George M. Johnson, Dan Levy, Tom Holland, Tiffany Haddish, Brian Keith Jackson, Zendaya, Sonequa Martin-Green, The Phantom Astronaut, Mel Brooks, Art Basel, World AIDS Day, and More: #GAYNRD DAILY

GayNrd Editors December 1, 2021

#GAYNRD DAILY Our news, art, and ephemera round-up from around the web, social media, and around the world for WEDNESDAY December 1, 2021. Below ITAP Manhattan.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Nicki Minaj is not made for the faint of heart. It’s me. I am faint of heart.” Brian Keith Jackson

Nicki Minaj is not made for the faint of heart. It’s me. I am faint of heart.
— Brian Keith Jackson (@bkjwordplay) December 1, 2021

Jackson suggests that “If you find yourself @artbasel, be sure to pick up Art Basel magazine, which, for the first time in its history, is guest edited by an artist, namely @xavierasimmons. I’m pleased to be a contributor and to feature the talented and thoughtful artists.”

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AMERICA HOLIDAYS are truly alternative facts.

MISTER MIRACLE: THE GREAT ESCAPE Written by Varian Johnson. Illustrated by Daniel Isles. Escaping the hell planet of Apokolips is hard enough when you don’t know your real name, struggle with PTSD from being raised in the planet’s fire pits, and have a giant crush on your biggest enemy…but escaping as a hero will take nothing short of a miracle. Scott Free is a student at the Goodness Academy, on the planet Apokolips, ruled by Lord Darkseid. Sounds pretty cool, right? Wrong. Scott Free wants nothing more than to leave the horrors of Apokolips for planet Earth; the only problem is that no one has ever left Apokolips of their own free will…or alive. Scott Free has a plan, a foolproof plan, a plan that his found family depends on for their own freedom. But that plan never involved falling in love with the head of the Female Furies, Big Barda–the one person tasked with ensuring he never escapes.

From the Coretta Scott King Honor-winning author of The Parker Inheritance, Varian Johnson, and afrofuturist artist Daniel Isles (DirtyRobot) comes the story of an escape plan that will take a miracle to pull off. Lucky for Scott, everyone calls him MISTER MIRACLE! Okay, fine, no one calls him that…yet. On bookstands everywhere on January 18.

ON SALE NOW #WWHistoria #Vol1 is in stores today and available on @comixology! It’s the first chapter in a retelling of the history of #WonderWoman’s people, the #Amazons, and how their leader #Hippolyta — Wonder Woman’s mother — becomes a queen.

Over three years in the making (yes, it’s a long time! But I think you’ll see why when you flip through it), this #BlackLabel #graphicnovel was written by the incredible @kellysued — a script, it should be said, that inspired me like none have in years.

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COMMUNITY THEATER Today we reflect on all the community & theater company members who have made Arm-of-the-Sea Theater who we are today! It takes everyone from behind the scenes organizers, on stage performers, and an enthusiastic audience to make a thriving theater company. As we get ready for our 40th year anniversary, we want to THANK ALL who have shown up for us over the years. Wishing everyone safe and happy gatherings today!

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CYBER SOUNDWAVE When you say “Cyber Monday” in your head it’s always in Soundwave’s voice. That’s just science

When I wrote WHEN BROOKLYN WAS QUEER, I found a thousand great images that couldn’t fit in the book. On Jan 16th, thanks to Oscar Wilde Tours, I’ll be showing them off and discussing “Brooklyn and the Birth of America’s Queer Life!”

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/brooklyn-and-the-birth-of-americas-queer-life-tickets-216707125847?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=escb

OLD BLUE EYES

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@morrcadengettin them educated #gayhumor #fyp #fypシ #gay #lgbt #gayslang #single #college ♬ Cpr – cupcakKe

Life as the World’s Oldest Club Kid

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# “He was warrior and mystic, ogre and saint, the fox and the innocent, chivalrous, ruthless, less than a god, more than a man. There is no measuring Muad’Dib’s motives by ordinary standards. In the moment of his triumph, he saw the death prepared for him, yet he accepted the treachery. Can you say he did this out of a sense of justice? Whose justice, then? Remember, we speak now of the Muad’Dib who ordered battle drums made from his enemies’ skins, the Muad’Dib who denied the conventions of his ducal past with a wave of the hand, saying merely: “I am the Kwisatz Haderach. That is reason enough.”

-from “Arrakis Awakening” by the Princess Irulan

—

All Tyrants have a propaganda apparatus that exaggerates their virtues and conceals their flaws. If they have no particular virtues, propaganda creates them, probably at the expense of someone who does have such virtues and is forced to “lend” them to the Tyrant or suffer immeasurably. Paul-Muad’Dib is very different.

Irulan may at times appear to gush over him and leonize him while deprecating her father, but I encourage you to read her quotes more closely. In many occasions such as this one, she’s the only source of deeply unsettling and/or intimate information about Paul, and Paul not only allows it but actively supports it. He urges people to question him and all leaders, to be very observant of his actions and the actions of those who conspire against him. Like Leto II, he doesn’t hide who he is nor attempts to justify his actions, on the contrary, he’s always showing everyone how truly terrifying and dangerous a figure like him could be. He never seeks redemption or forgiveness, he only wants to be done with his purpose, which he could escape no less than the Bene Gesserit or his son.

Many arguments could be made as to whether he’s a villain or a hero but, as Irulan says in that quote, those standards are insufficient for understanding him. What he does, he does knowingly, he’s not driven by greed, envy, pride or selfishness, he doesn’t even hate his enemies, who go to great lengths to destroy him. That, I think, is one of the greatest gifts of his story, he’s a Tyrant but he’s fully self-aware, thus he can guide the reader through the terrors of his regime with a firm and honest hand, providing us a much greyer vision of the world than we’re usually presented in any work of fiction.