PERFORMANCE
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Contents
Editor’s Letter
A heavy, velvety embrace of theater curtains brisks your shoulder, then your makeup caked 5 o'clock shadow. The glistening tinsel shimmers in your false eyelashes. A silence falls upon you and the crowd surrounding that's all so familiar. It’s the same silent feeling of your stubble glistening in the sunlight while strangers clock you on the street, except here you are free. You don’t have to hold your breath anymore.
Here on stage, you are the illusion. You're the fantasy they have been waiting for, all of us sipping on the same cocktail that's far too strong transforming our nerves into feelings of warm ecstasy.
Welcome to Opal Age.
Where your wildest dreams alchemize into blissful realities. Where the songs of poets now grace you in the ephemera of print. who knows where you found us; or rather how we found you. We have craved your touch on our spine, your gaze on our pages for ages.
Here we will conquer pain with pleasure, we strike down fears of our futures with the grace and patience of the quiet queers that came before us. Here we clear our throats and belt out our queerness in operatic tones.
Where pleading to the void of hegemonic power becomes a playful fairy circle dancing under moonlight. We lend you our voices, our esoteric ponderings, our ethereal presence, and hope you dance to Opal's music box tune; a haunting and soothing lullaby for you to dream to.
Become the doll on the shelf, the jester fucking with the king, the acoustic poet with one audience member still hungover from last night. Our stage is forever yours.
Performance encapsulates a glistening moment accessing our most idealized self, if only for one karaoke song. A shower melody. I sing and suddenly I’m drifting away from the realm of impossibilities.
There too, are fears that have us performing; whether it's fear of being cringe online or a punitive state that wants us dead.
But the show must go on, our intermission has ended. We hope to create a refuge where the word “performance” shakes off any negative connotations (whether from discourse about chronically online personal style, copycat sterile coffee shops, and how you may have noticed so many searches yield ChatGPT-ified results).
Performance is a way to create ourselves, our wishes. A chance to step into something else for a moment. Authentic as long as we desire to be. It’s not all so serious all the time.
Let the boundaries of fear wash away with the illusive powers of performance like lights on a stage washes over your makeup. Whether dancing in your room, closet waltzing, or performing your gender, may you dissolve the borders that exists between reality and fantasy utopias joyously. May the unknown delight you rather than frighten you and our futures be bright.
Opal’s show has been going for awhile, but it doesn’t matter, you’ve shown up right on time. We’re eternally grateful for everyone who has contributed to our international creative community. We’re elated that you trust us to put your work on our Opalescent stage, for as long as the internet (or maybe the printed version you’re reading) exists. We love you, break a leg.
stay wondrous and expansive,
The editors of Opal Age Tribune
Katie Harrison, Claude Joven,
Peter Rogers & Brigitte Vigo
editors letter co-written
by claude joven & katie harrison <3
performance by celeste ramirez estrada *
performance by celeste ramirez estrada *
“What I find myself performing the most these days, as in intentionally having to showcase to people, my environment, and this increasingly chaotic world is my creativity and sensitivity. What at times has just been kept very close to my heart, just for myself, is something I find myself embracing and intentionally exerting. Protect that creativity and sensitivity at all costs. This anthology of photos is a physical representation of my divine feminine creativity and sensitivity.”
- Celeste Ramirez Estrada (she/her) artist’s statement
photography styled, shot, and creative directed by Celeste Ramirez Estrada, assisted by Brianna Martinez, and modeled by Sidney Velasquez, Alizeh Jarrahy, and Omari Benjamin
Plato Longs for Us
by Jen Colclough (she/they)
Get in here! The show is starting soon.
The one in which we convert mirrors into windows
and old bones into suitcases.
Let the haberdashers open their doors
to feather the world.
Tell the velvet thunderclouds to come as well;
there is no praise for holding in the roar.
They don’t teach you this in school,
but it is very important when you fall down the stairs
to hit every one on the way down. No skipped steps.
One must approach life thoroughly.
But who am I to proselytize?
Sincerity is a hell of a drug but
no one at this party wants in on my line.
It’s good to pace— to underline your thoughts as they fall from the cave.
(Plato dreams of shadows so real!)
Light slices through the trees like cake.
I’m no expert but this might mean
that I’m awake.
Side Window
by SIDNEE CROSBY (she/they)
INT. LIVING ROOM.NIGHT
FADE IN TO VIEW A SMALL LIVING ROOM, IN FRONT IS A
COFFEE TABLE CLATTERED WITH BOOKS, LIGHTERS, A WINE
GLASS AND AN ASHTRAY WITH A HALF LIT JOINT INSIDE.
A window is positioned right in front of it. The sound of the front door can be heard along with cluttering sounds of objects hitting the floor and countertops.
A GIRL WALKS ACROSS THE SCREEN, HUMMING ALONG TO A SONG IN
HER EARBUDS, WHICH COULD BE HEARD FAINTLY.
She leans over and takes the joint from the ashtray and searches for a lighter. Finding one, she lights the joint and moves slowly to the rhythm of the music in her ears. She sings softly while walking to the window and sitting on the windowsill. She pushes them open with one hand and blows out a cloud of smoke.
