#fourattic

[actually-a-dyke]

Word Thoughts by Jim Fouratt in Come Out! Magazine. Vol 1, Issue 2, page 15, Jan 10, 1970.

"Homosexual"

[I find the word hard to relate to because it puts me in a category which limits my potential. It also prescribes a whole system of behavior to which I'm supposed to conform, which has nothing to do with the reality of my day to day living. I feel the same way about the word heterosexual. Our culture has created these artificial categories defining human sexuality, to protect and perpetuate the institutions and systems in power whose end result is only to dehumanize life. I reject the word homosexual. I reject a category that defines my central life thrust in limiting terms. I am a human being. I look, see, touch, feel and love just like any other human being. What I do with my cock should not determine who or what I am. Judge me by all my actions as only they make the complete person. I refuse to carry a burden of guilt, which will castrate me and render me incomplete as a person. I am a human being vitally interested in bringing about fundamental changes in this society, changes that will allow all people to experience to the fullest their human, sexual, spiritual, and economic potential. So, off the word homosexual!]

[zettelkaestchen]

The lyrics of Glad To Be Gay are in a way painful as they are about homophobia, queerphobia (queer/ anti-queer is explicitly mentioned 3 times, so), police violence and such things but they are also actually amazing for naming these things quite frankly. So I put them under the cut

(Sing If You're) Glad To Be Gay

The British Police are the best in the world

I don't believe one of these stories I've heard

'Bout them raiding our pubs for no reason at all

Lining the customers up by the wall

Picking out people and knocking them down

Resisting arrest as they're kicked on the ground

Searching their houses and calling them queer

I don't believe that sort of thing happens here

.

Sing if you're glad to be gay

Sing if you're happy that way

.

Pictures of naked young women are fun

In Titbits and Playboy, page three of The Sun

There's no nudes in xxx News our one magazine

But they still find excuses to call it obscene

Read how disgusting we are in the press

Telegraphs, people and Sunday Express

Molesters of children, corruptors of youth

It's there in the paper, it must be the truth

.

Sing if you're glad to be gay

Sing if you're happy that way

.

Don't try to kid us that if you're discreet

You're perfectly safe as you walk down the street

You don't have to mince or make bitchy remarks

To get beaten unconscious and left in the dark

I had a friend who was gentle and short

He was lonely one evening and went for a walk

Queerbashers caught him and kicked in his teeth

He was only hospitalised for a week

.

Sing if you're glad to be gay

Sing if you're happy that way

.

So sit back and watch as they close all our clubs

Arrest us for meeting and raid all our pubs

Make sure your boyfriend's at least 21

So only your friends and your brothers get done

Lie to your workmates, lie to your folks

Put down the queens and tell anti-queer jokes

Gay Lib's ridiculous, join their laughter

'The buggers are legal now, what more are they after?'

.

Sing if you're glad to be gay

Sing if you're happy that way

Tom Robinson, friend of Peter Gabriel and the Kinks’ Ray Davies, gained world-wide fame as an open gay man in 1979 when his upbeat rock cry for gay pride, Glad to be Gay went to the top of the charts in the U.K. and made him a radio name from Tokyo to Los Angeles. Rising to the occasion, Robinson and his band TRB delivered two albums full of 60s informed political messages clearly delivering a rock vision of a gay, feminist, non-racist, non-sexist egalitarian world. His love for Martin, and then Martin’s leaving him, were upfront and clearly shared in a number of compositions. But it was an impossible position to be in and, like Icarus, he got his wings and soul singed.

Tom Robinson had to please everyone: the gay audience, the political community, the music critics…and he was answerable to the homophobes, the record, company and the gutter press.

He suffered adulation, cruel reviews, loss of privacy and developed a severe identity-crisis (the Judy Garland syndrome) and — Bowie-like — fled to the anonymity of Berlin.

[…]

While he continued to receive critical support, radio and video play and consumer response and even the occasional top 10 U.K. hit, he found himself dropped by the major labels in the US. When he delivered his first album to the newly formed Geffen Records in 1984 with a lusty Genet sex song entitled “I Want to Be Your Cabin Boy” that, remixed, could have ruled the dance floor that summer, a closeted executive paid him to get off the label and go back to London.

He did. And built his own studio and began to produce some of the most moving love songs I have ever heard. You can find the best of them on an album entitled Still Loving You recorded for Castaway records and distributed by RCA Ariola in the U.K. in 1987.

— Jim Fouratt, “Out & Out,” OutWeek Magazine No. 18, October 22, 1989, p. 53.

[aiqingdemeimiao]

What this “peter hujar” Ben is shooting next month?

peter hujar was a v legendary gay photographer active in the new york gay scene (you have almost certainly at some point seen a photo of a skeletally thin peter hujar, taken moments after death by his friend/lover/fellow artist david wojnarowicz; it's one of the iconic aids activism photos)

peter was besties with literally everyone in the nyc scene. he was one of those people who'd think nothing of having lunch with susan sontag and then dinner with james baldwin then going dancing with jim fouratt then crashing on fran lebowitz's sofa, and so on. despite being penniless he lived an astonishingly glam life, so his friend linda rosenkrantz sat him down one random day and asked him to describe every single thing he'd done the day before (the 18th december 1974). she recorded it, and then published the transcript as a book - peter hujar's day.

ira sachs (the passages director) got the film rights for peter hujar's day and ben is playing peter. they're filming in new york soon but we don't have exact schedule/dates yet other than ira saying "november" (that's the problem with niche indie films: you don't get any updates bc the studios aren't paying news sites to constantly talk about them like the big studios do).

