I’ve never been to Fire Island or P-town, but at least I can check this off my list. Last night after dinner with friends in the Village, we stopped by the oldest running gay bar in New York, Julius. Although it has only been a gay bar since the mid 1960′s, it has been running apparently as a tavern/bar since 1867, and it would appear that the decor hasn’t changed much at all since then. It was the famous site of a 1966 “sip-in” by an early gay activist group known as the Mattachine Society, to protest rules preventing serving alcohol to homosexuals. It ended up resulting in a court case which overturned these rules, paving the way in part for the Stonewall riots and modern gay rights movement.
As I mentioned, the place looks like the interior hasn’t changed much since the 1800′s, with wagon wheel chandeliers and musty wood barrels and layers and years of accumulated funk. Think of a cross between a bowling alley, a barn, and a saloon and you are getting warm. It was the very soul of unpretentious and I quite liked it. I couldn’t say this would be any kind of place to meet your future husband (or one night stand either, for that matter), but it is a fine place for hanging out with old friends and reminiscing about the revolution.
It started innocently enough from a book review on Salon about the real history of the United States (as opposed to the propaganda they teach us in school). This led me (as it always does) to Wikipedia, and an article on Samoset, then Squanto, Smallpox Vaccine, Equus scotti, History of Native Americans, Cherokee (and the Cherokee Freedmen), John White, Teosinte, Amaranth, Pellagra, overnutrition (a quaint euphemism for obesity), the history of maize, and genetic diversity. Then (picking up other names from the original article) to Snorri Sturluson (by mistake!), The history of Iceland, Santo Domingo, Hispaniola, Amerigo Vespucci, Terra Incognita, Terra Australis, The Renaissance, polymath, Indian mathematics, the number zero, Lorenzo de Medici, Italy, History of Jews in Italy, Luigi Luzzati, Roman ghetto, Richard Amerike, and finally Manifest Destiny. Whew!
Although not as impressive as Teotihuacan (to which it had cultural ties), Monte Albán is amazingly rich in history, and begs all kinds of questions when one visits the place. What did the original site and structures look like? What were the daily lives of these people like? What caused the rise and decline? How are they related to other peoples in the area?
And then again, there are many moments when one is left without questions, just speechless and admiring and in awe of the place and its scope and layout. It is especially interesting coming from the US, where the indigenous built record seems so sparse compared to Mexico. What caused such a complex rise of civilizations and architecture in this part of the Americas, but not as much further north?
