Scenes from a Summer

Patwig 

Aja

Merrie Cherry

Brooklyn drag queens are known for doing whatever the hell they want, pretty much. They'll arrive onstage with hairy legs and chests, they'll paint their entire faces as if they were applying warpaint, they'll have ripped tights, they'll throw off their wigs in fits of fabulousness. As famed drag king Murray Hill once said, they're a hot mess, but on purpose; the punks of the drag world, one might say. And they're glorious. I had never seen a Brooklyn drag show before but I made my way out to one recently. The annual festival of drag in Bushwick is known as Bushwig and it's held in September, where the borough's queens all come out to play; but the summer version of it is called Patwig. It was a day-long festival at Union Pool in Williamsburg, where ferocious queens like Merrie Cherry, Horrorchata, the delightfully named [untitled queen], Aja, and many others all came out to play in their own brand of drag. As if to say no, there's not one way to do drag, and anything I want to do, any choice I make will be beautiful. For the rest of my life, I will never forget seeing Merrie Cherry lip-synch Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," spinning on a pole, running across the stage and jumping onto a picnic table in giant red platform heels. It was sheer genderfuck perfection. I will without a doubt be going back.

Photos are from my iPhone. Incidentally, I am also on Instagram (@MissManhattanNY)!

 

Part of Merrie Cherry's "Bohemian Rhapsody"

Punk in Drublic
When it comes to drinking, I am a terrible lightweight. One drink, of any kind, makes me loopy, so when JW came to visit last week and we had a cocktail--yes A cocktail-- with dinner, I was done. And after dinner, around 11pm, we went grocery shopping because I had no food and it's New York so everything is open late (my grocery store is open til 1am. God, I love this town). So we were in this grocery store, giggling and wobbling through the aisles to find strawberries and yogurt and cookie dough on two different nights, and it was a completely wacky experience. JW accidentally made jokes about the phallic shape of cookie dough as we tromped through a crowd of people in the pasta aisle, my giant shopping basket filled with cottage cheese and yogurt for me, kombucha for her. They turned and stared and we burst out laughing in each other's faces. And I have to say, it was one of my greatest moments of last week.

I've probably written this before, but one of the things about living in New York is that you have to remember that it's just like living everywhere else. Yes, there are clubs open til 4am every night--trust me, I've been to them--but you know you're a real New Yorker, or at least on your way to becoming one, when you don't have to do those things or be chasing those things to have an amazing time. Sometimes you can just be punk in drublic in your local grocery store, shopping for cookie dough at 10pm with a friend. You'll simultaneously laugh and eat the dough on the way home with her, like you're still in college, as if nearly nine years have not passed since you first met. And it'll be awesome.

Nocturne Blues
It was rather toasty last weekend--easily in the 90s for a day or two, definitely. And over the weekend was the annual Nocturne Blues dance weekend here in the city (read more about what blues dancing is here). Blues dancers from all over the country and the world came to dance to DJs and live music, enter dance competitions, take blues classes, and much more. I had the pleasure of attending for two nights, both where I danced from about 10:30pm until about 3am. Hips swirl and grind, people are kind and considerate, and you leave with a warm body and a warm heart. (Not to mention you get to hang out and dance with two friends you never get to see and it's wonderful! Shoutout to the phenomenal JB and DL).

There is nothing like leaving a building having danced out your stresses and entering the dark, quiet streets of New York in the summertime, where a heated, humid breeze hangs in the air. That's the thing I've always felt about very hot weather--while it's unpleasant on the surface, on a deeper level it makes you feel alive.

Jazz on a Summer's Day
In 1959, the photographer Bert Stern arrived in Newport, Rhode Island to direct a feature film, but luckily he decided to abandon it and focus instead on the Newport Jazz Festival. The result is a documentary of a single day of the festival, featuring Stern's gorgeous cinematography and astounding jazz performances from the likes of Louis Armstrong, Big Maybelle, Mahalia Jackson, George Shearing, and many more. I hadn't seen the film previously, but what I heard about it was that each scene from the film itself was a gorgeous photograph, reflective of Stern's still work. Seeing it on Tuesday, this was without a doubt completely true. I had been invited to the beautiful Explorer's Club on the Upper East Side for a viewing of the film in one of the club's great rooms (to get to it I had to walk past a giant taxidermy polar bear!) and was utterly blown away. When you look at the film, you feel Stern looking at each of these images and understanding why he wanted to capture them, what story he was trying to tell. And it was, frankly, the perfect movie for a summer evening. As I left, I walked into the evening, dark but still well lit in the way that all New York evenings are, inspired to listen to jazz all the way home.

Check out the trailer here, but I highly recommend watching it in its entirety!

Kind of Blue(s)

It had only been about three and a half years.

Last night, Friday night, I was supposed to photograph a concert but it fell through. At the last minute, I had no plans for the evening. The thought of staying in and catching up on the television I missed this week sounded profoundly pathetic and frustrating. I went to yoga and came home, wondering just what exactly, now that it was 8 o'clock, I could do with the rest of my evening. Go to a movie? Maybe. Dinner? I could do that I guess. Then somewhere in my brain the button went off and I knew I had to follow the urge. I was going blues dancing.

