Places and Faces

This fictionalized memoir is based largely on real events and real people, over a seventy-year span, starting at the midpoint of the 20th century. It's the collection of fifty tales filled with longing and gratitude, which taken together define the events and milestones of my life. Of course names of people and places are changed. If you weren't there, it may sound like a distant dream. We were searching for new ways to love. I look back with pride: Stonewall, Gay Liberation, Gay Rights, the Party Years, AIDS caregivers, Same-Sex Marriage and Transgender Rights. We accomplished a lot. Each phase had its notable places and faces. As memories, they were all indelible. This book touches on a few, some large, some small. Some serious, some fun. Did you see Calvin Klein's 1984 Underwear Campaign? He boldly proclaimed a proud new male sexuality in Times Square, using Bruce Weber's enormous illuminated ads featuring the Brazilian model Tom Hintnaus in revealing white briefs. Things would never be the same. It would be hailed as one of the "Ten Pictures that Changed America." Here's to some other places and faces I still cherish.