AdamSmith

Thank you!

If this is the Mark you mean... http://www.rentboy.com/location/getrb.asp?...64&Location=229 ...fine looking specimen. Though some may be given pause by the $350 rate, together with his note: "My time might cost more than some guys on here, but I'm definitely worth it and this is only an occasional thing that helps me pay for school... I won't have much free time to meet clients so my rate is high so that I can make it worth it my time." As for NewYorkCityBoy... http://www.rentboy.com/location/getrb.asp?...60&Location=229 ...what can one say but ooh la la?!

>I know Marc Ant(h)ony. Marc Ant(h)ony is a friend of mine. >Marc Ant(h)ony may be a bit crazed but he doesn't look >anything like Cleopatra. Thank you, Senator Bentsen. >That's Firecat. ROFL! I must get to Montreal.

If you need an antidote to Valentine's day schmaltz, here's one: http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/WORLD/europe/0.../story.cleo.jpg Ancient coin shows Cleopatra was no beauty LONDON, England (CNN) -- Antony and Cleopatra -- one of history's most romantic couples -- were not the great beauties that Hollywood would have us believe, according to British academics. A study of a 2,000-year-old silver coin found the Egyptian queen, famously portrayed by a sultry Elizabeth Taylor, had a shallow forehead, pointed chin, thin lips and sharp nose. On the other side, her Roman lover, played in the 1963 movie by Richard Burton, Taylor's husband at the time, had bulging eyes, a hook nose and a thick neck. History has depicted Cleopatra as a great beauty, befitting a woman who as Queen of Egypt seduced Julius Caesar, and then his rival Mark Antony. But the coin, which goes on show on Wednesday at Newcastle University for Valentine's Day, after years lying in a bank, is much less flattering about both famous faces. The 32BC artifact was in a collection belonging to the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, which is being researched in preparation for the opening of the new Great North Museum. Clare Pickersgill, the university's assistant director of archaeological museums, said: "The popular image we have of Cleopatra is that of a beautiful queen who was adored by Roman politicians and generals. Relationship romanticized "The relationship between Mark Antony and Cleopatra has long been romanticized by writers, artists and film-makers. "Shakespeare wrote his tragedy Antony and Cleopatra in 1608, while the Orientalist artists of the 19th century and the modern Hollywood depictions, such as that of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the 1963 film, have added to the idea that Cleopatra was a great beauty. "Recent research would seem to disagree with this portrayal, however." The university's director of archaeological museums, Lindsay Allason-Jones, said: "The image on the coin is far from being that of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. "Roman writers tell us that Cleopatra was intelligent and charismatic, and that she had a seductive voice but, tellingly, they do not mention her beauty. "The image of Cleopatra as a beautiful seductress is a more recent image." The silver denarius coin would have been issued by the mint of Mark Antony. On one side is the head of Mark Antony, bearing the caption "Antoni Armenia devicta" meaning "For Antony, Armenia having been vanquished." Cleopatra appears on the reverse of the coin with the inscription "Cleopatra Reginae regum filiorumque regum," meaning "For Cleopatra, queen of kings and of the children of kings," or possibly "Queen of kings and of her children who are kings." Experts say the coin, on display in Newcastle University's Shefton Museum, is not particularly rare but is very collectable. The collection has been owned by the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne since the 1920s. http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/02/14...coin/index.html

>Does this mean that my Barbara Cartland-inspired fantasy >stands a chance of being realized? Only if RockHard will swap her bridesmaid's dress for a burkha.

>As for vindication by winning a Grammy. Am I the only one that >remembers Milli Vanilli ? That footage of the disc getting stuck on repeat and then one of them bolting off stage in panic -- one of the all-time great moments in pop culture.

Colin Powell has a standard speech he gives for his reported $200k fee. I heard him last summer. It lasts about an hour and a half, and is riveting start to finish. At one point, he gets to Bush's assessment of Putin, and comes as close as anywhere to dissing Bush. I reconstruct from memory: "Bush met Putin, you know -- 'When I looked in his eyes, I saw his soul.' [Waits a beat.] "Right, boss. “When I look in his eyes, I still see a little KGB.” Here's an account of Powell giving the same talk to a salesforce.com conference: http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=3755

>Interesting choice. Wheels are spinning in my head as I try >to analyze your choice. I think the thing about Marius is how he retains so much of the cosmopolitan Roman mortal even while being one of the older and strongest immortals. Scene in The Vampire Lestat of Marius's library strewn about with the world's newspapers, read just before he goes out for the drink. Of course having to lug the damned Mother & Father around could get old! >If I had to pick one it would probably be David... Right! He'd be my other choice.

>I just don;t get into her stuff anymore-she has gone way to >Catholic for my taste. Same here. I liked her a lot more as a secular humanist.

This week I've seen, here and elsewhere, a blizzard of recommendations for At Swim Two Boys. Thanks. Agree with you about Rechy. His books are valuable and painfully authentic documents of their era. They make me thank heaven we have moved beyond that time.

Thanks for the pointer to Rice's son's books. I have the first one on my (6-foot-high) bedside stack. Now I know to dig it out and get going.

Dig, schmig. If Andre or another of Lucky's and my mutual objects of desire were in the room with us, ain't no telling how the sandwich might stack. I stand ready to be corrected by Lucky should it be needful. Sir! P.S. Could someone have slipped E into our drinks, what with both of us being nice to RockHard?

