'Gay Bar' Tracks The Wave Of A Whole Culture — And One Life : NPR

Contents:

• A MEMOIR ABOUT QUEER INTY, TOLD ONE GAY BAR AT A TIME
• IN ‘GAY BAR,’ TIME-HOPPG SNAPSHOTS OF QUEER NIGHTLIFE
• THE BT GAY CLUBS MIAMI FOR A NIGHT OUT WH THE BOYS
• BT GAY CLUBS SAN ANTON
• GAY BKK: A GENTLEMAN’S GUI TO WHERE TO FD THE FT GENTLEMEN
• WT HOLLYWOOD’S HISTORIC GAY NIGHTCLUB THE ABBEY IS UP FOR SALE
• 'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE

A MEMOIR ABOUT QUEER INTY, TOLD ONE GAY BAR AT A TIME

AdvertisementSKIP Jeremy Atherton LWhen you purchase an penntly reviewed book through our se, we earn an affiliate 9, 2021GAY BARWhy We Went OutBy Jeremy Atherton LHistory, as is tght, is a straight le of domo fallg — the relentls clack of fact htg fact, an orrly que of aly stretchg on forever. History, as is lived, is a reelg spiral of flight and return; the erative reawakeng of new selv faiar plac; a never-endg terrogatn of our own nfed and nfg motiv; a msy slather of dots on a graph where the center n be plotted only Atherton L’s betiful, lyril memoir, “Gay Bar: Why We Went Out, ” cloaks this lived history that learned history, examg an objective subject — gay bars — to create a highly subjective object: a book about his life, flensed down to jt the bs that ma past the chapter foc on one particular gay bar (jumpg om London to Los Angel to San Francis and back), s history and s place the trajectory of Atherton L’s life. As Atherton L remds , “disassociatn is a gay rual as much as any other.

“Gay Bar” danc on the edge of that third space between fictn and nonfictn, a space often rerved for poetry. Atherton L himself is renred only relatn to the bars he walks through; you’ll fd yourself hard-prsed at the end to say where he was born or how many siblgs he has (and you won’t re) Atherton L has a five-octave, Mariah Carey-que range for discsg gay sex. Like any good gay bar, this book has a bouncer, and his name is is Atherton L’s first book, but benefs om his extensive experience as an sayist and an edor of Failed Stat, a journal about plac.

IN ‘GAY BAR,’ TIME-HOPPG SNAPSHOTS OF QUEER NIGHTLIFE

“Gay Bar” is well crafted (which is pecially pleasg nsirg this is a memoir about stctur), wh a strong thorial hand that mak the rear feel refully shepherd through the text, even as Atherton L jumps s and ntents. When he discs an important 1966 prott at the historic Greenwich Village gay bar Juli’, he c a New York Tim article to talk about the “tr of activists” volved — not realizg that the article left out a fourth man, Randy Wicker (the only one still alive, cintally enough) a half page later, though, Atherton L warns that spe the activist claim that gay bars “should be kept open to facilate knowledge passg between generatns, ” he himself had never really received gay wisdom “on a barstool. ” This book is not about history, the subject you study, but history, that thg you have wh that guy by the jebox whose name you n’t the fal chapter of “Gay Bar, ” Atherton L grappl wh gog to a new generatn of bars, created by very different forc, meetg very different needs.

If you felt a twge of boredom (bon if you thrill to disheveled, elive, gamy), then I have a book for Atherton L’s “Gay Bar” is a rtls and telligent cultural history of queer nightlife. Atherton L began wrg 2017; more than half of London’s gay bars had shuttered the prev 10 years. ” There was an “upsurge stay-at-home gays” and rovg is beg lost?

THE BT GAY CLUBS MIAMI FOR A NIGHT OUT WH THE BOYS

If you’re expectg an elegy, thk aga; “Gay Bar” has somethg knottier, more troubled, to offer.

“The gay bars of my life have nsistently disappoted. In the openg scene, Atherton L and his partner (rather regrettably referred to as the Famo Blue Raat, after the Leonard Cohen song) go out to a London gay bar, lookg for a ltle adventure, and enter a crowd: “Wh a kd of btal elegance, the group spread apart like the blas of a pocketknife.

BT GAY CLUBS SAN ANTON

Atherton L is a skilled rear of the signifiers of cloth and archecture, the fetishizatn of workg-class fashn, for example, and how the rise of AIDS fluenced sign cisns: “A new type of gay bar began to appear London’s Soho the ’90s — airy, glossy, ntental. Sometim that history is his Atherton“Gay Bar” offers a twist on the nventnal memoir; ’s a life seen snapshots, the bars as the backdrop.

Amaretto sours Wt Hollywood, Atherton L llege, still strenuoly datg women and meetg his first groups of gay men.

GAY BKK: A GENTLEMAN’S GUI TO WHERE TO FD THE FT GENTLEMEN

“Everythg about beg gay was so crowd: the ads for bars and rts and waxg servic rammed together, shallow and histrnic and imper, ” he wr. ”“Gay Bar” has s share of first-book blu.

) Most jarrg, perhaps, are Atherton L’s efforts at mimickg the theorists he clearly admir, those sectns that e across as parodi of amic wrg: “If the word muny is ed a failure of vobulary — too broad, too utopian — perhaps the metaphor to bt replace is metaphor self”; “gay bars are about potentialy, not rolutn. Gay bars are not about arrivg.

WT HOLLYWOOD’S HISTORIC GAY NIGHTCLUB THE ABBEY IS UP FOR SALE

He’s already told what he most miss about gay bars; how movgly he replit here, wh his wi, strobg tellect, enliveng skepticism, raslly allure: “Perhaps you uld ll a gay bar a galaxy: We are held together but kept om llidg by a fe balance of momentum and gravy. Once home to a rabow of LGBTQ-iendly loung, bars and clubs, many of Miami’s most pendable gay clubs like Magnum, Mova and Sre are sadly no more.

We might be experiencg an extend drought of gay clubs and bars Miami, but there’s plenty of actn to be had if you know where to fd . So, whout further adi: Our roundup of the bt gay clubs Miami right now.

'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE

Bt Gay Clubs San Anton. Remend for Gay Clubs bee: If you're lookg for a ltle g, a ltle sk and perhaps a ltle s, Club Essence is the place to be!

Remend for Gay Clubs bee: A great ltle place to hang out wh iends that's not as showy as some of the others.