tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27621533770872835362024-03-13T09:06:55.099-07:00The Last BohemiansThe Last Bohemians is the blog of the Last Bohemians Project that was started by the poet Edward Field and the journalist Dylan Foley in 2005. A book covering the history of Greenwich Village called "The Last Bohemians" is in development.Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.comBlogger112125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-68885536522632784072023-07-01T19:53:00.000-07:002023-07-01T19:53:53.864-07:00 Close Read #2: How I Became Hettie Jones by Hettie Jones<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg9YD-uYNpqGDppCSrFXRxoYs74d47_UvaNBplMOREpyqDehLoCzLQZf5yAXICDyBbBYD8G_iS-4Kzpehw3AP9vUHpmkapyCiNCU5zJQMM5QmjmzBPc9u6Go3w9LQKcLyJy3KZtVOrrxxsFk7R_TVQFAcCUdD_Lg2EkhGE2ogXA9VXTo6wjPnNU0dmZekbw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="266" data-original-width="175" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg9YD-uYNpqGDppCSrFXRxoYs74d47_UvaNBplMOREpyqDehLoCzLQZf5yAXICDyBbBYD8G_iS-4Kzpehw3AP9vUHpmkapyCiNCU5zJQMM5QmjmzBPc9u6Go3w9LQKcLyJy3KZtVOrrxxsFk7R_TVQFAcCUdD_Lg2EkhGE2ogXA9VXTo6wjPnNU0dmZekbw" width="158" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">(How I Became Hettie Jones, 1990)</div><p></p><p><br /></p><p> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Close Read #2:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><i>How I Became Hettie Jones</i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">by Hettie Jones</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">By Dylan Foley</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">How I Became Hettie Jones</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> is the memoir of a Jewish working-class woman from Laurelton, Queens, who after college moves to Greenwich Village in 1958 to become a liberated woman and a writer. Hettie Jones turns her back on the traditional expectations and immersed herself in the bohemian scene of the Village bars and poetry readings.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">While working at the audiophile magazine <b><i>Record Changer</i></b>, a very dapper, handsome African-American man named LeRoi Jones comes in to apply for the job of shipping clerk. After several weeks of working together, the sexual frisson becomes unavoidable. The two very attractive, diminutive people become lovers and LeRoi moved into her tiny flat on Morton Street.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">LeRoi came from Newark and was educated at Howard University. His parents are more middle-class, his father a postal carrier and his mother a community activist. LeRoi had just been thrown out of the Air Force for his political views and for reading the political magazine <b><i>The Partisan Review</i></b>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">How I Became Hettie Jones</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> is the story of Hettie’s seven-year marriage to LeRoi, and the turbulent sexual and racial politics of the late 1950’s, early 1960’s Greenwich Village. LeRoi and Hettie had a passionate love affair, while founding the poetry magazine <b><i>Yugen</i></b> and the Totem Press, which published Beats like Allen Ginsberg and the New York School Poet Frank O’Hara. They also held large, wild parties in their apartment in Chelsea.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgjI3f2Qr-XJUNwhJqAEa3ohSf9W5xxSA5H7ApjZQnm_B1mo_ySMagscYTVqx30smg-vqKk--CGizAHoqde_ZhVxqfYwubskQrpHl6FLP6anHaqU7rGp7GAT3CYoRbV0kjpD6hcd_bK09Wd5PD4rOIcD47BfYE2clvcNKr0s0-jEpcBTDT1IQL6MBhhVaW6" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="272" data-original-width="185" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgjI3f2Qr-XJUNwhJqAEa3ohSf9W5xxSA5H7ApjZQnm_B1mo_ySMagscYTVqx30smg-vqKk--CGizAHoqde_ZhVxqfYwubskQrpHl6FLP6anHaqU7rGp7GAT3CYoRbV0kjpD6hcd_bK09Wd5PD4rOIcD47BfYE2clvcNKr0s0-jEpcBTDT1IQL6MBhhVaW6" width="163" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(Hettie Jones, 1960's)</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The couple had two daughters, but the marriage was plagued by infidelities. LeRoi slept around and had a long-term affair with the poet Diane Di Prima, which produced another daughter. Hettie would pick up artists at the Cedar Tavern for revenge.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">By the early 1960’s, LeRoi’s career would become more closely linked with radical Black politics. His controversial play “Dutchman,” first performed in March 1964, about a white woman killing a young Black man on the subway, was an off-Broadway hit and thrust LeRoi into the radical limelight. These racial politics of the 1960’s would eventually rip their marriage apart. Leroi had left Hettie by 1965 and became immersed in the Black Arts Movement. He later changed his name to Amiri Baraka.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In her memoir, Hettie Jones succeeds in pulling out the story of a doomed love affair and marriage and making it the story of the lost intellectual bohemia of Greenwich Village, where young people striving to become writers, poets and painters threw off the family histories and became part of a tight circle of other writers and intellectuals. People lived for their art, had sex with inappropriate people and had abortions, did speed, reefer and sometimes heroin, and become published writers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Hettie wrote of a community of writers and painters who read each others’ books and promoted each other. It was a passionate period where an article in <b><i>Commentary</i></b> could set off a fistfight at the White Horse Tavern.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">By the time their marriage implodes, Hettie and LeRoi are living in the East Village. More interracial couples are moving in and the area is already being colonized by the early hippieshippies, the next phase of the counterculture.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In 1958 when Hettie and LeRoi got together, by Hettie’s accounting, there seemed to be only three or four other interracial couples in the Village. When walking down the street together, the Italian residents would catcall the couple. Hettie wanted to confront them. Le Roi urged caution.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">LeRoi’s family in Newark welcomed Hettie. On her side, Hettie kept here romance with LeRoi secret from her parents in Queens.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Hettie and Leroi started drinking at the famed San Remo Café on MacDougal and Bleecker, which was frequented by the Beats, which were at the height of the newfound fame, with the publication of Jack Kerouac’s <b><i>On The Road</i></b>. LeRoi wrote a fan letter to the poet Allen Ginsberg on toilet paper. Ginsberg, who was living in Paris, was impressed and wrote back with his own toilet paper letter. Ginsberg would become an introduction to the Village poetry scene for the young couple. In addition, they met the poet Frank O’Hara, and hung out with him at the Cedar Tavern, the 8<sup>th</sup> Street bar frequented by the Abstract Expressionist painters like Bill de Kooning and Franz Kline.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Hettie got a job at the <b><i>Partisan Review</i></b>, the influential political magazine ran by William Barrett. When the right-wing pundit Norman Podhertz attacked the Beats in his essay “The Know-Nothing Bohemians.” LeRoi responded with his own Beat defense in the <b><i>Partisan Review.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In addition to the San Remo and the Cedar, there was The Five Spot on Cooper Square, where the Termini brothers took over their father’s workingman’s bar and rolled a piano inside. The bar quickly became one of the Village’s best jazz clubs, where David Amram, Ornette Coleman and even Billie Holiday would play.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The first time she got pregnant, Hettie had to travel to Pennsylvania, where a sympathetic doctor performed an illegal abortion. It was too dangerous for LeRoi to travel with her.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The second time Hettie became pregnant, she and LeRoi married at City Hall. Her father got wind of the pregnancy and confronts her, begging to allow him to annul the marriage and to get her another abortion. That was the end of Hettie’s relationship with her father.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The specter of violence always was present in LeRoi Jones’ life in the Village and in surrounding neighborhoods. While moving furniture to their new Chelsea apartment, LeRoi is savagely beaten by a white gang.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Hettie and LeRoi’s Chelsea apartment became the scene of great bohemian parties. Hettie learned how to make spaghetti for 30 for the large folding and stapling parties, where they’d compile copies of <b><i>Yugen</i></b>, their poetry magazine, that published the poetry of New York School of Poets like Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery, the Beats like Ginsberg and William Burroughs, and the Black Mountain poets like Robert Creeley.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi5HpU_EW58n9DdqntMCnBo330IU2LiDmQ0rSqE3F5Qg0XLad5DvM0pH8topXB_-DuQZs9jY-lZanWv1kaGVKQ5hc5m4KfVTQGQElrhjmqTK7846Q6dFj0RD-THe9Lk9Y0ln19eO-bpJCRzxgu3AcARaboE72VeYrxipEzb1CiMjPt-buS_c45vjl1S0Ref" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="667" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi5HpU_EW58n9DdqntMCnBo330IU2LiDmQ0rSqE3F5Qg0XLad5DvM0pH8topXB_-DuQZs9jY-lZanWv1kaGVKQ5hc5m4KfVTQGQElrhjmqTK7846Q6dFj0RD-THe9Lk9Y0ln19eO-bpJCRzxgu3AcARaboE72VeYrxipEzb1CiMjPt-buS_c45vjl1S0Ref" width="156" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(Yugen</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">, Issue #2)</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In 2009, I interviewed Bill Manville, who wrote a bars column for the <b><i>Voice</i></b> in the late 1950s. He was the Jonses’ upstairs neighbor in 1958. “They’d invite me to the parties, but they were stoner parties,” said Manville. “I preferred my parties loud.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">When Jack Kerouac gave his famous reading at the Seven Arts Bookstore, afterwards the audience from the reading packed the apartment. When a drunk Kerouac heard that Hettie was pregnant, he embraced the couple and picked them both up off the ground. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Hettie wrote of using dexies, or speed, to finish putting out <b><i>Yugen</i></b>. Their parties were wild, with Allen Ginsberg and his boyfriend Peter Orlovsky stopping by and taking off their clothes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Their daughter Kellie was born in 1959. The black-Jewish couple and their biracial baby drew stares on the street. When Hettie and the toddler Kellie were once taking the bus to Newark to see Grandma, a heavily made-up old woman was given them the evil eye. The euphoric toddler asked, “Mama, why is that woman ORANGE?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjnNlO6O8tn5pfAukejy2kBVY_tkPLXud23I3RFxvlrZOnc18FQQIuBd1GgHOblv4MjPtrUloKv03SoleVbzHkJ6blSDIf9ThcAN_pid4RZAMWNuHNvlQXIbuZR7RUBmo0LfLTJSVxSdBf90tZrjsixyrYTqMFJUEl7qNaf4TE2_6VqkDuyGIW_hjqm5LOy" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="273" data-original-width="184" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjnNlO6O8tn5pfAukejy2kBVY_tkPLXud23I3RFxvlrZOnc18FQQIuBd1GgHOblv4MjPtrUloKv03SoleVbzHkJ6blSDIf9ThcAN_pid4RZAMWNuHNvlQXIbuZR7RUBmo0LfLTJSVxSdBf90tZrjsixyrYTqMFJUEl7qNaf4TE2_6VqkDuyGIW_hjqm5LOy" width="162" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Leroi Jones as a young father)</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In addition to publishing <b><i>Yugen</i></b>, the couple also printed poetry chapbooks with their Totem Press. One of the first books they published in 1958 was “This Kind of Bird Flies Backwards,” by the hipster poet Diane di Prima, a single mother by choice and upfront about her bisexuality.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgKIjGMBH9FrgBR2zoVWvikUTMFMN78-u2Q_e22niRLjpz5vMl7XVANfTEHCCqxw-hJN8ZJ69n-p60ME7_OqZI9rfe35RJyCzvo8MyBs745hxXjtAK4b7Oxs8qT67RAgZRiKvq-SqRuEiYgOBd2RCX2371sQquhv0GBrsCk6O9jTBBqURaQj4m-XJcEl-EO" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="235" data-original-width="215" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgKIjGMBH9FrgBR2zoVWvikUTMFMN78-u2Q_e22niRLjpz5vMl7XVANfTEHCCqxw-hJN8ZJ69n-p60ME7_OqZI9rfe35RJyCzvo8MyBs745hxXjtAK4b7Oxs8qT67RAgZRiKvq-SqRuEiYgOBd2RCX2371sQquhv0GBrsCk6O9jTBBqURaQj4m-XJcEl-EO" width="220" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">(Diane di Prima giving a reading in 1958)</div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">LeRoi’s serial adultery started about two years into the marriage. Hettie noted that LeRoi’s sophistication, wit and kindness made him irressistable to white women in the Village who wanted to sleep with a Black man.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">LeRoi started a long affair with di Prima, who had escaped her abusive, parochial childhood in Brooklyn for the freedom of the Village. She nude modeled, wrote poems and ran her own small printing press. At the Cedar one night, she noticed the despair on LeRoi’s face under the charming demeanor. Their affair went on for several years. They were even photographed together at the Cedar by the <b><i>Village Voice</i></b> photographer Fred McDarrah.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEji-yr1V0L1CXVPEVMso5bG7ip9t9xnjHVL9geW9sFyz-ZN6htgV9jcQmURG5I3UgyGK_E272wxi5fs_tOE_m71o4C_Dx1oWWHTWn6rEbHQfVPvDBO6itjvNk_vNcuTnkugRQpx2aYPq9OInxmXFHBbUfoqGkRz1_npEGzjxM3-VEQFVv62NlMMH0ehZ1i7" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="273" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEji-yr1V0L1CXVPEVMso5bG7ip9t9xnjHVL9geW9sFyz-ZN6htgV9jcQmURG5I3UgyGK_E272wxi5fs_tOE_m71o4C_Dx1oWWHTWn6rEbHQfVPvDBO6itjvNk_vNcuTnkugRQpx2aYPq9OInxmXFHBbUfoqGkRz1_npEGzjxM3-VEQFVv62NlMMH0ehZ1i7" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">(</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">Leroi Jones</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> and Diane di Prima at the Cedar Tavern)</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Hettie’s reaction to the affair was swift. She went to the Cedar and picked up a curly-headed painter she knew. She later settled into an affair with the soulful painter Mike Kanematsu, who had spent time in the World War II concentration camps for Japanese Americans, as well as fighting in the US Army in Europe.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Despite his own prolific affairs, LeRoi was apoplectic and confronted the lovers at Kanematsu’s home. Back at their home, LeRoi broke all the crockery and smacked Hettie. Locked in a fierce embrace and glaring at each other, the event signaled the beginning of the long, downward spiral of their marriage. Hettie wryly noted, they were both 25.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjNQKEZAd7Fcr38LLBvu21i73a13ij_eBqKhhmFf5UC03wh4Sq4HxbeZvHN9cmV4Wbq1m629luMciKdLeVz6_sSvaFIP6UdL6OnNPC04UfHurbpGmoVuqAQPBpwznetoUIUEEfgui8cPiVjbs3ZHzrE8X1n-fOQvHyzGEWDU_ilmO7baIRE-qHIIF3c8REV" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="119" data-original-width="80" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjNQKEZAd7Fcr38LLBvu21i73a13ij_eBqKhhmFf5UC03wh4Sq4HxbeZvHN9cmV4Wbq1m629luMciKdLeVz6_sSvaFIP6UdL6OnNPC04UfHurbpGmoVuqAQPBpwznetoUIUEEfgui8cPiVjbs3ZHzrE8X1n-fOQvHyzGEWDU_ilmO7baIRE-qHIIF3c8REV" width="161" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">(Leroi Jones</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">' <b><i>Blues People</i></b>)</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">LeRoi’s literary career continued exploding. He wrote the cultural classic <b><i>Blues People</i></b>, which chronicled the rise of African-American music, from the blues created by enslaved people in the South to the evolution of jazz in New Orleans. LeRoi and Diane di Prima also started publishing “The Floating Bear,” a poetry newsletter. Articles in the newsletter resulted in Hettie and LeRoi’s apartment being raided by the FBI on obscenity charges.[144]. Meanwhile, Hettie and Roi had their second daughter Lisa in 1961. At the same time, Diane di Prima had her own Roi baby and moved two doors down from the Joneses. The two mothers would occasionally bump into each other on the street, pushing prams with their daughters.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgeMoYzRtkffiV22YzlX_IrwNhHC9XQ6c4aiLJel70LjMcL6TqUl1q5I0tIt7H2cAiqpdTfzhImdU5V_arbHJ8KBG_Kkwa30h2woqC1MnCgJEeNqPWPee3cvf8JnUHXqu48I8RJjaLlm9oIfO4J22mPF9PRRdTEQPJ02GpT4o5R1ODBR6_QME3cIoOFcTM8" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="300" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgeMoYzRtkffiV22YzlX_IrwNhHC9XQ6c4aiLJel70LjMcL6TqUl1q5I0tIt7H2cAiqpdTfzhImdU5V_arbHJ8KBG_Kkwa30h2woqC1MnCgJEeNqPWPee3cvf8JnUHXqu48I8RJjaLlm9oIfO4J22mPF9PRRdTEQPJ02GpT4o5R1ODBR6_QME3cIoOFcTM8" width="188" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(The Floating Bear, Issue #32, 1966)</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Hettie was angry over Roi’s long-term affair with di Prima. She worked behind the scenes to make sure that di Prima was cut out of a major poetry anthology in the mid-1960’s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In her own memoir <b><i>Recollections of My Life as a Woman</i></b>, Diane di Prima wrote that not all her activities with LeRoi were literary or sexual. Some were revolutionary. Di Prima recounted dressing very conservatively in a fake Chanel dres so she would not attract attention. She bought a box of grenade shells at an Army/Navy surplus store on 42<sup>nd</sup> Street, then delivered the shells to an activist friend of LeRoi’s in the Village. She did not ask questions. [DiPrima, p242]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Hettie’s memoir came out in 1990 and won critical acclaim for its clear-eyed look at the sexual and racial politics in Greenwich Village in the late 1950’s, early 1960’s, as told through a tumultuous romance and the blossoming and death of a marriage. There were great images of the lost bohemia of the Village, where Hettie and her friends would buy indestructible black tights from a dance supply store for the hipster women’s uniform. Strapped for cash all the time, Hettie and LeRoi would split the dollar salad at the San Remo.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">When I first read the memoir in 2005, I was appalled that LeRoi left his wife and children in 1965 and betrayed the white poets like Frank O’Hara, who had mentored him and promoted LeRoi’s career. When questioned in the mid-1960s why he had turned on his poet friends like O’Hara, LeRoi told a black artist that “I was pissing in their beer.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">[Joe LeSueur, Frank’s roommate for a decade, got revenge on LeRoi years later in his posthumous memoir, <b><i>Digressions on Some Poems by Frank O’Hara, </i></b>published in 2001. He noted that LeRoi often spent the night at the O’Hara-LeSueur apartment, and that the lady-chaser LeRoi had an ongoing sexual relationship with O’Hara. In his own biography, <b><i>City Poet</i></b> by Brad Gooch, O’Hara said he believed LeRoi Jones was gay.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Rereading the book again in 2021, I realized that the choices that LeRoi Jones faced were impossible. As his stature rose and his writing and speeches became more radical, Black activists began to attack him as speaking black, but marrying white, referring to Hettie. In 1964, after LeRoi wrote the play “Dutchman,” the play became an off-Broadway hit. When “Dutchman” was staged at Howard University, LeRoi’s alma mater, he refused to take Hettie with him to the opening night.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Though LeRoi had moved out, he would still come by the apartment to change clothes. The couple would make mournful love together. LeRoi took on a younger lover attached to the Black Power movement. He became friends and was a confidant with Malcolm X. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">After her second daughter was born, Hettie’s father found out that Hettie’s mother was still in touch with her and would visit her grandchildren. The father gave Hettie an angry call, saying there would be no more contact, no letters, no visits from her mother. Hettie mused in her memoir that she had lost the men in her life during the same period, first her father, and now her seven-year love affair with LeRoi was ending.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated. LeRoi and Hettie were at an event at the 8<sup>th</sup> Street Bookshop when they got the news. Again, <b><i>Voice</i></b> photographer Fred McDarrah took an important historical picture, the last public record of the estranged spouses together. When word filtered into the event that Malcolm was dead, LeRoi hurriedly left the event with several members of his new radical Black entourage.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgasA6hB2_QBoDJ6SzEAkVUVZ2ei2y46i9S083re5O7Cbk6qRbkReN6-pNydO9rpOwJrhd1Fl1hIgfKYlgtyKAgmDr87kBGs5Tv6Wi7lEaGg8FZ_efSKJ97ZKGf9a8sz6Hwbq-ntcadTGbCz8DF_sJuasgx2-CNP2HwtXR95A-fACDjIug31xWvmgtHHauK" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="428" data-original-width="336" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgasA6hB2_QBoDJ6SzEAkVUVZ2ei2y46i9S083re5O7Cbk6qRbkReN6-pNydO9rpOwJrhd1Fl1hIgfKYlgtyKAgmDr87kBGs5Tv6Wi7lEaGg8FZ_efSKJ97ZKGf9a8sz6Hwbq-ntcadTGbCz8DF_sJuasgx2-CNP2HwtXR95A-fACDjIug31xWvmgtHHauK" width="188" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(Amiri Baraka, wife Amina Baraka and child)</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">LeRoi Jones soon moved with his Black girlfriend to Harlem and was one of the major founders of the Black Arts Movement. He changed his name to Amiri Baraka and started a Black theater company. Eventually, he moved back to Newark and married an African-American woman and had more children, including Ras Baraka, the present mayor of Newark.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Amiri Baraka’s career spanned 50 more years and 40 books. For many years, he taught at SUNY Stonybrook. He also continued his work in radical politics, and was arrested for gun possession and severely beaten by the police during the Newark Riots in July 1967. His reputation as a poet was marred by allegations of misogyny and homophobia. In the aftermath of September 11<sup>th</sup>, Amiri was appointed the poet laureate of New Jersey. In 2002, he read an anti-Semitic poem called “Who Blew Up America,” claiming that 4,000 Israeli citizens had been warned not to go to work at the World Trade Center on the day of the terror attack. The governor of New Jersey dissolved the poet laureate position to force Baraka out of office. Baraka died in New Jersey in 2014. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Hettie Jones stayed in the apartment on Cooper Square and raised her young daughters. Hettie became a noted editor and children’s book author. In 1998, she became an award-winning poet.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The kids all did very well. Kellie Jones has become one of the most famous curators and academics studying African-American art and has an endowed professorship at Columbia University. She is also the recipient of the prestigious “MacArthur genius grant.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh2w4KAdmzvSNRReHRYO9l0a7n6PrCHhGjE9D6ksFEYgaZSsIioiLext-ghAex4kkn3PeJYAqRWjsGw-TysDf5EsgHARMWQQtKOlh0x1mz-7BOSqFW7668fu8MOoU8C8RiWqhnqR59EPuGmI_jK25fbcvaSDWDsWuqVqiJ2qbHpFFyicxvirnHLdSf_2CnC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh2w4KAdmzvSNRReHRYO9l0a7n6PrCHhGjE9D6ksFEYgaZSsIioiLext-ghAex4kkn3PeJYAqRWjsGw-TysDf5EsgHARMWQQtKOlh0x1mz-7BOSqFW7668fu8MOoU8C8RiWqhnqR59EPuGmI_jK25fbcvaSDWDsWuqVqiJ2qbHpFFyicxvirnHLdSf_2CnC" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 16pt;">(Kellie and Hettie Jones)</b></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Lisa Jones went to Yale and wrote the “Skin Trade” column for the <b><i>Village Voice</i></b> for 15 years, the last period when it was a cool paper. [<b><i>The Voice</i></b> folded in 2018.] She had a cult following for her writings on culture and race at the <b><i>Voice</i></b> and is the author of the essay collection, <b><i>Bulletproof Diva</i></b>. She is also known as a playwright.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhPb1Eqwb0ItvPlbX_1Mr7ffPaui4IPYFtTQWejkOB4CAY56zt52QiyxIG7OmGT6QcxyGCcpDElRIsxJUVEDuYzXUxzXLifsVoXJ71yylIgexrPo0jgxSqmCgt8Ol16TkuVEuI_xtx5qMxBDhrzfxh0lnEsJTpXuE0bBggBzbD8rokaow8fQ5pZg40R4x-P" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="120" data-original-width="75" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhPb1Eqwb0ItvPlbX_1Mr7ffPaui4IPYFtTQWejkOB4CAY56zt52QiyxIG7OmGT6QcxyGCcpDElRIsxJUVEDuYzXUxzXLifsVoXJ71yylIgexrPo0jgxSqmCgt8Ol16TkuVEuI_xtx5qMxBDhrzfxh0lnEsJTpXuE0bBggBzbD8rokaow8fQ5pZg40R4x-P" width="150" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(Lisa Jones' essay collection </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>Bulletproof Diva</b></i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">)</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Dominique di Prima, the daughter of Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones, is a well-known Los Angeles newscaster and TV personality. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMLVgTlira6mc9j0Vsyf4JBll-wD52J_FyJ5YA1UZvp87UvRuZ9qduvfKFXwGdrGlovHm8btjYD6OtErp5bLpHINtrR0KrYUJ5_CEv8DWm-d9KKxqebQlNR0RBX_vbmFwnOuRLST2j6P366ADpVAp37-bDtxOKQaDAnlSuhfXbwkCMbHEZaPFVyM8X3LVo" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMLVgTlira6mc9j0Vsyf4JBll-wD52J_FyJ5YA1UZvp87UvRuZ9qduvfKFXwGdrGlovHm8btjYD6OtErp5bLpHINtrR0KrYUJ5_CEv8DWm-d9KKxqebQlNR0RBX_vbmFwnOuRLST2j6P366ADpVAp37-bDtxOKQaDAnlSuhfXbwkCMbHEZaPFVyM8X3LVo" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(Dominique and Diane di Prima)</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-24626346738380823342023-01-02T19:27:00.008-08:002023-06-18T19:27:13.665-07:00 Close Read #1: Digressions on Some Poems by Frank O’Hara by Joe LeSueur, a memoir and a life with Frank O’Hara in Four Apartments<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCNViWmh862EJ7eq8ghKBtAVURn_AnrkRPyIGl3txtG05DFSsoR7RPoC4WqEwfUmZxtG3IvC3e1W4JPmoQgPDR4iDzDS00MhnkJU7wX9w-y_Ok5wUMOBNPMQRJlu0ArWWTNz-y9o2gcZCVJo9QzrQTcuHXgdEsjcUuo3ZOSyS0ejYHPKMHz-Rkr20g0g" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="255" data-original-width="197" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCNViWmh862EJ7eq8ghKBtAVURn_AnrkRPyIGl3txtG05DFSsoR7RPoC4WqEwfUmZxtG3IvC3e1W4JPmoQgPDR4iDzDS00MhnkJU7wX9w-y_Ok5wUMOBNPMQRJlu0ArWWTNz-y9o2gcZCVJo9QzrQTcuHXgdEsjcUuo3ZOSyS0ejYHPKMHz-Rkr20g0g=w308-h400" width="308" /></a></div><br /> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> (Joe LeSueur) </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">This essay is an appreciation of Joe LeSueur’s memoir of his friendship with the poet Frank O’Hara and the apartments they shared from 1955 to 1965. Joe paints a fascinating portrait of Frank as a hard-drinking poet. In the 15 years he worked in New York, before his death at 40 in 1966, Frank made a major assault on the content of American poetry, with his wryly named New York School of Poets, which included John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch and James Schuyler. He became the center of a social scene of parties and gallery openings, mixing painters with poets, writers and dancers. Frank lionized his painter friends like Bill de Kooning, Grace Hartigan and Larry Rivers in his poems. Frank also promoted them first as a critic for <i>ArtNews</i>, and then as an influential associate curator at the Museum of Modern Art, where he handled foreign exhibits, raising the stature of Abstract Expressionism and American modern art.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Frank was a promiscuous lover, but his sexual ideal would be a close male friend, who was usually straight or mostly straight. He always had a female muse, from the playwright Bunny Lang during his Harvard years, to Jane Freilcher and Grace Hartigan. When the women got married, the friendship would fade. Frank finished life adoring the Hamptons socialite Patsy Southgate, at the time of his death in 1966.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Digressions</span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> is an affectionate but often very bitchy memoir of gay life and the New York art scene in the 1950’s and 1960’s.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">I added material from Brad Gooch’s brilliant O’Hara biography <i>City Poet</i>, as well using interviews I conducted with the poets Edward Field and Brigid Murnaghan.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Digressions on Some Poems by Frank O’Hara</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> by Joe LeSueur (2003)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgBtzkxguG900KaV_Rait5MTPl2SqsRed_Bp1jPVzswPj-tfBryh39fws6wNl8nci6KYZTGJQ3j87UWP2MWj77-n0iTeAbmhvHy1a8dG3CCZNqLSiR0aZx8qVHt-heql8dGN-XBmENEbMGktyDyHPKrEUogGoZsafDHqZ1_ThskF0Px9wiVVexuhix7kA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgBtzkxguG900KaV_Rait5MTPl2SqsRed_Bp1jPVzswPj-tfBryh39fws6wNl8nci6KYZTGJQ3j87UWP2MWj77-n0iTeAbmhvHy1a8dG3CCZNqLSiR0aZx8qVHt-heql8dGN-XBmENEbMGktyDyHPKrEUogGoZsafDHqZ1_ThskF0Px9wiVVexuhix7kA=w427-h640" width="427" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> (Digressions of </span><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">Some</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> Poems by Frank O'Hara)</span></span><br /><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Joe LeSueur was an angelic-looking blonde beauty and World War II veteran when he met the writer Paul Goodman in a gay bar in Los Angeles that was being raided. Goodman told Joe to look him up when he moved to New York.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The eldest son from a large working-class Mormon family, Joe knew that he had to get out of Los Angeles, away from his family as a young gay man. “I knew that I was different from my brothers and sisters,” wrote Joe LeSueur, in his memoir <b><i>Digessions on Some Poems by Frank O’Hara</i></b>, “and knew by the time I was an adolescent, that the day would come when I’d have to carve out a life of my own, a deviant, subversive life that would be intellectually stimulating.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The memoir concentrates on Joe LeSueur’s 15-year friendship with the influential poet Frank O’Hara and the decade that they spent as roommates in four different apartments in Manhattan—two dirty tenements filled with roaches, one apartment without a shower, and finally, a loft on Broadway that could accommodate Frank’s large art collection of gifts from his artist friends, including Elaine de Kooning, Larry Rivers and Grace Hartigan. In the last apartment, their roommate relationship had frayed, and Joe moved out in the fall of 1965. During the following summer, Frank was mortally injured in a freak dune buggy accident on Fire Island.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Joe LeSueur’s book is about the friendship of two working-class gay men who came to New York (Frank was from the Boston area) and entered the vibrant art and literary scene in Greenwich Village. Rejected by the established poets, Frank O’Hara threw himself in with the artists at the Cedar Tavern, with the Abstract Expressionists known at the New York School, including such artists as Franz Kline, Bill de Kooning and Philip Guston. With three other poets—John Ashbury, Kenneth Koch and Jimmy Schuyler, Frank pioneered a new modern form of naturalistic, “I do this, I do that” kind of poetry that received the label the New York School of Poets, a nod to the painters they had become close with.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Meeting during the height of the sexual repression of 1950’s America, Joe and Frank were never in the closet. In an era when gay men and lesbians were arrested in bar raids by the NYPD and gays outed at work were often fired, both men had prolific, open sex lives. Early in the roommate relationship, they occasionally had sex with each other, but Joe preferred picking up strangers on the street or in bars and having sex. Frank tended to sleep with his friends, be they gay or straight, having a long-term affair with the painter Larry Rivers, between his relationships with women, as well as with the married landscape painter Fairfield Porter. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Joe LeSueur opens the memoir with the delightful essay “Four Apartments,” written in 1969. Joe and Frank met at a New Year’s Party in 1951, at the poet John Ashbery’s apartment. They became fast friends. At that time, Frank had gotten his first job at the Museum of Modern Art selling postcards and running the information desk.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In 1955, Joe moved into Frank’s apartment on 326 E. 49<sup>th</sup> Street, across from the United Nations. It was a dirty tenement apartment they nicknamed “Squalid Mansion.” Their social scene consisted of art openings, museums and long nights at the Cedar Tavern or the San Remo, a half-gay literary bar on MacDougal Street. At MoMA, Frank would write his poetry between work phonecalls. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Both men drank heavily. At night, Frank would often have make-out sessions with a black security officer working at the guard booth at the UN, not far from their 49<sup>th</sup> Street apartment. Once, drunk on the subway, Frank overshot his subway stop, and in an outerborough subway stop blew a token both clerk. Frank also had a sexual relationship with the black postman who delivered their packages. Frank and Joe referred to him as “Aunt Jemima.” (Joe insisted in the memoir that Frank had genuine interest in black men as sexual partners, despite such gross racist talk.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Frank and Joe’s idyllic and filthy life at Squalid Mansion was interrupted when the poet Jimmy Schuyler, who had previously lived in the apartment, moved back in without notice and took one of the two bedrooms. The severely depressed Schuyler cast a pall over the apartment, slept for many hours and would shoot Joe murderous looks.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">To escape Schuyler, the two men moved out to an apartment over a bar at 90 University Place, which had the plus of being four blocks from the Cedar Tavern, but had no shower. Frank included the apartment in his “Poem(1957).” “I live over a dyke bar and I am happy,” he wrote. In the poem, Frank gets locked out of the apartment with the young alcoholic poet Brigid Murnaghan. They wound up sleeping at the painter Joan Mitchell’s nearby apartment. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Joe explains the background of the poem. Murnaghan was already a hot mess, famed for her drinking and ability to curse a blue streak.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In 1959, Joe and Frank moved to another cheap apartment on East 9<sup>th</sup> Street, on the edge of Tompkins Square Park. It was a grim tenement space with more roaches and a rat as big as a cat. The park was filled with angry, disgruntled poor Eastern European immigrants. This period, according to Joe, was one of Frank O’Hara’s most productive writing periods. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Their final apartment was a clean, spacious loft at 791 Broadway, across from Grace Church. Their roommate relationship ended there in January 1959, but they remained friends.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">According to Joe LeSueur, Frank O’Hara was generous to a fault. If he embraced you as a friend, there were no limits. Frank always had a woman friend he was in love with. The first in New York City was the painter Jane Freilicher, and he wrote numerous poems, lionizing her. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Freilicher lived in the building of Kenneth Koch, a poet and Frank’s Harvard friend. At a party, he met both Freilicher and Larry Rivers. Frank fell in love with both. He and Larry Rivers kissed behind some drapes. Freilicher became his muse.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Freilicher and Rivers dated in the early 1950’s. When she broke up with him, he slashed his wrists. Rivers panicked, then called Frank, who rushed over, took the bleeding Rivers to the hospital, then out to Long Island, where their affair began. O’Hara also blocked Freilicher from seeing Rivers, preventing a reconciliation. Hartigan mocked the seriousness of Rivers’ attempt, saying that he checked to see that the phone worked before he cut his wrists.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-Q1fnKcY1r-2jQQDeqp-spAOMUYT5jCgMQbpnswCVeBu7x1u-_hWQ0ktAf7ZbvUrMZMhXZ0KFKR0E9RYibubBqyoKv-Yv4cjqrpTpTD412mFfwe-8i3CsGubAlfzC5waJh8DaRiSOwR52NqarOvgWKXWI0knOoVlRxVlEoPlgbvJ-dVSIRAXl84fXLQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="192" data-original-width="152" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-Q1fnKcY1r-2jQQDeqp-spAOMUYT5jCgMQbpnswCVeBu7x1u-_hWQ0ktAf7ZbvUrMZMhXZ0KFKR0E9RYibubBqyoKv-Yv4cjqrpTpTD412mFfwe-8i3CsGubAlfzC5waJh8DaRiSOwR52NqarOvgWKXWI0knOoVlRxVlEoPlgbvJ-dVSIRAXl84fXLQ" width="190" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> (O'Hara and </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Rivers)</span></span><br /><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">After “Four Apartments,” there is an autobiographical piece, then LeSueur wrote the “Digressions,” analyzing and explaining the history behind about 40 of Frank’s poems.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">When Joe arrived in New York in 1949, he started a sexual relationship with Paul Goodman, the writer who was one of the founders of Gestalt Therapy. Goodman was an entry into the intellectual circles of Greenwich Village. Goodman introduced Joe to members of <b><i>The Partisan Review</i></b>, Anais Nin, and the founders of The Living Theatre Julian Beck and Judith Malina. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Goodman was a repulsive lover—matted hair, sloppy dress and an unattractive face. Goodman also had an insatiable sexual appetite, picking up sailors and coming on to every young man in his circle. “How often to do attractive women endure sex with unattractive men, without anyone thinking twice about it? To some extent, I was like those women,” wrote Joe. Joe was an intellectual climber, enthralled by Goodman’s cultural capital and the access Goodman allowed. Goodman also used Joe to babysit his young son. Goodman’s wife Sally was aware of his sleeping with men. Joe would let Goodman have sex with him occasionally over the next three years, until he met Frank O’Hara.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Joe was working a miserable clerical job and was saving money to go back to Los Angeles forever, when he had the good fortune to be picked up by a wealthy Reichian therapist at the San Remo, who kept him a lover. When the therapist dropped him, he paid for Joe to go into therapy to deal with wartime trauma. Joe had been a medic during the Italian campaign, where he was given the horrific job of moving rotting, dead American troops, killed after a failed attack. His fellow medics were robbing the American corpses. Joe was also awarded a bronze star for staying with a severely wounded American soldier while under heavy fire.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Living together, Joe and Frank had a social life that involved dozens of painters and writers, like Joan Mitchell and Grace Hartigan. He wrote mini-odes to his friends. In the poem, “In Memory of My Feelings,” which was dedicated to Hartigan, Joe used it as an opportunity to describe Frank and Grace’s platonic love affair. Hartigan was a fierce figure, giving up her seven-year-old son to her mother so that she could live the life of an impoverished artist in a battered loft on Essex Street. She was both aware and resigned to the harm she was causing her son.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In the early 1950’s, Hartigan ate oatmeal and damaged fruit-stand vegetables to survive and continue painting. She worked as an artists’ model at an art school until the instructors attacked her painting style while she was holding nude poses. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEipaBt-6JWbnp6i8AHiKUisfvSopbrbjzS2QsUNYytw2JqekNaAJLyI7BB9Wlas3B2EkiDKxiDh4aVsqBlLsKI3y3xcca3RxvqPPwnSq4AmubSmN_40zXLWw8UAHDJQ9P5_SIYzFKvG93eBj7xoFbU2loJLZSvMexTqd-TrWzu9QUB5TjNAa8mD8ZVIXA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="177" data-original-width="285" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEipaBt-6JWbnp6i8AHiKUisfvSopbrbjzS2QsUNYytw2JqekNaAJLyI7BB9Wlas3B2EkiDKxiDh4aVsqBlLsKI3y3xcca3RxvqPPwnSq4AmubSmN_40zXLWw8UAHDJQ9P5_SIYzFKvG93eBj7xoFbU2loJLZSvMexTqd-TrWzu9QUB5TjNAa8mD8ZVIXA" width="320" /></a></div><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> (Grace Hartigan in the 1950's)</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Hartigan inspired some catty rage in Joe. He calls her hefty, and recoils when Hartigan says that she wishes Frank wouldn’t bring his younger boyfriend out with them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">One night, while leaving the Cedar with Frank and Joe, a wimpy painter with a tiny moustache tagged along. Hartigan turned around and clocked him, knocking him into the gutter. Frank went to help the battered painter and Joe asked her why she hit the man. “‘I can’t stand a man who doesn’t act like a man,’ she said furiously.” Later, condemning Hartigan’s act to Frank, Frank said, what are you talking about? He deserved it. His love for Grace knew no end.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In the early 1950’s, Frank’s platonic love was focused on. Freilicher, known for her own wit. She eventually married Joe Hazan, a businessman, which put a chilling effect on Frank’s love for her. Frank dedicated his new book <b><i>Meditations in an Emergency</i></b> to Freilicher. Years later, she quipped that when Frank dedicated a book to you, it was sign that he had ended your friendship. Freilicher was replaced in Frank’s affections by Hartigan.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjN4J0FFVl3KFv7FH095niDvynO5F1hJFbq3HXgYxrc9gT5bzkMnKFwstCK6V-QaKGYEwMHuBeuHBYnmrajgw9ci7VD5qMzK69AbRho7WXADTLc7WSuFbSkV1ARolBRQSUytSYvmHlwmsKiESTOk5lZkhQ6wve58ehi-wZRN-Y_MRyEtnSFNsTLZlINsQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="263" data-original-width="171" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjN4J0FFVl3KFv7FH095niDvynO5F1hJFbq3HXgYxrc9gT5bzkMnKFwstCK6V-QaKGYEwMHuBeuHBYnmrajgw9ci7VD5qMzK69AbRho7WXADTLc7WSuFbSkV1ARolBRQSUytSYvmHlwmsKiESTOk5lZkhQ6wve58ehi-wZRN-Y_MRyEtnSFNsTLZlINsQ" width="156" /></a></div><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span> (Grace Hartigan)</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Freilicher’s wedding to Joe Hazan took place at Joan Mitchell’s studio on St. Mark’s Place in 1957. As a cruel joke, John Bernard Myers invited Tennessee Williams, who had had an affair with Hazan in the late 1940’s in Provincetown, Mass.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiSHGqCo1okB0jYxREYRNV_E7tPaRh12kyT0ImP22_T7vAHKTVYRIekh18LjWSUEYEfUj4_ulf5RYbPBcpQ7NvzlwLzuRFdKcM7zBt0C3dSTP8ajw9PMBvLZRwpL7c0wD5iuXOPRQri55SBMeCCMURnsO-pB_CKhNs61pzNKK14DCZnLN14yI3XlJqoPQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="182" data-original-width="277" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiSHGqCo1okB0jYxREYRNV_E7tPaRh12kyT0ImP22_T7vAHKTVYRIekh18LjWSUEYEfUj4_ulf5RYbPBcpQ7NvzlwLzuRFdKcM7zBt0C3dSTP8ajw9PMBvLZRwpL7c0wD5iuXOPRQri55SBMeCCMURnsO-pB_CKhNs61pzNKK14DCZnLN14yI3XlJqoPQ" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> (Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler </span><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">and</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> Grace Hartigan,1957)</span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Frank was big into collaborating with his artist friends. More than a dozen painters, including Hartigan, Rivers and Freilicher painted Frank, often in the nude. He also collaborated on Hartigan with a series of paintings called “Oranges,” that integrated his poems into the painting.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Myers, the eccentric director of the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, pushed collaboration between artists and painters. He started the Artists’ Theatre. Frank had written the play “Try, Try, Try,” with the sets by Larry Rivers. Myers also published Frank’s first chapbook of poetry, <b><i>A City Winter</i></b>, in 1952. Myers was also the person who coined the term New York School of Poets, giving Frank and his fellow poets a distinctive brand.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEikgn1mKWLJnlMHoLTwaabzHuPBO2p9kBhrDhNh98O2x7y6auxLgM9G3ZLg-xPyjRCIgQkpwZiELdwnAz5VzA-hY056O1LIea1vHuOqoFwXU4J6LxCqa6csJO1YwkJAfU5FF6Woo45VkZ3i9z8B8gEwSpQXJIWANlz3zyxF1BBOXsQjtliEsLsD2zcVSw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="268" data-original-width="188" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEikgn1mKWLJnlMHoLTwaabzHuPBO2p9kBhrDhNh98O2x7y6auxLgM9G3ZLg-xPyjRCIgQkpwZiELdwnAz5VzA-hY056O1LIea1vHuOqoFwXU4J6LxCqa6csJO1YwkJAfU5FF6Woo45VkZ3i9z8B8gEwSpQXJIWANlz3zyxF1BBOXsQjtliEsLsD2zcVSw" width="168" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> (J.B. Myers)</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Myers had had an affair with Rivers early in the 1950’s and pushed Rivers’ art at Tibor de Nagy, relentless promotion in exchange for sex. When he was spurned for Frank O’Hara, Myers would show up keening at Rivers’ door late at night. Though enraged at Rivers, Myers still promoted O’Hara, encouraging collaboration between the poet and other artists.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Joe LeSueur’s memoir chronicles a swirling social scene. Frank often went to the macho Cedar Tavern, hanging out with the lions of Abstract Expressionism, including Bill de Kooning, Franz Kline and Phillip Guston. Frank didn’t like the self-destructive Jackson Pollock, because he referred to Frank and Larry Rivers as “faggots” when he found out they were sleeping together.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Joe preferred the San Remo, a Mob-owned bar on MacDougal and Bleecker, run by tough Italians from the neighborhood, who would beat unruly patrons with a billy club kept behind the bar. Frank musing on the bar, noted in a poem, “The penalty in the Big Town is the Big Stick.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The San Remo was more literary, with the British poet WH Auden and his boyfriend Chester Kallman holding court there. Kallman would regale friends with stories of picking up hustlers, giving loud, explicit details. According to the poet Edward Field, Kallman had the bad habit of picking up vice cops. Auden would have to bribe judges to get Kallman out of trouble. Auden eventually moved Kallman to Greece, far away from the NYPD.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Random pick ups could have their dangers. Joe recounted being pummeled by a handsome man who had flirted with him on the street. At a party, O’Hara had invited some rough trade, a tough often violent young man who exchanges sex for money, into a bedroom, and the man started beating him. When Frank cried out, his friends rescued him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The Beat writers, including Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Jack Kerouac drank at the San Remo, as did Malina and Beck, the married founders of the avant-garde Living Theatre. Beck preferred men. The petite, intense Malina was a one-woman sexual revolution, picking up the writer James Agee and others at the bar. Sometimes, Malina would have multiple sexual encounters in one night around the Bleecker Street area.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Frank wrote euphorically gay poems, like “At the Old Place,” written in 1955, about Frank and Joe, and their literary friends John Ashbery and the painter John Button go a gay dance bar and have a euphoric night dancing, with Frank dancing the Lindy with his friends. The poem did not actually see publication until three years after Frank’s death in 1969.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In 1955, Edward Field was a young poet and World War II combat veteran when he met Frank at a reading at the Egan Gallery. Field was using group therapy in a desperate attempt to stop being gay. He and O’Hara dated and slept together for about four months.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">For Field, Frank was a symbol of what a non-self-loathing gay man could be, which would help Field in his own last relationships with men. Frank pulled Field into his social circle. Field remarked that despite the grimness of the McCarthy era, Frank and his artist friends were decidedly nonpolitical. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The affair ended suddenly when a Penn Station locker that held several of Frank’s manuscripts and his typewriter was emptied. Frank went into a paranoid tailspin. Field believes that there may have been marijuana in the locker, for Frank was supplying his Hamptons friends with pot. Or that there were incriminating letters about drug use. Frank could have also been holding heroin for his sometime lover Larry Rivers, who was still a junkie at this point.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In 1956, Pollock was killed in a drunk driving accident in the Hamptons that severely injured his new mistress Ruth Kligman and killed a young woman friend of Kligman’s. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhaj_iigfy44FokcfIrFIJw-Zgr4B5UHfh7avXwTQARo-gapvQ_Podbai6FcfYTtDnhwVKmiZC8mwIxogcofE2AlW8nkFkh5VJNs2MTi3KYWUC9UHEbUf4mkGqs3e5uTUjY2P6Py91HnWmPImfF94fiaFmLemzvfmfs_I9NuqzDvVsIkWkUjRPqRdfcmg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="299" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhaj_iigfy44FokcfIrFIJw-Zgr4B5UHfh7avXwTQARo-gapvQ_Podbai6FcfYTtDnhwVKmiZC8mwIxogcofE2AlW8nkFkh5VJNs2MTi3KYWUC9UHEbUf4mkGqs3e5uTUjY2P6Py91HnWmPImfF94fiaFmLemzvfmfs_I9NuqzDvVsIkWkUjRPqRdfcmg" width="320" /></a></div><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> (Jackson Pollock and Ruth Kligman)</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Pollock’s death and funeral inspired “A Step Away from Them,” his great memorial poem. Written on August 16, 1956, the day after Pollock’s funeral, Frank opens the poem by noting the construction workers in Times Square, putting sandwiches and cokes in their dirty bodies. Frank has a cheeseburger and a chocolate malted at Juliet’s Corner, then watches a rich woman, “a lady in foxes,” put her poodle in a cab. The kicker is the memorial lines: “First Bunny died, then John Latouche/Then Jackson Pollock. But is the/ earth as full as life was full of them?” Joe LeSueur sees “Step Away” as the first of Frank’s “I do this, I do that” poems.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">After Kligman recovered from her injuries, an enthralled Bill de Kooning started dating the zaftig brunette. In an effort to give the new couple social legitimacy, against Joe’s wishes, Frank had invited them over for dinner. Somehow, Elaine de Kooning, Bill’s long estranged wife, got wind of the dinner and insisted she come over to see Frank for a drink. She stayed for Bill and Ruth, humiliating her husband’s new girlfriend.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlu8H16Swu38qOqJieUyfyagGjgSLp6Y9Bd4dEpAB4_p_PhT4sCEb5qVkf788P4fbQYxeHLrm8_GyJSVsgsr9i_Ohd8pPRO_FjHwnCUN0Dk0DyZHM3ZY9jYMXaMP4eQGxColR8jfkFZkReMOy3IvGLS9oUx584FPF1Ofv1vDtjIF4NNRJxAikU4OfZhw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlu8H16Swu38qOqJieUyfyagGjgSLp6Y9Bd4dEpAB4_p_PhT4sCEb5qVkf788P4fbQYxeHLrm8_GyJSVsgsr9i_Ohd8pPRO_FjHwnCUN0Dk0DyZHM3ZY9jYMXaMP4eQGxColR8jfkFZkReMOy3IvGLS9oUx584FPF1Ofv1vDtjIF4NNRJxAikU4OfZhw" width="320" /></a></div><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> (Ruth Kligman and Bill de Kooning)</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The next night, Kligman and Bill went to the critic’s Harold Rosenberg’s apartment for a party. At the party, Rosenberg’s wife May loudly called Ruth “a slut” in front of other guests. Horrified, Kligman tried to make de Koomning leave, but he refused, going to get a drink. The infamous couple stayed until the end of the party. Ruth Kligman never achieved social legitimacy with the Cedar crowd. Bill de Kooning’s energies were also soon distracted when his other mistress Joan Ward gave birth to his daughter Lisa.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Frank was famous for his generosity towards his friends, as well as promoting his own group. As a critic for <b><i>ArtNews</i></b><i>,</i> Frank repeatedly reviewed and promoted Larry Rivers’ exhibits, even though they were lovers. He also positively reviewed Hartigan and other friends, helping to raise their stature in the downtown community.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Despite the uncomfortable conflict of interest with Frank being a prominent art critic and later an influential curator, the four apartments Frank and Joe shared were crammed with artwork, gifts from Frank’s friends, including paintings by Grace Hartigan, Larry Rivers, Jane Freilicher and Elaine de Kooning, who once quipped that the apartment looked like a group show. A glorious loaner of a Bill de Kooning painting held a prominent space between two filthy windows in the East 49<sup>th</sup> Street apartment. “Well, I have my beautiful de Kooning to aspire to,” wrote Frank in his 1955 poem "Radio." “I think it has an orange/ bed in it, more than the ear can hold.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; text-align: left;">If you were out of Frank’s circle, you were nothing. Joe recounted a story where an art critic followed Frank around at a party at the pianist Arthur Gold’s house, trying to see why their friendship had ended. Finally, Frank turned to the critic and exploded. “Listen,” Frank said so the whole party could hear, “there are eight million people in New York, and I like 10 of them and you are not one of them.” Gold threw the shattered critic out of his party. (xxi)</span></span></div></div></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Late at night, Frank’s generosity gave way to attacks on his friends due to the heavy drinking. In his own chaotic memoir, Larry Rivers wrote of Frank’s vicious character attacks coming out of his bow-shaped lips directed at those closest to him under the guise of constructive criticism. The nastiness would usually be glossed over in a phonecall the next morning.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Despite his ethereal good looks, in the mid-1950’s Joe intentionally cultivated a campy nasty style, making cutting, sarcastic comments about the people in his circle. He recounted meeting the artist Bob Rauschenberg, known for his warm, gregarious personality. He focused in and found he hated Rauschenberg’s maniacal laugh. P48. He proudly recounts in the memoir, that the pianist Gold commented that “I looked like an angel until I opened my mouth and shit came out.” P48. He boasted to the novelist James McCourt that his nickname was “Joe Sewer,” for all the filth that he spewed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Through the fifties, Joe worked a dead-end job at a bookstore, and pursuing copious mount of anonymous sex and pick ups on the street. On day, Frank coaxed Joe to work on a play, which led to writing teleplays. Joe wound up writing for such soap operas as “Guiding Light,” “Ryan’s Hope” and “Texas” through the 1970’s and ‘80’s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Brigid Murnaghan, the poet Joe knew in the late 1950’s, was famous for her sailor’s mouth. I interviewed her in 2008, at her apartment on Bleecker Street, where she had lived for 50 years. She had her own take on Joe LeSueur. When asked if she knew Joe, Murnaghan mused, “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">They [Joe and Frank] must have fucked once or twice. They weren’t a couple. They were friends.” On Joe’s abrasive personality, she said,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">He was a cunt. It fits right on the money. That kind of looks, I knew he wouldn’t age gracefully.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In his memoir, Joe was able to reveal lost items of New York gay culture. When he was first arrived in New York in 1949, he was a kept boy, meeting his lover at a dreary apartment building on at 333 W. 86<sup>th</sup> Street, where multiple apartments were rented for gay trysts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Years later in 1959, Joe and Frank are invited to a literary stag party at the same building, including Tennessee Williams, the gallery owner John Bernard Myers, and the uber-macho closeted Japanese writer Yukio Mishima. The apartment was a sprawling two bedroom, rented by Tennessee. There are several hustlers to pleasure the guests. Truman Capote was supposed to show up, but never did. Tennessee appears in an embroidered robe, smoking a foreign cigarette, with a hustler in tow.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Joe only remembers fragments of the evening, but describes a dialogue with Mishima. Was Mishima attracted to Caucasian men? Very much so, said the hyper-macho, closeted writer. Their cocks are bigger. Wasn’t this just a stereotype? asked Joe. “Come to Japan, see for yourself,” said the size queen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6aYD9sgBYnP2N_r85d-zgqgDWDuuZLaqHyKF3fvSwkwbG9KpvHwGraxoiMVEJa6Sv9pst69qCU72Ongi_isWyq3Hp1jsjeQ8mYZtWWiZv1QxACafhBTMW4womm3lxd-XY6E8vXVSdjDTBo_lsLLhlKxV0NoBqASP9YjBdm3xOWSgPK4b0mMzrojxXgQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="199" data-original-width="253" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6aYD9sgBYnP2N_r85d-zgqgDWDuuZLaqHyKF3fvSwkwbG9KpvHwGraxoiMVEJa6Sv9pst69qCU72Ongi_isWyq3Hp1jsjeQ8mYZtWWiZv1QxACafhBTMW4womm3lxd-XY6E8vXVSdjDTBo_lsLLhlKxV0NoBqASP9YjBdm3xOWSgPK4b0mMzrojxXgQ" width="305" /></a></div> (Yukio Mishima, size queen)<br /><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">For Joe LeSueur,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><i>Digressions</i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">is about capturing the heady days of the bars and lofts of the 1950’s art scene and following the life of Frank O’Hara. Joe noted Frank’s daily routine in the last few years of his life. He would wake after three or four hours of sleep. He’d smoke and to stave off the daily hangover, he’d drink orange juice laced with bourbon while reading a little Gertrude Stein, then making phonecalls. He’d get by work by 10, work with great efficiency for several hours, then would take a two-hour lunch with friends, often drinking one or more martinis. He might write a poem. In the evening, Frank would meet friends for an art opening, the ballet or a party, continuing the drinking.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In 1959, Hartigan suddenly married a gallery owner on Long Island and moved out there. The marriage was short lived and they divorced within the year. Hartigan was also in therapy, and her therapist convinced her that her platonic love affairs with two gay men, Frank O’Hara and her gallery owner John Bernard Myers, was preventing her from finding a sustainable marriage. She ended her friendship with Frank by letter. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Soon after, Hartigan fell in love with and married a famed research scientist and moved to Baltimore. Hartigan was at the height of her career. The statuesque blonde was the most famous female second-generation Abstract Expressionist. As the <b><i>New York Times</i></b> wrote years later, when she left New York, her art career wound up sinking as quick as the Titanic. Hartigan had a rocky road in Baltimore. She drank heavily and tried to commit suicide. She eventually joined the faculty of the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 15pt;">Maryland Institute College of Art. With Hartigan in mind, the college created a graduate program, the Hoffberger School of Painting, which she ran from 1965 until 2007. Hartigan died at 86 in 2008. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 15pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 15pt;">One of the most breathtaking poems Frank wrote was “The Day Lady Died,” in 1959. By the late 1950’s, as the Cedar Tavern became packed with tourists, many of the painters and other regulars started going to the Five Spot, at 5 Cooper Square, on the bowery. The Temini brothers had taken over their father’s working-class bar, bought an upright piano and got a cabaret license in 1956. Jazz bands started to play there.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 15pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 15pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj5286gwLiCUu_eKKHg27YjWCV-2hUnSOUhQxJc4iHNkuDWgLdzvcw_048HBDTL8p9JiBva6URipNM4FjbO5OSz2hSrqMCM93eGLONmfmyGgSbbwo9-CXEU3GNmu27i0XyTdkOsccc4ovOqitR5K2CuIo0JvFuB7QB80cP9e__9Gwpu5NkdSM9gpMCHHQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="186" data-original-width="271" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj5286gwLiCUu_eKKHg27YjWCV-2hUnSOUhQxJc4iHNkuDWgLdzvcw_048HBDTL8p9JiBva6URipNM4FjbO5OSz2hSrqMCM93eGLONmfmyGgSbbwo9-CXEU3GNmu27i0XyTdkOsccc4ovOqitR5K2CuIo0JvFuB7QB80cP9e__9Gwpu5NkdSM9gpMCHHQ" width="320" /></a></div> (The Five Spot, 1950's)<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 15pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 15pt;">One night, O’Hara was in the bar when a battered middle-aged woman stood up from her table and started to sing. It was the great Billie Holiday, the blues singer, who had had her cabaret license revoked for multiple convictions for heroin possession. She was not allowed to sing in clubs in New York. Her weathered, shattered voice mesmerized the bar.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 15pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 15pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiRF4RruJj7UcWBUozHK7U6fMUAXSl-6vFFlaVkjNvhC-7hNPr89V4rBnrkVpEw12A1wugnY7efWvbUcCRazDYA1bS9s7wsL4C6Y0tu33uK2bInADXhTge7lrxpoR6xzt0imSbdE5ChtZW_1f2cjWcQ_VOID7FilIfATrjIz2zoafTQWoydE0P3eZFmdw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="230" data-original-width="219" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiRF4RruJj7UcWBUozHK7U6fMUAXSl-6vFFlaVkjNvhC-7hNPr89V4rBnrkVpEw12A1wugnY7efWvbUcCRazDYA1bS9s7wsL4C6Y0tu33uK2bInADXhTge7lrxpoR6xzt0imSbdE5ChtZW_1f2cjWcQ_VOID7FilIfATrjIz2zoafTQWoydE0P3eZFmdw" width="229" /></a></div> (Billie Holiday)<br /><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 15pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 15pt;">Two years later, when he found out that Holiday had died, chained to an infirmary bed with a NYPD officer standing guard, Frank wrote a pedestrian beginning to this poem, He is getting his shoes shined, waiting for the train to the Hamptons, where he will be dining off others. He picks up a bottle of strega for his hosts and two cartons of cigarettes, then gets the <b><i>Post</i></b>, and sees Holiday’s face on the front page. Franks wrote, “…and I am sweating a lot now and thinking of/leaning on the john door in the 5 Spot/ while she whispered a song along the keyboard/ to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 15pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Over his decade at MoMA, Frank had gone from running the information desk to becoming an associate curator, putting together international exhibits on modern American painting, promoting the painters and friends he adored like Bill de Kooning, Franz Kline and Grace Hartigan. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Standard Oil heir Nelson Rockefeller and other American Cold Warriors were on the board of MoMA in the 1950’s and ‘60’s. They had a keen interest in financing exhibits that spread the gospel of American modern art, particularly the Abstract Expressionists. The international exhibits were financed, in part, by the Central Intelligence Agency.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYIFYUcubn_uNW44dS85F5_6xmolJqbxMxhO9aYOJ7j1lrALBmXBCYjALr4YjF2jInWAz1443nQy6KU3X21_ScepKC59CZt0vwX_ID28BQZZcdMuw_mm188yoR4bs1a1bOGMX2l49cIzLI5ab3WTE0vCLNPvz1_M4M2uxNgc7_KLcAP9POXp65i-tarw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="224" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYIFYUcubn_uNW44dS85F5_6xmolJqbxMxhO9aYOJ7j1lrALBmXBCYjALr4YjF2jInWAz1443nQy6KU3X21_ScepKC59CZt0vwX_ID28BQZZcdMuw_mm188yoR4bs1a1bOGMX2l49cIzLI5ab3WTE0vCLNPvz1_M4M2uxNgc7_KLcAP9POXp65i-tarw" width="239" /></a></div><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> (Frank O'Hara at MoMA)</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">As his MoMA responsibilities mounted, O’Hara’s poetry was pushed to the side. In 1965, he only wrote two poems. In 1966, the year of his death, he only wrote one.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Frank found his new muse in Patsy Southgate, the gorgeous and slender blonde socialite, who lived out in Southhampton. Southgate had her own interesting history. She lived in Paris in the early 1950’s and was married to <b><i>Paris Review</i></b> founder and novelist Peter Mattheissen. In an era of zaftig actresses and models, Southgate stood out for her waif-like beauty. She was supposed to be the inspiration for Jean Seberg’s American girl love interest in Jean-Luc Goddard’s “Breathless.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiBoNIb3VWZe8zPgTJNGtTAbJddLSwgemg-ZXqv4TBX8UCGe88yPrpe6BfvlvEDh4CSOOc9h_5MGlTfPGGxYhUZ1O20WNExzKNayGOU0l6L4w5-lQok0hDbpaL0HslaB8ntQt2_5HzX22V_XQfFFweZ6PKEmNL_aJk7YoEf47SvxJ2SbeRiyArX0lMvzg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="202" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiBoNIb3VWZe8zPgTJNGtTAbJddLSwgemg-ZXqv4TBX8UCGe88yPrpe6BfvlvEDh4CSOOc9h_5MGlTfPGGxYhUZ1O20WNExzKNayGOU0l6L4w5-lQok0hDbpaL0HslaB8ntQt2_5HzX22V_XQfFFweZ6PKEmNL_aJk7YoEf47SvxJ2SbeRiyArX0lMvzg" width="194" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> (Patsy </span><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">Southgate, 1950's)</span></span><br /><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Southgate was dating the bad-boy painter Mike Goldberg, who was famous for his crude sexual appeal and was one of Frank’s straight-boy crushes. Goldberg had had a tormented sexual affair with the painter Joan Mitchell for several years in the early 1950’s and had spent time in a psychiatric hospital after he forged $500 worth of checks that he had stolen from Mitchell’s ex-husband Barney Rossett, the owner of Grove Press. Goldberg was viewed by some as a con man and sociopath. Through Frank’s reviews and promotion, Goldberg became a somewhat successful painter.