Superlative Storytelling
Whether it’s a priceless archive, an unsung intellectual, or a saint’s dubious afterlife, I’m on it.
Photo: D J Shin
“I found that this movement within a movement could be satisfying, even occasionally inspirational, in its anger, humor, and campiness. It’s also…a big bag of yikes.” —The Seriously Weird (and Weirdly Serious) Lesbian Fantasy of Parthenogenesis (Slate)
“Beatrice deserved a great deal of credit. But isn’t that what she got?”
—‘Thanks Are Due Above All to My Wife’ (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
“Founded in 1976, the Institute closed in 2018, and at the time no one knew what would happen to its archive, which was supposedly vast but packed away, unorganized and uncatalogued.” —A Legendary Erotic Archive Has Been out of Public View for Decades. We Found It (The Observer)
“Many publishers don’t consider their photo archives worth the upkeep. But the Johnson Publishing Company did.”
—The World-Class Photography of Ebony and Jet Is Priceless History. It’s Still Up for Sale (Perspectives on History)
Honorable Mention
Lesbian Bars Are Back From the Brink
“It used to be illegal in many states to serve alcohol to homosexuals in commercial establishments, so gay and lesbian bars needed to buy protection from the mob.”
Goth Won’t Die, but It Wants a Funeral Anyway
“The music’s brooding fascination with death, beauty, gender play, and transgressive sexuality spawned a scene whose fans described themselves as ‘dramatic and pretentious.’”
The Revenge of Miss Jan Gay
“A ‘Miss Jan Gay’ is credited as essentially an assistant, when in fact she was responsible for both the idea and much of what we know of the execution of Sex Variants.
The Story of the Multigraph Collective
“At the last dinner, to bolster resolve about actually getting the book out, the idea of a blood pact was floated.”
Harper Lee and the Cold War Canon
“Totalitarianism lurked everywhere, bequeathing schoolchildren a syllabus replete with pleasurable misreadings.”
Joan of Arc, for Fascists and Feminists
“A minor irony of 1920 was that the Roman Catholic church canonized a teenage peasant girl it had burned back in 1431.”