A book. How quaint. An anachronism, really. How do you turn this thing on? Not just a book, a novel. You know, like Jane Austen, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf. Who? […]
QUEER ‘I’
The Provincetown Beauty Myth
On beauty and my broken brain, from Circuit Week to townie summer
I’ve been finding it difficult to write about Provincetown. This is, in part, because there already exists so much writing about the place. The territory is already charted. This town […]
BOOKS
Henri Bendel’s Passion for Beauty
A new biography about a gay Jewish boy from Louisiana
Henri Bendel, the store, was synonymous in the American imagination with good taste, astronomical price tags, and a certain uptown vision of the good life. To shop at Henri Bendel […]
DRAG DESK
Sapphira Cristál Keeps It in the Family
The drag queen and opera singer is a grand marshal for this year’s Carnival parade
Don’t tell JD Vance, but a church is a great place to nurture a future drag queen. She can develop an arsenal of talents: singing, sewing, working a crowd. And […]
DRAG DESK
In the Audience With Miss Richfield
In her new show, the drag queen masters the art of loving schadenfreude
Nathaniel is a lawyer from Boston. (Actually, he’s from Milton, which sounds nice but also boring.) He’s here with his children, Teddy and Sophia. It’s Family Week in Provincetown, meaning […]
BOOKS
The Compromised Power of Being Young and Beautiful
Thomas Grattan’s In Tongues follows Gordon, a gay man who wants nothing more than to be looked at
Gordon, the 24-year-old antihero of Thomas Grattan’s queer coming-of-age novel In Tongues, craves attention the way Wall Street traders crave cocaine: with a slick kind of desperation and the certainty […]
NARRATIVE
Paintings Tell a Kaleidoscopic Civil War Story
In 48 panels, William Ciccariello creates a chilling, indelible novel
The poor thing, he’s seen so much. Death sprawls across the field, bodies lying next to one another like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. How do you walk through a […]
DRAG DESK
Varla Jean Takes You Underneath the Wig
In her 27th Provincetown season, Merman parodies her colleague Taylor Swift
Varla Jean Merman has been on television, on Broadway, and, she says, on welfare. She’s been on the front page of the New York Times and, for 35 years, on […]
FOURTH OF JULY
A Not-So-Straight-Up Potato Salad
Comforting yet zingy, a recipe that’s right for whatever kind of party you’re invited to
I attended a swanky dinner party on an early summer night when the weather was still cool enough to ward off mosquitoes and invite indulgent feasting. It was at an […]
DRAG DESK
Dina Martina Is in a Good Place
In her 20th Provincetown season, a rebel imparts an absurd brand of happiness
Dina Martina says she was born nine months early. “I looked like a poached egg,” she confides. Her grandmother looks just like Colonel Sanders. “Beautiful, hirsute lady,” says Martina. “She […]
FILM FESTIVAL
Joel Kim Booster Knows How the World Works
The winner of PIFF’s Next Wave Award takes superficiality seriously
Joel Kim Booster was squatting on the corner of Carver and Bradford in Provincetown, wearing just a jockstrap. He held his phone to his ear. He had just been at […]
KALE AND BEYOND
Lessons in Herbs, From My Salad Days
Use your greens extravagantly lest they go to waste
I love going to the grocery store almost as much as my mom hates taking me there. She says I’m a spendthrift. I prefer the term epicurean. To her point: […]
PHOTOGRAPHY
The Democratizing Lens of Quil Lemons
A photographer who subverts our expectations
There is a shock of recognition. The photo looks like ones we’ve seen before — a Black man is tied up, suspended in the air. “When people see a picture […]
Once Again, Taylor Swift Exposes Herself
Fans often call Taylor Swift’s music “diaristic”: at their best, her lyrics feel like the delicate and sometimes ugly truths most of us don’t dare utter aloud. “And I hate […]
THINKERS
Judith Butler Would Like Us to Love Without Fear
The philosopher’s latest book asks Who’s Afraid of Gender?
Before she was a transphobe, J.K. Rowling was a writer. In her Harry Potter series, the villain Voldemort is so feared that everyone believes it is dangerous to utter his […]