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Southgate had two young children from her first marriage. She was on the cusp of marrying Goldberg, who was close to both Frank and Joe. In a touching scene in <b><i>Digressions</i></b>, Southgate speaks with Joe and Frank, telling them that marrying Goldberg was the same as marrying the two roommates, who were close to her kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The marriage went ahead and lasted about five years. One night, a drunk Bill de Kooning came to Southgate’s house. He told Goldberg that he could go to his house and pick out two de Kooning drawings for himself. Up to his old tricks, Goldberg went to the house and took 10 drawings, forging de Kooning’s signature on some and selling them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">De Kooning wanted to press charges. Through hard work, Southgate was able to convince de Kooning that Goldberg should be sent to a psychiatric hospital instead of prison. While Goldberg was committed, Southgate was able to divorce him. “Mike has a psychopathic personality,” said Southgate after the divorce.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjQEOWZcIhUzc3p-2qZW_IihcHeKHmj7h1mMIYxHkX2Kx1Dzxsmwi5KHPYjtOIiybxvKDjOkxpuuBGYLqiciMo814OKWL3xAZ_2995e_P1u3bNdS9YpYyi3Db4L2bj1Mi56uzkQtl_N7Bs2ouNelUoLANJuB4pb4iIdaqCC0ii9dudhuFpIVzSrANrMCA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="199" data-original-width="254" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjQEOWZcIhUzc3p-2qZW_IihcHeKHmj7h1mMIYxHkX2Kx1Dzxsmwi5KHPYjtOIiybxvKDjOkxpuuBGYLqiciMo814OKWL3xAZ_2995e_P1u3bNdS9YpYyi3Db4L2bj1Mi56uzkQtl_N7Bs2ouNelUoLANJuB4pb4iIdaqCC0ii9dudhuFpIVzSrANrMCA" width="306" /></a></div> (Mike Goldberg and Frank O'Hara)<br /><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">According to the O’Hara biographer Brad Gooch, in the last year of his life, Frank’s beloved Abstract Expressionism were being overtaken Pop Art, as signified by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. Frank was on the cusp of making the transition to accepting Pop Art when he was killed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Digressions </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">is also about Joe LeSueur settling scores. His mentor and ex-lover Paul Goodman gets worked over. By becoming friends with Frank, Joe broke Goodman’s predatory hold on him. Frank and Goodman couldn’t stand each, and Goodman would routinely attack Frank. In the book, Joe extols the virtues of the avant-garde Living Theatre, except when they produced Goodman’s plays. His play “Faustina” is so wretched that an actress onstage can’t bring herself to recite Goodman’s lines. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Goodman was a prolific writer and pacifist, living in poverty for decades and off the wages of his common-law wife Sally. He wrote plays, turgid novels and essays. He was also one of the founders of Gestalt therapy and was famous for sleeping with his patients and in the case of Judith Malina, with her boyfriends.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In the early 1960’s, Goodman published the book, <b><i>Growing Up Absurd</i></b>, which chronicled the post-World War II youth culture. He became an icon of the anti-war movement. Joe noted this success, but took some delight that Goodman fell back into obscurity after he died in 1972.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In the late 1950’s, Frank memtored LeRoi Jones, a very dapper, ambitious Black poet from Newark, who’d been kicked out of the Air Force for reading the Partisan Review. The handsome Jones eventually pubished <b><i>Yugen</i></b>, a poetry magazine and the Totem Press with his wife Hettie Jones. <b><i>Yugen</i></b> published Frank and other New York School poets, Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg and the Black Mountain poets.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In “Personal Poem, 1959,” Frank writes of having lunch with Jones and his great affection for the poet. In 1963, after the assassination of Malcolm X and the riots in Newark, became more radicalized and was drawn to Black militant politics. He left his wife Hettie and children in the bohemian Village and moved to Harlem and became involved in the Black Arts Movement. He changed his name to Amiri Baraka and eventually married a Black woman. He also savaged his two old friends, Frank O’Hara and Joe LeSueur.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjgjg20VKPd379f1o8WmkPiUUrG7gsGGLHGzczd57fbHyHKlxR97PRvX929Ql7eh1EeSoZLVYTiDvVDqUlZiTEmmaLZs6OBBdWK-6B-c645YJ9eW_Moy_Qj-aTQiC4SdHjizWuNqVPmxuxgGt4xikQvVXGlhetG_BQdabTOR8iR_OCdMXZ1KBftuGzeAA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjgjg20VKPd379f1o8WmkPiUUrG7gsGGLHGzczd57fbHyHKlxR97PRvX929Ql7eh1EeSoZLVYTiDvVDqUlZiTEmmaLZs6OBBdWK-6B-c645YJ9eW_Moy_Qj-aTQiC4SdHjizWuNqVPmxuxgGt4xikQvVXGlhetG_BQdabTOR8iR_OCdMXZ1KBftuGzeAA" width="320" /></a></div> (LeRoi Jones and Frank O'Hara)<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Joe detailed in <b><i>Digressions</i></b> that the famously unfaithful and heterosexual LeRoi Jones spent many nights in Frank O’Hara’s bed, first in the University Place apartment, then the tenement on East 9<sup>th</sup> Street. When asked by Leonard Bernstein about Jones/Baraka’s betrayal, Frank said, “… that LeRoi was someone I loved and I couldn’t possibly discuss anything like that with him”[Bernstein].”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">When asked by friends why he accepted Frank and Joe’s hospitality for all those years, Baraka said, “I was pissing in their beer.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Academics do discuss LeRoi and Frank’s friendship as having elements of an intense flirtation. Gooch’s <b><i>City Poet</i></b> mentions nothing of Joe’s version of the alleged sexual affair, but the Gooch book came out before the revelations in <b><i>Digressions</i></b>. Gooch does recount O’Hara telling people he believed LeRoi was gay.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Towards the end of their roommate relationship in the mid-1960’s, Frank openly poached Joe’s lovers, including Joe Brainard, an artist famous for his speed-inspired drawings and collages. There was also J.J. Mitchell, the son of an admiral and a sexy young man on the scene. Joe dated him first then Frank took him. Joe recounted with rage the time J.J. walked stark naked out of Frank’s bedroom for the morning coffee.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3fgSQMcNH5u3_i8pZwo5HePNlZ8gRtKRGHpmczaT3Dejhus9n8ojvR2hHIKFrn0mJOloB_pfRfyt4AeO0HQqkE3UUp0xIzwFXWYX-LHNZNkqpNjoxiNlG6YVhKoZHHyypLUgIdfoIfGPsC-8-oojOQgycCDkKdr38qDEP6I4Etx-FXPT2erIHatd5PA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="337" data-original-width="564" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3fgSQMcNH5u3_i8pZwo5HePNlZ8gRtKRGHpmczaT3Dejhus9n8ojvR2hHIKFrn0mJOloB_pfRfyt4AeO0HQqkE3UUp0xIzwFXWYX-LHNZNkqpNjoxiNlG6YVhKoZHHyypLUgIdfoIfGPsC-8-oojOQgycCDkKdr38qDEP6I4Etx-FXPT2erIHatd5PA" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> (O'Hara, Joe Brainard, poet Frank Lima, LeSueur)<br /><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">J.J. was with Frank on Fire Island the night Frank was mortally wounded after being hit by a dune buggy on a dark beach. Frank was in dune buggy taxi that had stopped for mechanical problems. He stepped out from behind his stalled taxi and was hit by another dune buggy carrying a young couple out on a date.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Frank had extensive internal injuries and was taken to a small hospital on the mainland, with substandard trauma facilities. His powerful friends rallied around him. Bill de Kooning showed up to the hospital with a massive checkbook, offering to pay for all medical expenses. After Frank’s death, a doctor grimly noted that it was likely that Frank would have survived if his liver was not so severely damaged from 20 years of heavy drinking.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In their affair, J.J. Mitchell and Frank had bonded over their heavy drinking. Three decades after Frank was killed, Joe goes out of his way to portray J.J as a sad barfly. Towards the end of the book, he publishes a poem by Thom Gunn called “BAR on Second Avenue,” which portrays the once-beautiful J.J. chatting his head off and boasting, “Why don’t you know, his smile triumphant, I was Frank O’Hara’s last lover.” Gunn edges away after a half hour, comparing J.J. to Nell Gwyn, a beautiful 17<sup>th</sup> century actress, more famous for being the mistress of the English monarch Charles II.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Frank lingered for two days with his grievous internal injuries. When he died, at the hospital his two siblings fought over where Frank should be buried. The brother, who had stayed in their claustrophobic Massachusetts town, wanted Frank buried in the family plot in Garland, the town Frank loathed. His sister Maureen, who had fled Garland at Frank’s urging years before, wanted him buried in the cemetery at Springs, Long Island, where Jackson Pollock was also buried.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">A small impromptu wake sprung up at Joe LeSueur’s tiny Manhattan apartment, where grieving artists, curators and gallery owners gathered to mourn Frank O’Hara. The poet John Ashbery showed up with two large suitcases. For the poetry, he explained, and took Joe’s extra key to Frank’s loft. Larry Rivers and Ashbery made an unauthorized raid on the apartment, rescuing Frank’s scattered and chaotic archive of finished poetry and drafts. Rivers also retrieved several paintings he had gifted to the dead poet.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Frank O’Hara got his wish and was buried in Springs. The cemetery was packed with a who’s who of the New York art and literary worlds. His old lover and friend Rivers gave the main eulogy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgCPCpotiIVILlgw8B7gmQm1Dsz5jSP0J5hdIBMW0iTFfdIPoQHsK745o-Zh7ZGS-5SXURn0nqhWBwHCEkfELhNztJxySTuvvnTyHzO5ttmrBPQ8BFtIaUAbac-WlTtRA86ngp8lS8KVygyHP5wEB2ZURNbLX4j8Y-7pXTDDXXYxeHeH2Yr69Sd4b3rdQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="186" data-original-width="271" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgCPCpotiIVILlgw8B7gmQm1Dsz5jSP0J5hdIBMW0iTFfdIPoQHsK745o-Zh7ZGS-5SXURn0nqhWBwHCEkfELhNztJxySTuvvnTyHzO5ttmrBPQ8BFtIaUAbac-WlTtRA86ngp8lS8KVygyHP5wEB2ZURNbLX4j8Y-7pXTDDXXYxeHeH2Yr69Sd4b3rdQ" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span><span><span><span>(Larry Rivers </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">giving the eulogy at Frank O'Hara's funeral)</span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">“Frank O’Hara was my best friend,” said Larry Rivers. “There are at least 60 people in New York, who thought Frank was their best friend.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLrDJDv5gJ4O7nsVtOw4pzfuPxqeMM9jYmDkn_KHofC6gx8SlNZYQcxbFHLnaLlHUj_LYXzOhUUhWN7gdFVuZdJ_7BCugIqOahCAogL3OW2p_tD9jutZAUpqwMIe0t59uNq0UuQ1JvoPmvhHCNXSu4AzytACG_KTlC1YnFAK-Utzzb29wOVsKPoBEtDg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="192" data-original-width="263" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLrDJDv5gJ4O7nsVtOw4pzfuPxqeMM9jYmDkn_KHofC6gx8SlNZYQcxbFHLnaLlHUj_LYXzOhUUhWN7gdFVuZdJ_7BCugIqOahCAogL3OW2p_tD9jutZAUpqwMIe0t59uNq0UuQ1JvoPmvhHCNXSu4AzytACG_KTlC1YnFAK-Utzzb29wOVsKPoBEtDg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> (Frank O'Hara's grave in </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">Springs, NY)</span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">After Frank’s death, Joe LeSueur moved into Patsy Southgate’s East Hampton home. The two lived together, until Joe’s death in May 2001, at the age of 76.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-13691409227942606372023-01-01T08:04:00.000-08:002023-01-03T04:45:46.690-08:00Jay Landesman, Editor and Impresario (1919-2011)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7h2tlbbKQxk/TiBYL3YtiQI/AAAAAAAAALg/ScAqfxYASZA/s1600/JAY-LANDESMAN---1994-007.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 192px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7h2tlbbKQxk/TiBYL3YtiQI/AAAAAAAAALg/ScAqfxYASZA/s320/JAY-LANDESMAN---1994-007.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5629596495082522882" border="0" /></a>
<div style="text-align: center;"> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"MS 明朝"; mso-font-charset:78; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;} @font-face {font-family:"MS 明朝"; mso-font-charset:78; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;} @font-face {font-family:"American Typewriter"; panose-1:2 9 6 4 2 0 4 2 3 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610612625 25 0 0 507 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} --> </style> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: center;">(Jay Landesman, 1994)
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"American Typewriter"; mso-fareast-Times New Roman";font-family:";color:black;" > <span style="font-weight: bold;"> Jay Landesman</span>, the founder of the pivotal 1940s literary journal <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Neurotica</span>, “written by neuurotics, for neurotics” died in London this past February at the age of 91.
In 1948, Landesman was the scion of a prominent antiques family when he published <span style="font-style: italic;">Neurotica</span> on a lark. The 5000-copy print run sold out, so Landesman pushed forward with another edition. That year, Landesman moved himself and his magazine to New York, hobnobbing with the writers he cultivated, including Anatole Broyard and Judith Malina, the founder of the Living Theatre. Landesman also introduced the Canadian social scientist Marshall McLuhan to American audiences for the first time.
Landesman championed Gerson Legman, whose diatribes on censorshoip and erotica caused a stir in the 1940s. Legman, whose previous work before Neurotica included a book on oral sex called <span style="font-style: italic;">Oragenitalia</span>. After his time at <span style="font-style: italic;">Neurotica</span>, Legman moved to France and into almost complete obscurity. Before he died in 1999, Legman produced his masterwork, <span style="font-style: italic;">Rationale for a Dirty Joke</span>.
As the editor of Neurotica, Landesman cut a foppish figure in New York, carrying a cane and holding court at the San Remo, the Village’s bohemian epicenter of the late 1940s. Landesman came to New York after a divorce, so he used his magazine to pick up women. When his ex-wife Pat came into town in 1950, he proudly boasted in his memoir four decades later that she had incurred the envy of the local women by finding the poet Dylan Thomas in Greenwich Village and seducing him after only being in New York for two days.
At a visit to Rosetta Reitz’s Four Seasons Bookstore on Greenwich Avenue when he first moved to New York, Landesman was horribly snubbed by Philip Rahv of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Partisan Review</span>, but Reitz offered him a return visit, so they could spend some time together in her orgone box, which she kept in the back of her store.
In 1950, Landesman gave Ginsberg his first professional publication when he ran Ginsberg’s poem "Pull My Daisy," but only after giving it the less racy title of “Fie My Fum.”
Landesman also published two tragicomic essays by Ginsberg’s fellow psychiatric inmate and friend Carl Solomon on his experiences being subjected to electroshock therapy at the New York Psychiatric Institute. The doctors were trying to turn the bisexual Solomon into a full-time heterosexual.
In his rollicking memoir,<span style="font-style: italic;"> Rebel Without Applause</span>, Landesman recounted meeting Solomon on the street in Times Square.
Ginsberg introduced Landesman to Solomon. “[Solomon] immediately told us that he had sustained a series of shock treatments administered by doctors who didn’t know what they were doing while they were performing the procedure,” wrote Landesman of the meeting.
“’They constantly checked in the manual on shock therapy while they were connecting me up,’” said Solomon to Landesman. “His laugh was more hysterical than mine; we both saw the humor of the situation.”
One day Landesman was walking down 42nd Street, and was accosted by a man dressed as Mr. Peanut. Mr. Peanut turned out to be Solomon, who was handing out promotional peanuts. “’Nice one, Carl,’ I said, offering him a cigarette. The two of us stood there, conversing quite naturally with Mr. Peanut letting out a jerk of smoke occasionally.” As they parted, Solomon said, “’Good seeing you Jay, I’ve got to get a move on now. I never know who they may have following me.’ Before he left, I wanted to give him a goodbye embrace, but feared someone might get the wrong idea.”
Solomon’s resulting essays were written under the pseudonym Carl Goy. Despite the grim nature of his treatment, Solomon wrote with a black wit about his months of incarceration. Solomon would be granted leave from the hospital on Sundays. “Generally, still rather hazy, I would be escorted by an old neurotic friend to a homosexual bar, where I would be informed, I had formally spent much time....in my corpulent forgetfulness, I no longer resembled a ‘butch’ fairy or ‘rough trade,’” wrote Solomon. “I had lost all facility with ‘gay’ argot and was incapable of producing any response to the objects proffered me.”
Solomon also recounted a disastrous attempt by the institution staff to celebrate Halloween. A Fellini-esque riot was the result.
“The psychiatric ineptitude of the official lower echelons became incredibly evident,” said Solomon, “when one week before Halloween, it was announced to the patients that a masquerade ball would be held on the appropriate date, that the attendance was to be mandatory, and that a prize would be given to the patient with the ‘best’ costume...the work of sewing, tearing, dyeing, etc., was done in Occupational Therapy, where at the disposal of all, there was an infinite variety of paints, gadgets and fabrics.
“Furiously we labored, competing with one another, even in regard to the speed of the accomplishment, fashioning disguised phalluses, swords, spears, scars for our faces, enormous cysts for our heads.
“When Halloween Night arrived, we were led dazed and semi-amnesiac, into the small gymnasium that served as a dance floor. Finally, the Social Therapists seated themselves in the center and ordered us to parade past them in a great circle; one of the nurses sat at the piano and played a great march...There were several Hamlets, a Lear, a grotesque Mr. Hyde; there were many cases of transvestitism...Suddenly, the music stopped; the judges had chosen a winner, rejecting the others. We never learned who the winner was, so chaotic was the scene that followed. There was a groan of deep torment from the entire group (each feeling that his dream had been condemned). Phantasmal shapes flung themselves about in despair. The nurses and social therapists spent the next hour in consoling the losers.”
Landesman’s parties on the East Side were legendary for the quirky literary talents they brought together. In his book <span style="font-style: italic;">Representative Men</span>, the novelist John Clellon Holmes, a great observer of 1940s counterculture New York, described one of Landesman’s parties:
In an essay about Landesman, Holmes said that Neurotica provided writers with an outlet during the bleak Cold War period. Landesman’s contributors were a motley crew, as Holmes described when he wrote about a 1950 <span style="font-style: italic;">Neurotica</span> party.
“They were a strange bunch, these contributors, as they wandered in and out of Landesman’s eccentric living-room-cum-office on Fifty-Third Street in New York,” wrote Holmes. “Surfacing out of different worlds, most of them probably would not have met another if not for the magazine. Carl Solomon appeared in two issues under related pseudonyms that were characteristic of both his irony and pain, moved warily around Anatole Broyard, later to become an influential critic, who appeared then to have little need of the mask of pain. Marshall McLuhan chatted about Elizabethan literature as pot was smoked in the kitchen...Legman scowled on the couch, indomitable and fatalistic as a ticking time bomb, like Lenin in Europe.”
In 1950, Landesman married Fran Deitsch, a woman from a wealthy New York family, who was famous for dating jazz musicians. Landesman turned over editorship of <span style="font-style: italic;">Neurotica</span> when he moved back to St. Louis to Legman. The magazine closed after one more issue in 1951.
Back in St. Louis, Landesman opened a popular avant-garde cabaret. Fran Landesman went on herself to have a brilliant career as a writer of torch songs. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The couple eventually moved to London, where he wrote a musical called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Dearest Dracula</i>, which was roundly panned by the English critics. He also wrote a 1959 musical called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Nervous Set</i>, which chronicled New York’s Beat culture, and included a young actor named Larry Hagman (J.R. on “Dallas” in the 1980s) as a black-clad hipster. The show made it to Broadway, where it bombed.
Sources:
Landesman, Jay, “Rebel Without Applause,” 1990
Landesman, Jay, and Legman, Gershon, “The Complete Neurotica,” Hacker Art Books, New York, 1963 </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"American Typewriter";mso-fareast-Times New Roman";font-family:";color:black;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="American Typewriter"font-family:";" > </span></p>Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-74449143748900785792022-04-01T08:50:00.001-07:002022-04-01T08:52:18.491-07:00Christina Mitchell Diamente on her mother Alene Lee, the Greenwich Village Hipster who Inspired Kerouac’s The Subterraneans. <p> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjc5e1WEMM0-S-Yv5ny0qEXqdxxgk0DGACwxES4UDZSxPwNtaPL-OjYUtRMLkDifI9RNI4d0DuQ5DTtCCw5U9_AGQEiAazJY4ojXNz_c-VYJUIf_xJ1Jt2gK324yvKYREg4LbxtBzrZDHUcEcN5ep90GY9o8xOKt8BCfukkYgAHahOx_MyP7T_s2vDpvg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="162" data-original-width="311" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjc5e1WEMM0-S-Yv5ny0qEXqdxxgk0DGACwxES4UDZSxPwNtaPL-OjYUtRMLkDifI9RNI4d0DuQ5DTtCCw5U9_AGQEiAazJY4ojXNz_c-VYJUIf_xJ1Jt2gK324yvKYREg4LbxtBzrZDHUcEcN5ep90GY9o8xOKt8BCfukkYgAHahOx_MyP7T_s2vDpvg=w400-h209" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>(Alene Lee, 1950's)</div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Christina Mitchell Diamante interviewed by telephone on May 8, 2021, in upstate New York.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">In the early 1950’s a hipster named Alene Lee was frequenting the cafes and bars of Greenwich Village, an old working-class Italian neighborhood, which had been hit with an influx of writers and painters after World War II. Lee was a gorgeous, petite woman of African American and Native American descent. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">At the age of 16, Lee had run away from her home on Staten Island, to escape a world of domestic violence and sexual abuse. Lee turned her back on a future of domestic servitude or a life on the streets. Lee sucked in the culture of Greenwich Village and Manhattan, going to classical music concerts and museums.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Though the Italian cafes and bars like the San Remo, the Minetta Tavern and Fugazzi’s took bohemian and hipster money and the neighborhood offered cheap apartments for the influx of new residents, there was a deep-seeded Italian animosity towards the wealthier invaders. Interracial couples on the street would be assaulted and black New Yorkers, visitors and residents alike, faced violence and discrimination in the Village.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Lee was mentored by the painter Virginia Admiral and eventually became friendly with the early Beats, including the poet Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Gregory Corso.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">In the summer of 1953, Lee had a love affair that lasted for several months with the novelist Jack Kerouac, who was intrigued by Lee’s beauty and her exotic African-American heritage. Kerouac considered Lee his soulmate.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">After the couple broke up, on a three-day amphetamine binge, Kerouac wrote his novel <i>The Subterraneans</i>. He showed the book to Alene Lee a week later.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Lee was horrified. In an interview from the late 1980’s, Lee said, “These were not the times as I remember them.” She said, “It was like a little boy bringing a decapitated rat to me and saying, ‘Look, here’s a present for you.’”<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">The Subterraneans</span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> is set in San Francisco, following a group of young hipsters, and like many of Kerouac’s novels, the characters are thinly veiled versions of Kerouac’s friends, including Ginsberg, Corso, Burroughs and Lucien Carr. Alene Lee is portrayed as a young woman named Mardou Fox, prone to mental breakdowns.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjUYPdIXetOJtipmkPq84vxgZr1-d8sUBLDQ3nKhfUthVNVWFKaa7Ixiitn6nqt4XoW5clBBcyvVSEDUjw6twE7Xa8P6PaCHQhyjE_u77Yf6rNM5erkyXFiIBZsaZALwlgMh5CSUxUJ9qnMfz9KLbpEEyVRbBNVkdLjOfIzbngFrqjAC48fwzVBViRZOA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="266" data-original-width="177" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjUYPdIXetOJtipmkPq84vxgZr1-d8sUBLDQ3nKhfUthVNVWFKaa7Ixiitn6nqt4XoW5clBBcyvVSEDUjw6twE7Xa8P6PaCHQhyjE_u77Yf6rNM5erkyXFiIBZsaZALwlgMh5CSUxUJ9qnMfz9KLbpEEyVRbBNVkdLjOfIzbngFrqjAC48fwzVBViRZOA" width="160" /></a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(The Subterraneans by Jack Kerouac)</span></b></span></b></div><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">The novel was finally published in 1958, after the success of <i>On the Road</i> in 1957.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Even by the standards of 1953, <i>The Subterraneans</i> is a horribly racist and misogynistic novel. After sex, the Kerouac character is disgusted at the sleeping Mardou’s frizzy hair. He has her character speak in a naive style and laments that he could never take Mardou to meet his famously racist mother. The Ginsberg character loudly claims that sex with Mardou broke his penis, which is based on Ginsberg’s real-life, offensive comments.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">The Subterraneans </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">had the longtail effect of making Alene Lee’s life difficult in the Village, where she lived for the rest of her life. For decades, strange men on the street would make sexual overtures towards her as Mardou Fox. Lee saw the explicit sexual content in the novel of their real-life intimate moments as a betrayal by Kerouac.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiT9jWVt6J8q2O5UQe2nyRhlHmY0Y2GnxsPJA6qdWOJmyLL7s4ZwpMWxriNR-OTKBnu2CzuX-L6GHwCpXXwpCfpuScgFH00ycwgWRHBpgJtko04awNHx9_j8R5SbEjphqMrhu4dsfH4mQ0qTG28O7JCQn2RWORtcZwRMOozHTnfPR46gNs78wQWVjjmw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="280" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiT9jWVt6J8q2O5UQe2nyRhlHmY0Y2GnxsPJA6qdWOJmyLL7s4ZwpMWxriNR-OTKBnu2CzuX-L6GHwCpXXwpCfpuScgFH00ycwgWRHBpgJtko04awNHx9_j8R5SbEjphqMrhu4dsfH4mQ0qTG28O7JCQn2RWORtcZwRMOozHTnfPR46gNs78wQWVjjmw" width="320" /></a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(The Gaslight Cafe, late 1950's, founded in coal cellar by John Mitchell. A place for Beat poetry and a major hub in the Greenwich Village folk revival. Bob Dylan played there often.)</span></b></span></b></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">In 1957, Lee had an affair with the Beat entrepreneur John Mitchell, who founded the great Village coffee houses Café Le Figaro and The Gaslight, where Beat poetry and folk music exploded. Their daughter Christina was born that year. John Mitchell eventually fled New York for Morocco when he was told by the Italian Mob that if he didn’t leave the city, they were going to kill him. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">In the early 1960’s, Alene Lee and her daughter Christina Mitchell, then five, moved into Lucien Carr’s small rented house on Horatio Street after the end of his first marriage, that had produced three sons. Carr had committed the original sin of the Beats by murdering his ex-Scoutmaster David Kammerer up at Columbia University in 1944. He used a “gay panic” defense to only serve two years in prison for manslaughter<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">The charismatic Carr was an editor at UPI and a hopeless, violent drunk. The 11 years Christina Mitchell spent on Horatio Street were a harrowing story of domestic violence, where Carr beat Lee almost every day. At one point, he knocked out Lee’s tooth on the sidewalk in front of the house, which forced the police to arrest him. Lee did not press charges.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Most nights were full of screaming fights and the house had no glasses or plates because they were routinely shattered against the wall. After 11 years, the mother and daughter were told to leave when Carr, then in his late 40’s, became involved with a teenage girl, who would become his second wife.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Alene Lee died of lung cancer in 1991 at a Manhattan hospital. She was 60. Allen Ginsberg, for all his flaws, was a loyal friend, visiting her at the hospital as she lay dying. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Lucien Carr eventually moved to Washington, DC, to run news operations for UPI. He retired in 1993 and died in Washington at 79, in 2005.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I found Christina Mitchell Diamante living in upstate New York. In the 1990’s, she carried out extensive research and writing on the life of her mother Alene Lee, when she went to college at SUNY Oneanta. She produced a 238-page history of her mother and their extended family.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Diamante give me an excellent, often wry interview, where she discussed her mother’s family history and Lee’s early days in the Village, as well as her mother’s harsh reaction over her unfair portrayal in <i>The Subterraneans</i>. She also detailed the 11 years she and her mother lived with Lucien Carr on Horatio Street, and the violence that was an everyday occurrence.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">In our epic interview, Diamante filled in a lot of details on three of the most underreported figures from the 1950’s bohemian Greenwich Village: Alene Lee, who often fought off Kerouac’s biographers to protect her privacy; her father, the carpenter and artist John Mitchell, who disappeared for many years after he was run out of the Village by corrupt cops and the Mob, and Lucien Carr, whose family and supporters have worked to cover up his violent alcohol-soaked behavior in the 1960’s and 1970’s.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Diamante also was able to discuss the corrosive effects that trauma and racism have had on three generations of her family, including her grandmother, her mother and herself.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Christina Mitchell Diamante was raised in Greenwich Village. She ran a successful proofreading business in the city before she moved up to the Albany area in 1991, to raise her children. She still lives in upstate New York. We spoke by telephone.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DYLAN FOLEY: When we spoke two weeks ago to arrange our interview, I realized that I did not want to re-traumatize you with any of my questions.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CHRISTINA MITCHELL DIAMANTE:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> I think you should feel free to ask any questions you want to ask. It is less traumatizing to answer people’s questions. It is the difference between talking to someone about your parents and driving to the cemetery and visiting the grave. Driving to the graveyard was what my research as like, visiting the grave, digging up the grave and looking at the dead body. It is writing about my mother, researching and remembering her, and reading her writing that is traumatizing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">COPD was what my father died of. I don’t know if you were aware of my father. My father John Mitchell actually started the reading of poetry in the Village cafes at the time. He actually was a carpenter, a builder and an artistic guy. He started the Figaro, the Bistro and the Gaslight. And also the Fat Black Pussycat. It is still there on Minetta Lane, or it was there 15 years ago. There were stained glass windows that he put in by hand. I have a signed book from Peter, Paul and Mary, from Peter or Paul, the one that is still alive, who was doing a PBS special. He said, “Your father was a mensch because he would put a jar out…certain people got their first gigs with him.” The only pay they got was a jar that my father put out. He gave them the money. That’s the nicest thing I can say about my father.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4fI-qKL0RYMVwvKBp_fmuIoLEu8o-9TwjNbETJATEduh6vl1SkwCPGNtQxYWmLUSG-NtmpEEZXbmag6y-1zjPeu7pOKYo3nzIoo0SbVDBP_bRPwQhwcGYS47B31_uHJVf5wXX7tMAhjgRGruYgmgyYBB5dy7VRG1NY6m9cOA5Zb0qlLnRjQul6va7Pg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="501" data-original-width="636" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4fI-qKL0RYMVwvKBp_fmuIoLEu8o-9TwjNbETJATEduh6vl1SkwCPGNtQxYWmLUSG-NtmpEEZXbmag6y-1zjPeu7pOKYo3nzIoo0SbVDBP_bRPwQhwcGYS47B31_uHJVf5wXX7tMAhjgRGruYgmgyYBB5dy7VRG1NY6m9cOA5Zb0qlLnRjQul6va7Pg" width="305" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(Le Cafe Figaro on Bleecker Street in the early 1960's)</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My father disappeared because he organized a march to City Hall [by café owners]. There’s a picture with him of Mike Wallace, the CBS news reporter. There were signs by the business owners. This was pre-Serpico. “We can’t afford payoffs to the Mob, the Fire Department and the Police Department.” He was a very outspoken person. He was literally a small-business person, who could not afford to pay these bribes. Shortly after that, his restaurant was firebombed. He was sent a message by the Mob that he could either leave the country or he could die. He was going to leave one way or the other, so that was a clear and direct message, the firebombing and the person who came and delivered the message. He knew it was no joke. He went to Morocco and lived there for several years. He created the same three restaurants—the Figaro, the Gaslight and the Bistro, then he moved from there to Spain, where he recreated one of those restaurants under the same name. He also produced a half-sister of mine. My father had extensive tapes, and my sister may have access to them. They were supposed to be given to me, but they were left with a young man in Arizona that my father was fond of. My father had an extensive history of the Village and interviews with some great poets. He also published a book of poetry from the poetry readings in one of his restaurants. I believe it was the Gaslight. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg_ithUo2qb9pwWTvmj8NchO2JXduIGIQG1B6PzZyljl_td3UbusWZrlgeUn06Up7p3bsCAuPv6xzPnCe4Lvo_CWs0jKvuSa2zT4-yoSEWIXBXqOVRq6wcc3ZI85nPsxxYSYaDCvLLP94lCV5Mldr0rQurMuj7qsDoC-c075VWHe3vgFEhXJnwvTCNknA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="273" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg_ithUo2qb9pwWTvmj8NchO2JXduIGIQG1B6PzZyljl_td3UbusWZrlgeUn06Up7p3bsCAuPv6xzPnCe4Lvo_CWs0jKvuSa2zT4-yoSEWIXBXqOVRq6wcc3ZI85nPsxxYSYaDCvLLP94lCV5Mldr0rQurMuj7qsDoC-c075VWHe3vgFEhXJnwvTCNknA" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(Jack Kerouac and Alene Lee, 1953. Photo by Allen Ginsberg)</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Let us start with your mother. How did Alene Lee’s family wind up in Staten Island?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: My grandmother Mamie was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, and was an orphan around the time of the great 1918 flu epidemic. She was raised by a white family because she lost both of her parents. This was around 1918 in the Jim Crow south. She wasn’t raised as a child, she was raised as a maid. She was a live-in maid for this family because her parents were deceased. Mamie reported having visits from her uncles, who were Cherokee Indians, who had not left in the Great Migration. They would come down and visit her on horseback, from wherever they were living in the hills.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I have DNA evidence that we are Native Americans, but Native Americans can’t always be picked up by tribes because of the interracial mixing between whites and blacks. Mine comes through as Siberian, which would have been the first wave of Native Americans. Mamie went on to marry a World War I veteran and she had two children with him, living in Washington, D.C. He was shellshocked and was violent.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Mamie gave birth to my mother, apparently with another man. She and her two eldest daughters and my mother apparently flew by plane to New York and settled in Staten Island. The interesting thing that my mother and other relatives pointed out is that poor black folks in 1930 did not get on planes to go anywhere. She was married or divorced at that point. She didn’t have a career or any money. When she moved to Staten Island, she had a whole lifetime of work as a domestic worker. Somehow, she had the money to get herself and her three children on a plane to New York. Nobody quite knew what happened there. The only relative who knew the story refused to speak about it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My Aunt Russie was in the piece I wrote called “Three Sisters.” At the time, I wanted to understand the family history, but it was too painful for her. Something horrible happened. My mother was said to be the half-sister of the two older sisters. Her father is said to be a man named Garis. The other sisters’ name was Lee. My mother’s name was Alene Garis. Her first name was originally Aileen. She changed her name to Alene when she moved to New York City. She was trying to reinvent herself.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">The older sister Aunt Russie moved to Washington, D.C., where she and her husband became middle-class black people, who owned a beautiful house in a white neighborhood and they owned a chicken restaurant, which ostensibly was their source of income, but they were numbers runners for the Mob. When I stayed with them, I would go into their bedroom and I would see them counting giant stacks of money. I never knew what was going on, but it was odd. One evening, someone rang the bell. Aunt Russie and Uncle Eulie looked at each other and said “We are not expecting anyone.” Uncle Eulie went and got a gun and went downstairs to the front door. Apparently, it wasn’t someone intent on robbing them, so everything ended well. That’s the mobster story. Years later, she turned state’s evidence after Uncle Eulie died and the law closed in on her. She testified against someone in the Mob, but he must have been a lowly person, because she wasn’t killed. She then left D.C.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My mother’s other sister Catherine had a troubled life. She lived most of her life in Staten Island and had 12 children through two marriages. She moved to New Jersey and died of anaphylactic shock. She developed pneumonia. They gave her penicillin, but they didn’t know she was allergic and she died.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Everyone in my mother’s family, excluding one sister, died before the age of 60.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My mother lived on Staten Island until she was 16. She had a very contentious relationship with her mother. She had been sent out to live with a foster family, an Aunt Janie. She hadn’t lived with her mother for several years. Her mother had had a fourth child, Aunt Esther, and she was the favorite child. It was kind of like Sophie’s choice—she could only afford to take care of herself and the baby. She decided to send my mother out. Alene was sent to live with Aunt Janie, where she was the effective live-in maid. My mother didn’t mind—there were three meals a day and everything was neat and clean and orderly. It was a father, mother and son, an actual family. She ended up doing a lot of housework, but it was a stable environment. She was raped by the son of the family. She didn’t see it as rape. She saw him as the only person who had ever shown her any affection. I only qualified it as rape because of the age and power dynamic and because she wasn’t asking for sex. She wasn’t even a teenager. Shortly after that, she was sent to live back with her mother. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">There were numerous incidents and my mother was on the verge of going the wrong way. I know some of the things she did through her writing. She told her mother that she was going to night school in Manhattan. It was near the Con Ed building on 17<sup>th</sup> Street. There was a high school that offered night classes. She decided she wanted to get out of the home. She was 16 and had taken a train trip to the Village on one of the days she was playing hooky. I wrote this or maybe my mother did… she got out of the subway and the first thing she saw was Balducci’s. She saw people walking around in brightly colored scarves. She liked the niceness of the area. Niceness is not a word my mother would use. She said, “I am going to live here.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">She told her mother a story and moved to Manhattan and wound up living in the YMCA for girls, off Grammercy Park. She developed an interest in classical music and art, and started going to see these things in the city with her friends from the YMCA. They spent a lot of time in coffee shops, and subsequently in bars. This is how she possibly got involved with “the Beats.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My mother ran away from home at 16. She lied to her mother and was not going to typing/secretarial school. She had not graduated from high school and never did. She wanted to have a different life than the life she was having then on Staten Island. A friend of hers, a very close friend of hers in the Caribbean community, had been shot and killed by her husband. Her mom had been friends with her. It impacted her and she had to leave, she had to get out. That is the salient incident that caused her to leave and go to Manhattan.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b style="font-size: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b style="font-size: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: How did she support herself at first?</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: She was supposed to go to a vocational school for typing. She may have learned basic typing in high school. She ended up meeting Victoria Admiral, the mother of Robert DeNiro, the actor. His mother was a painter of an earlier generation, not a Beat. She and her husband Robert DeNiro Sr. where painters belonging to some abstract school. She was one of the first women to have a painting exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">At the time she met my mother, somewhere between 1946 and 1950, Virginia had given up her art and was divorced from Robert DeNiro Sr. She was raising her son on her own and had an apartment on 14<sup>th</sup> Street, off 8<sup>th</sup> Avenue. She had a typing business on 8<sup>th</sup> Avenue. My mother began typing for her. Virginia was a left-wing Trotskyite, who felt a connection with my mother. She later said, “I loved your mother, she reminded me of my mother,” who had been mentally ill and had serious mental breakdowns. She and my mother became friends. In my mother’s life, Virginia was her best friend.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My mother was able to do typing work for Virginia. Back then, anyone who needed a paper typed would go to a typing service. She encouraged Alene to start her own typing service. Anytime Virginia got a referral for a dissertation, she would send it to my mother. My mother was supporting herself by typing. She did this independently until I was 5. At the point I was 5, she met Lucien. Shortly after the breakup of Lucien’s marriage to Cessa, Caleb’s mother, my mother moved me and her to Lucien’s townhouse on Horatio Street. At that point, my mother kept having to support herself. Lucien was an editor at United Press International. His money was his money, her money was her money. They didn’t share finances. My mother had to support me and her.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiMaa_dl4ZVkfmQoujQF7lL8Oj8vrDM5DzgZhkB0K1PjvBzjDh1kVvKM3zSgWj5G4q8Pm4xcz_TNHGBwZBnQjqb6z24CKh3koRdTo1PLnjpRFr-GKecENAUgHP7pUoUw-moWoepq5L1lqjL_emYR9BQdF-gfyX1En6qiENP0YFQf5wzyeA-NeZBXrORKg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="162" data-original-width="310" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiMaa_dl4ZVkfmQoujQF7lL8Oj8vrDM5DzgZhkB0K1PjvBzjDh1kVvKM3zSgWj5G4q8Pm4xcz_TNHGBwZBnQjqb6z24CKh3koRdTo1PLnjpRFr-GKecENAUgHP7pUoUw-moWoepq5L1lqjL_emYR9BQdF-gfyX1En6qiENP0YFQf5wzyeA-NeZBXrORKg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b>(Alene Lee and William Burroughs, 1950's. Photo by Allen Ginsberg.)</b></div></b></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My mother only agreed to have me because Virginia and Virginia’s therapist had said to my mother, “You’ve had so many abortions…it is clear that you want to have a child and we’d think you’d be a very good mother.” My mother wasn’t living her life in the typical way of getting ahead. My mother was self-educating herself. She was spending time in restaurants and bars, interacting with literary people and reading a wide variety of books to do with the dissertations and theses that she was typing. This made her a very well-read person. She just didn’t type the papers, she had to create the footnotes. She had to go into the books and read what page she was on. She was a voracious reader and essentially was their copy editor. She was making sure that all the information they were quoting was correct. She was learning a lot at the same time.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">The entire time we lived with Lucien, she was paying her portion of the rent.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Your mother was a rebel—she ran away to build her own life, she chose her sexual partners. She was not a 1950’s housewife. Where did this rebellious streak come from?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: That’s an interesting question that only my mother could answer. In fact, everything I tell you is how I suppose things are, for the truth is relative and it depends on the standpoint or angle that you are looking at things. If I were trying to determine this on my own, I could point to several factors and you or whoever could determine where it came from.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My mother, like my father John Mitchell and Lucien, was…I don’t want to use the word narcissistic because that would imply someone who was trying to use things to their advantage. She was a very strong-willed person. I don’t know if I would call it a rebellious streak. It was more of an air of defiance. She walked a fine line during that time in Staten Island. She might have been what you call a street kid, who could have gone into dark places. She saved herself by getting away from there. Her life there was going to be the lives of what her sisters had. Her experience in the community she was brought up in, the black community, her experience was being given away by her mother, raped by the son of her new family and having her best friend being shot by her husband made her determined to leave. There was nothing for her [Alene] to want to be there for.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">She came to Manhattan and tried to learn as much as she could. She wanted to write. She wasn’t a narcissist. She didn’t have the self involvement the way that Kerouac had [in 1953] when he jumped in the cab with Gore Vidal. The other side of the story is that he left my mother standing there on the street with no way to get home. He could do that because he was on a mission to experience as much of life as he could and write it down and to create these books, these great works of art. My mother did not have the narcissistic energy. She was trying to survive and to find little ways to thrive where she could.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I believe my mother felt much of her life like she was hunted, like she was being pursued by many men, because she was, in her day, very beautiful and what white people would call exotic. She’s getting that kind of feedback on one level and on another level she’s completely unemployable, she doesn’t have a high school degree. She was just struggling to survive. She writes that she couldn’t really figure out how to function in this world. She hadn’t really figured out she was supposed to be here.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I once asked my mother what does prejudice look like. I am a light-skinned person and a DNA test showed that I am only 22 percent black, which means my mother wasn’t fully black either or fully Indian.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">If you extrapolate amounts and double them, my mother would have been about 44 percent black, about 16 percent Native American or Siberian, then the remainder being white. She was a brown-skinned person. She did experience prejudice. I didn’t. I looked white and only people from the South, or people who really cared, especially a lot of Jewish people, knew that I was black because they saw the frizzy hair as an indicator. A lot of people weren’t looking for that as an indicator. I might have been Irish or Jewish.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I asked her what prejudice is like. She said, it’s like you are walking down the street…people in those days didn’t really look at each other. We looked at a spot on the person’s forehead. You didn’t meet eyes with people, for that was a dangerous proposition. She said if a person met her eyes, there was this initial blank look, and then their eyes would start to narrow, and you could see the fear and suspicion in their eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">It was palpable. She said if you were in the unfortunate position where you had to talk to them, whether it was a person in a store, from that point on, their attitude was that she was an inferior, stupid person. Her basic mode of survival was no, I am smarter than you. No, I am actually smarter. She became this person who had to continually prove to other people that she was a worthy human being, an intelligent human being, and a human being that they had no right to treat so dismissively.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Was Aline Lee in psychoanalysis?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: Yes, she was. I don’t know with whom, but the doctor was the head of the psychiatric ward at Bellevue. She had been sent to Bellevue several times, along with her sisters. She suffered from some mental illness, which as far as I know was never diagnosed. She clearly did have some mental illness.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Some people have suggested that my mother was a drug addict. Let me tell you something, you can’t live with someone in a house for your entire childhood up to 16, when I left home, without seeing evidence of drug use. What I did see in the house on Horatio Street…there was never any liquor in our house. In the 11 years I was living on Horatio Street, I was sent on a nightly run to get a fifth of vodka. In those days, you sent your kid around the corner to the liquor store. I think the guy’s name was Larry. I would pick up a fifth of vodka, basically for Lucien, but my mother drank with Lucien. I saw a lot of liquor and I know, because I bought it for them. This is from age 6. I saw Lucien take barbiturates, bennies, at night, and some form of amphetamine in the morning. These were all prescribed. They were in prescription bottles. He was being treated for whatever mental illness he had. We didn’t call them amphetamines. We called them by the name of whatever prescription drug they were. To top it off, he’d have a fifth of vodka, or however many drinks they’d have if they were out. They went out to bars. I call my mother a social alcoholic, to be with Lucien. Lucien was a drinker. She and Lucien drank.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I want to say from the beginning, I loved Lucien and Alene. They were seriously flawed individuals. I do not know what their motivations were for what they did.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">During that period, I did see my mother have several breakdowns, one of which was very upsetting, where she had a convulsion. I put her in the bath and said, “Mommy, let’s give you a bath.” She had convulsions and had to be taken to the hospital. I don’t know what it was.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I can’t say that my mother didn’t ever take any drugs, but she was not a drug addict or a drug user. She may have done them recreationally, as probably all of those people did. That was what I wanted to clarify.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: How did your mother fall in with the Beats?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: Before the summer of 1953, she had already known Allen. She never told me how she met Allen, nor did Allen tell me. He was very obsessed with telling me another story. I recorded an interview with him and he went on and on about how he thought my mother broke his penis.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Wasn’t Allen Ginsberg mostly sleeping with boys by then?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: This precedes him ever sleeping with men. All I know is that my mother and Allen were friends, who became lovers, and they had a sexual experience that was very bad for him, where he said that she broke his penis. At any rate, Allen had said, and I think it is in <b><i>The Subterraneans</i></b>, that he couldn’t be involved with a black girl.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">He told Kerouac that my mother might be someone interesting to meet. I don’t know what they exact words were. I don’t think he was trying to pimp her out or anything. I think they were all a very incestuous group. I have a picture and it’s in Allen’s photo archive, and it is of Alene and Jack sitting on a couch in Allen’s apartment. I think she met Jack at Allen’s. It was not a month-long romance as he wrote. They were involved for several months. They had to know each other for several months before they became involved.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Even after the break up, they knew each other, but were not friendly. She was infuriated when he presented the book to her. He created verbiage that she never used. She never said things like, “Oh, baby, baby.” He asked her if she wanted anything changed in the book, and she said “Please get rid of that ‘baby’ stuff. I don’t talk that way.” It was his book and to some extent, it was fictionalized.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjHMFJqflHAbToiugbNnFcSZ7ABMmgs0sY9jJnrEQxu-JVvRXMKxustcD1r9pY32h2nkbWEyK_PRqUoVh6ufGKsswhhXmBr_XG5RjHFQrfupQDp0UwmbiHgdg-lSt2GtopCnfBaiu-PNu68KIeFuiGpdUYCc11n_AgG0ZJFXSlQbljL2gDBACdoY1zSaA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="229" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjHMFJqflHAbToiugbNnFcSZ7ABMmgs0sY9jJnrEQxu-JVvRXMKxustcD1r9pY32h2nkbWEyK_PRqUoVh6ufGKsswhhXmBr_XG5RjHFQrfupQDp0UwmbiHgdg-lSt2GtopCnfBaiu-PNu68KIeFuiGpdUYCc11n_AgG0ZJFXSlQbljL2gDBACdoY1zSaA" width="157" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(Jack's Book: An Oral History of Jack Kerouac)</span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Your mother’s strong personality came through in the oral history, <i>Jack’s Book</i> and <i>The Subterraneans</i>. She makes fun of Jack for being tied to his mother’s apron strings.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: She wrote about Jack and I have her interviews with Gerald Nicosia and with Barry Gifford and Lawrence Lee. I have the typewritten manuscripts, but not the tapes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My mother wrote about that period of time, but as a child, I didn’t really know anything about her life, except what happened in the house on Horatio Street. As an adult, I went through her papers and learned a lot more.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did she talk about 1953 and being involved with Kerouac?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: For her, being involved with Kerouac made her a kind of target. She would walk down the street in Greenwich Village where we lived and total strangers would walk up; to her and say “I hear you are Mardou.” In the novel, he’s talking about sexual experiences. What kind of person in New York City stops a stranger to talk about their sexual experiences with a writer? For her, she spent the rest of her life trying to stay out of the spotlight. She was not the kind of person who said, “Oh, I met So and So today.” She was around Robert DeNiro and other celebrities. Harry Belafonte once asked her out. I only found out about this in her writing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">If she did talk about people, it was establishing with another person that she was not who they thought she was. “This is what you see, but I am a person with a wide variety of experiences.” She was not a namedropper.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">She didn’t discuss anything about her childhood, her relationships at all, until many years later. She did tell me one thing about Lucien, Jack Kerouac and the man that Lucien killed, David Kammerer.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">There were many bad things about these people and many things about my father that were horrible, but she didn’t want me to hear these kind of things. The ethic that she seemingly lived by was to put these experiences behind you. You have to keep moving. Einstein said, keep your equilibrium and move forward. That would encapsulate my mother’s m.o. She was often on the verge of a nervous breakdown. To dwell on these things could have knocked her off. She rarely talked about the past.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjt-d6TbzYBz094rYSI1FqcrOTF4jTUT53ex_MIGsBTqAdbskY6ResImohj2LRVzUiCr54PIsIKU7XnWP_F1jUGoqyq3WjUmpzXRB5YfPLCwZyAYdHLeYYwJyBcobJzK3GchO6xQKtSRLq8phXoppEB2ZPlDemK2ROR5K_dpkBgGvfTCsPEtfvKON2zXA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="283" data-original-width="178" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjt-d6TbzYBz094rYSI1FqcrOTF4jTUT53ex_MIGsBTqAdbskY6ResImohj2LRVzUiCr54PIsIKU7XnWP_F1jUGoqyq3WjUmpzXRB5YfPLCwZyAYdHLeYYwJyBcobJzK3GchO6xQKtSRLq8phXoppEB2ZPlDemK2ROR5K_dpkBgGvfTCsPEtfvKON2zXA" width="151" /></a></span></b></div><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">(<i>Minor Characters</i>, Joyce Johnson's </span>memoir<span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> of her affair with Jack Kerouac. Christina Diamante has an off-camera role as a crying baby.)</span></span></b></div></span></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: You make an off-camera appearance in 1957 as a crying baby when Joyce Johnson and Jack Kerouac visited Alene Lee in Johnson’s memoir <i>Minor Characters</i>. Your mother had just had you after her affair with John Mitchell. She was dismissive of Kerouac’s visit.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: I want to comment on something you said. My mother was very angry and disappointed in Kerouac. She didn’t slough off their relationship. What he did really hurt her. Subsequently, he writes about the disgust he feels when he sees her sleeping, her nappy hair and the sex. These things were real insults to her. That was not something you did. In 1950’s-speak, you do not kiss and tell. This was a real invasion of her privacy. It was almost as if you knew someone who worked for the <b><i>Enquirer. </i> </b>Then they<b> </b>put you in the<b> <i>Enquirer</i>. </b>Her overwhelming feeling about Jack was here was someone I loved who betrayed me. It’s encapsulated in that scene, which you call comic but actually was very hurtful to her, where he jumps into the cab with Vidal, leaving her in the street without a penny to get home. This was what he was going to do. He later laughed it off, she sloughed it aside—“We were just playacting at a relationship.” She wasn’t going to waste her time if she didn’t love you. She wasn’t into random sex. She would have sex with people she loved. Very often, Dylan, frankly women have sex with men they love, even if they are not interested in sex. For men, it was a great exotic sexual experience. I don’t think she really understood what they were doing. Lucien, Jack and Allen all had this Rimbaud-style concept that you must deprave yourself and become depraved to be really great writers. Anything that was odd or unusual was something they had to delve into. Kerouac was delving into my mother’s life without any consideration that she was a real human being and a vulnerable human being trying to find the normal things that other human being find with each other—connection, security, love. She never framed herself that way. She had chosen a life where she was going to be doing what she wanted to do and not in the confines of anyone else’s control, with the exception of being truly romantically involved with Lucien. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My mother had romantic feelings for Jack. She loved him and she loved Lucien for life. She really became a subordinate character in her relationship with my father John Mitchell. I have no idea how they met. I assume it was in one of his coffee shops. She loved him very deeply, too, and was very, very angry when they had a sustained relationship, she became pregnant and her friends convinced her not to have an abortion, i.e. with me. John Mitchell had sex with anything that moved, including men and women. I don’t know if he was involved with men at this point, but he did have multiple relationships with women at this time.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">He had lost his first-born son John, my brother, shortly after World War II, when his then wife moved to California and took Baby John with her. My father drove to California, stole Baby John, put him in an orange crate and drove across the country with him. My father was subsequently forced to give him up. When that happened, something broke in John and he treated everything in life like he had no respect for others. He had a very narcissistic personality. He felt that we were all on the same playing field. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjouVV_mqeoe9MWIbV1NLzt2Vnno6PeZA_vYHmv0gTh7a1IVblQajLOEv-1KsuMUcM5FFoE8v-JsbQl7LVjxg6EXqC41Odg1sUnREEKUV59WxffJNPv3Q3C91SJfKa75HAPNXpaONUpgD_qOBBdxU-b2bWtgF6lyhymdIo4LHzqYNX_r_ABwl9uxg4pVA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="286" data-original-width="468" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjouVV_mqeoe9MWIbV1NLzt2Vnno6PeZA_vYHmv0gTh7a1IVblQajLOEv-1KsuMUcM5FFoE8v-JsbQl7LVjxg6EXqC41Odg1sUnREEKUV59WxffJNPv3Q3C91SJfKa75HAPNXpaONUpgD_qOBBdxU-b2bWtgF6lyhymdIo4LHzqYNX_r_ABwl9uxg4pVA" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">(The Fat Black Pussycat, on Minetta Street in Greenwich Village. It was founded by John Mitchell and was folk music venue. It became a Mexican restaurant, and is now vacant)</div></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">One memorable thing about my father was when he had the coffee shop, the Fat Black Pussycat. I was about two. My mother had brought me there. I was in pajamas and barefoot. My mother asked him if we could have some food, because it was restaurant. He brought a bowl of ice cream. My mother flipped out and started attacking him, probably throwing dishes. He tied her to a pole in the middle of the restaurant and called the police. I was put outside. My recollection was that there were some sort of stairs and stained-glass windows. I was standing there barefoot on Minetta Lane and my mother was taken away from the police. I was taken away by a friend of my mother’s named Lenny Rubin and spent the night with him until my mother was bailed out of jail. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">All I know of my mother’s relationship with my father is that he loved her very much but did not want any committed relationships. He just moved from woman to woman, until he was told to leave the country or be killed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did your father John Mitchell uphold any emotional or financial responsibilities with you?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: Absolutely none. I never spoke to him again until I was 12 and going to the Downtown Community School on 10<sup>th</sup> Street. My mother never said a bad word about him. She never said anything about him, except that she loved him and he was living in another country.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did you see your father after you were 12?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: He had been given permission by the Mob to come back. They said “You can come back, but you must not start a restaurant or a bar.” He came back and worked with his friend who owned Edison Lighting, which was in the city, under the midtown bridge, I think, where the horses were kept.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">He visited me at school. He was wearing a purple wig. He gave me some trinkets that he was thinking of importing from Morocco. These were little tinny toys you pressed on. Even from the perspective of a Beatnik child, I knew these would break.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I only has a relationship with my father after I moved to upstate New York. We had been talking and he had been diagnosed with emphysema and COPD. I began talking to him on a regular basis. I had been comforting him because he was scared and alone. I was scared and alone, for my husband was in the city, running our business. I was living upstate with my son. I developed a relationship with him, more like cousins or peers. I didn’t have judgment towards him. We saw him two times after that when my husband, family and I flew out to Arizona to see him, when he was dying.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My father had moved out to Arizona a good 10 or 15 years before he died. He called it a ranch, but I called it a trailer with a dirthole. He had several houses and had an estate of a million dollars. He was a very good businessman. He left all of all of his money to my half-sister, who lives in Majorca, Spain, on the condition that she’d take care of his nine dogs. When we went to his house, he was cooking nine steaks for his dogs. Dogs were his people. He loved dogs. Lucien also had some of his closest relationships with dogs.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Back to <i>The Subterraneans</i>…how old were you when you read the book?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: My mother had asked me as a child never to read that book. I honored her request until her death. It was when I moved upstate to Oneanta, when we did “The Children of the Beats” article. <b>[Editors note: The article was in the <i>New York Times</i>, written by another Beat scion, Joyce Johnson’s son Nathaniel Pinchbeck.]