These are the lyrics for the songs of Pippin, as the Steward of Gondor, singing for Denethor's amusement as Faramir rides out to his certain death & the song of Aragon's coronation:
The Steward of Gondor
Words by Billy Boyd (who played Pippin)
Home is behind
The world ahead
And there are many paths to tread
Through shadow
To the edge of night
Until the stars are all alight
Mist and shadow
Cloud and shape
Hope shall fail
All shall fade
Aragorn's Coronation
Melody by Viggo Mortensen (who played Aragorn)
Words by J.R.R. Tolkien
Et Eärello Endorenna utûlien. Sinome maruvan ar Hildinyar tenn' Ambar-metta!
[Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come. In this place will I
abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world.]
"The stars are veiled. Something stirs in the East. A sleepless malice.
The eye of the Enemy is moving." --Legolas
Orlando has just started filming on a new movie "The Kingdom of Heaven." I'm not sure what it's about yet, but he also just finished up filming on another movie "Haven."
16 January, 2004
Do you like monsters?
Jessica Galbreth has some of the most beautiful faeries I've ever seen. I'm a huge fan of fantasy art and I just love her galleries! Her latest project is Fairies of the Zodiac, and the gallery comes complete with larger views of the pics and info about the corresponding zodiac sign.
OK - my slash senses are tingling, gals! And I know your's will be, too!
Will Jake and Heath shatter Hollywood's taboo against gay sex?
Director Ang Lee is set to cast Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in
"Brokeback Mountain," a story of two cowboys in love. But are studios --
and audiences -- ready for a passionate big-screen kiss between men?
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Rebecca Traister
Jan. 14, 2004 | Welcome to Gay New 2004. It follows Gay Old 2003, when
sodomy became legal in all 50 states, gay marriage or "civil unions" became
a possibility in three, and the media pulled a muscle patting itself on the
back for accepting a fistful of swish television characters. Now, for the
first time in as long as most of us can remember, a sweeping gay romance is
about to get the imprimatur of mainstream -- or at least prestigious --
Hollywood stamped all over it. ("Making Love," from 1982, with Harry Hamlin
and Michael Ontkean? Anyone?)
The casting call is out for "Brokeback Mountain," the Ang Lee-directed
adaptation of Annie Proulx's short story, replete with sunsets, horses,
howling windstorms and a heartbreaking love story between two young
cowboys. Although the casting isn't yet official, Hollywood sources say
that heartthrobs Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger are in negotiations to star.
Should the contracts not get signed, though, there will be no shortage of
well-groomed actors with representation who could be candidates to don the
Stetsons and chaps. In the months since Lee announced that he would direct
the movie, fans have taken to Internet chat rooms with a vengeance, begging
the unhearing movie gods to cast everyone from Viggo Mortensen and Brad Pitt,
or Jude Law and Benicio Del Toro, or Joaquin Phoenix and Johnny Depp (all of
whom are a bit ripe to play characters whose stories begin at age 19).
"He's always been Hollywood's trembling-lipped sensitive boy," pointed out
one hopeful fan about Depp. Another opined that Jude Law's "good looks and
intense charm would make even a straight cowboy swoon." Both Depp and Law
have played gay before (in "Before Night Falls" and "Wilde," respectively).
Some computer-savvy cinephiles have gone
so far as to create a beefcakey "Brokeback Mountain" poster featuring Josh
Hartnett and Colin Farrell, who will reportedly play bi-curious in his
upcoming role as Alexander the Great in "Alexander."
The story by Proulx ("The Shipping News"), which originally appeared in the
New Yorker, has been adapted by Larry McMurtry ("Terms of Endearment," "The
Last Picture Show") and his partner, Diana Ossana. Director Lee ("The
Ice Storm," Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon") has chosen to make it his follow-up
to last summer's "The Hulk," which was viewed as a commercial and critical
disappointment. Lee's longtime co-writer, James Schamus, who runs Focus
Features, a division of Universal Pictures, will produce the picture with Ossana.
Shooting is set to begin this summer.
Schamus, also a Columbia University film professor and co-founder of the
now-defunct independent film bastion Good Machine, said via e-mail that he
could not comment on casting decisions before anything has been made
official, since it would "inevitably result in injured feelings and
misunderstandings." But, he wrote, "it's still in process, and it's been
remarkably hassle free -- no one has raised even an eyebrow and people
across the board are responding in a really passionate way to the story and
the characters."