[milltownhistoricalsociety]

This Day in History: September 1st, 1914

Following the regular prayer service at the Methodist Church this evening, a meeting will be held to make final preparations for the annual harvest home of the Methodist Church to be held in Milltown Park on Friday evening of this week. Supper will be served between the hours of five and nine p.m., at the rate of 45 cents a plate. Music will be furnished by the Michelin Band. Baby Myron Fouratt,…

[fridge-reviews]

Crossing Souls

Developer: Fourattic Publisher: Devolver Digital Rrp: £10.99 (Gog.com, Humblebundle and Steam) Released: 13th February 2018 Available on: Gog.com, humblebundle and Steam This game is a dose of 80's nostalgia right into the arm. Not because of the gameplay or the mechanics, those are definitely modern, it's not even the 80's references (although those help). No, it's the story itself, it feels like it was ripped right out of Steven Spielbergs mind having a very E.T and Super8 vibe to it. They even stick to the 80's aesthetic by having animated cutscenes that look like they're ripped straight from a low budget kids show from the era.

The events of the game take place in California, specifically in the town of Tajunga (which I originally thought was fictional but a quick look on Googlemaps seems to show that it isn't), in the year of 1986. You control a party of five kids who get mixed up in a adventure that is far bigger than them. You can swap between the various party members at any time. This is especially useful in combat because attacks and dodging drain stamina and by swapping between the various members of the party you allow them to recover. Each member of the party has their own skills and abilities that can be used in combat and while navigating the world.

Sadly the game does have one major flaw, and that is the lack of a skip feature for the dialogue cutscenes. It becomes quite grating to have to mash '[A]' just to get past the unskippable dialogue that precedes a boss battle. This is becomes especially frustrating when you've already died a few times and just want to cut to the chase.

If you like references then this game will be right up your alley, for the most part they're quite unobtrusive such as being posters on a background etc. I rather enjoy seeing the little references that the developers have scattered about.

[arte-e-homoerotismo]

Peter Hujar

Peter Hujar (11 de outubro de 1934 - 26 de novembro de 1987) foi um fotógrafo americano mais conhecido por seus retratos em preto e branco. O trabalho de Hujar recebeu apenas reconhecimento público marginal durante sua vida, mas desde então ele foi reconhecido como um grande fotógrafo americano das décadas de 1970 e 1980.

 Vida pregressa

Hujar nasceu em 11 de outubro de 1934, em Trenton, Nova Jersey, filho de Rose Murphy, uma garçonete, que foi abandonada pelo marido durante a gravidez. Ele foi criado pelos avós ucranianos na fazenda deles, onde falava apenas ucraniano até começar a escola. Ele permaneceu na fazenda até a morte de sua avó em 1946, e sua mãe o levou para Nova York para morar com ela e seu segundo marido em seu apartamento de um cômodo. A casa era abusiva e, em 1950, quando Hujar tinha 16 anos, ele saiu de casa e começou a viver de forma independente.

Educação

Hujar recebeu sua primeira câmera em 1947 e em 1953 entrou na Escola de Arte Industrial , onde expressou interesse em ser fotógrafo. Ele conheceu uma professora encorajadora, a poetisa Daisy Aldan (1923–2001), e seguindo seu conselho, tornou-se um aprendiz de fotografia comercial. Al��m das aulas de fotografia durante o ensino médio, a educação fotográfica e o domínio técnico de Hujar foram adquiridos em estúdios fotográficos comerciais, onde ele podia usar a câmara escura após o expediente. Em 1957, quando tinha 23 anos, ele estava fazendo fotografias agora consideradas de qualidade de museu. No início de 1967, ele foi um dos seletos jovens fotógrafos em uma master class ministrada por Richard Avedon e Marvin Israel , onde conheceu Alexey Brodovitch e Diane Arbus . 

Carreira artística

Em 1958, Hujar acompanhou o artista Joseph Raffael em uma bolsa Fulbright para a Itália. Em 1963, ele garantiu sua própria bolsa Fulbright e retornou à Itália com Paul Thek , com quem namorava desde 1959, onde exploraram e fotografaram as Catacumbas dos Capuchinhos de Palermo , imagens dos mortos posteriormente apresentadas em Retratos na Vida e na Morte .

Em 1964, Hujar retornou à América e se tornou assistente-chefe no estúdio do fotógrafo comercial Harold Krieger. Nessa época, ele conheceu Andy Warhol , posou para quatro dos Screen Tests de três minutos de Warhol e foi incluído no filme de compilação The Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys , que foi montado a partir dos Screen Tests .