</b> I was at that point that I got a grant from the college to write about my mother, I read the book. We were talking about the 1990’s. I was better educated at that point. I had gone back to college.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I had not gone to college after graduating from Stuyvesant High School. I had run away and joined the Moonies. It was a rather unfortunate waste of my life. I was essentially running away from home. I wanted to be someplace where they fed you three meals a day. We thought we were saving the world. It was like the Peace Corps, but unfortunately it wasn’t the Peace Corps. I knew nothing about religion and knowing nothing about religion meant that they could sell me any pile of crap. I didn’t care…if you want to say he’s [Reverend Moon] the Messiah, that’s okay, as long as we are saving the world. What it really meant was friends, family and food, and a place where arguing, screaming and fighting weren’t always going on. Then it was five years later.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I don’t hate either Lucien or Alene now. I am just disappointed that they couldn’t do better. They never asked me what college do you want to go to. If they asked me, I wouldn’t have wound up in the Moonies for five years. The strain of living with someone going through a breakdown can be very difficult. I know that in their own way, they were both mentally ill. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgIanOnh95t10RUT-INpIZL2K7vbmzZPnvgXiCE1MEr9t35UnPPUK1uHBUpX6ePVbjcyXGyiB7gTkGQ5fdGBp4j4Ju1glFMuNH9n1Cvwsb-srV0nD6RZlAyNS_Z3J8DatdbKAW9jIw6YV-tOJEHGTRdyLwAQYIo5oXKjiCTRCPepaQ9zGWfCrOqmRSyNw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="684" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgIanOnh95t10RUT-INpIZL2K7vbmzZPnvgXiCE1MEr9t35UnPPUK1uHBUpX6ePVbjcyXGyiB7gTkGQ5fdGBp4j4Ju1glFMuNH9n1Cvwsb-srV0nD6RZlAyNS_Z3J8DatdbKAW9jIw6YV-tOJEHGTRdyLwAQYIo5oXKjiCTRCPepaQ9zGWfCrOqmRSyNw" width="152" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(Alene Lee with Minerva Durham, owner of Spring Studios, a drawing studio. Early 1980s, when Alene was about 50.)</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What was your response to reading the book?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: I was horrified. I was truly hurt for my mother, that someone who had said they loved her would write a book that said they felt disgust seeing you lying in bed because of your hair. The things he said—“I couldn’t bring a black girl home to my mother.” A man said that to me, too. I know how horrible it would be for a man to say, “My mother would disown me if I brought you home.” I was horrified. I began to see who these people, who everybody loved and praised, who they were from the point of view of how they treated people like my mother, people who were disempowered, the exotic other. I don’t think these people really saw what they were doing to the women in their lives.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Corso…one of the reasons my mother didn’t want to discuss that period was because of Gregory Corso. She said he was a dangerous and violent person who she was afraid of and she couldn’t say anything about that period because she was afraid of Corso. He must have done something or knew something about her character to make her feel that way.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Honestly speaking, after 11 years of living with Lucien, with his beating my mother on an almost daily basis…she had scars on her face and one tooth knocked out right in front of me, in front of the house of Horatio Street, watching blood drip down from her mouth to the sidewalk, having the police come and being carried off to the 9<sup>th</sup> Precinct, maybe watching him in a cage, standing in my bare feet and pajamas again, and all of this, years of this, had become normalized in my mind, because that was all there was. You grow up in a concentration camp and if things continue this way, you don’t think you are in a concentration camp. That’s just where you live. Is it Socrates or Plato, who wrote the parable of the cave? You don’t know you are in a cave until you get out of the cave. Psychologically, it took a long time for me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">These are people the culture makes into heroes, who were so enamored of them. I hesitate to talk to you, because I sound like an angry person, but as an older person, I realize that most of these people were mentally ill, undiagnosed. They were nuts. They were not trying to be but the results were kind of evil.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_qn_-NZIY7M4JAUHk6mEc-5RJPta4UfBjL9UxzIkG382LlJu8xLD9qKNs1T7nFYdNXus-SAwKY3ZnuViKoeanV-yjuyDwkn3e_SKp2-gL0osxXU2GeKmEKDre7Cl5cy89M2uZUJihRir32Ir9zzq7QYftW1vru7SWcEgM3aqHtFtvG28-ROyEiIRvyg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="220" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_qn_-NZIY7M4JAUHk6mEc-5RJPta4UfBjL9UxzIkG382LlJu8xLD9qKNs1T7nFYdNXus-SAwKY3ZnuViKoeanV-yjuyDwkn3e_SKp2-gL0osxXU2GeKmEKDre7Cl5cy89M2uZUJihRir32Ir9zzq7QYftW1vru7SWcEgM3aqHtFtvG28-ROyEiIRvyg" width="153" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(Lucien Carr and Jack Kerouac at Columbia, 1944)</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: The more I study the personal history of the Beats, the less I like them. I don’t know if Lucien Carr emotionally survived the murder he committed in 1944.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: It was before Columbia. David Kammerer had been hired by Lucien’s mom. They travelled round the country together. It was a whole period of this person maybe grooming, maybe intentionally falling in love with Lucien. I don’t know all that he went through.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I don’t really know Kerouac, so my assessment is based on what he wrote about my mother and what effect that had on her life. I do want to tell you something about Lucien from the beginning. I loved Lucien an I loved Alene. I loved him as you love a father. They were seriously flawed individuals. I do not know what their motivations were for what they did. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I spent the last five or six years of our 11 years with Lucien saying to my mother, why don’t we leave? Her saying to me in response, “You need a father figure.” He was my father figure. I was told to call him my stepfather. I have fond, fond memories of Lucien and doing specific things. With him, that were really fun and showed his childlike nature. He took me to see Mary Poppins, and when we were done with the movie, we skipped down Hudson Street, and skipped and twirled the way Mary Poppins did. He swung me in the air and was singing the songs.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Drinking doesn’t make you a different person. It just shows the sides that others can’t see. You can’t excuse what people do when they are drinking, because that’s part of their character. They are making a choice.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Lucien took me to see “Love Story.” Tears were pouring down his face. I sat there stone-faced and emotionless, because my experience with love was “Hey, you beat my mother every night. We live in a house where glasses and plates don’t exist because you’ve broken them all. We live in a house where I can’t sleep because the fighting goes on ‘til 3 or 4 in the morning.” I wasn’t angry with him. This was the way it was. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I became emotionally catatonic for long periods of time. To this day, I do not trust any authority figure at all. My experience is that they are all self interested and dangerous and you need to be wary of them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">At the same time, what happened to Lucien did not excuse his behavior. I loved him and I am sorry to his sons Caleb, Ethan and Simon, but Lucien began grooming me at about age 12. I don’t think he went into it with a concrete plan, but I remember him sitting me down in a chair on Horatio Street. “You know, your mother is very jealous of you, right now,” he said. “You are at the age when men are going to start looking at you as the person they want, not your mother.” I remember looking at him and thinking, what the hell are you talking about? I am not even interested in men. Men are going to want me? The last thing I wanted was to have anything to do with men. The context of this conversation, I had no freaking idea what he was talking about. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Keep in mind, I had spent many hours in their bedroom, where they had full-wall mirrors for some purpose. I later found out what they were for.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">As a child, Lucien had gotten me interested in flaking the dandruff off his head with a comb. I spent hours doing this. It was very fun flaking off the dandruff, trying to get to the end. Different parts of his head were meant to be different continents. “I’m in Africa now!” It was all very innocent from my perspective, but as an adult, I asked myself what kind of an adult has a half-naked child lying on top of them, and why are there pornographic books on your bookshelf, when the only thing to do in that house was to watch TV and the TV was in their room. So I watched TV and went through the books on the shelves.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Subsequent to the conversation in that chair when I was 12, Lucien told me that, “I’m leaving your mother and you because I have found a person who loved me more.” That other person who loved him more was, like me, who was a teenager. That person was Sheila Johnson, who unfortunately had her back broken when Lucien took her on a drunken trip through snowy roads of upstate New York to Allen Ginsberg’s farm in Cherry Valley, where he was slugging down vodka as he drove, which he did on our trips to Cherry Valley, when I went as a child. He ran into a tree and broke his leg She was in a full body cast for some period of time. Sheila was the adopted daughter of Lucien’s reporter friends in Washington, D.C. The only way out of this, from his point of view was to marry her, so he did. He took responsibility for what he did to Sheila.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">His reaction to my mother and I was “You have to leave the house now,” the house we had lived in for 11 years. “I’m going to living here with the new love of my life.” I loved Lucien but what he did was horribly cruel and vicious.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: I hope that Lucien didn’t succeed in molesting you.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: No, he didn’t. There was one time when I was in the shower. We had a shower under the stairs, which had a toilet and a stand-up shower. This is rather personal. I was 13 or 14 years old and was learning how to do handstands in a little gymnastics unit at school. I was doing a handstand in the shower and the shower was on. When I got out of the shower, Lucien said to me, “This is a practical way to clean things you can’t reach.” I was wrapped in a towel. “Were you masturbating in there?” This is not something you say. I am sorry that Ethan, Caleb and Simon may have to hear this. First of all, they may not believe me. Second, and most importantly, I’ve never told anyone this, except a close personal friend, because I did not want to hurt Lucien’s kids. I didn’t want them to hear anything more that was bad about him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I don’t really feel much about it now. I am not in the mode of reliving. I am more in the mode of retelling. I had to think long and hard before I told you this. My mother had never said anything bad about my father, Lucien or Jack. It was my mother’s ethic never to say anything bad about people, even if they did bad things.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">It is fine to praise the artistic work, but you can’t turn people into heroes if they are deeply flawed. They have put themselves in the public spotlight, and as a result, it is only fair because there are other people who are survivors of abuse, who have to work through this.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I hate to do anything that would hurt “the boys,” as we called them. These men—Kerouac, Ginsberg and Lucien could be very kind, thoughtful and intellectual, but also completely thoughtless. Their process of engaging in depravity didn’t take into account that they dragged other people into this depravity.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">In Lucien’s bookshelves, there were books that depicted incestuous relationships between father, mothers, brothers and sisters. I read all of them. It warped your concept of what relationships were, being brought up in a home where they beat each other up, going to police stations, going to Bellevue…This is how it is everyone… “You are a child of the Beats, this is wonderful. Isn’t it amazing?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Your mother was fiercely protective of her anonymity, especially with Kerouac’s first biographer Ann Charters. What happened?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: Ann Charters was angry at my mother. She wanted information and my mother shut her down. My mother always collaborated with Lucien, even after their breakup. The m.o. was to protect Lucien. Don’t say anything that could hurt Lucien or his family. Lucien was on lifetime parole. Even after he knocked my mother’ tooth out, and we were all dragged to the precinct and my mother was supposed to press charges, she ultimately dropped them. If he had been convicted of assaulting my mother, in such an obvious way that the police could not ignore it, he would have gone back to prison. In addition, his was such a psychological trauma for him. He was an editor at UPI. His goal was to stay out of the news.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My mother loved Lucien until the day she died. Her loyalty to him was such that her desire for privacy over Jack and that book was very strong. She understood how Lucien felt. She only told writers what she could tell them without hurting Lucien. In a sense, she did the same with Kerouac and Ginsberg. She didn’t tell anyone the depth of depravity that had occurred.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">When you are a victim of abuse, you inculcate or incorporate guilt, and because you are part of it, you are a participant. In your own mind these are things you did, not just thing that happened to you. And that’s true. My mother would say that you just don’t talk about it. It was an old-world way of looking at things. In this day and age, people don’t understand, because they all have their sex tapes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I remember clearly my mother having phone conversations how they were going to handle this or that author. They were trying to control what would go into the biographies.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: In the Kerouac oral history <i>Jack’s Book,</i> your mother, under a pseudonym, seemed to be able to speak honestly. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: Honesty doesn’t mean the whole truth. Nobody gets the whole truth. Just because somebody asks, nobody has a right to your truth.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: You wrote that particularly moving “Barefoot Beat” essay about your mother on the website <i>Beatdom</i> in 2010. Some of the comments were savage, including a broken-English attack by a Swedish man.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: I didn’t think it was a Swedish person. I think it was somebody with a vested interest. I felt it was someone who knew Lucien. They weren’t questions, they were statements: <b><i>“Your mother was just a drug addict.”</i></b> They were designed to hurt. Where would you come up with that, my mother was a drug addict? Who would have that information?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">There was the incident that Jack describes that did happen to my mother as Jack described it. A bennie was slipped into her drink. She describes it as something she didn’t plan on, but she did wind up walking around naked in Greenwich Village and subsequently going to Bellevue. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">As a child, I developed an eagle-eye ability to tell when my mother had had even a sip of liquor. She had an immediate reaction. You could see how her eyes set and the muscles in her face went when she had a drink.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">You can tell when someone is on a drug trip. I never saw her taking drugs.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did your mother and you have a business together?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: I started a proofreading business when I moved back to the city. I started working at a company my godmother Virginia’s nephew was working for. It was a proofreading company. Virginia had said to me, “It’s obvious you are unemployable.” It’s true. My mother and I were very combative people. We would have reactive explosions, if someone said something that was rude or hostile. It was going to be an aggressive response. You become unemployable.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I remember once as a child sitting in the staircase at the house on Horatio Street, crying early on. Lucien came up the stairs and says, “What’s wrong Christ Child?” his nickname for me. I said, “You are breaking all the dishes and we don’t have anything to eat on.” He said, “Okay, we’ll stop,” then he went downstairs. Ten minutes later, he continued breaking things. If you grow up in a house where people are violent, you may wind up having violent reactions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> Lucien would throw knives and plates at the wall.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I started a proofreading business company and went to work with my mother at John Wiley & Sons, a publisher, as a proofreader. She was doing secretarial work for an editor. Six months later, I started a company called Chystaline. My mother was a legal secretary at that point.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I trained proofreaders and sent them out. We didn’t have employees. We had independent contractors, and that is what put us out of business. The government declared that they were employees and I had to pay back taxes, which wiped us out. The IRS put a lock on our door.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: How did you meet your husband?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: I had come back to the city and was living at my godmother’s apartment, off her loft. I was depressed. My mother came over and said, “When I am depressed, I put on my make up and I put on a beautiful outfit and go to a coffee shop.” I walked into the little Italian café coffee shop across from Lafayette Street and met my husband, who was working with a friend at the café. He was living in an apartment over the café.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did you move upstate after your marriage?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: No. First, the state took all our available funds to pay the back taxes. I didn’t have any money to fight them. We didn’t have any money to live in New York City. I thought maybe it would be better to live in country if your poor. I had just had my son, and my mother had just died of lung cancer.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">There were many shootings in the city and there had been a shooting at a subway station near my office that I would have arrived at, where a woman had been killed. A kid was also shot at the school my son was going to attend.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">We decided to raise our son in upstate New York. It would be safer. I didn’t understand how upstate New York was a bastion of right-wing politics. If you are slightly different, you would be discriminated against. That was my son’s experience growing up in Oneanta and Guilderland. He and my daughter had an unhappy experience. Being poor is a big difference. Having frizzy hair is a big indicator, if you are an overt racist. Oh, there is something different about you?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My mother had died and I was very depressed. From that point on, I had clinical depression and never really got over it. I also had an anxiety disorder and probably have always had PTSD.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I thought this would be a better place. It certainly has more trees.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Lucien once asked me, when he walked into my room, which was the living room with a pullout couch. He asked me, “What do you think the meaning and purpose of life is?” I look at him. I was about 15. I knew what was happening was not normal and I had a distrust of him. I said, “Obviously to procreate. The purpose of all beings on the Earth is to perpetuate the species.” He looked at me and walked away.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Lucien was a person, and this goes back to the Beats, who was struggling all his life, trying to find the meaning of life, feeling alive and happy, and fighting off the futility of life. I know this because I once asked Lucien, why do you drink? “I don’t feel alive unless I am drinking,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I was a fiercely protective mother and my kids wound up moving thousands of miles from me. I was trying to protect them from all the bad things that could happen. I did what I thought I had to do. They thought I was an agent of the C.I.A.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: When you started digging into your mother’s history after she died in 1991, Lucien first tried to censor you, then cut you off.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: I find it hard to write, because I know I am betraying the secrets of Lucien and our family. These people could be sensationalized and simplified as horrible people. But they weren’t. I loved them. There were moments of happiness, but they were deeply flawed, traumatized and traumatizing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">You can’t really hate a person in a mental institution, for they are not right in the head.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: You waited until your 30’s to write about your mother Alene Lee. Was it difficult to dig into the material?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: In the beginning, at SUNY Oneanta, it was not depressing. I was an English major. I was a person who had a strong sense of the rights of children and was trying to regain women’s lost history.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My parents never took me to a museum. My mother took me to a library once. I had a very poor education. I really became educated when I went to college, through the humanities that I took. I had a fervor and a duty to uncover that history, and my advisor Professor Walker was very supportive. That was just the tip of the iceberg. I hadn’t gotten to the bulk of the boxes of my mother’s writing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">When we moved to Albany, I applied to graduate school at SUNY Albany in the English Department and was able to go through the Kerouac biographers’ transcripts. I wrote the 238-page thesis. I couldn’t find anyone to be my advisor. No one wanted to work with me on this project. The head of the department worked with me, but he didn’t like the Beats.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I was writing from the perspective of someone who should have been in the women’s studies or Africana studies. I wasn’t getting any positive feedback on the thesis. It kept on getting sent back to me with this or that correction. That thesis never got approved and then I got breast cancer.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I have always been influenced by people’s relative perceptions, a sense that they didn’t want me to do this. I just focused on being sick for however many years.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">First, there was the breast cancer. Then I was going through a divorce. This was horrible. The children were losing their home, which had been willed to them by their grandparents When we divorced, my in-laws changed the will and left everything to their son. He took all the money he got from his parents, the life insurance policies. He disinherited our children, but gave them money to go to college.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I was devastated. I had always sworn because of my mother’s situation that I would never have kids without a husband, a father and a home. I had lost all three. I went into a deep clinical depression.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">The doctors found a lump in my pancreas. They took out my pancreatic tail. I wound having a hysterectomy, and having my ovaries and cervix removed. They found lumps on my lungs. Over the last 10 or 15 years, they have been observing things. Six months ago, they found a new lump. Again, I have an ax hanging over my head. They are going to do a CAT scan, to see if the lump is growing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">In terms of the research, the more and more depressed I got, there was a deeper sense of futility. At this moment, I think, can I tell the things that happened? Will people think that my mother is bad? Will people think that Lucien was all bad? Will people think that I am bad? When you are poor, you wind up doing a lot of socially unacceptable things because you are poor and you do whatever you have to do to survive. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Writing is something a young person or a financially stable person can do. A person who is not financially stable cannot do it. You have to have a certain energy to write, in addition to whatever thing you are doing to support yourself.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: You have talked about a multigenerational trauma, that involves your grandmother, your aunts, your mother and yourself. There is also a fierce will to survive and a brutal resilience.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: My mother died of lung cancer and my father died of emphysema and COPD. For the last 10 years, he was on an oxygen tank.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">The gift they gave me was COPD. I had undiagnosed COPD as a child. I was very athletic, but I could not run up stairs.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">In the past 20 years, I got the diagnosis of COPD, though I have never smoked a cigarette in my life. I was the cigarette runner. They would send me around the corner to get a fifth of vodka and a carton of Kools. They both smoked five packs of cigarettes a day. The house was suffused with smoke. When the bars closed, they came home and smoked and drank.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I have been able to accomplish two things. My mother and I, her mother before her, and three of my four aunts, were involved in the African American project of surviving. We were not thriving. Only one sister, Aunt Russie, the numbers runner, thrived, economically speaking. The rest of us were on a mission to survive. My mother wrote, “I just can’t function in this world. I don’t seem to understand how to be here.” She did understand how to survive.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My project, my main goals was never to have children without a husband, to live longer than my mother and to tell her story. I haven’t finished telling my mother’s story yet, but I have been telling it in bits and pieces.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">The thing I accomplished was what I told Lucien, I procreated. I love my children and I am glad I have them, but I do feel very hurt for them that I brought them into this world. We are in the 6<sup>th</sup> Great Mass Extinction.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My accomplishments are dubious, at best. I lived and I brought other people up here.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Your children are self-sufficient. Your son has found his place in the world, as has your daughter.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: I called myself a Tiger mom, after the Asian women. Don’t mess with me, dude.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Your mother has a very barebones entry on Wikipedia.org.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: Everything I had put in that entry on Wikipedia that had to do with Lucien or the Beats was removed. It’s as if [my mother] had no connection to the Beats at all. I don’t know how that happened. I don’t know who the editors were.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I am not concerned about it. My mother exists in books. It is more common now that people will mention her by name in books, and not use a pseudonym because she is not around to tell them to use a pseudonym. That was always Lucien’s idea.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">What really nice thing that Lucien and Aline did, and they did it together to make my childhood a little better…the park across the street on Horatio Street was like “West Side Story.” There was a Spanish gang that lived by the river and an Irish-Italian mixed white people gang. They would fight over the park. I didn’t belong to any gang, so every time I went into the park, I would be assaulted. I was sexually assaulted by a member of the Spanish gang and was physically assaulted by one of the Italian gang members of the Irish gang.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">The Irish gang all went to the Catholic church two blocks down. I didn’t belong to either gang, so I was shit out of luck. Lucien arranged a meeting with the Gallagher brothers, who were members of the Westies. They were leaders of the hit squad for the Mob. Lucien, two of the Gallagher brothers, my mother and I met the at the concrete park across the street. They apparently had a discussion on how I would be allowed to go to the park without being harassed. That’s the one nice thing my parents did, where they proactively interceded on my behalf.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">This was one of the things that they did that I can look at fondly. Who meets with a hit squad from the Mob? They liked Lucien. He was an old newsman. They could relate to him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> In fact, for most of my childhood, they were completely unaware that anything had to be done, including breakfast, lunch and dinner, and buying clothing. My clothing came from second-hand stores. I was never knew where my clothes came from. I was never taken to a store to buy anything—sneakers, clothes, nothing, until I was a teenager, when I took myself shopping with whatever money I could get.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: How old were you when the events in the park went down?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: I was assaulted when I was eight or nine. We moved into Lucien’s house on Horatio Street when I was five and a half, for my first year at PS 41 down the street. I was so happy to go to school, because they gave me breakfast and lunch, and I would go to other people’s houses for things like peanut butter sandwiches.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I do want to say that when you said I had accomplishments and my kids were self-sufficient, I want to say yes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My favorite song of the Beatles, and bear with me, for I am going to sing it, instead of saying it…I don’t know if I have all the words right, “<i>Blackbird singing in the dead of night, lift your wings and learn to fly, all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arrive. Blackbird fly.”</i><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I do worry that the things that I’ve said about Lucien might hurt his sons.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: They are your stories.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">CD: Nothing profoundly bad sexually happened with Lucien. He found another teenager to marry. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">You know, the second time I saw Lucien cry was when Potsy died. Potsy was a black lab. Lucien loved that dog. When Potsy died, Lucien was weeping.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My dog is Evie. We walk in places up here where dogs can go off the leash, which is not many places. We are still the hunted.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Movement for me is physical therapy. We live a spartan life. We are technically poor, but I am always moving along, with my dog.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-73915262800580581292022-03-30T07:12:00.005-07:002022-04-15T06:08:58.249-07:00The Novelist Lee Lynch on being a Young Butch in 1960's Greenwich Village and her five-decade writing career<p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEji5bpfpcpjkcMQZVSq-jTlFeXMLBz-4RF9_nI7xncJWjaRghNJ1X8W8kp9hwuiHvD6w5hagU8p14S_b2fZhztrYwOsPrk6turdktkWq4a2JUSpCxesok9OrnvLiyeo5xbxpWqGgPkdC4OfhLAldvrgZsLIhArGUp485eAyK2qS-V-oUXe_-K9tzi8Mqw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEji5bpfpcpjkcMQZVSq-jTlFeXMLBz-4RF9_nI7xncJWjaRghNJ1X8W8kp9hwuiHvD6w5hagU8p14S_b2fZhztrYwOsPrk6turdktkWq4a2JUSpCxesok9OrnvLiyeo5xbxpWqGgPkdC4OfhLAldvrgZsLIhArGUp485eAyK2qS-V-oUXe_-K9tzi8Mqw" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">(Lee Lynch)</div><br /> <b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Lee Lynch, novelist, interviewed by telephone at her home in the Pacific Northwest, January 18, 2022</span></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">In 1985, the lesbian writer Lee Lynch published her second novel <i>The Swashbuckler</i>, chronicling the life and loves of Frenchy Tonneau, a 21-year-old bantam-weight butch lover, breaking hearts in the lesbian bars and coffee shops of Greenwich Village.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">The novel starts in 1960, where the young butch struts down Greenwich Avenue on Saturday night in her boots, pompadour, denim jacket and garrison belt. Frenchy is the cock of the walk. After a night of drinking, flirting and dancing in the Mob-owned bars, Frenchy takes the train home to the Bronx, undoes her pompadour and hides her boots, resuming her everyday life as a dour young checkout girl at the local A&P, supporting her mother, a depressed French widow.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">The novel spans 12 years in Frenchy’s life. She starts an affair with a closeted femme teacher named Edie, then meets Mercedes, a sensual, traumatized single mother from Spanish Harlem. The early 1960’s are a time when there is still the danger that young lesbians could be arrested and incarcerated as juvenile delinquents. There is also a threat of anti-lesbian violence in the streets, usually directed at the butches for their male drag. The Village is changing, as are the lesbians who live and pursue romance down there. Frenchy meets Pam, a bohemian painter, who follows her lusts and seduces Frenchy, showing her that butches can take pleasure, as well as do the dishes. Despite the exploitative Mob bars and the ominous Women’s House of Detention that overshadows the lesbian world, Frenchy moves to the Village, her Jerusalem. In small steps, by the early 1970’s Frenchy is able to build a much more open lesbian life and creates a rich, intentional family, made up of a lover, a child she raises, old lovers and friends. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjwdixq4-c7WETaFn6K94SIeHvZ_phqRdCaA8xaT_a-vOijduKXViRpYRG2nNCjDMQ6r2eb7B_OZEYPMDoQ8uRiY_el0S4Qf54Y-xciB2FAWRSRZfQuDVInFSFUi5SkPnm9MFo-uc-iLbzDbSGFq_mCZDYSuw4t4dZPDu-B8oNi5a-tIEIalvp97CL3WQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="322" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjwdixq4-c7WETaFn6K94SIeHvZ_phqRdCaA8xaT_a-vOijduKXViRpYRG2nNCjDMQ6r2eb7B_OZEYPMDoQ8uRiY_el0S4Qf54Y-xciB2FAWRSRZfQuDVInFSFUi5SkPnm9MFo-uc-iLbzDbSGFq_mCZDYSuw4t4dZPDu-B8oNi5a-tIEIalvp97CL3WQ" width="155" /></a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(<i>The Swashbucker</i>, with its original 1985 cover)</span></b></span></b></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Born in New York City in 1945, Lynch came down to Greenwich Village from Flushing, Queens, as a 15-year-old butch with her girlfriend Suzie. She went to the coffee shops like Pam Pams and the Campy Corner, a drugstore, hanging out with other gay kids who barely had money for coffee. Lynch soon graduated to the Mob-run lesbian bars like the Swing Rendezvous on MacDougal Street and occasionally the working-class Sea Colony on 8<sup>th</sup>Avenue.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">By the time she got to college, Lynch had </span><span style="font-size: large;">started</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> publishing in </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt;">The Ladder</i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">(America’s first national lesbian journal), </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt;">Common Lives, Lesbian Lives</i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> and </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt;">Sinister Wisdom</i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">. The legendary poet Adrienne Rich told Lynch she should turn an overly long short story into a novel and thus her debut </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt;">Toothpick House</i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"> was born in 1983, being published by the Naiad Press, America’s first major lesbian press, founded by her former editor at </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt;">The Ladder</i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">, Barbara Grier.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Lynch crossed the American continent three times for love, going from Connecticut to Oregon, to Florida, then back to the Pacific Northwest. While working various jobs, she always continued writing, publishing novels, short-story collections and several anthologies of lesbian literature, leading to roughly 20 books. Lynch’s work concerns the lives of working-class lesbians in bars, in small towns and cities. She has documented decades of lesbian history and lives through her fiction. Two dedicated publishers— first the late Barbara Grier and then Radclyffe of Bold Strokes Books, kept publishing her. Many of her books are still in print or backed up by e-books, and she has a new collection of stories coming out in 2022 with Bold Strokes.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiO_TnYvGE491qekB1iX8vuyNBS-1T1B_0PfMqbPWvgfVae9n35E3q8_svkN-E7Q-HJ7gSEQUGhXeVrBEHa2kcjdY-AQWCqZRwgVv0t5czYjU4MCS-Ib6MERW3yNzoXm_3PGF2_dOpphfU4WmfBYJsCR9oF06XFTYftLetU-yfzD8QcqNBuNXQEhjvKQw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="160" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiO_TnYvGE491qekB1iX8vuyNBS-1T1B_0PfMqbPWvgfVae9n35E3q8_svkN-E7Q-HJ7gSEQUGhXeVrBEHa2kcjdY-AQWCqZRwgVv0t5czYjU4MCS-Ib6MERW3yNzoXm_3PGF2_dOpphfU4WmfBYJsCR9oF06XFTYftLetU-yfzD8QcqNBuNXQEhjvKQw" width="160" /></a></span></b></div><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(Toothpick House, Lynch's 1983 debut)</span></b></div></span></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">In her early sixties, Lynch’s new intense romantic interest Elaine Mulligan (now her wife Elaine Lynch) convinced her to go to a Golden Crown Literary Society event in Atlanta. Golden Crown is a dynamic organization that promotes lesbian writers and literature. At this meeting and other conferences, Lynch gained new fans and hobnobbed with such prominent lesbian writers as Karin Kallmaker, Katherine V. Forrest and Lori Lake, who appreciate her work. She has also received numerous awards, including the</span></b><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Crown_Literary_Society" title="Golden Crown Literary Society"><b><span style="color: #0b0080; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; text-decoration: none;">Golden Crown Literary Society</span></b></a><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> Trail Blazer award for lifetime achievement and the Ann Bannon Popular Choice Award. Lynch also received the James Duggins Mid-Career Author Award in 2010. In 2012, Lynch was awarded the Golden Crown Society’s inaugural Lee Lynch Classic Fiction Award for <i>The Swashbuckler. <o:p></o:p></i></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">From 1986, Lynch wrote a nationally syndicated column on American lesbian life called “The Amazon Trail,” which ran in gay and lesbian newspapers for 35 years and resulted in hundreds of columns. Lynch retired “The Amazon Trail” in 2021. Collections of the columns have been published twice, with the second time being Lynch’s <i>An American Queer: The Amazon Trail, A Quarter Century of Queer Life in the United States</i>(Bold Strokes Books, 2014).<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I spoke with Lee Lynch by telephone at her home in the Pacific Northwest. Lynch gave me a witty and frank interview about her own youth as a young butch walking the streets of Greenwich Village and going to the Mob bars, and her five-decade literary career.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Here is our interview:<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DYLAN FOLEY: Where were you born and raised?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LEE LYNCH: I was born in Hell’s Kitchen and grew up in Flushing. I went to the local schools. My mother was Catholic, but my father, who practiced no religion, objected to bringing me up Catholic. I went to public schools, thank goodness.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Were you torn between your mother’s Boston Irish Catholic side and your father’s Episcopalian family? <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: My father’s side was slightly wealthier. If my mother’s family was blue collar, my father’s family was whatever was next, professionals. They had things like stocks.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What was your father’s work background? <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: During the Depression, he was in the merchant marine. Then he worked for the federal agency that later became the FAA. He worked his way up pretty high, so we could afford our $85-a-month apartment in Flushing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: He was based in New York?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: He was based all over the country. For the 18 years I was in New York, he was based in New York, first at LaGuardia, then at what was then called Idlewild.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: When did you find out about the Village?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: At 15, I began to realize my sexual desires. To start from the beginning, my best friend Suzie, we’d been friends since aged 12, 7<sup>th</sup> grade. At aged 14, she attempted suicide, probably for the second time. She was taken to Elmhurst General, the adolescent psych ward. While there, she met a lesbian. Suzie and I were just friends. I didn’t know anything. Because my parents were from Boston, my mother was afraid of New York. They were really protective. I didn’t know the word homosexual. The boys at the school across the street would call me “butch.” I would be like “What?” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">The lesbian on the psych ward took five cops to bring her in. She was a rough and tough dyke. She tried to bring Suzie out and Suzie was telling me all this by phone. I’m finally realizing, “Oh, that’s what I feel for Suzie.” She realized the same about me. We developed a love relationship because of the woman in the hospital. Her name was Kenny. Kenny was short for Noreen Kennedy. She’s dead, Suzie’s dead. They’re all dead. We can use their names.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Kenny told Suzie about the Village, places to go in the Village. Kenny was from a very rough background. She was rumored to have murdered another child. Where she led us was the working-class places.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhYHzrTdJtfjFML93xiGuBVyvID7qTFwwofj76PvyRgSYJRYQzS598L3a5J1ilfQSMLAknaPVHyMdM1on7fqKTlgNhWbPwvp0zjiI_QGZYUViVSPFScELCwWani8tHXp9UJTvmYHyoLzl2e9Qw0QPPpQGB3G3NZeu32fM6jT0K2UNYEotb8UfcpeJSnMg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="810" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhYHzrTdJtfjFML93xiGuBVyvID7qTFwwofj76PvyRgSYJRYQzS598L3a5J1ilfQSMLAknaPVHyMdM1on7fqKTlgNhWbPwvp0zjiI_QGZYUViVSPFScELCwWani8tHXp9UJTvmYHyoLzl2e9Qw0QPPpQGB3G3NZeu32fM6jT0K2UNYEotb8UfcpeJSnMg=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">(Lee Lynch in the 1980's, from her author photo from the original 1985 edition of</span><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><b style="font-style: italic;"> The Swashbuckler. </b>Photo taken by the late photographer Tee A. Corinne</span><span style="font-size: 18pt;">)</span></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: So you didn’t go to places like the more middle-class Bagatelle, but the working-class Sea Colony?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: Exactly. I wasn’t at the Sea Colony a lot. We hung around at the Swing Rendezvous Lounge. It was on Bleecker or MacDougal, one of the big streets in the Village.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I probably didn’t go to the actual bars until I was 16. Back then, it was pretty easy to go. There were always gay kids on the street. At one point, I had a friend who was so well known at the Swing that she loaned me her ID. They let her in and I passed through on her ID.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjIgg1759PObzdVqILN8aBqR6IuC2meGYDfoAbNtTLg0c7aWJDDTiv91QHAlH0J_JajnYIsopdPuMfpWB72M1jTRVvY6EMZlR3yEivdQYDEON1VM2wxm7iw0Z_uDI2--2X5cnGyYwkIZTkGXXLw_Artf3kYUwhyuWMhsRMNvjrOKPyGXSQgrVMaBhkukw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="459" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjIgg1759PObzdVqILN8aBqR6IuC2meGYDfoAbNtTLg0c7aWJDDTiv91QHAlH0J_JajnYIsopdPuMfpWB72M1jTRVvY6EMZlR3yEivdQYDEON1VM2wxm7iw0Z_uDI2--2X5cnGyYwkIZTkGXXLw_Artf3kYUwhyuWMhsRMNvjrOKPyGXSQgrVMaBhkukw" width="200" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(Swing Rendevous, 1945 drawing, MacDougal Street, now a restaurant)</span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did you go to the 6<sup>th</sup> Avenue coffee shop Pam Pams first?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: When we were first out, that was the place to go. There were always gay kids out on the street in front of Pam Pams. This was the soda fountain Pam Pams, not the bar Pam Pams. Nobody seemed to have any money. If we had enough money for a cup of coffee, we’d go in and stay until they indicated we had been too long, then we’d go out on the street. We’d mill about. The only person I remember meeting was a sailor on a layover in the city. He had heard of Pam Pams, but was looking for bars. We filled him in a bit. He went off.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">The crowd at Pam Pams was probably very mixed. I remember lots of kids from the Bronx. I remember a particular boy called Gypsy. He was very short. He may have been mentally ill. He had one of those personalities. He would entertain everyone and bring people together. You watched Gypsy. You watched everybody.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Sometimes we would follow older lesbians, to see how they lived, how they walked, how they talked.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: The opening of <i>The Swashbuckler</i> is amazing. Frenchy is strutting down the street, with her diddy-bop walk. She’s tricked out with her pompadour and her black denim jacket. Were there autobiographical elements to Frenchy or did you make her from fragments of multiple people?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL:<b> </b>I just made her up, possibly from many parts. Possibly that’s what I wanted to be like. I was very shy. It was from observation. In my mind, there is such a thing as an arrogant, short dyke. A short butch, I should say. She’s a prototype for that. They can be any class, any education level. You get ‘em everywhere. That was my first one.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: If you are diminutive, you have to be tough. She has a garrison belt, and she’s ready to fight. What was the environment at Pam Pams like? What was the Campy Corner?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: They were a coffee shop and a drugstore. “Campy Corner” was a drugstore. You could go in and get a cup of coffee. We were not popular, the gay kids, at the Campy Corner. It was right across the street from the House of D. They were regular places that the gay kids would go to.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj0Pmcv9dHZT2pqpi9TudxuUB6_pSz4U9Y9Ou0NvBSeelaXAaDG1-MWGg-L0cr7eQvk-4F_s-qREfHnLSpTVe-TT74IN-8gal_K1IUpTm1iXqVaYXwdVRqm6Qg3uaNYHwEURpHtRyyECfTY6-M_m1WOk5yepItU15vw-NBErm3QQYtT179E5bwLmpmrdw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="260" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj0Pmcv9dHZT2pqpi9TudxuUB6_pSz4U9Y9Ou0NvBSeelaXAaDG1-MWGg-L0cr7eQvk-4F_s-qREfHnLSpTVe-TT74IN-8gal_K1IUpTm1iXqVaYXwdVRqm6Qg3uaNYHwEURpHtRyyECfTY6-M_m1WOk5yepItU15vw-NBErm3QQYtT179E5bwLmpmrdw" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(The Women's House of a Detention, a notorious hellhole on Greenwich Avenue. Torn down in the 1970's. Now a community garden. Lesbian prisoners would call down to their lovers on the street. Prisoners would also make catcalls to people walking by.)</span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt; text-align: justify;">It was 15 cents for a subway token. If you had a two-dollar allowance, which is what I had, you’d blow it up with a couple of cups of coffee and the subway.</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: In the novel, Frenchy goes back to the Bronx and has to undo her pompadour, hide her boots, and takes apart her butch outfit to hide her nightlife from her mother. Was this your own experience going back to Flushing?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: Yes, basically. I didn’t have a garrison belt, but I did have a Zippo lighter. I did have to hide my cigarettes. I didn’t have a jean jacket and I wasn’t allowed to wear jeans. We lived across the court from a family that owned the local drycleaners. We would get the castoff clothes. The father would bring them home from work and his kids would wear them. I would get David Langer’s hand-me-downs. I had male clothes that I was allowed to wear. More shirts than pants. I could get as dragged out as Frenchy. I would change at school and sneak out of the back door, meet Suzie under the clock and take the subway into the city. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What do you mean by “under the clock”?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: Everybody knows what “under the clock” meant. It was Roosevelt Avenue and Main Street. It was a United Cigar store, and that was where the subway entrance was.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I haven’t been to Flushing in a while. I am a lover of New York. I read a lot about it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What was the Swing Rendezvous like?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: It was on one of the main Village streets. It was up some stairs. It was long and narrow. The bar was in the front. In the back, you walked up a couple of steps and you were on the dance floor. There were tables around. You could dance there, as long as you did not dance in any intense way. There was one waitress named Cookie. I remember her because she stole one of my girlfriends. I was newly out and I was in a different relationship. Cookie was another toughie. She or one of the other people in the bar would break up the dancers, if need be. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEivWZXyxgLKNw05ZaIepWZzgIwpQwhoWwn5b6t8uPiveKifSu7eZPb8HCZZ-S49RUhkGKTpWBdlBp8ba3xVbn5FwWu90Xuk8Yajp3xHEoXCutMMETRi1_kbr86Td7IQe_OIUFOFh_CEK6EHJGYX24mJtJRMRHQqBVMMPKpOpUXQ1kodbQDWNFzeOIQZ6g" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="160" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEivWZXyxgLKNw05ZaIepWZzgIwpQwhoWwn5b6t8uPiveKifSu7eZPb8HCZZ-S49RUhkGKTpWBdlBp8ba3xVbn5FwWu90Xuk8Yajp3xHEoXCutMMETRi1_kbr86Td7IQe_OIUFOFh_CEK6EHJGYX24mJtJRMRHQqBVMMPKpOpUXQ1kodbQDWNFzeOIQZ6g" width="160" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(<i><b>The Raid</b></i> by Lee Lynch, a novel that details an impending police raid on a gay bar.)</span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">One particular night I remember very vividly. I was sitting at a table with Suzie and this other girl, as well as some other people. There was a straight man sitting there. He tried to get her [Suzie] to go home with him. I had been drinking and I got up to take a swing at him. They kicked me out of the bar. [<i>Chuckles.</i>] I was so innocent. I didn’t know that such kind of stuff went on. I was trying to protect my femme.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: In the novel, you referred to straight men in lesbian bars as perverts.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: They would sit in the back room at the Sea Colony, watching the women dance.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What kind of women were at the Swing Rendezvous?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: There wasn’t much diversity as there was at the Sea Colony. I only remember white lesbians. I wasn’t there that much. I couldn’t go down there every night. Maybe one or two people of color, mostly white.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Audre Lorde, is her memoir, writes about the Sea Colony. The standards were very white. The most impressive butch would always have the most impressive femme. It would be the Hollywood standards of beauty…the girls in the poodle skirt.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: That’s the 1950’s, Dylan.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Would it be capris or toreador pants in the 1960’s?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: Yes, or a tight skirt, if you are a femme.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did you have much luck getting picked up?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: I never did that. I’m the type who has a friend first, then something might evolve from that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did you ever feel a threat of violence while you were out in Greenwich Village in the early 1960’s?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: Yes. It wasn’t just me. We were constantly aware. If a gaggle of teenage boys came by, you’d kind of scatter. You didn’t act like Frenchy for a minute or two.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">On the subway, we were very defiant, Suzie and I, and probably some of the others. We’d make out on the subway, hold hands and act out, throwing in people’s face that we were lesbians.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: There is a great scene in <i>The Swashbuckler</i>, where Frenchy seduces Edie, a closeted schoolteacher, at an isolated subway stop in Queens. Edie says, “Don’t you know, we are considered juvenile delinquents?” In their defiance and with the Women’s House of D. in the background, was there the danger of being picked up by the police?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: Yes, definitely. We were constantly aware of that. It was not so much ignoring it. I turned 15 in 1960. It was the era of defiance against nuclear war and nuclear weapons. I was operating on that level, too. There was some disrespect for the illegitimate laws that existed. I knew that Suzie and I could be thrown into an institution and kept there. I was not out to my family. You had to hide every bit of your existence.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: You have said you needed to write <i>The Swashbuckler</i> to deal with the stresses of leading a double life as a young lesbian. Why did you have such a visceral need to write this novel?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: It wasn’t just that novel, it was all of them. I was told that I had talent as a writer and I lived as a lesbian. I decided to devote my life to writing our stories. And that’s what I have done. I’ve had jobs because that’s what you need to live, but everything else I have done is about writing, writing, writing about lesbians.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6MkWiITmLb3YmZ--uYqrqSE3Et_sGwj1Ynh8JuXEpX5D_7VqKQzzxZ4xkXwZ8VGB_ThC51GpaMJFH5CDIr5HA3jFjWmKxDCkRHrUzhshzNekCyeQRzMAq_hGwM-5Z5ghvw4Nk693rTgqCv_KbHvPvCXaHnuqYU9wJ9Y-fqf3KnXP9BmH9oVBiFJqSRQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="163" data-original-width="310" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6MkWiITmLb3YmZ--uYqrqSE3Et_sGwj1Ynh8JuXEpX5D_7VqKQzzxZ4xkXwZ8VGB_ThC51GpaMJFH5CDIr5HA3jFjWmKxDCkRHrUzhshzNekCyeQRzMAq_hGwM-5Z5ghvw4Nk693rTgqCv_KbHvPvCXaHnuqYU9wJ9Y-fqf3KnXP9BmH9oVBiFJqSRQ=w320-h218" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(<i><b>Beggar of Love</b></i> by Lee Lynch)</span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: In <i>Beggar of Love</i>, you address how lesbians and gays are told from an early age that they have a different moral compass than people in the larger society.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: You have to create your own family and you have to adapt from established values. We’re different. Back then, there was no marriage and that was part of the reason why a lot of relationships didn’t last that long, not that they definitely last with marriage. That was the culture—you didn’t stay with one person. There was no concept of forever after for me. As I learned, though, there were women together in lifelong relationships.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Learning about lesbians in Greenwich Village did not lead me to any standard heterosexual values.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did you witness any police raids on lesbian bars?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: No, not in the gay bars. The police raided a straight bar in college. I was there with a boy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What college did you go to?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: Don’t ask. [<i>Chuckle.</i>] It was a mediocre college. I never learned a thing there. I thought I was the only lesbian on campus.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Is it true that the legendary poet Adrienne Rich pushed you to write your first novel <i>Toothpick House</i>?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: There were two influences. One was Barbara Grier, who said she would publish my short stories, if I wrote a novel. She thought I was a lesbian John O’Hara, if you know who that is. [<b>Editor’s note: </b>Barbara Grier founded and ran the Naiad Press, a lesbian publishing house, for three decades.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I had sent <b><i>Toothpick House</i></b> as a short story, which was like 42 pages, to <b><i>Sinister Wisdom</i></b>. They had already published “Oranges Out of Season.” Then Adrienne wrote back that it was too long for them, but I might have a germ of a novel.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: I hope you have that letter somewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: If I do, it is at the University of Oregon.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiTeQUmNA9Anv5_5uHVWU2e1GeRC2AHd9x6qJtG1PSBEwUT51DI25OVVrrECPqBH6_rP5uRa_rEHOe_UZJC-vArSPcnSsMoalVUqLBFgFD3P49qUcwfjwByiDYjOBWm9jM1CMvCVOmzG23K0ffluCUT7FcNYFFHmhCYpGFhbgo2obRKaBaNvwQTSxlLg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="201" data-original-width="251" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiTeQUmNA9Anv5_5uHVWU2e1GeRC2AHd9x6qJtG1PSBEwUT51DI25OVVrrECPqBH6_rP5uRa_rEHOe_UZJC-vArSPcnSsMoalVUqLBFgFD3P49qUcwfjwByiDYjOBWm9jM1CMvCVOmzG23K0ffluCUT7FcNYFFHmhCYpGFhbgo2obRKaBaNvwQTSxlLg" width="300" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">(The Sea Colony on 8th Avenue, below 14th Street. A famous mob-owned bar, known for its working-class lesbians and their admirers. The bar was immortalized in the writing of Joan Nestle, who went there as a young femme in the late 1950's, through the 1960's. Closed in the late 1960's. The bar took up three storefronts.)</div></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Do you have any memories of the mobsters who ran the bars like the Sea Colony or the Swing Rendezvous?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: My own memories of them is seeing them sitting with their mistresses in the back room at the Sea Colony, watching us dance, seeing us as entertainment. I was just so angry. I probably did more obnoxious things to throw our humanity in their faces.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">There was another bar, The Territory, up in Harlem, that was very much a gangster-owned and operated place. It was like entering something out of Dante’s <b><i>Inferno</i></b>. There was a balcony up top and that was where we would be watched from.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: One Of my favorite parts of <i>The Swashbuckler</i> is Frenchy’s seduction by Pam, a bohemian. Pam is an over-the-top artist, who wears garish colors and wants to seduce Frenchy and give her pleasure. Forgive my stereotypes, but in the early 1960’s, the butch-femme dynamic was very strict, where the butch pays for the femme and takes care of her.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: These are not stereotypes. This is my life. I said at the beginning that I write about history, but it goes on today. I am not strict about it, but I walk on the outside, I open doors. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Pam teaches Frenchy that she can accept pleasure and do the dishes. You wrote some beautiful sex scenes. What interested you in writing about the blurring of butch-femme dynamic?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: Thank you. Gosh, this is so long ago. When you are a lesbian kid or a gay male kid, you are different, you are not loved for yourself. You are loved for what they believe you are. Your parents see you as mini-me’s. The idea that someone can find you desirable, care about you, love you is hard to believe. For a butch kid, it is not a concept that occurred to me, and would not have occurred to Frenchy. I remember coming out with Suzie the first time, I felt loved. That is what I think Pam does for Frenchy, accepting love instead of putting up a wall all the time.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Pam allows Frenchy to relax enough, to recognize and acknowledge her feelings. Butches don’t have feelings.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What kind of jobs were you doing while you were writing?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: The only job I had in New York City was the summer of my senior year, in the subscription department of the <b><i>New Yorker</i></b> magazine. I’ve been a subscriber since I was 17, but I must say <b><i>Vanity Fair</i></b> is doing a good job.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did you ever notice sex workers in the lesbian bars in New York City?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: I was not aware of that. When I was 18, I went off to college in Connecticut. I have not lived in New York since then.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I commuted to the bars from Connecticut for18 years. I was mostly at Bonnie and Clyde’s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhITGfe83Wgy0ulXmlgA0awCjkLYWvEZOatQtGpwUhvwUBnDo0UfgChZ_QcR7m5B--RSvNV7ztH5ffGnlPv3YfsGq9xWsd8NybXxI8uBsBMc2-MnU9o4qFOBfn4t0GR-wpVwTnPoxmEUJUKJT0fEcN7pkUx9xGuec1_2OxUqu8ucSqXfEFm6dVRZxTFTA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="275" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhITGfe83Wgy0ulXmlgA0awCjkLYWvEZOatQtGpwUhvwUBnDo0UfgChZ_QcR7m5B--RSvNV7ztH5ffGnlPv3YfsGq9xWsd8NybXxI8uBsBMc2-MnU9o4qFOBfn4t0GR-wpVwTnPoxmEUJUKJT0fEcN7pkUx9xGuec1_2OxUqu8ucSqXfEFm6dVRZxTFTA" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">(Bonnie and Clyde's, one of the first women-owned lesbian bars in the Village, located on West 3rd Street.)</div></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Bonnie and Clyde’s was a women-owned bar. Was it an improvement over the old, dirty Mob bars?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: It was also a restaurant. I never had the money to eat there. It was another dingy bar, but with smaller tables. I didn’t like it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">Feminism had happened, we heard it was women owned, but I wasn’t trusting that. I felt uncomfortable in some of the same ways. It wasn’t as comfortable as the old gay bars.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What were you doing in Connecticut?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: I was a reporter. I was an obituary writer at a newspaper. Richard Belzer, the actor, taught me how to write obituaries. <b>[Editor’s note: Belzer is famous for cop roles on the shows “Homicide” and “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit”.]</b> I decided to try for my masters. I went back to school and worked at the university and realized that these people couldn’t teach shit in terms of creative writing. I did have one good creative writing teacher at the unnamed university. Paul was a gay man who lived on East 10<sup>th</sup> Street. He was a wonderful teacher. He befriended me and a young man in the class. He walked me through the Village in the night and pointed out the gay men, the hustlers and those kinds of things. He was revealing a portrait of gay life that I would otherwise not have been exposed to.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjfcXDhYVmAi0nybp1zdBAG6AZu-Del6ObVS5kNeXTdN_rHmCf0WRpt0vCLSjQWmqELZPGF9525MaCb1jwURqEfFTPcvxAZMZONNxZ-s2AGbx82ADEh0M44rJ0XRKapoFMCc9MO8jFI8lmRZ7CkoQEGiydGe-wUkZ15-J8Nu8Nre94aeNHzUI8lZ-c19g" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="145" data-original-width="100" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjfcXDhYVmAi0nybp1zdBAG6AZu-Del6ObVS5kNeXTdN_rHmCf0WRpt0vCLSjQWmqELZPGF9525MaCb1jwURqEfFTPcvxAZMZONNxZ-s2AGbx82ADEh0M44rJ0XRKapoFMCc9MO8jFI8lmRZ7CkoQEGiydGe-wUkZ15-J8Nu8Nre94aeNHzUI8lZ-c19g" width="166" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(<i><b>The Ladder: A Lesbian Review</b></i>, where a young Lee Lynch cut her teeth as a writer.)</span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: How old were you when you started writing for <i>The Ladder</i>, one of America’s first lesbian journals?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: You had to be 21 to subscribe. I didn’t want to get them in trouble, so I didn’t subscribe until I was 21. As soon as I subscribed, I started sending them stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: You also were publishing things in <b><i>Sinister Wisdom</i></b>?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: And <b><i>Common Lives, Lesbian Lives</i></b>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: The artist and photographer Tee Corrine was a long-term girlfriend?