>I have always liked vampire novels (gay or not). Maybe it is >all that sucking vampires do. Hear, hear! >There is a gay sub theme or theme in most of the Anne Rice >Vampire Chronicals. To put it mildly! Not to highjack Oz's thread, but which of her vampire characters would you like to be, if any? I pick Marius.

>What got you reading when you were younger? Andrew Holleran's Dancer from the Dance. Not the greatest literature, but one of the first pieces of gay fiction to be grounded in something more hopeful than the bitchy bitterness epitomized by The Boys in the Band. Important though that work was, in its day. What is your >favorite modern gay books? Andrew Hollinghurst's The Swimming Pool Library. For my money, like the second coming of Vladimir Nabokov. Speaking of whom, nothing holds a candle to Nabokov's Pale Fire, with its unreliable narrator Charles Kinbote, a lit professor writing an obsessive commentary on a second-rate poet's magnum opus while singing the praises of "lads and youths" under his tutelage.

Substance has completely given way to its hollow image. Brilliantly if ponderously analyzed in... The Society of the Spectacle is a dense, polemical, and poetic work of philosophy first published in 1967 by the situationist and Marxist theorist, Guy Debord. In two hundred and twenty-one theses divided into nine chapters, Debord traces the development of a modern society in which "All that was once directly lived has become mere representation." Debord argues that the history of social life can be understood as the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing." This condition in which authentic social life has been replaced with its image represents, according to Debord, that "historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life." The spectacle is the inverted image of society in which relations between commodities have supplanted relations between people, in which passive identification with the spectacle supplants genuine activity. "The spectacle is not a collection of images," Debord writes. "rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images." The pernicious genius of the spectacle is its ability to mobilize the image of what it actually militates against. When the promise of the Russian Revolution, for example, was betrayed by a self-interested bureaucracy, "an image of the working class arose in radical opposition to the working class itself." Similarly, in advanced capitalist countries, mass produced commodities are marketed for their singularity, as if individuality could be achieved by millions of people buying the same useless product. In both instances, the spectacle inverts reality in order to pacify potential opposition. It is an inverted image of the real that nonetheless has real effects. The Society of the Spectacle provides an extensive reinterpretation of Marx’s work, most notably in its application of commodity fetishism to contemporary mass media. It also expands the concept of alienation to include far more than labor activity, and exposes the common spectacular politics of Soviet and American regimes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Spectacle Text available here: http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/

The flesh is weak, you know.

>Well I can't speak to people sticking around for longer in >NYC but I'm sure you are right that it has become a wasteland >for Twinks. A desert. Last time I went was worthwhile only because Andre came up. But that regrettably is no longer an option. >Probably one of the reasons among others that >kevin6669 is completely booked 4 weeks before his trip . Good for him. I should say, good for New York!

>In any case, the point wasn't about the controversy the nudity >might stir up among theatregoers at large, about whom who >cares. It was about the emotions it might awaken in my >susceptible bosom and ( am I presumptuous? ) in Adam >Smith's. Not presumptuous in the least. The online all-but-the-pubes shots of Mr Radcliffe have me hot and bothered for more. And, a bit more seriously, hoping that he can pull off (sorry) the role. As for controversy, (a) exactly as you say above, and ( to epigonos, the controversy is not among theatre-goers but rather the Potter rabble. About whom one cares, if possible, even less.

>When Peter Firth took it all off in the original Broadway >production Jealous of you! I saw a touring production with some other actor (can't remember who) and was bowled over by the whole thing. If you saw the film, how would you compare Firth's performance there to on stage? The movie struck me as ok but nothing like the impact of live drama. Especially the erotic charge of his interaction with the big male horse-mimes in the play (use of literal horses in the movie, though necessary I suppose, nonetheless lost this poetry, even risked making his come-ons to the horses a bit ludicrous). I saw the play at age 17, and the kid's worshiping of those mimes was one of those moments when I realized there was no question about my orientation. The dimensional gifts you reference were of course duly noted.

Had the same thought myself. Wonder if they will confiscate people's camera cellphones at the door?

Some cultural-studies scholars say that contemporary Western notions of marriage as the all-in-one solution -- trying to find fulfillment in a single person over the long haul for the quite disparate ends of sex, romance, childbearing/rearing, long-term familial companionship -- were sanctified really only in the Victorian era. One can argue the evidence both ways for so sweeping a claim. But still valuable to note all the exceptions throughout history to the "ideal" of monogamy. Not just exceptions in practice, but differing views of the ideal itself.

All right, I wil say it and be the sacrifice... SF being contrarian for contrariness's sake, we now get: Straight is the new gay! ...you may now let fly the tomatoes.

>Gee, last I checked looking up precedent and writing briefs >didn't involve you spending time naked in bed with someone or >even practicing IN your briefs ... unless you have a unique >take on practicing law that I'm not aware of Pretty hot idea, come to think! Imagine your favorite TV law shows played in the nude. Well, maybe not "Perry Mason"... But then Paul Drake was pretty hot. :9 But then Hamilton Burger... :-( P.S. Bonus question: In a 3-way between Perry, Paul and Della Street, how would the sandwich be stacked?

Wonder what ideas Rahm Emanuel, Howard Dean et al. are cooking up to get Foley back into the public eye? Somebody must be working on it. To be handed this opportunity on a platter...

>notable difference between your attitude toward escorts and >mine. But they're both valid and we're both good guys. >Agreed? No question. Further I can see that if I were privileged to be diving into the unknown as boldly and frequently as your reviews attest, I would probably come around to your attitude right smart.