that performance artist Marina Abramovic sculpted?

"Cleaning The Body" (1995)

This pendant looked as if it belonged in the recent hip hop jewelry exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History.

"Ode to the CMB (Cash Money Brothers) 
by Hank Willis Thomas (partial, 2006)

Unidentified

One of the oldest works on view is also one of the most striking.  The German-born artist eventually settled in California where she wrote The vibration of this light, the spaciousness of these skies enthralled me. I knew there was a spirit in nature as in everything else, but here in the desert it was an especially bright spirit.

"Intimation" by Alice Pelton (1933)

"Male Figure with Antennae" by Charles Smith

"Sock Hop" by Honor Titus (2020)

"Priss Installation" by Kim Dingle (1994-95)

After the success of Anora (hooray!) and the shout-outs sex workers got from this year's Best Actress and Best Director Oscar-winners in their acceptance speeches, it was very cool to see their work represented in the Bunker, too.  This provocative installation by Catalina Ouyang dates back to just before the beginning of the "Me Too" movement and the first election of you-know-who, despite his recorded misogyny.

"Devotion" (2016)

A victimized schoolgirl rends a garment

. . . while staring at a series of selfies from the ex-lover who raped her.  I still can't get "Devotion" out of my mind.  It's almost the art world equivalent of a Blumhouse production.

Snakes

This playlist satisfied more perhaps because it's so shudder-specific for most people.  Has there ever been a more effective Hollywood elevator pitch for a horror film than Snakes on a Plane?  Well, maybe Psycho!

Medusa, my favorite mythological figure, figures in several compelling works, including one which alludes to the murder of Gianni Versace by a gay serial killer.

"To Die For" by Frank Moore (1997)

Did this diner turn to stone?

"Medusa" by Vic Muniz (1999)

"The Severed Head of Medusa" by Damien Hirst (2015)

With Mar a Lago just two miles away, it's tempting to think Jenny Holzer, one of America's most political artists, foreshadowed today's chaos by choosing the hair color of our current monarch for her anti-snake screed.  The appearance of the serpent signifies all is lost. He is a symbol of our failure and our fate.

"Black Book Posters AKA Inflammatory Essays" (1988)

"Modernist Design & Garden Snakes Who Love It"
by Patte Loper (2004)

Unidentified

"Snake Skin Ring" by Math Bass (2020)

"Flesh Lust" by Samantha Rosenwald (2022)

"Chiasmus 2 (Green) by Jessi Li (2024)

"Red To Yellow Kill A Fellow" by Pat Phillips (2019)

"Shadow Cruiser" by Isabelle Albuquerque (2024)

In Between

As much as I enjoy visiting the Bunker, I'm sometimes confused by the display of works (often in the bathroom) without identification of any kind. Gay knowledge proved helpful in several cases. This joyful water color captures the Stonewall trailblazer a lot better than the mosaic water fountain in the Pines!

Marsha P. Johnson by Keith Mayerson (2019)

I'm pretty sure this is a film still featuring Cliff Gorman from The Boys in the Band. Although straight, he played the queeny (and hilarious) Emory with perfect pathos. Gorman also proved to be a mensch IRL; he and his wife cared for one of his cast mates while AIDS ravaged the gay heartthrob.

Untitled Pez Time Capsule by Todd Pavlisko

These works look like photos of LGBTQ+ subjects but they're not.  Dan Fischer drew them on graph paper.

David Wojnarowicz (1999)

I'm very, very tempted to fly to London to see an exhibit celebrating this under-sung artist at the Tate Gallery.

Leigh Bowery (2006)

Huh?  Not that there's anything wrong with art that produces this kind of response.  Love the Twister-style carpet.

"Licked, Sucked, Stacked, Stuck: A Confectionary History of Contemporary Sculpture"
by Paul Shore & Nicole Root (2010)

Unfortunately, I didn't record the name of the sculptor who inspired this crazy homage.

Sixties

Let me say just this about a playlist I anticipated loving:  much of the mostly abstract art exhibited would have been a lot more appealing printed on fabric worn by models or Hullabaloo dancers than painted on canvas.

"Dracula" by Leslie Kerr (1965)

"Pod Series:  Cock Crow" by Jorge Fick (1969)

"Swell" by Peter Agostini (1963) + "Craterewa" by Paul Feeley (1963)

"Another Time" by Paul Waters (1969)

"Napoleon on St. Helena" by Roy Deforest (1962)

Johan Grimonprez did crack me up with Double Take (2009).  If my companions hadn't been waiting outside, I might have watched the entire movie which stars Alfred Hitchcock as well as Nikita Khruschev and Richard Nixon.  It's based on a recommendation Jorge Luis Borges once made in a short story:  if you meet your double, you should kill him.  Hitch defines "MacGuffin" in this excerpt.

