White Party

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Jul 20, 2006, at 11:12 AM, Bill Mullins wrote:

>>
>> in what i think is an entirely separate development, there
>> have been gay-themed "circuit parties" (google on "circuit
>> party" for several informative sites) for over 25 years, most
>> of them with color names.
>> the big White Party is in Palm Springs in april; this was its
>> 17th year.
>>
> Is Truman Capote's famous "Black and White Ball" (1966) an antecedent?

probably not, though some of the circuit parties are in fact called
balls (the Black and Blue Ball in Montreal in October, the Blue Ball
in Philadelphia in January).  a circuit party is a one-day main event
involving intense dancing for 24 hours, with accompanying sex,
drinking, and (often) drugs, plus preceding events and following
ones.  almost all of the participants (up to 20,000 of them at a
really big party) are young gay men, many of them shirtless (or in
underwear, or naked) most of the time.  the rave is a related type of
event.  the real antecedent seems to have been the fabulous parties
at the Saint, a dance club in nyc, in the late 70s (and depicted in
the novel Dancer from the Dance).

arnold, who gets all this information second-hand

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