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: No, she was only four and a half years.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: How did your publishing relationship with Barbara Grier evolve?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: She said, “Write me a novel and I will publish your short stories.” She wanted to publish a novel first. As you know, short stories don’t sell. My first book with them was 1983. Writing <b><i>Toothpick House</i></b> was torture.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: In your novels, you are very adept at writing about class in the lesbian community.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: I am kind of straddling two classes. That makes me more aware than someone who just grew up middle class.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYqpp0-sCO3JtOvCDX1z5oy1-le3AKrwU2_DLwur2_2RXwKzVuPGaSfBTtYPVq8Py6AccmNXYz8V5O712I3KajWCW-ZaWjqgOu4776jzW24y_V6geigEykJfoi0DwmPj4pkbk0KQ5p5XANZFS7oW31Yi0d86C1ewOiZaOI8eqiXH4E5H_X5YHZlrwjuQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="160" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYqpp0-sCO3JtOvCDX1z5oy1-le3AKrwU2_DLwur2_2RXwKzVuPGaSfBTtYPVq8Py6AccmNXYz8V5O712I3KajWCW-ZaWjqgOu4776jzW24y_V6geigEykJfoi0DwmPj4pkbk0KQ5p5XANZFS7oW31Yi0d86C1ewOiZaOI8eqiXH4E5H_X5YHZlrwjuQ" width="160" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(The Rainbow Gap Quartet)</span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: You have written about 20 books and you are presently working on your <i>Rainbow Gap Quartet</i>, about two women lovers living in Central Florida.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: Sounds about right on the 20 books. Some of them are anthologies. <b><i>Rainbow Gap</i></b> is two books, so far.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Will it be a quartet of novels?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: I hope to live that long. It will take place over a 50-year period, maybe 60. One of the points I am trying to make is that gay life hasn’t changed for a lot of people. They write off the Gay Pride marches. They say, “Oh, you shouldn’t do that. That’s dangerous. It’s going to work against us.” They are living their lives basically and coming up against the barriers that gay people face. I am not rewriting Pam and Frenchy over and over. For working-class dykes, many are very resistant to feminism. Some are extremely patriotic, many are veterans. You could be talking to a male logger rather than a working-class lesbian.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">A friend of mine was a [military] nurse, a traditionally female occupation. She is basically my age. She wasn’t out to prove she was tough. She told me about going to the war zone in helicopters, and bringing out the injured. She didn’t sign up for that. That was horrible.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What brought you to Oregon?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: I was in a 13-year relationship and things were not going well. I wanted to save the relationship. She wanted to move somewhere, anywhere. As it happened, Tee Corrine and her lover were at that time living in Sunny Valley, Oregon, which is in southern Oregon.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">We had gone to San Francisco and met up with Barbara Grier and Donna McBride, Ann Bannon and all the literary lights. Tee Corinne invited us to see where they lived. We travelled up to Sunny Valley. Very rural. Because my partner at the time wanted to move, this was a good place because we had friends there. We moved next door, I mean rural next door, to Tee.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Was it a good experience, moving to rural Oregon after being a city woman?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: I miss New York horribly. I collect books about New York, I read the <b><i>New York Times</i></b> and the <b><i>New Yorker</i></b>. I am very nostalgic about New York.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I’d been accepted to Hunter. I could have gone to college in New York. My parents, at the same time, had moved back to New England. I would not have had any structure. I would have become an alcoholic. I don’t have the personality to tough it out. It would have done something to me that was not positive.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Has living in Oregon been conducive to writing?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: One of the reasons for moving out here was the idea that you could work part time because it was cheaper out here and you could write part time. That didn’t happen. A job is a job. They want you to put your all into it. I was still just writing on weekends for a long time.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What kind of work did you do?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: The first job in Oregon was with the State of Oregon as an employment counselor. The second job was working with handicapped preschoolers, and then at a 7-11, where I got fired for being gay. I ran convenience stores in Connecticut for five years. I finally ended up being an employment counselor for injured workers with private companies, helping people find jobs and get training. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">I had one job in Connecticut, a state job, where I could get my work done by noon and could sit in my office and write in a little notebook. That’s how I did a lot of my work.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: How many books did you publish with Naiad?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: It was probably about six books.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What made you move to Florida?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: I was in an almost 13-year relationship in Southern Oregon. We moved over to the coast of Oregon. My girlfriend was wired differently than me. I was single for several years. Out of the blue, I started receiving correspondence from a woman in Florida. It got pretty intense. She was going to the Golden Crown Literary Society in Atlanta, Georgia. She invited me to share a room. She was a straight woman.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: She’s a fan of your writing?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: Yeah, a fan of lesbian writing. She came in though “Xena.” That became a love relationship. She had a very good job. My job was portable. We moved to Florida for what we thought was two years, but it turned out to be five before we could come back.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Is this woman Elaine Mulligan Lynch?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">LL: Yes, she’s my wife. We are legally married. We believe in that.</span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgs7O-ANV2zmUHgmniUzmVvJScstmlHBWwuM2oc8lwXJX2JN178kyJrm4DgVQOULzhKIdow_aOviZzb_gKuvuMVzbMBDPwGT7z91UgNBuvBQp7Z-595rAP9hVFJ_vdRV8xALwAFhq1zU_STBsoX0-HU8xQpSF64A7htytJ6_OCCCppPeQcqa-kl2Kb7lA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="833" data-original-width="1919" height="139" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgs7O-ANV2zmUHgmniUzmVvJScstmlHBWwuM2oc8lwXJX2JN178kyJrm4DgVQOULzhKIdow_aOviZzb_gKuvuMVzbMBDPwGT7z91UgNBuvBQp7Z-595rAP9hVFJ_vdRV8xALwAFhq1zU_STBsoX0-HU8xQpSF64A7htytJ6_OCCCppPeQcqa-kl2Kb7lA" width="320" /></a></div>(A recent picture of Elaine Lynch and Lee Lynch, taken by the novelist Karin Kallmaker)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: You went Irish!</span></b></div></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: Yes! Irish and Catholic, a banker and a golfer from (horrors) New Jersey. She was the last person I would have expected to go for but perfect For me. I’d always been attracted to East Coast Jewish women. When I went to Oregon, there were very few like Frenchy’s Pam. I obviously adapted.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: In a 2014 video interview, you said that you finally achieved major recognition for your novels in your 60’s. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: That’s due to Elaine, with her bringing me to the Golden Crown. I am now visible. It was torture for me, being public, but I met writers like Lori Lake, Karin Kallmaker and KG MacGregor, some old Naiad writers, who had respect for my work and wanted me to get recognition. Now I have lots of awards.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: I was very impressed that your backlist of 20 books is mostly still in print or supported as e-books. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: My publisher is Bold Strokes Books. I’ve been very fortunate that Radclyffe, who founded Bold Strokes, was a fan. She’s been very loyal. I have a book of classic short stories coming this year. It’s called <b><i>Defiant Hearts: Classic Storie</i></b>s by Lee Lynch. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: In earlier interviews, you’ve talked about a fist-to-mouth existence, working to support your writing. With 20 books under your belt, do you find your financial circumstances are more comfortable?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: No, no. It’s worse. [<i>Chuckle</i>.] I am a general fiction writer. There is not a big audience for that, and apparently, for lesbian writing. I live on social security.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">It’s not my publisher’s fault. It is the kind of writing and the audience.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: I just read <i>The Swashbuckler</i> for a second time and got all choked up. Lydia, the young hope for the future, who is basically Frenchy’s stepdaughter, is telling Frenchy, “I think you’ve always had a lot of courage, living like you did when it was so much harder to be a lesbian.” Frenchy, like a veteran of much combat, responds, “If courage is being scared and going ahead anyway. If that’s courage, then I am courageous every day of my life, being afraid to be gay and doing it anyway.” <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: I have a niece 20 years younger than me. When she was young, I was reading to her. She asked what’s courage? I said, “Being scared, but going ahead and doing it anyway.” She and I, as well as my mother, were all diagnosed with a generalized anxiety and panic disorder. That revelation for me was very important and that’s how it got into the book.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Was your mother ever able to read your books?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: Oh god, no. I was terrified she would find out I was gay. Every time I took her to a used bookstore, I cringed in the corner.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: You never came out to your mother?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: She already thought that I was going to Hell because my father didn’t want me baptized. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Was your mother a religious Catholic?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: She dragged me to Mass every once in a while, until I refused to go.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: One of the funniest things you said in your 2014 interview was that your father wanted to send you to a boarding school in Switzerland, but you wanted to stay in the Village with your girlfriend.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">LL: That’s true. I don’t know if he knew what was wrong with me, being gay. Later on, in college they made me go to a therapist, the college did. There was no conversion therapy, as such, but that’s what it was. The college sent me, but my father paid for it. He may have known by that time that I was gay.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;">My father and his sister had gone to prep schools, Northfield Mount Hermon in Massachusetts and another one in New Hampshire. He tried to get me out of the city. Luckily, I failed the math exam.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-56807555888796583862021-02-10T15:06:00.006-08:002021-03-22T07:43:17.071-07:00The Playwright Merril Mushroom on 1950’s Butch Dating Rituals, her play “Bar Dykes,” the Psychedelic 1960’s and Raising Kids in Rural Tennessee <p> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ken2gaz_WRk/X-4O00Nj8uI/AAAAAAAADYs/W1UMx-LctKIc2iZ7hZOCy9BzvmxoykgngCLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="159" data-original-width="150" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ken2gaz_WRk/X-4O00Nj8uI/AAAAAAAADYs/W1UMx-LctKIc2iZ7hZOCy9BzvmxoykgngCLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-1.jpeg" width="226" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">(Portrait of a Young Butch: Merril Mushroom in the 1960's)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><b>By Dylan Foley</b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Merril Mushroom was born in 1941 in Miami Beach, Florida. As a young gay woman, she was lucky to be raised in a city with a vibrant gay and lesbian bar scene. When she was a baby butch in high school, she and two lesbian friends did a one-time male drag performance at the Onyx Room as the Tongueston Trio, doing a lip-sync rendition of “Bad Boy” by the Jive Bombers. That night, the girl Merril adored bought her drinks.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-IX5yvczJsw0/X-4QWgez2hI/AAAAAAAADY4/3dB2vuz9NkMmTl0jIuCbuItXS7dCqJDUQCLcBGAsYHQ/img.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="546" height="316" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-IX5yvczJsw0/X-4QWgez2hI/AAAAAAAADY4/3dB2vuz9NkMmTl0jIuCbuItXS7dCqJDUQCLcBGAsYHQ/w316-h316/img.jpeg" width="316" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">(The Onyx Room, Miami Beach, 1962)</span></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">When she went to the University of Florida in Gainesville in the late 1950’s, Florida was in the grips of the McCarthyite anti-gay Johns Commission, where both professors and college students believed to be gay were interrogated and hounded. Some professors committed suicide. Gay men and lesbians were routinely arrested at gay bars and at gay beaches.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Merril herself was questioned by authorities as a possible lesbian, dodging questions and <i>not </i>naming names. She changed schools to the private University of Miami, to avoid further harassment. Merril married a gay friend Jack, who was a federal civil servant. They moved to Alabama for his job during the height of the Freedom Rides, then to New York City.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Merril started living with a lover in Greenwich Village and patronizing bars like the Sea Colony and Page Three. She taught school at a Harlem elementary school for five years, then worked in progressive special-education programs.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">In the mid-1960’s, Merril and another gay friend John started doing LSD together. John said he wanted to marry her, so she divorced Jack and married John in a 1960’s hippie ceremony on a friend’s property in New Jersey. The resulting film by Francis Lee from the event was narrated by the LSD guru Ram Dass. The couple decided they were going to raise children together.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Merril and John set up a hippie crafts store called Paranoia that was a free food kitchen and <i>de facto</i> community center for teen hippie runaways in the East Village. They also set up a gay hippie psychedelic collective. Researchers for the Neuropsychiatric Institute in Princeton would come interview them about their LSD trips.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">In 1972, Merril and John decided that New York was getting too violent. They adopted their first son Jaime and hit the road in a tricked-out school bus with parquet floors, crushed-velvet curtains and a chemical toilet, looking for an intentional community that would be hospitable to their family. New Mexico was cold in the winter, so they went to the South and eventually settled in rural Tennessee, where they bought a one-hundred acre farm. Merril and Gabby (John’s fairy name) landed in what would eventually become one of the gayest areas in the South. It is now home to several dozen gay and lesbian intentional communities.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Finding decent-paying work in a rural area was hard. Merril did heavy construction, but eventually wound up teaching in the local school system as a special-education teacher for 23 years.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">All the while, Merril was active in the Southern Lesbian Writers Association Conference. In 1982, she wrote the article <b>“<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">How to Engage in Courting Rituals<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><em>1950</em><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">′s Butch Style in the Bar,”</span></b> a comic take on the often strict social codes for butch-femme dating in the New York bars. Soon after, she wrote the play <b>“Bar Dykes,”</b> set in an unnamed 1950’s New York bar, with a wide spectrum of lesbians drinking, cruising, flirting, dating and breaking up.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">In 1984, the venerable gay playwright, director and Caffe Cino veteran Bob Patrick produced <b>“Bar Dykes”</b> in Los Angeles. The play was also produced in Florida in 1992. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">In Tennessee, Merril could not afford magazine subscriptions, but realized that if she wrote for journals, they’d give her free copies. Over 45 years, she has had 100 publications in journals like <b><i>Common Lives, Lesbian Lives</i></b> and <b><i>Sinister Wisdom. </i></b>Recently, she guest edited a six-part series in<b> <i>Sinister </i>Wisdom </b>on a history of Southern lesbian life and culture.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Disaster struck in 2015, when the house she and Gabby built burnt down, destroying her literary archive and such things as her lesbian activism t-shirt collection. Friends rallied around Merril, sending her books and copies of her published articles that Merril had given them, helping to rebuild her archive.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">After the fire, a copy of <b>“Bar Dykes”</b> was located. The artist Faythe Levine and Caroline Paquita, who runs the Pegacorn Press in Brooklyn, NY, republished the play in a gorgeous edition. The play was then performed in 2019 at the Flea Theatre in New York City to rave reviews. Merril has never seen the play performed live.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_1-Vs5Cd6VE/X-4QtGGZvlI/AAAAAAAADZA/zAYJnwIxmYYcsJnZg_fFExBwp4l31WXdwCLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-4.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="201" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_1-Vs5Cd6VE/X-4QtGGZvlI/AAAAAAAADZA/zAYJnwIxmYYcsJnZg_fFExBwp4l31WXdwCLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-4.jpeg" width="192" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;">(Merril Mushroom's "Bar Dykes," redesigned and republished by the Pegacorn Press in 2015)</div></span><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I spoke with Merril by telephone on August 25, 2020, about a life that contained enough adventures for three lifetimes. She lives in rural middle Tennessee in a brick house, and Gabby and three of their five children live across the driveway in another home. Merril was warm and open, discussing the Florida’s anti-gay Lavender Scare, the lesbian bars of 1960’s New York, her Lower East Side psychedelic gay collective and settling in rural Tennessee with her new family. We also talked about the longtail of <b>“Bar Dykes,”</b> and how it can still captivate an audience after 38 years.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> <b>DYLAN FOLEY:</b> I just read your essay “The True Tale of the Tongueston Trio” in the anthology <b><i>Our Happy Hours</i></b><i>. </i>You did your teenage baby dyke performance at the Onyx Room, where you and two friends performed the song “Bad Boy” in male drag.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MERRIL MUSHROOM:</span></b><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> Yeah, I had a DA and a waterfall hairdo. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I was hanging out in the bars in Florida then. They were all Mob bars. There was Billy Lee’s. We also went to the Red Carpet, the Left Bank, the Rendezvous and the Cas-Bar. Martha Ray was a comedian and singer. Charles Pierce was an actor. He did female impersonation. He did a lot of other theater and worked in partnership with Rio Dante at the Onyx Room in Florida.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">There was Jackie Jackson, who had worked the Jewel Box Review. We had the Red Carpet. There was all these big show, gay show people in Miami Beach in the 1950’s, probably from the 1940’s to the 1960’s. They probably all died of old age.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: I read your essay about the Johns Committee.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"></span></p><h2 style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">MM: Charlie Johns. I got out, I left the University of Florida. I went to the University of Miami, where it was safe. It was a very dangerous time because it was against the law to be gay. The police would raid the gay beach that we had. They’d raid the bars and drag people in. The butches and the drag queens had the most difficulty. Not good. [</span>Editor’s note:<span style="font-weight: normal;"> see Merril’s online essay on the John’s Committee and Florida’s 1950’s harassment of lesbians and gays, “</span></span></span><span style="color: #1a1c1e; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Gay Kids and the Johns Committee,” on olderqueervoices.com]</span></span></h2><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did you marry your gay friend Jack for safety?</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: Well, kind of. It was safety, it was for family and for his job. My family knew I was gay. His family did not. He worked for the government and needed a front. People were doing that all the time in Florida. People married for appearance or for citizenship. There were a lot of guys from Cuba who needed a wife.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">We stayed a year in Alabama. It was a very interesting period of time. It was when the Freedom Riders were coming through. I was working with a group of Jewish women who were trying to integrate the library. It was pretty touchy. We saw the bus come through Gadsden on its way to Anniston, Alabama. It got turned over and set on fire.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: When you came to New York, you taught in Harlem?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: I did my best to be a good teacher and my social life was separate from my professional life. I had to be very closeted as a teacher or I’d be fired. After five or six years, I substituted for a year and that was where I became very interested in special education. I went back to graduate school at Bank Street College and I got a degree and teaching job with kids with autism at one of the most wonderful programs I ever worked at in my whole life. It was amazing, a marriage between the New York City public school system and the Association of Mentally Ill Children, which was a private organization that worked with kids with autism and what they called childhood schizophrenia at the time. It was a wonderful job, the class size was small. We had music therapy, art therapists and dance therapists. I had four students who were adolescent and pre-adolescent boys. We were in the Boys Club of New York facility on 10<sup>th</sup> Street there. There were two other classes and they were both taught by gay guys.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: You had a pretty active social life? <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: When I started seeing the woman I was seeing, it was pretty quick after I got to New York. She had a sublet on Jane Street, which was right in back of the Sea Colony. She then got a sublet on Jones Street. That’s where I discovered the Caffé Cino, which was wonderful.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Do you know [the playwright] Bob Patrick? He’s in California. We lived in the same building on First Avenue, between 9<sup>th</sup> and 10<sup>th</sup> Streets. Bill Hayslip lived there. He and others died pretty early in the AIDS epidemic.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: Could you describe the Sea Colony?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: It was terrific. Vinny was at the door, the Mafia bouncer. He took really good care of us. It was small. It was very smoky, because you could smoke inside. The dance room in the back was packed with women. There was a bar in front. The best part of the bars in New York was that they didn’t raid them and take people out of them. The first time I went to a gay bar in New York, the police came and cleared the bar. Nobody got arrested. I was like, “Wow.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-uWo5HsVl4Ww/X-4RVP0CIKI/AAAAAAAADZI/SlQEuWkN5tgwRGEHU-SLYbGuL5SRYs3sQCLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-6.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="201" data-original-width="251" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-uWo5HsVl4Ww/X-4RVP0CIKI/AAAAAAAADZI/SlQEuWkN5tgwRGEHU-SLYbGuL5SRYs3sQCLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-6.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;">(Sea Colony Bar, 8th Avenue, NYC, 1950's)</div></span><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I remember when they started the rationing out the toilet paper. Women were going in together before that and doing things.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I hung out at the Sea Colony and the Washington Square, a downtown, little slummier bar. I went to Kooky’s for an uptown snottier bar. The woman who ran it was some gangster’s girlfriend.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: Kooky, with the big beehive?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: Yes! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did you read Karla Jay’s memoir <i>The Lavender Menace</i>? She writes some funny things about Kooky’s.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: I used to have a Lavender Menace t-shirt, then my house burned down five years ago. Everything burned up, including my t-shirt collection, records, books, artwork. It all turned out well in the long run and things worked out as beautifully as they possibly could. I’m grateful.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-50f3-N_Mgqk/X-4R5zhloNI/AAAAAAAADZQ/WU1rokgLEuoht5juN7-jAS75--gESOsEQCLcBGAsYHQ/images-3.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="196" data-original-width="196" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-50f3-N_Mgqk/X-4R5zhloNI/AAAAAAAADZQ/WU1rokgLEuoht5juN7-jAS75--gESOsEQCLcBGAsYHQ/images-3.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">(Lavender menace t-shirt)</div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: How did you accumulate information on the 1950’s butch courting rituals?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: I went to the bars. That was how we behaved there. We used to tease each other. We used to kid around, like with the cigarettes and shooting them [out of the pack] so many inches. We did the roles and the butch rituals. We would practice our postures and behaviors and criticize each other. There was a lot of theater about it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: Every butch seems to have a different style. How did the Merril Mushroom of 1962 develop her style?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: Guilt by association, I guess. You hang out with people and you do what they do. You act the way they act, just like anybody does with the group that they are part of.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-FOD5ZQfgCNQ/X-4SZYfrlzI/AAAAAAAADZc/NTNlt16spLw_Xd_9izMl9IaHVkUJPHHZACLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-3.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="299" height="180" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-FOD5ZQfgCNQ/X-4SZYfrlzI/AAAAAAAADZc/NTNlt16spLw_Xd_9izMl9IaHVkUJPHHZACLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-3.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />(Scenes from the 2019 production of "Bar Dykes")</span></div><br /><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: In your memory, do any of the women of the Sea Colony stand out?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: Everyone, I wanted to sleep with everyone one of them. They were beautiful, wonderful women. One of the things I observed was in “Bar Dykes” when Rusty says, “Does anyone here want to dance?” That was my friend Vicki and Little Lynn. Vicki went over to the table and had an eye on Little Lynn. Vicki said, “Does anyone here want to dance?” Little Lynn said, “What do you mean ‘anyone’?” Through the decades, I kept that image and it found its way into the play.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: You used to drink at the bar Page Three?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: I only went to Page Three a few times and I usually went with Joan Nestle, and it was a big thing going into Page Three with Joan because she is so gorgeous.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did you ever encounter bar raids, where the patrons were warned by a flashing red light that a police raid was coming?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: I never got caught in a raid in New York. In Florida, the lights would go on and then the bartender would make everybody stop dancing. That would be before 1962. I came to New York in ’63. I moved up when Jack moved up.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: I read some of your 1960’s biography in the <i>Rebels, Rubyfruit and Rhinestones</i> by James Thomas Sears. It seemed like Jack was a bit of a square.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: Jack was a good Jewish boy, the kind a good Jewish girl would want to bring home to Mama. He was conventional and very square.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Our friend John had moved up to New York. We all knew each other in college. John used to go out for appearances with a girl I was living with. Gabby is John’s fairy name.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Jack came home one day and said very disapprovingly, “I just saw Johnny Harris and he’s fallen in with people who smoke pot. He’s thinking of trying it himself.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I thought, I should call him I called him up and I said, “I’ve heard this and that about you. I’ve been a pothead all my life.” We got together. We got friendly. We had a nice tight group of hippie-friendly queer people. We were all gay, and little by little, people came in who weren’t gay, but that was okay. [<b>Editor’s note: </b>Merril divorced Jack and married John.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I was turned on to LSD and I couldn’t wait to turn on John and my friends. That’s how we ended up in a social-spiritual, everyday kind of relationship. We were talking about leaving the city, this hippy group I was running around with. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">We had a store, Paranoia, where we sold crafts, Gabby, myself and my best friend. We happened on this apartment on 10<sup>th</sup> Street between First and Second Avenues. A fellow we knew was giving it up. We leased it and turned it into a store where we sold handmade crafts made by people in the neighborhood in one of the rooms. We had a free kitchen where people could come by and eat in another room, then we had a Day-Glo carousel room. We had a free-clothing giveaway. It was kind of like a community services center and store at the same time. This was ’67. It was the Flower Summer.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">We worked with the runaways…we told them, “Call your mother, what’s going on and where can we get help?” It was kind of like semi-social work.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">We worked with draft dodgers. We would coach them on how you get out of the draft by saying you were gay. You do it legitimately, even if you are not gay. You don’t go in wearing feathers. Say you want to see a psychologist. Say you are a homosexual and it will be really bad because you are gay and there would be all these men and all these temptations. They would get a 4-F.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: Could you tell me about getting your first child Jaime? And did you stick to the original plan to adopt five kids total?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: My mother talked me into getting married. We wanted to adopt as single parents, but my mother told me it would be very difficult. If we got legally married, it wouldn’t take anything away from what we believed in life.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">After we did the home study with the agency, the social worker just handed Jaime to us. We didn’t have anything. Not a bottle, not diaper. We adopted four more kids. The kids we had all had mental-health issues. The last two that came to us from foster care were older and took all of our energy away. We didn’t have any juice left for any more kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: You and Gabby eventually went on the road?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: Did you come across my piece on the First International Psychedelic Exposition? That’s why I was telling you about Paranoia…this fellow wanted to put on the First international Psychedelic Exposition. He got the Forest Hills Country Club to support it. He got all these arts-and-crafts people and storeowners from the East Village to set up a “hippie village” for the tourists to come and gawk at and buy our products. We camped out the whole week at the country club. We had rooms and spaces, and we set up whatever psychedelic spaces we wanted to set up for a tourist attraction. People would come through, go through the stores. At 5 o’clock, we would close down and have communal meals, campfires and use the sauna and have a hippie community. It was a lot of fun.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">We got to talking behind whatever substances we were using, how the city was getting ugly and how “hippie” was becoming a fashion and not a statement anymore. What was the expression? We used to be a movement, now we are a market. People were talking about going to the country and building a community in the country, an intentional community and buying land. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">It sounded very appealing. We knew some people who had moved to the Hog Farm, Hugh Romney/Wavy Gravy’s place. Maybe we would go there.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">When the time came, we bought a school bus from Joey Skaggs. He used to put up installations in Tomkins Square Park. He had this school bus that he’d furnished with parquet wood floors, crushed-velvet curtains, a big water tank, a chemical toilet and an ice box. It was perfect to live in. We bought it from him and went on the road, looking for this pie in the sky, beautiful piece of land to buy. We got to New Mexico and didn’t like it. It was too dry and we didn’t want the hard winters like they have in the area. Albuquerque was too dry. It wasn’t green, it wasn’t beautiful like our eastern areas. We both grew up in Florida. We didn’t want to live in the southeast because we had a black baby. We were remembering the South of the ‘50’s, where we didn’t think that was safe. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">We stopped in Georgia on our way through, and stayed with Julia Penelope (a lesbian linguist whose been dead for five or six years). She was a very prolific writer. She told us that the South had changed. She was a teacher at the University of Georgia at Athens. Now it was the 1970’s. Things were different. Sure enough, they were. When we didn’t like it anywhere else, we were forced back to the southeast. Everything fell into place.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: How did you wind up in the Dowelltown area?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: We went to Knoxville because we knew lesbians there. We figured we’d look into the Smokies and we’d look into the Ozarks, but we’d thought we’d be too isolated there. My cousin had looked around. She was sitting in the living room, reading an old <b><i>Mother Earth Magazine</i></b>. There was a letter in the magazine from someone who lived there [near Dowelltown]. They were “back to the land” people and they were interested in all kinds of things we were interested in. They were inviting people to check out the area. We got together with them over time. One day, she called and said that there was a piece of land for sale. It was almost 100 acres and it was straight up and down. It cost $20,000 and had two houses on it, two old barns, and water—a creek and springs. It was beautiful.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did you work the land and have livestock?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: We had a garden. There was nothing we could farm to make a living. We wanted to raise kids. We had a couple of horses from time to time, but never for very long. We had cats and dogs and kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">The kids practically lived outside. We didn’t have a lot of money, they didn’t have a lot of toys. We didn’t have a TV. The kids made do with what they could pick up off the ground. They were outside all day long. It was wonderful. They loved it and never asked for more.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Gabby worked for a little bit at the state mental hospital as a tech. He got minimum wage and it was 60 miles away. It was costing him as much to go to work as he made.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I made a friend who worked at the TVA [Tennessee Valley Authority]. They were building a nuclear power plant in Tennessee, which was supposed to be the world’s largest nuclear plant. I got a job doing construction work. I worked there for a couple of years in the 1970’s. My god, what a trip. It was mostly Bubbas, boys and hardly any women.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">In Knoxville, I worked at a facility for severely handicapped kids. At the time, the school system was not mandated to take kids with disabilities. I worked there for a while and had a really great program for babies. One was a rubella baby, who was deaf and blind. When I ran out of things to do with him, I called the state school for the blind and they sent me a consultant who came in and gave me some tips on what to do with him. She fell in love with my program. It was full of these little babies and all we did was play all day, but it was focused on development. When she heard I was moving to near Dowelltown, she said there was another rubella baby nearby. Would I do volunteer work? I said “sure.” I worked with the baby, then I started doing construction work. She turned three, so the local school system had to educate her. They were looking for someone to work with her. Meanwhile, I could not get a job in the local school system, even though I was highly credentialed and experienced. I didn’t know the right people. I wasn’t somebody’s daughter or wife. This was a very small town. But the parents of the rubella baby wanted me to work with her. I told them to talk to the special ed director, for I couldn’t get the job otherwise. They did and that was how I got into the local school system.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I ended up doing an integrated preschool program with kids with disabilities, kids without disabilities, kids from different ages, from five months up to six years. There were no regulations. We could do what the parents wanted, do what was right for the kids without the state, who didn’t know what they were doing, breathing down our necks. I taught for 23 years.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: How did your original article on 1950’s butch dating rituals first develop?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: We were talking about it and kind of joking with each other, me and some friends, about what we did. We thought it would make a good story. I was writing for <b><i>Common Lives/Lesbian Lives</i></b> magazine. We didn’t have any money and we couldn’t afford subscriptions to magazines. I found out if I wrote for them, I’d get free copies. So that is what I did. I wrote it up and I got my free copies. I did a lot of writing for <b><i>Common Lives</i></b>. I loved that magazine.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-eIUq_-QyDoU/X-4THWqrumI/AAAAAAAADZo/6pFYaZmaPA4Vz3qE7XB_Ji0_5lIjWffQQCLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-7.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="194" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-eIUq_-QyDoU/X-4THWqrumI/AAAAAAAADZo/6pFYaZmaPA4Vz3qE7XB_Ji0_5lIjWffQQCLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-7.jpeg" width="180" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-LnYgXWB_fOA/X-4TJhowbVI/AAAAAAAADZs/hwNHxsEED1ovFEvXFk6xg6hrd4hLd40AwCLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-8.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-LnYgXWB_fOA/X-4TJhowbVI/AAAAAAAADZs/hwNHxsEED1ovFEvXFk6xg6hrd4hLd40AwCLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-8.jpeg" width="160" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">(Issues of Common Lives/Lesbian Lives)</div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: What inspired you to write up the courting rituals as your play “Bar Dykes”?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: Sometimes we dramatized the story at the Southern Lesbian Writers Association Conference. Somebody would read it, and there would be a butch and a femme and a bartender, who would mime to the reading. Fun.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I don’t remember what motivated me to write a whole play about it. I had written a play called “Quad” when I lived in New York and they did it at the old La Mama.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I was hanging out at the Caffé Cino back then and part of our really tight psychedelic group were theater people folks—Daniel Landau, Denny Leone, friends of Bob Patrick and people that hung out at the Cino and La Mama, who all passed really early. I wanted to give it playwrighting a try again. It would be fun to write plays.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: “Bar Dykes” was performed twice in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s. Most recently, the play was performed in 2019 by the gay and lesbian theatre producing company TOSOS at the Flea Theatre in New York City. Have you ever seen the play performed live?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Es72ruXEypE/X-4TnI1w-SI/AAAAAAAADZ8/FyicRlMuJdcdtlx-C9kkzWsB7rUWYdNhQCLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="213" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Es72ruXEypE/X-4TnI1w-SI/AAAAAAAADZ8/FyicRlMuJdcdtlx-C9kkzWsB7rUWYdNhQCLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-2.jpeg" width="320" /></a></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></b></div><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>(Looking for sex and romance in Merril Mushroom's fictional bar in "Bar Dykes")</b></div></span></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: No, no. I certainly have not. They wanted me to come to New York, but I didn’t want to go to New York, so I didn’t go. I don’t fly. I haven’t flown since Lily Tomlin was in New York, and that was 40 years ago. I don’t like to leave home. I really like where I live, I really like what I do. I’ve been to New York. I’ve lived there. I don’t need to do it again.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: Does the area around Dowelltown have other intentional communities?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: Oh my god, this is one of the biggest queer areas in the universe, where I live now. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">The biggest fairy sanctuary started out in the 1970’s as an anarchist collective and then the anarchists moved off and one of the guys left came out. He wanted more fairies to come. He put out the word, and fairies flocked to the area from all over the world. It’s been established as a wonderful collective since then. They have twice-a-year gathering.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I’d say there are two dozen or more small collective groups, mostly gay, some gay and lesbian. They all identify as queer now.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: As a veteran of the 1950’s, 1960’s butch-femme culture, how would describe gay culture now?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: First, these kids are much younger. Most of them identify as queer. There are lots of trans kids. There are a lot of non-gender specific kids here. Some of the female-type people are beginning to use the word lesbian again. It had become a real “don’t say it” word. “Don’t identify as a lesbian or feminist. That’s poison. That’s femi-Nazi.” Most of the people here do anti-racism work. There are lot of political activists, back-to-the-land environmentalists, and gay/queer activists.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">They don’t use the word gay so much as they used to, but I think it is coming back.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: Your house burned down five years ago. Did you rebuild it?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: The house we built was really too rough for us now that Gabby and I are old. It was great when we were 35, but not so great when we were 75. The people who told me about the land to begin with told me about a house two miles away. This old guy built the place as a family compound. There’s a brick house. Next to the brick house, across the driveway, is a double-wide trailer that has been so built on that it looks like house.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Jaime used to go hunting with the old man who lived in the trailer 40 years ago. We wound up buying both places. Gabby and the boys live in one place and I live by myself in the other place.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: In the fire, you lost your personal papers and writings?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: I lost almost 100 publications. What I have now are things I had given to people who returned them to me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: Do the kids live nearby?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: My daughter lives in Nashville. She’s the only one capable of independent living. The boys are all kind of marginal. They lived with friends for a while, they lived at home. Now they live with Gabby in the trailer. Two live with Gabby and one lives in a camper in the back.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Two months ago, I became a great-grandmother. My grandson has a new baby girl. He isn’t together with the mother, but they are co-parenting. He’s devoted to his daughter and paying support. He’s getting his life together. He’s 23 and wants to be a rapper.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">It is amazing to have my great-granddaughter on my lap. I am really good with babies. I teach her parents how to settle her down, to stop her from crying. I ran programs with babies for years. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: Were the butch rituals you write about a safe way of lesbians identifying each other in the larger society?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: It would probably be an unsafe way of identifying ourselves. The men would say, “You want to be a man? Let’s see if you can fight like a man.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">It was more like a group kind of behavior. “You’re going to be a butch, you are going to act like a butch.” In terms of the butch-femme thing, if you weren’t sure, you could always ask. “Are you butch or are you femme?” Sometimes it is, “I’m a butch, but I’ll be femme for you."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: In your writer statements, you write, “I’m still the butch.”<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: That’s true.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: How has your own dating experience been in Tennessee?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: Really good. I’ve been pretty active. I’d go to Knoxville, Nashville and even Ashville. I’d also go to the Southern Lesbian Writers Association Conference and I’ve been to Ann Arbor for conferences. I dated Mary for 12 or 14 years. She is a revolutionary social worker. She had an affair, so I guess that opened up the relationship. I started dating Carole, who had taught math, then had three kids and came out. She went back to school and became a business professor. We’ve been together for 30 years. Mary would go to conferences around the country people would say to her, “You’re from Tennessee? Do you know Merril and Carole?” This happened like eight times. Mary didn’t like that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Carole wound up teaching at Bowling Green in Huntsville. Mary was there, as well. Their offices were around the corner from each other in the same building. Carole and I wound up having a long-distance relationship.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Carole is 80. She fell a second time, so her kids said she couldn’t live alone. She moved into an assisted-living facility, right before they shut everything down for the pandemic.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: Do you find that there are different dating rituals in the LGBT community in your area?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: You know, I don’t know if I understand them very well. I see trans men going with trans men, trans women going with trans women. I have stopped trying to figure it out, because that’s what they do.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: Are you working on any projects now?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-MvXZcEfc2v8/X-4UjQcldvI/AAAAAAAADaM/6B7PiwxSlY0SJeXzH7wZ7eN65dneqgrWQCLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-11.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="282" data-original-width="179" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-MvXZcEfc2v8/X-4UjQcldvI/AAAAAAAADaM/6B7PiwxSlY0SJeXzH7wZ7eN65dneqgrWQCLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-11.jpeg" width="152" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-NgaFtOIkNF4/X-4U1oEE3uI/AAAAAAAADac/tvWoLxaKAbIPNZef8adG-9aInziqk6kNACLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-12.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="283" data-original-width="178" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-NgaFtOIkNF4/X-4U1oEE3uI/AAAAAAAADac/tvWoLxaKAbIPNZef8adG-9aInziqk6kNACLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown-12.jpeg" width="151" /></a></div><br />(Issues of <i><b>Sinister Wisdom</b></i>. The Landykes issues was edited by Merril)</div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: I do want to tell you what I am doing now. I’ve been working for almost 10 years with a group called the Southern Lesbian Feminist Activist Herstory Project. What it is is a group of us from the writers’ conference were bent out of shape because all the feminist and lesbian feminist herstory that’s available only talks about New York and California as the only places where anything ever happened. And the southeast gets a very bad rap for being racist, with ignorant, helpless women. In fact, there has been a huge amount of political activism and lesbian feminist activism happening from the mid-1960’s to the turn of the century. We have been documenting this activism through interviews and memorabilia, and anything we could possibly find. We’ve amassed a huge amount of information on women who identified as lesbian feminist activists, what they did. All of our material is archived at Duke University, at the Sally Bingham Collection. Our project has done five special issues of <b><i>Sinister Wisdom </i></b>magazine. We have one on herstory, one on landykes, one on culture and the arts. We have one issue on publishing and bookstores. We have one on hotspots and we are about to finish up our sixth issue, which is lesbian spirituality, rituals and politics. We are saying, “Here we are and we’ve been here all along. Look at what Southern lesbian feminist women have done in the South."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">DF: When you were younger, did you read the lesbian novels of Ann Bannon and other writers?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">MM: I had all her books. We all sucked them down. We all did. One of the biggest regrets of my life was when I was living in New York, I was cleaning my apartment out. I had a box with 35 or 40 lesbian paperbacks from the ‘50’s and ‘60’s and I put them out on the street for someone else to take them, if they wanted them. I hope whoever got them truly appreciated them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p>Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-53592935936611662992020-10-15T13:23:00.000-07:002020-10-15T18:06:55.364-07:00 JOAN NESTLE: SIXTY YEARS OF DISSENT AND DESIRE , Interviewed on July 7, 2020. <p><i><b><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Speaking with the amazing lesbian writer of her youth in the outlaw culture of the Sea Colony Bar, in pre-liberation Greenwich Village, her writing, her 60 years of political activism and the lasting legacy of the Lesbian Herstory Archive she co-founded in 1974.</span></b></i></p><p><i><b><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /><br /></span></b></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">By Dylan Foley</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-reijkusxF7w/X4ScFcZ3UPI/AAAAAAAADTk/YO-9228Z1_A2Sp5a5SUiU56Y0w-Y_PCJQCLcBGAsYHQ/joan-australia.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="257" data-original-width="196" height="640" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-reijkusxF7w/X4ScFcZ3UPI/AAAAAAAADTk/YO-9228Z1_A2Sp5a5SUiU56Y0w-Y_PCJQCLcBGAsYHQ/w488-h640/joan-australia.jpeg" width="488" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> (Joan Nestle, at home in Australia)</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Joan Nestle was born in the Bronx in 1940 and was raised there and in Queens by her widowed mother. At the age of 17 in Greenwich Village, she embraced the outlaw culture of the Mob-run and Vice Squad-policed lesbian bar the Sea Colony on 8</span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 10pt; position: relative; top: -6pt;">t</span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 10pt; position: relative; top: -6pt;">h</span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; position: relative; top: -6pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Avenue. She immersed herself in the butch-femme world of the 1950’s as a proud femme, with her glorious mane of dark hair and tight sweaters that showed off her curves. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Nestle went to Queens College in 1958. She later became a writing teacher there for the next 30 years, from 1967 to 1997, teaching students from historically underserved communities and new immigrant young people in the SEEK Program. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Her two classic essay collections are </span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><i><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">A Restricted Country</span></i><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">(1987) and </span><i><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">A</span></i><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><i><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Fragile Union</span></i><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">(1988), where her writing is permeated with history, desire and dissent. Nestle has been a staunch and passionate defender of the butch-femme culture, and has written gorgeous essays on the pre-liberation lesbian life in the Greenwich Village of the 1950’s and 1960’s.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UcpdHt7IUmU/X4ScjwFvk6I/AAAAAAAADTs/Mmzu0FIi4WAWtuuXrU2qZBQEEYBsOqWSQCLcBGAsYHQ/joan-author.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="400" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UcpdHt7IUmU/X4ScjwFvk6I/AAAAAAAADTs/Mmzu0FIi4WAWtuuXrU2qZBQEEYBsOqWSQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h400/joan-author.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>(Joan Nestle, in a 1980's author photo)</b></span></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">In 1974, in her large Upper West Side rent-controlled apartment, Nestle and a small group of lesbian activists founded the Lesbian Herstory Archive, which set out to document, record and archive the history of lesbian life in America. The women collected the lesbian pulp novels of the 1950’s, work boots and a helmet used by a butch steelworker in Buffalo, lesbian newsletters and journals, and pasties used by a lesbian stripper. Volunteers tithed their incomes to keep the archive going. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">With the Archive, Nestle was steadfast about keeping lesbian history complex, avoiding the pitfalls of portraying lesbians as “a model minority” and including infamous artifacts like the files of a Greenwich Village lesbian who spied for the FBI during the 1940’s, whose court testimony destroyed the socially progressive Photo League. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">The Lesbian Herstory Archive eventually outgrew Nestle’s apartment and was moved to a townhouse in Park Slope, Brooklyn in 1992, where it has thrived. The archive takes no government money. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Nestle has edited numerous anthologies, including </span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><i><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">The Best Lesbian Erotica 2000 </span></i><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">and </span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><i><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">The Persistent Desire: The Butch-Femme Reader</span></i><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">(1992), which is out of print and sells for more than $200 online. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1vRmMYrMNww/X4Sc34HOVSI/AAAAAAAADT0/G9QeMhd9sH4zl1nY4JOKBOWOdBQBZDJ3gCLcBGAsYHQ/joan-persitent-1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="284" data-original-width="177" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1vRmMYrMNww/X4Sc34HOVSI/AAAAAAAADT0/G9QeMhd9sH4zl1nY4JOKBOWOdBQBZDJ3gCLcBGAsYHQ/joan-persitent-1.jpeg" width="150" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>(The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader, edited by Joan Nestle)</b></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Nestle has also published numerous scholarly articles, personal essays and erotica. She has also written extensively about Mabel Hampton, a former performer from 1920’s Harlem, and later a housecleaner and janitor, who became a legend and elder in the New York lesbian community. Miss Hampton was a family friend, and Nestle took care of her at the end of her long life. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">In 2001, after successfully surviving colon and breast cancer, Nestle moved to Australia to live with her lover and partner, Diana Otto, a law professor at the University of Melbourne. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Nestle’s 19 years in Australia has not meant retirement. She works with ALGA, the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives; AJDS, the Australian Jewish Democratic Society, co-founded the People’s Performance Project, serves on the board of <i>Sinister Wisdom</i> and still keeps her hand in with LHA. In 2018, she gave a talk, “Reflections on Legacies and Solidarities from the perspective of a 50s Femme: Fragments of Stories, Encounters, Perils and Cries of Possibilities,” at a conference celebrating the 40th anniversary of ALGA. She has written, among other things, about the founding of the LHA, the tortured history of the Occupied Territories in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an American Jew, and about a lesbian publisher in Slovenia who translated </span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><i><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">A Restricted Country</span></i><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">in 2014. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Nestle and I spoke by Skype on July 7, 2020 at her home in Melbourne. Nestle, now 80, was witty and vibrant, discussing her complex youth at the Sea Colony as a young femme lesbian, her years of activism, the founding of the Lesbian Herstory Archive and her writing. It was wonderful to bask in Joan Nestle’s keen intellect for two hours.</span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I had sent Joan Nestle some questions in advance, which provoked some memories. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JOAN NESTLE: </span></b><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I have a lot on my mind. Reading your questions is a way to live in another place for a while. </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DYLAN FOLEY:</span></b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> What inspired you to become a political and social activist?</span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: Actually, it started with the fact that both my mother and my brother had police records, been on parole for separate reasons, for much of my childhood. Their crimes were survival crimes, but I saw myself as an exile from expected domesticities for most of my early life. Always wearing a key around my neck since my mother was at work all day, I was one of the dreaded “lock-key” children that right wingers said were causing the downfall of America. This taught me that prevailing national stories about who was human and who was unwanted were lies. I started working at 13, managing to stay in high school by leaving my mother in the basement apartment in the Bronx and going to live with my Aunt Miriam and Uncle Murray in the new neighborhood of Bayside, Queens in the early 50s. As a child, my mother took me to the Village site of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, where 146 people, mostly young immigrant women, jumped to their deaths or were burned alive after being locked in a burning sweatshop. All of these knowledges led me to both to social and political questioning from the ‘50’s on, and allowed me to enter the doors of the Sea Colony, a public deviant gathering place. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-TPI_5Y4cJJY/X4SdVYs3c0I/AAAAAAAADUA/xvE6GWLFuBgYka-VVnuQoZtwgavZpColwCLcBGAsYHQ/joan-childhood.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="187" data-original-width="270" height="222" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-TPI_5Y4cJJY/X4SdVYs3c0I/AAAAAAAADUA/xvE6GWLFuBgYka-VVnuQoZtwgavZpColwCLcBGAsYHQ/joan-childhood.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>(Joan Nestle, aged 3, in the Bronx, with her mother and brother.)</b></span></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">It was at Queens College, 1958 to 1962, that I joined organized protest movements such as the anti-HUAC (House Un-American Activities</span><span style="color: #1e1e21; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> Committee) movement, the Congress of Racial Equality, which led to freedom ride bus trips to Maryland and protesting the segregated lunch counters in Flushing, Queens. I was involved with SANE, the movement to end nuclear testing and took part in early reproductive rights marches in Manhattan.</span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="color: #1e1e21; font-size: 16pt;"></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">As a closeted queer woman, I marched with civil rights protesters from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965. All this time I was living another life, that of a sexual deviant in the words of the times. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">But in 1971, my world of social justice protesting and my criminalized sexual life came into open tension when flannel-clad lesbians came into Kooky’s, a large lesbian bar on 14th street, shouting and throwing Gay Liberation Front leaflets into the air. I looked up from my drink and found one of the flyers and went to my first gay liberation meeting the next week. But I always carried with me my bar communities that first gave my desire life and their courage to claim a public space. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">My experiences in the complex world of marginal communities, sexual and political, the fear that in the boundless energy of the new days of lesbian liberation, these bar communities were going to be exiled yet again, inspired my own prolific writing on the lesbian community.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Your two essays on the Sea Colony, “The Bathroom Line” and “Esther’s Story” are devastatingly beautiful pieces. How did you finally write them? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: You said to me, you must have more details. Those essays took 20 years to write. The initial experience of entering a risky territory with very little to go on, grew sharper as time went on, not less. There were three themes that structured my time in the Village: desire, dissent and community. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I wrote those two pieces and many more, to say thank you to the women, already well schooled in surviving exile and marginalization, whom I met at the Sea Colony, my Village bar in the late ‘50s and into the ‘60s. I wrote them to preserve the memory of a cultural space, a community of so- called deviants who were the first to claim a public space for us. I was in my late teens, early 20s when this Village bar became central to my life and so the older women I met there had already lived years of policed and yet full lives. “The Bathroom Line” was our nightly ritual of humiliation and yet I saw resistance there and community bonding.</span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> I stood on the line, getting my allotted amount of toilet paper, but I knew all around me people were on the march and soon we would join them, but I would never forget that line and my comrades. I kept this memory deep inside.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">“Esther’s Story” was written because I had to. All around me in the brave new world of lesbian feminism which I celebrated there was also a prevailing narrative that judged my bar communities harshly or forgot about them all together. In the freedom of lesbian feminism, I had the strength to dissent. I wrote this story, to both portray and honor a young femme’s erotic journey, an older butch woman’s gift of touch in the early ‘60s of the East and West Village. I wrote to celebrate our bodies while at the time of actual writing my own body was faltering.