Have You Noticed...

That everything Trump touches turns to...

The world knew of the Kennedy Center, it was a class act!

But now?

Washington National Opera to leave the Kennedy Center in wake of Trump renaming

Numerous artists and musicians have canceled their scheduled appearances at the performing arts center after the board voted to add Trump's name to the institution.

NBC News

Jan. 9, 2026

By Rob McLean

The Washington National Opera on Friday announced that it’s leaving the Kennedy Center, where it has performed for decades, in the latest high-profile departure following President Donald Trump’s efforts to reshape the iconic venue.

“To ensure fiscal prudence and fulfill its obligations for a balanced budget, the WNO will reduce its spring season and relocate performances to new venues,” the Washington National Opera said in a statement. “This is a decision centered on doing what is best for the WNO going forward after an amicable transition.”

[..]

The Washington National Opera, the resident opera company of the Kennedy Center, has performed at the venue since it opened in 1971. In Friday’s statement, it said the “affiliation was never intended to be permanent.”

He has the anti-Midas Touch, everything he touches turns to lead.

Béla Fleck cancels Kennedy Center appearance, says it's become 'charged and political'

NPR News

January 7, 2026

Anastasia Tsioulcas

The noted banjo player Béla Fleck has canceled three performances scheduled for next month with the National Symphony Orchestra, or NSO, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Fleck, who has won 18 Grammy Awards and often performs with symphonies around the country, is the latest artist to cancel engagements at the Kennedy Center amidst many administrative and curatorial changes at the Washington, D.C. arts complex.

In a post published to social media Tuesday evening, Fleck wrote: "I have withdrawn from my upcoming performance with the NSO at The Kennedy Center. Performing there has become charged and political, at an institution where the focus should be on the music. I look forward to playing with the NSO another time in the future when we can together share and celebrate art."

The next thing you know they will be booking "dog and pony shows!"

Is Trump turning the Kennedy Center into a "Grand Ole Opry" on the Potomac?

Did You Expect Anything Less?

You heard of the "Midas Touch", well Trump has the "Minus Touch" everything he touches turns to crap.

The Kennedy Center Honors are coming up. This year's event will be different

NPR News

December 5, 2025

Elizabeth Blair

The Kennedy Center Honors have traditionally been one of Washington's splashiest affairs. Think Hollywood on the Potomac.

Every year, an astonishing number of A-listers come to Washington, D.C., to pay tribute to the honorees with performances and speeches. Think Beyoncé performing for Tina Turner, Audrey Hepburn rhapsodizing about Cary Grant, Rob Reiner praising Norman Lear, Aretha Franklin singing for Carol King, Sidney Poitier honoring Harry Belafonte or James Taylor and John Williams playing for Yo-Yo Ma.

Well now Trump fired the bipartisan Board of Directors and put his cronies in their place. And everything went to shit.

As in years past, Sunday night's gala will be turned into a broadcast special that will air on CBS and Paramount+ on Dec. 23.

But, after months of upheaval at the Kennedy Center, the 48th Honors will be different. In February, President Trump abruptly ousted the Kennedy Center president, Deborah Rutter, and board chair David Rubenstein. Staff who worked on the ceremony and broadcast have also recently resigned.

So you know that Trump had to muddy up the waters...

In the past, honorees were chosen in a months-long, bipartisan undertaking by members of the Kennedy Center board with input from the general public and past honorees. Ultimately recipients were selected by executive members of the board and a couple of other senior staff members, with consultation from past honorees such as Julie Andrews, Lionel Richie and John Williams.

This year, President Trump said he was "about 98%" involved in the selection process. He also broke with tradition by personally announcing the names at a press conference at the Kennedy Center last August. Previously, the announcement was made on the center's website and in press releases.

It is "Me, Me, Me" with Trump! Guess who the host will be this year?

Previous hosts of the Kennedy Center Honors have included Walter Cronkite, Stephen Colbert, Gloria Estefan and Queen Latifah. Trump will host this year, a first for a U.S. president. At the August press conference, Trump said he's hosting because he was asked (he didn't say by whom), and said he was told "You'll get much higher ratings." He continued, "I used to host The Apprentice finales and we did rather well with that. So I think we're going to do very well because we have some great honorees."

Whether he will be doing t or not is still a secret and it is only a couple of weeks away! Forbes wrote that one of this year's honorees is...

Stallone, who has a history of supporting Republican candidates, had refrained from publicly supporting Trump until his 2024 election victory, after which Stallone introduced him at an event in Mar-a-Lago in November. There, Stallone called Trump a “really mythical character,” compared him to Washington and said nobody “could’ve pulled off what he pulled off,” referring to his election victory. Strait, who is largely quiet on politics, appeared to reference Trump’s assassination attempt at a concert on July 13, the same day Trump survived a bullet wound to the ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Strait dedicated a performance of his 2019 pro-police song, “The Weight of the Badge,” to law enforcement officers, thanking them for their service “especially after today.” Gaynor, whose 1978 disco classic “I Will Survive” has been considered an LGBTQ anthem, has adopted Christian religious beliefs since she became a churchgoer in the 1980s...

