Mark Harris

2 weeks ago | vulture.com | Mark Harris

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the giant Tower Records on 66th Street and Broadway was as close to a formal meeting place for gay men as a chain store could get. Located on the north border of Lincoln Center and just across the avenue from a Barnes & Noble, Tower was part of a literal cultural intersection. The store, which was usually open until midnight, was at times a vibrant cruising ground for men who liked men who liked opera, dance, music, movies, or theater.

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Mark Harris |Jennifer Livingston

IT'S ALWAYS BEEN a good argument starter to contend that all theater is political, even if the claim sometimes depends on stretching the definition of "political" to its vaguest outer limits. For one thing, unlike movies or television or books, theater requires you to leave your home and participate in the creation of an ad hoc collective, albeit frequently with the irritation that proximity to strangers can engender.

1 month ago | taustralia.com.au | Mark Harris |Victoria Pearson

I knew the day would come, but I didn’t expect it to arrive with such savagery. It was a late spring evening. I was strolling down the street in Provincetown, Mass., with my husband when a car pulled up and a young, confident male voice — an unmistakably gay voice, and yes, there is such a thing — targeted both of us with stinging exactitude. “’Sup, daddies?” the voice said, the speaker barely bothering to conceal his sneer as the car sped away.

Dec 3, 2024 | nytimes.com | Mark Harris

THE COVERS ARE what draw you in first, just as they were designed to do. They promise sex but, more strikingly, they promise shock - the jolt of the taboo, the sinful. They're illustrations of women, usually two, sometimes more, often half-dressed or undressing, in slips and bras, a strap provocatively sliding down the curve of a shoulder. A knee is raised as a nylon stocking is tugged off.

Dec 2, 2024 | nytimes.com | Mark Harris

LET'S START WITH an acknowledgment: We are aware that, to some people, the word "freak" may not sound entirely complimentary. It connotes the unusual, the peculiar, the weird, the marginal. To those of you who feel that way, we say, exactly. The margins are where all the fun happens.