THE CAMERA FOLLOWS THE SMOKE AND ZOOMS IN TO THE WINDOW
DIRECTLY ACROSS THE SMALL ALLEY.
INT. BEDROOM.NIGHT
With the windows already open, the smoke faintly drifts in.
ANOTHER GIRL WAS SITTING ON HER BED,BACK FACING THE CAMERA.
She is holding her stomach and hunched over. There are fashion magazines spread out on bed. Many of the models on the pages are scribbled or scratched out. She sniffs and turns toward her window, following the smell she gets up and walks towards it.
The Smoker is still sitting on the windowsill with eyes closed, humming to music. The Loner yelled, trying to get her attention. She waved her hands above her head and yelled louder. She was muted out by the music in the Smoker’s ears.
The Smoker gets up and walks to a record player. Skimming through, she picks one and places it in the player. Turning it up to full volume, she takes out her ear buds and sings loudly to the same song she had just heard. Closing her eyes again, she puts her hands up and waves them around, in a similar fashion to The Loner.
She moves her body again to the music with her eyes closed in full view of the widow. The Loner lowers her hands and watches the girl. She places her hands around her stomach again and begins slowly moving to the music.
She continues to watch the other girl as she lights her joint again and takes a few drags. The Smoker sits on the windowsill and leans backward out the window, eyes closed and singing wildly.
She leans up and dances with her back turned. The Loner takes a step back from the window and slows her rhythm. She turns back towards her bed and sees the defaced magazines. She clutches around her stomach again. Closing her eyes, she slowly lifts her hands above her head and starts swaying to the music.
As the song increases in tempo, so do the two of them. Both moving with conviction and chaotic energy. In certain moments they were mirror images of each other, each shot moving in nearly identical intervals.
SWITCH PANS BETWEEN THEM THEN SMASH CUTS WITH EACH GIRL DANCING WILDLY.
When the song reaches its final build, both girls face their windows and simultaneously lean out. On the final beat, The Loner lets out a primal scream.
She opens her eyes and looks across to see the Smoker looking back at her. She takes a hit of the joint, leans over as far as she can and tosses it to The Loner. She quickly leans out and catches it with both hands, landing in between her fingertips.
With a shaky breath, she chuckles and brings it to her lips and inhales softly. She waves at The Smoker and leans across her window. The Smoker winks and sits on hers.
THE END
Drowning (Gender-Fuck Whatever)
by Billie Jane (she/they)
I have a recurring dream that I am drowning. Here’s how it goes:
For whatever reason—evading an enemy, trying to cool myself on a hot day, falling off of my horse in battle and reaching my hand towards The One Ring which has abandoned and betrayed me (in this variant I am Isildur, son of Elendil)—I find myself engulfed in a body of water. Once my body is fully underwater, I cannot find the surface; I reach my hand upward, but the water will not break. I can’t escape, and each time I have this revelation, I realize that I am suddenly and quite completely alone. I look around me while water fills my ears and nose and my last gasp of oxygen burns its way to carbon in my lungs. I’ve never really been able to lucid dream, so every time I find myself in this space, it's at once wholly new and familiar, like deja vu. When I can no longer stand it, when the fire in my chest is threatening to subsume my being, I relent to my body’s instincts:
I draw breath.
I came-out as trans when I was 25. In the trans community, I believe I’m considered a bit of a “late-bloomer.” Admittedly, I am not one of the girlies who’s always known I’m a woman or who started hormone therapy to offset my budding puberty; I started hormones well after my first puberty came to an end, at a point where I’d lost much of the hair on my head and wore much more of it on my face (I had a spectacularly curled mustache for several years). I also do not really identify with the term woman, or rather I identify with it in the way that if there’s nothing else available, I’ll use half-and-half in my coffee, because it fulfills my desires close enough and won’t cause me too much harm. It’s not a perfect analogy, but this is to say that telling a stranger “I identify as a non-binary transfemme and I concurrently use the pronouns she/her/hers and they/them/theirs” oft begets a reaction akin to asking a small town diner server if they have oat milk, I would guess. I’m usually unwilling to risk encountering either scenario, so woman and half-and-half serve me just fine.
Recently, several folks in my life have described me with the term gender fuck. I’m not particularly skilled at performing femininity, and I’m ambivalent to masculinity in my own presentation: I don’t often wear makeup, I find myself regularly wearing a baggy t-shirt and a flannel above my high-waisted jeans, and I’ve all but abandoned voice feminization training. At this point, I’m not really interested in “passing,” or assimilating into cisgender norms of presentation. I understand the desire to pass, there’s certainly safety in it, and I revel in finding new feminine features when I see myself in the mirror. However, I have trouble reckoning with the forces of masculinity and femininity and androgyny that all want to hold space in my brain, that all wish for a seat at the table, that all want to dance with and around and through one another.