If you butter up to Trump he showers you with awards!

As with everything Trump touches it tanks, The Hill writes,

Ticket sales plummet at Kennedy Center after Trump takeover: Washington Post analysis

by Ashleigh Fields - 10/31/25

Ticket sales for the Kennedy Center have continued to plummet in the months since President Trump took over its operations.

Tens of thousands of seats have been left empty at the three main performance venues, according to The Washington Post. 

About 43 percent of tickets remain unsold according to the Post’s daily analysis of the Kennedy Center’s Opera House, Concert Hall and Eisenhower Theater from Sept. 3 to Oct. 19.

The outlet said the Kennedy Center was missing out on approximately $1 million in revenue 45 days into show season after numerous artists canceled or refused to perform there while it is under the Trump administration’s control.

Richard Grenell, a Trump ally who was appointed interim president of the cultural center, said the staff members on site are “ecstatic,” alleging that workers were “dying for a change.” Performances by Christian artists have been ramped up in an effort to drive out what the administration has pegged as “woke” art pieces.

And sales have plummeted there just doesn't seem to be many people who want to spend a couple of hundred bucks watching gospel songs?

His comments, however, contradict the Post’s reporting that says there’s been a 36 percent drop in ticket sales compared to this time last year. The outlet also cited audience adjustments as a sign of patrons’ disengagement from the Kennedy Center.

[...]

“These numbers are likely more dire than they appear, as they don’t account for canceled productions or shows moved into smaller theaters due to weak ticket sales,” the person said in a statement provided on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation. 

Hold it we are talking about "Trump's Minus Touch" here... "going to make it “hot” again" so hot no one wants to touch it! The Center is folding just like all the other things that Trump touches!

Mini-Post: Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery

Welcome to the new racist nation... where Black and trans art is eradicated!

Artist Amy Sherald cancels major Smithsonian exhibition, citing censorship

CNN

By Jacqui Palumbo

July 24, 2025

The artist Amy Sherald has canceled a major exhibition of her work at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, citing censorship over one of her paintings depicting the Statue of Liberty modeled after a transgender artist.

Sherald, who reached national fame for her official portrait of Michelle Obama in 2018, has since become one of the most prominent living American painters for her vibrant portraits of Black life, portrayed in grisaille, or gray tones, against expanses of blue.

Her mid-career survey “American Sublime,” which was set to go on view at the National Portrait Gallery in September, has traveled around the country, debuting at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art before stopping at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, where it is currently on view. At the Whitney, the artist Arewà Basit, after whom the painting “Trans Forming Liberty” is modeled, appeared at the opening party to take pictures with Sherald in front of the monumental artwork.

But there is a snag, in her works there is a painting of a trans woman... WHOA!

In a statement, Sherald said she was informed by the National Portrait Gallery that the museum that “concerns had been raised internally” about the painting.

“These concerns led to discussions about removing the work from the exhibition,” she continued. “While no single person is to blame, it is clear that institutional fear shaped by a broader climate of political hostility toward trans lives played a role.”

So she did the right thing... all or nothing! She chose nothing!

I say other artist should boycott Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery until stop the discrimination and fire Trump appointed Board members!

Hamilton = DEI?

You might remember of Trump's coup of the arts? The least artistic president is now in charge of the premier arts center in the U.S.!

A Night at the Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts

It’s still called the Kennedy Center. But after President Trump’s takeover, drag performers protested outside while audience members inside worried about what might be in store.

The New York Times

By Shawn McCreesh

Feb. 14, 2025

It was the night after President Trump had officially taken over the Kennedy Center and made himself its chairman, and two well-dressed Washington women were wandering along the plush red carpet inside its Grand Foyer, so grand it could fit the Washington Monument laid on its side. They reached the eight-foot-tall bronze head of John F. Kennedy that lords over the hall and looked forlornly into his eyes.

How much longer, one woman joked to the other, until the statue of the 35th president gets torn down and replaced with one of the 47th? They laughed bitterly.

It was just last week that Mr. Trump announced his plan to purge the Kennedy Center’s board of its Biden appointees and to install “an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!” He named one of his most fiercely loyal apparatchiks, Richard Grenell, interim president and proclaimed that there would be no more “ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA” shown. He complained about drag queens performing there and said it had all become too “wokey.” Some artists canceled shows. “Welcome to the New Kennedy Center!” Mr. Trump said on social media, posting an A.I.-generated image of himself waving his arms like a conductor in a concert hall.

Most of the people who turned up at the Kennedy Center on Thursday night to see performances in its various theaters had purchased their tickets long before any of that was set in motion. Now they found themselves at an arts center on the cusp of becoming something different — something Trumpian.

