#cafe tabac

[thebeautycove]

AEDES DE VENUSTAS - CAFÉ TABAC - Eau de Parfum - Novità 2024 -

New York. The ‘90s. A crazy way of life. Call it lucky who had the chance to witness that time at Café Tabac. The role this lounge bar played in NYC nightlife was just amazing. Everybody was there. This legendary spot revives nowadays in a scent.

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New York nei primi anni ‘90. Palcoscenico di straordinaria vitalità, esuberanza creativa, contaminazioni culturali e incredibile vortice di eccessi e contraddizioni.

Aedes de Venustas, che a New York deve la genesi di un eccezionale percorso nell’universo artistico delle fragranze, celebra questo tempo formidabile restituendo alla memoria un luogo cult delle frenetiche notti nella grande mela, il mitico Café Tabac.

Qui si dava appuntamento il gotha della moda, dell’arte, dello spettacolo. 

Warhol e Madonna, Kate Moss con Johnny Depp, Di Caprio con la trinity supermodels Naomi, Linda, Christy assidui frequentatori del piano superiore, off limits ai più, dove, come in un esclusivissimo speakeasy si consumavano cocktail e sostanze proibite.

Un involucro di follia, passioni, desideri, felicità effimera e irresistibili tentazioni.

Café Tabac, ultima creazione del brand, celebra la sensualità palpabile che emerge da quel luogo perduto. Bertrand Duchaufour scatta un’istantanea olfattiva così fedele e minuziosa, con le sue infinite meticolose piramidi di aromi, ne coglie in nitido primo piano l’atmosfera, i vapori ardenti del tabacco, dolce, secco, caldo, resinoso, la pungente sottolineatura delle spezie, cardamomo e chiodi di garofano, intinti in un’amalgama umida e succosa di frutti e fiori, davana, mela, mango, tamarindo, fico e dattero essiccati.

Un tutto che si fonde all’unisono, in festosa tondezza fino a far emergere, voluttuosa e magnetica, un’evoluzione ricolma di risonanze affumicate ambrate, vivide e tenaci con cisto labdano, ambra grigia, tonka, muschio di quercia, vaniglia, sapienti nell’intrappolare l’attimo e appiccicarsi all’anima, in un crescendo di vibrazioni sature di ricordi.  Presente, oggi come allora.

Creata da Bertrand Duchaufour.

Eau de Parfum 100 ml.  Online qui

©thebeautycove   @igbeautycove

[biglisbonnews]