</span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I was living on the lower East Side in the early ‘60’s, before it became fashionable, and on the weekends usually around 9 in the evening I would leave on my walk from one part of the Village to the other, a young wanting woman intent on finding her needed touch. </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I see that young woman leaving her tenement apartment with the bathtub in the kitchen on 9th Street, in the East Village. The first thing I ever published was something I wrote that happened when I was on one of those walks. One experience I had on the border between East and West Village stands as a metaphor for that time. Going down a dark side street, cobblestoned, empty street, I saw a large drunken man sprawled in the middle of the road. I knew I should have kept walking, worried about being a young woman alone on this dark street where no respectable girl would be--remember the time--but I thought he will be run over if I leave him there. That voice, “Joan, he’s not safe.” We were comrades of the night. I stopped, went back, walked into the road, telling him he had to move to the sidewalk for his safety. He could not do it and so I put my hands under his shoulders, he was a large heavy man, but somehow I dragged him to the safety of the sidewalk. Only then could I continue on my journey. I thought he was like me, a deviant, living dangerously, and I could not leave him. I think back to that 18-year-old young woman, who knew she would walk streets other women were too frightened to walk on, she would be the unprotected freak but desire and all I was learning about the abuse of power, gave me strength and so did that Village bar I was heading to, where respectable people never ventured. I was a young wanting woman, and my steps from the East Village to the West Village took me from my working-class family, where my widowed mother who might sometimes be called a sex worker, but most times was a bookkeeper. Here I am at 80 remembering that dark night between the two Villages. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">The history of dissent and that was the dissent of the body, as well as political dissent was a gift from my mother. My mother taught me very little of traditional domesticities. But she told me of the greatness of Paul Robeson, a great internationalist and thus considered a traitor by the McCarthy ‘50’s. One of the first things she did was take me to the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire where she recreated the terrors of the entrapped women workers and the resulting birth of the garment unions. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Now to accommodate your desire for details to bring the queer Village alive, my queer Village. When you ask about the Mob, the hardness of the Mob, we often felt, the old timers at the Sea Colony, an affection for Bruno, the Mob representative, if you want to call him that. Bruno stood at a high table and vetted everyone who came in. He did have a special relationship with the police, because the police were paid off every weekend. We saw that. The Vice Squad was more of the intrusion. In an ironic way, the organized criminals who ran the bars gave us protection from the organized terrorists of the government, the Vice Squad and the police. Often it was Bruno who offered aid both financial and in terms of jobs to women in the bars. Again, a complex moment in the night life of the Village. Criminals all we were. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">How did I find the Sea Colony? I’ll tell you. I used to walk the streets of the Village. Before I moved out on my own when I was still in high school, I knew I was queer, and somehow even then I knew I had to get to the Village to find others like myself. That subway ride into Sheridan Square was a rite of passage.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I was already having sex with a friend. I made love with Roz, the kosher butcher’s daughter, in high school in Queens. That was going on since I was 14 or 15. I also had a crush on a girl a year younger than I when I was working at my uncle’s five and dime. He was the manager of a Bayside, Queens store. Her name was Sheila. Maybe I was 15, maybe it was 1955. On our breaks, we’d sit on the bench facing the parking lot and I would lay with my head in her lap and one time she looked down at me and said, “You know, Joan, I don’t think you will ever marry.” </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">In Washington Square, there was this really hot scene of interracial romances. Sheila had a boyfriend and she wanted me to go down with her, to keep her company. While we were walking in the night streets, I can remember this clearly, at this time, the Village was a place of danger for me. Danger and revolution. She said, “You know, Joan, my boyfriend said, I’m the kind of girl that lesbians really like.” So I froze. I shoved her into a plate glass window on 6th Avenue. I was so frightened by that revelation. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I went to the Village alone, as I often did. I was looking for a sign. The Village was such an important place, because it was a designated queer place...I used the word “queer” as an old queer. I’m looking for butches because that’s what I can recognize and that was my desire. It was a style and you could recognize it. This searching was a rite of passage. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">On 6th Avenue, there was a place called Tam Tams. Do you know Earnest Hemingway’s “A Clean Well-Lighted Place”? Tam Tams wasn’t a bar. No alcohol, just donuts, tea, coffee but they didn’t check for age identification either. And so early on weekend nights, a lot of young butches--we didn’t call ourselves lesbians, butches and femmes were the names of how we lived-- There was a full-length mirror when you came in, right on 6th Avenue and the young ones would be combing their DA’s.[</span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Editor’s note:</span></b><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">A DA was a pompadour popular in the 1950’s, and DA stands for “duck’s ass.”] This dreary little Village bare-bones joint was a launching pad of young desire. I think now how much of our lives were lived in public, this so-called secret history of queers. [<b>Joan notes:</b> Please see my essay on the Women’s House of Detention on OutHistory website for more of this and perhaps even more important for a fuller sense of the Village communities.] </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I went into Tam Tams the first time by myself, 1957. Sitting down with my cup of coffee, I saw what I then thought of as an older woman—she was probably in her middle twenties, early thirties—sitting across from me. It was a two-aisle place, very bare tables and bad coffee. She looks across at me. It’s around 8 o’clock at night. She says, “Have you been to the Colony? How are things there now?” She recognized me as a queer. I’d never had that before. It was the opening of a door to me, a place. This is how I learned about the Sea Colony. Through an oral tradition, rich in the air of the Village. Finding whatever bravado I could, I said, “Things are slow,” giving the impression that I’d been there already. I’m trying to think how I found its exact location. I must have looked it up. Did I follow her?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> Because I was a working woman, I was working since I was13, I didn’t want to endanger my job. I would go to the Sea Colony on Friday night, Saturday night. I’d wake up with a lover somewhere in Coney Island, or we’d stay up all night and a rowdy group of us would go down the street for a big breakfast. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I wrote about these things because women weren’t writing about these kinds of desire. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-8DAmdOKUkws/X4SfgFQJe2I/AAAAAAAADUM/mv1oLDM1fc4blvmQBGYDDqzNBVp0P-fOgCLcBGAsYHQ/seacolony.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="201" data-original-width="251" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-8DAmdOKUkws/X4SfgFQJe2I/AAAAAAAADUM/mv1oLDM1fc4blvmQBGYDDqzNBVp0P-fOgCLcBGAsYHQ/seacolony.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 16pt;">(The Sea Colony in the 1950's, on 8th Avenue)</b></div></b><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I know you are interested in the bohemian Village and my Village was gritty and surviving but as my lesbian world expanded, I saw the Village that interests you and should. Look into Caffé Cino, which was a wonderful little theater in a back room on Cornelia Street. It was six rows of seats. I was with an older lesbian woman. She was the playwright. I was surrounded by wonders. It was a two-person play on a tiny stage. In one scene, a heterosexual couple are dining on a baby. They were having a dialogue that I could barely follow. My great fear was that the playwright would ask me what I thought of her work. I just spent a lot of time lighting her cigarette. Or the Village Vanguard down the steps. One other memory. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">There was a wonderful little Village Italian restaurant, with red-checkered table clothes and candles in waxed dripped bottles, called Bruno’s--and he welcomed all of us with cheap good food. Almost a stereotype, but it was real. Several decades ago now it was turned into shop selling erotica. The Village could be haven or a very dangerous place because it was known you could find queers there. In fact, in one edition of <i>New York Confidential</i>, Winchell writes, the police were glad for the Village because they knew where the queers were, could keep them under control. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: When did you start college? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: I started going to Queens College right after I graduated from Martin Van Buren High School in 1957. I was living with my mother at the time. My mother was a gambling addict and so often rent would go unpaid and we would be evicted. Sometimes I lived with my aunt and uncle in Bayside, Queens. When I started working at 13, my mother wanted me to quit school and continue working in the basement of Klein’s department store. I could not do this and left my mother to go back to live with Miriam and Murray in Bayside, Queens and thus I was close to Queens College. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Like many working-class kid, I was the first to finish high school in my family and had no idea about college. I was in this fast English class because I was good at English. All the kids around me were making college plans, they were going to Berkeley, to Brandeis. They were middle-class kids. I had no idea. My English teacher then was Mrs. Desser, who said to me, “So Joan, where are you going to college?” I said, “Mrs. Desser, I am not going to college. I can’t afford to, I have to work.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">She put her hand on my shoulder, a very proper straight woman’s hand, with her wedding ring. I was very aware of these things. “Joan, there is a free college right near here, a few minutes from here. I’ll help you.” I had to work the whole time through all of it, but that’s how I went to Queens College. I just found my records. That was a whole education in dissent and queerness, because I was already queer. It was a path. Mrs. Desser lives with gratitude in my heart, the caring weight of her hand on my shoulder gave me a world, the literature that I studied there, the Red Diaper babies that I met and the ensuing political engagement which I have written about. This free university was one of the greatest gifts of my life. On the weekends I would go to the Village and live another life but we were coming into a sense of self at Queens, as well. We had a queer table on the little cafe where all the odd students are their lunch. When I started teaching there in the late ‘60’s, I remember walking under a hand-written message on the stairwell, “Kill the homosexuals.” There I met my SEEK students and colleagues and taught the first course on lesbian and literature taught on the QC campus. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: What year did you move to East 9th Street? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: It was during Queens College. My mother had many boyfriends, one of whom was a boss, who had offices on 16th Street. She was working there. She said “You have to move out and get your own place. I would have been 18. My first place was on East 6th Street. That was an education, as well. My queerness started in the East Village. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Could you describe the first time you went to the Sea Colony? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: I wish. It’s not that easy. I had many, many years before the Sea Colony of deep desire. I was reading the lesbian paperback books like <i>The Sexual Variant</i>, and my dearest friend at Queens when I was a student there was a gay man. We dated and explored. On our first date he took me to the Village to see “Mother Courage,” one of my first Village</span> <span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">cultural experiences. I digress. I wasn’t shocked by what I saw in the bar, but I was frightened that I wouldn’t pass muster. I was frightened of not knowing the erotic rituals. Quite soon, I had a group of friends. When you are in a subculture, you very quickly pick things up. I was trepidatious that I wouldn’t succeed in a place that I wanted desperately to belong. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">When I read your questions, I remember these were really hard times. It was romantic, too. We are talking about a period of time when we had a country filled with hatreds of all kinds. The streets of the Village were the most integral place for queer people to be, that was where they were known to be, so that was where the people who wanted to beat us up went. That was where the people who followed us in their cars knew exactly where to find us, as did the police. It was the Vice Squad, it was the deviant watchers. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">The Sea Colony wasn’t smokey. The windows were blacked out, so you couldn’t look in. Bruno stood at his desk. You went into a narrow room. That’s where the bar was. There were t</span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">wo rooms. The bar with a long mirror, maybe 7 or 8 barstools with Maria from Barcelona behind the bar. Here old timers sat, like Esther. Facing the bar was a raised platform with more formal tables and chairs. These were reserved for friends of Bruno’s who came in to observe the queers. We never interacted with them. Forgot they were there. They were a paying audience to see the freaks. I didn’t sit at the bar, because where I was headed was to the backroom. And the straight onlookers never came through the little door that opened to our haven.</span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">To the left, behind the bar, was the bathroom where the bathroom line was that I’ve written about. On the right side was the door to the world that I wanted, the world of butch-femme women, dancing, flirting fighting sometimes. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">This was our outlaw world. The big feature was the red bulb. This has been written about. We weren’t allowed to dance. It was against the law in America for same sex couples to dance together. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">On Friday nights, late in the night, the red light would start flashing. That was a symbol that the cops were coming to get paid. That was the signal for us to sit down and to steel ourselves. There was always the possibility of something bad happening and it happened. The cop would come in and make cracks to the women sitting there. He was always carrying a huge wad of money. We could clearly see the payoff. Sometimes he might flirt with one of the femmes and then maybe her butch girlfriend would rise to the occasion. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">There was verbal violence in the bar, but there would be physical violence outside the bar. The incident I saw was outside the bar. The cop grabbed a butch and pushed her up against the wall. The cop said, “You think you’re a man? Well, I’m gonna check.” He pulled down her pants in front of her girlfriend. There was a group of us standing out there. He just left her like that. He left her like that, and we took her in. The daily violation was the bathroom line, where we had to get our allotment of toilet bathroom paper. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: What did you take from those brutal moments at the Sea Colony? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: I take the awareness that history happens in such places, that class and powerlessness control but that communities find a way to subvert the ordained script. All over America, not just in the Village, queer men and women were finding these places and doing more with them then the society around them ever knew of. We were laying the foundation for another time but we were also creating, loving, refusing to hide. When things were hard, I knew something important as happening. I always saw myself as a writer. You asked me if I had lifelong friendships from the bar. I had lifelong knowledges. Even when I was struggling to get an education, because for me that was the only way that I could get a life. That and work. I was a witness to many things, like the drug scene on the Lower East Side. I really walked a narrow path. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-piu5RB7mbus/X4Sf8Tvo9EI/AAAAAAAADUU/J8oIhO4IU5oDRhKzhKQk2vKkAmYXzpQ2wCLcBGAsYHQ/joan-restricted.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="181" height="400" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-piu5RB7mbus/X4Sf8Tvo9EI/AAAAAAAADUU/J8oIhO4IU5oDRhKzhKQk2vKkAmYXzpQ2wCLcBGAsYHQ/w260-h400/joan-restricted.jpeg" width="260" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(</span><b style="font-size: 16pt;">Joan Nestle's <i>A Restricted Country</i>, 1987</b><span style="font-size: 16pt;">)</span></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">My two books, </span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><i><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">A Restricted Country</span></i><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">and </span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><i><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">A Fragile Union</span></i><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">, were the rawness of my memory. I thought that this was a unique world, particularly for a young woman in the 1950’s. Women have been doing this from the 1930’s and 1940’s, once you get a history of the bars. The Village and places like it which through all kinds of bargains with power allow for illegalities of the body and rebellions of the spirit are essential for now hopes. May I say, real estate prices are a killer of the bohemian. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I was at Kooky’s in 1971 the night the GLF [Gay Liberation Front] women came in. That captured the complexity of lesbian activism. I had already been active in the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement, and protesting the House Un-American Activities Committee. Even when I marched from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, I did it as a closeted queer person. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Kooky was a particularly obnoxious proprietor. One night, she came by and put a pinky in my drink. I was a particularly bad drinker. I didn’t like scotch. I drank 7 and 7s. The music in the bar was laden with the culture we created. There was Johnny Mathis on the jukebox.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Kooky’s was a well-lit place, a large place on 14th Street. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I had a history of resistance. That one night, when these plaid-wearing dykes came in with their flyers, Kooky got really upset. “There’s a meeting, a liberation meeting, you don’t have to be here,” they said. She pushed them out the door. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I am sitting there. I heard this noise. That’s a noise I’d heard in other settings. That’s the noise of protest. That lack of historical reaching out lasted well into the lesbian feminist period. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I said to myself, something’s happening here. I was excited. As soon as they left, I grabbed one of their flyers. I can’t say I went the next week, but I went to their meetings. I do remember that meeting of worlds that happened in Kooky’s. I somehow knew that I was saying goodbye to some place that had been a home. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Some of my life’s work, like </span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><i><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">A Restricted Country</span></i><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">,</span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">was saying thank you to the women I met in the Village bars. I heard of the other bars, but didn’t go to them. The Sea Colony was my bar. There were many of them up and down 8th Street. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-oKKs3sAwqTA/X4Sg0zNWuHI/AAAAAAAADUg/sL4He9E8QEMpEIpc1mOmJrHY31BDn0z2wCLcBGAsYHQ/3e73acde4f9bb2717f6613d4707f243f--vintage-lesbian-butch-style.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="236" height="400" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-oKKs3sAwqTA/X4Sg0zNWuHI/AAAAAAAADUg/sL4He9E8QEMpEIpc1mOmJrHY31BDn0z2wCLcBGAsYHQ/w283-h400/3e73acde4f9bb2717f6613d4707f243f--vintage-lesbian-butch-style.jpg" width="283" /></a></div><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 16pt;">(Butch style, in the 1950's)</b></div></b><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: What were the style of the butches at the Sea Colony? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: Do you know the actor Sal Mineo? If you look at Sal Mineo as a young man, you’ll look at what the butches were wearing. There were styles. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">The Sea Colony was mostly working-class and lower-middle class. There were teachers who would often meet their students there, not by design. That could be a hard time. It often happened because it was such a gathering place. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">There were formal butches who wore suits. There was a whole range of attire. For femmes, there were high femmes and low femmes. They wore dresses, heels and heavy makeup. I was a low femme, wearing tight sweaters. This is so funny. My goal was to seduce. I am a great fan of seduction. The challenge was to seduce. I wasn’t a beautiful woman. There were many beautiful women at the bar. It was a foray into possibilities. That’s how I will put it. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">At work before I started teaching, in my office jobs, I called my girlfriends “he” when I spoke to them on the phone, I had to pass as a straight unsexual young woman which perplexed many bosses. My sexuality was saved for the weekend, to the community that I looked to be desired in. It all gets more complicated. It doesn’t get any simpler. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: I was told by the novelist Ann Bannon that at the Bagatelle, the butches asked the femmes to dance. Would that be the case at the Sea Colony? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: I never found that, but maybe it was that way for others. Once you went there regularly, you made friends. There is this expression, </span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><i><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">ki ki</span></i><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">or </span><i><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">kai kai</span></i><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">, where butches and femmes exchange roles. “Oh, she’s femme in the bar and she’s butch in the home.” There are all these kinds of things. There were patterns of seduction. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Someone who saw it from the outside might think, “Poor sad women trying to ape heterosexual behavior, blah, blah, blah.” There is a language, a dance and courage. What women like myself were looking for was sexual expertise in the body of another woman, which butch women represented. It was an incredible moment. May I say now, that these details of what we wore, how we interacted, what mores we created, pale for me now in importance to the larger deeper moments of our being, in a hating America we created culture and some lost their lives for it. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">In that bar, gender became something else. The strength and the use of the body only happened in those bars. That’s what drew us there. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: The writer Audre Lorde said she experienced racial tension and outright racism in some of the 1950’s lesbian bars. </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: There was racial tension in all the bars. Again, this is America. At the Sea Colony, I’d say there were five or six African-American women who were regulars at the bar. There were Hispanic women who were regulars. It was predominantly working-class women and some immigrant backgrounds. There were also some daughters of the famous. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">The butches worked at whatever job they could get. They were usually the lowest jobs. Some didn’t work. The femmes could survive because they could pass into the workforce or were sex workers who were an essential part of our working-class bar community. They were partners of women like Esther. [<b>Editor’s note:</b> Esther was the subject of Nestle’s essay “Esther’s Story,” about a woman in her 40’s, who escaped a straight life in Puerto Rico to live in New York as a butch who often passed as a man.] </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">A deep part of the history of the queer Village was the Women’s House of Detention, from 1932 to 1974. Not a bohemian Village but our lives Village. On my walk from East to West along 8th Street from my apartment on 9th Street, I always passed the Women’s House of Detention. That was an education. On hot summer nights, butch lovers and usually butch women of color would stand on the street. Even then, there were such high rates of incarceration. They should yell up. The building had these narrow, slitted windows. You’d see their lovers’ hands waving handkerchiefs. The butch women would yell up in Spanish, “I’m here, I’m here, the children are fine.” There would be this exchange, and it was raw and moving. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Many of the women who entered the Sea Colony wound up in the House of Detention, for shoplifting, for sex work, for any kind of minor infractions they would end up there. I’ve never forgotten their cries—“Mamacita, Mamacita, I am here.” Meanwhile, the life of the Village is swirling around. You have the tourists, you have the more affluent gays, and at the same time, you have the calls of connection of an exiled people.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">At the bar, the prison was often talked about it, lovers excitedly announcing when their girl was being released. This moved me so much; it was called “the Country Club,” that grim irony.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I had a double consciousness. I was hearing things and was taking everything in. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Two things happened with the House of Detention...there was an anti-war demonstration and some of the women were taken to the House of Detention, including Andrea Dworkin. She was an upper-middle-class woman and that prompted outrage. And then embarrassment. This prompted Lindsay to shut down the Women’s House of Detention. The deep Village scene of obvious lesbians calling up to their incarcerated lovers embarrassed the Mayor and now I see it as the beginning of the end for the Village we knew, and the growth of real-estate interests.</span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;">[</span><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Editor’s note:</span></b><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Dworkin was later known as a famous anti-porn feminist. She was a college student at the time she was arrested. All new women prisoners were given an invasive, abusive virginity test.] </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Could you tell me more about the Sea Colony clientele? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: There were working women of all kinds. There were out-of-work women, department store clerks. There were taxi drivers, like Esther. There were students. It was a range of women. It was known as a tough bar. Fights would break out. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I remember one night one of the regulars came in and her face was bloodied. We all gathered around and asked, “What happened?” She had needed to make a telephone call and stopped in a bar, still in the Village but a few blocks from the Sea Colony. She was holding the receiver and a man said, “You’re one of those freaks.” He smashed her in the mouth with the phone. She ran into the Sea Colony for protection. The Sea Colony was a home base, but it wasn’t for the faint hearted. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">When I started doing interviews of older lesbians for the Lesbian Herstory Archive, many of the women were too scared of the Sea Colony. “I heard it was tough. I heard there were fights.” There were whole places for lesbians to gather, more discrete for the professionals who didn’t want to take the risk. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Some lesbian writers, like the semi-closeted playwright Lorraine Hansberry in the 1950’s, were critical of butches when they were prominent in the public eye. </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: She was critical of the butch-femme couple appearing openly on the street making their sexual identity clear to everyone. This is one of the contradictions. Hansberry saw a need for another kind of respectability. Because of the queer identities, the butch-femme couple became instantly visible. I’ve written about what I felt and what I saw. They were the most enraging symbol. Not of heterosexual mimicry, but of heterosexual challenge, saying this could be a world without men, where there could be many genders. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Men saw themselves excluded from this world of eroticism and thus were often enraged at the butch-femme public couple. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">There is a wonderful book called </span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><b><i><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold</span></i></b><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">. It’s an oral history of the butch-femme community in Buffalo, NY. Liz Kennedy, a dear friend, created it. We were all part of the work of the Lesbian Herstory Archive in the 1970’s. This book is a masterpiece. We became dear friends. We were all interested in oral history. Liz’s partner Bobbie is an old-time butch, who worked in the Buffalo steel mills, when they still had steel mills. She gave the archives her hob-nailed boots and her hardhat with the lambda on it, which took great courage to wear. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">The butch-femme bars were so judged by the new generation that was carving out wonderful new territory, but was not able to take in what was behind them. The bar communities opened up public territory, so that everything else could follow through. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: In the Sea Colony once, the long-time bartender Maria saved you from police entrapment. Could you tell me the story? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: Yes, she did. It was the afternoon. There were often undercover policewomen in the bars. I was down in the Village and I seldom went to the Sea Colony during the day. This time I did and it was open. Maybe it was a Saturday during the day. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">This I remember. I was probably sitting at one of those tables in the front room. I could see her sitting at the bar. She was sitting in the wrong kind of way. We had such nuances of self-preservation, to make each other known to each other in the outside world. It looked like a stern code of dress and behavior. It was easily broken once you won the trust of this so policed community. She wasn’t sitting on a bar stool in a way that was right. She was giving off mixed signals. She did not know the language. I went into the bathroom. I was washing my hands and she appeared. It was a very small bathroom and she was standing right behind me. I knew immediately that this was entrapment. We would not have been allowed into the bathroom together, and no one would have gone in. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I ran out, and that’s when Maria said, </span><i><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">“You didn’t touch her?!!” </span></i><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I just laughed. No. She broke all the rules. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">One thing I’ve given my life to is complexing things. These oversimplifications of what women are, and what it was like to be queer women in the 1950’s. Women are like “These things never happened to us,” but they did and they were happening all across America. There was entrapment. It happened in the bathrooms of the Midwest, where there were these major scandals. We were sexually active women sometimes in public places. We lived our own version of a queer life. Sometimes our history is not as complex as it needs to be. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">All of this was embedded in struggle. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">We were criminals. It was different, it was something else. Once, when I was living on 9</span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 10pt; position: relative; top: -6pt;">t</span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 10pt; position: relative; top: -6pt;">h</span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; position: relative; top: -6pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Street, I experienced the height of closeness to greatness. I was walking to 2</span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 10pt; position: relative; top: -6pt;">n</span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 10pt; position: relative; top: -6pt;">d</span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; position: relative; top: -6pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Avenue to get my bagel. Who should I see but W.H. Auden, who had a place nearby. There was so much going on in the Lower East Side. [<b>Editor’s note:</b> Auden was an acclaimed British poet, who lived on St. Mark’s Place.]</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">The Bagatelle must have been maybe one class up [chuckle], I think, from the Sea Colony. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Something else...the women I knew were always working. The bar life was a weekend life, but we had work to do. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I had started teaching. I was a very low-paid editor during the day for a technical periodical. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I started teaching at the SEEK Program at Queens College. I was a student, then I taught from 1967 to 1997. At the same time as I am going to the bars, I’m reading for my students. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">You asked me how the Archive came into being. For me, the impetus was exactly the bar community. I felt such a love and a hurt for them. They were thrust aside, judged and oversimplified. The SEEK Program came out of the rebellions in 1964, in all the major cities by Latino, Latina and African-American youths. In preparation for teaching, because I had never taught before, I read a book called </span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><i><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">The Colonizer and the Colonized</span></i><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">. There was the irony that I was going to a bar called the Sea Colony. There was one line that I read for my students, but then I realized I was reading it for myself: “The colonized are condemned to lose their memory.” That became a trope of the rest of my life with the archives. [</span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Editor’s note:</span></b><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">the 1957 book was by the </span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><span style="color: #071433; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">French-Tunisian Jewish author Albert Memmi.] </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #071433; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: The Archive became a way to preserve this memory? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: Yes. The archives continued my love, my need for a public space, I saw the archives as a place of seduction, where the women who had felt denigrated by the homophobic society they were queer in, then later by some lesbian-feminists, could walk through the door and into the embrace of history. It was the look on the faces of these women from the 1940’s and 1950’s, they came and held something in their hand, and would say, “You mean this is history?” They told stories of how they had these paperbacks, these lesbian survival books, which were called trash. So much of what I was doing was the work of dissent. Whether it was the dissent from America of the 1940’s and 1950’s, where I worked against the House Un-American Activities Committee, or the dissent from the prevailing certainties of a new lesbian feminism. The women told stories of how they had these paperbacks and ripped them up.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Everything I’m telling you, I’ve written someplace. On the page is where my memories take form again. There is nothing I held back. They said, “I was riding in a car with a friend and I took a stack of paperbacks and ripped them up, and I could see the pages in the wind behind me.” I have often said, the work of the archives is to turn deprivation into plentitude, to turn shame into history. The Archive was, is, my way of saying “Thank you” to the women who touched me. That is the most basic way I can say it. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: From the beginning, the LHA had an ethnically and racially diverse group of women. </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: Paula Grant has been there since the beginning. Miss Hampton and Georgia Brooks were at the heart of the archives. And dear Arisa. Racism and white centeredness are a continuing concern. New generations of archivists bring their varied worlds to the table. We made sure all our presentations had many faces. White people can always do better at removing themselves from the site of power.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Did the lesbian bars of Greenwich Village become better when they were women owned? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UlP-V36FLh4/X4Sia9pOuOI/AAAAAAAADUs/YmBAJfdtCEErgon0zc8RSmixOqAewN5DwCLcBGAsYHQ/bonnie-and-clyde.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="469" data-original-width="701" height="214" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UlP-V36FLh4/X4Sia9pOuOI/AAAAAAAADUs/YmBAJfdtCEErgon0zc8RSmixOqAewN5DwCLcBGAsYHQ/bonnie-and-clyde.png" width="320" /></a></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">(Bonnie and Clyde's West 10th Street, 1968-72)</span></b></b></div><b><br /></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: It was a different experience. It was a better experience for younger women because they weren’t so frightened. I remember Bonnie and Clyde’s. Bonnie and Clyde’s served spaghetti on Sunday. The big joke was that we’ve come into this new world and we have consciousness-raising groups and it’s out of this world the Archive came. We’d sit in the consciousness-raising groups and we said, “We aren’t going to do this, we aren’t going to do that.” As soon as it was over, we went to Bonnie and Clyde’s and broke every rule we laid down. There was a dialectic between a self-conscious explanation of lesbian feminism and the enactment of seductions. There was a wonderful interrogation of each other. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">The new bars were different. At that time, I also became active in gay liberation at the Wooster Street Firehouse. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">There is no doubt that in traditional terms, the new bars were healthier. As I’ve often said, it’s like James Baldwin writing about the Old Country, I’m glad I have my history in the Village bars. It’s informed everything I’ve done since. You don’t throw away histories as they layer in your life, not if you are smart. It isn’t about progression, but it is a conversation about what is to be cherished. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">The women I knew, many never made it to the new bars, though there were other women who crossed over into lesbian feminism. They were very different, and the whole world of culture that came with it. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I didn’t publish anything as a writer until 1980. Lesbian feminism gave me the way to say thank you to my butch-femme community. It gave me new life and force. I needed both of them. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: At the Sea Colony, what did you used to wear? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: I favored tight sweaters. I was trying to be sexy. I am not a small woman. You take on all this self consciousness. I wore lipstick. I still wear lipstick. I did myself up the best I could. But mostly, I was very good in bed. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I never felt beautiful...women honored me with their touch. It was in their arms that I felt loved and cared for.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Could you tell me about Esther, your short-term butch lover, a cab driver who often passed as a man? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: We were both aware that we were from very different worlds. I was this young woman, trying to stay in college. It was almost as if we couldn’t believe we were in each other’s company, let alone each other’s arms. I want to complex this. I wrote these stories in the 1980’s, when there were already these prevailing, self-convincing attitudes towards butch women, towards femme women, towards sex workers. I wrote another piece about Esther in </span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><i><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">A Fragile Union</span></i><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">, where I questioned much from the perspective of the transgender moment. In <i>A Restricted Country</i>. what I was trying to do with Esther was rush with her life under a closing gate, to get her into history before the gates of judgement crashed down. In doing that, I oversimplified. When re-envisioning that story, I wrote “I do not know if Esther wanted to be a man.” I read her in a new way. It’s just the complexity of living, aware of the histories flowing around you. The Archive was my way of saying all these stages need to be honored, and none need to be exiled. The one place you can do this is in an archive. I had to fight so that the lesbian sex worker pasties could sit next to the “lesbian menace” t-shirt. I found a place where all the knowledges my life had given me could live. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_TzTR1sHs00/X4SkGMLC0zI/AAAAAAAADU4/f-F9H6pQKosmeJdITjHJZ77D5S6hgMa_QCLcBGAsYHQ/LHA.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="179" data-original-width="282" height="203" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_TzTR1sHs00/X4SkGMLC0zI/AAAAAAAADU4/f-F9H6pQKosmeJdITjHJZ77D5S6hgMa_QCLcBGAsYHQ/LHA.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>(<b>Lesbian Herstory Archives in 1992, after the opening of its Brooklyn home</b>)<br /><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Were the LHA volunteers disturbed by the raunchier elements of historical donations to the Archive? </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: No, because we had worked out a way to respect each other’s different histories. There was Deborah Edel, who came out into lesbian feminism, and Julia Stanley, who was a lesbian separatist I knew in the bars. It’s amazing we accomplished what we did. We put the project before everything else. There were struggles, but there was respect because the project had to flourish. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Because I was sometimes called a pornographer, I had to quickly make clear my writing was my voice, not the archives.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I have the Village voices behind me. I have those who made their way to the Sea Colony. I went there for the sublime first touch. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Could you tell me the story of the men who would uriniate into the Sea Colony? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: One recurring event at the bar was a symbol of the world outside the bar. in the second room in which we danced and laughed and sometimes fought, there was a mail slot in the unused door. Men who knew lesbians gathered on the other side would aim a stream of urine through the slot. We took it in our stride. I write these words and know what a different world I live in now. Crowded on the weekend, with 50 women in this tiny room. There’d be this stream of urine through the mail slot. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Such a horrible image. </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: It didn’t stop us and we laughed. It was like going to Riis Park, when a father came over and said, “If you don’t stop holding each other, my son is going to come over and beat the shit out of you.” More frightening than a stream of urine. We lived with fear, ignorance, hatred and we loved. When I think about what was happening to Black people at the time--this was America. Maybe this was the world. You go to the Sea Colony because you are pretty tough. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt. I just laughed at it. I thought it was sad. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: In the late 1950’s, you made the decision to go to the Sea Colony, and entered an outlaw culture. </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: Yes, we took care of each other, as best we could.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Violence was all around us. That’s why I started with the story of lugging the huge man out of harm’s way. I still look at the young girl, walking out into the world. They would have locked someone like me up in a minute for being a deviant. I’ll get to my outlaw space in a minute. I am amazed. It comes from living with my mother, the way we did. All of our histories begin in the psyche. I’m an old Freudian, a dirty word. I’m an old Marxist, all of those things. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: When you were a young lesbian, you read the lesbian pulp novels by Ann Bannon and others. Did you enjoy them? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: Yes, I loved all those paperbacks. They are important. They are very important. My own energy in the world is through my words. I coined the term survival literature for them--and Beebo Brinker featured mightily.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-aHzL6AyJzqU/X4SrrIOLXEI/AAAAAAAADVE/-UQmMNzgmN4A3SS9zimLHyTpXQt2T8VNQCLcBGAsYHQ/images-1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="187" data-original-width="129" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-aHzL6AyJzqU/X4SrrIOLXEI/AAAAAAAADVE/-UQmMNzgmN4A3SS9zimLHyTpXQt2T8VNQCLcBGAsYHQ/images-1.jpeg" width="166" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 21.33333396911621px;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>(Beebo Brinker by Ann Bannon, a survival guide for 1950's lesbians)</b> </span></div></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: What were the most thrilling items that came into the LHA at the beginning? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: How we started was by combining our own collections. One of the most important things was Miss Hampton giving the Archives her paperback collection, These were the paperbacks that for so many of us were our first public records of lesbian touch, going back to the 1940’s. Then Deb and I saw a small sign advertising a lesbian library for sale on a telephone pole in Provincetown. It turned out to be the library of the NY Daughter of Bilitis. [<b>Editor’s note</b>: One of the first American lesbian groups.] We raised the money from the community and now it lives as the red dot collection. Just recently the papers of what was once Salsa Soul have come to LHA. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-YGQJq-ffmjs/X4SsdqiqToI/AAAAAAAADVM/HdbrnLRaQtUwMATzDrub0wV_fiLQ8uWqgCLcBGAsYHQ/joan-mabel.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="299" height="180" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-YGQJq-ffmjs/X4SsdqiqToI/AAAAAAAADVM/HdbrnLRaQtUwMATzDrub0wV_fiLQ8uWqgCLcBGAsYHQ/joan-mabel.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(A young Joan Nestle and the lesbian elder </span><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">Mabel</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> Hampton)</span></b></div></span><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">If you go to my Facebook page, you’ll see the first Kessler lecture I gave on Mabel Hampton. [</span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Editor’s note:</span></b><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">this was the First Annual David R. Kessler Lecture in Lesbian and Gay Studies, 1992, at the City of New York, Center for Gay and Lesbian Studies.] You’ll see all the images from Miss Hampton’s collection. There is also a butch-femme slideshow. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: What led you to start interviewing older lesbians for the LHA in 1983? How did you find the performer Buddy Kent? [Editor’s note: Kent was a lesbian who performed as a chorus boy and male drag singer at the Mob-owned Club 181 in the late 1940’s East Village.] </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: My main focus at the archives was finding the butch-femme women who had given me my lesbian life. I had many friends from the old days and every time we presented the archives slide show I pleaded with old-time women to tell me their stories and become part of LHA. One of the older women I knew was Gerry. I had met her in the bar. Another was Sandy. I wanted to put the complexity, the challenges, the victories of their lives into lesbian history. Through these contacts I met Buddy Kent, who carefully let me into her Village apartment and shared her life story with me. A performer, a Village person, a rewriter of what a woman’s life could be. I collected these stories and images into a book called <b><i>The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader</i></b>. Again, this was my way of saying thank you, if asking for attention to be paid. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">The interviews were something I undertook because of the attitudes in the larger lesbian feminist community, as well as to document the fullness of the butch-femme lives. I did it to dissent from a prevailing image. I had to enlarge the conversation. It got back to SAGE [Senior Action in a Gay Environment]. I am not sure how I got to Buddy Kent, but it was the genealogy of butch women I have. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-kHWUPTrbGlw/X4SxpOkYbMI/AAAAAAAADV0/AZe8OeRAKiExqi5SqwjkzIrxi4ADECN9ACLcBGAsYHQ/images-2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="182" data-original-width="277" height="210" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-kHWUPTrbGlw/X4SxpOkYbMI/AAAAAAAADV0/AZe8OeRAKiExqi5SqwjkzIrxi4ADECN9ACLcBGAsYHQ/images-2.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(Buddy Kent in the late 1940's)</span></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: What were some of the first highlights of the LHA collection? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: Some of it was the early international posters that came our way, first editions of books, or when Valerie Taylor, one of the authors of those so-called trash novels, came to the Archive when it was a little thing, holding her original paperbacks and saying, “I am so proud...in apartheid South Africa, they ban me as being revolutionary. Why do they call me trash in my own country?” </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">It was these encounters, with women bringing in their own work, like the first Italian anthology of women’s love poetry, as well as women encountering their own history for the first time. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UUQ3FTPX4mw/X4Sv3YUJm_I/AAAAAAAADVk/Ul2itCIM78812qSsM6yNbwFS3aoXQar1wCLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UUQ3FTPX4mw/X4Sv3YUJm_I/AAAAAAAADVk/Ul2itCIM78812qSsM6yNbwFS3aoXQar1wCLcBGAsYHQ/Unknown.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>(The Upper West Side apartment building that was the first home of the Lesbian Herstory Archive, from 1974 to 1992)</b></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">What are the best parts of the collection? I have my own favorites, like the lesbian stripper contribution of her pasties and the hard hat and hobnail boots [worn by a lesbian steelworker]. Angela Calomaris was an FBI informer in the 1940’s. It was three women...an African-American and two white women, her old friends who showed up with these two boxes. I happened to be at the Archive. I had been to Provincetown for many years, like a lot of women. They said, we have a collection, but you are probably not going to want it. What do you mean? It’s our friend, and they said her name. “Oh, you mean the woman who ran Angel’s Landing in Provincetown?” “Yes, this is about her days as an FBI informant.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I had to sit down and say, “Yes, yes, yes.” This is what we need. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">When we started the Archive, I was very concerned that it not be a “role model” archive. In the feminist ‘70’s, it was “Why need to tell the world how wonderful we are.” The future will call for greater complexities.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">This collection, Angela Calomaris’ files, is one of the most precious we have. [The historian] Lisa Davis has mined it. Lisa is an old good friend, as is her partner. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-idEjrQcCBCo/X4StBRdtUlI/AAAAAAAADVY/qRKow7PhyGgomCwXitq5ntsXhDbS_sOLgCLcBGAsYHQ/515lDCPHD%252BL._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="333" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-idEjrQcCBCo/X4StBRdtUlI/AAAAAAAADVY/qRKow7PhyGgomCwXitq5ntsXhDbS_sOLgCLcBGAsYHQ/515lDCPHD%252BL._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="160" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>(<i>Undercover Girl</i>, Lisa E. Davis' </b></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif;"><b>thrilling biography of a 1940's lesbian spy in Greenwich Village)</b></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">One last thing I want to say is that the archives was and is a grassroots project with all that means. We have grown now for almost 50 years and we owe it all to our supporters, to our communities, we and other grassroot cultural change projects show that there is something beyond the capitalistic world we move in. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Jonathan Ned Katz is one of those grassroots dedicated critical thinkers. It’s an honor that I’ve shared my life with him. [</span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Editor’s note:</span></b><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Katz is an independent historian, who published the groundbreaking </span><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"></span><i><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Gay American History</span></i><span face="Gautami, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">in 1974.] </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">At the LHA, we weren’t academic anythings. Deb Edel, a cofounder of the Archive, is a child psychiatrist. We’d go to the Berkshire Women’s History Conference, with all the leading historians. I won’t mention names, because they are friends, they’d look askance at us and say, “Who is the professional historian?” We did this work because of our passion. Many of us worked full time and then worked at the Archive. We tithed our salaries. That’s how the Archive existed for the first 20 years. The grassroots story is part of it. Like Jonathan, Judith Schwarz who worked as a records keeper but was a grassroot historian who wrote the study of the Heterodoxy Group, which met in the Village in the 20s and 30s, joined us in the late 70s and transformed lesbian, American history. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Vq_t_VPmxPw/X4Swy_59kxI/AAAAAAAADVs/pdXH-Xbgd-M4yhy_tlp4sWYb-fe9d3ISwCLcBGAsYHQ/joan-diana.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="320" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Vq_t_VPmxPw/X4Swy_59kxI/AAAAAAAADVs/pdXH-Xbgd-M4yhy_tlp4sWYb-fe9d3ISwCLcBGAsYHQ/joan-diana.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Joan Nestle and her lover and partner Diana Otto (far right), with </span><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">friends</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> in Australia.</span></span><br /><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: When did you move to Australia? </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">JN: 2001. I started my relationship with Australia and Di in 1998. I was made an honorary fellow to help graduate students at the University of Melbourne. I don’t get paid for it, but I get a visa, a six-month visa. And now 20 years later we still make our way together, the hennaed-haired Australian and me, a round old lady from the Bronx. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT, serif; font-size: 16pt;">I thank you for finding my words and for finding me, because I am 23,000 miles from you. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-29744884067499482412020-07-31T07:11:00.002-07:002020-07-31T10:26:50.382-07:00Ann Bannon on Beebo Brinker and her career writing Lesbian Pulp Novels in the 1950’s and ‘60’s, May 22, 2020<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NuJC4PmCyU8/XyRTd6PtPMI/AAAAAAAADR0/axNzWeJqT6MqgGFRy_LKYsUHnc7U6ZKkQCLcBGAsYHQ/s238/170px-Ann_Bannon_in_1955.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="238" data-original-width="170" height="583" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NuJC4PmCyU8/XyRTd6PtPMI/AAAAAAAADR0/axNzWeJqT6MqgGFRy_LKYsUHnc7U6ZKkQCLcBGAsYHQ/w416-h583/170px-Ann_Bannon_in_1955.jpg" width="416" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">(Ann Bannon in the 1955)</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">--Interview by Dylan Foley</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In the mid-1950’s, a Philadelphia housewife named Ann Bannon walked nervously into a local pharmacy. She went to the rack of pulp novels and pulled out a stack of books, some detective novels, and the forbidden fruit, a novel called <b>Spring Fire</b> by Vin Packer, which was a college romance between <i>two women</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Bannon devoured <b><i>Spring Fire</i></b> and realized she might be able to write an erotic pulp novel of her own. After she finished writing her novel, she wrote Vin Packer, whose real name is Marijane Meaker, asking her for advice. Intrigued by Bannon’s letter and her manuscript, Meaker invited her to Greenwich Village.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">After Bannon finally convinced her reluctant husband to let her go to New York, Bannon gave her manuscript to Dick Carroll, the editor of Gold Medal Books, which was hungry to publish more lesbian pulp novels. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">This was 1956. Meaker took Bannon on a tour of Greenwich Village, showing her the lesbian bars and taking her to the Bagatelle, the most popular lesbian bar in the Village. Meaker initiated Bannon into the Village gay culture, guiding her through the butch/femme dynamic, and the language and dress used by gay women in the 1950’s. Though no romance occurred on this trip, it allowed Bannon to explore her own sexuality.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">At the end of her visit, Dick Carroll gave Bannon her manuscript, told her to cut it down and to put the erotic and romantic relationship between the college girls front and center. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Bannon’s resulting 1957 pulp novel <b><i>Odd Girl Out</i></b> was a bestseller, giving Bannon $30,000 in royalties, which would be worth $279,000 in 2020 dollars.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-01q449YmT-w/XyQfvmAa9iI/AAAAAAAADQU/Aq2u-pj2QBIlxPs2akU1H4bW9GckqP_KgCLcBGAsYHQ/s277/OddGirlOutjpeg.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="182" height="433" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-01q449YmT-w/XyQfvmAa9iI/AAAAAAAADQU/Aq2u-pj2QBIlxPs2akU1H4bW9GckqP_KgCLcBGAsYHQ/w285-h433/OddGirlOutjpeg.jpeg" width="285" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(Odd Girl Out by Ann Bannon, 1957)</span></div></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Bannon (which is a pseudonym) made numerous research trips to Greenwich Village, even after she and her husband moved to California and had two daughters. Bannon finally developed her most striking hero, Beebo Brinker, who Bannon has referred to as a “butch buccaneer,” a fearless, capable young lesbian who is the romantic object desire of other lesbians in the Village.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Bannon was born in 1932 and raised in Illinois. She went to college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and lived in Philadelphia and southern California, finally settling in Sacramento. Photos from the 1950’s show Ann Bannon as a striking, pretty blonde with high cheekbones and a warm smile. Her other books include <b><i>I Am a Woman</i></b>, <b><i>Women in the Shadows, Journey to a Woman(1960</i></b><i>), <b>The Marriage</b>, </i>and <i><b>Beebo Brinker</b>. <b>Journey to a Woman</b> </i>was the most autobiographical novel<i>, </i>where a married woman living in California travels to Greenwich Village to find her lost lover. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zkuyego5XEE/XyRTwYDpr6I/AAAAAAAADR8/BZv9WHefaYQAEgYOihQ6buTp1qgSdtXFwCLcBGAsYHQ/s278/220px-Ann_Bannon_in_1983.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="220" height="435" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zkuyego5XEE/XyRTwYDpr6I/AAAAAAAADR8/BZv9WHefaYQAEgYOihQ6buTp1qgSdtXFwCLcBGAsYHQ/w344-h435/220px-Ann_Bannon_in_1983.jpg" width="344" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(Ann Bannon in 1983)</span></div></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Bannon published her last book <b><i>Beebo Brinker</i></b> in 1962. At that point, Bannon returned to school, to get a teaching credential that would lead to self-sufficiency and the ability to end her unhappy marriage. Bannon wound up getting a masters, then a PhD in linguistics from Stanford. She was a professor and a dean at Cal State Sacramento from 1973 to 1997. Bannon’s marriage ended in 1981.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Though Bannon had stopped writing novels, the publishers did not forget Beebo Brinker. The Arno Press republished four of her novels in 1975, then in 1983, the lesbian-owned Naiad Press republished the novels. Bannon made appearances at packed bookstore readings.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">In 2002, the Cleis Press republished five of the novels in 2002, with new introductions by Bannon. In 2007, two women playwrights—Kate Moira Ryan and Linda S. Chapman—converted the novels into “The Beebo Brinker Chronicles,” a critical off-Broadway hit, which got a rave review in the <b><i>New York Times</i></b>. Efforts to bring the play to TV as a possible miniseries are in the works.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">I spoke with Ann Bannon by telephone at her home in Sacramento, where she was living under California’s “shelter in place” decree.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">At 87, Bannon was a generous and candid interview subject, talking with great wit and introspection about what propelled her to take the plunge in 1956 to visit Greenwich Village and to write her six novels.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DYLAN FOLEY: How are you handling the “shelter in place” order in Sacramento?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">ANN BANNON: My daughters live in the same neighborhood. One of them is having work done on her home, which is a couple of miles down the road, so she is staying nearby; the other is living with me for the duration. She’s back in Sacramento again, after nearly 30 years in the Pacific Northwest, which is a joy for all of us. So I have company. It is the first time we have been in hailing distance of each other for a long time.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: There is such warmth in your personal writing, when you describe your research in Greenwich Village in the 1950’s.</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: I am glad that the writing comes across as warm. I remember these years with a kind of affection, difficult as they were.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: To start from the beginning, there is a great description of you buying your first lesbian pulp novel at a local pharmacy in the 1950’s. It was Vin Packer’s <i>Spring Fire</i>. What was the back story? </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: I had developed an interest when I was still in college and it was very difficult to find any literature on the gay community. I don’t think you could have described more than half a dozen places in the country that had a gay community. It was so loosely organized and so cautious and hidden. When you wanted information, you went to the library. You couldn’t go anywhere else. You couldn’t go to the family doctor…he could call your parents. You couldn’t go to a counselor at school. They would call the family doctor. Your minister? Disaster! To whom would you turn? What authority figure could be counted on to be discreet? You went to the library and had to be admitted to the books [stacks] that were sequestered from the general population. It was too scary to let ordinary people read the medical books, which in any case were terribly distorted. It was an era when gay people were regarded as ill. Not only that, but homosexuality was viewed as contagious.