Well ever since then performers have been dropping like flies! Some of the shows that have canceled by the Kennedy Center were:

• "A Peacock Among Pigeons: Celebrating 50 Years of Pride," a performance by the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, DC with the National Symphony Orchestra
• Finn

While others have canceled on their own rather than play at the center, they are:

• An Evening With Issa Rae
• Melissa Errico's World War I-themed show
• Manhattan Theatre Club's "Eureka Day"
• The rock band Low Cut Connie

And now... CBS News writes,

The Kennedy Center's board voted unanimously to elect President Trump to be its new chair Wednesday afternoon, as the president reshapes the center's governing body and performances, moving away from what he views as "woke culture," multiple sources told CBS News.

And Trump handed out the plum board positions to some "really creative people" they are so involved with the arts... NOT!

• Second lady of the United States Usha Vance
• White House chief of staff Susie Wiles
• Wiles' mother, Cheri Summerall
• White House deputy chief of staff for national security Dan Scavino
• White House director of presidential personnel Sergio Gor
• Allison Lutnick, wife of commerce secretary nominee Howard Lutnick 
• Pamela Gross, former White House adviser to the first lady 
• Donor Patricia Duggan
• Emily May Fanjul, wife of Trump donor and sugar magnate Pepe Fanjul
• The wives of New England Patriots CEO Robert Kraft and New York Yankees President Randy Levine

Somehow I don't see these people as patrons of the arts!

The latest to cancel, Hamilton!

Broadway musical ‘Hamilton’ cancels plans to play the Kennedy Center in 2026

AP News

By  MARK KENNEDY

March 5, 2025

The megahit Broadway musical “Hamilton” is pulling out of plans to perform at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., next year, citing President Donald Trump’s shakeup of the art institution’s leadership.

“Our show simply cannot, in good conscience, participate and be a part of this new culture that is being imposed on the Kennedy Center,” producer Jeffrey Seller said in a statement Wednesday.

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop-flavored biography about the first U.S. treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, won the best new musical Tony Award, the Pulitzer Prize for drama, a Grammy and the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History. It also earned Miranda a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant.

[...]

“We are not acting against his administration, but against the partisan policies of the Kennedy Center as a result of his recent takeover,” said Seller. “These actions bring a new spirit of partisanship to the national treasure that is the Kennedy Center.”

I first found this story on Yahoo News... here are some of the comments that were posted on the article (Take your blood pressure meds first!):

• When did Marxism equal neutrality? I do not recall any Italians in Hamilton. The cast was supposed to represent America?
• Since when was Alexander Hamilton BLACK?
• TRUMP the musical. Kid Rock will be in charge of the symphony. Elon Musk will be in charge of choreography.
• Kennedy Center is for snobs.
• Kennedy Center was never for all Americans and politically neutral---it has always been for liberals and democrats only
• Good riddance. These people were trying to distort history anyway. They can perform now in their mother country instead of our beloved USA

This reminds me of the Wendy's commercial about the Soviet Union fashion show where models wear identical outfits, emphasizing the lack of choice in communist societies. Like Trump & Company is doing now bring us down to the lowest common denominator! Will the Kennedy Center become a show place for Trumps artist friends?

The Kennedy Center... Down The Tubes

Have you noticed that kind of a reverse Midas Touch, everything Trump touches turn to c**p.

Kennedy Center staff describe climate of fear as events drop from calendar

Issa Rae became the first major artist to publicly cancel an upcoming show at the center after President Trump took over its board and leadership.

The Washington Post

By Travis M. Andrews, Manuel Roig-Franzia and Michael Andor Brodeur

February 13, 2025

The fallout from President Donald Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center’s board and purge of its leadership continued Thursday, as the center’s staff worried about the storied arts institution and shows began to disappear from its lineup.

Comedian, actress and Hollywood creator Issa Rae said on Instagram that she was pulling her sold-out show, “An Evening With Issa Rae,” from the slate of programming, becoming the first major artist to publicly cancel an upcoming show at the Kennedy Center.

“Unfortunately, due to what I believe to be an infringement on the values of an institution that has faithfully celebrated artists of all backgrounds through all mediums, I’ve decided to cancel my appearance at this venue,” she wrote, adding that tickets will be refunded.

[...]

In 2023, the center commissioned “Finn,” a children’s musical about a shark who finds he fits in more with smaller fish than his fellow predators. A creator of the show said it could be read as a metaphor for LGBTQ+ experience, though there is nothing in the musical explicitly about the community.

You know Trump, anything LGBTQ+ he hates!

A Kennedy Center spokesperson said the decision to cancel “Finn” was “financial and made last week,” and that the “writers were notified on Wednesday morning before the change in leadership.”

In a statement, the union Actors’ Equity Association said it was “outraged” at the cancellation. “It is disturbing to see the new leadership of this institution move so swiftly to suppress viewpoints they do not agree with,” the union wrote, adding that it intends to enforce its contracts with the center.

[...]