The Year Lesbians Were Chic On any given Sunday in 1993, fresh from releasing her explosive "SEX" tome and the equally explicit album "Erotica," Madonna could be found at the chicest lesbian party at the hottest of restaurant-bars in the East Village. Flanked by gay it-girls like CK One model Jenny Shimizu or OG nepo baby socialite Ingrid Caseras, the pop star, in her prime, would ascend the winding stairs to the VIPs-only second floor and walk the runway between tables full of New York City's most beautiful women, who wouldn’t even pretend to hide their stares. Any given Sunday, Queen Latifah might be in the adjoining room, playing a round on the pink felt pool table and buying drinks for all the players, part-time model-DJ Sharee Nash playing a sensual mix of imported Euro acid-jazz and neo-soul; women buy cassettes to take home with them at the end of the night.A salon that ran from 1993 to 1995 at the model-owned celebrity hot spot, Café Tabac’s "No Day Like Sunday" — known colloquially as "Sundays at Café Tabac" — has been credited with being the birthplace of “lesbian chic.” A cultural moment christened by the media, lesbians' 15 minutes had to do with a convergence of social and political elements, but perhaps no physical space embodied it more than Sharee Nash and Wanda Acosta's famed fashion-forward party in the East Village. Owned by a male model with regulars like Naomi Campbell, Bono and Fran Lebowitz, Café Tabac was already a chic place to see and be seen for the fashion set, but Sundays were for the girls like designers and stylists (and ex-girlfriends) like Patricia Field and Rebecca Weinberg and rapper MC Lyte. A 1994 New Yorker profile of indie filmmakers Guinevere Turner and Rose Troche (also ex-girlfriends) fresh off their Sundance Jury win for their dyke film Go Fish were profiled "drinking Scotch and smoking Rothmans" one Sunday at Tabac, wherein Troche says, "you don't have to look straight or act straight." A New York Magazine item praised Tabac's crowd for being glamorous and "ethnically and sartorially diverse." The party was intended to be something private but different from the dyke dive bars Acosta had been accustomed to. At 28, the Nuyorican party girl divorced her husband and wanted to meet women but was struggling to find a place where she felt comfortable. "I was already feeling like I had been hiding this part of myself for so long," Acosta tells PAPER, "so to have to go down to this dark basement in the back of some space to meet women felt really claustrophobic. I wanted to see a place that was a more elevated, visible [space] that I could explore, getting dressed up and going out and seeing beautiful women."Acosta happened upon Nash at Alexander Smalls' hip Village soul food restaurant where models worked as hosts, among them some of Nash's girlfriends. One night in '93, Nash (a writer herself) sat reading Virginia Woolf's Orlando. "I guess that was her cue to think 'Maybe she's gay,'" Nash says. The two struck up a conversation and found themselves discussing lesbian nightlife, craving something "different.""Just for diversity — different energy, different music, different food, different looks and different people," Nash says. Having recently moved back to New York from Germany, Nash was DJing small spots and was tired of big clubs. There were some great options like The Clit Club at Bar Room 432 on Fridays, but New York was shifting into a dinner-and-drinks era where patrons would commandeer an event all night and let the party circulate around them. The idea of dinner was appealing for Nash, who says that, growing up in St. Louis, her family was big on Sunday meals. She describes the ideal Tabac night as dinner followed by "cocktails, running around, dancing, dessert, then dessert." The party started out as private – word-of-mouth and invite-only — which was part of the appeal. Some of the potentially closeted attendees appreciated the clandestine affair; rarely were photos taken in the pre-cell phone era. "We didn't invite the celebrities," Nash says. "They just found out and they just started showing up."With New York fashion and celebrity comes New York media, and the party started to pick up bits in the press, including the aforementioned New Yorker piece. Designer friends would create looks for Nash to wear as she worked the party, enabling her to connect adoring fans to the creator in the very same room. The salon only ran for two years, but the stories and symbolism of No Day Like Sundays has been so enduring that co-creator Wanda and filmmaker Karen B. Song have been working on a film documenting the women and time of Tabac, touching on what made it so special. "There was that performative aspect of it," Song says. "You would walk in that space and see what it was like to see the confidence in front of you, what that translates to." Acosta says Sundays at Tabac "allowed women to be able to come in and express themselves in a different way than they had been able to before.""I think before we were dressing and signifying each other through our dress codes," Acosta says. "In the early '90s, we started to be able to express ourselves as individuals."Several of the aforementioned women like Patricia Field, Jenny Shimizu and Guinevere Turner are interviewed for the Sundays at Café Tabac documentary, as well as other attendees such as award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson, gay critics Michael Musto and Hilton Als and butch icon Lea DeLaria, all reflecting on the weekly gathering set amongst a highly visible moment for lesbians and, more generally, queer women."We all loved just watching to see who was gonna come up the stairs — what they were wearing and who they were with, " Acosta says. "It was really a bit of voyeurism as well." Voyeurism looms large in lesbian chic, as lesbian visibility has always been a Xena-sized double-edged sword. Although lesbian chic has certainly achieved more visibility and acceptance for some lesbians, lesbians themselves weren't always in charge of the messaging. "Lesbian chic" was a tangible trend co-opted by the media looking for a sexy new flavor of the month, and, post-AIDS, gay women were finally on the menu.Madonna, for one, thrust sexual experimentation into the zeitgeist in the late '80s, first with a flirtatious and rumored relationship with Sandra Bernhard in tabloids and then late-night television. Together, they appeared on "The Late Show with David Letterman" in matching ACT Up uniforms (white T-shirts, denim jean shorts and Doc Martens), dropping New York lesbian dive The Cubbyhole into salacious conversation."She was an enfant terrible sometimes, but for the most part, I think everyone was like, 'Whoa – what's, what is she gonna do next?'" Song says of Madonna. "She was so at the prime – she was in the media eye and every time she was photographed or at a party or at a fashion show or whatever, shooting a music video, she always had a lesbian with her." After falling out with Bernhard (reportedly over Caseras), Madonna set her sights on k.d. lang, feigning a romantic or sexual relationship with the androgynous country-punk crooner and likening her handsome swagger to both her ex-husband Sean Penn and Elvis. (Later, lang would admit they shared a publicist and that the lesbian chic thing "probably benefitted" the both of them.)More than Madonna, lang played an integral role in the visibility of lesbians because, for one, she is one. lang's coming out on the cover of The Advocate in May 1992 followed the success of her sex bomb of a pop crossover album Ingenue, a Grammy-winning turn that was due, in part, to her hit devouring single "Constant Craving." Both the pop cultural and political landscapes were primed for lang to confirm that the seductive love songs on Ingenue were written about women, and she seemed to be rewarded for her outsiderness as opposed to being shunned by it, as she had in the country music realm. She was tired of staying in the closet and playing by as many rules as she could abide, and so her move into contemporary pop came with self-acceptance, a laissez-faire attitude and confident seduction in suits on stage and in interviews. Lang stirred something in people of all genders and sexual orientations. People were fascinated by her, unclear where or how to place her in their desires, but, well, craving more. Lang's effect was so palpable that she won a 1993 MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Pop Performance despite, as she remarked, "never getting played on MTV."Lang's coming out happened in the Clinton era, when the President and First Lady counted a few well-placed lesbians as friends and third-wave feminists were turning political actions into protests for lesbian visibility. The singer rode along the pop cultural push for lesbians to be recognized and represented and became a de facto poster girl. A now-famous New York Magazine cover from 1993 has the square-jawed singer gazing into the lens, brow angled in a saucy dare; all capital letters, all-white font: "LESBIAN CHIC" emblazoned across her velvet-clad cross-body arm, the subhead "The Bold Brave New World of Gay Women" literally resting on her shoulder. It wasn't just k.d., of course. In 1993, Melissa Etheridge came out and released her Grammy-winning Yes I Am, Lea DeLaria made dyke jokes on The Arsenio Hall Show and, by then, openly queer Sandra