Happy Easter I: Post From 2007


Wherever one’s position lands in the perennial discussion regarding Matt Crowley’s The Boys in the Band on its quality and/or political correctness, there is usually agreement that there are memorable moments of dialogue not without poignancy. For example the following--


Michael: … Physical beauty is not that goddamned important!

Harold: Of course not. How could it be? It’s only in the eye of the beholder.

Michael: And it’s only skin deep. Don’t forget that one.

Harold: Oh, no, I haven’t forgotten that one at all. It’s only skin deep and it’s transitory too. It’s terribly transitory. I mean, how long does it last - thirty or forty or fifty years at the most - depending on how well you take care of yourself. And not counting, of course, that you might die before it runs out anyway. Yes, it’s too bad about this poor boy’s face. It’s tragic. He’s absolutely cursed! (takes “Cowboy’s” face in his hands) How can his beauty ever compare with my soul? And although I have never seen my soul, I understand from my mother’s rabbi that it’s a knockout. I, however, cannot seem to locate it for a gander. And if I could, I’d sell it in a flash for some skin-deep, transitory, meaningless beauty!




Crowley's dialogue alludes to another perennial discussion regarding the duality of being, or not as the case may be—as in materialism. Human beings tend to live as if this is all there is, even those with traditional dogmatic belief systems. Beauty or its reasonable facsimile, even the inner kind, drives day to day existence in some way, shape or form. It's pleasure.

When it comes to sexuality, both genders in the human race are equally superficial. Being superficial is in reality what materialism is all about, simply because from that perspective that’s all there is.





Hence, this week’s word:


Main Entry:
1 body Pronunciation: \ˈbä-dē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural bod•ies
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English bodig; akin to Old High German boteh corpse Date: before 12th century

1 a: the main part of a plant or animal body especially as distinguished from limbs and head : TRUNK b: the main, central, or principal part: as (1): the nave of a church (2): the bed or box of a vehicle on or in which the load is placed (3): the enclosed or partly enclosed part of an automobile2 a: the organized physical substance of an animal or plant either living or dead: as (1): the material part or nature of a human being (2): a dead organism : CORPSE b: a human being : PERSON.




Most of that definition is very much at home in this web log and site. A lot of that definition is very much at home as well in Catholicism, a religion that believes in the resurrection of the body in the fulfillment of time and also believes that an ordained minister can change material like bread into a god-man’s body that can be ingested by other bodies… okay, you get it. The difference is that here there is much emphasis placed on experiencing one’s self and others as a sexual entity and not necessarily in the reproductive sense.



Actually, the inspiration for this week’s word comes from DNA #90(“The Life and Death of Adonis”) where there is currently an article on the late model, escort and porn star Brett Mycles, a.k.a., Rob Sager, whom Gay Wired says had one of the most recognizable bodies in Gay America. The article publishes the last photos taken of this exquisite man. Here’s a quote:

“I told him I’ve always respected him physically and thought of him as a piece of fine art. He felt that his body was a work of fine art as well. Rob told me that he felt those ‘goodbye to modelling’ shots were some of the best work he’s ever done.” (the current issue)

[The image at the top is only one from the article photos shown here. The others have been culled from the internet.]

Sager had a body, or was a body that very few can attain, and the beauty and pleasure that was experienced either by him within it or others without it was all too fleeting. All of life’s pleasures are. Humans live going from one to another. If life must be brief let it be full of delicious pleasures like Mr. Sager, who--if he has a consciousness that has gone on--knows that, if he was not necessarily loved, he was consummately appreciated and obviously still are. Would that all of us were.

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