The Pope Is From Dolton and I’m Not OK

But does he have the power to absolve Tiffany "Supermayor" Henyard?

Keep it classy, South Side.

I’ve got some bad news for you, Jane Lynch. Your reign as the most famous person to spring forth from the town of Dolton, Illinois has officially come to an end. Pope XIV has arrived.

As longtime watchers of this space know, I have a lot to say about popes. So, imagine my surprise when the white smoke cleared and the news broke that the latest Holy Father wasn’t just American-born, but raised in the Chicago South Suburbs—mere lanes, circles, and cul-de-sacs from where I grew up. His father even served as superintendent of my grammar school, exiting just before I arrived on the scene. (Excellent timing, Mr. Prevost. I had to shake that place to its very foundations.)

Honestly, I didn’t even know Pope was a career path open to us from down there, along the Bishop Ford. I was summarily rejected by Marian Catholic and repeatedly steered by Bloom Township High’s career counselors toward “shovel-based” vocations. Scepters were never even discussed.

Early reports suggest Pope XIV brings the South Side’s rich tradition of homophobia (of the “But what about the children?!” variety) to the Holy See, while also importing a refreshing North Side-style Trumpophobia. Finally, a uniter. No word on his stance on granting divine absolution to Supermayor Tiffany Henyard.

Meanwhile, On the Northside...

Thou Art Gay: The First Homosexuals at Wrightwood Gallery.

Popes, of course, have a complicated relationship with homosexuals: They love our art, hate the way we paint penises all over the Sistine Chapel altarpieces. (Michelangelo, darling—why so many?)

That’s why Alphawood Exhibition's The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869–1939 at Chicago’s Wrightwood 659 gallery is such a well-timed show (also: IML is right around the corner!). Equal parts history, art, and mildly erotic anthropology, the show explores how a distinct gay identity emerged in the late 19th century, as European intellectuals started labeling something we’d been doing quite well without the labels.

With 350 works spanning from John Singer Sargent to Aubrey Beardsley to Sarah Bernhardt (who moonlighted as both sculptor and Sapphic muse), the show is a feast. Seven years in the making, gorgeously curated, and now fully fleshed out after a smaller 2022 preview, it’s both erudite and electric. The works are beautiful. The scholarship is deep. The Monacelli-published catalog is, like, really heavy.  

If you’re in town, go. Bring a friend. Leave changed. Or, at least, questioning. Get Tickets --TTYL, A painter of vulgar pictures.