Charles Alexander
Wise Words About Your Woody
Parting Glances Woody Allen - who takes religion, God, get-saved theology - with a grain of salt (no doubt Epsom) once quipped, "I don't believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear." (He also said, "I believe that there's [...]
50 Years This Friday
Parting Glances Back in the mid-80s a group of friends gathered monthly for dinner and sharing at Detroit's historic artist venue, the Scarab Club. We called ourselves "The Friends of Dorothy Kilgallen". Our campy title was a play on the old closet [...]
Sharing Unsalted Almonds
Parting Glances According to specialists in brain neuroanatomy, each of us is anatomically blessed with an amygdala. If you're gay, your amygdala is similar to that of straight women; if lesbian, to that of straight men. Bisexual? That's a good [...]
Pet Reparative Therapy
Parting Glances I received an e-mail from a conservative group calling itself Balaam's Ass of America (after the OT story of the fabled talking mule), asking for a five-buck, tax-deductible contribution "on behalf of gender confused pets in need of [...]
To Botox Or Not To Botox
Parting Glances You're never too old to cross dress. At 70 something-or-other I'm tempted, if only I could find an outfit that won't make me look too matronly or a tad too senile, sandals-and-mascara fashionista. I'd like a dreamy ensemble that's [...]
View From 2,665 Feet
Parting Glances $9.49 is pittance to pay for a glamorous trip down memory lane. (The older I get the more trips I take; the intervals growing shorter and shorter, with an occasional shady rest stop in between.) So, among the movies on sale during [...]
A Hug In Time
Parting Glances I don't recall growing up as a kid and getting or giving hugs. Hugs were not part of my straight-laced family life. I also don't recall as a teenager getting or giving hugs to other gay teenagers. Back in the late 1950s men - [...]
Preydar Comes Out
Parting Glances It's a sociological truism that gays and lesbians are mainstreaming American metropolitan societies almost invisibly, certainly seamlessly, perhaps as never at any time before in our rainbow history. Yes, increasingly, we are [...]
Memento Mori Pt. 2
Parting Glances Though perhaps unspoken among gay men and doctors thirty years ago when the AIDS crisis started, the presumption of a death sentence was understood. When the HIV-3 retrovirus was identified and infection modes publicized: [...]
How's Your Quincunx, Mary?
Parting Glances A pleasure of English is the language's imaginative and poetic use of collective nouns. Their fanciful pedigree as names for persons, places, things goes back to the 15th century. A pride of lions. A murder of crows. A dray of [...]
My Blue Heaven ...
Parting Glances There's a new genre of book that's been on the New York Times Best Seller List for weeks. And weeks. And weeks. I'm not sure whether so-called first-hand accounts of Heaven and the "after life" are fiction or non-fiction. I suspect [...]
P'Town Here I Come!
Parting Glances PROVINCE TOWN – It's Friday. Outside a light rain. Nothing too serious. Cozy inside. There are six Dyer House B&B guests quietly chatting. Intimate sharings. Tinted slightly with Bostonian accents. Pleasing intonations. Ever [...]