Inside Stonewall

I promised my friend I'll tell her all about my Stonewall adventures when I was in New York early this year, but I will be reserving that a bit since that's next week's theme for the Philippine Online Chronicles' Pinoy LGBT channel.

[EDIT: The article at POC that accompanies this post is already up entitled Touching Stonewall, touching history. Check it out!]

Yes, this is the gig I've been hinting at for two weeks now. This is it! sabi nga ni Michael Jackson. I learned of a friend handling the editorial gig for this channel and I volunteered to become part of it. Check it out. I write two weekly articles there, one in English and one in Filipino. Feel free to comment and repost/tweet-retweet/share with your networks. Also, please read all the articles in the channel as they present different perspectives and use different voices to tell LGBT stories. Wokei?

But back to Stonewall. I decided to share my photos of the place instead of writing about it here in my blog. And here it is. Most photos are mine while those shots where I am also included are taken by my friend Cenon.

Please don't just grab the photos without permission as the copyright is mine and his. Email me for permission first (leaflens@gmail.com) and we'll discuss those things, okay? Please be professional. Some people have grabbed my photos na kasi before and used them in their own blog posts so I have to warn you guys again to please avoid plagiarizing my material.

Anyway, photo essay na nga lang ang dating nito. Here goes:

Across the street from Stonewall Inn is Christopher Park.
Inside is the Gay Liberation Monument. Ito 'yun: a gay and
lesbian couple stone monument. Excuse the American Museum of
Natural History goody bag; kaka-geek out lang namin ni Cenon
diyan kasi before coming here again.

The Gay Liberation Monument inside
Christopher Park marking the
June 1969 Stonewall Riots. Asteeg.
Dedma sa shadow ko.

So kapag tinawid mo ang Christopher Park
crossing Christopher Street, you head
towards Stonewall Inn na.

This is the second floor area. That exit passageway there
is also the entrance to this rectangular lounge.
I am seated at the end of this long and obviously
old bench seat with some ottoman-like stools
in front of us. Directly parallel to this seat
is the bar on the second floor.

There's that bar. And there's me taking a shot
of my two friends as they answered their Oscar ballot.
I was still enjoying the moment. I can't believe
I'm inside Stonewall!!!

This is the staircase from the ground floor
to the second floor. May taas pa pala ito.
Didn't take photos of the ground floor because
it was too dark. There's a pool table
and a bar and TV, ganun lang.

Oh man, this is cool. Paakyat sa metal stairway ay tatambad sa iyo
ang ilang posters sa walls of their history. Isa ito, from the
Mattachine Society warning hehe. Galeng!

Oh man, I love this. A poster of The Advocate magazine
special when Harvey Milk was murdered.

More posters. Classic old ones.

More posters. Contemporary ones.

Same location and shot angle as the one above, but this time,
the party has started. The two hosts of the evening
took to the stage whenever the Oscars went to commercial.
They threw film trivia and you can win a free cocktail drink
if you can answer one question correctly.

My Oscar ballot.

Indeed.

Galeng 'no? Grabe, the birthplace of LGBT Pride. Bakit nga pala may Oscars? Kasi Academy Awards night 'yan, first Sunday of March when I was there in New York.

So there. Iyan na lang muna ang kontribusyon ko sa pagbati sa buong sangka-LGBT/queer-han ng HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!!!!!! Sabi nga namin sa UP Sappho Society noon, FEEL NO SHAME FOR WHAT YOU ARE! Word up.

"maalikabok sa pilipinas!"

That is what my Mum always says whenever I complain about things whenever I clean my condo. "Maalikabok sa Pilipinas! Di ka na nasanay." I always complain because I keep the windows closed yet dust still settles in. Kakapunas ko pa lang ng mga surfaces, mamaya andyan na naman ang alikabok. Asar. At least the bedroom is now somewhat dust-free ever since we have been using the aircon we had installed to combat the summer heat. But the rainbow reading room is another story.


That's my writing nook or as my transpinay friend said, rename ko daw na "writing fort" o fortress ba? Something like that. This is inside my other room sa condo, the one I labeled rainbow reading room because it's my library and writing nook/fort and there's a huge, huge rainbow flag up there as decor.

Since I came back from my two-month vacation in the U.S., it's only now that I was able to fix this up, one month after I came back, actually. Since it's hot in here during the summer, I can't do any writing here. But now that the weather is somewhat cooling down due to the occasional rain showers in the metro, it's starting to be comfy again.

I can't decide what to put in the white areas, though. I'm thinking of a collage of sorts from brochures, souvenirs and flyers I collected from my travels but the rest of my U.S. loot still has to be shipped here via mail by my sister. I left a lot of things, including pasalubongs, for fear of being charged extra for overweight baggage. For now, this will do. At least I was able to bring with me some of the brochures of shows we saw in New York, like that planetarium space show at the American Museum of Natural History and some cards from Birdland. My NY-based superfriend K mailed me her Polaroid prints of our Venice Beach lamyerda during our LA Easter vacay, so I used select shots and put them there. I also have two cool ref magnets I bought in Hollywood which I just put on the white board temporarily until I decide who to give it to as pasalubong. Then there's one of the rainbow hologram posters I bought at the MoMA store. I actually have two of that, one of which I'm giving to a friend when we see each other soon.

In school, I also redecorated my faculty room when I went there yesterday, and the front wall of my desk now looks like this:


East meets west in this arrangement, as east pertains to those six cute illustrations I got from my friends in India while that huge crazy one there is from the MoMA stuff which publicizes Tim Burton's awesome, awesome exhibit there. There's also that small rainbow flag I bought at a shop in Christopher Street at Greenwich Village and that Liberty clock I bought in NY's Chinatown. There's also that cool Newton's balance display which demonstrates the "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction" law which my sister bought for me at the Griffith Observatory near LA. Plus of course that old strip of 16mm test film from the unused footage of my undergraduate film thesis.

Coping, cleaning, cleansing. That's the drama of this day. We're just finishing our cleaning errands then it's off to our latest neighborhood cafe/resto favorite for early dinner. Then maybe catch Sex and the City 2 at the nearby cinema. Let's see.

Ah, this is a good Friday. have a happy weekend everyone! I know I will. :)

FFF time

The French Film Festival is happening once again in my weather-crazy Manille. Check out my rundown of the films at my Takilya ni Leaflens blog. Maintenant nah! :)