When I came out, I didn’t think that I would be able to perform onstage again. Until then, I’d spent the better part of a decade trying to build-out a resume in theatre, most recently playing a narrator/adult protagonist/child version of the adult protagonist in a reading of Dancing at Lughnasa. After I’d come-out publicly, the director reached-out to me for a similar (male) role, and when I told her that I’m trans, she wished me congratulations and luck in finding roles. In doing this, she touched on something that’s become a bit of a constant in my life: people generally don’t seem to know what to do with me. I think a lot of folks have trouble fitting me into a mould in their heads: is this a guy or a girl? An effeminate man or a butch woman? What roles could I play with a soft face, broad shoulders, 6 feet of height, tits, and a voice that’s somewhere in the middle? I spent the first couple years of my transition trying to swallow this pill, to accept that my stage days were behind me, and to will that to be fine by me. Then I saw an Instagram post for an open mic night at the local worker-owned tap house and thought ‘well, I’ll bring my guitar, play a couple of covers, and this will scratch my performance itch.
On the day of the open mic, I arrived and met the host and his wife (two folks who have become some of my best friends, and whom I feel I owe a great deal) who pointed me in the direction of the sign-up sheet.
I’m in the water.
I’d changed the spelling of my first name when I came-out, but I’d been trying to decide what I wanted the rest of my name to be. In this moment, I hadn’t chosen my middle name, but I had listened to the whole of Against Me!’s Transgender Dysphoria Blues more times that I could count, and recently read Laura Jane Grace’s memoir Tranny. I think her name stuck in my head as sounding particularly lovely, and I wanted my name to sound lovely, so I signed-up for the open mic under the moniker Billie Jane. I ordered a beer, sat down with my phone and my notebook, and waited for the event to start.
I am completely alone.
I had planned to play a cover of Hozier’s song Like Real People Do, but as I sat in the audience watching folks who had the chutzpa to perform near the top of the order, a guy played it better than I could have hoped to (I was not, at that point, regularly practicing on guitar), and the pangs of panic began to set in. In a haste, I looked through the saved guitar tabs on my phone, and I saw one that could work: This Year by The Mountain Goats. The host announced my turn—“give it up for Billie Jane!”—and I sat on the stool at the mic.
My chest is burning. My lungs are empty. I can’t hold out…
I’ve never really been able to lucid dream, so every time I find myself in this space, its at once wholly new and familiar, like deja vu. When I can no longer stand it, when the fire in my chest is threatening to subsume my being, I relent to my body’s instincts:
I draw breath.
I can breathe.
I can breathe.
I couldn’t have known what I’d get from that open mic: an incredible and kind and talented community of friends; a space to perform as I am, whatever I am; foundations for writing my own songs, playing shows, and releasing music as Billie Jane. I drew breath into my lungs, and found with relief that I’m not alone, and I’m not drowning. I can move freely in the dream, a soft-faced, broad-shouldered, gender-fuck whatever, until I wake up.
an ode to gender alchemists
by claude joven (he/they)
in honor of your lacey chonies blowing in the wind on the clothesline, now your neighbors really know
your titties & your mustache on the same body
false eyelashes strewn across your bookshelf, fluttering
the glistening shimmer of your stubble before your first electrolysis appointment
profession of your self love through your very first smokey eye
if the birds can be flamboyant, so can we
fly with me into our most luminous future, we’re free
on the wings of AIDS angels, je veux fly
green carnations adorn our lapels, our queerness never dies
ACT UP now, child, don’t let them see you cry
“A Closet Waltz”
by M.A. Dubbs (she/her)
(Curtains rise. First position)
I’m a self-taught dancer,
learning how to do a closet waltz
as I step out of the closet,
slide back in, step back out
to a cadence and I can’t always keep up with.
(Smile. Pulsate in place)
It’s a sway of back and forth,
from dark to light,
until some days I decide to be brave.
(One step front)
Come June I’ll hang out my rainbow flag,
with just the slightest hesitation
and remind myself that nothing’s ever happened to my house, yet,
since I started putting it up.
(Two steps)
I’ll wear my blue-pink-purple necklace
and the rainbow shirt I bought to wear to Pride.
Maybe I’ll actually make it to one of those meet-ups this year?
(One jump forward. Jazz hands)
On other days I’ll let everyone know,
as they call me on stage for a reading
or send my bio to a publication
because the world needs to know
who I really am!
(One step back)
But other days I watch the news
and I am just yellow.
Watch my politicians clap as they roll back trans rights,
read an email from my state’s Attorney General
threatening doctors and therapists
that they’ll enforce it, too.
(Three steps more)
I’m scared when they picket drag shows
and I’m terrified when they threaten to bomb them.
I’m a coward when Moms for Liberty
shout down liberty for all
in the school board meetings,
in my library, in my own kids’ school.
(Slide back for 4 beats)
It’s so much easier to blend in,
just straight pass through this life.
It’s simpler to not correct
those who assume the default
is straight, Christian, white.
(Freeze)
It’s so much easier to stay quiet
than perform the exhausting dance of coming out
again and again
to the same people who keep shoving you in the closet
because they don’t want to be reminded of who you are.
I want to stop this dance, this state of movement,
this back and forth of “am I in or out?”
and I just want to be.
Let me play understudy, an unnamed stagehand,
a background prop to this drama,
this rising action.
(Breathe. Count each beat)
What an escape!
What a privilege...
(Spotlight)
But the show must go on!
(Stomp 12 steps to the edge of the stage)
But if I can come out when others cannot,
if I refuse to hide when others can’t,
then maybe I can remind my little world
that we are here to stay!