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">When I was in college, I tried getting a professor to let me into the cage where the sequestered books were. I did get in, but there was almost nothing there. All of a sudden, a year or two after I graduated, the number of venues expanded, the newsstands, the drugstores, the train stations, the airports, wherever little books were sold to keep travelers intrigued to pass the time. It began to be a new genre. The science fiction stories, the cops and robbers, the cowboys, and a few gay books.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">I was already interested, so I picked up a few. It was embarrassing to do that. It was a kind of contaminated topic. You were revealing yourself, whether you meant to or not, just by choosing. I decided to put one of these gay books between some innocuous detective stories or whatever you might be using to dissemble. Doing it that way, it might not be embarrassing if the clerk knew your parents. I was an adult by this time. I was married.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">One of the books I picked up was a college story. I was so young. I thought of myself as sophisticated because I had a college degree. I didn’t really have knowledge of the world that would allow me to think that way.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">I really couldn’t have written about much else except my own experience, which was the college world.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The book I bought was <b><i>Spring Fire</i></b> by Marijane Meaker. That kicked it off. It was a disorienting experience, I guess, scary and difficult. But that book was a goldmine.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AOVOTu-yka8/XyQg0ezPkcI/AAAAAAAADQc/5FNM9KOP7Ao4iSs_dV8W3OONVURQ37q0ACLcBGAsYHQ/s295/SpringFire.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="295" data-original-width="171" height="576" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AOVOTu-yka8/XyQg0ezPkcI/AAAAAAAADQc/5FNM9KOP7Ao4iSs_dV8W3OONVURQ37q0ACLcBGAsYHQ/w335-h576/SpringFire.jpeg" width="335" /></a></div><font face=""><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> (</span><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">Spring</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> Fire byVin Packer, AKA </span><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">Marijane</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> Meaker)</span></div></font><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: You had this “Eureka” moment, where you realized that you were a good writer and could write a similar book.</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: I finished her book and I was full of energy. Marijane’s book was very well written. She is a very different writer than I am, very practical and straightforward, with a great deal less emotional color in her writing. The end of the book was dreadful, where she had disasters visited on the two women who were at the center of the story. That was dictated by the morality cops in Congress. The paperbacks were allowed to be distributed, but only in the way that magazines were distributed, which means they were delivered in big trucks and given to the drugstore clerks to distribute on the shelves. They couldn’t be anything that could lead you astray. They were difficult books to handle.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Marijane was very lucky to get into print when she did—although her drive and talent would have gotten her there soon. She made it in because a hardcover book had been recently brought out as a paperback by Gold Medal Books. To everyone’s astonishment, it sold very well. It was called <b><i>Women’s Barracks</i></b> by Tereska Torres. Tereska always swore up and down that she had no interest in women and had no idea why her book had such a wide audience. That kind of energized the people at the top of Gold Medal, especially Dick Carroll, the editor. He was interested in bringing out something along those lines.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BOsT9zrBTno/XyQhZR6P_bI/AAAAAAAADQk/w-UHwqdn6jAxpZ6k62x75YnpMsQKxO1awCLcBGAsYHQ/s291/TerreskaTorres.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="291" data-original-width="173" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BOsT9zrBTno/XyQhZR6P_bI/AAAAAAAADQk/w-UHwqdn6jAxpZ6k62x75YnpMsQKxO1awCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/TerreskaTorres.jpeg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(Women's Barracks by Terreska Torres)</span></div></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Marijane, who was a copy editor, I think, at Gold Medal at the time, volunteered, saying I know I can do this. She sat down and wrote <b><i>Spring Fire</i></b>. Dick gave her the title. There was a James Michener book back then called <b><i>The Fires of Spring</i></b>. They were riding on his coattails a bit. [<b>Editor’s note: </b>The writers had no control over titles or covers. The covers invariably showed two women, one possibly sultry and disheveled. Sometimes there was a rumpled bed. Many of the buyers of the lesbian pulp novels were men.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Spring Fire</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> was a huge success. Gold Medal did not have anything to follow it up with, until I wrote to Marijane and said, “I think I can do this, too.” Sticking to the template she had developed, I wrote a college novel. I really couldn’t have branched out much further. I hadn’t been in any of the few gay centers available to me. I looked around. We were in Philadelphia. They were in the poor parts of town. I was a young woman alone, walking around down there. It was frightening. I kind of gave up on that. I thought, Marijane could help me. I took it upon myself to write to her.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Did you couch surf? Did you wind up staying with Marijane Meaker?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: Yes, I did. I wasn’t supposed to. I assured my husband that I would be staying at a women’s hotel. This was reassuring for him. I did have a reservation, but Marijane invited me to spend time with her.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The reason she asked me to come was that I could write. My writing was up to a certain level. At the time, she was inundated with letters from all parts of the country. Shortly thereafter, I was, too, when my first book came out. I was a little dismayed by the weak grip on English syntax and vocabulary that these young writers had. They tried and they had made an effort.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Marijane recognized in me that there might be something there. I also had a manuscript. She was intrigued. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mL3D5QYJAdA/XyQh2xMK36I/AAAAAAAADQs/L1rtrwIEzjQdNaO56U7bV1fvxv164GzsQCLcBGAsYHQ/s300/marijane2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mL3D5QYJAdA/XyQh2xMK36I/AAAAAAAADQs/L1rtrwIEzjQdNaO56U7bV1fvxv164GzsQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/marijane2.jpeg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(Marijane Meaker)</span></div></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">It took me a considerable amount of time to persuade my husband that this was a good thing. We were in Philadelphia. New York was 90 minutes away by train. He yielded, but very unwillingly. He gave me some strange travelers’ checks, which were not American Express. There were no credit cards at that time—at least none issued to women in their own names.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Marijane was very kind, invited me in and showed me around. She gave my manuscript to Dick Carroll, the editor in chief. He said he’d read it right away, probably because he thought there would be a publishable book in it. While he was busy reading it, she was showing me around Greenwich Village.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <b>What was your impression of Greenwich Village?</b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: It was far different from my hometown in Illinois, which had lovely old tree-lined streets, green lawns and big old Victorians. Stepping out of Pennsylvania Station and going down to Greenwich Village, I really was Dorothy in Munchkinland. It didn’t look that way. It was not long after World War II, about a decade. It was slowly recovering from that. It had never been the toniest part of town, but it was bohemian. That’s what made it so much fun. Everyone could afford to live there. If you could afford New York at all, that’s where you went. If you were a college kid, a young artist starting out, an entertainer, all those creative areas, then that’s where you wanted to be. My god, Peter Paul and Mary would be rehearsing. You’d hear the music coming out in the middle of the day. It was a lovely place to be. I was greatly attracted to it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Delightful as it was, it was like sneaking away to the Land of Oz. It was this wonderful place that was encouraging creative work. Everyone was writing a novel, founding a music group or creating art. It was the kind of life you dreamed about, like Paris in the 1920s. So you didn’t want to leave.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: You went to the Bagatelle, located at 86 University Place, at that time the most well-known lesbian bar in the city. Could you describe it?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: Marijane Meaker took me there. It was very well known and had a run of about seven or eight years. It was <i>the</i> place to be. It had a little dance floor and when you turned to the right, there was the bar. There was always a row of men dressed in suits, who were tolerated and referred to as the johns. They hadn’t come to make trouble. They had come there and wanted to watch the girls dance. As far as I know, they behaved themselves pretty well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tms_1fVnOOM/XyQig70PB1I/AAAAAAAADQ0/LtKCU_Yxd1EIZ0OM722YlJELrHHvtsttACLcBGAsYHQ/s649/86-University.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="649" data-original-width="354" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tms_1fVnOOM/XyQig70PB1I/AAAAAAAADQ0/LtKCU_Yxd1EIZ0OM722YlJELrHHvtsttACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/86-University.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(86 University Place, site of the Bagatelle Bar, now a Mexican restaurant)</span></div></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Was there a butch-femme dynamic at the bar?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: That was evident immediately. I was reminded by a remark from a comedian recently. When she came out, she didn’t know anything about this dichotomy between butch and femme. She was challenged: are you butch or femme? “I don’t know, what’s the difference?” Well, you know, the femme does the laundry, does the dishes and takes out the garbage. Without hesitation she said, “I’m a butch!”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">I think the butches were very much modeled on the working-class high school boys of the city in that era, the toughest kids you could dream of. The women did wear jeans in a day where jeans to fit women were not manufactured. You had to buy men’s jeans, but they were being worn by the women, along with lumberjack shirts and big sweaters. The femmes, you could not tell them apart from any college girl. Somehow, that was all we knew. There had to be some distinction. I suppose there was a biological foundation for some of it, but it was dismissed by the second wave of feminism. This was a straightjacket, an emotional and psychological constraint on how women could be and how women could be in their lives. For a long time, people were ashamed to take pleasure in these roles. Now I think they are accepted as part of the range. We learned from Dr. Kinsey that people can be people in a whole lot of different ways, no matter what their sexual orientation is.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">That was the prevailing model on the dance floor and elsewhere in the bar. The femmes didn’t ask the butches to dance as a general rule. It was the butches who would come after them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: For you, was interacting in the lesbian bars like learning a new language?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: Oh, definitely. I clutched Marijane’s coattails. I really didn’t know how to conduct myself. I didn’t even know what the word lesbian meant. She had a much more butch personality, but she presented herself in skirts and high heels.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Years later, I learned that the romance [between Meaker and the novelist Patricia Highsmith] was going on when I was travelling back and forth between New York and was staying with Marijane. I think it only lasted a couple of years with Patricia.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Were you able to come back to New York multiple times?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: Yes, I would say six or eight times, usually for a week or 10 days, sometimes for a couple of weeks. I did have other friends, college friends or friends from my hometown living in New York or on Long Island. I had options of places where I could stay. I spent an awful lot of time in the Village. I made friends down there, too.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> DF: Did you visit any bars beside the Bagatelle, like the Sea Colony?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: Yes. The Seven Steps Down, the Sea Colony, Sevilla, Fedora’s. I can’t remember all the names.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Did women at the bars ask you to dance or make romantic overtures at you?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: Yees… there was some of that, and it was kind of thrilling, but I was married and we were planning on children. That’s what everybody did. You had to have a life, you felt like you had to meet the expectations of your family and your parents. One of the awful things about being a gay person in the 1950’s was that the prevailing expectation we all accepted before we knew any better was that your parents had somehow horribly messed up or otherwise you would not be tempted in that direction. If it turned out you were gay, your parents were horrified and guilty.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">It was one of the reasons why people got kicked out of their homes. It was a living reproach to failed parenthood.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><b>DF: When you were in your thrilling first visit to Greenwich Village in 1956, did you think of casting off your marriage and staying? </b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: I did, but could not imagine how to proceed with my life, especially with the prospect of children in the picture.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: In your novels, you write honestly about unsettling issues in the 1950’s lesbian community, like domestic violence, racism and internalized homophobia. There was also street violence against lesbians.</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: As I did spend more time there and learned more. Imagine what it meant to me and how I soaked up everything I could. As I became acquainted with people who were living in the Village and made friendships, I began to realize that I had idealized this a little bit. Despite having a grip on the emotional life, I hadn’t realized how wrong it could go, how competitive the butch women could be, how intense these roles could be, how intense those roles were, that confined you. That was a correct perception.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n6H-AlO6bKU/XyQjV2fBqTI/AAAAAAAADRA/MNbbONByA7kSvxb9_PQ8fi6xtQnNaePEACLcBGAsYHQ/s290/IAMaWoman.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="290" data-original-width="173" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n6H-AlO6bKU/XyQjV2fBqTI/AAAAAAAADRA/MNbbONByA7kSvxb9_PQ8fi6xtQnNaePEACLcBGAsYHQ/s0/IAMaWoman.jpeg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(I Am a Woman by Ann Bannon)</span></div></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">People preyed on those young folks, both the men and the women. You were at risk if you were walking home late at night from a party or a pub. You could be attacked, you could be hurt, lots of bad things could happen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The Mafia were not nice folks. They were in charge of the bars. The cops were in cahoots with the bars, because they got a payback. The whole thing was pretty corrupt. The occasional domestic violence story, that was awful to learn about, but it happened. People don’t live together without the occasional disagreements. No matter how much they love each other, there are going to be times when they are angry with each other. So that came out in strange ways, hurt and violence. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The high school kids would come into town, looking for trouble. They would threaten people and feel tough. Adolescent boys have a great need to feel power.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Do you have any memory of how many copies of your books you sold?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: I am not sure of the numbers, but when <b><i>Odd Girl Out</i></b> was published, that was the bestseller of the bunch. It came out in 1957. It had to be pretty darn good because I made $30,000.[<b>Editor’s note:</b> According to various calculators on Google, $30,000 in 1957 dollars is worth $279,000 in 2020 dollars.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: How much in royalties did you make off each 50-cent copy?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: I think it was about two cents. But they paid you upfront before the royalties would accumulate. You’d get $2500. That would cover the first run. Then, if it was selling well, you’d get two cents a book. [<b>Editor’s note:</b> At five cents a copy for royalties, with Bannon making $30,000 in royalties, it is possible that 600,000 copies were sold.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: You moved to California in the late 1950’s with your husband. Did you have your daughters there and were you able to continue going to Greenwich Village for research on Beebo Brinker and her crew?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: We did it pronto after we got to California. I was still going back to the Village, to visit Marijane and other friends.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">I stayed with some Columbia students on the Upper West Side while finishing <b><i>I Am a Woman</i></b>. I didn’t give up. I continued to visit. In between babies, it got a little complicated. I hated to give it up. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The paperback publishers were selling a lot of books to the movies. I think 30 or 32 movies came from Gold Medal Books, mostly cops and robbers, detective stories. Dick Carroll was out in California for the first two years, sadly in bad health. He had been a writer for films.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Knox Burger succeeded Dick. When the books came out, I got to go over to the Beverly Hills Hotel for lunch when Knox was visiting L.A.. There would be interesting people.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IycSG96EaO0/XyQjms56PCI/AAAAAAAADRI/CwgkWLv-ZNcdxzBSDvUf6p_P4JTJ9RZEwCLcBGAsYHQ/s287/Marriage.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="176" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IycSG96EaO0/XyQjms56PCI/AAAAAAAADRI/CwgkWLv-ZNcdxzBSDvUf6p_P4JTJ9RZEwCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Marriage.jpeg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(The Marriage by Ann Bannon)</span></div></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: What kind of child care allowed you to return to New York?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: It wasn’t ideal and I didn’t like it, but I had kind neighbors and one of them had a sister-in-law, an English lady, who was very sweet, who would stay with them. Finally, my husband would get fed up, as a way of reproaching me for disappearing for a while. He would send them packing and would take care of the kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Your last book <i>Beebo Brinker</i> was published in 1962. What was the reason you stopped writing fiction?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: I had to get back to college. I wanted to get an advanced degree. I wanted to be in a position to support myself. The quickest, easiest path seemed to be a teaching credential. I had a great craving to get back to school. I went to Cal State Sacramento and got the teaching credential. I got a masters degree as close to a linguistics degree as I could, then I realized that I had a stepping stone to a doctorate. I got accepted at Cal Berkeley and Stanford. I went to Stanford. I really loved it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The girls were still in grade school when I got going. Their memories in childhood are of their mother as a scholar.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: The Los Angeles chapter of the Mattachine Society, the national homophile organization, asked you to give a speech in the early 1960’s. Your husband wasn’t pleased. </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: No, he didn’t enjoy that. It was too close to home. It was near where we were living, for I was giving the speech in the Los Angeles area. He worried about that a lot. He worried about seeing our family name on one of my books. I wouldn’t have done that. He was a nice man, he meant well, but he didn’t know how to be anything but a Victorian father, even more than a husband. He was quite a lot older than me and I think it gave him authority. I was to follow his lead. He wanted everything to be storybook perfect. I tried to give him that for a great many years until the kids were out of college. That’s what brought my marriage to an end.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: While doing research on your career, I found the most breathless part was the hundreds of young women from cities and small towns who wrote you in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, saying that your books offered them the hope that they were not alone, that they could live a life outside of a miserable closet, with hope for some kind of happiness.</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: It’s a revelation and a very comforting feeling. It’s hard to believe in this age that young people still grow up, still sequestered enough, not to realize there are others that share their orientation. They are fearful. Often these are kids who have families that are extremely conservative. Many are extremely religious and want their children to follow in their path. A lot of them are in towns where there is little information available to them. It’s not that different from the 1950’s. You can’t go to the library and learn. You can go online, but what you find may be unappealing and frightening. You don’t know what to make of it and you don’t know where to turn in your locality. Maybe you’ve been madly in love with someone in your French class. Maybe you’ll be revealed and reviled in the halls of your school. You leave yourself vulnerable.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">I got all these darling letters, hundreds of them. I discovered that Marijane had been getting them, too. The best-known person is the woman I wrote about before. It was a young woman who was going to kill herself. Her town had a river going through it. She was going to go on the bridge and jump. To steel herself, she stopped in a local drugstore and saw <b><i>Odd Girl Out</i></b>, which had just been published. She realized right away from the front cover and the title that the book might have something to say to her. She grabbed the book. You can read it rather quickly. She just gobbled it up. She sat on a bench and read through it. She said, “I went home and had dinner, instead of jumping off the bridge.” [Ann Bannon chokes up briefly.] I still can’t talk about it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Is that woman the novelist Katherine V. Forrest? [Editor’s note: Forrest herself is a famed lesbian writer, who has written 15 novels and mysteries, written many short stories and edited numerous anthologies. She was 17 or 18 when she read Bannon’s novel.]</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: Yes, she is. (I’m sure I’m garbling her story a bit but you get the gist. Katherine tells it like the master storyteller she is!) Of course, we’ve long since met. She is one of the loveliest, brightest people I’ve ever known. I am overjoyed to have her in my life. She compiled the <b><i>Lesbian Pulp</i></b>book. She’s paying it forward, helping other young women in her turn. I admire her.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: You stopped writing in 1962, but your books have a long tail. Arno Press republished your books in 1975, then the women from Naiad Press found you in 1983 to republish them again. This was the same time you were up for tenure at Cal State Sacramento.</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: My god, I thought they might fire me. It turned out to be a very good experience. I swallowed hard and ‘fessed up in whatever essay I wrote applying for a full professorship.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Out of the woodwork came any number of supporters. The English department where I was housed had half a dozen very supportive faculty, mostly guys. Lavender flags also popped up in the PE department. It was a life affirmation I hadn’t had until that point. I had been a little afraid to republish the books. It turned out that the library already had the Arno Press edition of my books.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">My books kept being published in various forms, the Quality Paperback Book Club copies and now the Naiad Press editions. I think they’ve become history books, to tell the truth.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Women academics have been writing and teaching about your books.</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: Yes, they have, and male professors, too. Many of the theses have been sent to me. They are well written.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Young women today are resistant to the idea that you couldn’t talk about your sexuality back then, that you couldn’t tell your parents, that you couldn’t live your life, that you couldn’t have a partner, much less a marriage partner. Why couldn’t you do that? Why didn’t you just link arms and protest?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">We did, we marched, we did what we could, but it’s the old thing—you can’t fight City Hall. We laid the foundation. We provided a launching pad and a lot of people fell on their swords to make this happen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: For young lesbian readers in the 1950’s, your books often acted as how-to manuals. How were they useful?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: Yes, in several ways. Linguistically, they provided the lexicon. This is how we talked, this is what we were talking about. This is what we were interested in, this is how we were negotiating the world through language.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">There was the role playing. Where it appeared that the butch had all the power in a domestic partnership, it was the femme who had the power in the real world. She could pass, she could go out to work. She could get a job. Butches sometimes simply couldn’t. They were into the role to such a degree, they couldn’t pretend to be womanly or feminine.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">What did you wear? The distinctions were more clear even than between boys and girls in high school. It was so important to claim that territory, to authenticate it in some way. What do I wear, what do I say? It was a presentation of self before that idea came into use. There was something about what you should do when you get to a bar. So few people would have that experience in the bars, they yearned for it, they wanted to know what to do, in case they were ever lucky enough to be in Chicago, New York, New Orleans or San Francisco. Where are the bars, how do I get there? It was pretty much social history in the making.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: There were warnings, too?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: There certainly were dangers. Even in these privileged enclaves, you couldn’t assume you’d be left unmolested. It’s a scary place. You shouldn’t be alone. I walked home late one night in the Village by myself. I was lucky nothing happened.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Your books were not reviewed by the <i>New York Times</i> or any major newspapers. Was flying under the radar a good thing?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: This gave us freedom to write candidly about these matters. It helped that the country was slowly loosening up after World War II. The 1950’s were such a puritanical period, where they wanted women to be in the kitchen and they wanted the men to be manly. It was slowly easing. Even the Gathings Committee in Congress was being disbanded. This was the House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials, commonly known as the Gathings Committee, which was active in 1952 and ’53. Ezekiel Gathings from Arkansas was the chair. The grip they were having on morality was loosening. They were self-appointed moralists and they were going to tell the rest of us how to live our lives and what was acceptable. The big fear was that being gay was so seductive and so interesting that it would entice children. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">We were pushing up against the constraints.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: What was your response to two women playwrights bringing your books to Off-Broadway as “The Beebo Brinker Chronicles” in 2007? You were finally reviewed in the <i>Times</i>!</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ny2mCUFHG6Q/XyQk0QlUXjI/AAAAAAAADRU/gFzO_P4U_gQD64MJUyfGBXuDogLGp3FEACLcBGAsYHQ/s225/BeeboPlay.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ny2mCUFHG6Q/XyQk0QlUXjI/AAAAAAAADRU/gFzO_P4U_gQD64MJUyfGBXuDogLGp3FEACLcBGAsYHQ/s0/BeeboPlay.jpeg" /></a></b></div><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> (Poster for a production of "The Beebo Brinker Chronicles")<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: I was absolutely delighted. Everyone was so kind. I owe Kate Ryan and Linda Chapman so much, and my current producer, Harriet Leve, more than words can say. Harriet has been trying to make a film or a TV series out of <i>Beebo</i> ever since the play came out. It’s been a long, long road, but she is an experienced Broadway producer and film-maker, and she recruited Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner as our executive producers, who still believe in the project. I take heart that at first, nobody wanted “The Sopranos,” either, and it took 10 or 12 years for “Breaking Bad” to get to the screen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--ho6HUMkUEo/XyQlM8ZOg1I/AAAAAAAADRc/ADDHyds5YnkbHD8fSCAgWnDYStojUsfSwCLcBGAsYHQ/s600/Ann-Beebo.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="600" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--ho6HUMkUEo/XyQlM8ZOg1I/AAAAAAAADRc/ADDHyds5YnkbHD8fSCAgWnDYStojUsfSwCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Ann-Beebo.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(Ann Bannon meets with Rhonda J. Soikowski, who played Beebo Brinker in a 2011 Seattle production of "The Beebo Brinker Chronicles")</span></div></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><b>DF: How do you view your most famous creation Beebo Brinker 60 years on? Do you see her, a no-nonsense Village butch, as a sexual ideal?</b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: No, Beebo is not an ideal. She is a child of her time, with serious flaws. But she was just so handsome and so much fun, I couldn’t let go of her.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: I have heard that you attended conventions on pulp paperbacks as a special guest. Was it a good experience for you? What kind of fans did you meet?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">There used to be several paperback shows every year, in Los Angeles, New York, and elsewhere. The one major show still going strong is in Los Angeles/Glendale. They are a lot of fun, and collectors still treasure their special finds. But the appeal of the old paperbacks is fading. People are less aware of their history and the role they played in providing essential information on different lifestyles, from police work, to alternative sexualities, to exploring space, to the Old West. Often, this was information that was not available anywhere else. The cover art continues to appeal to a wide audience, and often draws readers into the stories. Fans who have found the books are often ardent supporters and wait in line to have their copies signed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5OpN4V96SN4/XyQmHUmeiCI/AAAAAAAADRo/BfefFbnBWSkPr3vKB1ta62Qh9Cm7MivNgCLcBGAsYHQ/s600/ann-coversjpg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="600" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5OpN4V96SN4/XyQmHUmeiCI/AAAAAAAADRo/BfefFbnBWSkPr3vKB1ta62Qh9Cm7MivNgCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/ann-coversjpg.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><font face=""><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(</span><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">Ann Bannon</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> with her book covers at the Mazer Archives)</span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: We can’t believe everything on Wikipedia, but your page says that you are working on your memoirs. Is that true?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: No, but it was and I should. I wrote 150 pages and it was just dreck.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">DF: You were divorced in the early 1980’s and finally started the life you wanted, surrounded by close gay and straight friends. You didn’t wind up with a life partner. Why?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">AB: I’m perfectly happy. I’ve got six grandkids. The youngest is 15, the eldest, 31. And I have two wonderful daughters.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">One of my daughters is very conservative. She is attracted to a fundamental version of the Catholic faith. She takes it in a very literal way. Her husband takes his Catholicism in a more intellectual way. She’s very emotional and it’s all about the Virgin Mary. That’s difficult. She wrote the local paper when they interviewed me, that it was a lamentable thing that I had written these books. She disowned that part of my life. But we love each other dearly and get along well. The younger daughter is more on my own wavelength intellectually.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">I’m happy, I’m just fine with the way I am. If I felt a great lack or need, I’d take action. I’m in the latter part of my life, the 4<sup>th</sup> quarter, at the very least. I am good where I am, and grateful beyond words for what I have. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-4504209383463606032020-05-30T06:29:00.000-07:002020-05-30T06:31:26.676-07:00Lisa E. Davis, Greenwich Village historian, author of Under the Mink and Undercover Girl, April 16, 2020<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">(Historian Lisa E. Davis)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">The historian Lisa </span><u style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18pt;"></u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">E. Davis was born in Georgia in 1941 and was educated at the University of Georgia, where she did her PhD in Comparative Literature. She escaped to New York in 1966, then lived and worked on Long Island, at SUNY Stony Brook. In 1974, she started working at York College, CUNY, in Queens, and moved into her apartment on Charles Street. She never left.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">As a young historian in the 1980s, Davis began to organize thoughts and memories of several older lesbians who had been her friends on Long Island. When they were younger, the Village had been their hangout, and some had worked and performed at mob-nightspots like the 181 Club and the Club 82 in the East Village. Their stories inspired the first book Lisa Davis wrote, <b><i>Under the Mink</i></b>, published in 2001. It is a novel set in 1949 in the drag bars of the Village, with a murder story, a romance, and violent mobsters winding their way through it. The novel was reissued in 2015, with photos from the author’s collection, and is a modern lesbian classic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Her second book, <b><i>Undercover Girl: The Lesbian Informant Who Helped the FBI Bring Down the Communist Party, </i></b>published in 2017, grew out of another important Village connection. An interview that Joan Nestle of the Lesbian Herstory Archives did with Buddy/Bubbles Kent, who had performed as a chorus boy at the Club 181 in the 1940s and later in her own strip act, as Bubbles, was the key. Buddy, who had changed her name early on from Malvina Schwartz (of East New York, Brooklyn) because nobody was hiring lesbians or Jews, made an offhand angry comment during her recorded interview about a lesbian named simply Angie, who had been an informant for the FBI in Greenwich Village during the 1940’s Red Scare in America. Further investigation by Davis revealed the complex story of Angela Calomiris, a wannabe photographer who destroyed the career of a lesbian police officer and the lefty Photo League. Davis found Angela’s personal papers, as well as her FBI file, and became friends with Buddy, a remarkable character from the Village of yesteryear. <b><i><o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Under coronavirus lockdown, I spoke with Lisa E. Davis by telephone from her apartment on Charles Street in Greenwich Village.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DYLAN FOLEY: How did you wind up in New York?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LISA E. DAVIS: Darling, I was born and raised in Georgia. I wish I’d done my PhD at Harvard or Yale. Those are the only two places that matter. But I did not. I did my PhD At the University of Georgia in Comparative Literature, under something called an NDEA Fellowship, the National Defense Education Act. They started that when the Russians put up Sputnik, because they were afraid. I look at these children who owe $60,000, $100,000 or $200,000 for some bullshit degree that will never do them much good. In my case, the NDEA paid for everything, and this was Comparative Literature, which wasn’t particularly useful against the Russians. The government paid for degrees in everything because they could.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Was it a Pentagon program?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: What I did had nothing to do with the military.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF:<b>When did you finish your PhD?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: That would have been in the Year of our Lord and Lady 1969. I was born in 41, so I must have been 28. I had free graduate school.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">In Georgia, I was born and raised in the last years of a slave society, for that is what it was. If you have any kind of a brain, you can’t miss it. Slavery is part of the American way. We just don’t talk about it<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Your specialty is in Spanish and Latin America?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: Yes. I had a very good teacher. He taught in the Army Language Schools. He knew how to teach. I know how to teach, too. I just never had the chance. When you have 50 students at 8 a.m. in Jamaica, Queens, you are not going to get much done. They were nice people, wonderful kids. That was York College.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I did the PhD in Georgia. The original job that I got was at SUNY Stony Brook. I had worked in an NDEA language institute with the man who the department chair. That’s how you get a job.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did you move straight to the Village?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: I was on Long Island. The most bizarre experience of my life. That’s where the school was.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: When did you move into the Village?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: 1974. I moved into this apartment. That’s where we are sitting now. It’s on Charles Street, which is between 10<sup>th</sup>and Perry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Were you out at this point?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: Oh, for years. I’d been out since I was 16. I came out at the Women’s Missionary Society Camp one summer. The missionaries were sort of queer. That’s the Southern Baptists, who are opposed to everything.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What was your social life?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: I was coming from the trauma of not having gotten tenure at Stony Brook, for diverse reasons, including the fact that my friend who got me the job was no longer there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">The woman who was heading the department at York lived across the street. I had been entertaining her and as soon as I accomplished my seduction, I got the job. It’s not only the boys who do it. While I was visiting her across the street, there was a sign that said, “Apartment for rent.” I took a look. It was the same money I was paying on Long Island. And it had an elevator. Of course, I remember the rent and I tell everyone. All the young people ask. Three and a quarter, $325 a month. It’s a one bedroom. It has an indoor toilet. I took the apartment. Now they are $4,500 a month.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What was your social life like in the 1970’s?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: Was I alone? I’ve always had somebody. I had a girlfriend in Brooklyn. I was on the train to the Village and Brooklyn, then I had to go to Queens to work. A lot of my social life was on the MTA.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">There were numerous lesbian bars in the Village, though most are long gone. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iXgbiDlN2bU/XtJXvhokA-I/AAAAAAAADMg/4ODmWc9q1ZAgZwIcYMfZvqPQQWfCLCKNgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Unknown-9.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iXgbiDlN2bU/XtJXvhokA-I/AAAAAAAADMg/4ODmWc9q1ZAgZwIcYMfZvqPQQWfCLCKNgCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Unknown-9.jpeg" /></a></span><br />
(The Duchess, formally at 101 7th Avenue)</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">There were places like the Duchess, the Cubby Hole, which has changed locations, and the Fat Cat. There were many places to go. It was not expensive. You could get drunk and try to pick somebody up, which was the idea, of course. And Henrietta Hudson has survived, over on Hudson Street.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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(Stormy DeLarverie, legendary Village figure who protected other lesbians, in front of the Cubby Hole, 1986)<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Was there a bar that suited you better?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: When it was open, Bonnie and Clyde’s on 3<sup>rd</sup>Street was the loveliest. It was not there forever, but it was there for a while. Maybe it lasted 10 years. The Duchess was nice but there was some big thing with Ed Koch, who was always coming out of the closet to knock people around, and they closed the Duchess.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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(Bonnie and Clyde's, 82 W. 3rd Street)<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Bonnie and Clyde’s was very nice, and they had a restaurant upstairs that brought in a lot of people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: How did you see the gentrification of the Village?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: A good friend of mine survived the AIDS epidemic. I am not sure how he did it. He said there were so many apartments available for these new arrivals because so many guys had died. It would be announced that So-and-So was sick, and then 2 or 3 days later, he was dead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">St. Vincent’s, now overpriced co-ops, thanks to Bloomberg and Mr. Rudin, and probably the people at Long Island Jewish Hospital/Lenox Hill… St. Vincent’s was one of the first places to take AIDS patients. Others wouldn’t take them, but the old nuns at St. Vincent’s took them in. People were terrified, but it is nothing like now, when the terror is real. You got AIDS from having sex. The latest virus is evidently free to all just by breathing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did you know Buddy Kent was going to have such an influence on your life when you met her?<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
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(A striking Buddy Kent, left, late 1940's, early 1950's)<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: Buddy/Bubbles became a good and dear friend, and I often went to the SAGE socials that she managed when SAGE was at the Center on 13<sup>th</sup>Street. By then, she was working at St. Vincent’s as an x-ray technician until her retirement. She had a little training in photography during the war when she was in the Women’s Army Corps. She lived on 8th Street, right across from the old Whitney Museum. It’s now an art school that has been there for 100 years. The original Whitney was there, because it was in their backyard. Buddy had lived there forever, so she could afford to live there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">She took the name Bubbles when she got her strip act. Before that, she worked as Buddy. But she adopted the name Kent early on, because it was hard to get a job if you were Jewish, much less a lesbian. That was in the 1930s, 40s. Her family liked the name Kent, so some of them adopted it, too. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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(Buddy/Bubbles Kent, had a strip act, where she'd go from male drag to lingerie)<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What inspired you to write <i>Under the Mink</i>?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: Ah, Blackie…what inspired me was that I quit teaching. When people ask me, I say that it is a work of historical fiction, in the style of Sir Walter Scott. Most everyone is completely identifiable. They are not made up. Generally, the heroine was a composite of several people, who did that sort of thing. The rich girl from uptown is a composite of rich people who come downtown, because many people came down to see the queers. The drag shows were very popular. It wasn’t a gay audience. It was generally a straight audience, mobsters, high society and show people, plus the bridge-and-tunnel crowd. Put a little excitement in your life, come down to the Village and see the performers! These stories were told to me by people who actually did it. They are all dead now. I am glad we kept some of that world alive. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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(Under the Mink, Lisa E. Davis' novel, inspired in part by the life of Buddy Kent and her old friends)<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I put my bar on 8<sup>th</sup>Street. It was really the181 Club at 181 2<sup>nd</sup>Avenue. I put it on 8<sup>th</sup>Street because I wanted to keep it in the Village. I used the Bon Soir address, if you remember the Bon Soir. Barbra Streisand had one of her first performance gigs there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Speaking of the change in the Village, 8<sup>th</sup>Street used to be a street of lively shops and clubs, and the first movie house in New York City, the first venue dedicated to showing movies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">8th Street was a street of dreams. Now it is “Retail Space Available.” Little things are beginning to open up, little restaurants and urgent-care centers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Is the movie theater the old Eighth Street Playhouse?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: Yes, that’s right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did you do other research on the Village in 1949?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: I read a lot of stuff. A great deal of it was based on talk. Whenever the girls got together, my older friends, the “old broads,” as they called themselves, they loved to talk about when they worked for those Mafia clubs on 8<sup>th</sup>Street, on 2<sup>nd</sup>Avenue, the 82 Club, down the street in the East Village—when it was still the Lower East Side—on East 4<sup>th</sup>. All run by the Mafia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">The 82 Club and 181 Club were run by Anna Genovese.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I got a second edition of <b><i>Under the Mink </i></b>from some crazy people I know. I didn’t have to pay, which was good. The new edition has photos. There are photos at underthemink.com.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">The hookers at the 181 were very involved with the operation. Many of them were dating the girl performers. Madame Lucille in the novel was Lucille Malin. She was real. She was married to an old drag queen named Jean Malin who unfortunately for him drove his car off a pier in Venice Beach, with Patsy Kelly and another friend in the car. Fortunately, they survived. He did not. He drowned. He was quite young. He was a big drag performer in the 1930s. Lucille and he were a couple of sorts. Lucille was the biggest madame in New York. Her girls got around.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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(A new clipping of Angela Calomiris, on her "Red Scare" testimony)<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Could you tell me about the Photo League and Angela Calomiris’ work with the FBI to shut it down?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: Probably her destructive capabilities were exaggerated because the forces that were after the Photo League were there from the beginning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">The Photo League members were taking pictures of poor people. They had a project up in Harlem that was a no-no. I have complete FBI files on many of the major photographers of the era, who were being watched for 25 years. There was Margaret Bourke White, a big lefty, and Ben Shahn, who made the mistake of being Jewish. I keep trying to give them to somebody. I’ve been in contact with the Tamiment collection at NYU but their archives are in transition and there’s no response.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Your <i>Undercover Girl </i>project started with Buddy/Bubbles making an angry comment about Angela betraying s lesbian cop and forcing her to be fired?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: Exactly. The reason I got on to this was because of Buddy/Bubbles. She was so cute and was a good-looking gal ‘til the day she died. She’s been dead for quite a while. She spoke in rather mysterious terms without naming names. One of the rules back then was that you did not name names of other gay people. That was the kiss of death. You did not show them in your photographs. I have many photos of entertainers. It is very frustrating because they cut the other people out of the photographs. Only they appear, and you don’t see the other people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Buddy/Bubbles was talking frankly about the early days, and suddenly made a connection between the subject at hand and someone named “An-Gie Calamares.” It sounded important. Then I found, also rather by accident, information on someone called Angela Calomiris. Check. These must be the same person. I called up Joan Nestle, who by then had fled to Australia. She said, “Oh yes, we have her papers at the Archives. Just tell them. They’ll get them out of storage for you.” [<b>Editor’s note:</b>The legendary lesbian writer and memoirist Joan Nestle was a co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archive in 1974, now based in Brooklyn.]<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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(Catalog for the Jewish Museum's exhibit on the Photo League, the leftist organization that Angela Calomiris helped destroy through her 1949 testimony)<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Buddy was implying that Angela used her contacts to destroy the career of a lesbian cop?<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
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<b>(Judy Holliday, the Broadway and Hollywood star, whose lesbian police officer lover was ensnared by the "Red Scare" in Greenwich Village. Holliday was also harassed by the FBI.) </b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: Her name was Yetta Cohn. Yetta Cohn was a well-known Village person. She was also Judy Holliday’s girlfriend, for quite a while until Judy became better known [<b>Editor’s note:</b>Judy Holliday later became a well-known Broadway and Hollywood actress. She was investigated by the FBI herself for left-wing sympathies.] She played the Village Vanguard with a group called the Revuers that was kinda leftie, but everybody was leftie back then. Judy went on to greater things but died young at 43. She had been called to appear before something called the McCarran Committee, that investigated arts and culture, and the stress took its toll.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Angie did what she could to make it worse. The FBI may have been after Yetta previously but Angie chatted up her FBI connections. She chatted up the NYPD, saying that Yetta was a Henry Wallace supporter, the Bernie Sanders of his day. Wallace was Vice President under FDR. He was too radical. That’s when they put in Truman, the guy from Missouri. Angie ratted out Yetta and Yetta lost her job. She had been editor of an NYPD newsletter. She was not a policewoman walking the beat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Another old Village person who knew Yetta said that Yetta had gone a long time with no work and had practically had a nervous breakdown. Judy helped her out, of course. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">When Angela died, she died in Mexico, where she had some property, where a lot of expats have property. She couldn’t breathe. She thought she could breathe down there, better air. But she died anyway. She left all these papers behind because she had kept everything from her FBI years. This was the high point of her life. She was a star. What do you do with the papers? You either toss them or give them to the Lesbian Herstory Archives. Which is what the executors of her estate did.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Because I made that connection, I could write that book. It’s an important book because it shows what happened in America, when it drifted radically from left to right, and how the drift was engineered.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: There are so many levels to the book—the 1950s Red Scare, the FBI’s harassment of suspected communists, and attempts to destroy unions and leftist organizations like the Photo League. Then there is the story of Angela’s hard luck childhood living in a New York orphanage, her life as a closeted lesbian and her very public testimony on behalf of the FBI.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: I think that it was a quote from [the historian] Jonathan Ned Katz’s mother, who said here was an obvious lesbian up on the witness stand. In fact, everybody knew and the people who worked with her in the FBI knew that she was a lesbian. They needed her because she would testify. It was all about the money. The money was great. It was the best job she ever had.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Angela sold out the members of the Photo League for $180 a month from the FBI. What influence do you think Angela’s childhood had on her life?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: What you said about the orphanage was true, and she was there for her entire adolescence. She was destroyed as a human being. She always told people that her mother was dead, and she was not dead. She would never live with her mother ever again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Then there was the question of money because, of course, she had no money. One of the great ambitions of all the women that I knew, the old broads, and that included Buddy/Bubbles and Angela Calomiris, was to go to college. Then Angela would have a real chance at some kind of a job. Towards the end of her life, she managed to insert herself into a college program, but it was too late to make a difference.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">The Photo League was her salvation because they provided very inexpensive classes in multiple aspects of photography. Something like $15 for six months of classes. “Come to the Photo League and learn how to make photos.” She was working as a photographer but not making much. Living in Greenwich Village, where rents were $30 a month, $40 or $50, she could survive. $180 a month would have been a lot. The offer from the FBI would have been too good to turn down because the money was great. After all, it was her government. It wasn’t Moscow. It was a patriotic thing. Well, why not?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">The FBI terrorized anyone with a brain. Nowadays, they don’t have to hire informants. They have all these electronic devices. The computer has made informing much easier.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: How did you find Angela’s FBI file?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: I received Angela’s file from a woman—otherwise I could not have done the book—from Veronica Wilson who had done her PhD dissertation at Rutgers, on informers, with a focus on gender. “Red Masquerades: Gender and Political Subversion During the Cold War, 1945-1963” That’s what people engaged in serious research do, if they have access to FBI files, because they are very hard to get. They let other people copy them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I have Angie’s FBI file, which is unbelievable. Then I have all the papers she left. I couldn’t have done it without her FBI file.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Was Angela Calomiris difficult to write about?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: She was not a pleasant person to write about. She was not heroic. This was a great problem for people who knew her in P-Town. [Provincetown, MA, on Cape Cod.] I took the book to P-Town. The publisher, who I never would have gotten on my own but I got through somebody I know, is in Massachusetts. I did a run in Boston, then I went to P-town, where I had large audiences. Generally, the younger people were very interested, but there were old broads who knew Angela, who didn’t like the book at all. She had been their friend, somebody who had opened up P-Town to the lesbians. In P-Town, it was all about business. She ran one of the largest rental complexes in town. I know how she got that, by cheating some poor soul. He got into contract, he wanted to get out and she wouldn’t let him out. She got the property or $13,000 or $16,000 and sold it for millions. That’s real estate. She knew how to play the game.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Some of the women in P-Town said that I was demeaning lesbianism. I was always happy to explain to them if they wanted to meet some bad lesbians, I could introduce them to some of my exes. If they’d never met any bad lesbians, I’ve met quite a few who would take your money and whatever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Angie was a very twisted personality who served the purpose of a very twisted time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">She became the lover for several years of the sister of her FBI recruiter. They owned a house in Connecticut. Angie made money she never would have made. If you are going to make money in this system, that’s how you make it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Are you still in touch with Joan Nestle? <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: Joan Nestle is still with us. Her health is very good. She’s 79 or 80. She’s in Australia. They have National Health.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Are any of the women you knew who come up in the 1940s and 1950s Village still around?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: The old broads I knew are all gone, but whenever they got together—and that would be 20 or 30 years after the fact—the most fun thing for them to talk about was when they worked in those [Mafia] clubs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">They would at least be in the opening number and the finale. Someone I knew was a stripper and played the downtown clubs. She didn’t get much retirement from stripping. She didn’t have much money. They were all living in West Palm Beach, Florida, in a trailer park. At least they had a roof, and that’s what they would talk about, and they would show these photographs. Sometimes I would be able to get a few. On the last visit to them, I found photos in a garbage pail. One friend said, “Nobody cares about that anymore.” I took them out of the garbage, but a lot of stuff was lost. Nobody filmed and you didn’t record. Photography was a big thing. It was big business in the nightclubs. They took photographs, developed them in a hurry, came back and sold them to the customers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">A lot of people had fun. When Joan Nestle was interviewing Buddy/Bubbles, she knew nothing about Buddy’s career. She was interviewing her because she was in SAGE. In the 1950s, early 60s, Buddy and a friend owned a Village club called the Page Three. That was Jacquie Howe. The guy at the end of the bench was their agent Kiki/Kicky Hall, who had a drag review he took around the country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: How many years did you spend on <i>Undercover Girl</i>?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: Only 10 years! I discovered this story through Buddy Kent, otherwise no one would have known. The Photo League knew Angela was a lesbian. Some thought she had been blackmailed into testifying, like so many gay people back then. Perhaps they felt sorry for her and hated her, too. They were certainly horrified when she appeared on the witness stand to testify against the National Board of the American Communist Party.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">The FBI knew Angela was a lesbian and didn’t care. They took anybody who was useful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Angela’s testimony destroyed the life and career of her mentor, the photographer and Photo League head Sid Grossman. What happened to him?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: Sid never worked in New York again. That’s what happened when you were outed. You didn’t work. He went to P-Town. He and his wife would fish all day and sell their catch on the street. That’s how they stayed alive. [<b>Editor’s note:</b>Sid Grossman died in 1955 at the age of 42.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Do you know where I could find other lesbians who were involved in the 1960s bar culture? Should I try SAGE?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: I’ll be glad to try to unearth some people. They have a problem with SAGE, because of the trans thing. All the women at SAGE suddenly became trans women. The lesbians were feeling marginalized but maybe they’ve worked that out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What do you think caused the decline of the lesbian bars in the West Village?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: They were all mob bars. If it wasn’t for the Mafia paying off the cops, there wouldn’t be any gay bars anywhere. It was all supposed to be illegal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">The Sea Colony [on 8<sup>th</sup>Avenue] was Joan Nestle’s specialty. She wrote about it and spent part of her decadent youth there. [<b>Editor’s note:</b>Nestle wrote an excellent essay on 1950s lesbian bar culture called “The Bathroom Line.”]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I think the increasing rents were very damaging. There was also some big scandal at the Duchess [at Grove Street]. Ed Koch was reigning then and they were always cleaning up New York. [<b>Editor’s note:</b>Ed Koch did succeed in closing down The Duchess, pulling the liquor license through using antidiscrimination laws.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did social changes in the Village affect the bars?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: I suspect having the Gay and Lesbian Center there on 13<sup>th</sup>Street was a great boon to a lot of things socially and politically because it gave people a place to go. The LGBTQ center has become more and more gentrified, I suppose. Back in the day, it was very popular and open. They didn’t charge money. Now they charge for everything.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">People may have had other things to do besides going to the bar and trying to pick someone up. Maybe they could pick them up at a political meeting. Always at the AA meetings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Are you working on anything?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">LD: I have a performer I would really like to do more on than I may be able to do. I can’t get the papers and photos she left away from the cousin she left them to. Cousin Joan got everything that belonged to a performer named Blackie Dennis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Blackie was a nice Italian girl from a nice Italian family. She grew up in East Harlem. Like all the girls from her generation, she knew that you came to the Village. That’s where you came. In the 1930s and 40s, the Village was the center and that was because historically the Suffragettes had set the tone. It was a very female, politicized setting, and had been for years. Many of the Suffragettes were a little queer. Who else had time to do that kind of thing and get locked up?