Bernhard had both a Playboy cover and a regular bisexual role on Roseanne. Tennis star Martina Navratilova had her dyke drama splashed all over The Washington Post. It was primarily white women being celebrated for their chicness, and that there were at least a handful of them being so visible meant only one thing to the media — lesbianism was a cool new trend that could be exploited for a hot minute.In August of '93, lang was being shaven and straddled by supermodel Cindy Crawford on the cover and in the pages of what is now an iconic issue of Vanity Fair. “I don’t know how to use femininity as a powerful tool. I use my sexuality, but I eliminate the gender from it," lang told Vanity Fair, saying that she's long felt a "social pressure to be beautiful, thin, stylish."Never before had a butch lesbian been celebrated, despite a long lineage, and while her Vanity Fair issue remains one of the most iconic covers ever, it wasn't long before butches were erased from the lesbian chic narrative in favor of something more desirable by men.At least the Vanity Fair piece was all about lang; the New York piece mentioned her briefly but primarily reported on the trend of openly gay women who have "transformed the lesbian image." Author Jeanie Russell Kasindorf reported that "the short-haired 'bulldyke' is still many Americans' idea of what a gay woman looks like. Now 'lipstick lesbians' and 'designer dykes' share the bar with the 'butch/femme' group; the downtown black leather crowd and women in Jones New York suits wander among them.'" In other words, anyone could be a lesbian, which made lesbians both visible and invisible at the same time.This new attention spawned skewed speculation from places like Playboy ("the secret to the craze is that Nineties-style lesbianism requires no commitment"), 20/20 and Geraldo Rivera; coffee table how-to guides on lesbian hair, dress and sex (primarily addressing a straight, curious audience) and fashion editorials posing glamorous women together in suggestive photos ripe with Sapphic subtext. It seemed there was a proliferation of lesbians out of nowhere — lesbian comedian Kate Clinton joked in a 1993 LA Times piece that lesbian chic is "in a lot of ways what lesbian separatism was, but with better PR."For women like Clinton who had been performing publicly out as a lesbian since the early ‘80s, the new fad of “lipstick lesbians” and “designer dykes” was alienating to the larger community. Some found it hypersexualizing while others found it neutering, forcing a recycled conversation about respectability politics and feminist principles that has and will continue to plague lesbians for as long as we live in a hetero-patriarchal, capitalist society. If we don't own our own narratives, then how can any of us know or agree upon what a lesbian is or should be? Mairead Sullivan, Associate Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Loyola Marymount University and author of Lesbian Death, says 1993 was significant in that it "was the year 'lesbian' lost its political bite," at least to the consuming public."This is a moment when 'lesbian' is no longer politically associated with a militant radical feminism," Sullivan tells PAPER. "Lesbian chic arrives as a disidentification of feminism."The early '90s was removed enough from the '70s that lesbians were no longer associated with the militant radical feminism of their foremothers, instead acting in response to it. No longer operating out of separatism, women came to work with gay men and trans people during the AIDS epidemic, a new generation of lesbians and bisexual women developing and honing demonstration tactics, bringing newfound ways of being seen and heard into a new future of sex positivity.Media spectacle was one way to get attention. Sullivan points to the political work and televising of the 1993 March on Washington (where the action group the Lesbian Avengers held the first-ever Dyke March with 20,000 lesbians marching together) as part of what led heteronormative stalwarts like Newsweek to run cover stories on lesbians and "the limits of tolerance.""Some people are panicking about [lesbians] and the Newsweek article is doing this identification of it: 'Lesbians are all good trying to raise children, not fringe topless lesbians with their fists in the air,'" Sullivan says. No longer were lesbians seen as men-hating threats to the nuclear family if all they wanted was to be part of their own. The irony is that lesbian visibility could not have happened without the topless lesbians or their fists. It was these activists who forced the lavender menace conversation with NOW, seeking to be part of resourced feminism post-women's liberation, and in the '80s, despite feminist backlash, were huge parts of national AIDS organizations like Act UP and Queer Nation. Within these factions, lesbians were finding themselves, creating connections and empowering each other. Sullivan points out that 1993 was also the first year lesbians were ever counted in any official way as a demographic. When the FDA finally gave AIDS activists a seat the proverbial table in 1991, they brought lesbian breast cancer advocates with them, leading to an NIH-sponsored study on lesbian health and breast cancer. The results went across the AP Newswire and were published widely. "So it's across the national news, this declaration that there's a lesbian breast cancer epidemic, and that becomes a real way in which lesbian then becomes this very clear demarcated like demographic category, in which now there's like an impetus or maybe put differently like a structure to count lesbians that didn't really exist before," Sullivan says.Those numbers reflected a market for those courting untapped markets, and “lesbian” was now an identity that could be advertised to and capitalized on. After close to two decades as a music label for women's music, Olivia Records switched to a lesbian travel company for women in 1990, placing full-page ads in the newly launched glossy Deneuve (later Curve) magazine for trips like its historic, media-hyped sail to Lesbos in 1993. Alcohol companies and brands like Subaru took bets on catering to an untapped subculture with pink dollars to spend, affording gay and lesbian magazines spots on special interest shelves in big box bookstores.Joining Curve in 1992 was OUT magazine, the first glossy gay and lesbian lifestyle magazine that positioned itself as less political than The Advocate or similar news-centric LGBT publications. Spokesman Michael Kaminer told The New York Times that the magazine would "redefine what gay fashion is," adding, "Some people think that lesbian women wear only jeans and Birkenstocks." The pervasive dowdy lesbian stereotype was born out of 1970s separatist lesbians who eschewed capitalism and patriarchal beauty standards. But lesbians weren't an invention of the '70s any more than were the '90s. Pre-dating what is often considered the birth of modern lesbianism are several Sapphic heydays, including the 1920s Harlem Renaissance performers like Gladys Bentley and Ma Rainey and the Lost Generation of Gertrude Stein, Natalie Barney and Djuna Barnes. (In fact, the first use of the phrase "lesbian chic" was made by historian Lillian Faderman in her 1991 book Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, in a chapter called "Lesbian Chic: Experimentation and Repression in the 1920s," borrowing a phrase from Djuna Barnes' 1928 Ladies Alamack.) One hundred years ago, lesbians were thriving in their own private artistic circles but still had to maintain a cloak of passing heterosexuality in the interest of their own safety. Every decade following had its own lesbian subcultures (from butch/femme in the 1950s to the respectability politics of the Daughters of Bilitis into the Gay Liberation of the late-'60s), but the proliferation of lesbian visibility that the '70s brought exploded notions of a monolithic sameness when the Sex Wars divided lesbians over things like porn, sex work and S&M into the '80s. When award-winning writer, publisher and sexpert Susie Bright went to work at the hotly contested lesbian erotic magazine On Our Backs in San Francisco in the '80s, she tells PAPER "being in the closet was still de rigor for lesbians and seemed to be just the province of a few well-placed gay men."Facing "real denigration exclusion and persecution by the conservative mainstream feminist movement," Bright and the sex workers who both posed for and published On Our Backs were told they were ruining the progress feminists had made by celebrating their bodies, their desires and their sex positivity in editorial spreads and articles as their answer to Playboy (they even had a butch pin-up of the month).On Our Backs published from 1984 to 2006, long outlasting lesbian chic's 15 minutes, which Bright credits "not just because of our sex appeal but because the charisma and the political vision of 'what if women's sexuality had nothing to do with virtue or decoration or her fertility?'""We strutted our stuff and we voiced our political point of view, and then years later in the nineties, this lesbian chic thing comes splashing across the mainstream press, and my first reaction was, without us, this wouldn't have happened, but I already hate it because it is a new kind of packaging of titillation for men and an accentuation of the femme to the exclusion of the butch," Bright