That not an eyebrow would be raised at the casting of two tadpole
heartthrobs to play young men who get it on in a pup tent, share a
passionate kiss on a windblown night and get gruffly teary-eyed as they
talk about their unutterable feelings for each other is almost too
Pollyanna-ish to be believed. But Scott Rudin ("The Hours," "The Stepford
Wives") -- who planned to make "Brokeback Mountain" in the late 1990s with
Gus Van Sant ("Good Will Hunting") directing, but now has no connection to
the movie -- agreed.
"It's an amazing project; I'm incredibly jealous. And I don't get jealous,"
Rudin says. As for the process of signing up willing actors, he laughed at
the notion that it would be difficult. "You've got a great filmmaker and
parts for two movie stars. I can't imagine why any actor would not want to
play one of those roles. Anyone who gets in that movie is lucky to be
there; it's an absolutely beautiful script. Who would want to turn that down?"
But not everyone is confident that bona fide movie stars would risk their
straight cred by mounting steeds and locking lips. One Hollywood executive,
who spoke on the condition of anonymity, says, "Realistically, let's talk
about the giggle factor. I mean, it is a story about gay cowboys! That is
the most daring thing you can do." If the I's do get dotted on Gyllenhaal
and Ledger's contracts, it's worth noting that both will run less of a risk
of being "taken for gay" than many of their colleagues; Gyllenhaal dates
supercute wunderkind Kirsten Dunst, while Ledger squires Naomi Watts, 11
years his senior, to lots of events covered by Us Weekly.
Sean Griffin, an assistant professor of cinema and television at Southern
Methodist University in Dallas, was even skeptical that the film could
actually get produced as advertised. He says, "When studio money [from
Focus Features' parent company Universal] is involved, you never know how
far things are actually going to go. You never know who's going to actually
show up for this thing. I'll withhold judgment until I actually see a major
on-screen kiss."
Griffin is alluding to Hollywood's habit of bleaching movies about
homosexuals of their sensuality and romance. Films like "54" and "Fried
Green Tomatoes" were, in the words of one producer, "totally de-lezzed" or
"de-gayed." "A Beautiful Mind," Ron Howard's multiple-Oscar winner about mathematician
John Nash, glossed over his reported homosexual relationships. Even
"Philadelphia," a Columbia TriStar movie hailed as Hollywood's first gay
love story, showed little sign that Tom Hanks, in an Oscar-garnering
performance as a man in the late stages of AIDS, had ever met, much less
made love to, his partner, played by Antonio Banderas.
What we've been left with have been a raft of fabulously witty and stylish
characters played by openly gay actor Rupert Everett ("My Best Friend's
Wedding," "The Next Best Thing"), tortured, foreign gay artists (Stephen
Frye as Oscar Wilde in "Wilde," Jonathan Pryce as Lytton Strachey in
"Carrington," Leonardo DiCaprio as Rimbaud in "Total Eclipse" and Javier
Bardem as Reinaldo Arenas in "Before Night Falls"), and that old chestnut,
the gay hustler/psychopath/drug-addict/serial killer ("The Silence of the
Lambs," "The Talented Mr. Ripley," "High Art," "My Own Private Idaho").
But short some Hollywood alchemy that reworks the very DNA of the
"Brokeback" script, the film can't possibly duck down any of these escape
routes. First published in the New Yorker in 1997, where it won both an O.
Henry short story prize and a National Magazine Award, and then in Proulx's
1999 story collection "Close Range," it's the tale of sheepherder Ennis Del
Mar and rodeo rider Jack Twist. The two men meet and fall in love as
19-year-olds in 1963, tending a herd on the titular Wyoming mountain. The
tale follows the men's clandestine relationship for 20 years: their
marriages to women, the birth of their children, regular mountaintop
assignations, the impossibility of their permanent union, and the gradual
acceptance of the grave repercussions of their love.
The story is, very simply, about its two main characters and their passion
for each other. There is no murder mystery, no one suffering from AIDS, no
drug addiction and no heterosexual romance to move the plot along and
distract from the homosexual relationship.
The rights to the story have bounced around Hollywood since its
publication. Schamus had them briefly when he was still at Good Machine.