“A Peacock Among Pigeons,” a National Symphony Orchestra concert billed as a “celebration of love, diversity, and the vibrant spirit of the LGBTQ+ community” and scheduled to take place during World Pride 2025, has been removed from the website. The Washington Post has not been able to confirm whether it has been canceled.

Is Trump driving the Kennedy Center to runes, Forbes reports that,

Trump—who has never been to the Kennedy Center—said in the post that its existing chair, billionaire founder of the Carlyle Group David Rubenstein, did “not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture,” noting the center held drag shows “targeting our youth.”

"Drag!" That's a four letter words for Trump... 

Trump told reporters Monday his administration “took over the Kennedy Center” because “we didn’t like what they were showing and various other things,” adding “we have, I guess, a whole new group of people going in . . . and we’re going to make sure that it’s good and it’s not going to be woke.” On Sunday, he told reporters “some of the shows were terrible” and “a disgrace,” though he has not specified other issues with the programming, or what shows he’d like to see put on there. Trump said he’s never been to the center and “didn’t want to go” because “there was nothing [he] wanted to see.”

Trump & Company do not like variety. Comraded we only have wholesome shows that the far right evangelical Christians approve of. So what does Kid Rock, Kanye West, and Ted Nugent going to play there? When Trump will bring it down to the level of "The Apprentice"

---

Updated 2/17 @ 3AM

A list of events and shows canceled at the Kennedy Center

Actress and comedian Issa Rae was the first major artist to cancel since the Trump takeover.

The Washington Post

By Samantha Chery

Feb. 17, 2025

In response to President Donald Trump’s Kennedy Center takeover, actors, authors and other artists who were scheduled to hold events at Washington’s preeminent arts institution have begun backing out of scheduled appearances. The cancellation of some events, scrapped around the same time but unrelated to Trump’s actions, was also scrutinized by artists.

On Feb. 7, Trump announced plans to fire multiple Kennedy Center board members. By Wednesday, all of former president Joe Biden’s appointees had been replaced. The center’s new board of trustees then voted for Trump to head the board and ousted the center’s longtime president, Deborah Rutter, in favor of Trump ally Richard Grenell.

The unprecedented actions sparked immediate blowback. Along with the cancellations, multiple prominent arts figures, including television producer Shonda Rhimes, who served as board treasurer, resigned from their positions.

Here is the list of cancelations so far according to the Post...

• Issa Rae
• Finn
• ‘A Peacock Among Pigeons’
• Louise Penny
• Amanda Rheaume
• Low Cut Connie
• Alfred Street Baptist Church’s Christmas performance

And this is just the beginning of the cancelations, and I wonder how Trump will affect private donors?

Trail Blazers

Trail blazers don’t usually start out breaking new ground but rather they just want to do something that no one else has done.

When model and actress Caroline (Tula) Cossey made her modeling and acting debut they drove her out of town when they found out she was trans.

MODEL BEHAVIOUR Who is Paris Lees? The first openly transgender model to feature in British Vogue, journalist and activist
From being bullied at school to an eight-month prison spell and a battle with depression at university, it's been a long and often difficult journey to where Paris is today
Sun
By Josie Griffiths
5th January 2018

TODAY, she's a fierce feminist, human rights campaigner, writer and model - but life wasn't always so easy for Paris Lees.

As she becomes the first openly transgender woman to be featured in British Vogue, here's what we know about Paris...
[…]
Where would I recognise Paris Lees from?
Paris founded META, the first British magazine aimed at the trans community, and was the acting assistant editor of Gay Times.

You may remember her from past Sun columns - and can read her views on gender-neutral toilets here.

She also writes for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Vice and has appeared on Channel 4 news.

In January 2018, she was the first openly trans woman to appear in British Vogue, during a special shoot celebrating 100 years since women got the right to vote here in Britain.

She has led the way for many trans women who want to go into modeling.

Here Is A Question: What Does Trans And “Switched On Bach” Have In Common?

If you know your trans history and music history you will know that Wendy Carlos used a Moog  Synthesizer to make “Switched On Bach” which was a breakthrough for synthesized music, it was a landmark album… but also breakthrough for trans people.

Moogfest Shines a Spotlight on Female, Nonbinary and Transgender Musicians
New York Times
By Elisabeth Vincentelli
December 6, 2017

The music, ideas and technology conference Moogfest is responding to a complaint that was voiced often over the last year — that music festivals frequently overlook or under-book L.G.B.T. artists and women — by beginning to roll out its 2018 lineup with an announcement of female, nonbinary and transgender performers.

The event, which runs May 17-20 in Durham, N.C., will feature the D.J.s Honey Dijon and Ellen Allien; the mysterious British pop producer-musician Sophie; the multidisciplinary sound explorer Fatima Al Qadiri; LCD Soundsystem’s synthesizer maven Gavin Rayna Russom; and the Japanese percussionist and composer Midori Takada, among others. A keynote conversation with Chelsea Manning will close the festival. Additional artists will be announced in January.