Hujar deixou seu emprego em fotografia comercial em 1967 e, com grande sacrifício financeiro, começou a perseguir principalmente seu próprio trabalho artístico que refletia seu ambiente homossexual. Ele foi um artista-ativista influente do movimento de libertação gay ; em 1969, com seu amante, o ativista político Jim Fouratt , ele testemunhou os tumultos de Stonewall no West Village . A pedido de Fouratt, ele documentou a primeira marcha de libertação gay (28 de junho de 1970) e tirou a foto agora um tanto irônica "Come out!!" para a Frente de Libertação Gay . Após a separação no final do ano, ele teve que se mudar para seu estúdio (na 10 East 23rd St) até meados de 1972 e na primavera de 1973 finalmente pôde se mudar para um loft acima do The Eden Theater na 189 2nd Avenue no East Village . Anteriormente ocupado por Jackie Curtis , Hujar transformou o espaço de tal forma que ele pôde viver e trabalhar lá pelo resto de sua vida.

A década de 1980

No início de 1981, Hujar conheceu o jovem artista David Wojnarowicz e, após um breve período como amante de Hujar, Wojnarowicz tornou-se um protegido ligado a Hujar pelo resto da vida do fotógrafo. Hujar permaneceu instrumental em todas as fases do surgimento de Wojnarowicz como um jovem artista importante. 

Outro artista intimamente ligado a Hujar é Robert Mapplethorpe . Ambos os artistas eram homens gays brancos que se destacaram na fotografia de retratos e que fizeram trabalhos descaradamente homoeróticos que andavam na linha entre a pornografia e as belas-artes, mas eram opostos estruturais. Se Mapplethorpe reduziu seus temas a formas abstratas, os rostos de seus modelos a máscaras, seus modelos nus a esculturas, então Hujar enfatizou as idiossincrasias de seus modelos, suas qualidades irredutíveis, sua sensibilidade humana sobre sua geometria carnuda. "Orgasmic Man", uma das obras mais memoráveis ​​de Hujar, também é uma diferença fundamental entre seu trabalho e o de Mapplethorpe; nenhuma vez, em todas as fotografias editadas de Mapplethorpe, ele mostrou orgasmo ou ejaculação, nem descreveu as expressões faciais concomitantes.

Hujar tinha uma grande variedade de assuntos em sua fotografia, incluindo paisagens urbanas e naturezas mortas urbanas, animais, nus, prédios abandonados e ruínas europeias. Sua fotografia, que era principalmente em preto e branco, foi descrita como transmitindo uma intimidade, sugestiva de amor e perda. Um aspecto dessa qualidade íntima era a capacidade de Hujar de se conectar com seus modelos. Um de seus modelos foi citado após uma sessão malsucedida dizendo:

"Não podíamos 'revelar'. Como ator, você tem que revelar. E a grande coisa de Hujar era que você tinha que revelar. Eu sei disso agora, mas eu não sabia na época. Em outras palavras, honestidade escaldante e ardente direcionada para a lente. Sem mijar por aí. Sem posar. Sem colocar nada. Sem acampar por aí. Apenas plano, real quem-você-é... Você deve despir todo o absurdo até chegar ao osso. Era isso que Peter queria e esse era seu grande, grande talento e habilidade." 

Os retratos de Hujar, o tema da primeira metade do único livro que ele publicou enquanto estava vivo, são simples; ele quase nunca usou adereços e o foco de seu trabalho estava no modelo, em oposição ao cenário da foto. Normalmente, seus modelos estavam sentados ou posando reclinados. 

Morte e legado

Em janeiro de 1987, Hujar foi diagnosticado com AIDS . Ele morreu 10 meses depois, aos 53 anos, em 25 de novembro no Cabrini Medical Center em Nova York. Seu funeral foi realizado na Igreja de St. Joseph em Greenwich Village , e ele foi enterrado no Cemitério Gate of Heaven em Valhalla, Nova York. 

Hujar legou seu espólio ao seu amigo de longa data Stephen Koch , que o administra desde então (hoje como Peter Hujar Archive). Uma primeira retrospectiva do trabalho de Hujar em colaboração com o espólio foi exibida dois anos após sua morte na Grey Art Gallery & Study Center da Universidade de Nova York. Foi seguida por uma mostra mais abrangente em 1994 por um esforço conjunto do Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (Holanda) e do Fotomuseum Winterthur na Suíça. Em 2013, a Morgan Library & Museum em Nova York adquiriu cem gravuras e a totalidade de seu espólio escrito e todas as folhas de contato do Peter Hujar Archive. Uma colaboração entre a Morgan Library e a Fundação Espanhola Mapfre permitiu uma grande exposição retrospectiva itinerante que foi acompanhada por uma monografia abrangente publicada em conjunto com a Aperture em 2017.

Joseph Raffael at the Botanical Gardens, Photo by Peter Hujar, 1956

[retronator]

Crossing Souls vs Stranger Things

For the last 3 weeks I’ve been snoozing my alarm to review Crossing Souls. I wanted to finish it before I’d post about it, but I took my merry time so I had to come up with something more than a review. This is my best stupid article yet.