Rudin later planned to make the movie with director Van Sant (at the height
of his mainstream popularity after the success of "Good Will Hunting"). It
wasn't long before it was rumored that that film's stars, Matt Damon and
Ben Affleck, would take on the roles of Ennis and Jack. But the project
couldn't quite get off the ground under Van Sant and was later offered to
Kimberly Peirce ("Boys Don't Cry") and Todd Haynes ("Poison," "Far From
Heaven"). It languished in no man's land for several years before Lee and
Schamus picked it up again in November 2003.
It will now be up to Lee and his actors to determine how raunchy or demure
the physical relationship between the two taciturn Westerners will get
on-screen. A draft of the script is noncommittal on this point, allowing
room for the prim and the explicit in its description of Jack and Ennis'
first sexual encounter: "AS THE FOLLOWING ACTION OCCURS, WE PULL AWAY TO
THE NIGHT LANDSCAPE, AND WE HEAR ONLY THE SOUNDS ... THE BELT BEING
UNBUCKLED, RUSTLE OF JEANS, ENNIS SPITTING, SHARP INTAKES OF BREATH ...
ENNIS raises up, gets to his knees, unbuckles his belt, shoves his pants
down with one hand, uses the other to haul JACK up on all fours ... JACK
doesn't resist ... ENNIS spits in the palm of his hand, puts it on himself.
They go at it in silence, except for a few sharp intakes of breath."
According to this early draft of the script, it is only after "ENNIS
shudders" that "THE CAMERA MOVES BACK INSIDE THE TENT, as both fall asleep."
Later, in one of the screenplay's most powerful moments, the two men --
each married and a father -- meet again after a separation of many years,
supposedly to share some platonic, ass-slapping drinks as straight men. But
when they meet on the very visible stairway to Ennis' apartment, they
"seize each other by the shoulders, hug mightily, squeezing the breath out
of each other, saying sonofabitch, sonofabitch. Then, as easily as the
right key turns the lock tumblers, their mouths come together."
It's the kind of sad-happy-hot scene that -- when well-cast -- can shoot
sexual currents off the screen, sparking the hearts and libidos of
receptive audiences. But those audiences are used to getting singed by
Bacall and Bogart, by Deborah Winger and Richard Gere, by Kate and Leo. Are
they ready for the unbridled lust of Gyllenhaal and Ledger?
"In the '60s and '70s and early '80s, various studios tried to see if
things like this might work," says Griffin. "They even tried a full-on
romance, 'Making Love,' in 1982, where there was an on-screen kiss. It was
about the relationship between these two men. And people ran screaming out
of the theaters. There was major fleeing up the aisles. And that's exactly
what's kept people worried. That's why you didn't see Antonio Banderas and
Tom Hanks kissing on-screen in 'Philadelphia.'"
But that's just the sort of fear that many hope is fading. Stephen Macias,
GLAAD's brand-spanking-new entertainment media
director, says, "GLAAD certainly hopes that as gay characters and gay
stories continue to evolve, films will focus on the sexiness, the romance
... that our sex lives won't be edited out anymore. From what I've been
hearing about this film, progress is being made."
Rudin points out that these days there are more outlets for films than
there were even five years ago. "When I had ['Brokeback Mountain'], it was
a very, very tough thing to get made. Basically, studios didn't want to
make it. There are many more avenues for smaller movies now. And I think
it's really smart for Focus to make it. Whatever it turns out to be it will
be a lightning rod for the press."
And the press loves nothing more than gay lightning rods. Perhaps you've
heard, as Griffin put it, that "gay is the new black." Sure, Will doesn't
have sex with men and seems strangely attracted to Grace. And yes, "Queer
Eye's" Fab Five intersect with Amos and Andy in several critical cultural
capacities. That gay reality show, "Boy Meets Boy," was, as one writer put
it, "a good natured gay-baiting miniseries." But some television has made real strides.
"Six Feet Under" features a relationship between two men, one of whom is a
retired cop. They kiss, embrace, fight, and go to bed and to couples'
therapy together.
Griffin argues that the recent embrace of all things gay isn't to be
laughed at. The more gay characters populate the pop-culture landscape, the
less pressure will be faced by their progeny. "No one film suddenly has to
be the holy grail," says Griffin.