(Smile. Bow. Curtains)
Under Canvas
(Thank you to Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Catch Trap)
by Stephen Mead (he/him)
Railroad whistles moan a certain "where you going, where you going" in time with that track of answering axles.
"Do not ask," this night says, black & broad with lost highways to reflect. See their silver parallel & perpendicular grids
by the moon's aerial compass blanketing all of space.
Above us, under canvas, is the Big Top's heights
soaring though our sleep in stars astonishing stage lights
with nets forgotten.
Swing the bar to me, balanced trapeze-lean for a knee
& back arching. That grand too & fro recalls
the railway's secret circus & one compartment's shared berth moving our whole world in & out.
Electric then was the dark before seasons parting
howled coastlines between your circuit & mine.
Finding you again was an acrobat's toss from minus to plus with triple somersaults defining lines for every unsent letter I dreamt you wrote.
Now pirouettes ring out, rope-burned hands to taped wrists, & it's your artistry in flight felt within by one heart
so I'll know how to catch your body falling,
meeting my movement in a beating which throbs
just as our passion does still, thrust after thrust.
Ephemera
by Marina Ramil (they/any)
“Anything I’ve ever tried to keep by force I’ve lost.”
Marie Howe
can’t take it with you, is what I remind myself
only on the occasion that I lose something
and can’t afford time spent being disappointed
but I want it all in the palms of my hands
I want little things to line up on my dresser
I want to lead friends by the hand into rooms filled with them
my little confidants who I give backstories and names
I want to take the small shiny ones
and tuck them under my tongue
they can’t get lost or taken or broken there
I would rather risk choking than grief
it would still be mine lodged in my windpipe
and the adults would get to tell my story to children
a cautionary tale about a girl who wanted too much
warned her all her life but she always talked more than she listened,
didn’t she?
Brokeback Mountain: Masculinity, Love and Cowboys in a Western
by Mattie Bieberly (she/her)
Brokeback Mountain was released in 2005 and was immediately held at a crossroad between a triumphant LGBTQ+ story about male love and a blasphemous movie that violated the sanctity of marriage. The story of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist finding love on the gorgeous landscape of Brokeback Mountain in the summer of 1963 captivated audiences in the early 2000s and continues today. Through the backdrop of a gritty Western movie complete with cowboys, the rodeo and endless smoked cigarettes the masculinity of the two main characters shined through the screen and morphed into a decades-long love story. While Brokeback Mountain was not the first movie to try and sexualize the West and cowboys, it was certainly the first movie that was able to push a gay-men love story rooted in manhood in a Western movie.
This piece seeks to make the argument that Brokeback Mountain was a Western story that was rooted in the masculinity of its two main characters, Jack and Ennis. This film allows for the masculine features of the two main characters to drive the film, which leads to groundbreaking new territory of gay love. First, a brief overview of the time period in which Brokeback Mountain was released will be given to understand the context of how the movie was received by audiences. Second, an analysis will be made as to why Brokeback Mountain is a Western story complete with violence, cowboys and love. Finally, the masculine attributes of Jack and Ennis will be analyzed along with the Western components of the film. While this paper will agree with the arguments that Brokeback Mountain broke down barriers for depicting gay love stories on the big screen, it did so in a way that holds even more significance, using the backdrop of the rough and tumble Wild West and manly cowboys to do so.
Brokeback Mountain was adapted from the short story written by Annie Prolux in 1997 that bears the same name. When the movie was released in 2005, the most recent movies that had shown some sort of LGBTQ+ relationship on the big screen was Boys Don’t Cry, Birdcage and many others but none found the same success as Brokeback Mountain did. In today’s society, the LGBTQ+ community has gained more representation within film as well as at the national law-making level, which was not the case when Brokeback Mountain was released. This may contribute to why many critics and moviegoers have put this movie on one of the top pedestals for breaking down many obstacles for LGBTQ+ representation within cinema, especially with portraying gay men engaging in a loving, sexual relationship. When this movie opened on December 9th, 2005 it made over $5 million on its opening weekend. One review from Variety called this movie, “...this ostensible gay Western is marked by a heightened degree of sensitivity and tact.” Then came the awards season in late 2005 and early 2006.
At the 2005 Academy Awards, Brokeback Mountain won the award for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director but was famously passed over for Best Picture by Crash, which since has been dubbed the worst Oscars winner in history by many. This lack of recognition for Brokeback Mountain following its massive success highlights how the Academy was not ready to award a story about masculine men loving each other the highest honor at the Oscars. Instead, they chose a movie that was problematic in nature that dealt with race and had no storyline about gay love. The following analysis of Brokeback Mountain and other critical responses to the movie will hope to showcase that this movie was and still is deserving of acolytes due to its successful portrayal of gay men while rooted in masculinity and the West.
While at first glance while viewing Brokeback Mountain you wouldn’t immediately see the connection between the nitty-gritty cowboy life that Jack and Ennis lead and a budding passionate romance between the two men, but that is what director Ang Lee has done. In an oral history of the movie released in 2015, co-screenwriter Larry McMurty notes that “homosexuality has been hanging there in the West for over a hundred years.” The connection between masculine cowboys and love creates an electric script that allowed for LGBTQ+ representation to be seen in a way that was not done before.
