n 1933 a young New York artist named Paul Cadmus was hired by the Public Works of Art Project to produce paintings. The only requirements were that the pictures be portable and deal with American themes. What he painted was "The Fleet's In!" a cartoonish vignette showing sailors on shore leave carousing in Riverside Park with a bevy of picaresque women — some of whom could be men in drag — and at least one flamboyantly effeminate man.

When "The Fleet's In!" appeared in an exhibition of federally financed work at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington in 1934, naval officials went ballistic, and it was yanked from the show. Once out of sight, though, the picture became sensationally visible. It was reproduced in newspapers and magazines across the country. Cadmus was a star who got considerable mileage out of inviting and evading questions about the homoerotic drift of his work.

The Cadmus episode was one of who knows how many examples of art with a homosexual content provoking repression. Sometimes censorship is effective: art is destroyed, artists are reduced to concealment or silence. But in other instances it backfires, causing an image to get wider attention than it would ever have if ignored and encouraging further subversive art.

A handful of such cases from the Cadmus episode to recent assaults on the National Endowment for the Arts are the subject of a smartly written, intensively researched and vigilantly argued new book, "Outlaw Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality in 20th-Century American Art" by Richard Meyer, an art historian teaching at the University of Southern California.

The book had its source in a doctoral thesis, but for the most part it wears its scholarship lightly. Whether analyzing a painting or the words of a political speech, Mr. Meyer comes across as a cool but engaged observer. Most important, he's a good storyteller, and he has fascinating stories to tell.

From Cadmus he leaps to Andy Warhol in 1964 when he finished a commissioned piece for the facade of the New York State pavilion at the World's Fair in Flushing Meadow. The work, "Thirteen Most Wanted Men," was a mural-size composite of enlarged police mug shots, mostly of young and good-looking accused felons. Almost as soon as it was installed on the pavilion, it was painted over and obliterated.

Fair officials said that Warhol had been disappointed with his work and wanted to replace it. Warhol, cagily diplomatic, floated out an equally dubious story: some of the men depicted had been cleared of criminal charges, so the piece was no longer "valid." Secretly he blamed the fair's president, Robert Moses, for the defacement. Others said that Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller had found the mug shots out of tune with the fair's "Olympics of Progress" spirit.

What nobody, including Warhol, mentioned was the implicit homoeroticism of the work. From a gay point of view, the looming, unsmiling male faces conformed to a classic model of sexual "rough trade." Who were these men really "wanted" by? Presumably Warhol himself, whose homosexuality was widely recognized but who chose not to acknowledge it overtly while he was shaping his art career.

Robert Mapplethorpe built a reputation precisely on the explicitly gay content of his photography, which came under aggressive political attack in the 1980's. But here, as with Cadmus, censorship brought rewards. When the hapless Corcoran abruptly canceled a Mapplethorpe show in 1989, the story was reported as a scandal, and the artist became a household name.

A year later he died of AIDS. By then the epidemic had generated both a gay activist movement in which Mapplethorpe himself showed little interest and a flood of identity- based art, which became a target of political and religious groups. Mr. Meyer concludes his book with one of the most powerful figures from those years, the artist and writer David Wojnarowicz.

Wojnarowicz sued the American Family Association for libel when it circulated edited versions of his art to church leaders and Congress. He won the case and was awarded a single dollar in damages, which he insisted on receiving in the form of a check. He intended to collage it into a future work, providing concrete proof that repression sustains what it seeks to destroy.

All of Mr. Meyer's stories, including this one, are complicated, and he presents them that way. His nuanced take on Mapplethorpe, an apolitical artist cast in the role of martyr, is astute. And when he touches on the subject of the commodification of a "gay lifestyle" and the conservatism that it has spawned, he enters territory that needs serious, hard-nosed exploration.

The book's major flaw is its almost complete omission of women. Mr. Meyer acknowledges this up front, saying that lesbian artists have a distinctive history — it is, in fact, a history of forced invisibility — which requires a full-scale study of its own. Fortunately, such a study was recently initiated in "Lesbian Art in America: A Contemporary History" by Harmony Hammond (Rizzoli International), an invaluable, episodic survey of work since 1970.

