20 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE JANUARY 26, 1996

EVENINGS OUT

Lesbian icon k.d. lang will tour Ohio

Lesbian icon and three-time Grammy Award-winner k.d. lang will bring her All You Can Eat tour to three Ohio venues in February.

Lang's first releases, which include Friday Dance Promenade (1983), Angel With A Lariat (1986), Shadowland (1987), and Ab-

solute Torch and Twang (1989), were labeled as country music.

It was the 1992 release of Ingenue that broke her out of the country genre and landed her music on the pop and alternative charts. A single from that album, Constant Craving, won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal

CWRU literary exhibit

Performance-Female,

and the album went on to experience huge success, making land a major star.

Although there were many earlier rumors about her being lesbian, lang did not officially come out until a 1992 Advocate cover story. Since then, she has toured extensively

showcases gay, lesbian works throughout

"All lovers of beauty should wear flowers on all occasions," signed Oscar Wilde in an autograph, dated "a rose-red June in London." This autographed note, a gift from Howard J. Garber to Case Western Reserve University, is one of 33 literary works in a special exhibition called "Other Voices, Other Lives."

Letters, books, and autographs by gay and lesbian writers are on display in the Department of Special Collections at Freiberger Library, 11161 East Boulevard, in Cleveland.

According to Thomas Bishop, assistant professor of English, Wilde (1854-1900) was the most famous personality of his day. Last semester Bishop taught an English course at Case called "Gay and Lesbian Literature from Wilde to Rich."

Bishop and Sue Hanson, head of special collections of University Library, collaborated on the exhibit to find examples of the authors his students in the upper level class were reading. Hanson found the literary works among the more than 45,000 books and periodicals in the special collection, which dates to the founding of Western Reserve University in 1826.

Hanson said Bishop is one of several professors who have arranged for exhibits to

correspond with their courses.

The exhibit includes celebrated writings, such as Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, the oldest work in the exhibition, to ones which created furor and banishment, like The Well of Loneliness by Marguerite Radclyffe Hall.

Other literary works portray the evolving gay lifestyles. Nightwood by Djuna Barnes shows the life of American expatriates in Paris, while Paul Monette's Afterlife (Crown, 1990) reveals how the surviving partner copes with loss after the death of a loved one from AIDS.

Seven exhibit items are autographed firstedition books by current gay writers, which were gifts from alumnus Walter Wadas. Robert Ferro, Felice Picano, Edmund White, and Darrell Raymond Yates-Rist are among these authors.

Also in the exhibit are Virginia Woolfand her lover Vita Sackville-West, Willa Cather, Wystan Hugh Auden, James Baldwin, and James Purdy.

The Department of Special Collections is located on the lower level of Freiberger Library. "Other Voices, Other Lives" is open Monday through Friday, 9 am to noon and 1-5 pm. For information call 216368-2993. ♡

North

America and Europe, done some film work (Salmonberries) and has tried her luck at modeling, bringing lesbian visibility to a usually hetero audience: the memorable Vanity Fair cover of k.d. getting a shave from Cindy Crawford remains one of the hottest to date. She has continued to wow international audiences, bringing an out lesbian presence with her wherever she goes.

k.d.lang

All You Can Eat represents a new direction for lang: "Closer to dance and funk than anything I've done before," she said.

"The approach I took on this album is completely different than anything else I've ever done... more ambient and ethereal. I moved from the outside of the songs and worked inward until I reached the center, where the words and music became very straightforward and direct,” lang said.

"I really let loose this time," she concluded. "There's a more carefree, easy feeling to the vocals and a more immediate impact in the

lyrics. I can't say exactly how we got here, but it feels like the right place to be."

The "right places to be" if you live in or near Cincinnati, Columbus or Cleveland are:

Cincinnati Music Hall, 1241 Elm St., Cincinnati; Sunday, February 4 at 8:00 pm. Call 513-721-8222 or 513-421-7337 for tickets.

Ohio Theatre, 39 E. State Street, Columbus; Tuesday, February 6 at 8:00 pm. Call 614-431-3600 or 614-469-0939 for tickets.

Music Hall, 500 Lakeside Avenue, Cleveland; Saturday, February 10 at 8:00 pm. Call 216-241-5555 or 216-945-9400 in Akron for tickets.

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