Many trans people do not know about trans people who lead the way, one of them was Wendy Carlos…

Meet Wendy Carlos: The Trans Godmother of Electronic Music
In 1968, Wendy Carlos brought electronic sounds into the mainstream.
Thump VICE
By Natasha MacDonald-Dupuis
August 11, 2015


In 1968, Wendy Carlos took a Moog synthesizer, an unknown instrument at the time, and electronically reconstructed Johann Sebastian Bach's six "Brandenburg Concertos" into the first ever platinum-selling classical album, "Switched on Bach." The album became the most influential "electronic" classical recording of all time, smashing the borders between classical and synthesized music. It won her three Grammys and sent a message to the world that a synthesizer was a musical instrument, rather than just an obscure machine used by professors in labs to make weird robot sounds.
" The early electronic instrumentation was not of a kind that allowed you do the literal-minded sampling of every instrumental note to try to assemble later. That became too much like pasted clip art. You ' d have to take a sample, say, of every way that a head can face, and all the expressions, the hand motions, and then try to create real art from pieces." Carlos muses about her earlier creative processes in a 2007 interview with Frank J. Oteri.

Carlos was born in a working-class family in Pawtucket, R.I., and started piano lessons at age six. She went on to study music and physics at Brown University and music composition with pioneers Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, the first electronic music center in the U.S.A. She started working as a tape editor at Gotham Recording and struck up a friendship with Robert Moog, the inventor of the Moog synthesizer, consequently becoming one of his first clients.

[…]
In 1971, Carlos famously composed and recorded music for the soundtrack of Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, which included her reinterpretation of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique used during the opening scene. She went on to score and perform soundtracks for The Shining, and the original Tron, which incorporated orchestra, chorus, organ, and both analog and digital synthesizers.

She did an interview for Playboy in 1979,

Carlos was born on November 14, 1939, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He took up the piano at six, went on to study music and physics at Brown University and earned a masters in music at Columbia. One of his teachers there was the pioneer electronic composer Vladimir Ussachevsky. A year before graduation, Carlos began collaborating with engineer Robert Moog. Their vision was to produce an instrument whose sound was as expressive as the piano’s: It was to be an instrument that grew out of what had gone before, much as the piano grew out of the clavichord. The synthesizer was the result. Unlike the piano or the electric organ, one had to perform a single note at a time on the synthesizer, searching for the right timbre and its right adjustment, then combine many performances of the individual colors and musical lines, using multitrack studio practices. To work it most effectively, one had to be a conductor, performer, composer, acoustician and instrument builder. Carlos was all of those.
[…]
In 1971, Elkind heard that Stanley Kubrick was planning to direct “A Clockwork Orange,” based on Anthony Burgess’ bizarre, violent, futuristic novel. She called Kubrick’s attorney and suggested that Kubrick consider the synthesizer as a novel way of scoring his movie. “The attorney said he’d get our stuff to Kubrick via air freight,” recalls Elkind. “I sent him “Switched-On Bach” and “The Well-Tempered Synthesizer.” Kubrick’s assistant called a few days later. He asked if we could come to England immediately. Two days later, we were on a flight.”

What eventually resulted was a sound track that The New York Times  lauded. “As sheer music,” its critic wrote, “it is a giant step boast the banalities of most contemporary film tracks.”

Wendy Carlos a true Pioneer for the trans community.

A Simple Solution…

Ghettoize them. Down in Georgia they have a simple solution to the “trans problem” put all the LGBT students in one school.

New LGBTQ school joins battle for trans rights in America
CBS News
By Ines Novacic
August 14, 2016

ATLANTA -- Josh Farabee's 14th birthday fell on the same day as his first day at a brand new school. For him it was a double celebration.
"For me, the Pride School is kind of like a safe haven," Farabee told CBS News on a recent sunny afternoon at his home in East Atlanta. "I don't have to worry about what names people may call me or what people would pull in the bathroom. It feels very much like a gift, like finally something amazing in the world."

Pride School Atlanta is the first LGBTQ+ affirming school in the South. Spearheaded by Christian Zsilavets, an openly transgender educator, it will join just a handful of such schools in the U.S. specifically designed as safe spaces for LGBTQ+ youth. It's based on the "Free School" model and Zsilavets told CBS News he's particularly focused on transgender students.
[…]
"I was bullied in school for a few years," said Farabee. "Most of my friends that are trans or gender fluid have attempted suicide or self-harmed, or have had addiction problems. I have too."
[…]
"At my last school I was teased a little bit -- I just went by 'she and her' and 'Maddie' and it was really awkward for me and I didn't like," Jasper, 16 - who asked us not to use his last name - told CBS News. "I dreaded going to school because I didn't wanna be known as somebody who was a stranger to me."

