SAD Again: Play Buoys
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illustration by pamela rounis for sad issue 14: Fantasy
Everyone has heard of Sex and the City, but has everyone heard of US Fleet Week? Whichever may be the case, Sara Bynoe was determined to change that back in 2013, when she wrote “Play Buoys” for SAD's 14th Issue. Most importantly, however, she was determined to make the name Kathryn Mussallem known across SAD readership, and that she certainly did. Bynoe, who now has a show in production at Fox Cabaret and a column, “The Environmentalist Hell”, in Asparagus Magazine— so witty you will forget you are in fact learning something— has always had a flair for comedy, but in “Play Buoys” she paints an intriguing picture of a photographer whose joie de vivre is palpable through the page. So much so, in fact, I would venture to say it can make even the most introverted readers develop a sudden craving for adventure and flirty interactions with strangers they are likely to never encounter again.
Though the initial appeal of Mussallem's profile lay, for me, in the fantasy of impromptu encounters during Fleet Week, which had previously appeared to me as yet another Hollywood scam that could not possibly be replicated in the real world, by the end of Bynoe's piece I was fascinated with Kathryn Mussallem: a bold photographer that took every opportunity she could to pave a path in a then male dominated field. Yet that is what is so captivating about this piece. There is a sort of parasocial relationship that writers like Bynoe form between readers and the subjects at the center of their work, creating a sense of familiarity with and admiration of complete strangers. As I rushed to catch a glimpse of Mussallem’s work, I was struck by the sense of intimacy established with the subjects of her photographs. It is clear that what started as a thrilling hunt across the country became something bigger than that through her lense, but for those that simply love a good thrill, “Play Buoys" is sure to provide.
PLAY BUOYS
Words by Sara Bynoe
Photography by Kathryn Mussallem
Illustration by Pamela Rounis
In May of 2012, I travelled to New York City to follow my friend, Vancouver based-photographer Kathryn Mussallem, on her hunt for sailors during Fleet Week. Together we walked through Times Square and the West Village, prowling for men in white bell- bottoms. With her eagle eye, she’d see one blocks away, squeal, then shout, “Sailors!” She’d approach with her big red-lipped smile, point her camera in their faces and say, “Hey, sailor, new in town?”
For those who don’t know, or missed that Sex and the City episode, Fleet Week is when active military ships dock and pour out young men in uniform for a week of partying. There are Fleet Weeks in several major US port cites, but the biggest event is the one in New York City.
Mussallem’s sailor crush started at a young age. Growing up in the late ‘70s, Mussallem was in love with musicals from the ‘30s and ‘40s that featured sailors dancing, fighting, and flirting with women. She wanted to be Marlene Dietrich; she wanted to sing, smoke, and have men fawn all over her.
Unfortunately, Mussallem didn’t grow up to be a singer like Dietrich, but she does belt out tunes at karaoke. Mussallem teaches digital photography and Photoshop at Emily Carr University, and is the child of an airline pilot and a stewardess— so just like sailors and Dietrich, travelling has always been a part of her life.
The first time she saw a sailor in the flesh was on a bus in San Francisco in the late 1990s. “I was with my mom and I sat next to a uniformed sailor. Out of the blue I said, ‘Hey, sailor! New in town?’” Mussallem recounts. “It was such a cliché, but then again so was seeing an enlisted man out and about in his whites.”
Years went by with few sailor sightings. It was by chance or divine intervention that Mussallem discovered Fleet Week. In May 2009, Mussallem and a friend were visiting New York City and were surprised to find the city filled with sailors. On that trip, Mussallem excitedly dragged her friend to ship tours and anywhere they could find men in uniform, always carrying her camera along. She returned from that trip inspired; she wanted to spend more time with sailors, and photography was a great tactic to infiltrate their circle.
In 2011, she travelled back to New York City. This time she was alone, determined to spend a week photographing sailors. On the first night of Fleet Week, Mussallem was out with a few friends at a gay piano bar in the West Village when she decided to pop outside to see if she could find any sailors. “In a matter of 20 minutes I took the photo that changed my life—and I made out with my first sailor,” Mussallem says. “I returned to the gay piano bar and impressed the room with my tales of sailor shenanigans, showed them a few photos, and proceeded to sing a Liza Minelli number from Cabaret.” That night, she finally felt like Dietrich.
