Chandler Burr (born December 30, 1963)

Chandler Burr (born December 30, 1963) is an American journalist, author, and museum curator. Since December 2010 he has been curator of olfactory art at the Museum of Art and Design in New York City.

Burr was born in Chicago and raised in Washington, D.C. and graduated from Principia College in Elsah, Illinois. Burr began his journalism career in 1987 as a stringer in The Christian Science Monitor's Southeast Asia bureau, and later became a Contributing Editor to U.S. News and World Report. Burr has also written for The Atlantic on epidemiology and public health. Burr earned a masters degree in international economics and Japan studies from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins. He lives in New York City.

In 1993, Burr wrote a cover story, "Homosexuality and Biology", for The Atlantic. It became the basis for his first book A Separate Creation: The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation (1996), which investigated sexual orientation research. A Separate Creation was published by Hyperion, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company, and its argument that sexual orientation is inborn prompted a call by Southern Baptists to boycott Disney films and theme parks.

In 1996 The Weekly Standard published Burr's article "Why Conservatives Should Embrace the Gay Gene". It argued that scientific research that in Burr's view demonstrated that sexual orientation is biologically determined supports a conservative view of human nature.

Burr's The Emperor of Scent, published in 2003, tells how the French-Italian scientist Luca Turin originated the theory about the functioning of the sense of smell. As a result, The New Yorker proposed that Burr describe the creation of a perfume. Burr's March 2005 New Yorker article recounted Jean-Claude Ellena's year-long creation, in Paris and Grasse, of Hermès' Un Jardin sur le Nil.

Burr's The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris & New York, published in 2008, describes Ellena's creation of "Nil" in Paris, and Sarah Jessica Parker's creation of "Lovely", in New York City under the license aegis of the perfume corporation Coty. Burr’s novel, You Or Someone Like You, was published by Ecco in summer 2009.

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Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_Burr

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Jack Hewit (May 17, 1917 - December 30, 1997)

Jack Hewit was an English dancer, spy, and civil servant. Son of a metal worker, he won a scholarship to ballet school, but his father forbade him to accept it, so he ran away from home and began dancing in revues.

He met Guy Burgess while dancing in the chorus of No, No, Nanette and became Burgess's lover; Burgess involved him in counterespionage work for MI5. Through Burgess, Hewit also met Anthony Blunt, and became Blunt's lover as well. Burgess and Blunt ran Hewit's spy career for him, passing on his intelligence to the KGB as well as to MI5. Isherwood met Hewit towards the end of 1938 through Burgess and mentions him in his Diaries.

During the war, Hewit joined the Royal Artillery, but was transferred back to MI5; afterwards, he joined UNESCO.

He lived with Burgess at different periods, including the three years leading up to Burgess's defection to the Soviet Union in May 1951.

That morning of 1951, Burgess had been brought a cup of tea by his flatmate, and erstwhile lover, Jack Hewit known to his friends as ‘Jacky’. He had once been a ballet and chorus dancer but now was a slightly over-weight office clerk but Hewit was a close and faithful friend to Burgess and they had been sharing various flats in and around Mayfair for fourteen years. Hewit later wrote of that morning:

“Guy lay back, reading a book and smoking, and he seemed normal and unworried. When I left the flat to go to my office, Guy said ‘See you later, Mop’ – that was his pet name for me. We intended to have a drink together that evening.”


Guy Burgess by Ramsey & Muspratt, National Portrait Gallery, bromide print, 1930s, 8 1/4 in. x 6 in. (210 mm x 151 mm), Given by Jane Burch, 1988, Primary Collection, NPG P363(5)

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Richard Hornung (1950 - December 30, 1995)

Costume designer Richard Hornung was nominated for an Oscar in 1992 for clothing the characters of the Coen brothers' Barton Fink (1991).

Before launching his career in New York as a costume painter and dyer, the Bethlehem, PA, native earned an M.F.A. in design from the University of Illinois. On Broadway, Hornung first worked as an assistant designer on shows such as Brighton Beach Memoirs before becoming a full-fledged costume designer on productions like Candida.

