Entry tags:
David B. Feinberg (November 25, 1956 - November 2, 1994)
David Barish Feinberg (November 25, 1956 - November 2, 1994) was an American writer and AIDS activist.Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, Feinberg grew up in Syracuse, New York. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, majoring in mathematics and studying creative writing with novelist John Hersey, graduating in 1977. He subsequently worked as a computer programmer for the Modern Language Association of America (MLA) and also pursued a Master's degree in linguistics at New York University. He completed his first novel, Calculus, in 1979, although it has never been published. Feinberg himself described the novel as "godawful", telling one interviewer that it was a novel that "only an MIT math major could have written".
In the early 1980s, he joined a gay men's writing group, eventually creating the character B. J. Rosenthal, a young gay man, much like Feinberg himself, who became the central character in virtually all of Feinberg's later writing. He contributed a humour column to the gay magazine Mandate in 1986 and 1987, which in turn led to his first book deal. The novel Eighty-Sixed was published in 1989, and won Feinberg the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men's Fiction and the American Library Association Gay/Lesbian Award for Fiction.
Feinberg tested positive for HIV in 1987, and joined the activist organization ACT UP. He participated in ACT UP demonstrations including Stop the Church. In 1991, he published his second novel, a sequel to Eighty-Sixed entitled Spontaneous Combustion, a selection of both the Book of the Month Club and the Quality Paperback Book Club. For the next few years, Feinberg balanced writing and political activism with working full-time. Stories, articles, and reviews by him appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Advocate, Details, OutWeek, Tribe, NYQ, QW, Out, The Body Positive, Gay Community News, Art & Understanding, The James White Review, Diseased Pariah News, Poz, and both Men on Men 2: Best New Gay Fiction and Men on Men 4.

AIDS quilt
( Read more... )
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_B._Feinberg
Eighty-Sixed by David B. Feinberg. Simply a gay classic. Savagely funny and biting, Eighty-Sixed is written with a complete lack of sentimentality, which makes it a one-of-a-kind in the AIDS literature canon. Feinberg shows us how we use humor as a defense mechanism. His protagonist, B.J. Rosenthal, is clearly based on himself, which makes it all the more amazing since it´s a brutally honest portrayal. I had a teacher tell me during college that this novel wasn´t "literary." I met Feinberg before he died, and repeated the comment to him, and was then put off when he got offended. All these years later, I truly understand. First off, it is literary. Second off, never, ever forget that an author´s book, no matter what it is, is his or her baby. Sorry about that comment, David. R.I.P. -- Bill Konigsberg
"Eighty-Sixed” by David B. Feinberg and “What I Did Wrong” by John Weir. I owe a big debt of gratitude to David Feinberg for being instrumental in my finding a publisher for my first collection of short stories, “Dancing on the Moon”. Back in the mid-1980s David and I were in a writing group together and I had the chance to read the manuscript of his novel, “Eighty-Sixed”, as he was writing it, about an urban gay man’s lovers and friends pre-AIDS and post-AIDS, embellished with David’s biting humor and irony. Anyone wanting to get a sample of David’s wicked and insightful wit should start here, but equally as good are his subsequent stories and essays that can be found in “Spontaneous Combustion” and “Queer and Loathing”, even as they progressively become sharper and angrier as David’s health deteriorated due to AIDS. I also recommend John Weir’s novel “What I Did Wrong” published in 2006. “What I Did Wrong” captures David with uncanny precision in the character of Zack, but it also vividly captured the narrator Tom’s grief and imbalance following Zack’s death. Tom’s “lost boy adrift” sort of life mirrors the lasting affect that AIDS has had on friends and survivors — in a way that doesn’t go away with aging and the passing of years. This is also a deeply felt book about having a New York relationship and the experiences of a certain generation living in the city, in the same way that “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” or “Bright Lights, Big City” or “Slaves of New York” are about New York experiences. This was a profoundly good and satisfying read for me; in many passages of this novel Weir’s prose is stellar and lush, particularly in its last, glorious paragraphs. -- Jameson Currier( David B. Feinberg, 1989, by Robert Giard )
( Further Readings )
More Particular Voices at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Particular Voices
David Brock (born November 2, 1962) first entered the public discourse as a staunch advocate for far-right conservatism. Following the 1991 Senate hearings to confirm Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the US Supreme Court, Brock wrote a sharply critical article about Thomas’ accuser Anita Hill famously referring to her as “a bit nutty and a bit slutty.” In the January 1994 issue of The American Spectator, Brock wrote about Bill Clinton’s time as governor of Arkansas, spurring the “Troopergate” scandal. The case became entangled in Kenneth Starr’s investigation of the Whitewater scandal that eventually led to the president’s impeachment.