The photograph that changed her life features two sailors, in their white uniforms, looking directly into the camera lens. Cigarettes draped between their fingers, their non-smoking arms are slung around each other in brotherly love. One of the sailors is caught talking out the side of his mouth like a New Yorker saying, “Hey, whatcha doin’ here?” The other sailor has a goofy grin and squinting eyes. It’s a joyful photo of two sailors out on the town.
She spent the rest of that Fleet Week making friends with sailors, collecting their contact information on her phone and on Facebook. She also started to connect with public relations officers who noticed her photographing—it’s easy to stand out if you’re the only female photographer around.
During that Fleet Week, she discovered that there were other events around the United States where she could photograph sailors. Since Mussallem had airline connections and knows how to travel cheap, she was ready to go at a moment’s notice. During the next year, she went to Fleet Weeks and Navy Weeks in Seattle, San Francisco, and New Orleans. She spent time in Norfolk, Virginia, where many US Navy officers are stationed. Highlights of these trips include photographing the US Navy train Russian and British sailors in firefighting, drinking with sailors on Bourbon Street, and getting a tattoo from a sailor in the electrical shop of the USS Wasp.
When I was in New York City with Mussallem in 2012, we started our sailor safari back where it all began: the West Village. She was on an emotional high after spending a night on the USS Wasp. She’d been helicoptered out to sea with other photographers and journalists, and had photographed sailors against the backdrop of Manhattan as they sailed in on the parade of ships that morning. Mussallem wore her sailor hunting uniform: lips painted in Lady Danger by mac, flashy red heels, black shorts, and a low cut black top that showcased her “sailor pillows.” Suddenly she’d catch a flash of white out of the corner of her eye and would take off before I even knew what was happening.
Of course, she was always headed towards young men in the iconic white summer dress uniform of bell-bottoms, neckerchief, and bucket cap. She’d approach them, point her camera in their faces, and say some flirty comments. The men would flirt back. Many recognized her from her night on the ship. “Lips!” they called her. “I saw you onboard.” Apparently she’d caused quite the stir with many male sailors that day.
After taking a few photos of sailors on the streets, we walked away in search of the next adventure. Mussallem told me what makes her photos different than other military photographers. “I’m a bit of a predator when I’m chasing them,” she admits. “I am looking at them as sexy, young, virile, beautiful men. It’s a mutual performance, you know, I’m giggling and giving them the pin-up girl, and they’re giving me back the [grunts] manly.”
Mussallem and I made our way to The Mean Fiddler, a bar close to Times Square that is the epicenter of Fleet Week antics. In the typical grimy Irish bar we found more than 200 men in uniform fist-pumping to party rock, downing pints, and rubbing up against anyone that caught their eye. Every time lmfao’s song Sexy and I Know It played, they would jump up on the bar, lift up their shirts, and writhe like Chippendales for free shots.
This is not the type of bar Mussallem usually hangs out in. Back home in Vancouver, she likes to go dancing at the East Van Soul Club or Ice Cream Social. She frequents farmers’ markets and artisanal coffee shops. I thought she’d be completely out of her element in this Jersey Shore-like bro culture, but instead Mussallem dove into the crowd, with a drink nestled safely in her cleavage so that her hands could be free for her camera and flash.
That night, she captured moments like muscular marines hanging off of the rafters, a 21-year-old gawky sailor groping a young woman’s butt in two handfuls, and a couple of marines close-talking with women who appeared to be in their 60s. Mussallem would take breaks from photographing to canoodle with her favorite sailors; she looked like she was having the time of her life.
The next day, Mussallem went down to Washington Square to photograph marines demonstrating tactical maneuvers on the grass—essentially big, burly men wrestling on the ground. She didn’t hold back from getting the photos she wanted. “I love how I can make full grown men feel so nervous,” she says. “When I’m inches away from their face with my wide-angle lens and they don’t even know how to compose themselves, it’s the ultimate power. The sailors and marines have no choice in whether or not they get photographed, because they are employees of the government, and Fleet Week is a huge public relations event for the Navy.”
Since then, Mussallem photographed sailors at Boston Navy Week, where she spent time on the USS Constitution—the oldest ship in the Navy, commissioned in 1797. She rode in a light armored assault vehicle (essentially a tank with wheels) across the Bay Bridge during San Francisco’s Fleet Week. In Vancouver, she photographed Operation Trident Fury by sailing with the Canadian Navy on the HMCS Algonquin from Victoria into Vancouver, and was a special guest of the XO (Executive Officer) to an invite-only cocktail party on a US ship. She now has thousands of photographs populating her sailor memorabilia collection (and a cellphone full of their numbers too).