My friend Julie brought me blues dancing my sophomore year of college, knowing I had danced most of my life and thinking I might like to try something new. I remember instantly loving the smoothness and the sensuality of it, this type of partner dancing, with no specific movements required to complete it. For example, in a dance like salsa, you have the requisite "one two three, five six seven" steps done on beat in a variety of ways. But blues is very free form, very improvisational--lots of hip movements, long, langourous leg drags, dips, and more--and the music is phenomenal because it is, of course, blues. The good folks at Blues Dance New York have a great definition of it here, if you'd like to learn a bit more. And there are blues communities and events all over the country and the world, from Colorado to London to Seoul to Seattle. Incidentally, today Julie is an internationally renowned blues dance instructor, competitive dancer, and DJ. Check out her website here and see some of her amazing moves (turns out there's a video of Julie dancing on the Blues Dance New York homepage, too!)!

When we were in college, I would go with Julie when I could, but with crazy college schedules I only managed to get to dances a couple times a semester, if that. It was always something I remembered fondly, even if I wasn't very good at it, and wished I could have picked up again. The last time I blues danced was with a random group of people in Washington Square Park all dancing in front of a stereo they brought one summer those aforementioned three and a half years ago. As social dance people often are, they were kind, welcoming, and friendly. "Come to our dances!" they said. "It's always great to have a new face!" But I never did.

Honestly, I think part of me was terribly nervous. I remembered how awkward it felt to giggle nervously and say "I'm new!" when I missed a step or couldn't understand where a lead wanted me to go next. My friend Dan, another blues instructor, told me that I thought too much. "STOP THINKING!" he'd command me when we danced. "AND DON'T BREAK YOUR FRAME!" (Breaking your frame, according to Julie, refers to "the relationship between our arms & the rest of our body, insofar as it helps us communicate with our partner. For me 'breaking frame' would be letting the connection between arm & body dissolve so they didn't behave as part of the same system (moving in a way that is disconnected from each other).) It's true, my brain would often trip me up--AAAH WHAT IS HE DOING WHERE DOES HE WANT ME TO DO I DON'T UNDERSTAND I'M SO NEW I'LL NEVER BE GOOD AT THIS!!!111!!!11!1--and I'd lose my place completely. And break my frame. Ugh.

But something happened last night where I just decided I needed to go and have fun. No, I wouldn't be dancing perfectly by any means, but I could at least try and see if I remembered anything! I remember finding out a long time ago, at another time when I was flirting with going back, that there was a Friday night blues dance in New York. Did it still happen? In fact it did! Called "FNBlues," the dances are held by Blues Dance New York, every Friday night either at Steppin' Out Studios, a dance studio, or La Nacional, a bar on 14th Street. I showered and changed and remembered to wear my shoes with the really soft soles so I could turn and move easily across the floor.

So I arrive and set down my coat, and shortly I'm dancing. And you know what? I'm not half bad! Dancing with some of the more experienced dancers is more challenging, but they are kind and helpful when I don't understand where I'm supposed to be going. I still giggle nervously and sheepishly say I'm new, but it feels less awkward this time, like it's just part of the process. I'm allowed to be new. I still notice my brain working overtime when I dance with a more experienced dancer, but then I notice it's happening and I just pay attention to the movement. "STOP THINKING!" I hear Dan say when I start to get frazzled. And then I just move and it feels good. People ask me to dance multiple times, even. I spin, I slide, I wiggle my hips, I gracefully extend my arms and it feels like this is something I should always be doing. Even in the two short hours I was there, I felt myself improve, learning to relax, learning to improvise, learning to be more confident, learning to laugh at myself and be goofy when it suits me or my partner. And I don't break my frame...as often (sorry, Dan).

Blues dances are (thankfully) not the typical dance club affair of some dude you don't know trying to grind his pelvis into your backside. Quite the opposite, you go and people ask you to dance, or you ask them to dance, and you say yes or they say yes and you dance with them for a song, say thank you, and then maybe you dance together again later. Or you say no, and they leave you alone. In an age of catcalling and other regular indecencies, it's nice to go to a place where manners and decorum are regularly upheld! Do I sound like a 1920s schoolmarm? YES and I don't care. I don't know who told guys at clubs or anywhere else that they could come up to you and touch you without your permission, but that doesn't happen here. It's a safe, respectful place. I personally like to dance with lots of different people because you never know who will surprise you--never judge a book by its cover because you could be missing out on an amazing partner (unless of course I didn't enjoy dancing with them the first time, in which case I will respectfully decline). It's one more thing about the experience that makes it easy to enjoy.

The other is of course the music. Everything is slow and sinewy, guitars that make your blood pump faster, pianos that tickle your heartbeat. Covers of Muddy Waters's "Hoochie Coochie Man and Bessie Smith's "Sugar in My Bowl," and so much more. My favorite song they played last night though was Ruth Brown's "If I Can't Sell It, I'll Sit On It," a classic innuendo-filled jam that may or may not be about an armchair. It's the stuff my soul sounds like.

I don't expect I'll be dancing like Julie any time soon, but I know in the short term I'll definitely be going back. Thanks BDNY for a lovely evening! Here's to many more nights painted blue.