Actor Randy Quaid, who plays the role of Joe Aguirre who initially hires Jack and Ennis to herd sheep across Brokeback Mountain, stated, “It was definitely a movie that needed to be made. Placing the confrontation in a milieu that is traditionally perceived as hetero male-John Wayne and the Western cowboy-was a brilliant stroke by Proulx.” Quaid taps into the raw masculinity of the West with this quote. This idea of an American cowboy trenching across the West is a theme in cinema history that has been widely explored. Any number of John Wayne films come to mind when one tries to conjure up the idea of ‘the West’. Richard White argues that Brokeback Mountain should be considered one of those timely classic Western movies in cinematic history. White argues that, “Part of the movie’s genius is to make Jack and Ennis so conventionally western: prickly about their manhood, unable to see much beyond the confines of the world they have been born into, defined by their work and skills.” This description of Jack and Ennis highlight how the Western backdrop of the movie propels the story forward. One scene that highlights how Brokeback Mountain is a Western is the scene near the beginning when Jack and Ennis regale their lives to each other. Jack’s parents own a ranch on which he helped them work and had begun to dabble with bull riding in the rodeo on the side. In contrast, Ennis’ parents died when he was young and therefore lost their family ranch. He soon found work as a ranch hand doing odd jobs and would continue that for the rest of his days. These born and bred Western cowboys only really knew one thing, how to work the land. Without the sexuality of the Western scenery and the physical and emotional characteristics of the two cowboys, the story would not have been the same. But much more importantly beyond the appearance of these cowboys, White argues that the Western genre of movies have always been about gender, even before Brokeback Mountain created a “gay Western.”
The ever-present masculinity within Brokeback Mountain can be attributed to the Western genre of the movie. Both masculinity and the West go together in this movie, which contributes to its success. Authors Keller and Jones argue that the traditional masculine nature of the two main characters within Brokeback Mountain drives the film forward to be accepted by all audiences. Instead of trying to run away from their manhood within the movie, both Jack and Ennis accept that they are men who are tragically in love with each other. Keller and Jones sight the physical appearance of both men, the lack of a strong womanly role within their lives and the presence of violence and alcohol woven into the storyline. These attributes are most effectively portrayed within the films first hour, when Jack and Ennis are working sheep on Brokeback Mountain. They clean themselves either at camp from boiled water or down at the stream, they eat beans straight out of a can and sleep in very old and smelly tent. These characters would chalk these experiences up to be a Western cowboy, but to the audience it reinforces the idea of masculinity.
These components of traditional masculinity propel the relationship between Jack and Ennis to be one of love and desire that goes beyond just a companionship between two cowboys. The authors bring up an interesting insight that this movie highlights, which is the suffering within masculinity. Keller and Jones state, “Traditionally, masculinity has been measured by the capacity of the male subject to inflict pain on other men; however, less frequently cited is the role that suffering plays in the same gender construction.” Both Jack and Ennis suffer during this film, whether they suffer because they are unable to share their love openly or physical pain from being beaten. Masculinity and manhood can be seen in the suffering that these characters, which upholds the traditional gender construction of men. The masculinity and manhood that is ever-present within Ennis and Jack are only one component of this film that makes it stand the test of time as a film that utilizes manhood and the West to create a moving story that provides representation for LGBTQ+ community members.
Regardless of how Brokeback Mountain was received by moviegoers, it has secured its place in cinematic history as one of the well-executed movies to utilize the gender construction of manhood through the epic scenery of the West. The aesthetic and social implications that this film has had on the film industry broke down the walls for gay-men love to be portrayed on the big screen as well as catapulting LGBTQ+ representation into the cinema. Although, this movie did produce some backlash, mainly from the conservative sect of the United States, but also within the Academy. As mentioned previously, Brokeback Mountain did not prevail to win Best Picture at the 2005 Academy Awards. Even with the traditional masculine undertones combined with a Western drama, Brokeback Mountain was still passed over. This movie had all of the components for a Best Picture win, but the lack of recognition by the Academy proves that even if a film could check all of the right boxes for representation for LGBTQ+ community, a true Western drama that showcases two gritty cowboys and a love story, people will still reject this form of art. Although Brokeback Mountain ends with Jack’s untimely death, whether beaten by a tire iron or by an exploding part of a car which is left up to the audience’s determination, this movie still is able to encapsulate the feeling of true love through the depiction of a gay-Western.
1 Todd McCarthy, “Brokeback Mountain,” Variety, September 3 2005.
2 Aaron Hicklin, “Brokeback Mountain: 10 Years On,” July 28, 2015, https://www.out.com/out-exclusives/2015/7/28/brokeback-mountain-10-years-oral-history.
3, 4 Ibid
5 James Keller and Anne Jones, “Brokeback Mountain: Masculinity and Manhood,” Studies in Popular Culture Vol. 30, 2 (Spring 2008) 21-36.