So much time has passed since Crossing Souls’ release that the judgement is firmly out: very positive reviews on Steam, mixed/average response from press. I’d guess it’s because the game starts really strong—absolutely fantastic 1980s atmosphere, stylish cartoony pixel art, dynamic gameplay (you switch between 5 characters, each with their own powers)—but wears itself thin towards the end. It left me with a meh feeling due to its worn-out save-the-world storyline and completely broke my patience with a painful last boss fight. After finally beating the ultimate duel (with literally a quarter of a heart left), the game threw me into another boss scene where I died in 5 seconds. My victorious feeling was so trampled that I saw zero reason to go through the whole grindy ordeal again for the 50th time. I watched the last 5% of the game on YouTube and regretted nothing. 

Like the reviews indicate, there is a lot to love in the game. I too remain with positive feelings, albeit they make my disinterest for the narrative that much more painful.

Which reminds me of another experience that gives me the fuzzies with the 1980s yet isn’t deeper than a save-the-world-from-monsters plotline: Stranger Things. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d think Crossing Souls is a cheap knock-off trying to cash in on Netflix’s popular series. Except Crossing Souls was announced first—if anything, the Spanish action-adventure could have inspired the Duffer brothers. Reality probably lies in the simple fact that they all wanted to pay homage to movies like The Goonies, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Gremlins, Poltergeist …

So what happens when two franchises copy the same source material? A lot of astounding parallels that kept me entertained for the bigger part of the gameplay experience.

Oh yeah, SPOILERS AHEAD.

5 kids

Let’s see: one main guy, one black kid, one tough red-headed girl, one dead(ish) small kid. Check, check, check, check. It’s not a perfect match and I have to stick with season 2 of Stranger Things, but it’s a pretty similar gang.

They’re all lovely kids, with your typical tropes from friendships being tested under harsh circumstances, to everyone being in love with the Smurfette on the team.

Neon-lit arcades

What else would nerds do in the 80s besides play D&D? Throw quarters into machines at the video game arcade of course. Both the Hoosier and Californian towns feature this premier hang-out location of video game geeks.

Spooky stuff in the sky

As soon as I saw the opening scene of Crossing Souls (below), I knew I’ll have much fun drawing parallels with Netflix’s series. They couldn’t have started better than with a monochrome scene with lightning wreaking havoc on small-town USA.

Parallel dimension

Be it the Upside Down, or seeing echoes of the dead, both franchises venture into alternate dimensions for some creepy feels.

Shady government facilities

Let me tell you, nothing good can come out of sneaking past barbwire fence.

On one hand I admire the courage of these characters, on the other I’m “why the hell would you go in there, there’s shit flying in the air and flesh growing out of the walls.”

Epic bike scenes

I mean, I couldn’t make this stuff up even if I wanted to.

I’m done, I rest my case.

And the winner is … Penney Design

I had to throw you a curve ball there. If Stranger Things and Crossing Souls both have my heart at the indifferent, catch-all 7/10 score, I will never forget the fake Stranger Things video games by @penneydesign​.

I already wrote about Season 1 reimagined as an annoying point-and-click adventure, but Robert Penney strikes back with another 8-bit movie-conversion-gone-bad for Stranger Things 2. These games are so bad and true to the 80s license pulp that if it weren’t for Atari’s E.T. blunder, these would single-handedly cause the video game crash of 1983 themselves. Enjoy!

[actually-a-dyke]

Word Thoughts by Jim Fouratt in Come Out! Magazine, Vol 1, Issue 2, Page 15, Jan 10, 1970

"Community"

[Somehow we have to stop relating to ourselves as if we are alone. Some of us are hoping not to be noticed, being nice, silent, being out of sight, wishing they would give us permission to live and to love. It is absolutely masochistic of us to ask permission for a basic human right. No man has the right to tell another what to do with his or her own body. This goes for sex, for drugs, for birth control, for abortion, etc. Communication and education will enlighten us to what are positive, loving acts, and what are negative, killing acts. We must be free, we must stand up and look at each other as equals. We must rid ourselves of all societally reinforced guilt. We must be proud, we must like ourselves, we must love ourselves. We must show our beauty to all, and be prepared to defend our beauty by all means possible from all those who try to take it from us.]

[pressxtoalex]

My Top 12 Most Anticipated Games of 2018

2017 was an absolute monster of a year for video games, and it’s starting to appear that January is going to be the only time where we aren’t going to be inundated with new releases to play, and inevitably miss out on. However, there are already more than a few games coming out in 2018 that have my attention and think they should have yours, too. Now bear in mind: This is a pretty PS4 heavy list, for obvious reasons, but if you do some Googling, you’ll find a lot of these are multi-platform releases. The other thing to consider, is while I consider myself a great optimist, I have to be real with myself, so no matter what the developers and publishers tell us, you aren’t going to find games like Death Stranding, Kingdom Hearts III, or The Last of Us Part II on this list, because, let’s face it, they aren’t coming out in 2018. Perhaps, the most frightening part of this list, is most of these games have been confirmed for at least the first half of the year, leaving June through December pretty wide open for us as gamers to have a crowded schedule.

