Toronto’s Gay History Honoured by Painter
By Joe Fiorito
George MacIntyre wore a black jacket, his brightest tie, his handsome top hat. He was about to unveil his latest painting, a portrait of Woody’s Bar, at a small gathering in the 519 Community Centre.
This event is worth noting: over the years, George has been working on a series of paintings in honour of the most important places in the history of gay Toronto.
The painting of Woody’s is the 11th of 12 works that George hopes will one day be made into a calendar. The others are, in order: Barrett House; Casey House; The AIDS Memorial; McEwan House; St. Michael’s Hospital; The Barn; Bar 501; Honest Ed’s; The St. Charles Tavern and The 519.
The paintings are, in a sense, chapters of this city’s history. The last in the series is a painting of the Rosar-Morrison Funeral Home; it is nearly done and . . . back up a second, how did Honest Ed’s get on the list?
Wait for it.
Before the evening began, refreshments were offered around the room. Someone asked the man next to me if he would like a cookie. For the rest of the story, go here.
Out of The Celluloid Closet
By Matthew Hays
Jeffrey Schwarz says one of the most empowering things he did upon coming out of the closet was to pick up a copy of Vito Russo’s book The Celluloid Closet. “That really rocked my world,” Schwarz recalls.
He wasn’t alone. Soon after the book was first published in 1981, it became a rallying cry for more diverse representations of gay and lesbian characters in film and TV. Russo analyzed hundreds of popular films, pointing out that when gay and lesbian characters did appear, they were either pathetic victims or sadistic killers, and almost all of them were dead by the final credit roll.
The book had such a huge impact on Schwarz that when he learned that the gay Oscar-winning filmmaking team of Robert Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman were setting out to make a documentary based on it, he contacted them and offered to apprentice, at no charge. “That was my break into filmmaking,” Schwarz recalls. In order to be a part of the project, he moved from New York to San Francisco and eventually helped with the editing of the film. For the rest of the story, go here.
Toronto Writers up for Lambda Literary Awards
By Sharon Webb-Campbell
Toronto book lovers can celebrate this year's local Lambda Literary Award nominees with a queer night of tequila, hors d'oeuvres and a few good stories.
Farzana Doctor, Kristyn Dunnion, JM Frey and Karleen Pendleton Jiménez will be reading from their Lambda Literary Award-nominated works at Slack's on May 15.
"The Lammys are like the Oscars of queer lit. Everyone says it’s an honour just to be nominated and it sounds so trite. But it’s true; it’s utterly and fantastically true," says Frey, whose book Triptych, published by Dragon Moon Press, is nominated in both the LGBT science fiction/fantasy/horror and bisexual fiction categories. "To see my name beside those other names is stunning. I am, in the most dictionary definition of the word, stunned. I mean, these other people, they’re so hard-working and they’re so smart and so talented.
Dunnion's short story collection, The Dirt Chronicles, published by Arsenal Pulp Press, charts a love affair between two lesbian punk rebels living on the fringe.
It is nominated in the lesbian general fiction category alongside Farzana Doctor's novel, Six Metres of Pavement, published by Dundurn Press. For the rest of the story, go here.