The Georgia Voice thinks it is a good idea and ads a little more information,

GBT Atlanta school Pride School counts down days to opening two years in the making
By Patrick Saunders
July 26, 2016

When walking through the parking lot on the way into Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta, you’re quickly alerted to the fact that they do things a little differently. The “Flamboyant Minister Parking” sign in one of the spots is a dead giveaway.

Upon entering the lobby, you’re greeted by seven-foot tall signs with messages like “No one left out” and “Whoever you are, whatever path you are on, you are welcome here.”

“When you walk in, there’s nothing in here that would typically push out folks, especially those in the LGBT community,” says Christian Zsilavetz, executive director of Pride School, a K-12 school for LGBT educators, students and families.

So it seems to be a charter school…

Luckily for Zsilavetz and the families and educators at Pride School, they got their first choice of locations in UUCA. The North Druid Hills area church has incubated three other schools in recent years, each of which branched out and now have their own facilities around town. Plus the location had to be LGBT-friendly and UUCA had that in spades.

“They have a huge allied community, a huge presence at Pride,” Zsilavetz says. “They’re really about social justice, which I think is unusual for a lot of faith communities.”

Pride School is renting out three rooms totaling 1500 square feet, which Zsilavetz says is more than enough room for 10 to 15 students. And the amenities were hard to pass up, including a keycoded door, a fenced-in playground that’s wheelchair accessible, a large patio, a vegetable garden and a butterfly garden. The school will use the rooms during the day on weekdays while the church will use them for various functions on nights and weekends. “So we pay very little rent for the use of this space knowing that we were sharing the space,” he says. “And we knew as a fledgling school, that was how we needed to start.”

Okay first off every school is mandated by law to provide a safe learning space free from bullying, harassment and discrimination. If the schools are not providing a space conducive to learning they are not doing their duty and by putting all the LGBT students they are sweeping the us under the table and are segregating us which is also against the law.

Since this a charter school I don’t know if the school is receiving any public funding. If they are, do they receive block funding, in other words if you have X number of students then you receive Y amount of funding or does a school board determine how much they receive? One of the problems with a separate school is funding, will they be short changed when it comes to for making the budget? Oh, we don’t need to give them the new books we can give them the hand-me-down books from the other schools.

I just did training yesterday for homeless shelter staff and one of the things that the woman from HUD and the man from CT Fair Housing Center emphases we that you cannot put trans people in a separate part of the shelter and the same is true for schools.

Now if they offer the Pride School as an option and offer that option to all students not just the LGBT that is different but if they put only LGBT students there as a part of a policy that is violating the law.

I Admit It…

I’m a groupie. Merriam-Webster defines a groupie as; a fan of a music group who follows the group on concert tours. I have driven up to northwestern Connecticut to hear her and down to the southeastern Connecticut to hear Namoli Bennet a song writer and folk singer, and last night was no exception; I drove down to New London to listen to her at a house concert.

I first heard her up in Provincetown in October 2006 and I liked her music. I not a fan of loud music, I like folk music, and I like small venues such as coffee houses and in this case in a home with 20 or 30 people like last night. A woman that I know down in New London sent me a link to an Event on Facebook and I saw that it was for a house concert with Namoli Brennet so I made sure that I could go down there.

Then a couple of days before I received another invite for a concert by her in a church up Cornwall CT but it was on a night when I was giving a lecture at Quinnipiac University… rats! But at least I could attend her concert in New London and I was glad that I did. I think that the venue was much better than the church, much more intimate with everyone sitting around in the atrium rather than in a church.

A Photos Tells A Thousand Stories

The first time I went to Fantasia Fair there was a woman there who was photographing many of the attendees (only those who wanted to be photographed) and you could arrange to have your portrait by her. It turned out that she was the world known photographer Mariette Pathy Allen, with works shown all over the world, including Brooklyn Museum of Art, Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and France’s Bibliotheque Natoinale.

She was interviewed by the National Endowments for the Arts last July

Art Talk with Mariette Pathy Allen 
July 9, 2014
By Paulette Beete

In some ways Mariette Pathy Allen’s career in the arts has been a series of fortuitous—and life-changing—accidents. An encounter with a work by Matisse during a childhood visit to New York’s Museum of Modern Art revealed Allen’s innate fluency with visual language. Later, a chance opportunity to attend an off-campus photography workshop while she was studying painting at the University of Pennsylvania changed the direction of her art practice. And a casual invitation to join a group of costumed revelers for breakfast during a New Orleans vacation introduced Allen to the subject matter that’s been the primary focus of her work ever since.

Since Allen’s first book—Transformations: Crossdressers and Those Who Love Them which revealed the hidden world of male-to-female crossdressers--she has explored the transgender community in its many iterations. Allen’s sensitive portraits are neither about voyeurism nor judgment. Rather, as she explained in our interview, she wants her subjects to have a positive reflection of who they are. “What I realized pretty early on is that these people—crossdressers in particular—were totally misunderstood and maligned by the general public,” Allen said. “And there was nothing for them to look at so that they could identify who they were.”

