CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 6/27/2021

Celebrating Gay Pride with 'Mechanical Fantasy Box: The Homoerotic Journal of Patrick Cowley'

Featured image is reproduced from Mechanical Fantasy Box, a Staff Pick for Pride Weekend 2021. Collecting electronic dance music legend Patrick Cowley's homoerotic journal entries, 1974–1980 (he died of AIDS-related illness in 1982), this volume can be seen as an historic document, offering an unfiltered glimpse into San Francisco's hardcore gay disco scene in its heyday. Cowley's entry for June 26, 1977 reads:
"A red letter day. The Gay Rights parade, Christopher St. A day of total ecstasy & celebration with complete men & women. The faces that go with the images in these pages passed before me filled with the spirit of our basic need. My family from the Citoi had me Brazilian hips between the bubble machines and Robert & I beaming our beauty and love overflowing into the streets and finally to the source the sun the sun the sun & my arms & hands outstretched in communion & worship. The revelation of a martyr. Search the mere facts of his path to sainthood.
LIVING IN THIS BRAND NEW WORLD
MAY BE A FANTASY
BUT IT’S TAUGHT ME TO LOVE
AND THAT’S REAL
REAL
REAL TO ME."