Page 54 - Flaunt 171 - Summer of Our Discontent - St-John

heavy-hitting producer Ryan Murphy (Glee, American Horror Story) to present the Netflix documentary Circus of Books. Part documen- tary and part queer love-letter to Los Ange- les, the film covers the store’s early origins, its socio-cultural context, prudent familial environment, and enduring legacy since shutting its Silver Lake and West Hollywood doors in 2016 and 2019, respectively.
“I came out of a pretty hardcore pure- art environment. My heroes were Ron Athey and Vaginal Davis,” says Mason, citing the influential performance artists. “Even my forays into film were more in the realm of an art and museum context.”
A graduate of Yale, Mason’s artistic practice has often weaved music and perfor- mance, such as her arthouse film, The Lives of Hamilton Fish, for which she wrote all the lyrics to create a fantastical quasi-musical, and features her persona “Future Clown,” a disconcerting jester that has led impromptu Guitar Center concerts and live-streamed performances during Trump’s inauguration.
“To go from that to this, which is a more traditional documentary film, was a radical leap,” she says. Growing up with her two brothers, it took years before they realized their parents weren’t just your regular fam- ily-owned bookstores, but progenitors of a hallowed piece of Angeleno gay lore.
“10 or even 15 years ago, it was a film I knew I had to make,” Mason recalls, as she shared with her Queer Studies professor that her parents ran the bookstore. “He said, ‘Wow, your parents pretty much own one of the most important places in gay history, and I want you to know that’s very important to the story of gay culture.’”
The 90-minute film is a hodgepodge of old Mason family VHS footage, interviews with Karen and Barry, locals, and former employees (one of whom includes illustri- ous drag queen Alaska Thunderfuck), and shadowing the store’s final days, as shelves upon shelves of DVDs, cassettes, ephem- era, and other printed matter are boxed up or disposed. With the rising popularity of hook-up apps like Grindr or free internet pornography, the store was always aware of the countdown clock ticking toward Circus of Books becoming a relic of a bygone era. “That store was there when no one else was there,” Mason says, proudly. “We use the word ‘ally’ a lot, but there wasn’t such a thing back in the ‘80s. You were in the zone of criminal perverse behavior that society thought was absolutely disgusting.”
With a nod to Mason’s musical acu- men, Circus of Books also hosts a delicious soundtrack of Disco and Hi-NRG, featuring music by the late producer and proto-dance music icon, Patrick Cowley, as well as New York electro legend, Man Parrish. “Speaking like an anthropologist, that was the founda- tion gay cultural music,” Mason says, of the analog synths in the ‘70s and ‘80s, “I was personally inspired by that era, so the end
credit track, ‘Give You Everything,’ is some- thing that I produced.” The track includes a music video in the end credits, and features the artist Peaches, as well as Mason’s life partner, trans actor, and activist Buck Angel. “I knew I had to shoot it before my
parents cleared out the store,” Mason remem- bers. “So, I was the one who was like, ‘I need to capture all these things!’” Clad in black leather and powdered in talc, it all began to make sense. “I realized, wow, my character is the ghost, the soul of the store.” The clothes were from the Tom of Finland Foundation in Echo Park. Mason reiterates, when she went to the house, “Durk Dehner [the co-founder] said to me, ‘Rachel, I remember you as a kid!’ Because Tom himself used to come to the store, and my parents knew him. It was crazy.”
At the end of the day, what sets the tone for Circus of Books is the redemption that accompanies love. Mason’s mother, Karen, for instance, was raised in a conservative Jewish household, and despite owning and selling homoerotic paraphernalia, she ini- tially expressed bigoted tendencies, worry- ing whether her son or daughter might end up gay. Mason says she often receives caustic Tweets directed at her from younger queers.
“People comment, ‘Well what is a straight couple with internal homophobic tendencies doing with a story like this,
how dare they!’” She pauses, gathering her thoughts. It’s clearly a touchy subject, but Mason isn’t afraid to express her mind; deep down, she knows her resolve. “That would be boring! It’s what makes it an interesting movie!” she declares, at last. “I’ve always been blown away by this ultra-purist, unre- alistic expectation in the queer community.”
Mason appreciates the discord; she is making a movie after all: Karen Mason, the religious archetype, eventually comes to terms with her preconceptions, and has a change of heart. “I think the younger gen- eration is aware of what the struggle was in the past, but they don’t viscerally sense it,” she adds. Like most people during the Great Reset of 2020, Mason is adjusting, if not appreciating, a more deliberate lifestyle. “I’m amazed because Buck and I are able to quar- antine and be in each other’s worlds; I think I’ve learned that I actually have a functional romantic relationship, which is cool.”
After connecting and collaborating with aforementioned Man Parrish, Mason looks forward to finding a loving label for the orig- inal tracks that Parrish produced for Circus of Books. She’s also working on another
film called, The End Stage of Stars. In typical Mason fashion, it’ll be a sci-fi musical.
“Gratitude,” she responds, when asked how this whole experience has affected her. “The people that understand my film and are telling me they’re getting healed by it at a moment when so many people are suffering. I feel like I’ve come to rec- ognize the gifts that I have in a much more profound way.”
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