Krista Burton Has Some Very Specific Perfume Recommendations
For the second installment of "You Know," I'm joined by Moby Dyke author Krista Burton.
Happy Friday, everyone. Parker here.
Today’s newsletter includes the second installment of “You Know,” a segment about people whose work you may know from somewhere else who’ve recently gotten into the newsletter game. My guest this week is Krista Burton, who just launched
. Paid subscribers can listen to our full conversation at the bottom of this newsletter.Here’s the part of the newsletter where I ask you to consider signing up for the free version if you’re new here and ask existing free subscribers to consider upgrading to the paid version.
On where most people recognize her from:
She is the author of the book “Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest To Track Down The Last Remaining Lesbian Bars In America.” People may know her from her blog, Effing Dykes. She’s also written for Rookie Magazine and The New York Times.
On the most surprising thing she learned while researching “Moby Dyke”:
“There were two incredibly surprising things,” she tells me. “Number one, I was very surprised at how many people will continue to talk to you after you clearly have a notebook open and you've asked them their full name, their pronouns, like where they live, how they identify, and like all this, and they are seeing you write down, freehand, everything that they say, and they continue to talk.
“It is amazing to me because if that happened to me, I would turn around and walk out the door. So I was really surprised at how willing people are to go on the record at the drop of a hat with absolutely no warning. And it was really great, honestly.”
“And the other thing that really surprised me goes hand in hand with that, and that is how willing people are to talk to you if you approach them, but never the other way around. In all these lesbian bars that I was in, it was so rare that anyone came near me or even spoke to me unless it was the bartender. I think it happened once, but strangers, especially in the Midwest and on the East Coast, no one talked to me. And I understand that because I've been going to dive bars for 20 years. I know that as a people, in general, as a massive generalization, we do not approach one another. But like, I thought it was so fascinating that as soon as I got over myself and started being the person who was initiating things like saying hi, or the smallest amount of conversation starters, or like, ‘I like your hoodie,’ anything. If I spoke first, people would go. You could make friends immediately, but I was never going to make friends until I was the one willing to initiate. And I think that is a really great lesson.”
On her favorite lesbian bar in the U.S.:
“I have several, but my number one top spot goes to The Back Door in Bloomington, Indiana,” she says. “If anyone is considering a road trip, this bar is phenomenal. Go on a Friday or Saturday night, catch their drag show. I've been watching drag for decades, and I saw hands-down the best drag show I've ever seen. Just on a random Saturday night in Bloomington, Indiana, it was, I've never seen performers work that hard.”
On what people can expect from her new newsletter,:
“It's like a twice-weekly newsletter, and it's me basically just finally writing about whatever I want. And that will usually include recurring columns like there's going to be a queer etiquette column. There's going to be a running installment about me learning how to drive a Zamboni.”
“There's going to be a lot of perfume talk because I love and collect perfume and have for over 10 years. And I'll literally talk about it to anyone who even whispers the word perfume to me. … I think that the number one thing I'm most excited to write about is queer-specific perfume recommendations. I am so excited to pick very specific instances at which you might need to smell a very particular way and be able to recommend the shit out of those instances. Like ‘I need to go to a gay wedding and three of my exes will be there and I need to smell fucking devastating.’”
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