said. (Radical Desire, a retrospective of On Our Backs and its historic women and trans photographers is available virtually from Cornell.)Part of the problem was not just that the idea of lesbians being cool for a moment was not just that it commodified lesbians as a consumable lifestyle, but it suggested lesbianism was something to put on temporarily, like a costume for a theme party. "Lesbian sexual power is not because you're skinny or petite or rich or have the perfect complexion or have a Gucci bag or friends in high places. It's not about 'Ha ha, I was a lesbian at a party for five minutes — it was incredible!'" She adds wryly: "If it stops them from killing us and taking our children and refusing to hire us and chasing us out of our homes and refusing to let us attend our family death beds — if that's what this is about, great, have your little lesbian chic moment."The reality of representation was not all positive: 1993 was the first year hate crimes against gays surpassed racially motivated attacks. The '90s in particular were record-breaking for lesbian murders — Talana Kreeger in 1990, Susan Pittmann and Christine Puckett in 1992, Sylvia Lugo in 1995, Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill in 1995, Julie Williams and Lollie Winans in 1996 and Martha Oleman in 1997. Although not a lesbian, trans man Brandon Teena's murder also sent reverberations through the community. Simply seeing more depictions of gay women wasn't necessarily translating into acceptance or a promise of safety. In fact, it seemed being more visible made them more of a target, which has always been a conundrum for gender-nonconforming people. A media-sanctioned celebration of cisgender, able-bodied, middle-to-upper-class lesbians wasn't helpful to all lesbians, which begs the continual question: If that's the case, how could "lesbian chic" be good at all? What started as a celebration of k.d. lang as a masc-of-center cover model from Alberta, Canada was swiftly reconfigured into a fashion moment that inevitably leaned away from female masculinity and into the edgy but non-threatening "lipstick lesbian." Today, there seems to be a discrepancy on what lesbian chic is – A look? A red lip? A swagger? An identity? – and that adds to the confusion. Fashion expert Chelsea Fairless, co-creator of the popular Instagram account and podcast Every Outfit on Sex and the City, defines lesbian chic as a style that women have always and still wear today."It was kind of like the '90s version of Marlene Dietrich," Fairless tells PAPER. "It was about the men's wear, but with full lipstick heels, in many instances, gelled hair."Fairless designed a T-shirt for (ex-girlfriend) butch comic-actor and Tabac regular Lea DeLaria that bemoaned the moment that she sold at public appearances, reading: "I survived lesbian chic," with 'lesbian chic' written in red lipstick. "Lea is a butch woman of a certain age, and that shirt is speaking to her fans that had a similar experience or a similar reaction to lesbian chic at the time that it was happening," Fairless said. She points to an OUT cover DeLaria shot in 1998 that DeLaria posted for a throwback Thursday not long ago, with DeLaria writing in the caption, "Why the fuck am I wearing lipstick? And grabbing my tit?!" That it was a gay magazine and six years after lesbian chic was au courant suggested that something had been lost in translation.DeLaria was not the lone butch at Tabac, and Nash is quick to point out that the party was not solely catering to high-femme fashion models and their famous friends. "There were celebrities in there, but we had friends who were construction workers who build skyscrapers. I think those women are equally badass," Nash says. "There we had school teachers, professors. We wanted to make it women from all walks of life. It wasn't just exclusive to just pretty models."Nationally, the publicity offered helped to establish lesbians as a demographic to be counted and catered to, but in many ways clung to the preferred idea of an acceptable type of lesbian. (DeLaria, for one, played a lecherous butch coming onto Goldie Hawn in the 1996 film "The First Wives Club" in an otherwise comical scene at a hip lesbian bar. She's played several more stereotypical roles of the same ilk since.) But there's no question Ellen DeGeneres couldn't have come out on primetime television without kd lang and, arguably, lesbian chic having given networks enough proof that there could be a monetary benefit from teasing something so taboo. (Lang, of course, appeared in the episode.)The best-selling musical tour of the late-'90s, the all-women's Lilith Fair, had what Sullivan can attest to from personal experience, "lesbian feminist aesthetics." It's when the 'chic' replaces feminism that things get cloudy. "As the mainstream media picks up and tries to narrate lesbian chic, it has this way of basically being like 'Don't worry, lesbians aren't as threatening as they seem because they're like all just good girls!'" Sullivan says."Before there was lesbian chic there was lesbian invisibility," Bright said in a 1997 interview. "I'd rather be visible. I know how much I felt like I suffered when the media only discussed the gay community in terms of gay men. But lesbian chic is just another signal of exploitation, like when feminists were portrayed only as bra-burners."New York Magazine, the very publication that had deemed lesbians chic in the first place, declared it past its expiration date by 1995 in a piece about Sundays at Café Tabac. Things were coming to an end. The piece quoted a "sardonic regular" quipping, "There's nothing to do but gawk at all the beautiful people."In 1995, lang's Ingenue follow-up All You Can Eat didn't replicate the former's success, and Madonna was looking to soften her image with her post-Erotica album, Bedtime Stories, and seemed to have tired of lesbians as an accessory. Tabac had become so big that Acosta and Nash (ex-girlfriends) had both floors and lines out the door on four-day weekends. The venue's vibe was changing, following the new New York City trend for lounges, thrift store couches replacing tables and doing away with dinner altogether."It totally changed the space," Acosta said. "It totally changed the party." Nash said she knew that Sundays at Café Tabac were over when one night, Kate Moss came up the steps, followed by Johnny Depp instead of a gang of supermodels. "People were like 'Johnny Depp is here,'" Nash recalls. "I'm like 'Yeah, pretty much a wrap for us. It's over.'"Nash and Acosta both went on to throw other successful parties, but their Sundays at Café Tabac have remained a particularly positive experience for many women who found it a place to see and be seen. Nothing has resonated quite like those nights of lesbian du jour. The struggle now is, like most independent lesbian efforts, the documentary about Sundays is underfunded and the filmmakers are looking for support to bring the project to fruition. (Donations can be made directly to Café Tabac on their website.) Lesbians continue to have their chic fashion moments – brands like The Row, Celine and Louis Vuitton have borrowed from OGs like openly lesbian designer Jil Sander, putting models in boxy baggy suits. "Dressing like a lesbian" is still in or out depending largely on what celebrities are wearing anything akin to menswear. Without stylist Patricia Field, Sex and the City would not have been the fashion inspiration that it was, with every single character on the show having lesbian chic moments of their own. (Fairless points to the 1997 episode where Charlotte befriends a group of art world power lesbians who want her to commit, not just play the part. When Charlotte says she loves female energy but prefers men, one power lesbian tells her, "Sweetheart, that's all very nice. But if you're not going to eat pussy, you're not a dyke.") Without the success of Sex and the City, there wouldn't be The L Word, a show that was essentially lesbian chic in aspiration and action. (Its new iteration Generation Q is as much a reaction to the original as lesbian chic was to second-wave lesbians of the '70s.)Nowadays, Brandi Carlile struts in k.d. lang's heeled boots and designer and creative director Jenna Lyons is joining Martina Navritova's wife as an openly gay Real Housewife as she joins the New York cast this coming season. Some of the most famous and well-regarded lesbians are anchoring Good Morning America, hosting the Oscars and being named "Couture Week's Best Dressed Couple" by Vogue. Lesbian bars may be in flux, but queer nightlife and the intentional creation of inclusive spaces is consistently evolving. And despite clickbait proclamations that 30 years after being chic, lesbians are so over, that's just not the reality. Are lesbians ever really done processing?Sullivan says a lot of the conversations happening at the time of lesbian chic in lesbian and queer communities but also nationally are very mirrored right now. "There are attempts from mainstream media to soften 'lesbian,'" Sullivan says, "but I actually think that the response from the lesbian community was a very strong engagement with lesbian politics and dyke politics – and I think we see that coming back in full force right now." Just like Madonna.Photos courtesy of Wanda Acosta and Karen Song https://www.papermag.com/cafe-tabac-lesbian-chic-2659588433.html

