Entertaining With shows how a party came together, with expert advice on everything from menus to music.
The independent gay magazine Hello Mr. released just ten issues, between 2013 and 2018. But neat stacks of the publication still feature prominently on plenty of queer people’s coffee tables. Founded by the artist and editor Ryan Fitzgibbon and intended, according to its slogan, “for men who date men,” Hello Mr. highlighted the work of both established creatives and relative unknowns, many of whom have since gone on to wider fame. There were interviews with the musicians Perfume Genius and Olly Alexander; poems and essays by the writers Ocean Vuong, Ryan O’Connell and Bryan Washington; and conversations with the comedian John Early and the curator Antwaun Sargent.
In 2022, Fitzgibbon decided to gather some of the magazine’s best pieces, as well as some new ones, into a single volume, and this past May, he released “A Great Gay Book: Stories of Growth, Belonging & Other Queer Possibilities” (Harry N. Abrams). Last month, to celebrate the book’s launch, Fitzgibbon hosted a few of its contributors for a long weekend at the Ox-Bow Artists’ Residency in his home state of Michigan. The residency holds special significance for Fitzgibbon, 37: Saugatuck, the woodsy Lake Michigan town in which it’s located, has long been a queer vacation destination, and when Fitzgibbon was in college, one of his professors, a visiting artist at Ox-Bow, took him, along with a group of other students, to visit the studios. Last summer, he stayed at Ox-Bow to finish work on the book.
He planned the get-together with Ox-Bow’s executive and deputy directors, the artists Shannon Stratton and Claire Arctander, coordinating what Fitzgibbon calls “essentially a sleepover in the woods,” bookended by a Thursday night bonfire and a Sunday goodbye breakfast, with nature walks, beach trips, workshops and ample time for socializing in between.
On Friday night, the main event was dinner on a screened-in porch at Ox-Bow’s Old Inn (a former hotel, built around 1873, and now the campus’s central building), which was, as Arctander put it, only “minimally dolled up” for the occasion with some additional lighting. As the group enjoyed a locally sourced feast, the din from the adjoining dining hall kept them connected to the Ox-Bow community. By the evening’s end, everyone was dancing together in the woods.
The attendees: The table was set for eight, including Fitzgibbon, who now works as a freelance writer, designer and consultant in Tulsa, Okla.; the Brooklyn-based writer Mathew Rodriguez, 35; the writer and zine editor Yezmin Villareal, 35, who flew in from Phoenix; and the writers Andrew Ketcham, 31, Mason Pippenger, 26, and Riley Yaxley, 27 — a trio of Chicagoans who made the three-hour drive together. To thank them for leading a glassblowing class earlier that day, Fitzgibbon also invited Ox-Bow staffers Rachel Brace, 23, and Stephen Valera, 29, to join.
The table: Most of the platters, bowls and vases came from Ox-Bow’s glassblowing studio and shared a palette of translucent pinks and blues. The guests sat on wooden chairs painted in vibrant hues by Ox-Bow residents and drank from stemless wineglasses decorated with colorful stripes. Also adorning the table were small sculptural objects made in-house by resident artists, including a decorative glass pumpkin. On Wednesday morning, before the dinner, Arctander picked up fresh flowers from White Barn Flower Company, a grower in nearby Holland, Mich.
The food: Served family style, the main dish was roast beef with roasted squash, carrots and tahini sauce. A risotto-like barley and mushroom dish and a side of lima beans rounded out the meal, which concluded with a lime curd tart. When Villareal complimented the kitchen on the dessert, they received a typically Midwestern response: “They were, like, ‘Yeah, we just have a lot of limes right now,’ ” Villareal says. “ ‘We’re trying to figure out what to do with all of them.’ ”
The drinks: In an effort to keep things local, per Fitzgibbon’s request, Arctander chose bottles of pét-nat, cabernet franc and sauvignon blanc from Modales winery, located about 30 minutes away.
The music: Early in the meal, tunes wafted toward the table from the kitchen, where the staff, says Fitzgibbon, “always has a really great playlist that just feels like you’re coming to their party.” As the night progressed, music from the weekly Friday night dance party that Ox-Bow throws in the woods for its residents served as “the invitation to make our way to the dance floor,” Fitzgibbon says. The week’s theme was reclaiming the infamous Disco Demolition Night, a 1979 Chicago White Sox promotional event during which a crate of disco records was blown up with explosives, in what is now seen by some as a racist and homophobic act. Guests were encouraged to dig in the property’s costume room to create elaborate looks.
The conversation: Guests bonded by sharing war stories about their time in media. “We’re all working, in one way or another, in this milieu that’s disappearing,” Rodriguez says. “Maybe, down the road, some of these publications will come back, or new ones will start, but we’re in a moment where it feels like records are going away. The Hello Mr. book is both an archive and an investment in the future of queer art.”
The night after: The following evening saw the retreat’s final blowout, with Fitzgibbon hosting “A Great Gay Variety Show” at the Dunes, an LGBTQ+ resort in neighboring Douglas, Mich. The cabaret, which was open to the public, featured local drag acts as well as readings by Ketcham, Rodriguez and Yaxley. The crowd included two men in matching “groom-to-be” sashes and their high-octane bachelor party. “I forget the power of these queer literary projects and how they really are tied to the community,” Villareal says. “You’re not just holding a magazine; it’s real lives being commemorated.”
The post In Michigan, a Queer Retreat With Dancing in the Woods appeared first on New York Times.