Surveillance

This playlist hit the sweet spot with a variety of interesting takes on an increasingly prevalent aspect of modern life now that everyone is equipped with a camera phone.  Ryan Murphy definitely should devote a season of American Crime Story to Patty Hearst.  While working as a publicist for Crown Publishers early in my career, I met her ex-fiancé, Steven Weed, a math teacher who was about to cash in on the relationship he had with his former prep school student by writing a tell-all book, My Search for Patty Hearst.  Men can be gold diggers, too.  Who could predict that John Waters (whose rubber snake "Slimy JW" [2006] is also on view) would cast Hearst in a couple of his films after she served two years in federal prison, before being pardoned by President Jimmy Carter and marrying her bodyguard?!

"Patricia Hearst: A Thru Z" by Dennis Adams (1979-90)

"Under Surveillance" by Francesca Gabbiani (2024)

Something about this strange painting (is the man missing his legs?) by Lucky Debellevue delivered a subliminal charge.  Turns out the New Orleans-born artist was pals with one of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's lovers, which explains the title reference.  Gaydar works on art, too!  And no, Franco Nero--one of my earliest crushes--is not paraplegic--he might even have a third leg!  Only Vanessa knows for sure.

"Franco/Querelle" by (2023)

Franco Nero (undated photo)

Given the fetish value of Erwin Wurmk's oversize "New York Police Cap" (2010), it provided a loaded back drop for posing housemates. Does the cork pattern on the floor allude to sound-proof rooms?

The phrase behind me on the blackboard in "Two Way Mirror" by Jim Hodges (2006) is missing from my vocab.  Notice the tiny surveillance cameras embedded in the wallpaper. Kudos to the exhibition designer.

Just to be clear:  immigration policy during the enlightened O'Bama administration was pretty fucked up, too.

"Borderlands No. 2:  They Almost Got Me (pajarita Wilderness) by Sandy Rodriguez (2019)

Stop and frisk continues for people of color in New York City.

"Up Against The Wall" by Jane Dickson (2023)

"Small Town No. 1" by Cate Pasquarelli (2023)

"Guard Dog Sign" by Robert Lazzarini (2010)

"From the Series:  The Pleasure Is Back"
by Gretchen Bender (partial, 1982)

This video includes works by Ted Riederer ("The Cosmos Record, " 2020); Sanford Biggers ("Mandala Co-Option," 2001); and  Jimmy Raskin ("God Car," 2023) from both A Wing and a Prayer and Surveillance.

The Library

Signs ask you not to touch the books at the Butler but you're welcome to peruse the relevant knick knacks cleverly arranged on the shelves.

Andy Warhol dish towels!

This cartoon about the owner of the Bunker's art collection (caption:  I would like to conclude my Powerpoint presentation by summing up the gallery's entire business plan in one easy-to-remember phrase.) reminds me of a corollary joke:  What does a 500 pound parrot say?  Polly wants a cracker.  NOW!

No seating is provided inside the Bunker.

We had a couple of hours to kill before our early-bird dinner reservation so we crashed the pool at the Colony Hotel.  It took only a single "Monkey Business" cocktail--it's also the name of a yacht that brought down a presidential candidate, when extramarital affairs mattered to voters-- to vanquish my feelings of imposter syndrome.

An 80something chainsaw groupie appeared to catching up on his homework. "How is it?" I inquired, disingenuously, when he shuffled past our table. "It's really helping me understand how he has accomplished so much in so little time," the man replied, sincerely.

Gays may no longer be encouraged to flock to the Colony on Thursday evenings but during the afternoon it welcomes weirdos with open arms.  Like Cher in Clueless, this gentleman did a couple of laps around the pool before committing to the only location that also could accommodate his rambunctious pooch.

Christine treated us to dinner at Oceano, the finest restaurant in Lake Worth Beach.

I was skeptical of the beef tartare toast until I tasted it.  Those white buttons are difficult-to-cultivate Hon shimeji mushrooms.

The chef imported an oven from Modena to bake this superb finocchiona pizza with fennel-flavored sausage.

But nothing, NOTHING could compare to this lemon bar with strawberry sorbet, crowned with a melt-in-your-mouth sweet biscuit!  The husband and wife team who own the place--she's the pastry chef--have managed to increase the size of their restaurant exponentially without sacrificing quality.

 Leave it to Thom.  "This is what I thought retirement would be like EVERY day," he commented.  Thanks again, Christine!