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Staff Pick of the Week

Growing up near the Ganga River in the cultural wellspring of Mithilia, Rambharos Jha spent much of his childhood observing the natural world and traditional arts of the region. When his father began working with a government project to breathe life into local art traditions, Rambharos had the opportunity to study Madhubani women painting walls and courtyards in their renowned Mithilia style utilizing natural dyes and pigments to depict people engaging with nature and deities.  

Inspired by these encounters, Rambharos began his artistic painting career in line with the traditional motifs of Hindu mythology but has since evolved his practice to better represent his personal experiences and experimental mediums. Waterlife, published in 2012 by Tara Books, is a culmination of Rambharos’s efforts to balance the delicate traditions of Mithilia art with his contemporary ideas. Waterlife is silkscreen-printed by hand on handmade cotton paper and masterfully plays with adding movement and new subjects and environments to the classic Mithilia medium marrying Rambharos’s childhood memories and folk legends.  

View more Staff Picks here.

-Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern 

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Steamy Saturday

Twilight lives of talent & torment.

Man-for-man in the world of dance.

The ones who call themselves "strange."

They drift into a pastel world of fey relationships.

Men who are not quite men.

Hansome, desperate, twisted, born to dance.

The world of dance, as depicted in numerous media iterations, is just bathed in steam! Very often in queer steam. And so it is with Mr. Ballerina by American writer, dancer, and film actor Ronn Marvin (1919-1998), published in Evanston, Illinois by Regency Books (another William Hamling imprint) in 1961. Despite the genre and its inevitable tragic ending, Mr. Ballerina is actually fairly well-written, with authentic dialogue and believable depictions of gay relationships.

The story centers on dancer Dana Bates who works under dance director Lee Apollo at Hemisphere. Dana's lover is musician Ralph Matthews, who is convinced that he is probably straight, and that it was actually his mother and then Dana, playing on his sexual needs, who turned him into a homosexual. Ralph seeks a way out and turns to a woman who herself is trying to rescue her mother from a lesbian relationship. Ralph breaks up with Dana, punches him in the nose (breaking it), has sex with the woman and proposes to her. Meanwhile, Dana barely escapes a police raid on an all-male party at Lee Apollo's place but is outed to the police by some jealous flames, leading to the tragic ending that we present above.

. . . everyone has to pay eventually. Some way or other, everyone pays. Now for Dana Bates -- Mr. Ballerina, Pride of the Ballet, Princess of the Bed -- it was his turn at last.

In an October 1961 review in The Ladder, Barbara Grier (as Gene Damon) laments the negative aspects of the story, but praises its author:

A rather sad look at the very gay world of the ballet, according to Mr. Marvin, exclusively peopled with homosexual boys and an occasional homosexual girl. Basically another of the conflict stories, in which one character fights against his homosexuality. The San Francisco background is very colorful and the presence of major lesbian characters will make this of interest to Ladder readers. A fairly good first novel. Mr. Marvin will bear watching.

Ronn Marvin began his career as a dancer, but a foot injury ended that line of work, so he turned to writing novels and television scripts. He also appeared in four movies during the 1940s: The North Star (1943); Step Lively (1944); George White's Scandals (1945); and he was Pulaski in the 1947 film Gas House Kids Go West. The cover art for Mr. Ballerina is credited to "Dillon." While we have found no direct evidence, based on the characteristic style, we believe this to be the legendary illustrating duo Leo and Diane Dillon.

View other gay fiction posts.

View more LGBTQ+ posts.

View other pulp fiction posts.

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Chloë Sevigny in The Last Days of Disco (Whit Stillman, 1998)

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I feel like I've said it before and I'll say it again and probably elaborate later but adoption is not a "solution" to abortion. Pregnant people are not incubators that exist for adoptive parents, babies forced to be alive should not be commodities to buy and sell. Private adoption agencies have lobbied for right wing anti-choice policies and politicians because they know they will profit off that that. You'll hear "there's an shortage of babies to adopt" because in America it's completely normalized to sell children and if that leaves an icky taste in your mouth it's because at the end of the day it's simply true. And they price those children by race and gender, it's wrong, but it is simply a fact.

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girls are so hot. wtf.

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A letter to the sad girls

To the girls up late, scrolling through quotes and black and white blurry photos because you need to find words to describe the lonely, empty, desperation you feel- I see you.

I was you. The solace I found here was indescribable. At one of the darkest points in my life, i started this blog and poured my heart out in the form of quotes and letters to boys that never loved me back.

5 years ago, I was depressed and I had no idea what to do about it - so I wrote. It’s been a battle ever since. Even when I found someone who I loved, who loved me, I didn’t love myself.

It’s still a battle sometimes. 3 weeks ago, I got married and it was perfect. Crazy seeing as though three years ago I couldn’t get through a week without having a complete meltdown.

I learned to love in a healthy way and I learned to be kind to myself. It gets so much better but it gets harder first.

But guys, even though you can’t even imagine it now- it gets so much fucking better.

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Patti Smith by Lynn Goldsmith, 1975

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Sophie Lécuyer (French, b. 1987, Épinal, France) - From series The Time Of Anemors, 2016  Etchings, Aquatints printed in Green Ink on Fabriano Paper

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Lately I’ve been thinking about who I want to love, and how I want to love, and why I want to love the way I want to love, and what I need to learn to love that way, and how I need to become to become the kind of love I want to be. And when I break it all down, when I whittle it into a single breath, it essentially comes out like this: before I die, I want to be somebody’s favorite hiding place, the place they can put everything they need to survive, every secret, every solitude, every nervous prayer, and be absolutely certain I will keep it safe. I will keep it safe.

Andrea Gibson (via lovelustquotes)

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“It is dreadful when something weighs on your mind, not to have a soul to unburden yourself to. You know what I mean. I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.”

— Frédéric Chopin (via wordsnquotes)

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Jason’s Lyric: What real love looks like

1994

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Michelangelo Antonioni Deserto rosso, 1964 (via blejz)