In writing about AIDS and the 1990's at the end of his book, Mr. Meyer's scholarly composure wavers. Like anyone who had a personal stake in that time, he has feelings that are still raw. Wojnarowciz's transcendently outraged art clearly moves him deeply. Pernicious right-wing blather makes his blood boil. This is good, because censorship is still with us.

In a footnote on Page 333 of "Outlaw Representation" we learn that just after the book had gone into production, the London office of Oxford University Press told Mr. Meyer that one of its illustrations — Mapplethorpe's picture of a nude boy named Jesse McBride — would likely run into censorship trouble in Britain. After Mr. Meyer insisted that the picture be kept in, the London office not only refused to distribute the book in Britain or any other foreign market but also severed all formal and legal ties to it, making Mr. Meyer's work an important part of the very history it records.
New York Times Yesterday , i am thrilled by this book but cannot get a copy of it because of the last paragraph. Anyways , i didnt want to link and have everyone have to give invasive info

I know the entire lyrics for just three songs :

chelsea hotel

Diamonds are a Girls BEst Freind

Cabaret

What does this say about me ?

i have gone to this confrence for 6 years now , about sex and spirit , usually its good and it gives me enough time to really think about my G-d and My Queerness , but i feel like i dont want to be there , not sure why , maybe cause i dont like the inbred midwest pc collection here, maybe because i feel like am 14 there and it always percipates a crisis of faith. Maybe because i always make an ass of myself , fucking up some level of protocal . Thats the problem w. phags , way too much protocal, we are a people who voluantarily invented a court system . Anyways ill go , because the folks who founded it are 75 year old former ministers of the united church and sweet as the day as long as well frankly i get three days of food, knowledge , net working et. al for 40 bucks. I think i am more confident , feeling like i can id as a writer and a catholic , less of a mormon and maybei can go in and behave like me , saying fuck you to them all.

When CAtholicism is displayed on screen , its priests are viewed as abusive libertines and its nuns are cute or somber . Those people who work hard at their faith , take it into their lives and try to make a definitve effort are ignored or mocked. I am EXCITED to see a young man living his faith honestly and have a movie ( even a harmless , rather silly rocom ) depict that, The movie is 40 days and 40 nights and i am looking foreward to watching it .

When CAtholicism is displayed on screen , its priests are viewed as abusive libertines and its nuns are cute or somber . Those people who work hard at their faith , take it into their lives and try to make a definitve effort are ignored or mocked. I am EXCITED to see a young man living his faith honestly and have a movie ( even a harmless , rather silly rocom ) depict that, The movie is 40 days and 40 nights and i am looking foreward to watching it .

i know i posted this 3 times my bad

icq isnt working mostly cause i dont know my number,
the speakers are fucked ,

i dont have a bunch of my links ,

1200 mp3s ( including Westeren Fields by Moonlight, Yankee Foxtrot Hotel. The Basement Tapes , Scott Walker live in London , Momus live in Paris , the Smile Sessions and a bunch of hard to find Real COuntry ) are lost

375 images from the web , photos of me and family , all gone .

As well any software this was bundled with (ME,Office etc)

BUT I AM ON THE WEB

computer still fucked up, at shaw now picking up a driver disk , ill be back online today

work , school, computer being fucked , and now i am typing this from a buddies comp b4 we go to crossroads ( i really want to see this , i *heart* britney

Its Shrove Tuesday :



BASIC PANCAKES

==============


Ingredients:
------------
2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt (very important)
1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs (or equivalent egg beaters)
2 tblsp oil
1 cup milk


Instructions:

-------------

Sift dry ingredients in bowl and stir in liquid ingredients
with wire whisk until mixed. Do not beat. Heat griddle until water dropped from your hand bounces around.
Drop about 1/2 ladle/1 large mixing spoon for each pancake. Cook until
bubbled all over the top and brown on bottom. Flip, cook until brown on
other side. Keep you griddle very hot at all times.

Burners work as well as griddles

Shrove Tuesday is also called Carnival ( farewell to the flesh in latin) and Fat Tuesday . This is meant to remind us of pleasure before the 40 days of solemnity . Why pancakes ? Well Lent is a time of abstinence, traditionally of meat, fat, eggs and dairy products. So we got everything out of the kitchen . Some of this has practical meanings , food is not good stored in the midst of winter and often cattle and chickens are not very productive. Vatican two has changed this and made absetince ( or small meals ) on weekdays and fasting ( one meal no meat ) on fridays .