Love’s Touch
by Emily Dolanová (she/her)
1990’s— Maurice’s Bar
by Dan Aries (she/they)
Under the glittering spotlight, I am a hyperbole. My skin is painted a mausoleum of silver streaks, and I am glimmering like a caricature of my own shadow. The sweat that rivers down my spine is colored gold. It’s the liquid that powers through a performer’s life.
As I strut through the side of the open-mouth stage, the circumference of the light follows me obediently. My eyes blink rapidly from the searing afterimage of yellow and blue. I wince slightly but cover it with a siren smile. These red lips studded in ruby sequins – they are ready to unhinge their line and swallow the universe whole. I drink all the lustrous attention with the drunkenness of an impoverished child. I sweat as the corset digs into the bony part of my ribcage, and it feels like the claws of a mother wanting to queer her own child.
Madonna’s song is the aphrodisiac of my number. Her voice of the disco 80s soothes out notes of fingertips that caress cheeks of the tuxedoed men in front of me. As I shape my overdrawn lips in lieu of the lyrics, my body gyrates in an electrifying edge. I wink to one of the men in suits. His monogrammed shirt is sloppily unbuttoned, and his neck reddens from my merlot attention.
I offer every one of them a gracious smile, my stripper heels grinding in friction to the slippery floor of the stage. Their sighs of affection and unwanted desires are shadowed by the cave-like darkness of the club, and I devour every inch of their secrecies.
You try everything you can to escape, I sing as a ventriloquist, Madonna filling up the lacuna of my voice. The pain of life that you know, I bend like a feline. My knees are kneeling to the ground asking for alimony. Then I claw my hands onto the surface, making sure the tendons of my outer thighs are tight. I pose and glide my body in swan-like delicacy, my arms spreading in holy wings. And there I am, an angel in an erotic prayer. My buttocks are perked up like a sacrifice to the Gods of drama.
I never yield defeat to the lip-sync of the song, because it ruins the entirety of the effect. When all else fails and you long to be, I clock my head to the side and the explosion of honey wig draws the air with a flamboyant flick. I feel the bones of the corset molding my body into something divine.
I lose my air as I vogue my legs and defy the gravity with their whipping clockwise motion. The men whistle and inhale their cigars as my legs shine with gloss. The thick ridge of my stripper heels clack to the floor, and it’s the seismic sound of revolution. I bend my tense neck into a fluid arc, stand up with my center core, and look at every drooling men with ferocious challenge.
Want me. Need me. Desire me. But you will never own me.
I crisscross my legs, and everyone swoons for this glamour wrapped in the body of a reject. The crystal-encrusted pantyhose blinks stardom. I think of my mother as I pout and wheel the point of my heels aslant. I am teasing out primordial desires, staining their collared uniform with my scarlet lipstick. I mouth to every word, every lyric, and every history behind the message with astral sexiness. The real me is watching above, and the one who’s rubbing the oversized coat with spouting ostrich feathers is my alter-ego. I giggle as one of the audience screams, ‘Open the coat! Reveal it to us!’
I laugh wickedly, my mouth gleaming with excitement as it fashions itself to the shape of the song. Let your body go with the flow / You know you can do it
I peel my second skin, the ostrich coat tickling my collarbones as the jeweled part of my overbust’s strap peeks through. I tease and tease. Every man right now is holding their breath. Once the coat is stripped down to my waist, the conical bra I am wearing blinds the darkness with glee. Blood is running thick with glory among the viewers, and I jut my hips left and right to accentuate this girl-body I have shaped with paddings and foams.
I sway my arms as I let the pelt trickle down to my ankle. It wraps around my heels like a calico cat. I kick it down to the stage and the howling is desperate to overpower the genuine cheers. I sashay in my femininity, thinking about what Mom said in my teenage queer rebellion - that sex is power, sex is dominance. I smile to myself as I flash my back to the audience, the tiny strip of my thong splicing my bottom daringly like two worlds ready to collide in sweaty ardor. I think about sex as I bend. I laugh about the manner in which sex has always been the definitive ground for binary rules. And then with a quick stretch from my legs, I slam myself into a split.
The floor carries me with its tender hand, it massages my horizontal limbs with a gentle assurance that everything pays off at the end. I propel my hair as I face the audience with my side-profile, I whisper alongside with the lyrics: Ooh, you’ve got to just…
Vogue
And then, the spotlight reverberates among the applause and whistle-congratulations. The darkness finally consumes every nook and every crevice of the club. The mirrorball can only provide a splintered ethereality for every man, in-betweens, and veiled fetishists. I exit the stage and blow everyone a kiss. I sigh all the pent-up anxiety and drop to my station in the green room. The vanity mirror slaps me with the mottled texture of my drag makeup and the sequins of my costume. My caterpillar eyebrows had been glued to perfection to pave way for high-rise ones. The sharp line of contour and rounded blend of pink blush intensify the girl staring from the pool of my reflection. I remove the hive of honey wig and let it plop to the floor, my concave chest still shackled by the feminine armor of a corset, and my breathing wobbles like an ogre. I untie the strings behind and groan with frustration when I can’t find the ribbon. I sigh when I still can’t reach the loose end that I had probably tucked inside the corset earlier.
