Elizabeth Wagmeister-Senior: Last News

Netflix released a documentary about the making of the 1985 charity single “We Are The World”—featuring the likes of Diana Ross, Cyndi Lauper, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan & more—purporting it to be The Greatest Night In Pop.But that so-called “greatest night” would’ve never happened if it hadn’t been for another star-studded, chart-topping single that came before it: Band Aid’s “Do The Know It’s Christmas?”, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this holiday.And while the supergroup single has been the subject of controversy over the years, there’s no denying it’s not still a great seasonal bop!Subscribe to our newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.Back in the fall of ’84, the BBC’s reporting on a severe famine in Ethiopia brought the crisis to international attention. Bob Geldof, the vocalist for Irish new wave band The Boomtown Rats, felt deeply shaken by the news and was compelled to help.

Quincy Jones—whom The New York Times called the “giant of American music”—writer, critic, and artist Lorraine O’Grady, poet and professor Nikki Giovanni, HIV activist and public servant A. Cornelius Baker, each felled by time’s infinite reach. A post shared by Black AIDS Institute (@blackaids)For years, Millennials—of which I am one—have been called upon to take up the reins of the struggle, to refashion the movement in our image, and to propel it forward.

A post shared by Yves (@the_yvesdropper)Fola Francis was more than my best friend, she was the matriarch of the chosen family we created together, safe from the queerphobia and transphobia that still maintains a firm hold on Nigeria.Our family was one of those where we spent most of our waking moments together. As queer people in Lagos, a city here we didn’t always belong, we navigated life and everything it threw at us the best way we could. We became siblings who looked out for each other, and created traditions that kept us going.In 2022, Fola became the first openly trans woman to walk the Lagos Fashion Week runway.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Singer-songwriter Elizabeth Chan set yet another benchmark in the annals of holiday music by issuing her 14th straight annual Christmas release, “Shatterproof,” this month. No one is likely to come close to shattering that record for the highest number of consecutive seasonal albums or EPs, but Chan — who is known for having a claim on the “queen of Christmas” title — dealt with plenty of events in the past year that put some cracks in her mostly cheerful holiday façade. Most impactfully, she was undergoing grief over the death of a close friend, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock (“Super Size Me”), this past spring, as well as her grandmother last December.

Jonathan Bennett has pitched his idea for a Mean Girls reunion.