The Launch

Yesterday—March 1—was the day of the launch. It was a  sunny but slushy and cold Sunday and the launch was set for 1pm in the bookstore--the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division—at the LGBT Community Services Center on West 13^th St. It is now the spiffiest building imaginable, jammed with people and filled with facilities like a hug library, etc. Opportunities are so much greater for those coming out now yet so muchriskier too in this acrimonious times—especially for Trans Americans.

The launch essentially comprised me leading a panel with Sarah Schulman and Jackson Davidow, a young writer from Yale British Center. It was the typical panel. I should have kept tighter reins on it demanding my panelists to talk about what they’d volunteered for. I should have made it site-specific: That is acknowledging the first day of Women’s Month and read from—or at least point out—my book entries re women like Jackie Livingston suffering for shooting their kids in the buff or the wonderful Center Show that helped inaugurate the pile of stone that is the current Community Services Center, which I'd reviewed and that review is not only in the book but a rare piece of writing of that day.

But folks seemed to find the event a huge success, based on who attended—both quantity- (standing room only) and quality-wise (from Jeff Weinstein to Alexandra Juhasz) ). I realized at the under-attended, expensive celebration in the East Village following the launch, that this is only the beginning. A milestone yes, but…so much more to come.

Off the next day to Philadelphia--in fact I write this on Amtrak--and an event tomorrow night at Giovanni's Room, arguably the oldest queer bookstore in the US. Although I used to teach for an afternoon at a time at Moore College in Philadelphia en route back to NYC from Baltimore, but it was a very limited engagement.