According to another scholar, it's perfectly appropriate that "Brokeback
Mountain" may be the movie that shatters Hollywood's gay-sex taboo. Chris
Packard, an adjunct professor at New York University's Gallatin School and
the author of the forthcoming book "Queer Cowboys," says that this story
"makes plain what's implicit in the cowboy stereotype, in terms of an
alley-cat, roaming sexuality that is always alive. Cowboys are such central
figures in pop culture and such idealizations of mainstream macho
masculinity that we should start to include the homoerotic aspect of that
masculinity. They are like the fathers of the civilized culture that's
going to follow them into the wilderness."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writer
Rebecca Traister is a staff writer for Salon Life.
Sound Off
Jessica Galbreth has some of the most beautiful faeries I've ever seen. I'm a huge fan of fantasy art and I just love her galleries! Her latest project is Fairies of the Zodiac, and the gallery comes complete with larger views of the pics and info about the corresponding zodiac sign.
OK - my slash senses are tingling, gals! And I know your's will be, too!
Will Jake and Heath shatter Hollywood's taboo against gay sex?
Director Ang Lee is set to cast Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in
"Brokeback Mountain," a story of two cowboys in love. But are studios --
and audiences -- ready for a passionate big-screen kiss between men?
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Rebecca Traister
Jan. 14, 2004 | Welcome to Gay New 2004. It follows Gay Old 2003, when
sodomy became legal in all 50 states, gay marriage or "civil unions" became
a possibility in three, and the media pulled a muscle patting itself on the
back for accepting a fistful of swish television characters. Now, for the
first time in as long as most of us can remember, a sweeping gay romance is
about to get the imprimatur of mainstream -- or at least prestigious --
Hollywood stamped all over it. ("Making Love," from 1982, with Harry Hamlin
and Michael Ontkean? Anyone?)
The casting call is out for "Brokeback Mountain," the Ang Lee-directed
adaptation of Annie Proulx's short story, replete with sunsets, horses,
howling windstorms and a heartbreaking love story between two young
cowboys. Although the casting isn't yet official, Hollywood sources say
that heartthrobs Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger are in negotiations to star.
Should the contracts not get signed, though, there will be no shortage of
well-groomed actors with representation who could be candidates to don the
Stetsons and chaps. In the months since Lee announced that he would direct
the movie, fans have taken to Internet chat rooms with a vengeance, begging
the unhearing movie gods to cast everyone from Viggo Mortensen and Brad Pitt,
or Jude Law and Benicio Del Toro, or Joaquin Phoenix and Johnny Depp (all of
whom are a bit ripe to play characters whose stories begin at age 19).
"He's always been Hollywood's trembling-lipped sensitive boy," pointed out
one hopeful fan about Depp. Another opined that Jude Law's "good looks and
intense charm would make even a straight cowboy swoon." Both Depp and Law
have played gay before (in "Before Night Falls" and "Wilde," respectively).
Some computer-savvy cinephiles have gone
so far as to create a beefcakey "Brokeback Mountain" poster featuring Josh
Hartnett and Colin Farrell, who will reportedly play bi-curious in his
upcoming role as Alexander the Great in "Alexander."
The story by Proulx ("The Shipping News"), which originally appeared in the
New Yorker, has been adapted by Larry McMurtry ("Terms of Endearment," "The
Last Picture Show") and his partner, Diana Ossana. Director Lee ("The
Ice Storm," Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon") has chosen to make it his follow-up
to last summer's "The Hulk," which was viewed as a commercial and critical
disappointment. Lee's longtime co-writer, James Schamus, who runs Focus
Features, a division of Universal Pictures, will produce the picture with Ossana.
Shooting is set to begin this summer.
Schamus, also a Columbia University film professor and co-founder of the
now-defunct independent film bastion Good Machine, said via e-mail that he
could not comment on casting decisions before anything has been made
official, since it would "inevitably result in injured feelings and
misunderstandings." But, he wrote, "it's still in process, and it's been
remarkably hassle free -- no one has raised even an eyebrow and people
across the board are responding in a really passionate way to the story and
the characters."
That not an eyebrow would be raised at the casting of two tadpole
heartthrobs to play young men who get it on in a pup tent, share a
passionate kiss on a windblown night and get gruffly teary-eyed as they
talk about their unutterable feelings for each other is almost too
Pollyanna-ish to be believed. But Scott Rudin ("The Hours," "The Stepford
Wives") -- who planned to make "Brokeback Mountain" in the late 1990s with
Gus Van Sant ("Good Will Hunting") directing, but now has no connection to
the movie -- agreed.
