Damian and I spent Saturday afternoon on the Bowery at HA/HA for the Then & Now – Gallery Tour, Discussion and Video Screening, part of the 30th-anniversary celebration of "The Drag Queens of New York."
The book's author, Julian Fleisher, led the event and introduced the two speakers, setting the tone with the kind of insider affection that reminds you this history was built by people who were truly fans.
As he ushered us from room to room, Julian reminisced about the interviews he conducted with the reigning queens of the day -- all of which were prefaced with lengthy questionnaires -- and steered us toward the eclectic collection of ephemera on display (including the queens' handwritten responses) from the passion project that clearly means a lot to him.
He then brought up drag historian Joe E. Jeffreys, who gave a smart, engaging overview of the cultural landscape that shaped Fleisher’s book, with shoutouts to predecessors such as Carlton E. Winford's "Femme Mimics: A Pictorial Record of Female Impersonation" and Avery Willard's "Female Impersonation." His context underscored just how prescient the work was -- drag is about as mainstream as it gets these days -- but also how much more there was to art form beyond the late 20th century NYC time capsule Fleisher so brilliantly documented.
He was followed by the ever-hilarious, delightfully self-effacing Miss Guy, who shared that she never actually considered herself a drag queen -- androgynous is more like it -- but was offered a chance to be on stage so ran with it as a means to an end to kickstart her music ambitions. When forced to pick a drag name, she says she opted for her own name -- dolled up with a femme honorific -- so that decades from now people wouldn't be calling "Melinda" from across the room(!). Guy then played a rarely seen 1995 interview with former go-go boy Mark Allen for the downtown cable show "Party Talk."
The segment follows the two of them romping around Guy's memorabilia-packed apartment, eating cereal, getting prank calls and talking about “queer” rock and roll and the early days of the Toilet Boys, Miss Guy's glamtastic band whom I saw open for Blondie back in '99. (There’s even early performance footage from Squeezebox, Guy's notorious party night at the erstwhile Don Hill's.)
Guy mentioned she still lives in the same apartment 30 years later, and that the clip contains the only surviving footage of her late kitty -- giving the moment an unexpectedly touching edge. Guy screened additional videos from her career -- giving us a momentary mini–Miss Guy retrospective -- but adorably seemed to shy away from the attention. ("Events like this remind me .... how much I miss social distancing," she quipped.)
As for Mark, it was so nice seeing him again and meeting his adorable boyfriend, Will McLeod, whom I know from Instagram. Mark shocked me by revealing he hadn't been in the city in almost two years(!) -- and it was his first time with Will -- which is hard to imagine for a guy whose East Village apartment used to be live-streamed for the world to watch before that was even a thing.
If you haven’t stopped by yet, the full exhibition "The Drag Queens of New York" is on display at Howl! Happening through Nov. 30. It’s a lovingly assembled slice of LGBTQ New York history -- absolutely worth catching before it’s gone.
The silver lamé pants did things to me ...
Miss Guy's the limit!
The Watergate tapes have nothing on these
And now a word from our author
With Miss Guy
Julian Fleisher, Miss Guy and Mark Allen
Putting the meat in a Will and Mark sandwich
No comments:
Post a Comment