I have an autographed copies of her first book and her second book, The Gender Frontier and while she was up at Fantasia Fair this year she showed photographs from her newest book, TransCuba.

The interviewer goes on to ask…

NEA: That community has been your subject now for a number of decades. What do you think it is as an artist that brings you back to the same subject? What are the questions that you’re investigating artistically via the community?  
ALLEN: “Questions” is a good way of putting it. I feel like I’m always questioning what is gender? What makes us men and women other than actual anatomy? Why do we decide that certain characteristics are masculine or feminine? What is appearance? All of those kinds of issues of essence and who one is--identity. When I was in high school the course I was most excited about was anthropology because when I studied that I was confirmed in my feelings that any culture can create its own way of looking at things in the world. And that just because we in the West see things in a certain way or made certain assumptions, that doesn’t mean that’s true all over the world. So I guess there’s a part of me that is an anthropologist in that way. I loved the idea of living in this sort of hidden community, which is what it was then, not so much now. And being part of it and being able to step in it so deeply and participating [in it]. And then as an artist, of course, I find it absolutely fascinating.

 What I realized pretty early on is that these people--cross dressers in particular--were totally misunderstood and maligned by the general public. And there was nothing for them to look at so that they could identify who they were. If they went to a library all they could find would be statistical manuals and nothing that could make them feel good about themselves. You know, it was always presented as some kind of illness. And the only other place they could find anything about people in any way like themselves were at porn shops. And for most of the people I knew neither of these directions helped them in any way to understand their own identity. People I met at conventions told me they had grown up thinking they were insane or that they were terribly evil. I mean most churches would not have accepted them--and some churches probably still don’t…. There was so much self-hate and shame and fear and sense of humiliation and everything. And I should say that I was mostly only involved with men at the time, male-to-female cross dressers for the first decade or so.

She goes on to describe how she began photographing us and what message she is trying to communicate with her photographs.

Out Art & Books website has a photo exhibit of her new book TransCuba

A New Book…

The buzz is about a new book of letters from trans-women, The Advocate said,

A new anthology, Letters for My Sisters: Transitional Wisdom in Retrospect, asked transgender women to answer this question, according to publisher Transgress Press. The result is a heartfelt collection of advice, confessions, regrets, and triumphs from 35 women — the largest number of contributors to a collection by trans women yet published.

Edited by engineer Deanne Thornton and film producer and activist Andrea James, the collection was inspired by a 2011 companion book for trans men titled Letters for My Brothers. The collection includes well-known writers, including GLAAD cochair Jennifer Finney Boylan, and many emerging voices who wish to comfort and help their trans sisters by sharing their own.

The article has a letter from author Jennifer Bolyan, Webcomic Artist Jenn Dolari, Lynn Conway, and actress Calpernia Addams.

The is the product of trans-women, from the letters to the publishing.

The only voices here are our own. ... This book isn't biographies, but a distillation of our thoughts and feelings about who we are, where we have come from, and how we got there."

An Afternoon Break From Studying

I went up to the D’Amour Museum of Fine Art in Springfield MA yesterday with a friend and one of my favorites was a French impressionist painting by Antoine Blanchard of a street scene in Paris. It caught eye because of its composition and color and I liked it better than the painting by Claude Monet that they had there, it was more alive. This isn’t the painting but it is almost same streetscape, but you can see what I mean.

There were a number of other exhibits of contemporary art along with a Currier & Ives exhibit of their prints. It was like walking through one big calendar of their prints. I like most art, however, I’m not a fan of 16th and 17th century Dutch and Flemish artists, the paintings are too stoic and dark. They had a few Hudson River School paintngs which I love for their style and I am also a sucker for landscapes.

Overall, it was a good break from studying.

A Couple of Things…

First, go over and visit Fleur-de-Lisa blog she put together a beautiful video of her photographers to music. It is well worth a trip over to her blog.

Second, in today’s Hartford Courant that is an article entitled, “Outside The Box Those In The Transgender Community Find A Warm Embrace At Real Art Way” and it is about an acquaintance who is on the Board of Real Art Ways; once again it worth a trip to the Courant’s web-site.

Lastly, as the legislative season is starting in the first week of February, I am starting to attend strategy and planning meetings around the state. Not surprisingly, I am on the grassroots organizing committee since that is what I want to have as my concentration if I get accepted to the Master’s program at UConn School of Social Work. So I am excited about taking part in this legislative process.