"It's an amazing project; I'm incredibly jealous. And I don't get jealous,"
Rudin says. As for the process of signing up willing actors, he laughed at
the notion that it would be difficult. "You've got a great filmmaker and
parts for two movie stars. I can't imagine why any actor would not want to
play one of those roles. Anyone who gets in that movie is lucky to be
there; it's an absolutely beautiful script. Who would want to turn that down?"
But not everyone is confident that bona fide movie stars would risk their
straight cred by mounting steeds and locking lips. One Hollywood executive,
who spoke on the condition of anonymity, says, "Realistically, let's talk
about the giggle factor. I mean, it is a story about gay cowboys! That is
the most daring thing you can do." If the I's do get dotted on Gyllenhaal
and Ledger's contracts, it's worth noting that both will run less of a risk
of being "taken for gay" than many of their colleagues; Gyllenhaal dates
supercute wunderkind Kirsten Dunst, while Ledger squires Naomi Watts, 11
years his senior, to lots of events covered by Us Weekly.
Sean Griffin, an assistant professor of cinema and television at Southern
Methodist University in Dallas, was even skeptical that the film could
actually get produced as advertised. He says, "When studio money [from
Focus Features' parent company Universal] is involved, you never know how
far things are actually going to go. You never know who's going to actually
show up for this thing. I'll withhold judgment until I actually see a major
on-screen kiss."
Griffin is alluding to Hollywood's habit of bleaching movies about
homosexuals of their sensuality and romance. Films like "54" and "Fried
Green Tomatoes" were, in the words of one producer, "totally de-lezzed" or
"de-gayed." "A Beautiful Mind," Ron Howard's multiple-Oscar winner about mathematician
John Nash, glossed over his reported homosexual relationships. Even
"Philadelphia," a Columbia TriStar movie hailed as Hollywood's first gay
love story, showed little sign that Tom Hanks, in an Oscar-garnering
performance as a man in the late stages of AIDS, had ever met, much less
made love to, his partner, played by Antonio Banderas.
What we've been left with have been a raft of fabulously witty and stylish
characters played by openly gay actor Rupert Everett ("My Best Friend's
Wedding," "The Next Best Thing"), tortured, foreign gay artists (Stephen
Frye as Oscar Wilde in "Wilde," Jonathan Pryce as Lytton Strachey in
"Carrington," Leonardo DiCaprio as Rimbaud in "Total Eclipse" and Javier
Bardem as Reinaldo Arenas in "Before Night Falls"), and that old chestnut,
the gay hustler/psychopath/drug-addict/serial killer ("The Silence of the
Lambs," "The Talented Mr. Ripley," "High Art," "My Own Private Idaho").
But short some Hollywood alchemy that reworks the very DNA of the
"Brokeback" script, the film can't possibly duck down any of these escape
routes. First published in the New Yorker in 1997, where it won both an O.
Henry short story prize and a National Magazine Award, and then in Proulx's
1999 story collection "Close Range," it's the tale of sheepherder Ennis Del
Mar and rodeo rider Jack Twist. The two men meet and fall in love as
19-year-olds in 1963, tending a herd on the titular Wyoming mountain. The
tale follows the men's clandestine relationship for 20 years: their
marriages to women, the birth of their children, regular mountaintop
assignations, the impossibility of their permanent union, and the gradual
acceptance of the grave repercussions of their love.
The story is, very simply, about its two main characters and their passion
for each other. There is no murder mystery, no one suffering from AIDS, no
drug addiction and no heterosexual romance to move the plot along and
distract from the homosexual relationship.
The rights to the story have bounced around Hollywood since its
publication. Schamus had them briefly when he was still at Good Machine.
Rudin later planned to make the movie with director Van Sant (at the height
of his mainstream popularity after the success of "Good Will Hunting"). It
wasn't long before it was rumored that that film's stars, Matt Damon and
Ben Affleck, would take on the roles of Ennis and Jack. But the project
couldn't quite get off the ground under Van Sant and was later offered to
Kimberly Peirce ("Boys Don't Cry") and Todd Haynes ("Poison," "Far From
Heaven"). It languished in no man's land for several years before Lee and
Schamus picked it up again in November 2003.
