Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Pay it no mind honey, but attention must be paid...

Randy Wicker, one of the early heroes of the post Stonewall gay movement was steadfast in his support for Marsha P. (for "pay it no mind") Johnson. I've posted the poem that Jimmy Camicia wrote that was inspired by Marsha's story, and way of speaking, which the poem captured perfectly. But I am very happy to note that Randy Wicker has now uploaded old videos of Marsha on YouTube. And I am happy to see that there have been comments from young queer folk who stay at Sylvia's place, and who know the history. This warms my heart, since in the past the history of queer people has been hidden, lost or passed down by word of mouth and broken across chains of generations. Technology is changing that.

The Divine Marriage: Buddhist and Jewish meditations of unification

I love this subway poster ad for the Rubin Museum in Manhattan. And not just because I think the guy is cute. It is sometimes said that gay men have an advantage doing meditations of unification between the inner male and female because we are closer to the inner female. This is a generalization and a stereotype however. In fact, many gay men, having grown up with internalized homophobia, which is really, at its base, fear of the feminine (or qualities associated with the feminine), often have a harder time opening to the feminine within. This has certainly been a struggle for me. That said, the men I know who are most secure in their own sexuality, and who have indeed opened to the inner male and female, are some of the healthiest and most fun people I've ever met. Many of them are in fact straight.

Jewish meditations of inner unification are called Yichudim, and the goal is to bring together both inner and outer unifications. To see the world as whole, to experience oneself as whole. To experience in the here and now the radical statement of Judaism that is the Sh'ma: the divine is never separate from all creation, and that means you are not separate from the divine, ever. In Buddhist meditation, this realization — the first experience of this state — this the start of waking up, enlightenment.

So, is divine marriage legal? Or is the only place I can get a license right here right now?

Today is the 49th day of the counting of the Omer: Malkhut of Malkhut

The quality of Malkhut is that it received all that flows from above. It opens to the flow. And so it is associated with the Divine Feminine, the feminine aspect of the godhead, the Shekhinah. And today, as the last day of the count, having purified one's own spiritual receiver as best as one can, one opens to the flow of the Creator to receive one's revelation on the night of Shavuot, tomorrow.

As a queer man, I have always appreciated the odd feminizing of the "body of Israel" which has traditionally been defined as all the Jewish men of age. In this world, the body of Israel becomes the Bride of God on the night of Shavuot, opening to God the way a bride opens to her husband on the night they consummate their wedding. I love this, not only because of the queer implications, but because it recognizes that we must integrate the feminine, the divine marriage must happen within before the Holy One-ness will rest within the Mishkan of our body. This whole process of the count has been a journey towards wholeness, oneness within. And that only happens when we no longer reject the Goddess that live in all of us, but embody her as a way of receiving and loving the male god as well, since of course, originally we were created male and female.

So tune in your receivers. Or as the old bluegrass  tune goes:

Come and listen in to a radio station,
Where the mighty host of Heaven sing,
Turn your radio on  (turn your radio on),
Turn your radio on  (turn your radio on),
If you want to want to hear the songs of Zion,
Coming from the land of endless spring,
Get in touch with God  (get in touch with God)
Turn your radio on  (turn your radio on).



Chorus
Turn your radio on  (turn your radio on)
And listen to the music in the air,
Turn your radio on  (turn your radio on)
And glory to share  (glory share)
Turn the lights down low  (lights down low)
And listen to the Master's Radio,
Get in touch with God  (get in touch with God)
Turn your radio on.

Brother, listen in to the gloryland chorus,
Listen to the glad hosannahs roll,
Turn your radio on  (turn your radio on)
Turn your radio on  (turn your radio on)
If you want to feel those good vibrations
Coming from the joy God's love can bring,
Get in touch with God  (get in touch with God)
Turn your radio on.

