Charles Alexander
Parting Glances: Mason/Dixon Cross Dressers
This first appeared in BTL in Sept. 2012 Footnoted in the pages of Civil War history is the intriguing story of a "Mrs. Nash." First name unrecorded. She's listed in 1878 U.S. Army military records to have had "a succession of soldier-husbands" (a [...]
Parting Glances: Gay History Month #2
This column first appeared in BTL Oct. 2012. Almost 125 years before the birth of Jesus a handsome youth named Antinous was declared a god by the Roman emperor Publius Aelius Hadrian. Hadrian fell in love with Antinous when the boy was 13, an age [...]
Parting Glances: 39, and Not Counting
This column first appeared in BTL in April 2014, when Charles was 77. He's now 83 years young. At my advanced age I've come to realize I really don't exist. With the exception of the IRS, my creditors, my column's faithful baker's dozen fans, my [...]
Artist's Statement
There is little conscious planning as I create my art. I work intuitively and rather quickly. I start with a geometric shape, a humorous or serious doodle, a fluid symbol fished from my subconscious, a newly minted hieroglyph or alphabet, sometimes [...]
Parting Glances: Green Carnations, Mary?
This column first appeared in BTL Aug. 2017 Somewhere pressed in my book of tattered memories is a green carnation, still remarkably fresh with the passage of so much time. It's there with a wrist corsage I hadn't the courage to wear to my senior [...]
Parting Glances: Blackmail Stonewall Style
This first appeared in BTL 6/26/14 Fifty years ago when closets were leased for a lifetime, it was SOP – standard operating procedure – to go by a catchy nickname. Some gay/lesbian Detroit monikers I recall as friends are Little Bobby, Little Pat, [...]
Parting Glances: Looking Bassakwards
This column first appeared in BTL 6/4/15 As a teenager I learned the lay of the land from word-of-mouth sharing from those who had navigated Detroit's watering holes years before me. I did however once venture – daringly – on my own into the [...]
Parting Glances: Washington Goes We'what?
Editor's Note: Contributor Charles Alexander fell ill last monthand was unable to provide his usual weekly Parting Glances Column. This selection was chosen in honor of Pride month and Stonewall's 50th Anniversary. Everyone at Between The Lines [...]
Parting Glances: A magic moment recalled!
About a dozen days ago tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow — at my age how can I be sure? — I was gifted with a pair of John Lennon enchantment glasses. Gold-rimmed. Sunset orange. Autumn-tinted. Pre-Donald Trump, to be sure. No Mike Pence trifocal [...]
Parting Glances: In drag for Jesus, Lady T and Chance
GATORADE, Ariz.: I'm a skeptic concerning things supernatural; but the wonder-working weekend I spend reporting for BTL on the Drag Queens for Jesus confab is, well, miraculous – awe-inspiring. It's also ecumenical, as the three-day drama-queen [...]
Parting Glances: JWs Go Trumpeting Door-To-Door
1. In the year of the Trumpeted Mongrel 666 Beast of War endlessly chasing his flea-bitten tail, a prophet of restless dudes scaled Mt. Rush-No-More, seeking counsel with the electrifying powers that sometimes to Be (or, not to Be). 2. Thus spake [...]
Parting Glances: It just might happen again ...
During the Nazi reign of terror that ended only in Germany's defeat by the American, English and French Allies in 1945, about 15,000 gay men were incarcerated in concentration camps from 1935 to 1944, where an estimated 60 percent of homosexual [...]