It will now be up to Lee and his actors to determine how raunchy or demure
the physical relationship between the two taciturn Westerners will get
on-screen. A draft of the script is noncommittal on this point, allowing
room for the prim and the explicit in its description of Jack and Ennis'
first sexual encounter: "AS THE FOLLOWING ACTION OCCURS, WE PULL AWAY TO
THE NIGHT LANDSCAPE, AND WE HEAR ONLY THE SOUNDS ... THE BELT BEING
UNBUCKLED, RUSTLE OF JEANS, ENNIS SPITTING, SHARP INTAKES OF BREATH ...
ENNIS raises up, gets to his knees, unbuckles his belt, shoves his pants
down with one hand, uses the other to haul JACK up on all fours ... JACK
doesn't resist ... ENNIS spits in the palm of his hand, puts it on himself.
They go at it in silence, except for a few sharp intakes of breath."
According to this early draft of the script, it is only after "ENNIS
shudders" that "THE CAMERA MOVES BACK INSIDE THE TENT, as both fall asleep."
Later, in one of the screenplay's most powerful moments, the two men --
each married and a father -- meet again after a separation of many years,
supposedly to share some platonic, ass-slapping drinks as straight men. But
when they meet on the very visible stairway to Ennis' apartment, they
"seize each other by the shoulders, hug mightily, squeezing the breath out
of each other, saying sonofabitch, sonofabitch. Then, as easily as the
right key turns the lock tumblers, their mouths come together."
It's the kind of sad-happy-hot scene that -- when well-cast -- can shoot
sexual currents off the screen, sparking the hearts and libidos of
receptive audiences. But those audiences are used to getting singed by
Bacall and Bogart, by Deborah Winger and Richard Gere, by Kate and Leo. Are
they ready for the unbridled lust of Gyllenhaal and Ledger?
"In the '60s and '70s and early '80s, various studios tried to see if
things like this might work," says Griffin. "They even tried a full-on
romance, 'Making Love,' in 1982, where there was an on-screen kiss. It was
about the relationship between these two men. And people ran screaming out
of the theaters. There was major fleeing up the aisles. And that's exactly
what's kept people worried. That's why you didn't see Antonio Banderas and
Tom Hanks kissing on-screen in 'Philadelphia.'"
But that's just the sort of fear that many hope is fading. Stephen Macias,
GLAAD's brand-spanking-new entertainment media
director, says, "GLAAD certainly hopes that as gay characters and gay
stories continue to evolve, films will focus on the sexiness, the romance
... that our sex lives won't be edited out anymore. From what I've been
hearing about this film, progress is being made."
Rudin points out that these days there are more outlets for films than
there were even five years ago. "When I had ['Brokeback Mountain'], it was
a very, very tough thing to get made. Basically, studios didn't want to
make it. There are many more avenues for smaller movies now. And I think
it's really smart for Focus to make it. Whatever it turns out to be it will
be a lightning rod for the press."
And the press loves nothing more than gay lightning rods. Perhaps you've
heard, as Griffin put it, that "gay is the new black." Sure, Will doesn't
have sex with men and seems strangely attracted to Grace. And yes, "Queer
Eye's" Fab Five intersect with Amos and Andy in several critical cultural
capacities. That gay reality show, "Boy Meets Boy," was, as one writer put
it, "a good natured gay-baiting miniseries." But some television has made real strides.
"Six Feet Under" features a relationship between two men, one of whom is a
retired cop. They kiss, embrace, fight, and go to bed and to couples'
therapy together.
Griffin argues that the recent embrace of all things gay isn't to be
laughed at. The more gay characters populate the pop-culture landscape, the
less pressure will be faced by their progeny. "No one film suddenly has to
be the holy grail," says Griffin.
According to another scholar, it's perfectly appropriate that "Brokeback
Mountain" may be the movie that shatters Hollywood's gay-sex taboo. Chris
Packard, an adjunct professor at New York University's Gallatin School and
the author of the forthcoming book "Queer Cowboys," says that this story
"makes plain what's implicit in the cowboy stereotype, in terms of an
alley-cat, roaming sexuality that is always alive. Cowboys are such central
figures in pop culture and such idealizations of mainstream macho
masculinity that we should start to include the homoerotic aspect of that
masculinity. They are like the fathers of the civilized culture that's
going to follow them into the wilderness."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writer
Rebecca Traister is a staff writer for Salon Life.