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Blackie Dennis was one of the women who found her way to the Village. She performed in several places. Things got hot down here because they were going after the Mafia. The clean-up committee was trying to eliminate the Mafia in the 50s. The Mafia was supporting the gay bars and prostitution. Drugs came into the picture later. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Blackie was working at the Moroccan Village on 8<sup>th</sup>Street. There was a shoot out there She was also named in a very important trial about prostitution, though they did not call Blackie a prostitute. One thing led to another and she decided to work out of Miami, another hot spot for gay nightlife. The mob kept everything working very well. She stayed there with her girlfriend, the stripper.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Blackie dressed like a guy and looked like a guy. In late adolescence, she wound up in the Village. There is no recording of her voice, but she must have had a nice voice, because she sang all over the country. She had a singles act. That’s the next person I’d like to write about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-2646354561014007642020-05-19T07:40:00.002-07:002020-05-19T08:24:47.139-07:00Jonathan Ned Katz, historian, author of Gay American History, April 30, 2020<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><i><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--zlqirZm40I/XsPp4VToXrI/AAAAAAAADKE/H0H2BPDvHGAhV4gJzfd-51QbHVEjzw2LQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/cf797865bc016771666f222550a0a09c.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--zlqirZm40I/XsPp4VToXrI/AAAAAAAADKE/H0H2BPDvHGAhV4gJzfd-51QbHVEjzw2LQCK4BGAYYCw/s400/cf797865bc016771666f222550a0a09c.jpg" width="285" /></a></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> (Jonathan Ned Katz)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Born in 1938, Jonathan Ned Katz was raised in the same Greenwich Village townhouse where he lives now. Educated at Antioch College, City College of New York, the New School and Hunter College, Katz broke onto the New York cultural scene in 1973 with his play “Coming Out!” which dealt with gay men and lesbians in the age of Gay Liberation in the early 1970’s. The play led to Katz being given a book contract to research and compile <b><i>Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The 1976 publication of <b><i>Gay American History </i></b>began a radical confrontation with American academia, showing that America’s gay and lesbian history, though ignored or rejected, has existed since colonial times. Katz documented men being executed for sodomy in colonial Massachusetts, love letters that chronicled the romance of Alexander Hamilton with John Laurens during the Revolutionary War, women who passed as men in 19<sup>th</sup>century America and the forced commitment to psychiatric facilities of gays and lesbians. Katz also lays out the early battles for Gay Liberation, including Harry Hay’s founding of the Mattachine Society in the 1950’s. The book helped inspire the creation of gay and lesbian historical studies at colleges and universities around the country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Katz’s other books include the <b><i>Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New Documentary</i></b>(1983); <b><i>The Invention of Heterosexuality</i></b>(1995, with an introduction by Gore Vidal), and <b><i>Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality</i></b>(2001). He also has a memoir, <b><i>Coming of Age in Greenwich Village: A Memoir with Paintings </i></b>(2013).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Katz is also a fine artist, having worked in textiles and now painting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In 2008, with initial support from Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, Katz launched OutHistory.Org, a website which publishes original documents and scholarly articles on gay and lesbian history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Dylan Foley interviewed Jonathan Ned Katz by telephone at his home in Greenwich Village on April 30, 2020. We discussed Katz’s childhood in the Village during the anti-communist Red Scare, his own sexual and political awakening when he joined the Gay Activists Alliance in 1971, and writing the play “Coming Out!”, where he came out to his mother in an ad in the <b><i>Village Voice</i></b>. We also talked about how <b><i>Gay American History </i></b>not only<b><i></i></b>changed the discipline of gay and lesbian history, but also changed Katz’s own professional life, allowing him to teach at Yale and New York University.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Here is our interview:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DYLAN FOLEY: You were raised in the Village. Your father was an active Communist. What was his story?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JONATHAN NED KATZ: About the Red Scare, the first thing was that my father was a Communist in the 1930’s and 1940’s. I got a sense from him that it was out of concern during the Depression. He went to see this play, “One Third of the Nation,” it was about one third of the nation being poor, not having proper housing or food. It was a play from the ‘30’s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Mainly what his Communism meant was a concern about social equality. That took the form of being very bothered by discrimination against black people. This was very early for a white guy. I asked him about the origin for this once and it was that there was one black boy who was very smart in his high school class in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. The black kid was yelled at and called “Nigger” and all these things. My father felt for him. That was the origin of his caring about the discrimination against blacks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">This led to my father collecting jazz records and becoming an expert on the history of jazz. He was an expert on this major aspect of American culture that people didn’t even recognize then. He would play these records. I grew up with Bessie Smith being my lullabies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">We moved into this house in 1940, when I was 2. We rented an apartment. It was an odd place to live. There were factories, a frankfurter factory on one corner and a bakery on the other. There was a commercial building that is now condominiums and rare apartments on the other corner.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Sometimes walking by, the bakery workers would say, “Do you want an éclair?” I remember that as a kid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I’d also see the rats going into the frankfurter factory to be ground into rat frankfurters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">My father produced two or three concerts at Town Hall. One was about Bessie Smith, after she died. It was a jazz concert. He got all these old jazz musicians. It was a big success.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">My brother also became an historian of black history, from my father’s interest. I became an historian, finally, with one of the great influences being my father.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">My father’s Communism, what it meant in the U.S., was that he was a Stalinist. He thought the negative things being said about Stalin were lies. Finally, he gave that up. He just withdrew from being a Stalinist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> (Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality, 2001)</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: What was your father’s profession?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: That’s quite funny. My father was in the advertising business. They had Communists in the ad business. He took his job very seriously as the provider. In that age, the husband was the provider. My mother went back to work when I was eight or 10. She was an editor at <b><i>Parents Magazine </i></b>for years, telling people how to bring up their children.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: Was she a therapist?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: No, she thought she was.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: Was she a Freudian?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: [laughs] I’ve written about this in my memoir.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: Do you remember the Red Scare in Greenwich Village in 1949 or 1950?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: Yes, I do. My mother said to me, “You are not supposed to tell people in your class at the Little Red Schoolhouse in the Village,” a very progressive school, “that your father was a Communist.” Some of the other kids’ parents were Trotskyites.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I knew my father tried to get a gay friend of his into the Communist Party. My father was very bothered that the Party rejected the guy as a security risk. That was the same reason that the State Department was using to fire homosexuals and Reds, people who were called Reds, maybe who had gone to one meeting and had put your name on a petition for something and got on a list.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I must have said, “What’s a Communist? or “what’s a homosexual?” He must have said, “A man who loves men.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">It was interesting that my father had a friend who was openly gay, who felt this conflict with the Party and not letting the guy in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">My father would also point out homosexuals sitting in Washington Square Park. There was a place in the west side of Washington Square Park where all these men would sit. It was like a cruising place. It was quite public and quite obvious. My father said, “These are homosexuals.” That was part of my life in the Village.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: How did your parents deal with the Red Scare?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: My parents handled it pretty well. I wasn’t terrified of the FBI. I was warned that we might be visited by the FBI. One day, the bell rang and these two guys in the typical uniforms that they wore, these overcoats and pressed suits. J. Edgar Hoover made sure you had to dress in a certain way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">They wanted to speak to my father. I guess I got him. Maybe it was 1950. It was scary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">My father, after speaking to them in the front room I am sitting in right now, where I wrote this thing I am telling you about, where my father was interviewed by the FBI.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">After they left, he told me that they asked if he was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. “I said no,” he said. “We didn’t have cards.” It was like a joke.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: Did your father lose his job or get blacklisted?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: I think he did lose a job over it. Nobody looked into this at the time, but I suspect something happened with a major job he was supposed to get. He was supposed to go to a new art directing job that had been announced in the <i>Times</i>, but never happened. I suspect it was because the FBI called the Gravenson Agency, the new job. I think they also called the ad agency that he did work for, and they were okay with it. He stayed for a while with the old agency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">After all of this, he had a major heart attack. I think it was related to the anxiety. For 20 years, he survived. It was an important heart attack. He retired soon afterwards. He died in 1970. He was 70.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">My mother was not a Communist at all. She was somewhat liberal. She was the Freudian. I had the Freudian versus the Marxist in my family. That’s why I was interested in both.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">My father loved the sexual stuff in the blues songs. In black culture, there was a different attitude towards sex that was much freer than the uptight mainstream white culture of the time. We are talking about the ‘40’s and ‘50’s. In the ‘20’s, the raunchy blues lyrics started.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">They were a very liberated family. My family walked around naked, but I grew up very repressed, a product of the 1950’s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: You finally became involved in the gay liberation movement when you went to a Gay Activists Alliance meeting in 1971, at the age of 33.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: It was the winter of ’71 when I got involved with the GAA. I came to this church on 29<sup>th</sup>Street. It was open to groups that were organizing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Sometimes there is this door you walk through. There is this physical door, it wasn’t a metaphysical door. When you walk through, it is going to change your life and you don’t know how. On one side, there were three guys in what I guess you’d call anti-drag. They looked like Auntie Tilly dressed for church with hats. Oh my god, I guess we are all in this together. I was <i>uptight</i>and I was in the process of getting over all this repression. On the other side were these street transvestites action revolutionaries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Then there were various things said at the meeting. One of the leaders, Arnie Kantrowitz, said we are fighting for our lives. It sounds banal, but it made me realize, “We really are fighting for our lives.” It’s my life that’s at stake there. I started going to demonstrations and going public. In a year, it led to me doing a play called “Coming Out!” The morning the play was to open, I got a phone call. It was my mother. She said, and I’ve told this many times, [Jonathan mimics a high-pitched, very prim voice] “Jonathan, is that you in the <b><i>Village Voice</i></b>?” Yes. There was an ad for the play. “Are you a homo-SEXUAL?” I don’t know why they say it with a hyphen in the middle. Yes. “Why didn’t you tell me?” “Because I knew that you’d act this way.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">It was the beginning of a new relationship with my mother. It took her about three years, but she ended up helping me edit <b><i>Gay American History</i></b>. I wanted her to edit it because it was better to have my critical mother, who was an editor, go over it before it was published. It was the beginning of a new life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New Documentary, 1983)</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: In your twenties, you didn’t address your homosexuality?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: I think there was a gay party that I went to. You just didn’t talk about being gay. You went to a party once in a while. I was so uptight about being gay and going to therapists to be straight. I did all that. Luckily, I got to a therapist who didn’t think that was my problem. I had other things. It was luck or maybe I chose her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: You went to several colleges, including Antioch and the New School. Did you wind up with a masters?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: No. I didn’t finish with a bachelors. I was a dropout. It was the 1960’s. I didn’t do drugs. I didn’t even do rock and roll. I didn’t fit in any place. I didn’t fit in the gay scene because I was reading Marx. I had a deep interest in Marxism and sociology. I didn’t fit into the gay aesthetic scene. I didn’t fit in the left because I was gay. The leftist kids I knew seemed uptight. That may have been part of me being uptight. Some of them seemed to think there was going to be a revolution. That’s ridiculous. How could you think there was going to be a revolution?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Early on, I went on anti-war marches, before it became a mass movement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: Please tell me about your play “Coming Out!”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: The play had bits that were dramatic, that could be acted out, scenes that were particularly dramatic. I think I had one piece that was from the colonial period.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">One of the reasons why this play got so much attention was that it was the first introduction to people that there was such a thing as gay history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The play was quite various. It had these dramatic speeches, political speeches at the end. We got away with the rabble-rousing speeches because the actors believed in it so much. It was so exciting. Because they were amateurs, there was a power to their acting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The director of the play was a professional publicity agent for the theater, so he could call up the <b><i>New York Times </i></b>and say, “You should do a feature on this.” He got Marty Duberman to write a feature comparing my play to [Village playwright and Judson Poets’ Theatre founder] Al Carmines’ play. Duberman thought Carmines’ play [“The Faggot”] had traditional stereotypes about gay people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Twenty years later, a director asked Al Carmines to play Walt Whitman in a play I did on Walt Whitman. He did it. We never talked about our initial contact. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: How did you get a book contract for <i>Gay American History</i>?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: My brother, an historian, had published a book with the editor that he had sent me to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> (Gay American </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">History, the 1978 paperback)</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: Where did you go for material?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: I was obsessive, I always say. Wherever I went, I talked about the research. At a gay party, somebody said, “Oh, you should look at Alexander Hamilton’s love letters to John Laurens, during the American Revolution.” I didn’t really believe it, but I read the letters and I think that Hamilton really was in love with this man. It turns out there was a sexual joke about the size of his nose. It was cut out of the letters, but you could figure it out what it was. Nobody’s talked about it. It is on OutHistory.org. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I went to the library and looked up Alexander Hamilton and there were these love letters. That was one example.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I heard there was a lot of stuff about homosexuality in the old medical journals. In some tower at Columbia, there were some medical journals I was trying to get a hold of. I had to bow down to some crazy guy. “Why are you looking at this, why are you here, what are your credentials?” I never had credentials. I got into the NYU libraries because the gay librarians got me a card.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">When I went to the 42<sup>nd </sup>Street library, I had this experience. I told one librarian, that I was doing work on the history of homosexuality, which is what I would have said then. Suddenly, I was surrounded by a group of helpful librarians. All these queer librarians wanted to help me. It was following one clue after another. It turned out not to be that hard to find, once you start looking for it. It was just that nobody had looked for this material before.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">What I did, the way I found stuff, was that I took every existing bibliography of homosexuality I could find, some of which were not medical, but the medical ones were helpful, too. I Xeoroxed them, I cut them up and put each entry on a 3 x 5 card and put them in chronological order.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The early bibliographies that were done by gay people were really useful. They helped me a lot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I ended up with thousands of file cards, they were in my office. It was quite a sight. Fred McDarrah from the <b><i>Village Voice </i></b>took pictures of me with the cards.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: Did <i>Gay American History </i>have a tremendous impact on your life?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: Yes. I was sent around the country on a train by my publisher because I don’t like to fly. I stopped in Chicago and was interviewed by Studs Terkel on his radio show. He got me to read the beginning of<b><i>Gay American History</i></b>, which is this very dramatic thing, sort of like the speeches at the end of my play. It’s quite poetic and I am very proud of the writing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Studs Terkel documented the working-class history that had been ignored for so long.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: You’ve referred to yourself as a community historian and as a detective historian, for the work that you’ve down tracking down the hidden documents of gay history. In your academic travels, you’ve wound up teaching at Yale and NYU.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: I like that I made it to Yale, for a turn to be allowed in the walls of the Ivys. It was temporary. They only allow you in briefly, then they eject you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Jonathan Ned Katz)</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: Were there parts of <i>Gay American History</i>that blew you away?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: Yes, a lot of it did. The discovery of passing women, which are called transgender now, which we understand in a different way. That was amazing, some of these discoveries, reading in a medical journal about a woman, who changed and lived as a man, had a hysterectomy, had two wives and ended up as a doctor and a novelist. It was an amazing story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Contacting Harry Hay and talking with him was great. I first read about the formation of the Mattachine Society in 1950, when I was reading about it on the train going to my publisher to do some Xeroxing. They let me do Xeroxing there because I was concerned about the expense. I was reading about the Mattachine and realized that some of the people were still alive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In this very room I am in now, Harry Hay once slept here with his boyfriend when he was in New York, to be the grand marshal of the Gay Pride Parade one year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">It was very exciting. In the aisles of the NYU Library, I was reading Hamilton’s letters, and I am like, “OH, MY GOD! They are love letters!” What to make of this? He’s famous for being a womanizer. None of that was mentioned in the play [The musical “Hamilton.”]. The most popular piece on OutHistory.org is about Alexander Hamilton.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: Gore Vidal wrote the introduction to your book <i>The Invention of Heterosexuality</i>. What were your impressions of him?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: I was very excited when I met Gore Vidal. He entertained me. I got a call from him. Did I want to pick up the introduction he wrote for the heterosexuality book? I went to the apartment at the Plaza Hotel and for about two hours, he entertained me. He gave me a monologue. Everything was “funny.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Vidal was leaving for a party with Robert Silvers, the founder of the <b><i>New York Review of Books</i></b>. On the steps of the Plaza, we were waiting for a taxi. I always loved his work, especially the political stuff. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I said, “You sound like a Marxist.” “No, it is just living and growing up in Washington and seeing what the realities were.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: How has your historical process evolved from <i>Gay American History </i>to OutHistory.Org?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: First, it was just showing that there is such a thing as gay history through the documents, presenting the documents. It was appropriate to do that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In 1983, with the <b><i>Gay and Lesbian Almanac</i></b>, I was a part of a group of people that was questioning this—how are these ideas constructed, how is the language constructed, how human relations are constructed. In different ways and very different ways at different times. The death penalty…you are executed if you are caught committing sodomy in the colonial times. In some other time, they gave you five years. It’s a big difference.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">And all the different ways of conceptualizing what’s going on in these human relationships. It was fascinating and great to be involved with other people who were interested in this. We had study groups that met for years. It was fun to talk about this. We laughed a lot. A lot of the people were really smart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I got much more interested in collecting this information, which still needs to be collected. There is still not enough knowledge about all of this, but I was really interested in how to analyze this material, how to interpret this, all the stuff that’s going on. What do the changes mean and what brought on these changes? Why do people think this way in this time and that way in another time?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I got more theoretical in a way, how you think about the material, rather than just getting [the documents]. There’s a put down of people. “Oh, you just do the manual labor of collecting documents…Oh, I do theory.” There is a horrible snobbery among gay scholars. “Oh, I do theory. I wouldn’t touch a document.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">DF: Do you have any new projects?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">JK: I have a book protect, a contract that is almost signed. It is about Eve Adams, a Polish Jewish lesbian who immigrated to the United States and fell in with Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, and gets on the FBI’s list and gets surveilled. She then publishes a book called <b><i>Lesbian Love</i></b>in 1925, and they use that against her, to frame her. They put her in jail and deported her. During the war, she was in Occupied France and avoided the Nazis for three years, but in 1943, they finally caught up with her. She became a Holocaust victim, ultimately. Her life is very interesting. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-22630021527967796832020-05-13T10:07:00.002-07:002020-05-13T10:09:38.165-07:00Village Voice, The Wonderful World of the White Horse, June 22, 1961<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; orphans: auto; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
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<b><span style="color: #252525; font-family: "graphik xx cond web" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Wonderful World of the White Horse</span><span style="font-size: 66pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">"Traditional watering-place for writers, longshoremen, Bohemians, pub crawlers, socialists, and just-plain-drunks, it was the kind of scene he'd dreamed of."<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "graphik x cond web" , serif; font-size: 18pt; letter-spacing: 0.75pt;">by <span style="text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://www.villagevoice.com/author/j-r-godard/" title="Posts by J. R. Goddard">J. R. GODDARD</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleybold" , serif;"><b>West Village I: The Wonderful World of the White Horse</b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">June 22, 1961<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">The young man fresh out of Dartmouth College left the $8-a-week room he’d just moved into on Greenwich Street and ventured into the oppressively muggy late afternoon. Although a newcomer to the West Village in that summer of 1951, he made tracks to the White Horse Tavern like an old-timer. People at Dartmouth had told him about the “The Horse.” Traditional watering-place for writers, longshoremen, Bohemians, pub crawlers, socialists, and just-plain-drunks, it was the kind of scene he’d dreamed of.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">“Dartmouth” looked around at the West Village as he marched along, taking in the grimy streets, the weary brownstones, and tenements, the massive brick warehouses. There was something backwaterish about the neighborhood, tired. Looking on down 11th Street past the NY Central elevated line, then the elevated West Side Highway, he spied the ramshackle docks. They seemed lifeless too. The whole scene reminded him of the arid, yellowish-brown desolation of a 1930s Depression painting. But it was quiet. And quiet — plus cheaper rents — was why he’d chosen the neighborhood over the rest of the Village.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">As a matter of fact, that quiet was symptomatic of what had happened to the West Village since its raucous, teeming Irish immigration days. By 1951, those dozen or so historic blocks extending from Hudson Street to the North River, and from Leroy up to Gansevoort, were so much at ebb tide the city had long before marked them as a blighted area. Not that they really were slums. But the city makes strange distinctions, and though Dartmouth didn’t know it, the redevelopment axe hung heavy over his new home as he walked along that day.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleybold" , serif;"><b>Summer Commandoes</b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">On the corner, the afternoon picked up. Three neighborhood Irish kids in ragged clothes and 25-cent haircuts popped up like summer commandoes from behind a line of rusty garbage cans. They took one look at Dartmouth’s Brooks jacket, his button-down shirt and rep tie, and squawked, “Hey, faggot, why don’cha go back to Ha’vard!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">Dartmouth winced. But he never looked back as a shower of stones whistled demonically past his ears.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">And then he fronted the White Horse on Hudson and 11th. Multicolored with checkered trim, ship-shape square, it emitted a low drone of talk from its open door. This was Dartmouth’s big moment. He was landing on Bohemia’s shores after four dry years in New Hampshire. Man!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">Inside, the Horse was gloomy but cool. Dark was the ornate wood paneling, with saloon-Victorian lamps, decorated by tiny horse heads hanging down from the ceiling. An English pub, no less! The heavy, old-fashioned bar was crowded with men, most of them in sweaty work clothes with ILA buttons on their caps. In the adjacent backroom a few other people, including a man with a Smith Brothers beard, poked at chessboards.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleybold" , serif;"><b>A Navy Vet</b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">The men were making one hell of a noise. An elderly man they called “Ernie,” with a great white towel around his expansive midriff, shoved beer at them by the gallon. Timidly Dartmouth joined the men, feeling conspicuous in his Brooks clothes. He was. A stocky, red-faced type, with shirt sleeves rolled over his knotty, proletarian arms, frowned and muttered something as the young man nudged by him. Dartmouth felt uneasy. But what the hell, 18 months in the Navy had put some muscle on him too (it was tough in Philly in ’46 mothballing those destroyers and inventorying 3 million bars of soap).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">He ordered what the longshoremen were drinking — half-light, half-dark beer — and drained his thick white mug. The frowning man was looking him up and down. Only the frown had pulled down to a scowl of gale force 10. Dartmouth belted another ’alf and ’alf. Courage, as it does occasionally to all men, came to him. The scowler tacked unsteadily alongside, his breath that of a hundred hop-fat breweries. “Hey,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">Dartmouth refused to acknowledge the battered face glowing there in Heinz-tomato ripeness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">“Hey. Hey you, necktie,” the sodden voice persisted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">Slowly Dartmouth turned to his antagonist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">“You wanna know sumpin? Used to be guys like you never come in here. Now you’re on the joint like flies. You’re ruinin’ the place. Why don’t you go back uptown?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">Dartmouth was getting mad. Which was unfortunate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">“Hey,” the scowler persisted. “<i>I’m</i> the kinna guy belongs here. I belong in this part of Green-witch Village, not you.” Suddenly his face beamed with pride. “You know why? I’m a sailor. A ship’s engineer.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">“A ship’s <i>engineer</i>,” Dartmouth grinned coldly. “Well, where’s your engine?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">Goodnight, Sweet Dartmouth. When flights of 6th Precinct cops have borne you to your rest at St. Vincent’s you will be glad to learn the jaw was not broken — only badly bent.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleybold" , serif;"><b>No Outsiders</b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">Those were the breaks in 1951. The West Village could still brawl once in a while, and the longshoremen, truck drivers, or white collar folk (many of Irish descent) whose families had lived around there since the 1870s and ’80s, just didn’t take to outsiders. The ship’s engineer who clobbered Dartmouth was an extreme, of course, and his aggressive kind were usually kept in line by Ernie Wohlleben, the man who ran the Horse for nearly five decades. But once in a while things did get out of hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">The Horse had already gone through whole phases of West Village history — even by 1951. And because it was such a durable pub, it reflected those changes about as readily as any popular neighborhood bar does. A longshore hangout since the ’80s, it survived the roughest days of what was known as the American Ward, when the Hudson Dusters gang used to pick fights with its customers and occasionally break the windows. Another indication of how solid a part of the community the Horse was by the end of World War I was the effect Prohibition had on it — that is, damn little effect!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">In the late ’30s, the Horse again reflected changing times, but entertaining left-wingers in its backroom. Singing of radical songs became a nightly procedure back then, and though Ernie was a patient man, when the lyrics got around to bomb-tossing and unfettering of chains he got annoyed. “Listen,” he said to the radicals one night, “can’t you sing those songs as much as possible in some foreign language?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleybold" , serif;"><b>Literature Moves In</b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">After the Second World War, the Horse stated going literary. And it was Dylan Thomas, of course, who gave the joint such poetic class. Thomas used to stop while on U.S. lecture tours, bringing a whole coterie of admirers with him. It is often said he took his last drink there, before dying in late 1953. But the Horse was still no intellectual spa. A day or so after Thomas died, somebody passed the hat for his widow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">“Thomas. Who’s he?” a longshoreman wanted to know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">“Some drunk who used to ball it up in here,” his companion enlightened him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">Around the same time, a series of Sunday afternoon literary-political discussions started in the backroom. Norman Mailer, Calder Willingham, Oscar Williams, Vance Bourjaily — these were a few who held forth, sometimes by the hour. But the discussion tended to wander, the afternoons to get longer, and finally the whole thing fizzled out. “We wanted to transplant ideas, but we picked the wrong hothouse,” a participant said later.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">So the White Horse changed. As more and more people like Dartmouth discovered the West Village, so the balance of population shifted from the Gaelic. The area was removed from the slum map in 1954 and renovations started. Rent went up. Dartmouth, by the way, had made it into a $110-a-month two-room garden job by 1955. But there were certain old-time elements in those blocks who resented this invasion. Some had good reason too, for they were losing their apartments to renovators. When property started getting scarce, a longshoreman earning $5,000 a year is hard put to compete for space with a copywriter pulling down $8,000.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleybold" , serif;">McCarthy Evenings</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">Politics reared its ghoulish head too. That was during the McCarthy hearings. Some patriotic West Villagers who approved of “good old Joe” decided the people who congregated at the White Horse must be Communists, atheists, or fags. They were different, weren’t they? So fights started in the streets. Then one night a bunch of these stalwarts invaded the Horse smashing beer mugs over peoples heads and kicking in the front windows. Minor variations of this took place all through that time. Diplomatic Ernie tried smoothing things over, but only when the draft grabbed the McCarthyites and directed their hostility toward North Koreans did the tensions ease off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleybold" , serif;"><b>Other Voices, Other Bars</b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">To return to friend Dartmouth. By the late ’50s, he was a big man in the Horse. Everybody called him by his first name, and the owners let him keep a tab. But ingrate that he was, he took to wandering to other pubs for variety. Up to El Faro on Greenwich and Horatio, he drank and played Lola Florez records on the jukebox. Back down on Greenwich and Perry, it was the poetry readings at the International Bar that caught his attention for awhile. Sitting alongside longshoremen, writers, and anyone else who drifted in, he listened to Bridget Murnaghan and the others by the hour. The International, too, had its hour of poetry before lapsing into somnolence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">Sometimes Dartmouth missed sitting and having a drink with the Irish. They’d been vanishing slowly from the Horse (some of them from the West Village altogether). He found them still, in the Cathedral Bar on Christopher, or in the waterfront Foc’s’cle with its sailors from Norway, truckers from Tulsa, and its star character, Popeye. Popeye, who loves the hop, gets so full of it he takes to directing traffic on West Street. He has three whistles for his work — a giant blaster for trucks, and average tweeter for cars, and a tiny peeper for jeeps and scooters. “I’m a federal traffic expert,” Popeye hollers as a truck driver in a 10-ton semi glares down at him. “President Kennedy just gave me sleeping privileges in the Red Ball trucks.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleybold" , serif;"><b>‘Horse’ Today</b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">And what of Dartmouth’s Horse today? Although many of the longshoremen have gone, writers, painters, editors still gravitate there. The poet in residence is Delmore Schwarz. But college kids literally pack the place on weekends, and its nearly impossible to find a place to sit down. In the backroom, Socialists, like Mike Harrington, discuss the world but don’t cut loose with the radical songs anymore. They folksinging crowd which had come in over the the past few years makes all the racket now. The indomitable Clancy Brothers, Logan English, and others sing of their ethnic backgrounds until the little room rocks. They have displaced politics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "stanleyregular" , serif;">Dartmouth can’t stand the singing. He can’t stand the outsiders either, or the weekend crowds. “It isn’t the same,” you can hear him griping, “you should have seen it 10 years ago. <i>Real</i> people then!” And he’s become a loyal West Villager too. With the people once again thinking of redeveloping the neighborhood (it has improved tremendously in 10 years), he’s ready to man the barricades against the Planning Commission. Just ask him the next time you’re in the Horse. He’ll grab you by the shirt, back you against the old grandfather clock, and tell you what a great place his neighborhood is by the <i>hour</i>.</span></div>
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Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-37576201068052984932020-05-12T11:30:00.000-07:002020-06-08T06:59:21.157-07:00An Interview with the Greenwich Village Poet and Hellraiser Brigid Murnaghan, Bleecker Street, May 2014<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />
<b>An Interview with the Poet and
Hellraiser Brigid Murnaghan on Bleecker
Street, Greenwich Village, May 2014 <o:p></o:p></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><b>Brigid Murnaghan died on September 11, 2017. She did not receive an obituary in any of the three surviving New York daily </b></span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><b>newspapers.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><b>I spoke with Murnaghan in her Bleecker Street apartment in 2008 and 2014. She was cared for by a home attendant and her son Cado. As I wrote below, her short-term emory was pretty bad, but she told amusing and detailed stories from her wild life in the 1950's and 1960's. She was charming and ready to correct the historical record. Rest in Peace, Brigid, you Irish-American hellraiser. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><b>By Dylan Foley</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><b><br /></b></span>
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5MsgBC7hlas/XC2LTrdIXuI/AAAAAAAABIc/_cS9-ZEDGOQ9lc_GqSmcWZFDD4Ij7e40gCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_0944.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5MsgBC7hlas/XC2LTrdIXuI/AAAAAAAABIc/_cS9-ZEDGOQ9lc_GqSmcWZFDD4Ij7e40gCK4BGAYYCw/s640/IMG_0944.JPG" width="401" /></a><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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(Brigid Murnaghan and her son in Greenwich Village, 1960's)<br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">The poet Brigid Murnaghan was an eternal
Greenwich Village rebel in the 1950s and 1960s. Born in 1930, she escaped the
Irish Bronx in 1945, couch surfing so she could stay in the Village. Famous for
her high-cheekboned beauty and her long legs, Brigid frequented such famous
bars like the San Remo, the Kettle of Fish and the White Horse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Brigid’s poetry was featured in Seymour Krim’s
seminal anthology The Beats (1960), she was a subject in the Frank O’Hara’s
poem about his time living over a gay bar and a character in Bill Manville’s “Saloon
Society” column in the <i>Village Voice</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Brigid has lived for more than 50 years in the
same Greenwich Village walk-up tenement apartment. For years, she ran a poetry
slam on Sundays at the Back Fence, a nearby bar on Bleecker Street. During a
recent visit in May 2014, the 85-year-old was a
witty interview subject. Though her short-term memory was very hazy, her
long term memory was sharp.<br />
<br />
Murnaghan had requested that her interviewer bring her a bottle of Coke. The
home-care attendant chided, him, saying, “She takes anxiety pills, but Coca
Cola makes her hyper…what’s the use of medicine if you drink Coke?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Q. How did you wind up in Greenwich Village?</span></b><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />
<br />
I’m an opera buff. I went to see "La Boehme" at the Met and I was enthralled.
After it was over, we’d all go to a nearby cafeteria. They had cafeterias in
those days. We all talked about the performances. Most of them [the other fans]
were homosexuals. I said, “I’m saving up every penny, so I can go to Paris,
‘cause I finally saw people that I could live with.” This fairy at the end of
the table said, [affecting a mincing voice], “You don’t have to go to Paris. You
just have to take the D-train to West 4th Street.” Guess what I did? I was 14,
going on 15. The war had just ended.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. What did you see?</b><br />
<br />
Boom. There were women in jeans. I was already in jeans because I was very hard
on my clothes. My first pair of jeans were bought by my mother. My mother came
from the North, Co. Down, and my father came from West Mayo. God help us.<br />
<br />
I got downtown and I walked all around the West Side. I found out about the
cafeterias. Those people weren’t drinkers or raising hell. There were a lot of
homosexuals. Nice people. Much nicer than anyone in the fucking Bronx, except
for the zoo.<br />
<br />
One day, I had my girlfriend Penny…I’d found out about the bars. I’d been
asking questions. We went to the Minetta Tavern. We were 15, but I was tall,
5’10 ½”. I ordered. They gave me a drink. I ordered a drink for Penny.<br />
<br />
Penny and I met on the subway because we were both reading books. We <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">went to the theater together. Later on, Penny
became a lesbian, but she wasn’t when we were close. When I hit the Minetta,
there were two guys--John O’Malley and Warren Finnerty. He’s an actor. He was
in films. He wasn’t then. He was just starting out. “Why stay at the Minetta?”
asked Finnerty. “That’s not where the action is. The action is at the San
Remo.” They could have taken us to an opium den, for Crissake. I went to the
Remo and I was home.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. What was the environment at the San
Remo?</b><br />
<br />
A. Lovely. You drank. Everybody left you alone,. They were trying to get in your
pants, but that was beside the point. It was a world and a half from the Bronx.
I was sleeping on people’s floors. Many a morning, I’d wake up in this
apartment with people sleeping on the floor. I’d go, “Ah, memories.” Some not
so young, some bombed out of their minds, sleeping here and getting up to go to
work.. More than once, I’d go down to the drugstore and buy razors and cream,
giving it to them, so they could get themselves together, so they could go to
work. Nobody would fuck anyone. I guess it all had to do with alcohol. I’ve
been here 40 years.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><a href="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2008/06/clip_job_the_ni.php">Brigid Murnaghan in Saloon Society's "The Nice Thing About Tweeds"</a><br />
<b><br />
Q. Who were the San Remo characters?</b><br />
<br />
A. Maxwell Bodenheim. I loved Max. Max liked me. Then there was a painter named
Harold “Popsy” Anton. He was a character. He lived on Bleecker Street in a
loft. He’d go around selling paintings the size of a large notebook, then he’d
have enough money to drink and buy drinks. I loved his work. I don’t have any
of his work. It’s all been stolen from me.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. When did you finally leave home for
good?</b><br />
<br />
A. 1946, I guess.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. Did you live in a cold-water flat
when you moved to Manhattan?</b><br />
<br />
The whole nine yards. I lived on Fifth Street, between A and B.<br />
<br />
I hit the San Remo and never left. At that time, the San Remo was getting
famous or infamous. All sorts of celebrities were coming. There were more
writers at the San Remo. At the Cedar, I knew all the painters--de Kooning,
Franz Kline, all those guys. De Kooning says that I looked like James Joyce.
I’d rather be that than Maureen O’Hara.<br />
<b><br />
Q. When did you know that you wanted to write?</b><br />
<br />
A. When did I first admit it to myself? Sy Krim, who edited <i>The Beats</i>, grabbed me and asked me for
some work. I’m in that first anthology.<br />
<br />
Very little happened at the Minetta.<br />
I can’t drink water, because fish fuck in water. They don’t fuck in Pellegrino.<br />
<br />
I loved Delmore Schwartz. There was a poet named Milton Klonsky and he
introduced me to Delmore. It was love at first sight. No, we didn’t fuck [Home
attendant’s catcalls in background…”your mouth is like a sailor, it kills me.”]
He and I really liked each other. He was crazy. I hadn’t seen him in a
while, and I said, “Where have you been?” He says, “I’m living uptown. 42nd
Street.” He was living in a hotel. I really started worrying about him.<br />
<br />
I met Delmore with Klonsky. Klonsky and [Anatole] Broyard were kissing cousins. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TTqXLofUJdY/XDA0tuR33aI/AAAAAAAABI0/oAMI0H6QV8sMN5qioL8TnHARyLdLaLITgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/13501667_1773567512929778_8843110758295038908_n.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="319" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TTqXLofUJdY/XDA0tuR33aI/AAAAAAAABI0/oAMI0H6QV8sMN5qioL8TnHARyLdLaLITgCK4BGAYYCw/s320/13501667_1773567512929778_8843110758295038908_n.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
(Brigid Murnaghan with her daughter at the Kettle of Fish Bar, 1960's)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />
<b>Q. Did you like Broyard?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">He had a good look about him. He was very into
himself. As my mother would say, he was very into himself. As I would say, he
thought he shat ice cream. He always had women. I never saw him as a sex
symbol, but he was nice and always nice to me. He was younger and wilder.<br />
It was Delmore, Klonsky and Anatole. Clement Greenberg had already made it. He
once made a pass at me.<br />
I loved Klonsky. He was a short guy. He was handsome in a way. He had a big
nose and lovely eyes. Thirty years later, I was walking on 14th Street. He said
“Brigid Murnaghan,” and he had such a smile on his face. I said, “How you doing
dear?”<br />
<br />
Romantic, what is romantic? I was a kid, but he was my boyfriend for a while.
When he thought about me, he thought about me fondly. That’s when he got a
place in my heart.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. What about your writing?</b><br />
<br />
I never talked about writing in those days. It was a great big secret. That had
to do with male chauvanist pigism. It was very, very bad. Every once in a
while, you would say something and they would do you in. <br />
<br />
<b>Q. How did you support yourself?</b><br />
<br />
A. Please! Half the time, I was going home to the Bronx. I slept on floor. Viva
La Boehme.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Q. Did you ever have a straight job?</span></b><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />
<br />
No. Maneuvers is the best word for it.<br />
<br />
<br />
Norman Mailer wasn’t at the San Remo. He didn’t come until after his book was
published. He was a Jewish guy. I liked Jewish guys.<br />
<br />
[Phone call.] I’m in A.A. That was one of my complainers. 31 years sober. Don’t
talk about it. That’s the only thing I’ll ask you.<br />
<br />
I knew Frank McCourt before the Lion’s Head.<br />
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Q. How did you wind up drinking at the White Horse?</span></b><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />
<br />
I went from the San Remo to the Kettle of Fish to the White Horse.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. Was the Kettle rough?</b><br />
<br />
They were all pussycats. They were my friends.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. Do you know anything about the Kerouac
assault in front of the Kettle?<br />
</b><br />
Don’t believe the bullshit. I would have known. He was with his mother. He was
a mamma’s boy. [Murnaghan refers to a famous Kerouac photo that is on her
dresser] It’s a picture of Jack before he died. He and his mother are at the
kitchen table. He’s sitting and she’s standing with her hand on his shoulder. I
looked at it, and said, “She’s finally got him.” He was all bloated. There was
a drink on the table. He went home to die. That look on her face…”I have him
now.” He was all bloated. He was a little guy.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. Did you know Allen Ginsberg?<br />
</b><br />
I knew Ginsberg from the San Remo. I knew him early. He was a faggot. We were
at a big, big reading and he said, “You’re not going to be drunk?” I said, “I
never drink when I read.” That was my relationship with him. I knew Peter
Orlovsky.<br />
<br />
Next to McDonald’s, there was a Mafia-owned nightclub.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. When did the Kettle become important?</b><br />
<br />
When we took over? That’s what we did. The food was better than the San Remo.
They all thought we were crazy.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. Was it a takeover?<br />
</b><br />
That’s how it worked. One would go, another would go, then everybody would go.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. Did you go to Louis’ Tavern?</b><br />
<br />
I went to Louis’, then it went… We went to Julius’ for the cheeseburgers. You
never hung out because it was so faggoty. They had the best cheeseburgers and
they were cheap. Many a night, I ate my dinner at Julius’. You had money to
drink on, or at least you had the entrance fee. Entrance fee is very important.
That’s the first drink you buy, then some guy tries to hit on you, or you know
somebody. The next thing you know, you walk out and say, “How the fuck did I
get so drunk? I only had five bucks.”<br />
<br />
Nothing was 15 cents. Fifty cents, maybe. I had a fight with one of the
bartenders at the Remo, something stupid.. I said, “Fuck you,” and went to the
Kettle of Fish, then to Louis’ and the White Horse. They were all pick up
joints. You needed an entrance fee.<br />
<br />
Larry Rivers did a portrait of me. The bars had their own personalities. <br />
At the Cedar, the painters were no fun.<br />
<br />
I had boyfriends. I stuck around with them for a while, I had a child. I stayed
square for a few days, then I went back to the high life, or the low life, or
whatever fuck kind of life you want to call it.<br />
<br />
The painters were very aloof. They were the highest in the realm of art. I once
got a lecture from a painter on how the painters were more important than
the writers. I can see his face, but I can’t remember his name. I didn’t even
fuck him. Franz Kline was a very nice guy, but the artists were pains in the
asses. They had no senses of humor.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. What did you think of Frank O’Hara?</b><br />
<br />
I knew Frank O’Hara at the Remo. I knew him early. He was a little guy with a
punched-in nose, like a fighter. It made him nicer. He was a 110 pounds soaking
wet.<br />
<br />
John Ashbery and I talked about how we wanted to open a theater that just
showed coming attractions. There were no conversations about Baudelaire. They
were just light conversations.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. Did you know Joe LeSueur, Frank
O’Hara’s roommate?</b><br />
<br />
They must have fucked once or twice. They weren’t a couple. They were friends.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. What was your view of Jackson Pollock?</b><br />
<br />
I liked Pollock. I don’t give a fuck what anybody says. He was a very shy guy.
You’d say hello to him and he’d jump out of his skin. De Kooning was lovely. De
Kooning was a gentleman.<br />
<br />
The White Horse had the would-bees.<br />
<br />
I remember Dylan Thomas. What a pain in the ass. I went up to the bar to get a
drink. All of a sudden, this guy turns around, and I said, “Oh, it’s you. Hi,
how are you doing?” I ordered a drink. [Thomas gave her a furious, dirty look.]
They talk about him being gay. Dylan Thomas was not born gay. He had
these couple of guys going around with him. He was a switch hitter, obviously.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. What was your reaction to his death?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">What a fucking waste of time. He was so
talented.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. What was the White Horse like after
Dylan Thomas died?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />
I loved the Clancy Brothers. Paddy was my favorite. He was the smartest. I liked
Tommy. Paddy was quiet. I screwed Paddy. He took me home one night in a cab and
the next thing I knew, he was on top of me. Whoever it was , it was a guy I
trusted. I wondered which one it was. [Checks face of the man.] “Oh, it’s Paddy
Clancy.” It just happened once.<br />
<br />
Seymour Krim was very nice.<br />
A lot of people hung out. They weren’t as loud as I was. I had my opinions. <br />
Delmore had not nice things to say about Elizabeth Pollet. “You stick all woman
in one bucket,” I said to him. Anyone else would have gone out and found
another woman.<br />
<br />
I adored Milton Klonsky, but he certainly didn’t know what to do with me. There
was this little pack of guys. They were all chauvo pigos. I once said that I
wanted to be a poet. I might as well have said that I wanted Josef Stalin in
the White Horse. I was a girl. I had no right to say I wanted to be a poet. I
wanted to go into a profession that was completely male dominated. Let me
explain me…I was young, I was beautiful and I was wild. They had a lot of
prejudice, my fellow women. When the women’s lib movement came, I took to it
like a duck to water.<br />
<br />
I have a son, Cade, called Cado. At this point in time, he’s not talking to me.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. What was the Lion’s Head like?</b><br />
<br />
The writers there were newspapermen. My daughter loved the Lion’s Head. She’s a
photojournalist. Annie Hagman McDermott. She hung out at the Lion’s Head. That
was her saloon, so I stayed away from it.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. I have heard that the 55 Bar on Christopher
Street was famous for customers having sex in the bathroom. Have you heard of
this?</b><br />
<br />
That’s not sex. Another place that did that was the Lion’s Head. I know a
couple of the blow-job queens from the Lion’s Head. One of them is in AA with
me. In AA, you tell the truth.<br />
<br />
I was 15 when I went into the Remo. A shot and a beer. That’s what you do. A
shot of Johnnie Walker Black and a beer back. Nobody asked me how old I was.
That is one of the secrets of drinking before your time. They watch you drink
the shot, then they forget about you. I was one of five girls. They knew I was
wild, but they also knew that there was nothing they could do with me.
They knew I was a writer before I became a writer. It was a dream then…you had
to put up with all that bullshit of women being treated as second-class
citizens.<br />
<br />
In the San Remo, I liked the bartenders, except for one. I liked the people. It
was a lot of fun. Good times were had there. Practically everybody is dead.
There were some really good times there. Then the celebrities would come. I
swore I would never be a celebrity.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. Did you know any of the Partisan
Review writers?</b><br />
<br />
You’re talking squares. You are not talking all squares, but they tend to the
square bit. They had that whole kind of superiority that squares get, that any
normal person would be ashamed of to act like that.<br />
<br />
Delmore Schwartz was so beautiful. He was taking downers. Paranoid? He invented
the word. No one knew how to spell it before he came up with it. I loved him so
much. He was just one of those people you love. He was so nuts. It scared me
about writing. Would I get nuts like that? Cado came when I was 30. It calmed
my dinties down. I’m grateful. It tied me down.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. Which of your children was born in
1960?</b><br />
<br />
That was Annie. You might as well show the children the bar. Cado is in A.A.
Annie, I don’t even ask.<br />
<br />
Boyfriends are very hard. You have to pay attention to them.<br />
<br />
You got me thinking of Delmore Schwartz. Smart guy. Smart guy. He knew he
couldn’t get to first base, that he was a friend.<br />
De Kooning.<br />
People who knew me for years never knew that I wrote.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. How would you describe Joe LeSueur?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />
He was a cunt. It fits right on the money. That kind of looks, I knew he
wouldn’t age gracefully.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. Did you know Winnie Myers?</b><br />
<br />
Did I know Winnie? Let me tell you, there were nights when we slept in the same
bed. I loved her very much. She was very smart. The only thing she had was
alcohol. If I’d known about AA then, I’d have taken Winnie to AA. She would
have done very well. Winnie was as black as the Ace of Spades. She really had
an ear for languages.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Winnie would take out a tit and stick it in
somebody’s face. The woman loved being naked.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. Do you know the story of her doing a
reverse striptease on the 6<sup>th</sup> Avenue bus?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />
You’re asking me, who heard it from the mouth of the woman who did it. On 6th
Avenue and 8th Street, across from the Waldorf Cafeteria, there was a skinny
bar and it was very hot. These were the days before air conditioning. Winnie
was hot. She took off all her clothes , folded them neatly, put them on the bar
and went out for a walk. She had big tits and a big ass. If she went out naked
in Africa, you’d never look at her twice because everyone looked that way. They
got her. They took her to Bellevue. They asked her at Bellevue why she did it.
She said, “It was hot. I’m an African.” They gave her 30 days, to make sure
that she was sane.<br />
<br />
I did my turn in Bellevue, because my son’s father finked on me. Mr. White Protestant,
and me raging mad, wanting to get my hands on him, so they put me in to see
that I was sane. I didn’t assault him, but I was trying. Why are you calling
the cops for?<br />
<br />
<b>Q. Were you friends with Gregory Corso?<br />
</b><br />
Darling, I was important in making Gregory Corso famous. I had a boyfriend
named Art Franklin, who was a genius in PR. It was the 1940s. You had to feed
the newspapermen good stories to get in their columns. I introduced Gregory to
Art. We all liked Gregory then. Gregory was a very close friend. Art got a
piece on Gregory in one of his columns.<br />
<br />
Art would get Gregory in all these columns. Gregory became famous. He took all
the clippings to the West Coast. West Coast writers were talking about
Gregory showing off all these articles. Those were the pieces that Art had put
in the paper for him. I wish Art had done it for me. Art was the press agent
for all these black artists in the 1930s.</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">I can’t explain any of those guys, except they were nice. Then fame hit. They
were all drunks. Allen wasn’t a drunk, but Allen’s boyfriend Peter Orlovsky was
a drunk… Allen set him to drink.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">
<br />
<b>Q. Did you drink with the painter Sheri
Martinelli?<br />
</b><br />
Of course, I knew Sheri. I loved her. Sheri and I got along very well. When I
first met her, she was going out with Anatole Broyard. She was a very funny
woman. She was very petite. She was smart and street smart. She was much more
sophisticated than any of us.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. How about the doomed Iris Brody?<br />
</b><br />
She hung out at the Remo. Iris was quiet in a way, but you knew not to
turn your back on Iris. Sheri wouldn’t stab me in the back. I liked Iris a lot.
Is she dead, too? I think I knew that.<br />
<br />
Iris was one of Marshall Allen’s girlfriends. He was a rich little guy from Connecticut.
He owned a house on 13th Street. He was rich and had all that bullshit going
for him. He could fuck. That’s one thing I can say.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. Were you involved with him?</b><br />
<br />
Not very long. If our relationship was fucking, I’d be with him today. When you
got out of the good part of him, you never wanted anything else. He was smart,
he wasn’t dumb, but he was stupid.<br />
<br />
Iris ran around with him.<br />
<br />
A lot of people hung around with him, like Delmore Schwartz. He got Delmore out
of some trouble. I know he gave money to Delmore. He couldn’t do what we could
do. He once said, “Your little poems. I don’t write little poems. I’m not a
little person.” He once told me, “I’ll buy you as many drinks as you want, but
I’ll not buy you anything to eat.” I’d always go with him to a restaurant with
a bar. My plot would always be to get him to feed me.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. Did you know Helen Parker, the woman who
took Allen Ginsberg’s virginity?</b><br />
<br />
She was somebody out of the twenties. She didn’t look it at all, but she had
that twenties mentality--”I’m sexually free,” not sexually free like we were.
She never went in the street and did what we did. She was really nice. She was
married for a while and had two sons. The husband took the sons and she took to
drink. Always had boyfriends. She was a good-looking redhead. Real red
hair, not out of a bottle. Irish red hair. She looked very Irish. Anyplace she
drank, I drank. We were very friendly. She was older than I was. She gave me a
lot of free advice on how to run my sex life. I couldn’t say love with a
straight face. She always had a guy hanging on her, switch hitters, both men
and women. She wasn’t but the guys were. Numerous amounts of them were switch
hitters, because they were so kind. There is a lot alike with her and Tennessee
Williams’ women. She wasn’t tough, but she stood up for herself.<br />
<br />
Helen was somebody, if she was sitting at the bar by herself, if the stool next
to her was empty, I’d put myself down next to her. She said, “I’m going to
teach you how to drink all night.” She was my role model.<br />
<br />
You know how they fade away? That’s what happened to her. She got some guy to
keep her. Marshall Allen was very generous to writers, but he got to be so
pompous. He had such a nice apartment. He had a million and a half books. I
never left without a handful of books. Those who had courage made a pass at me.