How am i restructuring my life for lent ? How am i finding my way out of the Garden ? Its a little more abstract then giving up daily pleasures . I want to be a happier person . I want to give up my knee jerk cynicism , my beilef that the whole world is lying to me , my belief that humanity is stupid and vain unless proven otherwise. I am going to treat every man , woman and child who comes in contact with me as a person of worth including myself.

http://www.colorgenics.com/ is the site , my crib sheet for html is gone sorry

Your ability to withstand the pressures of everyday life have been overtaxed, and this is leading to stress and frustrations. It would seem that for the time being you have lost the resilience and strength of will necessary to contend with existing difficulties. You feel that it is all "Too much" and try as you may - you are getting nowhere. But to give you credit you continue to stand your ground and still pursue your objectives with a fierce intensity.Naturally this situation is subjecting you to intolerable stress and pressure from which you would dearly like to escape, but you can not bring yourself to make the necessary decision. As a result you remain firmly involved in the problem and you can neither view it objectively nor get rid of it - You cannot leave it alone and you feel that you will only be at peace when you have reached your objective.


from my colorgenics profile . too close really. and you knwo you are depressed when you are talking notice ofdodgy internet sites

I haev been insanely busy , working , writing, going to school. Some asshole on Morpheous has infected my computer with the love letter virus which means i need Nortons , which i cannot afford. These are the reasons i have been negiligent . Sorry

My dad was a forensic social worker so i understood a vareity of clincal teasts from a fairly young age , not enogh to adminster them but enough . My favorites were the rosach blots ( blots is an inadquete word for them , they were whirls spills blotches) I looked at them , read mr rosachs books and i found out a bit . There is power in them , in in attempting to analyze the subjectivity objectivly . I learnt which ones were sexual and which ones indicated creativity . They were curious and beutiful, like ab-ex as a tool . I wasnt suprised that simialr methods were popular at the fin de seicle and the dadaists .
Yesterday i bought cabnient , a journal from brooklyn . It contains a cd, a poster , a postcard, centering arround a variety of themes . The theme was evil and the poster was dull, the postcard had a diagram of hell drawn by a interent kentucky baptist , ItUp to this point clincial standards and copyright have forbidden rosachs to be published. However within the last year the copright expired . it also contained an interveiw with a Freudian Pyschotherapist who adminstered the rosach and other tests to the 21 cheif nazis beofre their trials , including speer , goering and eichmann . (up to this point clincial standards and copyright have forbidden rosachs to be published. However within the last year the copright expired . so we got to see the real pictures as well ) The interesting this is eichman , goering and speer all refused to see the images in plates six and seven . The sixth plate has a delicate black shaft bisecting a black pattern , obviously phallic. The seventh plate among undlating curves has a shadow that looks ( and is suposed to be ) like a vulva. When i find a scanner i will scan them.

today i spent two hours talking poetry w. my film prof , waited for a buddy who sttod me up, had lunch at my favorite counter, flirted with the woman who took my order , failed to notice that they cook was baking a massive carrot cake in the shape of a schlong , flipped thru art mags and a french fashion journal that fetured dwarves, listened to hank iiis latest which i will review , wrote a bit about rosachs in an a and w , watched two teenagers pray in the self same a and w , had salad for dinner , watched the anniversary party and metal gods w. Angel in bewteen . i will now type the stuff on rosachs i revise my poetry , try to start my d.o.a column and finsih the hank review .

look what i can do thanks arse monkey

would putting you gotta hide yr love away and my seceret love on a gay mans mix tape be cute , clever or precious ?

i am gettign a haircut tomorrow , real short .

i am listeing to patricia o callaghan again , pissed off that i dismissed her elegant phrasing and meloncholy w. one listening , she sings leonard cohen with this clear soprano that is much more winking then one would assume from her classical training , thats the probelm with uncle lenny i think , he takes himself a little too seriously .

i know i know its been mad w. classes and me writing for the gateway and work and i have been hegligent in updating this , and i dont have much to say either , i am reviewing hank iii tomorrow and working in 2 hours , i dont really hate my job , just wish i didnt have to work , does that make sense , i didnt work for a couple of weeks cause i was taking care of mom and now i have to get back to the rythym .