[liverpoollomo]

Cafe Tabac. Nikon F65. Expired Tesco 400 (shot at 1600.)

Cafe Tabac has stood at the top of Bold Street since 1974 and, according to it's website was inspired by the "great Bohemian cafes of Europe." It has long had a reputation for attracting creative and arty types.

I popped in for a coffee before a gig at a nearby venue on a dull night of march this year. Luckily they did not mind me taking any photos.

[troquets]

Café, tabac, restaurant, Fay en Haye, Meurthe et Moselle.

[postcard-from-the-past]

Verriest Cafe-Tabac in La Fère, Picardy region of France

French vintage postcard

[deklo]

i wish i had so much money so i could buy so many expensive perfumes

[toutplacid]

Panneaux à l’angle de la rue André-Joineau et de la rue Danton, le Pré-Saint-Gervais (Seine-Saint-Denis) – craie grasse, carnet n° 138, 11 juillet 2023.

[la-femme-au-collier-vert]

IWTV Season 2 Sources & References

Season 1 here (these lists are updated regularly)

Season 3 here

Cited by the Writer’s Room/Cast:

The Ethnic Avante-Garde: Minority Cultures and World Revolution (Modernist Latitudes) by Steven S. Lee

Paris Journal 1944-1955 by Janet Flanner (Genet)

The Vampire: A Casebook by Alan Dundes

Horizontal Collaborators: The Erotic World of Paris, 1920-1946 by Mel Gordon

The Sexual Outlaw: A Documentary: A Non-Fiction Account, with Commentaries, of Three Days and Nights in the Sexual Underground by John Rechy

Banjo: A Story Without a Plot by Claude McKay

Pour Que Paris Soit by Elsa Triolet and Robert Doisneau 

Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles: An Alphabettery

The Fly cited by Jacob Anderson

King Lear by Shakespeare cited by Rolin Jones

The Third Man (1949) cited by Levan Akin

An American in Paris by George Gershwin (1928) cited by Daniel Hart

Giovanni’s Room cited by Jacob Anderson

Works directly referenced:

Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin

Sebastien Melmoth by Oscar Wilde

Ode to a Nightingale by Keats

Amadeus (1984)

The Lost Boys (1987)

Gaslight (1944)

Batman

Casablanca (1942)

Now, Voyager (1942)

Moulin Rouge (2001)

The Phantom of the Opera

Les Vampires (1915)

Dracula (1931) credit to @vampchronicles_ on twt

Le Triomphe de L’amour by Pierre de Marivaux

Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean Paul Sartre

Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Vampire’s Kiss (1988) credit to @talesfromthecrypts

Les Morts ont tous le Meme Peau by Boris Vian credit to @greedandenby

The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Barclay Beckett credit to @rorscachisgay on twt

An Enemy of the People by Ibsen

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Vie de Voltaire by Marquis Condorcet

Simone de Beauvoir: A Critical Introduction by Edward Fullbrook and Kate Fullbrook credit to @iwtvfanevents

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes credit to @iwtvfanevents

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Blacks by Jean Genet

The Books that Shaped Art History: From Gombrich and Greenberg to Alpers and Krauss by Richard Shone and Jean-Paul Stonard

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (10th anniversary edition)

Artists, Art, and Salons:

R-26

Palma Vecchio

Andre Fougeron

Elsa Triollet

Fred Stein

Lisette Model

Gordon Parks

Miguel Barcelo

Taxidermied Javelina by Chris Roberts-Antieau

Ai WeiWei (wallpaper)

David Hockney (Lemons)

Wols 

The Kiss of Judas by Jakob Smits

Salome by Louis Icart

Ophelia by John Everett Millais

Shelter by Peter Macon

The Kiss by Edvard Munch

The Vampire or Love and Pain by Edvard Munch credit @iwtvasart

Ruiter on Horse by Reiger Stolk credit @ iwtvasart

Portrait of Frank Burty Haviland by Modigliani credit @iwtvasart

Self-Seers II (Death and Man) by Egon Schiele credit to @90sgreggaraki

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters by Goya

Aicha by Felix Vallotton

Cariatide by Modigliani

Nature Morte Au Pain Et Au Cocteau by Louis Marcoussis

Untitled by Julio Gonzalez

Embrace by Mikulas Galanda

Trees on a Mountain Slope by Ernst Kirchner

Landscape Paris by Henry Lyman Sayen

Tabac 56 by Oscar Garcia

Spirituals by Lillian Richter Reynolds

Movie & Play Posters on set (in chronological order by year):

Tarzan and his Mate (1934)

Avec le Sourire (1936)

Les Deux Gosses (1936)

Le Jour Se Leve (1939) about a man who commits murder as a result of a love triangle and locks himself in his apartment recounting the details as the police attempt to arrest him. Credit to @laisofhyccara

Nuit de Décembre (1940)

Mademoiselle Swing (1942) about a girl who follows a troupe of swing musicians to Paris.