12) The Longest Five Minutes

Coming out of NIS America, The Longest Five Minutes takes a twist on the traditional RPG and starts out at the end, facing off against the game’s final boss, however, your character has lost every memory of their adventure, including their name, abilities, and even why he’s in this battle. Throughout the battle, comments made by his allies, and taunts by the Demon King will trigger flashbacks to help fill in the heroes memory gaps. It comes out in just a few weeks on both Vita and Nintendo Switch and the premise alone put this on my radar.

11) Days Gone

We finally saw what Sony’s Bend Studio has been working on at E3 2016, and while it felt more like a “Lookee how many things we can have on the screen at once” they expounded on the stealth aspects of the game at PSX, showing the game to potentially being somewhere between The Last of Us and Horizon Zero Dawn. It sits so low on my list, partly because it’s Bend’s first release since Uncharted: Golden Abyss, and their first console release since Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow, and partly because I’m not 100% sold on this coming out in 2018, but, if I’m over here spoutin’ off Last of Us Part 2 is coming in 2019, then Day’s Gone needs to be hitting shelves in 2018 as to not be cannibalized by a much more established IP. I love the idea of an open world motorcycle game, though, and hopefully, it’s something akin to much under-appreciated Mad Max.

10) The Walking Dead: A Telltale Series The Final Season

It’s pretty firmly established that I love adventure games, and I love Telltale. They hit a home run in 2012 with the first season of The Walking Dead, but while they continue to swing for the fences on various other licensed and popular properties, they haven’t quite fully captured the magic that made The Walking Dead’s first season so special. Sure, Season Two and Season Three had their high points, and Telltale has shown some of the magic in their other games like Tales from the Borderlands, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Batman, but this is their chance to give Clementine, a character we’ve spent six years growing up with, a proper send-off and story, after spending Season Three side-stepping her.

9) God of War

Yo. Real talk, I’m not a God of War guy. I don’t need that much screamy chain man in my life, and frankly, Kratos has just been a dude, to me, that has zero redeeming qualities. Yea, he’s angry because of his tragic backstory, but, like...can you not? Here’s the thing though, Sony Santa Monica has created a tamer, humbled Kratos that seems to have far more to lose. While I think we’re starting to teeter on seeing too much of the game, game director Cory Barlog keeps saying the right things about this installment that has more-than-piqued my interest. And me being interested in a God of War game speaks volumes. 

8) Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion

Adventure Time is the one franchise that has been itching for a quality game under its banner. We’ve had a handful of various dungeon crawler games, top-down Zelda clones, and adventure games, but they’ve either missed on the art style or totally whiffed on the gameplay. Pirates of the Enchiridion may possibly be the Adventure Time game that the series fans have been clamoring for. It’s an open-world game set in the Land of Ooo, with an original story, multiple playable characters, full-cast voiceover, and sailing. The series is wrapping up soon, and this may be one of the last Adventure Time games we see, so here’s hoping this is the one they get right.

7) Church in the Darkness

I’ve had my eye on Paranoid Productions’ Church in the Darkness for a couple of years now. It’s a top-down, procedurally-generated action/infiltration game set in the 1970s where you’re an ex-law enforcement officer tasked with checking in on your nephew, who has recently joined the Collective Justice Mission cult. Each playthrough promises to be different, down to the characters’ personalities and reactions to you being in the camp. If you want to go full-stealth Metal Gear with it, you can, or if you want to go full guns-blazing, go right ahead. The idea of uncovering more of the story based on your investigating, and the varying degree in which characters respond to you each time you play, leave a lot of opportunities for the game to have mass amounts of replay value.

6) Jurassic World Evolution

Hi. I would like to build my own Jurassic World, please. That’s at least what developer Frontier is promising. While I had no idea Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis even existed until it became too rare to justify purchasing, I did spend a lot of my summer in 2012 tapping away at Jurassic Park Builder on my iPhone. Jurassic World Evolution looks to bring that Jurassic Park-meets-Sim City hybrid back to home consoles. Hopefully “Life finds a way” and this game will be exactly what Jurassic-verse fans have been looking for this summer. Just, please, don’t Animal Crossing this and make me have to play every day or risk being infested with weeds and whatnot. That’ll be the quickest way for me to nope out of this.

5) Crossing Souls

Somewhere between the Burger King Kids Club and Stranger Things lies Fourattic’s Crossing Souls. Set in 1986 in California, Crossing Souls is an action-adventure RPG where five kids make a mysterious discovery that thrusts them into navigating two planes of life and death and begin uncovering a government conspiracy. With five playable characters, each with their own style of combat, puzzles, and 80’s arcade references, Crossing Souls is right up my alley in the indie-game realm.

4) Detroit Become Human

Heavy Rain is one of my all-time favorite games. Hell, it’s tangentially linked to where my YouTube namesake came from. While Beyond: Two Souls wasn’t entirely the follow-up a lot of fans were looking for, I have no problem putting all of Quantic Dreams eggs into the Detroit Become Human basket. Between its Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick-style of story, stunning visuals, and varying degrees of story direction, this seems to be the Quantic Dream getting back on the right track. The big question is what side of their spectrum the story is going to fall on.

