Ode to the FAB

One small slice...

Every time I come to New Orleans I have to go to Faubourg Marigny Art & Books (hereafter FAB) on 600 Frenchmen, just past the border of the French Quarter. It’s a used bookstore, already a win in the Andyverse, but it also holds videos, art, archives of newspapers, porny magazines and all kinds of dusty trinket. And there’s no price tag – on anything.

The bookstore’s proprietor, Otis, is someone who I always end up having a conversation with – and it’s one of the places where I not only spend a bunch of my money, but feel recharged and perhaps a little introspective after leaving. You see, while working on gay and lesbian leather communities of the 1970s for my dissertation (I’ll be done soon, mom!), I’ve encountered so many stories of queer people’s stuff being thrown out by unforgiving family members. It’s an old saw that LGBTQers make pacts with friends that upon death they should come into the dead queer’s house to remove all manner of sex toy and item that mom/dad would find objectionable. It’s a joke, because nestled in there is a kernel of truth. It seems only we know the value of our own history (this is slowly changing), and so instead of leaving it to family we, as future ancestors, owe it to bequeath it out to other queers. The FAB is filled with such stuff.

In my short time (two hours in total) at the FAB, I perused every corner and still felt there was more I wasn’t seeing. Otis guided me towards some drawings and posters made by Matt, the one-name pseudonym of a New-Orleans based artist who rendered in ink taut and Teutonic men (some in leather) for national and international porn publications. Matt was lovers with someone who used to work at the store. And he was a big bibliophile. Big surprise. His drawings were stacked, leaning against the right-most wall, rubbing frames with porn-house publicity photos, Mardi Gras posters, personal family photos, lithographs from Tom of Finland, etc. Precious but unprecious.

There were shelves of hand-labelled VHS’s (most from the personal collection of Otis?). Only very few were mass-produced in any kind of way, but they were rather dubbed and duped. Episodes of Will & Grace, hours of the evening news, but most were gay male porn. I found two tapes labeled as containing Wakefield Poole’s seminal arthouse-porn crossover Boys in the Sand. I had no luck finding a VHS copy of Fred Halsted’s L.A. Plays Itself – the goal of my treasure hunt.

I also bought an old issue of Differences, a feminist academic journal, and two pulp porn novels – both of which had "Golden Shower" in their title. Finally, I purchased an autobiography by Samuel Steward – friend to Gertrude Stein, subject of Alfred Kinsey and father-figure to Sailor Jerry and Ed Hardy. Our ancestors move in mysterious ways.

Spending time in the FAB I come up against the difficult truth that has taken me so long to accept, that we will never know the immensity of our historical contributions, the fabulosity of our detritus. And if we’re lucky, it’ll be plucked up by someone younger than ourselves, waiting to be recharged with an intellectual and erotic energy that we once so easily exuded. The FAB has withstood this long, but it won’t forever – with the closing of the Oscar Wilde Bookshop in NYC, there are fewer and fewer places like the FAB. This is a great sadness, and one that provides a productive impetus for charging forth.

For me this is one of the rare occasions where buying something can be so spiritually connected with my queer life. And I’m so thankful for it.

As always - keep it tuned to Fine & Dandy with Kate & Andy.