A Little Bit of Heaven

Today I was in a little bit of heaven, I went up to Smith College Museum of Art in Northampton MA to see their Ansel Adams exhibit, need I say more?
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OK, OK, for those of you who are not photographers I will tell what is so special about Ansel Adams. You probably have seen some of his works even if you didn’t know it was by him, he has a style that is immediately recognizable. I first saw his work when my parents got me a 35mm camera for my high school graduation and they also got me a subscription to Life Library of Photography which is a series of about two dozen book that teach photography using examples from the great photographer. One of the examples that they used was Ansel Adams and as soon as I saw his work in fell in love with his works. He co-developed the Zone System for taking black and white photographs and was one of the founders of the f/64 Group. What is the f/64 Group? It is a school of photograph that set the aperture to the smallest possible opening (The opening of the camera lens) as a result the depth of field is almost infinite (Depth of Field is the range of what is in focus. Like when you take a close up of a rose and the background is all blurry, that is the result of the aperture opening.). A great example this technique is the third photograph of the Smith College web-site, Mount Williamson, notice the boulders in the very front are in perfect focus and so are the mountains way off in the distance this because of the small opening of the lens.
OK, lesson is over.

A Trip to the New Britain Museum of American Art

It only took over thirty years to finally get to the museum. Way back in college in my Art Appreciation class we cover the Hudson River School of art and I fell in love with its beauty and the detail that went into each painting. The professor mentioned that one of the best collections the Hudson River School was at the New Britain Museum of American Art which is about five miles away. After all this time I finally went there yesterday and it was well worth the trip. I went with a friend who got passes from his local library and we wandered around there for about three hours. I spent most of my time in the Hudson River School gallery, the vibrant colors, the lighting and the attending to detail. Some of the paintings that I liked are: Bierstadt’s Seal Rock, Church’s West Rock, New Haven CT, Cole’s The Clove, Catskills and Fisher’s Stage Coach.
Another artist that the professor talked about was Thomas Hart Benton, his style is so unique that if you see one of his paintings you would know it was his and the museum had a gallery just for his murals.
To see a tour of some of their collections, click on the link to collections and then Highlights and then click on the image.

Spring has Sprung

When I went to get the mail yesterday, I saw that my Japanese Cherry tree was in full bloom. So I took some time off from cleaning to take these photographs.







In the wetlands (a.k.a. swamp) behind my house I have these flowers growing and someone told me that they were swamp marigolds. But I have no idea if they are or not.

Real Art Ways

Last night at Real Art Ways Creative Cocktail Hour party a woman came up to me and told me she was at the Uconn awards reception. She said that she liked my speech and thought it was great that I was volunteering time.

The art was a lot better then it was at the last CCH I went to in October. Now and through January 27 they are featuring Polish artists the exhibit is called POZA. This month there was one video that I liked by the artist Pawel Wojtasik which was of a large aquarium with seals swimming around and the reflections of the surface of the water, very soothing and hypnotizing.

There is controversy surround the advertisements for the exhibit, it seem that a national outdoor advertiser would not allow the ads on their billboards…..

Billboard Company Refuses to Run Images of Couples Holding Hands; Billboards intended as part of a Large Exhibition of Polish Art and Film at Real Art Ways

OCTOBER 27, 2006: A series of billboards by a Polish artist whose work is in the United States as part of Real Art Ways’ new exhibition of contemporary Polish art was rejected by a local billboard company, Lamar Outdoor Advertising of Hartford, which is refusing to run the images.

The images intended for the billboards were created by Karolina Bregula. The 27-year-old photographer took pictures of same sex couples holding hands. The images have been displayed on billboards in Poland, where part of Bregula’s intention was to make visible a segment of the population that has struggled for acceptance and recognition.

As part of POZA, Real Art Ways multimedia exhibition of the work of 31 contemporary Polish artists, three of Bregula’s images of same-sex couples holding hands were to be displayed by Lamar Outdoor Advertising on billboards in Hartford and New Britain.

After initially agreeing to do the project, Lamar Outdoor Advertising rejected Bregula’s images, and refused to run them on the billboards. (The company gave the go-ahead to the two text-only billboards by another artist that didn’t have images, but Real Art Ways withdrew them in protest of Lamar Outdoor Advertising’s rejection of Bregula’s work.)

In a conversation with Real Art Ways’ Executive Director Will K. Wilkins, Lamar’s regional vice president and general manager, Steve Hebert, stated that the company was concerned that the images could be perceived as controversial, and perhaps be marked by graffiti. When asked by Wilkins if he had any groups in particular in mind, Hebert said he did not.

"To make a decision like this based on the anticipated actions of bigots," says Wilkins, "does a real disservice to the gay and lesbian community and the broader community as well.”

Marek Bartelik, guest curator of the show, says the images are no more provocative than "a print ad for the Gap or Bennetton."

Real Art Ways is committed to providing support for new ideas and disciplines, and has steadily built a diverse and unique audience that crosses lines of color, sexual orientation, economics and age. This act of censorship is of particular concern to the organization, and to the community it serves. Real Art Ways will protect the rights of artists to express themselves without fear of censorship or interference. Says Kristina Newman-Scott, Visual Arts Manager of Real Art Ways, “Part of my job at Real Art Ways is to ensure that exhibiting artists have access to all the resources they need to represent their vision. It is unfortunate that in 2006 we are still faced with this kind of censorship.”

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You can see the highly controversial photos that cause the controversy here.