Little Edie at her coming out party and a bevy of out Harlemites coming soon to the Maysles Cinema

“If you can get a fairy, boy, you’ve got a good man in bed.” - Little Edie

(The above links to - unmastered - audio of one of many of Little Edie’s theories on marriage, this one perhaps a little more befuddling to me than most)

East Village Radio

And here’s a link to the East Village Radio radio show, Andrew Andrew’SoundSound we were on yesterday.

During the show, one of the Andrews brought up the relationship between Grey Gardens and the gay community. I forgot to mention that we intentionally planned this festival as a part of pride month, followed by Homo Harlem, a celebration of the many incredible gay people who worked, lived and loved in Harlem including James Baldwin, Dorothy West, Audre Lorde, amongst others. As many know, a crucial component of the original Grey Gardens‘ core base is gay men and women. Many people have their own theories on just why there is such a deep connection. I like the theory that my father, Albert Maysles, likes to expound upon: Grey Gardens is the ultimate “coming out” story - two women neglected by society, living fabulously (in their own way), finally get recognized and loved for whom they are by the world at large.

Michael Henry Adams, a long time Harlem resident, writer and the curator of the Homo Harlem series, will also appear on our Unpacking Grey Gardens panel Friday night. A full schedule of Maysles Cinema’s roster for the month can be found here.

Rebekah and I will be interviewed today at 5 by Andrew Andrew on their Andrew Andrew’SoundSound show on East Village radio about the book and cd!

And this is me hard at work listening to audio for that cd:

Sara listens to the Beales

New York Times’ T-Magazine “The Moment” posted an article about our book wonderfully titled “The Perfect Book for the Day” ! My father, Albert, for decades hoped to get Little Edie’s response to Walter Goodman’s negative review of Grey Gardens to make it into the Times, and now it’s finally found its way there. The letter and review also appear in the second half of the book that features documents related to the making and aftermath of the documentary film.

A house on the ocean in the middle of nowhere

“We actually lived in this house on the ocean in the middle of nowhere and we’re like these two crazy sisters,” Rebekah explains. “The house was supposedly haunted,” Sara says, adding, “But we had only one cat.”

Danger hard at work on Fishers Island, Fall 2008

In case you were wondering where near the Hamptons we were working on the book (which one online article misidentified as East Hampton itself), it was Fishers Island, New York. Fishers Island lies between New London, Connecticut and Orient Point, Long Island. Like East Hampton, during the summer it’s populated by summer vacationers and in the winter the population dwindles down to around 300 year-round residents including our wonderful friends Cynthia Riley, Ed Riley and Aaron Rice. Cynthia, Ed and Aaron in particular made sure we kept our sanity by making us get out of the house or dropping by unexpectedly to check in on us. While we were there, Rebekah wrote about her dreams and posted photos on her stream of consciousness blog “dangerdanger-dangerdanger“.

The “one cat” was Rebekah’s Danger (thus the name of the blog), who is mostly a danger to herself.   This is one of Rebekah’s posts from last fall when we were editing/creating the book.