After years of self-propelled travel and work, Mussallem’s sailor project is starting to gain recognition. Over 30 of her photographs were featured at the Vancouver Maritime Museum in the exhibit Tattoos and Scrimshaw: The Art of the Sailor (March 14 – October 13, 2013). Her current portfolio also got her a scholarship to attend the School of Visual Arts in New York City for a Masters of Professional Studies in Digital Photography. Her long-term plan is to publish a book.
In early 2013, an announcement was made that Fleet Weeks across America were canceled due to the economic sequester. Mussallem was heartbroken when she got the news. She very well may have captured the end of an era, but that hasn’t stopped her from doing her passion project. She called up the public relations officers she knew and said she was ready and available to go wherever they would let her photograph. She was off to San Diego a few weeks later to witness international Navy training. She took pictures of the New Zealand Navy divers doing push-ups on a beach just for her benefit, and organized a group of over 200 Canadian sailors and four United States Marine Corps armored amphibious assault vehicles into position for a photograph on the beach.
“I’ve always been fearless about jumping right in and getting what I wanted when I’m behind the protection of the lens,” she tells me. “But this project has been a real lesson in asking and pursuing my desires to get what I want. My students, my friends, even some of the sailors I know are always asking me, ‘How the hell do you get to do all this?’ They see photos of me in tanks dressed up in helmets and flak jackets, geared up to ride in a helicopter, on the deck of an aircraft carrier or posing on Instagram with a rocket launcher. The answer is simple: I just asked.”
I wondered if all this time with sailors will ever lose its appeal, but Mussallem assures me, “I don’t think I’ll ever lose that fantasy. The bravado, the masculinity, the romantic ideal of a man far off at sea thinking of you on lonely nights—it’s a fantasy turned into a reality, and I love living it. Maybe firemen will come next.”
Kirsten Danae: I am the kind of reader that often seeks refuge in the far-fetched fantasies where 6-foot tall fairies sweep an unsuspecting woman off their feet and into a magical dreamscape, but in your piece you prove that there is whimsy to be found in reality. Why do you think readers might have connected with this particular sailor fantasy?
Sara Bynoe: It's feminist. It's fun. Kitty is very likeable and her photos are an example of the female gaze, how could they not connect with that? Beyond that I have no idea why readers connected with it. I'll just chalk it up to us all living vicariously through the photographer's adventures.
KD: “Play Buoys” initially promises a thrilling journey through the Fleet Weeks of America but ultimately demonstrates what an artist is capable of when she truly goes after what she wants. What is your advice to creatives seeking to excel in their craft? (Especially when lacking the motivation of a white-clad hunk just passing through town.)
SB: Life is too short and the world is too volatile to not seek joy these days. I think artists are meant to listen to their interests and wants and see where that takes them; for Kathryn Mussallem it took her onto US Navy ships and dingy bars chasing sailors.
KD: What was your dream at the time your work was published in SAD’s Fantasy issue and how has that dream evolved?
SB: My dream has always been to perform and write and make a living from that and mostly, that is what I'm doing. And that's pretty cool. The next dream, to make enough money from writing and performing that I can purchase a house in this city. The dream so many of us have. I'm going to try to continue following my passions and interests and see where it takes me.
KD: Finally…what are you working on now?
SB: As a writer I have a column in Asparagus Magazine called The Environmentalist From Hell where I rant about things related to sustainability and the environment. I make most of my money from acting these days. Sadly not in anything too lucrative or fun, mostly commercials playing a frazzled mom in need of a product. I'm also still producing my comedy show Teen Angst Night at the Fox Cabaret - next shows are April 17 and May 8, which will be the season finale and then shows will come back in the Fall. I've also started a new comedy show called The Weird Audition Show where performers do bizarre monologues they could never do at a proper theatre audition.
Sara Bynoe is a writer and comedian with a column in Asparagus Magazine (The Environmentalist from Hell) and a show in production for Fox Cabaret, Teen Angst, with the finale coming out soon on April 17 and May 8! Sara also has a new show called The Weird Audition Show, which as its name suggests encourages performers to come on stage with their most bizarre monologues. You can find her on her personal social media @SaraBynoe or on @YellowNotebookProductions to catch a glimpse of her shows!
To find Kathryn Mussalem’s photos: Check thealmightyqueen.tumblr.com and thealmightyqueen.com
