It’s the holidays and what better way to tell the literary-minded queers in your life that you LOVE THEM than by giving them vampire perfume that was concocted by perfumer Kenneth Corey to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Jewelle Gomez’ Gilda Stories?! For a limited time you can order gifts inspired by Radar’s legacy of queer lit and iconoclastic performance. All sales benefit the 2016 Sister Spit Tour featuring Julia Serano, Maisha Z. Johnson, Cassie J. Sneider, Jezebel Delilah X, Virgie Tovar, Juliana Delgado Lopera and Nikki Darling. Click on the links to be redirected to PayPal.
From Kenneth Corey, the perfumer who in 2011 created Gilda, a scent just for Radar: “Since the Gilda perfume was created to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the book The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez (a novel about lesbian vampires), the starting point for the perfume was the use of Tagetes Marigold. The reason being that Tagetes contains photo-toxic thiophenes, which can cause severe sun burn if applied to the skin and exposed to UV rays. Tagetes Marigold is seldom used in perfumery, but has a remarkable, complex scent–wonderfully rich, with hints of chocolate, hints of tea and spice. The perfume needed to be formulated around this so I read the book looking for invocations of scent to bring into the perfume that would compliment the qualities of Tagetes. A persistent thread throughout the novel was the importance of the vampire characters’ native soil in providing them protection. So the base chord (the combination of perfume elements that last longest on the skin) is composed of materials that together give the impression of a forest floor. A night blooming jasmine (called Queen of the Night) joins Tagetes in the heart, the middle notes, forming the body of the perfume–soft, floral, heady, and feminine. And finally the top notes, which are the most volatile materials, lasting on the skin only an hour or two and providing the initial impression of the perfume. The invitation to smell. I chose blood orange not only for the play on words, but because oranges are associated with fertility and life. The vampires of the novel were not undead monsters, but immortal beings that cherished life.” Buy a 3 oz bottle for $25.
CD “Sister Spit: I Spit on Your Country, Words from the 1997 Road Show.” Super limited number of copies. Buy the CD for $25.
DeWayne Frazier Dickerson won the 2011 Eli Coppola chapbook contest. Buy the chapbook now for $15.
Myriam Gurba won the Eli Coppola chapbook contest with Sweatsuits of the Damned. Buy it now for $12.
Amber Dawn won the Eli Coppola chapbook contest with How I Got My Tattoo. Buy it now for $12.
