Forbes magazine has published its list of the 15 Richest Fictional People. I was sorry to see that Foster Kane and Jay Gatsby got bumped off this year, but not surprised to learn that Lucius Malfoy, evidently, invests heavily in Wal-Mart.
I saw RENT on Broadway in 1995 or 96 with a friend who had been one of the major players in AIDS activism from the start–he was one of the four people who started the Red Ribbon Project, he himself spearheaded A Day Without Art, he was one of the guys behind Visual AIDS and involved in any number of major issues involving queers and/or AIDS in the art world; I’m resisting the urge to drop names, it doesn’t matter. What I’m trying to say is that he was in the center of the hurricane. He watched an entire world, his whole generation, drop dead while he remained, inexplicably, healthy.
As the show droned on, we increasingly turned toward one another with expressions of horror. Did they just say that? Why was the Purto Rican drag queen the only disposable character? Why are they portraying living with HIV like that? What’s with the stereotyping of the bisexual character? That’s SO not the East Village! Etc. We both, at the time, experienced the play as disconnected from reality in really problematic and exploitative ways, grimacing as all the people from Conneticut clapped vigorously, tears in their eyes, as the happy HIV people sang on so earnestly. Puke.
Well, it turns out something was rotten in the state of Bohemia. Looks like Jonathan Larsen probably ripped off Sarah Schulman, and did things to her characters that she would not have done. Link goes to an interview with her.
Sigh.
Today is A Day Without Art.
Art is covered up in museums around the world to commemorate the many people in the art world who have died of AIDS.
It’s also World AIDS Day.
Here are some links to learn more and, perhaps, donate some money to help those drowning and dying in the crisis.
African HIV Prevention Network
Global Coalition on Women and AIDS
World AIDS Campaign
Dunno how much blogging I’ll be doing in the coming weeks–just up to my ears in paper writing, and then finals, and then preparations for the next thing, which I’ll reveal at some point over here. Haven’t had a lot of interesting things to say viz. this forum. Though, of course, now that I’ve said this, tomorrow I’ll suddenly find 17 things in my work that I must post about and 19 funny anecdotes and…. *shrug* Whatever.
Back at some point, sooner or later.