Les Enfents du Paradis (1945) about a woman with many suitors including an actor and an aristocrat.

Fantomas (1946) about a sadistic criminal mastermind. This version includes a hideout in the catacombs where he traps people.

Quai des Orfevres (1947) watch here

Monsieur Vincent (1947)

Le Cafe du Cadran (1947) about a wife’s affair with a violinist.

La Kermesse Rouge (1947) film about a jealous artist who locks up his younger wife and a fire breaks out while she’s trapped.

Morts Sans Sepulture by Jean-Paul Sartre (play) also published in English translations as “The Victors” or “Men Without Shadows” about resistance fighters captured by Vichy soldiers struggling not to give up information.

Mon Faust by Paul Valery (play)

Musical Influences: @greedandenby collected all music used in Season 2 here.

Henry Cowell

Meredith Monk

Howling’ Wolf

Shirley Temple

Jason Lindner Big Band

The Teeth

Carlos Salzedo

Alice Coltrane

Thelonius Monk

David Lang

Caroline Shaw

Gadfly by Shostakovich (for Raglan James)

musical career of Martha Argerich

[revolutionarywig]

Hello! Dunno if you're still taking requests but your Modern Frev AU is super interesting! Maybe some more of what you have in mind about that AU?

Hi! Apologies for the very delayed reply! I am really glad that you liked that AU!

I did this drawing a while back while brainstorming the modern au looks:

I think it would be natural for Robespierre to be a tired guy trying to finish his doctor degree while part-time teaching. Maybe he previously lived with the Duplays in the middle of Paris but he moved out to the suburb because he felt bad.

Saint-Just would be a tattoo artist living in the Marais haha, except that he doesn't calculate his spending (and expensive rent) very well so sometimes he has to ask his mom for money.

Marat would be a grumpy old man frequenting cafes and tabac, and probably hand out political flyers in his spare time.

Danton is greasy and buys crypto-

Okay and Camille....I have a weird idea but hear me out...What if we have....transfem modern camille.....and she lives with Lucille as two very happy lesbians....and gives Robespierre relationship advice..... (alright I will walk out now sorry)

but yeah those are just some current ideas, a lot of them also come from fellow friends suggestions. Hope this is interesting haha.

[heavenisveryhot]

Things I’ll miss once I move:

2 minutes walk to this Tabac/Cafe

My neighbor’s cat

[toomuchracket]

hi mads, random, but are you from glasgow? i'm going there in a few weeks and wondering if you had recommendations for cute places, shops and cafes to visit???

technically no but i practically live there at this point lol. ok so i think you should go out the west end (get the subway to hillhead/kelvinhall/kelvinbridge/maybe even partick) and go to kelvingrove gallery and/or the botanic gardens - there are a lot of cute cafes and restaurants out that way too!! alternatively, get the train from central and hang out in shawlands for a bit, there are some really lovely independent shops, and you could also get off the train at pollokshaws west and go to see the highland cows in pollok country park (there are baby ones!!); there's also the burrell collection, a gallery, within the park too. if you like pizza, paesano is the move (there's one in the west end AND one in the city centre), and definitely sugo for pasta (literally my fav place of all time). for drinks in the city centre, i like stereo and tabac for something chill, king tuts is iconic, and devil of brooklyn is meant to be fab - for coffee, tinderbox (they have a few locations across the city), laboratorio espresso, spitfire, or social bite on sauchiehall street (their proceeds go to helping reduce homelessness, and the cakes are AMAZING). drinks in the west end, i'd go to inn deep or banana moon, or somewhere down ashton lane or oran mor if i was feeling a bit fancier, and i tend to buy coffee in the alchemy experiment whenever i'm out there just for an excuse to go in lol - it's a gallery space/cafe hybrid, where they sell art and other little independently-crafted bits and bobs, and if you're there then walk a few doors down to onawallnearyou for prints as well. if you're going any further east than glasgow cross - which you should, to go to the barras market at the weekend - saint luke's and the winged ox for drinks (nice food, too), and us v them for coffee. OH also if you're looking for something cute to do, definitely go pottery painting at the craft pottery (book via insta), and golf fang is meant to be really fun crazy golf but i have yet to try. and tbh if it's live music you're after then i'd just see what's on in stereo/king tuts/broadcast/nice n sleazys while you're there lol you might end up seeing the next big thing!! yeah there's so much to do. gonna tag jade @theseventyfive to see if she has any recs that i've forgotten lol <3

[havithreatendub4]

#1996 with #Kate Moss at the #New York after-party of a fashion show

#article link

#court

[harrison-abbott]

[A Trip to Paris. Part I.]

Spill upwards and out into the air,

Span across the length of the nation.

Clouds ease by in brilliant white cotton shapes,

Making you wish you were a giant and could touch them,

The way there’s that urge to burst a

Bubble you see flying near you, or that

Instinct to catch a floating feather.

Mind that it’s only just morning – with that

Fresh colour in the sky like waters of remote streams …

And it is quite a stunning thing to be alive

And such moments as these make you feel a

Different person, or rather

You tend to forget the woe that often bothers you.

Is that London! To see the metropolis from such

A height, and the Thames so tiny, the skyscrapers

These little dominoes or like pieces

In a Monopoly game; and you

Imagine or recall how cramped and manic

That city is with its nine million inhabitants

And from this range it’s a mini boardgame.

And then the plane goes onwards to the very

South of the UK and you know the map,

The shape of the country

Having seen it on paper or screens so often, but,

Here you can see that final triangle in

Brazen array, and the sea chasing the ivory cliffs.

In not too long a time we’re over the fields of

Europe.

A special kind of grace … to observe the green and

Brown squares and their fringes of verdigris trees.

The plane descends and goes into the clouds

And there is nothing but rushing mist beyond the windows.

