Last week I spent several mornings looking through the archives of OutWeek, a New York LGBTQ magazine that was published between June 1989 and July 1991. Wikipedia says OutWeek was “the initiator of a cool new sensibility in lesbian and gay journalism,” and Wikipedia isn’t wrong. I was looking for stories about the dyke bars of that era, but I’m insufficiently disciplined to restrain myself from reading around the search results.
One of the stories I couldn’t resist was “Queer Night” a shaggy 11-page chronology of how the paper’s writers and editors spent one Friday night in the spring of 1991. (It starts on Page 35 of this issue.)
Being a very nosey person, I’ll read just about anything that masquerades as a series of diary entries, and there was certainly a lot to eavesdrop on in “Queer Night.” This was the heyday of go-go dancers, back rooms, and fetish bars, and all the correspondents managed to stumble onto something salacious before the night was over. (I was worried about the guy who was vacuuming his apartment at 11 p.m., but he rallied and made it to Loony Bin by 2 a.m.)
Apart from the snoop factor, though, it was good to be reminded of all the things that constitute a queer night. Because I no longer [glances through 11 pages of sordid shenanigans] spend my weekends in bars where videos show “a woman doing things I have never seen done with a dental dam,” I sometimes think my nightlife days are over. But that simply isn’t true. Those indefatigable (or, more likely, artificially stimulated) night owls of 31 years ago weren’t ONLY watching strip shows and squeezing into the overcrowded Clit Club. (Though one OutWeeker’s arrival there provided the feature’s most relatable line: “As I step into the club, my glasses fog up.”)
They also attended martial arts classes, went to NA meetings, played poker with Park Slope dykes in a deeply uncool building whose first floor was occupied by doctor’s and dentist’s offices. They went to poetry readings at the Women Activists’ Coffeehouse, they saw lesbian theater productions and gay movies, argued over where to have dinner, took a break from cruising to eat midnight burritos, and arrived home to find earnest pleas on their answering machines asking them to help defend abortion clinics upstate.
Sitting on my couch typing this newsletter is lesbian nightlife!
FOLLOW-UP: In the last issue of this newsletter I said that an ad for Crazy Nanny’s that proclaimed it as “A Place for Gay Women, Biological or Otherwise,” was evidence “of longstanding trans-inclusive attitudes in lesbian bars.” A reader pointed out that rather than being a reference to trans people, this line was probably a nod to “the ‘gay brain’ hypothesis of Simon LeVay, which was huge news all over the New York queer community when it was published in 1991.” I had forgotten all about this, but having refreshed my memory, I’m sure that’s right. (Check out this Newsweek piece from 1992 that summarizes the debate.)
RECOMMENDATIONS: I’m astonished that it has taken me 16 issues of this newsletter to get to my first stationery recommendation, but here we go! As much as I love fountain pens, I’ve never gone crazy buying ink. It’s a money pit–and I’ve still never finished a full-size bottle. Still, after spending a LOT of time watching YouTube videos and Twitch streams of people swatching inks–which by the transitive theory established above constitutes lesbian nightlife–I decided to cough up for a Kakimori stainless steel nib. (I bought mine from Yoseka Stationery–you also need a nib holder; I use this one from Jet Pens.) It’s awesome! It’s more resilient than a glass dip pen, and it’s much more versatile than the cool-looking but expensive and finicky Drillog. Best of all, you can get a lot of line variation, similar to a fude nib, which really shows off ink properties like shading and sheen. The only problem is, I’m now tempted to buy more inks so I can do more swatching.
LISTEN TO ME: On Working Overtime, Karen Han and I considered how well the Apple TV+ show Dickinson presented writer’s block, and on “regular” Working, I had a fascinating chat with YA author and YouTuber Michelle Schusterman about her work as a ghostwriter of fiction.
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this newsletter and want to share it, or were forwarded this edition and want to subscribe, the link is https://buttondown.email/WhereAre. The archives are here. When my book is ready to be preordered, this is where I will tell you about that, but that won’t happen until 2024. Reply to this email to share any thoughts or ideas.
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