“Scene” is AfterEllen.com’s monthly (usually) series of articles focusing on the lesbian happenings in a town near you. For previous installments, go here.
Define New York City’s lesbian life in a few words? Fuhgettaboutit! There’s no simple way to describe this town. We peek into the multiple lesbian/bi communities of New York by visiting the literary scene, hobnobbing with corporate lesbians, mixing with calendar girls, rubbing elbows with politicos, hanging with Margaret Cho, and reminiscing with Ann Bannon. In September, like always, the place speaks for itself.
Scene 1: Nightlight: A Memoir Book Release Party Housing Works Used Book Café, Sept. 15
Mercedes Benz Fashion Week had already concluded uptown, but chic eyewear remained in vogue as literary lesbians poured into Housing Works Used Books Café in Soho. Crowded into the library-like venue decorated with rolling ladders and a prominent staircase, the mix of brainy women and their straight counterparts presented an unusual Saturday night situation, even for New York. Of course, this was no ordinary affair between the paperbacks. Nearly 200 friends, family members and colleagues were gathered to celebrate the publication of out author and educator Janine Avril’s first book, Nightlight: A Memoir (Alyson Books).
She conveyed the seriousness of her festive intentions when she announced that food for everyone was on the way from Carmine’s, the Southern Italian restaurant known for its heaping, family-style portions of Caesar salad, baked ziti and lasagna.
Nightlight is the coming-of-age tale of Avril, who grapples with the deaths of both her parents – her father to AIDS – before she reaches her 20s. When she is 21, she learns a shocking family secret that prompts her to re-evaluate her childhood and undergo a deeply personal journey.
Avril, now 31 and a graduate of Cornell University, believes her book may be the first memoir of a child survivor of AIDS. “I wrote the book because I discovered as an adult that my childhood was not what I thought it to be,” she explained. “When I learned what it was, I realized that it was a story that was probably more common than is actually spoken about. I wanted to be a voice to address something that I know people have experienced, often quietly.”
Many of those assembled for Avril’s party know her as the beloved creator of Girlsalon, a monthly forum for queer and women writers in New York City that she founded in 2002. Although accustomed to literary fêtes, Avril admitted she was amazed at the how her book launch drew people together from all areas of her life. The ecstatic pattern of her dress seemed to telegraph her mood as well as the appreciation of the attendees. Always a gracious hostess, Avril encouraged people to mingle before she read from the first chapter of her book. She sweetly introduced her guests to the characters “Papa,” who worked as a popular French chef in Manhattan, and “Mama.” When she finished, her uncle delivered a moving testimony to her strength and courage.
Soon afterward, everyone began to stream toward the back of the room. The pasta had arrived.
Scene 2: Panel on Out Lesbians in Corporate America The LGBT Community Center, Sept. 18
How should a lesbian respond if a co-worker points to a desktop photo of her partner and asks, “Did you two marry in the military?” What’s the right “drag balance” to strike when getting dressed for the office? Will mentoring an attractive young woman raise eyebrows?
Anything a power lesbian ever wanted to know but had been unable to ask was on the agenda one Tuesday evening at the LGBT Community Center in the West Village. There, some 46 blocks south of the Upper West Side that many of these women call home, New York City’s elusive corporate set assembled to network, air grievances and share solutions in a rare public event.
Unlike out elected officials and other advocates, corporate lesbians are like the invisible hand of capitalism, because they so often help to propel the cause without being seen. Each fall at the LGBT Center’s annual women’s gala, for example, the private sector generates thousands of dollars for the Center, which right now plans an ambitious capital expansion as its 25th anniversary approaches.
This evening a standing-room only audience of almost 130 mostly wore suits, offset by some skirts and even high-end athletic attire, to hear panelists address the topic, “Challenges in Being Out and a Lesbian in Corporate America,” presented by Citi Pride Network NYC. Moderator Jennifer Brown introduced five women speakers who held positions at such quintessential New York companies as Citi, J.P. Morgan Chase and the New York Times Company. Panelists discussed communication, appearance and productivity in the workplace, but their recommendation that women need to show greater support for one another was resoundingly familiar. “Women are tougher on women than men are on women,” observed Liz Porter, a director at financial giant Citi.
All agreed that wardrobe issues, for better or worse, are important to women in the workplace. While it was suggested that clothing functions as a critical uniform for investment bankers, attorney Faith E. Gay, a partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver and Hedges, LLP, said of her experience, “What matters is how good you are, even if you show up in a diaper.”
Marsha Bonner, a human resources internal consultant at the New York Times, advised women to build professional identities around performance, rather than combinations of gender, race and sexual orientation. According to her, the key question for lesbians in the corporate world is, “At the end of the day, what do you bring to the table?”