3) Dreams

If you listen closely, you can hear the hype-train leaving the station for Dreams. Media Molecule has been a voice in the gaming industry that needs to be heard again. Their style and creativity has been sorely missed, but a few questions remain: Is there a major market for a curation-based platformer, will the customization be as flawlessly executed as we’ve been lead to believe, and will this even hit 2018 despite the developer’s best efforts? It’s hard for me to temper my excitement for a game that has a far more expansive Super Mario Maker feel to it. The in-game campaign may not be the reason to buy the game, so it’s going to be on those that pick up Dreams to keep it alive.

2) Red Dead Redemption 2

I totally missed on Red Dead Redemption. It was at a time where working in gaming retail and feeling that need to play everything, the last thing I wanted to do was play a massive open-world game. Red Dead Redemption 2 feels like my opportunity to atone for this mistake. I loved what I played of Grand Theft Auto V and am dying to see what Rockstar Games has learned from then to now with Red Dead being their first proper current-gen game release. Rockstar has carte-blanche with the gaming industry, so if they came out tomorrow and said, “This is delayed again, and will be delayed a third time” almost everyone would understand. They’re still Scrooge McDucking in their money from GTA-Five, so they don’t need to rush a Red Dead sequel out the door, but they are looking to be the heaviest hitter in 2018 and every developer and publisher has to be waiting for a release date so they know to stay away.

1) Marvel’s Spider-Man

I am absolutely salivating for Insomniac’s Spider-Man to just get a release date. I don’t even need it in my hands yet, I just want to know when I can have it in my hands, and based on recent tweets from the game’s dev-team, we may know sooner rather than later. Not only is this my most anticipated game of 2018, if you were to put a gun to my head and tell me I can only pick one game from this year, I would not even flinch when answering “Marvel’s Spider-Man.” Between the combat, the cinematic uses of QTE’s, to the open environments, I am absolutely sold on this game. The most exciting thing about this release is that, despite what we’ve already seen, I don’t even think we’ve seen a lot of it. Through tweets, and various interviews, I think we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg with this game. Outside of a certain popular character’s appearance in the E3 2017 trailer, we already know they play a larger role than just a cameo, leaving me to wonder if we’re getting a Sons of Liberty situation where the what we’ve seen could be a misdirection to what we’re getting. Regardless, Insomniac Games and Spider-Man are an incredible pairing and I cannot wait to get my hands on this.

So there you have it! My most anticipated games of 2018. I’m sure most of the titles didn’t surprise you, but I absolutely hope I was able to turn your gaze toward some upcoming releases you may not have previously known about. Feel free to drop by and let me know what you’re most looking forward to!

[finnik-vincent]

[gameredlinden]

Crossing Souls - This is a daunting task trophy

[teleduderino]

Ich kann nicht anders, als die Details zu bewundern. https://youtu.be/kRSQ19sRQYE

[pizza-party-weekend]

Sweet! . . . Sweet! Bullshit! There’s the stereotype homosexual again, man! Soft, weak, sensitive! Bullshit! Be proud of what you are, man! And if it takes riots or even guns to show them what we are, well, that’s the only language that the pigs understand!

Jim Fouratt

[outweek30]

The second night [of Stonewall] there was a meeting called by the Mattachine Society at St. John's Church on Waverly Place, in which they proposed a candlelight march and that we turn the other cheek and show what really nice gay people we were. I remember that I got up and said, "No way, there's no going back. We're not nice people."

Later that night there were about thirty five people who went to a meeting at the Alternative U. In that room the Gay Liberation Front was founded. That was made up of men and women, people of color, drag queens. and preppie boys. The similarities between ACT UP and the Gay Liberation Front in the way that it formed and what its goals were are amazing. And then the next two nights we just went roving around the streets. [...]

People blocked traffic. They took the streets. It was very exhilarating. They were going by the bars, telling people to come out of the bars. It was the first time that gay men and gay women had really felt a sense of empowerment. For people that had been politically active in the left, and there had been a lot of closeted gay people active in the left, they didn't have to put anyone else's revolution, anyone else's cause above their own. That process is very liberating and very energizing and very exhilarating and that's what was happening.

[...]

But I'm telling you, whether it happened at Stonewall or not, it would have happened someplace. We were coming to consciousness that our struggle was as important as all the other struggles we were supporting. So it would have happened someplace.

[...]

Stonewall was the lower life of the gay community, the ones that no respectable gay person would identify with: drag queens, fifteen year old hustlers, drug addicts. And it was almost classic in the sense that the lumpen among us became the heros. That really was the cutting edge. It was the drag queens who became empowered, it was the teenage hustler who maybe didn't fight back for the right reasons but who created that moment in history from which there is no going back.

Anita Bryant certainly proved that point, and AIDS has proved that poiht also. There'S no way people can go back to what it was like before, regardless of what the social conditions are. You'd have to wipe everyone out.

