GLR July-August 2024

for activism to flourish, and sold tickets to concerts. They acted as a clearing house for all sorts of questions, many unrelated to books. They were a home away from home. Like lesbian bars, however, the number of feminist bookstores has dropped—from a high of 135 in the mid-1990s to around two dozen today. Again, we can probably look to the Internet as the major cause of the decline. The bookstore is no longer needed as a source of information about books or as a place to acquire them. I never played lesbian league softball, but I was well aware of its importance to the community. A softball game was a place to meet friends and celebrate female athleticism, and if you were a player you could bask in the camaraderie. Of course, sometimes that closeness went beyond teammate bonding. Each time a couple got together and then broke up, the resulting tension interfered with the team’s esprit de corps. While most players wanted to win, that was not the primary objective. “Our goal was to showcase some of the lesbian feminist values that we were trying to incorporate into our lives.” What this meant was that everyone who came to practices got to play in the games, regardless of their skill level—a kind of “political” commitment that went beyond the will to win. Another prominent space starting in the ’70s was “lesbian land” set aside for a variety of purposes. The best known example may be the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, but an even deeper commitment was made by lesbians who bought land and set up lesbian-only communes in rural areas of the U.S. These were true pioneers, who risked financial ruin on a dream of successfully managing these communal ranches and farms. Over

“Batuka,” from 2019’s Madame X , with its swipe at former President Donald Trump: “Get that old man/ Put him in a jail.” None of this newer material is performed in the current show, which is proudly nostalgic: Madonna wanted to take a bow after revisiting her chart-topping singles, from “Everybody” to “Like A Prayer.” Gabriel writes: “In 2023 Madonna made another an nouncement. Madonna was headed back out on tour ... a look into the rearview of her life. She called it simply Celebration.” But it’s a cautious kind of celebration, joyous but also anxious about what lies ahead. Way back in 1984, after performing “Holiday” on Ameri can Bandstand , Madonna was asked by the late Dick Clark: “What do you hope will happen, not only in 1984 but for the rest of your professional life? What are your dreams? What’s left?” She replied, with her characteristic confidence, in four fa mous words: “To rule the world.” That was four decades ago, and that limitless ambition is what drives her to this day. “Don’t tell me to stop,” she sang on 2000’s “Don’t Tell Me.” Like it or not, it’s still Madonna’s world, and we just live in it. Another safe place for women was the feminist sex toy store. Observes Thomas:“Women’s social and economic liberation was impossible without sexual liberation. And nothing says sexual liberation quite like a vibrator.” Blowing wide open the mysterious world of lesbian sexuality, the woman-owned sex toy store brought compassion, understanding, and a wealth of knowledge to customers who now had access to products that were previously hidden away. As with lesbian bar and bookstore owners, the early pioneers of the feminist sex toy industry faced daunting economic challenges, many unique to their industry. They were often mission-driven enterprises with profit being of secondary interest, but a business has to make a profit to continue. This well-researched survey of traditional safe spaces for queer women also discusses vacation options such as Province town and Olivia cruises. Thomas keeps up a brisk pace, balancing research with in-person interviews and a witty style of prose. _______________________________________________________ Anne Laughlin is the author of seven novels, including Money Creek . &BOOKLOVERS READERS ATTENTION Tim’s Used Books 242 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA timsusedfilms@gmail.com | 508-487-0005 | Open year-round. Are TIM’S USED BOOKS of Provincetown has been traveling throughout the Northeast since 1991, buying book collections, large and small. Scholarly, gay interest, the arts—all genres. Immediate payment and removal. Madonna Continued from page 50 150 such communities existed in the ’70s and ’80s, while in the early 2020 around seventy remained, as the original founders have aged or passed away and interest in separatism has waned. At one time, the stretch between Eugene, Oregon, and the California border was home to so many lesbian land projects that it came to be known as the Amazon Trail.

White Gorilla

sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t carter’s helicopters just send them over there w/ mariah’s xmas cds dishes rattling in a faraway kitchen big vat of spaghetti meatballs he describes his aesthetic as “standard american” u say & wut is that ??? white shirt stashed in locker tattered jacket chucked into corner

another slung over chair my care for u not casual it equals the weight of all the arrows lodged in st sebastian watch the feels accumulate like hotel soaps i treat u premium u so perfect everything sullies u an ill-timed jab the stars & stripes

M ICHAEL C HANG

July–August 2024

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