JOHN RECHY, American author, born; City of Night now seems dated after more than fifty 50 years. It is hard to remember how enlightening it all was in its time as an exploration of the underside of contemporary Gay life. An outspoken activist and “Sexual Outlaw,” proud of both his years as a hustler and (like Mishima) his physique, he is not without a sense of humor about both. He reports that he was once told by an irate transvestite at whom he had sneered, “Your muscles are as Gay as my drag.”

Rechy is still very much with us, and has a new book, About My Life and the Kept Woman: A Memoir (Grove Press ISBN-10: 0802118615) Author David Leavitt, sniffed at it in his review in the NY Times calling the stories “narcissism mingled with self-hatred” (he would know, I suppose) but also calls Rechy “the first bard of West Hollywood.” Still, he was the recipient of the PEN Center’s Lifetime Achievement Award. It’s hard out there on an aging hustler.

Today's the birthday of American actor, writer and director MITCHELL LICHTENSTEIN. Born as Mitchell Wilson Lichtenstein, his father is pop-art artist Roy Lichtenstein. You may remember his role from Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet where he played the partner of a gay Taiwanese man living in the United States who is forced to marry by his parents. If you're not familiar with this film, you should be.  It was an early example of Lee's thoughtful dealing with gay subjects ten years before Brokeback Mountain.

Lichtenstein shines in what is a funny and moving sweetheart of a film.  His other films include Streamers (1983), The Lords of Discipline (1983),  Crackers (1984), The Wedding Banquet (1993),Ratchet (1996),  Flawless (1999), Twin Set (2002).  He produced, wrote, and directed the 2007 black comedy horror film Teeth, about the pitfalls and power of a girl as a living example of thevagina dentata myth. The film premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival to positive reviews.  Lichtenstein latest film Happy Tears premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2009.

On this date Germany's PARAGRAPH 175 was finally revoked. Originally adopted in 1871, Paragraph 175 was a provision of the German Criminal Code that made homosexual acts between males a crime. The statute was amended several times. The Nazis broadened the law in 1935 and increased §175 StGB prosecutions by an order of magnitude; thousands died in concentration camps, regardless of guilt or innocence. East Germany reverted to the old version of the law in 1950, limited its scope to sex with youths under 18 in 1968, and abolished it entirely in 1988. West Germany retained the Nazi-era statute until 1969, when it was limited to "qualified cases"; it was further attenuated in 1973 and finally revoked entirely in 1994 after German reunification.