Gabriel Rotello has put up a PDF archive of the entire run of Outweek and on his site you can browse through and find all of the Out on the Town columns. I'm hoping to create a collection of PDFs on this site or a related site of just the material OOTT columns and other pieces Sydney wrote. But on Sydney's birthday, I just wanted to offer up an article she wrote about her obsession with drag queens. I remember walking down Hudson Street with Sydney and seeing a tall beautiful woman with raven-dark hair and piercing eyes, and she just sort of hazed over when the woman passed by and said "beautiful" and after the woman had passed she said "and so many people wouldn't realize they were looking at a man." I didn't. Sydney loved drag culture and I was excited to find this article because it really brings her back for me with its enthusiasm and its wit, just showing how great a cultural interpreter she was. Anyway, you can click either thumbnail below to take you to the PDF:
I also wanted to post this picture. In 2005, Anthology was showing three nights of free film... this was the same year of the east village show Sydney had posted about and she had been happy at that show to see a few minutes of Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures. Anthology was showing a definitive print (which didn't seem entirely definitive) for free, along with Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie's Pull My Daisy. I think we both ended up having a lot more fun seeing Pull My Daisy for the first time, but on the way there we stopped at Sugar Sweet Sunshine and has strawberry rhubarb pie to celebrate Sydney's birthday since I wouldn't be in town later in the month. I think we even exchanged gifts. I can't remember. But I do remember it as a rare ocassion that she let me take her picture, discombobulated, blowing out a candle while still thumbing through the magazine she picked up. I always hate that I don't have many pictures of Sydney, and in this one her eyes are hidden by her bucket hat. And I've had this picture hanging on my wall for years, but lately it's made me feel upset. Today, looking at and posting it on some other sites, I keep seeing the smile. It's a good picture, I think. It's her.
Happy birthday.
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