These open up into the stark mechanical buildings

Outside of the city; and when the plane arrives

There’s a thumping satisfying jolt on the runway.

Then the bustle and confusion of the airport with two

Thousand other people mostly all feeling

Befuddled as well.

But you get the train tickets to take you

Unto the citadel

And it really wasn’t that tricky

And the airport workers who help you

Out probably think you ditsy and so they should.

Anyway, let’s bounce.

The announcer on the speakers proclaims

Each name of the station as you prevail;

You always thought that the sound of the

French language was half balletic and half rash.

And yet the English language would be totally

Different if it weren’t for the French.

There’s a stop nearer to your hotel but you

Decide to get off further down in the most-famous

Part of town, as to your introduction to France.

That uber cathedral that springs up in international

Knowledge very oft’: and, oh, there it is – after

Heading up the tunnels of the Metro and out into

The hot windy sunny space.

Siene, there is the Siene, hurtling in camouflage-green

Arteries all bashing together, and the open topped

Boats with the folks on board snapping shots of the

Lofty alabaster buildings lining the river.

Downriver you venture; your hotel not being open

For check-in yet and so you may as well wander.

Plush restaurants each place you glance.

With flowery decorations on their signs; and as

We weave further, the cafes with their maroon canopies

Beholding TABAC, with little pools of men and women

(mostly ladies) smoking on their chairs,

With those short violent gusts of tobacco smoke

That you don’t normally like back home but

You seem to get a kick out of when travelling.

The ladies wear tights and they often have thick eyebrows,

Or differently shaped jaw structures from what you’re used to.

There are policemen standing in pockets with their hands on

Their hips and they talk and laugh in loud volume,

And by the by a group of workie men in orange fluorescence

That you catch a few words of as you pass.

More police chaps whizz by on flashing motorcycles;

And several times there are ambulances that whoosh by

With their sirens screeching neehnaww in manic echoes.

You get to a certain part of the city. That second-most iconic name

(one could argue) of Paris; the bit where the first revolution

Exploded over two hundred and thirty years back.

There’s a monument, nowadays, a long column, alit,

Engraved and inscribed. And, do you know, it’s sealed

Off with fences taller than three men. But somebody

Has climbed over them and graffitied the monument,

With the words, ‘STOP GENOCIDE’ in red spray paint.

You often found the history of the French revolutions scary

And gory, and, well, that’s what they were like.

Guillotines, mass public mayhem, rife public hatred.

It was ironic that they had made this monument as an

Ode to all of that uber destruction; and not passing any judgement:

It only seemed a weird thing to celebrate violence.

But, then, you’d literally just left the UK, where

It was 5th of November, and people were still

Fizzing fireworks four hundred years after similar

Actions in London, which hardly anybody

In the modern age knew anything about:

They were only keen on colour and gunpowder these days.

The hotel is opening soon so let’s head over there.

The trees line the streets either side of the roads

In direct beneficial order and they’re all mature trees

And yet seem to fit exactly well into the urban zeal of

The arena

And this is one of your favourite features about

This continent,

From each sublime city you’ve adventured around.

Beside the trees are clogged missions of bicycles

In lime green and lemony yellow, and you have to be

Wary of the mobile cyclists that pop and zing by you

On the pavements, also stuffed with the fat vermillion

Bins and the pigeons that waddle prettily around your shoes.

You get to the hotel. Up to reception and there are two women

There, maybe a tad younger than you. You’d thought that

It would be more formal but they just give you the keys

And then that’s it and one of them smiles in that way that

Some people do well and other’s cant.

Up to the room where you’ll live for the next three days.

It is on the top floor. And when you get inside, and after

You’ve taken off your bags and coat, you open the window

And look down at the sheer deathworthy drop below you,

The expanse of noisy urbanity underneath;

And if you look to the left you can see a whole quarter mile

Streak of Paris, simmering in the mega moment.

[bestlocalbusinesse]

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[newmic]

Café Charbon

Dans la très festive rue Oberkampf, le Café Charbon est une institution qui attire les noctambules parisiens depuis plus d’un siècle. Créé en 1900

Le café Charbon intéresse particulièrement les chercheurs en sciences humaines, parce que son ouverture est l’un des signaux de la gentrification du quartier de la rue d’Oberkampf, qui est aujourd’hui une espèce de grande rue de la soif parisienne. Après avoir vendu un premier café à Bastille, quartier déjà gentrifié (rue de Lappe, rue de la Roquette), les propriétaires, Jean-Claude Sergues et Olivier Van Deputte, ont choisi d’ouvrir leur nouveau café dans une rue jusqu’alors peu fréquentée, à la place d’un modeste bar tabac, qui avait été un café-concert au début du XXe siècle. Ouvert en 1995, la décoration intérieure, très travaillée, recréé une ambiance Belle Époque par la multiplicité des suspensions, ses lampes de comptoir en fer forgé, sa banne rectangulaire, son zinc, ses banquettes de moleskine, etc

En savoir plus sur : https://www.laculturegenerale.com/cafes-celebres-paris-meilleurs-liste/ ©

In the very festive rue Oberkampf, the Café Charbon, is an institution that has attracted Parisian night owls for more than a century. Established in 1900

The Café Charbon is of particular interest to researchers in the humanities, because its opening is one of the signals of the gentrification of the rue d'Oberkampf district, which is today a kind of great street of Parisian thirst. After selling a first coffee in Bastille, already gentrified district (rue de Lappe, rue de la Roquette), the owners, 

Jean-Claude Sergues and Olivier Van Deputte, chose to open their new café in a street hitherto uncrowded, instead of a modest tobacco bar, which had been a café-concert in the early twentieth century. Opened in 1995, the interior decoration, very elaborate, recreates a Belle Époque atmosphere by the multiplicity of suspensions, its wrought iron counter lamps, its rectangular banne, its zinc, its moleskine benches, etc.