Now that’s a powerful calculation.
Scene 3: I Heart Brooklyn Girls Calendar Release Party Southpaw, Sept. 22
Once upon a recent time, the idyllic brownstone neighborhood of Park Slope in Brooklyn was considered fertile lesbian ground. Opinions differ sharply on whether that remains the case today, but that didn’t stop the I Heart Brooklyn Girls Calendar (now in its second installment) from scheduling their release party in the neighborhood.
On this Saturday night, artists and hipsters populated Southpaw, a Park Slope music venue, to support a project that benefits the threatened legacy of Coney Island. The 2008 calendar features 12 femmes from Brooklyn’s queer community photographed around the famously freaky seaside location. The legendary amusement park, beach and boardwalk at Coney Island may soon be changed forever by real estate development. The upside is that this lesbian reclamation of the traditional girlie calendar is available in a swimsuit edition.
Certainly, the edgy crowd that traveled from places such as Williamsburg and the frontiers of Queens could be forgiven for avoiding explicit talk about gentrification and zoning. Visitors such as Jenny Shimizu, Silas Howard and L.P. probably distracted them, along with the antics of hostess Pubic Zirconia and a performance by Brown Girls Burlesque, a collective of women of color.
Diversity in neighborhoods and within lesbian representations is a priority for the team behind the I Heart Brooklyn Girls calendar. Photographer Erica Beckman mentioned that 60 women applied to be calendar girls for 2008, and the 12 who were selected represent a variety of styles, ethnicities and shapes, united by the fact that all are femme.
No one in the audience seemed to mind the similarity in that respect.
Scene 4: Stonewall Democrats of New York City Women’s Awards Henrietta Hudson, Sept. 25
“The postmodernist would look at the ceiling here and call it the floor for the people above,” said Kate Bornstein in the renowned West Village bar, Henrietta Hudson. The transgender author, playwright and performance artist was not drunk. No matter what the inflatable beer mug and pretzel hanging in the front room suggested, this was a dignified public occasion.
Bornstein addressed the crowd as part of her acceptance speech during the 2nd Annual Women’s Awards presented by the Stonewall Democrats of New York City. The formidable group advocates for legislation that promotes equality for the local LGBT community, and it supports openly LGBT candidates and allies for elected office. The LGBT community flexes considerable muscle in New York City government. Here, the Stonewall Rebellion helped birth the modern gay civil rights movement in 1969, and today, openly lesbian City Council Speaker Christine Quinn eyes a run for the mayor’s office in 2009.
According to Bornstein, politicians should revolutionize their rhetoric to reach out to people under 25 who embrace pansexuality and identify as “queer,” not LGBT. “The Democratic party needs to talk about sex,” she continued, addressing an audience that included activists, elected officials such as out City Council member Rosie Mendez, and a staffer for Deborah Glick, the first — and still the only — out lesbian elected to the New York State Assembly.
Other honorees that evening were the Latina lesbian organization Las Buenas Amigas and Liz Abzug, a consultant whose mother, Bella, was the legendary women’s movement leader. Stonewall Democrats Vice President Yetta Kurland organized the event. Right now, she is the attorney for Josie Smith-Malave, the former Top Chef contestant who allegedly was a victim of anti-gay violence on Long Island over the Labor Day weekend.
While Bornstein may have argued for different interpretations of the architecture, her speech left little doubt about the meaning of the obelisk-shaped awards that were presented to honorees. “I’ll put this to good use,” exclaimed the author upon touching the object.
Scene 5: The Sensuous Woman Zipper Factory Theater, Sept. 26
Here’s a tip to anyone seeking information about the New York lesbian scene: Don’t ask Margaret Cho for advice. Those already in the know, however, might offer to show this uproarious performer around the town.
“I haven’t been here for so long that I need to get back into it,” admitted Cho when asked her thoughts about the city’s offerings for women. The bisexual comedian happens to be in town through Oct. 20 for her new off-Broadway production, The Sensuous Woman.
Seated 90 minutes before the start of her first preview performance in a Hell’s Kitchen theater, Cho confessed: “I don’t know anywhere to go, and I don’t know anything to do, and I’ve got to be sort of reintroduced. The last time I was here it was all about Meow Mix, and that was a long time ago.” Sure enough, that was the Lower East Side joint known for its Xena: Warrior Princess nights in the ’90s. Then, the Notorious B.I.G. still lived and the Notorious C.H.O. had not yet hit DVD.