Sound Off
08 September, 2003
You are....
Ragetti's dress fetish. Okay, so you like dressing
up. Frilly things are fun! There's no shame in
being who you are, and you DO look rather
fetching in that strawberry number. Oh yes, and
you encourage your friends to come along.
After all, no one likes to look ODD, do they?
Which Pirates of the Caribbean Character's Unhealthy Fetish are YOU?
brought to you by Quizilla
Hobbits and their food obsession. You love to cook
food and love putting it on people and licking
it off even more.
LOTR : What is your Middle-earth fetish?
brought to you by Quizilla
Well, I can't cook....but I'm always up for fetish...
12 August, 2003
27 July, 2003
It's kind of funny... no one told me that when you begin teaching yourself self-esteem you lose your patience and tolerance for rude, wretched people. Since I've been putting myself first lately, for the first time in my life, I just haven't had any use for people who don't respect me or don't listen when I speak. I find myself questioning whether or not people are worth my time instead of tying myself in knots trying to figure out how to make them like me. I've always liked to say that I don't care what people think of me, but it wasn't really true till recently. I've spent most of my life so worried what others are thinking of my clothes, my hair, my looks... but lately I only concern myself with whether or not I like what I see in the mirror, and my judgement criteria isn't nearly as detrimental as it used to be. I don't know why I bothered to worry what others thought- I was almost always worse on myself than anyone else...
It's an amazing thing to see how people are looking at me differently than they used to. When people begin to notice the changes in me some of them don't seem to know how to react. I've been so afraid, since I started this whole self-discovery trip, that those around me, those close to me, might not like the real me.... There are some who seem to think I've become a fucking bitch lately, but they just don't realise that's who I am. Not a bitch, really. I just seem like a bitch now bcoz I've taken everything off everyone for so damn long and I refuse to keep on doing it. Apparently people don't take kindly to doormats who don't feel like being stepped on anymore. Who knew?
Personally I'm enjoying being able to stand up straight without worrying I'm too tall... and god knows holding my head high is an exhilerating feeling. It feels good to not hide in the shadows. It feels good to think I have the right to be happy. It feels good to expect other people to respect me and treat me like a person.
When I meet a guy I actually consider and pay attention to how he's acting towards me, how he treats me rather than "oh, i hope he likes me." I deserve to be loved. I deserve to be supported. And I won't waste any more of my time with men who talk down to me, belittle my feelings, overlook me. I have to stop myself from falling down over some asshole sometimes still, but I can keep myself from doing it. I never even bothered to consider what I was doing to myself or putting myself thru before.
These days I put myself first instead of making myself miserable as long as everyone else is happy. I never knew how offensive it is for someone who's tall, curvy and loud to walk around like she's somebody. People talk about me all the time and I've started to realise most of them do it out of jealousy at my being able to be myself or comtempt because I'm not thin and beautiful and I still have confidence. What was I thinking? LOL
It's an amazing thing to see how people are looking at me differently than they used to. When people begin to notice the changes in me some of them don't seem to know how to react. I've been so afraid, since I started this whole self-discovery trip, that those around me, those close to me, might not like the real me.... There are some who seem to think I've become a fucking bitch lately, but they just don't realise that's who I am. Not a bitch, really. I just seem like a bitch now bcoz I've taken everything off everyone for so damn long and I refuse to keep on doing it. Apparently people don't take kindly to doormats who don't feel like being stepped on anymore. Who knew?
Personally I'm enjoying being able to stand up straight without worrying I'm too tall... and god knows holding my head high is an exhilerating feeling. It feels good to not hide in the shadows. It feels good to think I have the right to be happy. It feels good to expect other people to respect me and treat me like a person.
When I meet a guy I actually consider and pay attention to how he's acting towards me, how he treats me rather than "oh, i hope he likes me." I deserve to be loved. I deserve to be supported. And I won't waste any more of my time with men who talk down to me, belittle my feelings, overlook me. I have to stop myself from falling down over some asshole sometimes still, but I can keep myself from doing it. I never even bothered to consider what I was doing to myself or putting myself thru before.