The smell of sweat inside as the other burlesque performers prepare for the next set of acts is human and raw, but it’s a scent that I have always been proud of. On the stage, I am everything I am destined to be. Backstage, I’m the amalgamation of my dreams and ambitions. My life can be found in the smell of freshly opened duct tape that the other drag queens like me use to tuck their thing behind. The rigor of it is art; the concoction for a Barbie crotch is a routine only made for patient queens. I am the very fiber of discarded and gigantic wigs, crumpled wipes that are dipped into rainbow shades of makeup, and snapped strings of platform heels.
“Babe, come here let me help you,” one of the performers offered in their catty voice, and I quickly stood up with my sore feet. She pulls the loose end of the ribbon, and I let out a whiny release as the corset begins to allow me freedom for life.
Before I can say thank you, the queen is already strutting off to another performer, fixing their glued brows with a stoolie. The life of drag artists and burlesque performers is a rush; one that can’t accommodate traffic of personal lives and wasteful adages.
I toss the corset into my luggage and slip my feet to the comforting soles of my kitten heels. My conical bust and thong is still glued to my sweaty body, and I can’t bother for a change of ensemble at this point. I grab a floor-length Astrakhan fur from the closet and walk to the side of the stage as a shortcut to the mezzanine.
The next performer after me is Isaiah, a scholarship student like me. He is fairly new to the burlesque genre, so the striptease is a bit of a mess. I serve drinks to the men who want to use their weak Scotch as an excuse to talk to me and compliment my performance. I quickly dismiss them off; their shoulders slouching in defeat as they slink off to their finance bros cult.
I started this gig during my sophomore year. I preluded as a waiter, and I hadn’t yet appreciated the appeal of bartending. But one night, the barman had a flu and the manager of the club mistakenly had posited me in the rush of business to be responsible behind the counter, saying in his thick Spanish accent that customers are in high-influx so chop chop, I have to make their drinks or he would fire me. Clinging for the security of my job and its stable sustenance of salary, I googled formulaic mixtures of drinks and offered them to numerous individuals with my expertise of flattery and advertising. And besides, I had always been gifted with manipulative charm. Nevertheless, they paid for their drinks in exchange for a momentary flirting session with me. I had to keep the pretense until my brain had dried off from witty remarks.
But then, Miss Maricona, the talent scout of the club, once saw me practicing my dance rehearsal in the alley. It was for a performance task in my major course, Theater I. While I was flipping through the air with my liquid arms and feather-light legs, she was watching me. Leaned onto the rusted metal doors, a cigarette dangled limply between her two fingers. Her quirky-patterned turban was amorphously shaped into a divine intimidation of what would Medusa hide if she was thrusted into the mortal world. “Bravo, ijo. Is that for school?”
I yelped and turned towards the voice, “Omigod, Miss Maricona.”
“Relax, dear. I am just asking.”
My heart was still galloping inside my chest, “Yes po.”
“Hmm. Okay. Once you’re done with all that academic shebang, dance for me and I will pay you.”
I blushed, and she didn’t give me time to say yes at her request. Or command? She turned her back towards me and slithered into the glimmering shadows of the club.
I am grounded into the present when the doors are slammed open with the wind chimes trailing off. A group of college students enters, soaring through the giggling fits of laughter and applauses with the confidence of an aggressive stampede. They are wearing the university’s jersey, and I scan every face to see if I recognize one. Among crooked nose bridges from football matches and smoldering rodent-like stares, one stood out familiar. I don’t know him well enough to really consider as an acquaintance, but he’s in my program.
They rush between occupied tables and chairs to find a spot in the corner, and he walks his way to the mezzanine. The one where I am cross-leggedly situated in. He saunters with the swag of untouchable masculinity, and I roll my eyes as he props his bulging arms into the syrupy counter. I stare ferociously into his eyes, the curl of his hair draped over his brows to conceal the brusque dominance that he is trying to not reveal. “Eight gin and tonic, please,” he drawls as he snakes his gaze on my towering stature.
“Sure?” I ask.
He fumbles for a reply, “Do you have a recommendation?”
“I fear you would just call them weak,” I throw back and he smiles at me.
“Wait, you look familiar.”
“Honey, with this drag?” I wave my hand to my face as if I am voguing, “Really? You recognize me? Only a drag queen myself would be able to discern.”
“Hmm, it takes one to know one, I guess?” he chortles astutely as he winks.
I raise my brow, and say, “I think Bloody Mary and Cosmopolitan would be a great choice for you.” My kitten heels click to the floor as I prepare his drinks.
He says behind me, “And one Moscow Mule please.”
“Okie, diva,” I giggle as I set the drinks in front of him.
“And by the way, that coat is everything you need when you want to saddle life fabulously.” He walks backwards and tilts his head. “After the first order, I am gonna come back later to ask you something.” He raises his brows mischievously, pretending to think. “I need an eyeliner recommendation.” He shrugs his shoulders boyishly and this time, he is not walking, but he is strutting toward his frat brothers. He steals a glance back at me, and he pats the handkerchief on the left side of his jeans. Definitely, the world has turned pink. In queer dimension, that is a rainbow-coded symbolism. He’s saying he’s a top, and I am giggling from the aftermath.