It was the Coen brothers who gave Hornung his break in movies on Raising Arizona (1986). He would continue designing for Coen films with The Hudsucker Proxy (1994). Hornung worked with other filmmakers too, including Oliver Stone on Nixon (1995) and Stephen Frears on The Grifters (1990). Hornung's final screen designs can be seen in City Hall (1996).

"I loved [costume designer] Richard Hornung immediately: He was handsome and smart and wry and dry and witty and the perfect choice for "The Grifters" (1990). Since Annette Bening and my character get mixed up at one point in the movie, and since we don't look alike in the least, it occurred to me that it might be a better idea to emphasize not out faces but our backs. I had a great dress that Azzedine Alaia had given me (in Paris): forest green, made of silk jersey knit, with crossed straps over a naked back. Richard loved the idea but decided to make the dress in deep red, "the color of clotted blood." "This film is essentially about poor people, and in the terms of the design, that means a distinct sense of space and color. You try to get the emotional temperature of a scene right visually by color, which Richard Hornung rightfully attached enormous importance to. And it's always good for the cinema to have to deal with emotion." Anjelica Houston

Hornung died of complications from AIDS on December 30, 1995.

Source: http://www.allmovie.com/artist/richard-hornung-p94874

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Thomas Lorango (June 8, 1959 - December 30, 1992)

Thomas Lorango was an American pianist who made his solo debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at age 16. Also performed with the Dallas Symphony.

He was born on June 8, 1959 in Buffalo, New York; he died of AIDS on December 30, 1992 in New York City.

Lorango studied piano at the Curtis Institute of Music, where his teachers included Leon Fleischer, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, and Seymour Lipkin. He won prizes including the Leventritt Foundation Award, a Young Recitalist's Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the first piano prize at the 1979 G.B. Dealy Awards Competition, and the 1985 First Prize in the Liederkranz Competition.

Lorango made his debut at age 16 performing Sergei Rachmaninoff's first piano concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He again performed with that orchestra two years later as soloist in the third piano concerto of Béla Bartók. He also performed with the Dallas Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, and the Buffalo Philharmonic and gave solo recitals at Alice Tully Hall, Coolidge Auditorium at the US Library of Congress, and various other halls in the United States and Europe. A participant in the Marlboro Music Festival, Lorango toured with Music from Marlboro.


AIDS Quilt

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Lorango

More LGBT History at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Gay Classics

Caught in Between (Troy's Turning 1) by V. Hubbard

First of all a warning to potential readers, this is not a first book in a series, this is actually part 1 of a story.

The main concept is a revised version of the shapeshifter romance: two strangers meet and a sudden bond mate them forever, the turn of events here is that young Troy is at the same time the fated mate of Alpha Jared and his Beta Nick. Jared and Nick were always best friends other than fellow pack members and they well know what it means for one of them to renounce to Troy and so they agree to give Troy a “trial” period, 3 days with Jared, 3 days with Nick, 1 day off to decide who has to be his forever mate.

I quite enjoyed the author didn’t choose the easiest way to have Jared and Nick sharing Troy, even if I wouldn’t mind for this to eventually be their decision; instead the author pushed more on an almost “logical” solution, that, by the way, gives Troy the time he needs to decide if he wants to be in a relationship with a werewolf, a being he was never aware existed before.

The strange thing is that, while the author didn’t push much on the sex (there are a lot of innuendos but no real sex at all), there is quite a lot of violence. There is even an off the stage rape, and that is probably the only point it didn’t ring true to my ears (for how much true a paranormal romance can be): I’m not really sure a rape victim could be able to overcome it so easily. Sure there are panic attack, but it seems they are provoked more by a past abusive relationship than the current rape. My suggestion to the author would be to or remove the rape making it an attempt, or to deepen the victim reaction to it.

Aside from this, I think the werewolf theme was well played, the link to the Ancient Rome is not new but neither used so often, and it was nice to see it revised here.

Series: Troy's Turning
Paperback: 414 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (May 17, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1484993918
ISBN-13: 978-1484993910
Amazon: Caught in Between: A Supernatural Romance (Troy's Turning) (Volume 1)
Amazon Kindle: Caught in Between: A Supernatural Romance (Troy's Turning) (Volume 1)

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