One decade later, Cho is here to star in The Sensuous Woman, a variety show of dancing, music and comedy inspired by burlesque. She said her acquaintance with the resurgent art form motivated her to deliver a production that displays all kinds of female body types.
“My eye is so unused to seeing real women’s bodies, women who are not super thin, or with crazy giant breasts and like air-brushed to death, you know, or supermodels,” Cho explained. “I’m not used to that, and so my eyes are in shock when I see something different.”
Refreshing differences permeate this latest work, which includes appearances by many of Cho’s associates based in Los Angeles. Transgender comedian Ian Harvie charms, and so does the versatile talent of Diana Yanez. The latter performed the rap song “My Puss” with Cho during the True Colors Tour last summer.
Now, Cho and Yanez have reprised their roles as wronged lesbian couple Maureen and Angela. Once again, the duo embraces superlative rhymes to insult the genitalia of a neighbor who had their RV towed.
Yo! Revenge still sounds hilarious.
Scene 6: Yo Majesty Knitting Factory, Sept. 27
New York may be one of the safest big cities in the country, but as real locals know, a woman should carefully consider whether to walk alone through any desolate stretch of pavement, park or pier after dark.
As I stepped solo toward Leonard Street in Tribeca around midnight, however, I felt especially safe, and wondered whether it related to the warm lights of a nearby film shoot. Then I realized the feeling could be traced to my messenger bag, sensible shoes and blue T-shirt – I was dressed like Jodie Foster’s vigilante character in The Brave One, which provided the false confidence that I could simply destroy anyone who dared mess with me.
Still, I would have been no match for the women of Yo Majesty, the tough lesbian emcees from Tampa, Fla., who performed that night at the Knitting Factory. This up-and-coming duo (who were formerly a trio) of unabashed butches walloped the delighted crowd of early adopters with their blend of old school hip-hop and contemporary electro beats. Although they have yet to release an album, sonic gems like “Club Action” and “Kryptonite Pussy,” which they rapped over Salt-N-Pepa’s classic “Push It,” already have generated significant buzz and point toward a royal future for this group.
As for me, two consecutive nights of beer and naughty rhymes suggests some kind of cleansing is in order.
Scene 7: The Beebo Brinker Chronicles Fourth Street Theatre, Sept. 30
Welcome to the drama of the theater world, where rivers of applause flow more often toward gay men than lesbians. Too often, lesbian stage endeavors find themselves dry of funds, promotional support and, by consequence, audiences.
Given this unfortunate fact, the success of The Beebo Brinker Chronicles — a thoroughly lesbian, off-Broadway production now playing at the Fourth Street Theatre in the East Village — is all the more deserving of praise.
Adapted from the groundbreaking series of five lesbian pulp novels written by Ann Bannon and originally published from 1957-62, the stage version was written by Kate Moira Ryan, who authored comedian Judy Gold‘s award-winning, off-Broadway play, 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother, and Linda Chapman, one of the founding producers of Dyke TV. Leigh Silverman, who brought Lisa Kron’s Well to Broadway last year, directs.
Set in Greenwich Village during the closeted and dangerous McCarthy era, The Beebo Brinker Chronicles follows prototypical butch lesbian Beebo Brinker, played handsomely by Anna Wilson. She and her circle of femmes and fags inhabit smoky underground bars and cheap, spacious apartments awash in liquor, lust and the distinctly neurotic patterns of lavender love.
Ann Bannon herself implied that lesbian romance is endearingly kooky when she spoke after the Sunday matinee preview of The Beebo Brinker Chronicles. Introduced by interviewer Kurt Brokaw as “the queen of lesbian pulp fiction,” the 75-year-old novelist fielded questions from a number of contemporaries in the crowd. “Where does the idea of Beebo come from?” someone wanted to know. Bannon replied that the character, described in the novels as a striking Wisconsin transplant, was “half fantasy, and one quarter Ingrid Bergman and one quarter Johnny Weissmuller.”
Much conversation concerned how books in the series, such as Odd Girl Out, the second-best-selling paperback original of 1957, served a vital networking purpose for lesbians in an otherwise isolated time. Remarkably, the characters endured as models for personalities and behavior in the lesbian community.
Bannon mentioned that when she served as associate dean of arts and sciences at Sacramento State University years afterward, “Every now and then a student would come in with a bouquet of flowers and say, ‘I just found out who you are.'”
Eventually, someone asked how Beebo would be updated for today’s readers. Bannon replied that she has chosen not to develop Beebo that way right now, largely because she wants to devote her attention to a memoir of her writing years. Then, she was a married mother of two in Philadelphia who took trips to New York that inspired her to write.
Just look at what this town does to women!