These days I put myself first instead of making myself miserable as long as everyone else is happy. I never knew how offensive it is for someone who's tall, curvy and loud to walk around like she's somebody. People talk about me all the time and I've started to realise most of them do it out of jealousy at my being able to be myself or comtempt because I'm not thin and beautiful and I still have confidence. What was I thinking? LOL
You are Jack Sparrow, a pirate who used to be the
captain of the dreaded Black Pearl. You love to
drink and often times the people around you
don't know if you are drunk or crazy.
Which Pirates Of The Caribbean character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
You are Roux. You are a river pirate, a trader, a
carpenter, and a lover. You and your kind are
misunderstood and often disrespected wherever
you go, and this has made you hard to the barbs
of injustice. You appreciate music and
craftsmanship and are always ready to cut a
deal. You drift from place to place, but
perhaps, if you find the right person, you may
settle down somewhere and stay.
What Johnny Depp Movie Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
you are the cute but psycho happy bunny. You
adorable, but a little out there. It's alright,
you might not have it all, but there are worse
which happy bunny are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Not exactly surprising to anyone who knows me. Most people describe me as "the strangest person they've ever met."
| I am the Rake A woman never quite feels desired and appreciated enough. She wants attention, but a man is too often distracted and unresponsive. The Rake is a great female fantasy-figure - when he desires a woman, brief though that moment may be, he will go to the ends of the earth for her. He may be disloyal, dishonest and amoral, but that only adds to his appeal. Stir a woman's repressed longings by adapting the Rake's mix of danger and pleasure. Symbol: Fire. The Rake burns with a desire that enflames the woman he is seducing. It is extreme, uncontrollable and dangerous. The Rake may end in hell, but the flames surrounding him often make him seem that much more desirable to women. |
What Type of Seducer are You?
created by
polite_society 
Your ideal husband is Orlando Bloom! I hereby
label you
adventurous, fun-loving, not afraid of a challenge,
and a girl
who'll fall for the man of the moment
Which LOTR Actor Is Your Ideal Husband?
brought to you by Quizilla
I'm not especially surprised about this one.... actually very pleased..... I knew Orlando was puurrrrfect for me....!!!
02 July, 2003
Enough
~~ by maebh718
And so I hit the ground running;
Traces of your kiss on my lips.
And I'm making semblance of order where there is none;
I smell you around me still.
And I'm making appointments, balancing checkbooks, waiting for the cage door to finally open;
Your voice pours from the phone like warm caramel.
Overwhelmed by the past,
Oblivious to what's next,
And still.........
Flashes of moments together,
Strung like faerie lights through the day,
Are enough.
~~ by maebh718
And so I hit the ground running;
Traces of your kiss on my lips.
And I'm making semblance of order where there is none;
I smell you around me still.
And I'm making appointments, balancing checkbooks, waiting for the cage door to finally open;
Your voice pours from the phone like warm caramel.
Overwhelmed by the past,
Oblivious to what's next,
And still.........
Flashes of moments together,
Strung like faerie lights through the day,
Are enough.
28 June, 2003
OOHhh! I love Uncle Kracker! Thank you sosososo much for remaking "Drift Away"! I remember that song from when I was like 14 and I used to go to the roller skating rink every Friday night.. religiously. They had this repetoire of the same songs that they played ever time and that was one of my favourites. I'm so glad they did a good remake of it coz now it'll be all over the radio again! Yeah!
27 June, 2003
SO I'm sittin here at me friend's puter tryin to decide if I will go out or stay home...... See, I haven't been going out for like the last 3 wks. since I realized that I seem to go out just to wait to see if someone is going to notice me or talk to me or dance with me and I thought "this is completely retarded! Why do this to myself?!?!" and so I haven't been going. I mean I was usually hanging out with my girls anyway and then I'd leave to go out to the bar and then sit there depressed coz I was all alone.... what the hell is the sense in that?!??!!?!? SO now if I'm having a perfectly good time I just stay where I am and go on about the business of having my time! And here I sit... I really was looking forward to going out but now that I'm here with my friends I dunno if I'm gonna leave at all..... not like I'm really missing anything anyway I s'pose... Hanging out at the bar's not much fun when ur friends don't show up and you're not there to get fucked up...
23 June, 2003
so you want to be a writer?
Charles Bukowski
if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.
don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
Charles Bukowski
if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.
don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
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