Chorus
Turn your radio on  (turn your radio on)
And listen to the music in the air,
Turn your radio on  (turn your radio on)
And glory to share  (glory share)
Turn the lights down low  (lights down low)
And listen to the Master's Radio,
Get in touch with God  (get in touch with God)
Turn your radio on.

Rabbi Steve Greenberg on Queer Kiddushin

Last weekend at the Nehirim retreat Rabbi Steve Greenberg gave a talk on what Jewish same-sex marriage ceremonies might look like. I was not as interested in the halakhic reasoning to read this into the tradition because as you might guess if you read this blog with any regularity, you'll know that while I consider myself an observant Jew, it's because I observe from a distance. However, I was very interested in his search for a Jewish mythic metaphor to give meaning and resonance to our relationships in a particular way, finding a place for our relationships within the work of tikkun olam.

I took a very shaky video of the talk. If you're interested, it's a little more than an hour. But it is rich with provocative and thoughtful ideas. I don't necessarily come out in the same place he does, but I feel enormous gratitude to him for leading the way in this area. The file takes a while to load because it's a big file. Be patient, and be sure to double click on the box to start the quicktime vid.

Today is the 43rd day of the counting of the Omer: Chesed of Malchut

The final stretch. The week of the Shechinah, Malchut, the immanence of the Divine as we can experience It in this world. And within ourselves as able to receive the bounty of the Divine.

Receiving is the quality of Malchut, of the Shechinah, the Divine Feminine. This is the metaphor of the Divine Marriage in Judaism, in which God is the male partner, and the people Israel, in total, is the female partner receiving the outflow of the Divine Essence. The very customs of Shavuot reflect this, with the Torah read underneath a chuppah — a marriage canopy — and spoken of as a ketubah, the marriage contract. And of course, the word kabbalah mean receiving. This is the week, if we have done our work well in the previous six weeks, in each day we receive  one of the Divine qualities in as much purity as the limited reception mechanisms of our body/mind/spirit can hold without breaking.

Today is the day of Chesed in Malchut. It is a day of expressing kindness that springs out of one's authentic self. Because Malchut is also about authenticity and (as sovereignty) authority, this is a compassion that defines and delineates one's qualities of leadership.

The Most Important Gay Memoir of the 20th Century — A Conversation with Stephen Pascal, Editor of The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman

Mae West is reputed to have said, “Keep a diary and one day it will keep you.” While Leo Lerman never published his journals and diaries in his lifetime, it has enough naughty gossip, hidden history and sheer human insight to find itself on the bestseller list for a while.

Mae West herself doesn’t show up in the book, though several drag versions of both Mae and Marlene Dietrich to name a few do turn up in passages about gay speakeasies in the 1930s. And of course, the real  Marlene Dietrich is everywhere in The Grand Surprise, along with Maria Callas, Truman Capote, Cary Grant, Philip Johnson, Greta Garbo, Josephine Baker, Henry Kissinger, Jackie Onassis… well just about every major figure in art, music, film, theater, fashion, politics and literature in the 20th Century.

The press has already started to feed on the revelations about the bisexual affairs of Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner. And while the book is chock full of the guilty pleasure of this kind of gossip, the book is a revelation deeper and more moving for those who are willing to read it from start to finish instead of browsing the index for celebrity names. 

Stephen Pascal, who worked for Lerman for 12 years as his assistant, has edited the 50 years worth of journals into a coherent story. And he knows that many people will be tempted to simply browse, or compulsively browse. Over dinner and a bottle of fine Bordeaux last week we talked about Leo’s story, and the story of his editing the journals.

AQJB: I have to admit, I haven’t been able to avoid browsing the index looking for names. There are just so many, and so many juicy tidbits. And it’s a long book, over 600 pages. What will people miss if they just browse for these stories?

SP: They’ll miss some of the most important stories as they develop over time — starting with the Leo’s life story, and the story of his 47-year relationship with his lover Gray Foy. As well as his relationships with those “sacred monsters” Dietrich, Callas, Capote and others he knew intimately from the start of their careers all the way to the end.

