This week's delve into Fang's found photo archive asks the musical question Are You A Boy or Are You A Girl? as the Barbarians once put it. What I like about this photo is that it evokes the sleazy feeling of Hebert Selby Jr's Last Exit To Brooklyn (Grove Press, 1957). The sad, queen in a cheap room somewhere, getting ready for a night out. The gloves are a nice touch, they cover up the tell-all hands. It also reminds me of a funny story. A friend of mine was working, renovating an apartment in the French Quarter in New Orleans for a gay couple who owned a parrot. The couple would be at their jobs all day while my friend was left alone to work while the parrot would say over and over again-- "You're just an all wrong drag queen". The only other phrase it knew was-- "ooh ooh oooh". Anyway, getting back to this week's found photo, I wonder what's in the record collection? Judy Garland no doubt, but what else do you think is in there?
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Gillian's Found Photo #6
This week's delve into Fang's found photo archive asks the musical question Are You A Boy or Are You A Girl? as the Barbarians once put it. What I like about this photo is that it evokes the sleazy feeling of Hebert Selby Jr's Last Exit To Brooklyn (Grove Press, 1957). The sad, queen in a cheap room somewhere, getting ready for a night out. The gloves are a nice touch, they cover up the tell-all hands. It also reminds me of a funny story. A friend of mine was working, renovating an apartment in the French Quarter in New Orleans for a gay couple who owned a parrot. The couple would be at their jobs all day while my friend was left alone to work while the parrot would say over and over again-- "You're just an all wrong drag queen". The only other phrase it knew was-- "ooh ooh oooh". Anyway, getting back to this week's found photo, I wonder what's in the record collection? Judy Garland no doubt, but what else do you think is in there?
"I wonder what's in the record collection? Judy Garland no doubt, but what else do you think is in there?"
ReplyDeleteI'll bet our mutual friend, Jeff, could tell us. (Hi, Jeffrey!)
"Last Exit to Brooklyn" is one great book. Ditto John Rechy's "City of Night."
You can barely make out her scruffy little moustache.
ReplyDeleteAs for what's in her record collection, I'd reckon Edith Piaf, Marlene Dietrich and Bruce Springsteen.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say "Lou Reed."
ReplyDeletePJL
Jack friggin Jones - Wives and Lovers
ReplyDeleteHerb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass - Whipped Cream & Other Delights
ReplyDeleteWhat else but Liberace, Johnny Mathis, Johnny Ray, lotsa showtunes, and maybe the Coachmen.
ReplyDelete“Last Exit to Brooklyn” & “City of Night” ⎯two of my all time favorites. Both got their drag queens & sleazy underworlds, and both are so undeniably American. Both were Grove Press books, too. Grove, the “Sniff, Swigg, Puff” of literature, 'coz neither of those titles would get published today, you can bet yr ass. Barney Rosset’s the man (the old gent is still around, I think).
ReplyDeleteI say she's playing BObby Marchan.
Barney Roset is indeed still alive but was forced out of Grove when he sold it to uber-yuppi Morgan Endricott. Now they publish PJ O'Rourke....although to be fair they also did Please Kill Me...
ReplyDeleteSelby's The Room is well worth reading, his best to my mind. Rechy's latest-- About My Life and the Kept Woman is also interesting, his best since Numbers.
I'm thinking Supremes, Marvelettes, that type of thing...
ReplyDelete"What else but Liberace, Johnny Mathis, Johnny Ray, lotsa showtunes, and maybe the Coachmen."
ReplyDeleteThe Coachmen, fer shure.
"情趣用品,情趣用品,情趣用品,情趣用品,情趣用品,情"
ReplyDeleteDon't you mean 品,情趣用品,情趣用品,情趣用品?
I'm thinking this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tikiroom.com/tikicentral/bb/viewtopic.php?topic=19088&forum=13&19
Wow, a parrot that channelled Joe E. Ross (nearly). Nice one.
ReplyDeleteGilian has to do a coffee table book of these found photos! Amazing stuff...
Looks like a Diane Arbus photo, doesn't it?
ReplyDelete