What’s That Smell?: Lucas Hilderbrand’s “The Bars Are Ours” Offers an Enticing Whiff of American Gay Bar Histories
Books

What’s That Smell?: Lucas Hilderbrand’s “The Bars Are Ours” Offers an Enticing Whiff of American Gay Bar Histories

In Lucas Hilderbrand’s The Bars Are Ours; Histories and Cultures of Gay Bars in America, 1960 and After, the pictures, a collection of bar flyers, ads, photographs, gay press headlines, and various ephemera culled from fifteen years of research, are worth as much as—if not more than—the text. “Lick your way through the summer,” beckons … Continue reading

Dim All The Lights: Tim Lawrence’s ‘Life And Death On The New York Dance Floor, 1980-1983’
Books

Dim All The Lights: Tim Lawrence’s ‘Life And Death On The New York Dance Floor, 1980-1983’

As a connoisseur and supporter of nightlife as an important domain for activism and art in the face of judgments of its superficiality and frivolity, I naturally jumped at the chance to dive into Tim Lawrence’s recently published study of New York nightlife Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-1983. At 600 pages, … Continue reading