[aretrothing]

with encouragement and definitely not because i love talking about it: my time in europe

i had not been out of the country in 8 years. the furthest i'd been south was northern france. the further east was suffolk. for those from the us, the width of the area i'd travelled in before is roughly the same as Massachusetts. i don't have a comparison for the length but it's not that long.

i come from a dull town and with covid thrown into the mix, it's stifling (and even more so after the trip). i've always been desperate to travel so my dad said that once my exams were over he'd take me around europe.

the aim for the first phase of the trip was to get as far as we could in a day. we went to london and stayed over there for the night before getting up at 4am for the eurostar to Paris at 6am. i listened to phone power on the way there and ended up listening to three songs on repeat because they were the only ones downloaded - trouble awful devil evil, daylight and sold my mind to the kremlin. they soundtracked my first view of europe beautifully.

i ordered us breakfast in french when we got to paris, putting my qualification to use. our train to milan was delayed by an hour at gare du nord, so we sat around and tried to fix the fact that roaming wasn't working on my phone, and i got some french sweets from a tabac. it worked just as we got on the train, and we spent the next 8 hours watching the scenery and architecture change as we sped towards italy. the alps were stunning, we had lunch on the train.

we were delayed by an hour getting into milan and stumbled off the train at about 10pm local time. it was extremely warm, we went and ate dinner at a little resturant and i started to get eaten by mosquitos. there's a lot of resturants in italy and they're open much later than the ones in the uk. i had pasta with gorganzola cream and parma ham, it was very nice if a bit rich.

we collapsed in a hotel straight out of the 80s, which included chromatherapy lights and a big blue wolf

we spent the next day in milan. we walked to the duomo and galleria as the world began to warm up. we had pastries at a small cafe and went back to the duomo, just as it started to rain. it chucked it down and to get in on time to the duomo we made a run for it. it thundered whilst we were in there, feeling like a gothic thriller movie.

we went through the museum, sourced some panzerotti for lunch and wandered around for a while. i had gelato and we got a 1920s tram back to the hotel before we walked to the station. milan was probably my favourite place we went to, i really liked it.

we got the train to venice at 5 and arrived to a place swarming full of tourists. we checked in, ate at a restaurant and got eaten by mosquitos again, wandered around before collapsing asleep.

venice is a maze. a tourist filled maze. it was swelteringly hot and i really struggled, though it was extremely pretty. we walked to st mark's basilica and spent some time along the canals. i saw the sea which was nice. ate more gelato and watched a seagull attempt to eat a fish head whilst being chased around by a 5 year old. we took a water taxi back to the hotel. venice was my least favourite place, there were too many people and it was far too hot

we headed next to innsbruck, travelling through the alps. it was absolutely gorgeous, at every turn there would be another mountain. innsbruck is very active on a Saturday night, i had currywurst with a slice of rye bread from a street vendor.

innsbruck is not active on a sunday. it was quiet and peaceful, surrounded by mountains everywhere and also quite warm. it was a nice contrast to venice. we wrote postcards and wandered around the town, ducking into the cathedral. we had strudel for breakfast. it was beautifully scenic - the architecture was great and it was a nice place to be.

we grabbed our luggage and headed to the station at about 2pm. we travelled to munich and spent part of the afternoon there. i only knew munich from history, so it was interesting to be there. our hotel was alpine themed this time. it had cows in it, and a ski lift.

we wandered around again and stopped by a place where we ate sausages and drank some beer, again collapsing into bed. i listened to terminal jive by sparks whilst in bed, "when i'm with you" formed the sound of the second half of the journey.

my dad came to munich to see art, except galleries in germany are closed on a monday. instead we ducked into another church (neither of us are religious, i like churches because i think they're nice spaces architecturally & for other personal reasons) before we headed to the residenz munich. its an amazing place, but there's a lot that was lost because of bombing and it did strike me quite deeply that that was because of my own country.

we next headed to prague. after a panic when we realised we were on the wrong half of the train, we got in and had the most amazing meal of traditional czech food - i had chicken breast, vegetables and hollandaise sauce with a homemade ginger beer. the streets of Prague were quite rowdy even on a monday night, we wandered around a little more before heading to the hotel.

the hotel people gave us some advice on places to go, so we went up to the castle on a tram and walked back down to the main city. i saw koi and peacocks outside the czech parliament. my feet were quite tired but we walked through over bridges and around past the opera house and went into the franz kafta exhibition. we went the jewish quarter. we had a chimney cake too, which was the most unhealthy thing i've ever eaten.

i really liked Prague, but we had to move on. next we went to berlin where my dad has a friend who lives there. i listened to road movie to berlin and low while we were on the train, of course! we ate out at a small restaurant together and got ice cream. we crashed at the friend's place, which was really nice.

berlin is wonderful. we visited the remains of the berlin wall, which was extremely interesting to see. there's a line that runs through and it's marked on the street, and the things around really emphasised how dividing it was. i was born long after it came down so i found it extremely interesting from a historical perspective.

we took the tram to the reichstag. i studied weimar & nazi germany for my exams, so it was really cool to see. we went past the brandenburg gate and visited both parts of the holocaust memorial. it was devastatingly sad, and very well put together. it really got across how horrific it all was.

we walked to alexanderplatz, via a drink at the national library as i was dying from thirst and aching feet, and had a look at the tv tower before we went back to the friend's place via the fourth best currywurst in berlin for dinner.

the next day in berlin we went round record shops & a vintage shop, because i had some euros to spend. i got a vintage east german jumper and a copy of "ai ga nakucha ne" by akiko yano, an album i loved last year but never thought i'd get a copy of. i also got an album by solid space which i first heard in one of the record shops and decided to get.

we went to the neus museum next and got round the whole thing. it's a really interesting collection, again severely bombed in ww2 though so it lost quite a bit of the building. said building is lovely though.

i really liked the u-bahn, the stations were really pretty and i liked the way the trains looked. the trams were cool too (i like public transport. a lot.)

we got on the european sleeper train - which looks like it's out of the 70s, and pulled by a freight train, and had a very weird night's sleep. it was a bit uncomfortable. just a bit. clattery trains and all.

we spent the last day in brussels. we ate frites and waffles, had a nice wander around and saw manakin pis and his female counterpart. it was a nice ending to an amazing trip, one that i won't forget for my entire life.

and, in typical british fashion, after minimal delays across all the trains we went on, our train in the uk was delayed by about 40 minutes.

i am home from my european tour and i already want to go back