I have to tell you Gabriel, I go to ACT UP and I don't try to play a leadership role. But the first time I went into that room it brought tears to my eyes, to see that many young gay men and lesbians who were not going to go back into the closet. Who were going to celebrate their humanity and their sexuality in spite of the fact that people were being told that gay is death. And that, to me, goes directly back to that moment that was not thought out, that was not planned, that just happened spontaneously.

— Jim Fouratt, interviewed by Gabriel Rotello in “Present at the Creation,” OutWeek Magazine No. 1, June 26, 1989, p. 44.

[arte-e-homoerotismo]

Peter Hujar

Peter Hujar (11 de outubro de 1934 - 26 de novembro de 1987) foi um fotógrafo americano mais conhecido por seus retratos em preto e branco. O trabalho de Hujar recebeu apenas reconhecimento público marginal durante sua vida, mas desde então ele foi reconhecido como um grande fotógrafo americano das décadas de 1970 e 1980. 

Vida pregressa

Hujar nasceu em 11 de outubro de 1934, em Trenton, Nova Jersey, filho de Rose Murphy, uma garçonete, que foi abandonada pelo marido durante a gravidez. Ele foi criado pelos avós ucranianos na fazenda deles, onde falava apenas ucraniano até começar a escola. Ele permaneceu na fazenda até a morte de sua avó em 1946, e sua mãe o levou para Nova York para morar com ela e seu segundo marido em seu apartamento de um cômodo. A casa era abusiva e, em 1950, quando Hujar tinha 16 anos, ele saiu de casa e começou a viver de forma independente.

Educação

Hujar recebeu sua primeira câmera em 1947 e em 1953 entrou na Escola de Arte Industrial , onde expressou interesse em ser fotógrafo. Ele conheceu uma professora encorajadora, a poetisa Daisy Aldan (1923–2001), e seguindo seu conselho, tornou-se um aprendiz de fotografia comercial. Além das aulas de fotografia durante o ensino médio, a educação fotográfica e o domínio técnico de Hujar foram adquiridos em estúdios fotográficos comerciais, onde ele podia usar a câmara escura após o expediente. Em 1957, quando tinha 23 anos, ele estava fazendo fotografias agora consideradas de qualidade de museu. No início de 1967, ele foi um dos seletos jovens fotógrafos em uma master class ministrada por Richard Avedon e Marvin Israel , onde conheceu Alexey Brodovitch e Diane Arbus . 

Carreira artística

Em 1958, Hujar acompanhou o artista Joseph Raffael em uma bolsa Fulbright para a Itália. Em 1963, ele garantiu sua própria bolsa Fulbright e retornou à Itália com Paul Thek , com quem namorava desde 1959, onde exploraram e fotografaram as Catacumbas dos Capuchinhos de Palermo , imagens dos mortos posteriormente apresentadas em Retratos na Vida e na Morte .

Em 1964, Hujar retornou à América e se tornou assistente-chefe no estúdio do fotógrafo comercial Harold Krieger. Nessa época, ele conheceu Andy Warhol , posou para quatro dos Screen Tests de três minutos de Warhol e foi incluído no filme de compilação The Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys , que foi montado a partir dos Screen Tests .

Hujar deixou seu emprego em fotografia comercial em 1967 e, com grande sacrifício financeiro, começou a perseguir principalmente seu próprio trabalho artístico que refletia seu ambiente homossexual. Ele foi um artista-ativista influente do movimento de libertação gay ; em 1969, com seu amante, o ativista político Jim Fouratt , ele testemunhou os tumultos de Stonewall no West Village . A pedido de Fouratt, ele documentou a primeira marcha de libertação gay (28 de junho de 1970) e tirou a foto agora um tanto irônica "Come out!!" para a Frente de Libertação Gay . Após a separação no final do ano, ele teve que se mudar para seu estúdio (na 10 East 23rd St) até meados de 1972 e na primavera de 1973 finalmente pôde se mudar para um loft acima do The Eden Theater na 189 2nd Avenue no East Village . Anteriormente ocupado por Jackie Curtis , Hujar transformou o espaço de tal forma que ele pôde viver e trabalhar lá pelo resto de sua vida.

A década de 1980

No início de 1981, Hujar conheceu o jovem artista David Wojnarowicz e, após um breve período como amante de Hujar, Wojnarowicz tornou-se um protegido ligado a Hujar pelo resto da vida do fotógrafo. Hujar permaneceu instrumental em todas as fases do surgimento de Wojnarowicz como um jovem artista importante. 

Outro artista intimamente ligado a Hujar é Robert Mapplethorpe . Ambos os artistas eram homens gays brancos que se destacaram na fotografia de retratos e que fizeram trabalhos descaradamente homoeróticos que andavam na linha entre a pornografia e as belas-artes, mas eram opostos estruturais. Se Mapplethorpe reduziu seus temas a formas abstratas, os rostos de seus modelos a máscaras, seus modelos nus a esculturas, então Hujar enfatizou as idiossincrasias de seus modelos, suas qualidades irredutíveis, sua sensibilidade humana sobre sua geometria carnuda. "Orgasmic Man", uma das obras mais memoráveis ​​de Hujar, também é uma diferença fundamental entre seu trabalho e o de Mapplethorpe; nenhuma vez, em todas as fotografias editadas de Mapplethorpe, ele mostrou orgasmo ou ejaculação, nem descreveu as expressões faciais concomitantes.