On the title page of The Illustrated Bradbury in a sharp but shaky hand:
Dear Peter,
Thanks for your
talent
cool head
and above all
friendship
Tobias
The night I learned of his passing we lit a candle, as I will continue to do every year on his yahrzeit. We didn’t know each other long, but the time we spent together stands out in my memory. He was 81 when we worked together on The Vampire Tapestry in 2018, I was 20 and had only picked my new name the winter before but Tobias never missed a beat. Even when the name still slipped through my hands like sand when my own mind tried to think of it. It wasn’t until reading his obituary that I learned that he had also chosen his name, he changed it when he joined the actors’ union. It is funny the discoveries that can still be made after someone’s death, especially when you learn them at work on a Monday at 10am. A life carries a whole universe inside of it, and warmth can still be felt in the wake of a dying star. A candle lit in remembrance, a flame dancing in the dark, still performing, still sharing their warmth. A passing of the torch.
My own relationship with performance has changed so much over the years, hiding behind the mask or using it as a tool of expression. Performance is as much a shroud as it is a reaching out. The show we worked on together is the last I have done. This was not an intentional choice, and I don’t think it will be my last forever. Theatre was my savior in a lot of ways and led me through a tough time and into a life where escape was less of a necessity. But I think I can approach it in a different way. A calling in, a reflection, an affirmation of life being worth living and worth loving, something that he embodied.
To Tobias,
Thank you for your
generosity
passion
and above all
friendship
Peter
In Memoriam: Tobias Andersen
by Peter Rogers (he/they)
Eros and Thanatos
by Vida Behar (she/her)
The show hasn’t quite started yet. My friend and I make a beeline to the bathroom. I lock the graffitied stall door behind us and she scoops up a small mountain of ketamine for me, which I snort off her long baby blue bedazzled pinky nail. After adjusting my denim miniskirt one last time, we weave through the crowd made up mostly of cool alternative gays and make our way to the front of the club. I run into a friend from college and her boyfriend. “Of course you’re here” she quips. A few minutes later the music starts and Miss Bashful struts onto the stage holding her microphone, decked out in neon lingerie and vibrating with sexual energy. Blue and purple lights pulsing around us, I bend to snort up another bump. 15 minutes later I feel more or less the same, so I do yet another. I sway side to side, the most movement I can manage in such a tight crowd. Standing just a few people behind the stage, I have the ideal view for watching Miss Bashful shake her ass in a tiny hot pink skirt that really is more the size of a belt.
Slowly at first, and then all at once, I feel something shifting inside me. Out of my periphery, I notice the woman to my right, dancing and nodding her head to the beat. She’s about half a foot taller than me, so I have to lift my chin a bit to get a good look at her. My heavily made-up eyes take in her short, dark brown almost black hair, and dozens of silver earrings glinting in the club lighting. I study her high freckled cheekbones, strong chin, long slender neck, and her jutting collarbones. My gaze travels down to her hard nipples clearly visible under her white ribbed tank top. The thought of being subtle about ogling her doesn't even cross my mind. She looks at me looking at her, I lift my eyes from where they have been staring at her tits, and our eyes meet. After a moment, I turn away to watch Miss Bashful tearing up the stage in her Pleasers, microphone in one hand, the other hand twirling her hair. My eyes still fixated on the performance, I feel the hot dyke’s strong hands on my waist, gripping my hips from behind. Even though I had obviously been flirting with her, I’m still surprised. At first, I sink into the delicious sensation of our bodies being pressed together, but my thoughts quickly float away from my body and land on the notion that me, her, and everyone in this club is going to die in a matter of blinks in the scale of the time of the universe.
While I’m pressing my ass into her crotch, our hips swaying together under the bright blue, green, and red spotlights, I picture our bodies rotting, mottled blue, green, and red clumps of flesh falling off the bones of our gyrating skeletons.
My ears pound with the “coochie coochie” wub beat pulsing from the speakers.
The hot dyke waves at a friend from across the dance floor and exits stage right. Watching her walk away, a mild sense of relief washes over me as I realize how insanely fucking high I am in this moment.
My attention is jerked back to the stage—Miss Bashful is shaking her pretty little g-stringed ass right in the face of a woman with two blonde pigtails and dark roots who I recognize as a local DJ and queer nightlife micro-celebrity. I’ve seen her before at this club. It dawns on me how small of a town Seattle is and I start to feel like a goldfish trapped in a PetSmart aquarium. It feels like I’m just swimming in circles around the tank with all the other fishies, and we are all going to be floating on our bellies rather soon.
The blonde DJ is grabbing Miss Bashful’s ass and shaking her cheeks, her long green acrylic nails making indents into her lusciously soft skin. “My pussy is expensive” Miss Bashful rap-sings into the microphone, pouncing down the too-narrow stage like it’s the catwalk at New York Fashion Week.
“We’re all just ants in the span of the earth’s history, our worldly accomplishments mean next to nothing” I think to myself, looking over the crowd of clubgoers bopping to the music and so blissfully unaware of their imminent demise. I can’t stop picturing our stinking corpses.
“Take your panties off, baby show it” Miss Bashful sings.
“Death! Death! Death! Death!” my thoughts scream.
“Boom-boom-boom-boom” goes the speakers.