His journals tell their stories with the immediacy of one who was there, the insight of someone who could see what was really happening, with all the bitchiness and compassion of a true friend. So you feel all their, and Leo’s, full humanity.

And Leo’s story itself is a particularly American story — the child of immigrants who worked hard, he moved to the very center of American society, and helped shape taste and culture for four decades.

AQJB: Let’s talk for a bit about his relationship with Gray Foy. This is a journal that tells the story of a loving relationship between two men that lasted almost 50 years. That lasted through major changes in the lives of gay men in America. First, how have people, readers and reviewers, responded to this story? Have you noticed a difference in the way the gay press or gay readers have responded from the mainstream media?

SP: Well, one thing gay men have been responding to has been the depiction of this relationship. — Gay readers have  told me how moved they are to see such an intimate relationship develop over time. There are so few examples of this in fiction or in other journals. One  reviewer in the mainstream media (whose gender preference I certainly don’t know) referred to the writing about this relationship as the “mushy" and uninteresting parts, but for gay men, who rarely have their relationships reflected back this way, well, it stirs up a lot of emotions.

The mainstream reviewers, so far, remember the book has been out about a week, but for the most part they’ve not really made a big deal about the gay relationships It’s just been acknowledged without smirks or insinuations.

But let’s face it, the mainstream reviewers, given a choice between writing about Marlene Dietrich’s affairs, or Maria Callas — or writing about Leo’s relationship with his lover, they’re going to focus on the gossip because it’s what interests people and what will get the reviews read. Really, Leo’s relationship with Gray was like any conventional marriage, except for the gender of the parties involved.

AQJB: Early in the book, Leo tells of his coming out experiences, going to speakeasies, back rooms and drag bars. I was stunned to read of a back room bar on West 72nd Street in the early 1930’s — and then of course I remembered the old chestnut that every generation believes it invented sex, and I guess I’m just as guilty of that as anyone. But I have to say that Leo didn’t seem to suffer the oppression that we associate with being gay, or for that matter, Jewish, in the early 20th Century. How did he manage to succeed and rise to the rarefied circles he did?

SP: As someone who must have been excluded from many places for being gay or Jewish, he very rarely writes about it. Really the circles he chose to move in, publishing, theater, art, were some of the more open places to be. And while his background made him an outsider, he lived his life pretending to be the consummate insider that in fact he became.

AQJB: Wasn’t there an incident in the 40's at the writer’s colony at Yaddo where he came up against homophobia?

SP: Well, he was certainly hurt an anti-gay comment made by the director of Yaddo, Elizabeth Ames, and it shook him up. Despite his membership in this elite young artistic circle (Carson McCullers, Truman Capote, and Marguerite Young were also there at the time), it reminded him of his precarious position in society and made him so uncomfortable he considered leaving early.

AQJB So everyone knew he was gay, he was out, whatever that means for the time.

SP: Well he chose not to hide, even though it wasn’t something he talked about unless you were a close friend. I mean, he was such a dandy that if someone thought him gay it would hardly have been a leap. And he lived openly with his lover, inviting everyone to their home. Yet few spoke with him about his relationship; it was a simple fact that was unmentioned.

AQJB: Sort of the way some reviewers in the mainstream media have dealt with it.

SP: Except for the fact that some gossip columnists have been running with some of the information about “stars.” That’s what sells papers you know.

AQJB: I loved that Yul Brynner had an affair with Hurd Hatfield and Marlene Dietrich. I guess that when she sang “See what the boys in the back room will have, and tell them I’m having the same,” she was not unaware of the double meaning we’ve always laughed about...(continued)

"There is no Garbo, there is no Dietrich, there is only Louise Brooks"

So said Henri Langlois of Louise Brooks, whose 100th birthday is being observed with an exhibition of photography from the films she made in Weimar Germany for G.W. Pabst. The exhibit at ICP runs until April 29th.