Henry Willson played a leading role in popularizing the beefcake craze of the 1950s. In his book, Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall (2002), Richard Barrios writes, "Talent agent Henry Willson... had a singular knack for discovering and renaming young actors whose visual appeal transcended any lack of ability. Under his tutelage, Robert Mosely became Guy Madison, Orison Whipple Hungerford Jr. was renamed Ty Hardin, Arthur Gelien was changed to Tab Hunter, and Roy Fitzgerald turned into Rock Hudson. So successful was the beefcake aspect of this enterprise, and so widely recognized was Willson's sexuality, that it was often, and often inaccurately, assumed that all of his clients were gay."
One of Willson’s first clients was also his live-in lover, former child star Junior Durkin (Huckleberry Finn), who died tragically in a car crash at age nineteen. Willson’s other protégés included Guy Madison, Tab HUNTER, and Rock HUDSON. So many of Willson’s clients were gay that it was often assumed that any good looking young man represented by him was likely of that persuasion. Willson arranged the marriage between his secretary, Phyllis Gates, and Rock Hudson in 1955 to protect Hudson’s image. Willson also traded information about the sex lives of Rory Calhoun and Tab Hunter in exchange for an agreement that Confidential would not out Hudson. (Picture: Junior Durkin)
Raised in Los Angeles, where he studied at Eugene Loring's American School of Dance, Howard Jeffrey (6 December 1934, Philadelphia - 2 November 1988, Los Angeles, age 53) danced with American Ballet Theatre and the Ballet Alicia Alonso before assisting Jerome Robbins on the stage and film versions of West Side Story in the 1950s and '60s. 
Jonas Gardell, born 2 November 1963 in Enebyberg, Stockholm County, is a Swedish novelist, playwright, screenwriter and comedian. In 2006, more than 20 years after his first novel was published, Gardell is one of Sweden's most famous stand-up comedians and probably the country's most well-known openly gay man. His husband since 1995 is the Finnish-Swedish-American writer and TV presenter Mark Levengood, with whom he has two children by surrogate mothers. JG performed his own play Tillfällig gäst i ditt liv (Temporary guest in your life) (2007) at the Scala Theater in Stockholm.
k.d. lang was a hit as a country & western singer before she publicly came out as lesbian. Now she’s an even bigger star as a torch singer and has four Grammies under her belt buckle.
Lang has won both Juno Awards and Grammy Awards for her musical performances; hits include "Constant Craving" and "Miss Chatelaine". She has contributed songs to movie soundtracks and has teamed with musicians such as Roy Orbison, Tony Bennett, Elton John, Anne Murray and Jane Siberry. Lang is also known for being a vegan as well as an animal rights, gay rights, and Tibetan human rights activist. She is a tantric practitioner of the old school of Tibetan Buddhism. She performed Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" live at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. Previously, she had performed at the closing ceremony of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Lang possesses the vocal range of a mezzo-soprano.
November 2013 marks the 7th anniversary since I opened my first journal (and yes, I have an itch, but I will scratch it!), on LJ, and the 5th anniversary of the Rainbow Awards. So, of course I decided for a big bash party. 174 authors, all of them in the 2013 Rainbow Awards, have donated or an ebook, or a print book, and I will use them for a Treasure Hunt. Every day, for all November, I will post 6 excerpts (a random page of the book). No reference to title, or author, or publisher. You have to match it with the book ;-) comment on the blog, 1 comment for each matching (you can even try for all 6 books if you like, so 6 chances to win every day). Until the end I will not say which matching is right, so you will have ALL month to try. No limit on how many books you can win, the more you try the better chance you have to win. End of November, among the right matchings, I will draw the winners. So now? let the game start!