Hujar tinha uma grande variedade de assuntos em sua fotografia, incluindo paisagens urbanas e naturezas mortas urbanas, animais, nus, prédios abandonados e ruínas europeias. Sua fotografia, que era principalmente em preto e branco, foi descrita como transmitindo uma intimidade, sugestiva de amor e perda. Um aspecto dessa qualidade íntima era a capacidade de Hujar de se conectar com seus modelos. Um de seus modelos foi citado após uma sessão malsucedida dizendo:

"Não podíamos 'revelar'. Como ator, você tem que revelar. E a grande coisa de Hujar era que você tinha que revelar. Eu sei disso agora, mas eu não sabia na época. Em outras palavras, honestidade escaldante e ardente direcionada para a lente. Sem mijar por aí. Sem posar. Sem colocar nada. Sem acampar por aí. Apenas plano, real quem-você-é... Você deve despir todo o absurdo até chegar ao osso. Era isso que Peter queria e esse era seu grande, grande talento e habilidade." 

Os retratos de Hujar, o tema da primeira metade do único livro que ele publicou enquanto estava vivo, são simples; ele quase nunca usou adereços e o foco de seu trabalho estava no modelo, em oposição ao cenário da foto. Normalmente, seus modelos estavam sentados ou posando reclinados. 

Morte e legado

Em janeiro de 1987, Hujar foi diagnosticado com AIDS . Ele morreu 10 meses depois, aos 53 anos, em 25 de novembro no Cabrini Medical Center em Nova York. Seu funeral foi realizado na Igreja de St. Joseph em Greenwich Village , e ele foi enterrado no Cemitério Gate of Heaven em Valhalla, Nova York. 

Hujar legou seu espólio ao seu amigo de longa data Stephen Koch , que o administra desde então (hoje como Peter Hujar Archive). Uma primeira retrospectiva do trabalho de Hujar em colaboração com o espólio foi exibida dois anos após sua morte na Grey Art Gallery & Study Center da Universidade de Nova York. Foi seguida por uma mostra mais abrangente em 1994 por um esforço conjunto do Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (Holanda) e do Fotomuseum Winterthur na Suíça. Em 2013, a Morgan Library & Museum em Nova York adquiriu cem gravuras e a totalidade de seu espólio escrito e todas as folhas de contato do Peter Hujar Archive. Uma colaboração entre a Morgan Library e a Fundação Espanhola Mapfre permitiu uma grande exposição retrospectiva itinerante que foi acompanhada por uma monografia abrangente publicada em conjunto com a Aperture em 2017.

[linuxgamenews]

Crossing Souls a behind the scenes view

Crossing Souls gets a behind the scenes look since the games coming to Linux, Mac and Windows. This is all in anticipation of the coming action adventure release. Crossing Souls is scheduled for February 13th launch on Steam. So players take a stroll through the legendary streets of Seville, Spain. With the charming team of the Fourattic studio that created the game. While you work to find out how this strange name for the studio was born. How children's love and professional paths led to the birth of Crossing Souls. And is it worth creating a game when all bets are against you?

Behind the Schemes: Crossing Souls (Linux, Mac, Windows)

Subtitles are available in the following languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian and Polish. So Crossing Souls sends us to the not so distant past. Bright days in California in 1986, where the company of friends will survive the most amazing summer in their life. And the reason for this will be a randomly found mysterious artifact, the true possibilities of which our heroes do not understand, but one knows for sure - their lives will no longer be the same. Children will go against the laws of nature, interacting with two layers of reality: life and death. Their excessive curiosity will turn into a series of unexpected events, and a wonderful adventure will carry children away, away from home and into the dark behind-the-scenes government conspiracies. In which there was also an eccentric general of the US Army, who was building his sinister plans.

Crossing Souls Features

Feel the eighties – Do you feel that? Do you smell that? Yeah, it’s the eighties. A story set in 1986 full of references such as The Goonies, Gremlins, Back to the Future and many more.

Do you like Cartoons? – The cutscenes are inspired by 80’s cartoons, totally original and never seen before in a videogame.

Why is this happening? – Be part of a journey between two realms, two realities: life and death. The story includes a government conspiracy, thousand-year-old characters, cowboys, pirates, ice cream, pizza, cheeseburgers, basketball… well, you got it.

This music rocks! – An original score that includes tracks inspired by John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith as well as radical Synth-Pop in the purest 80’s style. Play as if it was one of your favorite movies!

Ready? Fight! – You can kick multiple enemies in the ass stylishly. Fight against street gangs, a secret army, dead monsters, creepy ghosts and many more in frantic real-time combats where a good strategy will be essential to win. Main characters have unique talents and aptitudes.

Crossing Souls is preparing for the adventure season on Linux, Mac and Windows. So to check out even more information about the game, go to the official website. So follow @Fourattic on Twitter. Crossing Souls is coming to Steam on February 13, 2018. Stay tuned for more details.