I first read about her in the 1979 interview she gave Kenneth Tynan in the New Yorker. As a fan of silent film, I was shocked that I had never heard of this great actress. I kept my eyes open for a screening of Pandora's Box at a revival house (a quaint phrase today, like ice box or turntable). Seeing it was a revelation: female sexuality that was free floating, heterosexual, lesbian -- fully expressed with no judgment at all.

Brooks embodies the wild spirit of the 1920s, particularly in Germany, but she looked like the Goddess of American Flappers with her trademark black bobbed hair. And unlike the screen goddess and martyr Marilyn, she did not give up her power. On screen or in life. It is no wonder for so many she represented the demonic, when in fact she really represented true freedom and the equality of desire.

I cut out that interview with Tynan and have it today, though it can now be accessed with just a click. And I always remembered one thing she said to him: "I never gave away anything without wishing I had kept it; nor kept anything without wishing I had given it away."

In Memory: The Yahrtzeit of Hiroshi Aoki, September 29, 1956 — April 4, 1997

願わくば                   Negawaku wa
桜の下にて春死なん  Hana no shita nite haru shinan
その如月の               Sono kisaragi no
望月のころ               Mochizuki no koro

Let me die in spring
under the blossoming trees
let it be around
that full moon
of Kisaragi month

-the poet and Zen priest Saigyo

The proverb in Japan is "the nail that stands up gets hammered down." Hiroshi was a nail who stood up proudly and would not be hammered down. You can read what he had to say about being out and proud in Queer Japan.

Saigyo has the last word: "Why should my heart still harbor this passion for cherry blossoms, I who thought I had put all that behind me."

The Divinely Histrionic Feminine: Kate Mulgrew in Our Leading Lady

Charles Busch has created a theatrical vehicle  that has as its central character one of the most famous 19th Century (overly-dramatic) American actresses — which means, in effect, a sort of a drag queen. Except that this character was a real person, Laura Keene, who was on stage at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C. the night that Lincoln was assassinated. The first act is a comedy in the style that Busch excels in, with over-the-top women battling each other in backstage politics that has little relation to the important national drama taking place outside the theater.

Kate Mulgrew as Laura Keene is simply a force of nature. It is rare that one sees an actress totally give herself over to a role of this kind. There could be winks to the audience, with a touch of camp humor. But Mulgrew doesn't go there. She gives this role every ounce of her energy, and in the small space of  the Manhattan Theater Club's Stage 2, you can feel that energy intensely.

Yes, the first act is very funny. And then the President is shot. Some critics have had trouble with the quick shift in tone. But I thought the shift captured something all New Yorkers have experienced. Because in the first act, Keene is living her own fantasy life. She has created a story of her life that isn't really true, and her ambition has fomented rivalries in her theater company. After the assassination, the life story she has artfully created to hide her gutter origins collapses and she sees herself, and those around her, as the wounded, hurting, loving people that they are.

Of course, it doesn't last too long. The trance of narcissism takes over again. But for a brief moment, everyone in the play treats each other tenderly.

Those who lived in NYC at the time of the attack in 2001 will recognize this immediately. Not only did the towers come down, but momentarily, all our egos and selfishness came down as well. More than anything in those first weeks after the destruction, you could feel a real compassion throughout the city. You didn't know if the person next to you on the subway had lost someone — and so we were all exquisitely sensitive with each other. You can see that very same dynamic in Our Leading Lady. And then, the rush of life goes on, and the characters (and we all) return to things as before. With some real changes.

Keene is joined by a "Chinese" assistant: Madame Wu-Chan,  a woman who is really as escaped slave masquerading as an Asian woman. This racial drag ricochets into a fun house mirror effect.  Played by Ann Duquesnay, there is a moment when her character Madame Wu-Chan finally owns her true identity and speaks to her employer Keene as an equal. But when approached by a Union officer who speaks to her as though she were an uncomprehending child, she replied in exaggerated shuck-and-jive speech to protect herself — not an unfamiliar situation and painful to watch.

Don't think there weren't laughs in the second act. There were lots. But the tone shifts, and there is great seriousness and import in this comedy. At one point, Keene's lover asks her to marry him, even though her full life with all its imperfections has been revealed. This is the mark of true love. But she replies that she doesn't know how to be in a relationship with anyone without secrets. The start of self-recognition throughout the audience was palpable.

I admit I am in the minority on this. Apart from the MSM critics, Patrick Lee thinks the writing was confused and that Mulgrew had to work hard to sell it. I think it's more than worth seeing for you to decide yourself.

While I have enjoyed Busch's other baubles: Tale of the Allergist's Wife; Die Mommie, Die...this play goes beyond any before to explore rich new territory. I hope Busch doesn't flinch, but keeps going down this track. It takes a master to be able to walk the delicate line of comedy and tragedy within one play, and in this case, Charles Busch was a true master. Or mistress as the case may be.       

Take off your mask

Purim is the queerest holiday on the Jewish calendar. The time when we put on masks that show the selves we keep hidden the rest of the year. The time when we bring the shadow out for full display and celebrate it. So it is of course no surprise it is the time when you’ll see men in drag — since there’s no shadow men are more afraid of than their own connection to the divine feminine. Sometimes this is true even of gay men, who today, have bought into the hyper-masculinity sold in the magazines that reflect the fantasies we are told are acceptable to have. If we’re going to love men, then they have to be masculine men — fey boys who serve the goddess aren’t allowed. Except on Purim.

This year, the Purim full moon is also the night of a full lunar eclipse. When the moon masks itself with the shadow of the earth. And what happens when it takes off its mask? What happens when we take off ours?

Years ago (so many I was still a teenager) I tuned in to WBAI late one night and came in a couple of paragraphs into a story that I hadn’t heard introduced. The reader told a story of a rather plain bartender who met a blond woman in a bat costume on the subway and found himself on an adventure with her downtown in what seemed to be a citywide costume party. The played and flirted with each other all night, running through the streets amid the revelry. And at one point, they won a prize for their costumes. At midnight, they kissed, and the blond bat said to the bartender, “Take off your mask.”

Of course, he wasn’t wearing one.

Eventually I learned the story was by Spencer Holst, and I like to read it aloud to friends at times when costume parties are the custom. You can find it in his anthology, The Language of Cats.

So here we are on the night Jews commemorate Esther’s removal of the mask — revealing herself as a Jew to the King. And many of us who are queer Jews celebrate and reveal the hidden “other.” For some that means opening to the feminine within. For others who aren’t quite a Kinsey 6 it means opening to our heterosexual desires (assuming we don’t fall prey to heterosexual panic, a defense I don’t believe I will ever hear in a court room).

Then there are the queer Jewish Buddhists among us. This gay jubu finds meaning in the holiday’s union of opposites. Not merely that of masculine and feminine, but also in the exhortation to become so divinely drunk that we can’t tell Haman from Mordechai. To get beyond good and evil.

This is not to deny the evil of Haman. But often Jews wonder about this tradition of the holiday. My take on it is entirely Buddhist. Haman is suffering — and like many who are not awake, he acts out his suffering in the world and creates more, for others and for himself. And thus, while we should do everything in our power to prevent his carrying out plans to spread suffering, he is just as deserving of compassion as Mordechai. Not a popular message nowadays. Not even an easy practice for those who take it on. But the heart of the Buddha’s teaching.

All this I hope serves as an introductory ramble to this new blog — Just Another Queer Jewish Buddhist. While I expect to offend Jews, Buddhists, and many in the GLBT community, my hope is to create community of people of GLBT people who cross boundaries and transcend categories in the search for the heaven that exists right here on earth in front of us at every moment of the ongoing creation.