The cowards were afraid of me. I once heard somebody say I was so tough. I
never laughed so much in my life. That’s one thing I am not. Loud, maybe, but
not tough. I never had a fight with a woman.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Q. Did you ever hang out with the Mailers?</span></b><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />
<br />
I met Norman and Adele at their parties. How do you get out of a fight with
Adele Mailer? She started up with me. Norman was there. I said, “Norman, get
her off my back.” I came from five sisters. None of them ever raised a hand to
each other. I am a born feminist.<br />
<br />
Once Liz Diamond stayed with me for Christmas. We bemoaned our fates that we
were orphans in the storm. [48th and 8th].<br />
<br />
Liz Diamond called Norman up and asked him if he was having a party. He invited
us down to his garden apartment in the Village. Everybody was smoking dope in
the garden. Everybody smoked, but everybody hid the smoking.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. Who was Liz Diamond?</b><br />
<br />
She wanted to be a singer. She was a nice woman. She fucked them all,
absolutely all of them. She was very attractive Jewish girl. We had a love-hate
relationship. She hated my long legs. She came into the Remo at the end. She
fucked everyone.<br />
<br />
Q. What was your view of Jack Kerouac and his mother?<br />
<br />
(Referring to an infamous photo of Kerouac’s mother standing over him.) Her
standing over him. The look on her face. “I have him now, “a half dead man
there. It was the scariest thing I’d ever seen.<br />
<br />
<b>Q. Were you ever involved with Gregory
Corso?</b><br />
<br />
He started out at the Remo. Gregory was in it for the money, but he was too
stupid to make money. He got off on drinking and doing dope. You couldn’t say
Gregory was a heroin addict because he was too mixed up to be one. If you gave
him a shot of heroin or a drink, he’d think it was the same thing.<br />
<br />
Gregory was so much fun. We’d go to the movies all the time. <br />
<br />
Nobody dated Gregory Corso. You couldn’t say with a straight face that you
dated Gregory Corso. He just wasn’t there for that.<br />
<br />
I never fucked any of them. I don’t know how I would have gotten up in the
morning and looked in the mirror. They were my friends. I went outside for
fucking. You don’t fuck a member of your family. I went uptown for fucking. I
didn’t bother with my friends I boozed with and drank with and smoked with. I
wouldn’t want one of those guys coming into the bar and saying, “Are you coming
home with me tonight?” I had a reputation to uphold. I’d always say, “Go home
to your mother.”<br />
<br />
</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
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<!--EndFragment-->Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-65319761299366725842020-05-07T10:34:00.002-07:002023-01-14T06:40:28.722-08:00Rebecca Reitz remembers her mother Rosetta Reitz, a Pioneering Bookstore Owner and Record Producer, April 15, 2020<div class="AOLWebSuite AOLWebSuiteM2" data-dojo-attach-point="bodyCont" style="background-color: white; margin: 5px;">
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ugaQMYcjaDk/XrRCB79aJGI/AAAAAAAABec/5C7pymJp71sHG1qHu2tkdEIh_gG9dZkFgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Unknown-5.jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ugaQMYcjaDk/XrRCB79aJGI/AAAAAAAABec/5C7pymJp71sHG1qHu2tkdEIh_gG9dZkFgCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Unknown-5.jpeg" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rosetta Reitz (compliments of Rebecca Reitz)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rosetta Reitz was an avant-garde bookstore owner in Greenwich</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Village in the 1940’s. She was also a jazz and blues audiophoile, who</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">used her love of music and history in founding Rosetta Records at</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">the age of 56, producing 19 albums in more than a decade. </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Her records focused on the African-American blueswomen and singers</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">who were pushed to the side in the history of jazz and blues. Rosetta</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">produced meticulous albums with great liner notes full of the history</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">of the women performers.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-alZareRxYcU/XrRCwQg8niI/AAAAAAAABe4/lc84umTTgqoOQruH1vOLPpVQ2ss17um4wCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/1300-mean-mothers-1300_11.jpg"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-alZareRxYcU/XrRCwQg8niI/AAAAAAAABe4/lc84umTTgqoOQruH1vOLPpVQ2ss17um4wCK4BGAYYCw/s320/1300-mean-mothers-1300_11.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> (Mean Mothers, compliments of Rebecca Reitz)</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">The catalog of Rosetta Records is a blues fanatic’s dream. Rosetta’s</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">first album “Mean Mothers” features Billie Holiday, Lil Green and</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Gladys Bentley. The novelist Alice Walker has said she wrote her</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">breakout novel “The Color Purple” listening to “Mean Mothers.”</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Other albums included “Super Sisters,” which features Ida Cox,</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sweet Peas Spivey and Ella Fitzgerald, and an album of the singer</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Ethel Waters’ songs from the 1930’s.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-p6rxjU5RGAE/XrRC-bPMl2I/AAAAAAAABfI/KMJgZZ2360ANQ-hc_hK4SFORWz0NPmohgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/1314-ethel-waters.jpg"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-p6rxjU5RGAE/XrRC-bPMl2I/AAAAAAAABfI/KMJgZZ2360ANQ-hc_hK4SFORWz0NPmohgCK4BGAYYCw/s320/1314-ethel-waters.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> (Ethel Waters, compliments of Rebecca Reitz)</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">I had interviewed Rosetta Reitz in 2005 for my “Last Bohemians”</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">photo exhibit, concentrating on the Four Seasons Bookshop, where</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison and Anais Nin were customers. We had</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">discussed a second interview, but Rosetta died of cardiopulmonary issues in 2008, before we could sit down again.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Recently, I reached out to Rosetta’s daughter Rebecca Reitz, who</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">gave me an extensive interview on her mother’s work as a pioneering</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">bookstore owner and champion of American blueswomen.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rebecca also has a great website celebrating her mother’s work with</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rosetta Records at </span><span style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://rosettatribute.weebly.com./" rel="nofollow" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;" target="_blank">rosettatribute.weebly.com.</a></span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">In addition to the albums, Rosetta produced concerts at Avery Fisher</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Hall, Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl that allowed surviving</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">blues singers like Big Mama Thornton to perform in front of</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">enthusiastic crowds.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F8yVh63jdLk/XrRDaajib3I/AAAAAAAABfY/LHX23pW5O2o8S7Z2BVXPEF2BdKL_RvP-wCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/blues-is-a-woman-reitz.jpg"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F8yVh63jdLk/XrRDaajib3I/AAAAAAAABfY/LHX23pW5O2o8S7Z2BVXPEF2BdKL_RvP-wCK4BGAYYCw/s320/blues-is-a-woman-reitz.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> (Rosetta, center, with blues greats. Photo by Barbara Barefield. Compliments of Rebecca Reitz)</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">The website also has material on Rosetta’s arrest on charges of</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">having an obscene window display at her bookstore in 1949. (The</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">local bishop complained.)</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">I interviewed Rebecca Reitz on April 15, 2020, by telephone at her</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">home in Manhattan.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DYLAN FOLEY: Rebecca, you have set up an impressive website as</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">a tribute to your mother.</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">REBECCA REITZ: I did it out of love. I made the tribute site because I</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">am eager for her accomplishments to have a record. There is no one I’d</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">rather talk about than Rosetta.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: When I interviewed Rosetta in 2005, I mostly focused on the</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Four Seasons Bookshop. The store lasted for about six to eight years?</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: That’s about right. First, they had it on Greenwich Avenue, then they</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">moved to 8th Street. Then her doctor advised her if she wanted babies, she had to stop working.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: Rosetta’s papers have been donated to the Jazz Archive at Duke</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">University?</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: I was so lucky, they approached me, because I was forced to deal</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">with her business at the end. For the last couple of years, she didn’t have</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">the energy It was a godsend they wanted the</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">papers.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: When were your father Robert Reitz and Rosetta married?</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: They got married when Rosetta was 23. My sister was born in 1953. She had me a year later.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: When Rosetta moved the store to 8th Street, she was razzed by</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">her bohemian friends for adding greeting cards.</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: That was the business they did together. He drew the pictures and</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">she managed the business. Did her friends think it was too commercial?</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: Was the 8<sup>th</sup>Street store profitable?</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: It was a success. They threw opening parties for authors. In those</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">days, you could make a living in the store. They bought the house in</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Hackettstown, New Jersey. They were doing very well with the greeting</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">cards. They bought a house on Fire Island, in Seaview, near Ocean</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Beach.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">That was one of the big regrets, was when my parents separated, they</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">sold the beach house at a profit.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">They shut down the Four Seasons, probably is 1953, when she wanted a</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">baby. My sister Robin was born in November 1953. She had three girls in</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">four years. I was born in ’54. Rainbow was born in ’56.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: Rosetta and your father Robert Reitz were in New Jersey for a</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">year?</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: Oh, yes, then they moved to West 4thStreet and MacDougal. The</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">official address was 39 ½ Washington Square South. The entrance</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">was on West 4th Street. It was on the 3rd floor, a six-room apartment. It</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">was not that easy to find that size apartment in the Village. We lived there until I was about 10, when Washington Square Park, which was our backyard, started hosting all these runaways and drug dealers. Plus, the rent was high, as she was a single mom. At that point, we moved to Chelsea.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: When did your parents separate?</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: I must have been about seven.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: Did your father stay in the city?</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: That was part of the plan. First, he would come and tuck us in at</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">night. He got an apartment on Waverly Place. We’d stay there every</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Friday night. We’d spend Saturday with him. That went on for a very</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">long time, until he moved down to Florida. He wasn’t like the older people in Jewish Miami because he wasn’t Jewish. He had a girlfriend down there.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: You moved to 16th Street at about 10?</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: Yes, all three girls lived in one room. [Eventually], my father wasn’t</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">around. It was very tough. It wasn’t easy.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: How did Rosetta wind up at the <i>Village Voice</i>?</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: In the early years, she wrote a series of columns called “Dining In,</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Dining Out.” Her cooking expertise was one of her accomplishments.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">She wrote the cookbook Mushroom Cookery. “Dining In” would be</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">recipes and the “Dining Out” would be restaurant reviews. She was</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">ensconced with that crowd.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bwxMuADfYRw/XrREQN8UPlI/AAAAAAAABfo/uOUlngrxOfsIzi5adcH9V1-vDwCzUe9kwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Unknown-20.jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bwxMuADfYRw/XrREQN8UPlI/AAAAAAAABfo/uOUlngrxOfsIzi5adcH9V1-vDwCzUe9kwCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Unknown-20.jpeg" /></a></span><br />
(Original. location of the Village Voice, nytimes.com)<br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">When she needed a job, she started to run the Classifieds, because she</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">had the business savvy. She hired a lot of musicians to run the desk. The Classifieds was where you got a job and got an apartment.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: Were there any colorful stories from the Classifieds?</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: Sure. There were the Personals. Right next to the Personals was the</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">column “Pets for Free.” “Two free black pussies.” It was put in the wrong</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">column. That was a big one.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">A lot of the people she hired were musicians who worked with the pianist and educator Cecil Taylor. A lot of students. Very very hip. They came in and worked for an hourly rate. She was the lady in charge.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: Was Rosetta hitting the jazz clubs?</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: When I was old enough, I went with her. When I was a teenager and</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">when I was in college.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">We went to large concerts, particularly the Newport Jazz Festival. The</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">New Jersey Jazz Society had concerts. We also visited another loft, the</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Jazzmania Society on East 23rdStreet. We also went to the Cookery,</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">because Alberta Hunter was singing there, one of the old jazz ladies.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">[[The Cookery was on University Place and closed in 1984]. We went to</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">the Village Gate and a place called Slugs, which was really funky. [Slugs’</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Saloon was on East 3rdand closed in 1972.]</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RLiVP81RA4I/XrREpWLHioI/AAAAAAAABf0/LSxWMtuiFlgzpkPZvhX79luDWOesyIOZwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Unknown-21.jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RLiVP81RA4I/XrREpWLHioI/AAAAAAAABf0/LSxWMtuiFlgzpkPZvhX79luDWOesyIOZwCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Unknown-21.jpeg" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: medium;">(Village Gate, 1950's)</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: Your mother was very frank about her sexual liberation. When I</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">met her in 2005, she told me that since she was political in college in</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">the 1940’s, she was fitted with a diaphragm. She was on the vanguard</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">of sexual liberation. The Village was a place where things happened</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">much earlier.</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: That’s why people would move there. The people who moved to the</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Village were interested in freedom. The sexual revolution</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">in mainstream America did happen in the ‘60’s.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">To have a mother who was free, that was very unusual for a woman my</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">age. I am 65. Most of my friends’ mothers were virgins when they got</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">married. She was different.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: Where did Rosetta’s interest in finding the women blues</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">musicians come from?</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: She wrote about this and it became one of her standard explanations was that when a woman came of age in the 1950’s, jazz belonged to the men and they would give it to the women.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">For instance, she was a jitterbug and would dance to Benny</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Goodman, like every girl who grew up in the Depression did. When it</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">came time to listening seriously to John Coltrane or Duke Ellington, in</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">those days, the man would reintroduce the record. If you read the ARSC</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Journal interview, she talks about when she started exploring jazz, her</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">feminism coincided, of course, and she started looking for the women.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Where were the women? The women were there. She just had to find</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">them.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Did you ever hear of Studio Riv-Bea? Did you ever hear of Sam River’s</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">place, one of those jazz lofts in the 1970’s? Sam Rivers was this out</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">saxophonist. His wife was named Bea. Not only would Rosetta go to</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">these jazz clubs, she went to these other scenes. A lot of these kids she</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">hired at the Voice played at these other places. A lot of it was just</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">cacophonistic. It was not melodic. It was a scene. It was nice.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: How did your mother track down the women who were on her</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">albums for Rosetta Records?</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: She belonged to various groups, like the New Jersey Jazz Society</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">and the New Jersey Record Owners. There is a certain quality of the devoted collector who is interested not only in the music but in the reissue numbers.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">She knew the names of a lot of women she wanted to pursue. Then she had seen a lot of the women, like her “Women's Railroad Blues” album, the women singing about taking their men away, like a monster. </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0oKNIOO0W_M/XrRFFyo8vWI/AAAAAAAABgA/bM0x3iLGPQIwiabwK-fq6dKmBrRd5h-BACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/1301-railroad-1301_1.jpg"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0oKNIOO0W_M/XrRFFyo8vWI/AAAAAAAABgA/bM0x3iLGPQIwiabwK-fq6dKmBrRd5h-BACK4BGAYYCw/s320/1301-railroad-1301_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> (Women's Railroad Blues, compliments of Rebecca Reitz)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">In most black folklore, the railroad is seen like a liberator during the</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Great Migration, to take the black person from the South to freedom.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">She knew who were the main singers. She’d go collecting the 78’s from</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">the record fairs and if she found one with an unfamiliar name, she’d get</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">the record and listen to it. She was savvy enough to recognize its musicaland historical value. She had a list of names she pursued.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rosetta didn’t reissue albums. She reissued songs and put them in</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">collections. Like with Ethel Waters in the 1920’s, they didn’t make</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">albums. They just issued various songs.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">This was before the internet. She would make several attempts to contact the artist. With the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, she got to know some of them quite well. For instance, she put [bandleader/singer] Sippie Wallace in one of her shows. You’ll see a picture of Sippie Wallace with Rosetta when she was a really old lady on the Tribute website.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gGwgoY_3B4w/XrRF4ADprwI/AAAAAAAABgM/IeQ479IWppgNPksys43Mh5I1IenT4bu1QCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/ff6769981da3e885714bd06cba9a80f4.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gGwgoY_3B4w/XrRF4ADprwI/AAAAAAAABgM/IeQ479IWppgNPksys43Mh5I1IenT4bu1QCK4BGAYYCw/s400/ff6769981da3e885714bd06cba9a80f4.jpg" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> (Sippie Wallace, composer and singer)</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">There were some women Rosetta could find and some women she</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">couldn’t. It was all done by phone and snail mail. For the most part,</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">people loved having their music reissued.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: Rosetta set up a series of concerts with her rediscovered blues</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">women, including shows at the Newport Jazz Festival at Avery</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. Did you go to</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">these concerts?</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: I worked them. They were a great experience. It was a full house and people really appreciated them. She had the most wonderful musicians. A lot of them were from the swing era, the sidemen. Dick Hyman was the musical director. He would set up the songs and the women would sing them. Some of them were the old ladies and some of them were contemporaries, like Nell Carter and Carrie Smith, a 1980’s blues-jazz singer. The older singers were Big Mama Thornton, Adelaide Hall and Beulah Bryant. It was a combination of the old ladies who were alive and the younger ladies interpreting their songs. It was swinging. Everybody loved it.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: Were you and Rosetta involved in producing the documentary</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">on the International Sweethearts of Rhythm?</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: Nooo…that was the one we were going to produce, but it was stolen</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">from us. That’s a whole terrible story. It broke my mother’s heart.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">There were these two women, Greta Schiller and Angela Weiss, and they</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">were filmmakers. They had done the movie, “Before</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Stonewall,” about gay life in Greenwich Village before the Stonewall</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Riots. They were progressive and they loved the Sweethearts, mainly because they were all women. They weren’t music people. We all working on it.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xu7lTaroLJE/XrRGBxIeTCI/AAAAAAAABgU/SAG2wW6xFNg1Db26_U-L00evSW6pY1J8QCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/1312-sweethearts.jpg"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xu7lTaroLJE/XrRGBxIeTCI/AAAAAAAABgU/SAG2wW6xFNg1Db26_U-L00evSW6pY1J8QCK4BGAYYCw/s320/1312-sweethearts.jpg" width="320" /></a></span><br />
(International Sweethearts of Rhythm, compliments of Rebecca Reitz)</div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">They used Rosetta to get all the history and we were all in the editing</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">room together. One day, we went to the editing room and the footage was gone. They said, “We are the professionals. You don’t know what you are doing.”</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">They got what they wanted, they got the introductions to the Sweethearts, the living ones, so they could interview them. They got all the connections and history and decided they didn’t need us anymore. They stole the project and put their names on it. It was a disgusting, disgusting thing. Rosetta never recovered from it.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rosetta’s name is on the project, but it doesn’t mean anything.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: You’ve said that Rosetta lectured on women in films?</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: She had a film collection of “soundies.” A soundie is a song clip on</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">film, a precursor to music videos. They had juke boxes where you would</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">put a quarter in and you could see them. Sometimes they would play</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">them before double features, like Fats Waller.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rosetta had a collection of women doing soundies and clips of women in</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">films. There’s a full-length film called “St. Louis Blues,” and there is a</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">song that Bessie Smith is singing. She also had a clip of Billie Holiday</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">from a Nat Hentoff program, singing “Fine and Mellow”. She’d introduce the clips in a lecture formatand introduce them in an historical context. She produced a VHS collection of the film clips, too.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: How long did Rosetta Records last?</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: She started it in 1980, when she was 56. The company went</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">until she died in 2008. The last record she produced was by Dorothy</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Donegan, “Dorothy Romps,” in 1991. She continued selling and</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">promoting the records, and went around as a film historian lecturing.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rosetta had a professional distributor and had her own mail order.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Libraries and schools also bought records.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">There are two major reasons Rosetta did Rosetta Records. One of them</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">was to correct the history. It was political, because the women had been</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">ignored and she wanted to recognize them. The other reason was just a</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">pure love of music.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rosetta was filled with a pure love of the music. Sometimes she might</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">come off as didactic, but she had a great sense of humor, and she had</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">enjoyed the love and the humor of the music very much. That’s what she</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">was giving as a gift to the world, in addition to correcting the history, that these women made an important contribution to the music. I wanted to make these contributions very clear.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: Did you have a lot of backstock?</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: I did. Lots of vinyl and a lot, a lot of cassettes. Who wants a</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">cassette? I also had Rosetta’s whole record collection. It was a big</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">challenge.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: Did you donate the masters of the 19 Rosetta Records to Duke?</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: I have the masters. Duke has her papers and photos and recordings of her on radio shows. The masters are for reproducing the records. Duke doesn’t do that. I keep these master tapes in a storage room because who knows what the future may bring.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">If people are interested in listening to the music on the albums, they can find them as vinyl or cassettes and some CDs for sale around the Internet. Some have even been put on YouTube. </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">DF: One last detail from Rosetta’s life…Rosetta was a stockbroker in</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">the 1960’s when women were actively discouraged from being in that</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">business. How did that happen?</span></b><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">RR: She was sick of being poor. She wanted to make money. She thought</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">that would be a way to make money. She was a secretary at Merrill</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Lynch. She studied and studied. It was hard. They didn’t like women</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">stockbrokers. She tried. It just didn’t work out.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"></span></div>
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Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-85308526916405562412020-05-04T12:04:00.002-07:002021-01-18T06:06:18.097-08:00Brigid Murnaghan on "The Nice Thing About Tweeds," Saloon Society, April 1, 1959<ul style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><o:p>Bill Manville wrote the "Saloon Society" column for the <i>Village Voice</i> from 1958 to 1960, using a crew of composite characters to paint a picture of the wild times at the Village bars, like the White Horse, the Kettle of Fish, the San Remo and the Minetta </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: large;">Tavern.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: large;">Manville was a highly paid advertising executive, who would hit the Village bars at night, then on minimal sleep and two aspirin, would work a full day in the office. He told me that he was no bohemian, but Greenwich Village culture suffused his columns.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: large;">"Saloon Society" helped create an image of the Village as a bohemian neighborhood with various countercultures. These images were mailed with the Village Voice around the country.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: large;">Brigid Murnaghan was a six-foot-tall poet who had escaped her Irish Catholic roots in the conservative Woodlawn section of the Bronx. She was a blonde beauty, famous for her sailor's mouth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: large;">She spent the last 55 years of her life living on Bleecker Street. She died on September 11, 2017.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: large;">In this column, Manville writes about Brigid giving a poetry reading at the International Saloon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: large;"><b>Village Voice</b></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 18pt;">April 1, 1959, Vol. IV, No. 23</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18pt;">Bill Manville: The Nice Thing About Tweeds<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 18pt;">Saloon Society<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 18pt;">By Bill Manville</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 18pt;"><br /><br />I ran into A.E. Kugelman walking down Greenwich Avenue the other day.<br /><br />"Did you make it over to the International Salon last Sunday night? The poetry reading? I didn't see you...I wasn't going myself, you know. I'm no intellectual, no moving man. I ain't even got a college degree. But I ran into Brigid Murnaghan, and she hips me she's going to read some of her stuff, so I make it over there.<br /><br />"I stopped at the White Horse first—empty, man. Quiet, you'd never believe it. I heard later all the universities on MacDougal Street, they're empty too. Everybody's making it over to the International to hear Brigid.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 18pt;">(Brigid Murnaghan with her son, 1960)</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="more"></a><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 18pt;">"When I get there, I immediately see it's like a hip party. Everybody you know from all the Scenes are there -- the moving men, of course, the Kettle group, the Chess Players, the Martiniacs, Sunday Night Husbands, and a lot of civilians. And there's Brigid. You know how she looks like Greta Garbo? She's in some kind of a white dress with a Buffalo Bill fringe. She's so turned on by the camp of it all, it looks like there's extra light on her, she's shining, man. Shining.<br /><br />"'Well, some guy, someone told me he was famous, he reads first. He's all right, I guess, he talked about 'green afternoons,' and 'poets armed with visions of death,' like that—beautiful stuff you know, but I don't dig it. I even wonder for a while, is this guy putting down a big camp, fooling everyone, I mean, does it have any meaning? But then he reads one poem, it's got a dirty word in it, so you knew he was an honest-to-God intellectual, all right, and it was OK. I mean, who would say a thing like that in a roomful of squares and people with glasses if it wasn't Art?<br /><br />"...So the intermission is over, and Brigid gets up and she says: 'Can everybody hear me?' And some cat in the back says: 'No,' so she yells back 'then pay attention!'<br /><br />"All the other poets, they read from big notebooks, you know, serious, typed stuff covering the whole page, no paragraphs, narrow margins, no white space, and long sentences. But Brigid, her stuff is on little pieces of paper, short and wild. She killed the people. They wouldn't let her stop reading. At the end she's got no poems left so one lady stands up and says: 'Just talk to us.' They didn't want her to stop. Except some other poets in the back, ones who didn't get to read yet, they're in a murderous mood by now. They want to read their beautiful sentiments too, you see. So they make Brigid stop. We all left.<br /><br />"You got another second? I'll recite you one of Brigid's poems. She said it was a Beat Poem and it's called 'Tweed.' It goes: <i>The nice thing about tweeds is you can eat in them, sleep in them, and even wet your pants in them, wear them the next day and have people say: How nice you look in them -- just like a lady.</i>"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-51204359442589500002020-04-24T14:08:00.003-07:002020-04-27T14:47:44.357-07:00Bookstore Owner Rosetta Reitz Fights a 1949 Obscenity Charge<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">(Rosetta Reitz in the 1940's)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">By Dylan Foley<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I was doing some additional research on the life of Rosetta Reitz, the pioneering Village bookstore owner and record producer, who revived the careers and stories of dozens of African-American blues performers. I had interviewed Rosetta in 2005 and she told me this great story of being arrested for obscenity in 1949 for putting a naked mannequin with a drawing of a devil’s head across the torso in the window of her Four Seasons Bookshop, at 21 Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich Village.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Rosetta died in 2008. I wanted to confirm the details of the obscenity case, so I reached out to Rebecca Reitz, Rosetta’s daughter. Rebecca was incredibly helpful and directed me to her 2018 website on Rosetta Reitz, rosettatribute.weebly.com. The website was a gold mine of information on Rosetta's career as a record producer and owner of Rosetta Records, but also included three articles on the infamous “Devil in the Flesh” incident from the <i>Daily New</i>s and the defunct <i>Daily Mirror</i> newspaper. The reporters treated the incident as a camp story. At the time Rosetta was going by her single name, Goldman<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">“</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">There was a new paperback translation out of Raymond Radiguet’s <i>Devil in the Flesh.</i>We were excited about the book,” Rosetta Reitz told me in my interview with her. “My future husband Robert Reitz found a department store mannequin without a head. He gave it a pointed beard and put it in the window. I opened the door Saturday morning and there was a cop standing in front of the window. When the store closed at 11 p.m., I was arrested for having an indecent window display. My lawyer bailed me out. The newspapers had a field day, running headlines like ‘Curvaceous Bookstore Owner and Devil in the Flesh.’” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">In addition to arresting Rosetta, the police confiscated the mannequin as evidence.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(The "obscene" mannequin.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The next day, the <i>Daily News</i> headline blared “Is Nude Devilish? Cops Grab Owner in Village.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Reporter Charles McHarry quoted an exasperated cop saying to Rosetta, “Look, lady, I’m ignorant, but this ain’t art. The children around shouldn’t see this thing.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Rosetta’s lawyer requested the magistrate adjourn the case until Monday, when Rosetta and he would produce six art experts to defend her use of the mannequin as art.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“It’s the artist’s representation of the book’s theme,” Rosetta told the <i>Daily News</i>. “If the police are setting themselves up as censors, they might as well start confiscating stuff in the Museum of Modern Art.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">(Rosetta Goldman battling obscenity charges, 1949</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Image compliments of Rebecca Reitz)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The <i>News</i> and the <i>Daily Mirror</i> covered the trial. The news reports published pictures of a young, pretty Rosetta wearing lipstick. The headline for the resulting <i>Daily News</i> article on May 24, 1949 was “Lady-and Devil’s-Head Art Defended as a Pictorial Pun.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The article noted that there were a “half dozen artists, cartoonists and critics rallying around Rosetta Goldman, 24, of 15 Charles St., charged with a violation of Section 1141-A of the Penal Law in displaying an obscene object.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“The assistant district attorney was a literary guy. He knew it wasn’t a trashy book, “said Rosetta in our interview. “We had artists as witnesses. The case was dismissed. “<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Clement Greenberg, the famous art critic and promoter of the Abstract Expressionists, was quoted by the News. On the stand, he said the juxtaposition of the female mannequin torso and the devil’s head did not disturb him. On cross examination, Greenberg said the devil’s mouth was “a pictoral pun, too--a pun on the woman’s appendix.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“It turned out the bishop had called the complaint in,” Rosetta told me, “because the display would corrupt the morals of local schoolchildren.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Sources:</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">--Interview with Rosetta Reitz, by Dylan Foley, March 2005, at Rosetta's apartment in Chelsea on West 16th Street.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">--New York Daily News, May 16, 1949, by Charles McHarry, "Is Nude Devilish? Cops Grab Owner in Village"</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">--New York Daily Mirror, May 16, 1949, "Charge Statue in Bookshop in Indecent"</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">--New York Daily News, by Henry Lee, May 24, 1949, "Lady-and-Devil's Head Art Defended as a Pictoral Pun"</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Please checkout the Rosetta Reitz website </span><a href="http://rosettatribute.weebly.com/" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">rosettatribute.weebly.com</a></div>
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Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-53755284360467401232020-04-20T10:41:00.000-07:002020-05-10T16:41:57.137-07:00An interview with the novelist and legendary photo editor Vincent Virga, October 1, 2019<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Interviewed by Dylan Foley, at Vincent's friend's house on Grove Street in the West Village</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EUdchYlG7wk/XpfR_BuqLQI/AAAAAAAABcA/Gpz--ebtugoxjwhDIAUxG5l39W4NYocUgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Unknown-4.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EUdchYlG7wk/XpfR_BuqLQI/AAAAAAAABcA/Gpz--ebtugoxjwhDIAUxG5l39W4NYocUgCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Unknown-4.jpeg" width="267" /></a></span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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(Vincent Virga and James McCourt, 1965)</div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The novelist and legendary photo
editor Vincent Virga was born at St. Vincent’s Hospital in 1941, and was raised
in Long Island City and Lindenhurst, Long Island. Vincent went to Bonaventure
University then to Yale Drama in 1964 to study acting. There he met James
McCourt, a writer also studying at Yale Drama. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Jimmy and Vincent became a couple in
1965 and left Yale to study acting in London during the “swinging Sixties.”
They immersed themselves in the post-war exploding theater scene seeing
performances by a young Maggie Smith, Alan Bates, Vanessa Redgrave, Peter
O’Toole, and Laurence Olivier, along with performances by the legendary Edith
Evans, Sybil Thorndyke, Michael Redgrave, Margaret Rutherford, and Celia
Johnson, among many others both in London and in rep-companies all over
England. An analyst once told Vincent that his relationship with Jimmy lasted
so long because they had a five-year honeymoon. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Thus began Vincent and Jimmy’s picaresque journey, moving from
London to New York, then back to London, then out to East Hampton, then into
the Gramercy Park neighborhood, and Washington D.C., as well as a rural house
outside, Ballina, Co. Mayo, Ireland and then into a restored 18th-century barn
on an estate, Enniscoe.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">In London in the 1960’s, Jimmy wrote
and Vincent got work as a temp-typist, then would often end up running the
group he was working for. In one case, Vincent was working at the London Welsh
Association. The managers were horrible drunks, so after several months,
Vincent was running the association going from 5 pounds sterling to 50 pounds a
week. The same thing happened with a solicitor who offered to train him for the
British bar.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Vincent and Jimmy first moved back
to New York and wound up living on Mott Street, in the still-mean streets of
Little Italy. In a comical meeting set up by his ex-Mafia father, Vincent’s
residency in the area was approved by the local Mafia chieftain. Jimmy and
Vincent’s safety was assured.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">In 1975, Jimmy’s opera satire<b> </b></span><b><i><span style="color: #21282d; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Mawrdew
Czgowchwz</span></i></b><i><span style="color: #21282d; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="color: #21282d; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">was published by FSG, after the intervention of the writer and
social theorist Susan Sontag with Vincent’s instigation.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #21282d; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">With no experience, Vincent lied
his way into a job as a photo editor for the right-wing actor John Wayne’s
“America, Why I Love Her.” He now has 163 picture inserts on his 8-page resume.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VINCENT VIRGA: Jimmy and I were walking home in the Village last
night from the NY Philharmonic. On Christopher Street, this gay guy came up to
us: “Because of you, I exist,” he said kissing each of us on our cheeks.
He was not sober but not drunk either. Dutch courage?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said that he was 50, but he looked like he
was 40.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lQl46UZ5kVo/Xp2yKsl_VnI/AAAAAAAABcQ/ThV_1xUMOhwCnJPj7rRIlCyCMoZko4_1wCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/9780871404589_ai_1.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lQl46UZ5kVo/Xp2yKsl_VnI/AAAAAAAABcQ/ThV_1xUMOhwCnJPj7rRIlCyCMoZko4_1wCK4BGAYYCw/s320/9780871404589_ai_1.jpg" width="247" /></a></span><br />
(A young Jimmy McCourt)</div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">My Aunt Mamie lived on 8</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">th</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> Avenue and
12</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">th</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> Street in Manhattan in a big mansion, now a gas station. My
mother was an orphan with Judy Costello in the Catholic Orphanage attached to
Cathedral High School. When it was time to leave the orphanage, Aunt Mamie, who
was the school nurse, took them in. It was a large private house. Aunt Judy
said, “We were the skivvies.” There was this huge Waterford crystal chandelier
in the foyer and a button on the wall that lowered it. On ladders, they spent a
day cleaning the crystals, dipping them one by one in vinegar.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">There was also this massive oak staircase starting in the foyer
that had to be waxed step by step. I vividly remember that house and Mamie’s
foul-mouthed parrot. He flew in the open parlor window one day. Mamie swore he
had belonged to a sailor. He eventually flew out the same window one day. When
my father had a slip and got engaged with the Mafia again, my mother left him
and took me and my sister Julie to live with Mamie in that house.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">All those memories of that house. Mamie’s unseen sister living
secluded in an upstairs room, and an unseen blind border on the top floor.
Jimmy Walker gave the house to her. She was his mistress.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Mamie came over with her sister from Ireland to marry this rich
American. The two girls came from a penniless, Anglo-Irish landed-gentry
family. The “lovers” had met in Ireland and she had agreed to marry him. He
returned to America and sent her and her sister the passage. On the ship, Mamie
met a man named O’Neill. She married him on the ship. When she arrived in New
York, she was Mamie O’Neill and the American was given the slip. In her
trousseau, was all this Irish lead-chrystal. The bowls in our New York
apartment belonged to Mamie and a Victorian umbrella pot, now our living room
lamp. Turns out, O’Neill was a terrible, falling down drunk. He sold all
Mamie’s silver and died of the drink. Mamie opened an Irish tea shop.
Jimmy Walker came into her shop and set her up in that house.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">DYLAN FOLEY: Was she a nurse?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VV:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> She was so Irish. She was not a “nurse nurse.” She knew how to
put on a Band-Aid. It was Cathedral High School with the nuns. She somehow finagled
her way in and became the School Nurse.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">So there was my mother and my “aunt,” but she was not really my
aunt. She actually became my second mother. My mother’s name was changed
because the nuns couldn’t pronounce it, so it was cut to Kelly. They called her
Francis Veronica Kelly. She was Greek. She eventually had her name legally
changed. When Jimmy first came to visit my family from Yale, he said, “I don’t
mean to be rude, but your mother is the oddest-looking Irishwoman I have ever
seen.”</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Because she was Greek! She was slightly olive skinned. She had a
wide nose. One weekend I went home. I thought Judy Costello was my mother’s
sister. Never thought about the name difference. The phone rang and I picked it
up. This man asked, “Is Francis Kelagoupolos there?” I repeated the name and
said no. Judy ran screaming and grabbed the phone from me. “Francis,” she
screamed again, “It’s Frankie, your brother!” They had been separated in the
orphanage. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">My grandfather was killed in World War I, my grandmother died in
the influenza epidemic. With both parents dead, my mother wound up with a Greek
uncle who owned a diner. He took all the money that had been left to my mother
and put her in the orphanage. Her brother Frankie was immediately adopted.
Everybody wanted boys. He went into the Army. There he was on the phone decades
later. That’s how I found out she was Greek. That’s how I found out I had an
uncle. That’s how I found out Judy was not her sister. Judy had an entire
family of her own, an entire other life. My mother was the real love of Judy’s
life. She never married. My analyst once told me that <i>Gaywyck </i>with all
its secrets was the best autobiography he ever read!</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">My father was beyond beautiful. My mother was working in a
publishing house, McMillan. My father was a truck driver. One afternoon, after
having made his deliveries, he sat on my mother’s desk. He said to my mother,
“I’m going to marry you.” My mother said, “If that isn’t the silliest line I’ve
ever heard.” Then he left. The other women came over. “He’s a wonderful man,
Philly.” He asked her out. He went and picked her up at that mansion she was
living in to take her out to dinner. Mamie sent Judy with them. They went to an
Italian restaurant. Judy slipped him money for her share. My Dad loved her for
it. He was living on Mott Street.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Where did your father come from?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VV: Sicily. He may have been three or four when he came here. He
said he remembered seeing the Statue of Liberty from his father’s arms. He had
a twin who fell off a roof and died. The family romance is that my grandparents
brought their five kids to the U.S. My father was the only boy of five
children. When my grandfather, an impoverished Italian count, realized that the
streets were not paved with gold, my grandfather and grandmother went back to
Italy, leaving the children in the care of the oldest daughter. Supposedly, he
died at 90 after being kicked by a mule, but he died happy having had sex the
night before. She raised the kids and that’s what we were told. I recently
found out this isn’t true. I found the truth in a photograph. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZsfPqXUhxMs/Xp2yaRxd-MI/AAAAAAAABck/ACkOYF3KOWcXKcT0oeSpb1CpujkTXgSKgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Unknown-19.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZsfPqXUhxMs/Xp2yaRxd-MI/AAAAAAAABck/ACkOYF3KOWcXKcT0oeSpb1CpujkTXgSKgCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Unknown-19.jpeg" /></a></span><br />
(Original cover for Jimmy McCourt's <b>Mawrdew Czgowchwz</b>)</div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">My father was introduced to a Mafia Don by his father. He was
“looked after” by this Mafia don. My father never finished high school. He
wanted to become a drummer. He was taken into the family of the Don. They were
the Palacinos of the D’Angelo family. They were based in Bensonhurst. They were
one of the five families. The least known family. They did all the shit that
their kind does, but there were a lot of problems. The Don drew the lines at
drugs. My father was going to become a made-man and a bodyguard. He turned out
to be a disaster. He was too gentle. He was emotionally attached to the family
and he was gorgeous. There was this daughter. They eloped.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The family romance has it that when they got to New Jersey, they
were protected by an enemy of the Don. They had two kids, then she died of
lupus, I think. Josephine, my half-sister, was five or six, when her mother
died. My half-brother. Phil or “Sonny,” was three years older.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I first lived on 6</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">th</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> Avenue and
17</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">th</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> Street, in Manhattan, which is why I was born in St. Vincent’s.
My mother was terribly constipated near the end of her pregnancy. She called
Mamie and was told to take two tablespoons of Bicarbonate of Soda. A few
minutes later, Mamie called back and corrected her prescription to two
teaspoons. Too late! When my mother went into labor with me, she was rushed by
ambulance to the hospital close by. When she came to, she asked “Where am I?”
The nurse/nun told her, “You are at St. Vincent’s.” Now my mother was an
orphan, remember. St. Vincent de Paul is the patron saint of orphans. She
thought it was God’s will, so she called me Vincent. That is where I went to my
first Twelve Step meeting, at St. Vincent’s, on my birthday, 43 years ago. I
went to find out how to make Jimmy stop drinking. He was falling apart. He was
in the third stage of alcoholism.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Was that when Jimmy became sober?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VV: No. He’s just had his 40</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">th</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> year of
sobriety. After I was in the program for two years, he became sober in East
Hampton. Then he went out. He spent a year out and nearly died again. It turns
out, and they talk about it a lot in the rooms, people are expected to have one
relapse. You feel better and you think that you can control it. It was
horrible. It was a snowy winter. I was alone in a friend’s house in Sagaponack,
on Long Island, finishing my second novel, <i>A Comfortable Corner. </i>It’s
about recovery from alcoholism from the point of view of the non-alcoholic, the
partner in the disease. It’s called a “disease” because it has symptoms. <i>Corner
</i>was published during the AIDS epidemic and became very popular in the
Twelve Step rooms. It totally blew my anonymity. It also got me invited to
hospital rooms and funeral homes, which devastated me. I would faint. My
analyst told me I was having the correct response. I still suffer from PTSD
from that period of my life. I also became a tad reclusive with a touch of agoraphobia,
which my mother had most of her life. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Why did your father’s first wife flee the Mafia life? Why did
she not want to take advantage of the wealth? </span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VV: She hated it. She faced an arranged marriage, like in
the Italian Renaissance, to solidify Family ties. She hated the whole scene,
hated it. My father was a very gentle man. He didn’t like carrying the guns or
any of that shit. When they were going out on their shticks [jobs], they didn’t
want him because he was too timid, not even as a driver. She fell in love with
him. She wanted out. He never would have become a made man. Her sister Anna
encouraged her. Anna became a beautician and invented Marilyn Monroe’s hair
color. Her apartment in Brooklyn was decorated in the color of Marilyn’s hair.
It was a camp. There was a life-sized painting of Marilyn from <i>Seven Year
Itch </i>with the skirt blowing up over the fireplace. There were plastic
runners on the blond carpet. On one visit, I told my kid brother we were
walking on Marilyn’s scalp. It gave the poor guy nightmares,</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">My father ran numbers with Harold. He was one of the brothers, the
youngest. There was Joey, who went to Hollywood. He married Jack B. Warner’s
secretary. That’s why I have all those signed pictures of movie stars in the
apartment, ‘ To Vinnie.’ He was Jimmy Dean’s stuntman and bodyguard in Texas
where they were shooting <i>Giant</i>. Dean used to pick up really rough trade
and bring them back to the motel where the cast and crew were staying. He liked
to be burned with cigarettes. It was Joey’s job to make sure the face wasn’t
burned. They could deal with torso burns with make up, but they couldn’t deal
with face burns. I have a snapshot of Liz Taylor sitting on Joey’s lap. Jimmy
Dean is lighting her cigarette in the canvas chair next to them. Once when Joey
was visiting us on Long Island, Liz called the house and I answered the phone.
It was as exciting as when Mom’s brother Frankie called her for the first time.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The eldest brother John took over the family. He went to Las
Vegas. That’s in <i>The Godfather. </i>There are the families who went to Las
Vegas and the ones that dropped out because of the drugs and the prostitution.
Then the families opened to non-Sicilians and the minute they let the Latinos
in, that was the end of any form of honor system. When Jimmy was in the
hospital and I was in Sagaponack, his room mate was a Latino Mafia guy on the
lam for having thrown a baby out a window when the poor slob he was shaking
down didn’t have the money. I remember my Mom telling me <i>The Godfather </i>was
“pretty pictures of shit.” I could never watch <i>The Sopranos. </i>My
dad’s gumbahs [pals] were like the crowd in that show. They’d come to the house
to make tripe, which my Mom wouldn’t cook because it stinks and we would all go
out for the afternoon.<i> </i> </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Where did they settle?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VV: My parents married on the condition he never had anything to
do with the Mob again. There were the two kids. My sister Josephine was a
pisser. She was vulgar and spoiled rotten by her grandparents in Bensonhurst. I
adored her. My father’s family gave Phil and Fran an engagement party. They
were all living in Brooklyn. It was a house, like all Italian houses, with the
basement converted into a gigantic kitchen and dining room. Wall to wall
linoleum. There were two pictures on the wall—Mussolini and the Pope. All the
women had sent their gold to Mussolini. They had no wedding rings. Mamie was as
left wing as you could get. She named her dog Fala after FDR’s dog. She wanted
to set up a tent city in the backyard of the big house. She was out there feeding
people. She was deeply immersed in the New Deal.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">She found herself in this basement with all these Italians and
Mussolini. My mother looked at the spread on a side-table and thought the
antipasto was the meal. Then they sat down. My Aunt Josie had been cooking all
day. She told Judy, ‘The butcher has been saving me eyes for the past week.”
Judy hadn’t a clue what she meant. Three huge pots were cooking pounds and
pounds of pasta. Another was full of bubbling red sauce. The classic Italian
meal. Except it was a wedding feast. They took the lid off the sauce pot and
there was the sheep’s head and all those eyes. It is very tricky cooking eyes,
because they melt. You cook them separately, just to a certain point, like a
soft-boiled egg. At the last minute, they are dropped into the sauce. They
float and are scooped out very quickly. The head was hoisted from the pot. The
butcher had split it. The brains were ready to be served with the sauce. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Uncle Paul is sitting beside my Mom. He was a small, muscular man
with a frog voice, married to my father’s sister, Josie. My mother nearly
fainted. He took her hand under the table. The family were all cheering the
sheep’s head. They started passing the food. He very carefully skimmed the
sauce pot and pretended to be taking out some brains, taking out some eyes.
Then he gave my mother this little bowl of pasta. No brains, no eyes. These
women were all very loving to my mother. They were all so happy. They were all
thrilled. But they all thought my mother was a fancy snob. And they thought my
Aunt Mamie was really something. They all assumed Fran was a rich princess.
There was always this thing about my mother being a family snob, always. She
was a Greek orphan in a world she did not understand. Only Paul got it from the
get-go.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">We lived on 17</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">th</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> Street and
6</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">th</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> Avenue, in a brownstone. There was a fire across the street and
Mom saw someone jump. So we moved. We moved to the projects in Long Island
City, across from the U.N. It was during the war. Many of the men were not
there. My father was 4F. He had emphysema. He also had a split eardrum from a
fired gun. I took tap dancing lessons and would practice tapping up and down
the flights of stairs. The neighbors were baking cookies to shut up my shoes
since I couldn’t tap and eat at the same time. My appetite for meals was
over. Mom made me stop tapping except in the classes and on the subway
platforms while we were traveling to the class.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Years later, I was walking down 7th Street and a cop close to me
fired his gun over my head. Someone was robbing a store. I lost part of the
hearing in my ear.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TfC9XNKCqqM/Xp3r32loajI/AAAAAAAABc0/RKSZWRaJxt4S1F_OmPonQSfSlI6oJT9EwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/images-7.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TfC9XNKCqqM/Xp3r32loajI/AAAAAAAABc0/RKSZWRaJxt4S1F_OmPonQSfSlI6oJT9EwCK4BGAYYCw/s400/images-7.jpeg" /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(Jimmy and Vincent, 1970's)<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">We were in the [Long Island City] projects. My father was driving
a truck for Macy’s. One of his bosses had the bright idea, the perfect crime.
Dad began delivering furniture to nonexistent people. He got caught.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The FBI came to my mother in the projects. They were convinced my
father had rejoined The Family. He hadn’t. Dad was always on the lookout for a
quick buck.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">My mother left my father. We went to live with Mamie in that big
house. My father swore that he would never do that again and they soon got back
together. I think the FBI put the fear of god in him. Decades later, when I was
working at <i>The New York Review of Books, </i>which is where I met Sontag, my
dad’s truck was heisted full of color TV sets. The FBI did a stakeout in front
of the Lindenhurst house and tapped his phone line. I remember his calling me
at <i>The Review,</i> where I was the typesetter, and telling the FBI guys to
get off the line because he was talking to me. I could hear them clicking off.
It was too bizarre. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">But my father still ran numbers with Harold. Harold wasn’t too
swift. A sweet guy. He wanted to be a dancer. He came in second at a dance
competition at Roseland. The winner was the woman who went on to become Ginger
Rogers. Funny, I’ve always found her rather awkward with Fred.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">One of the first dates my father took my mother on was to
Roseland. They came in third, but my mother had never danced before. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The things that convinced my mother she was going to marry this
guy she truly loved was that he was so kind and he was such a good dancer. She
didn’t bargain on being forbidden to work. She loved him but she also loved her
job in publishing. My birth brought on her agoraphobia. I think she wanted to
run away, back to her life of freedom, so she unconsciously froze that desire
by making the outside world a threatening place. My mother could always tell my
father was working with Harold because he came home constipated. When the cops
chased Harold, he would go to the Varick Street garage where my father parked
his truck. And they would eat fistfuls of paper with the numbers on each piece.
Desperate!</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">When Harold died, Jimmy and I were living on Irving Place in a
brownstone, number 72, where I was the super under a false name. We had
returned to New York permanently for Jimmy’s work. My father called me and
said, “Harold died. Will you come with me? His body is at Old St. Patrick’s
Cathedral on Mott Street next to where you lived.”</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The apartment building on Mott Street shared a wall with the
church. Behind the tenement building on the street had once been six small
apartment buildings only two stories high. All but one had been demolished. We
lived in the survivor for $17 a month with hot water only until midnight. Well,
the super was a drunk and we never had hot water so I called the city and a
small burner was put under our building and our rent went up to $32 a month,
Our bathroom window’s view was the empty lot that had once been the sixth
building and the stone wall. Across our courtyard was the tenement hallway and
the rear of a funeral home where there were never any funerals, only irregular
meetings with men in suits smoking cigars. We left it to go back to
London. It was our first New York return. At night, I was the youngest manager
for the Gollub Brothers checking coats and selling drinks in Broadway theaters.
Met a lot of remarkable people. Had a great experience with Ali at the height
of his glory at a performance of ‘The Great White Hope.’ He came up to my
refreshment stand, snatched an orange drink, grinned wickedly at me, and turned
to walk away to join his bodyguards. The show had started so we were the only
people around. I said, very politely, “Excuse me, sir I know you are the
greatest but the drink is still one dollar, please.” Well, he and his men
roared with laughter. He tossed me a twenty-dollar bill with an unforgettable
wink. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">My father picked me up to go to the Cathedral and we drove
downtown. It was late, late, like one in the morning. There were occupied cars
double parked all around Old St. Patrick’s. We went in the front doors and this
guy said, “Hello Vinnie. Hello Philly.” St. Patrick’s was empty. Up in front,
there was a coffin and one large candle, and a man and a woman sitting in a
pew. There were all these men standing in the confessionals. They were the
bodyguards. The couple was Harold’s oldest brother, the Don, and his wife. At
the sight of us, he rose and rushed over and hugged my father and then me. The
wife said, “Vinnie, why do you use such big words in your novels? We can’t read
your books without a dictionary.” Now, we were talking about my gay novels.
Meanwhile, my father wouldn’t even mention them.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">When <i>Gaywick</i> was published in 1980, I went to visit my
parents on Long Island. I never came out to them but I was living with
Jimmy since 1965, yet they always asked when I said I was planning to visit,
“Who’s minding the cat?” I would say, ‘Jimmy, I live with him.” One
morning, they were changing the radio station during lunch, rolled by NPR,
which they never listened to, and there I was on NPR talking about <i>Gaywyck</i>.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KeA7OMQwwJI/Xp3sZ9IdChI/AAAAAAAABdA/x_F6mF9U3WYNTDGJmLtKEIEYxfpg_dxlwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Unknown-20.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KeA7OMQwwJI/Xp3sZ9IdChI/AAAAAAAABdA/x_F6mF9U3WYNTDGJmLtKEIEYxfpg_dxlwCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Unknown-20.jpeg" /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(Vincent's novel GAYWICK)<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Liz Smith had discovered it and held it up on TV when she had her
gossip minutes on one of the news shows. She said, “This is the most wonderful
book.” She became very good friends with me. When I was working on some hot
biography as the picture person, she’d call me and ask me questions. I always
told her I could not tell her anything but she’d say, “Vin, I’ll ask you a
question and just stay silent if it’s a ‘yes.’ I’d laugh and start nattering
nonstop, which always made her laugh.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Richard Howard and David Alexander were driving across the country
when they heard me on NPR. He and David starting screaming with delight to hear
this gay guy talking about a gay gothic novel with church bells and scary
noises in the background on NPR.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">So-called “serious” people were reading my romantic gothic send-up
of the genre, which I wrote to prove genres have no gender, and they didn’t
want to admit that they were loving it. We went to a party at James Merrill’s
apartment and David Jackson, Merrill’s partner, announced to the party that <i>Gaywyck</i>
saved his nephew’s life. Then James said quietly, “I really enjoyed it.’ He
never would have said it to me. I went to a party and Ashbery came sidling up
to me with his adorable grin and said. ‘That is a really lovely book.’ In an
Armenian restaurant, Tim Dlugos waved me over to congratulate me on it. When I
was doing Gerald Clark’s bio of Capote, he told me Truman used to read it every
Christmas out loud. There’s a sequence in the book that takes place at
Christmas 1899 followed by a New Year’s Eve scene because there was a whole new
world coming for the world and a whole new world coming for gay people. The
book is a game. The men speak lines from movies and books spoken by women in
films and books. Some guy in England did a master’s thesis on the book and the
game. He wrote and asked me to give him my ‘index’ of borrowed lines. He had
found quite a few, I remember. Mostly the famous ones, like ‘I’ve never seen so
many shirts!’ from <i>Gatsby. </i>And ‘No one’s ever called me ‘darling’
before,’ which Davis says in <i>Now, Voyager. </i>There are many of them. It
was fun making them part of the dialog in a natural way. And you know how it is
once you get started on a project: lines came at me in batches from the old
movies I’ve watched and the classics I read The Muse was obviously amused. In
fact, I was writing the book in a summer rental on the North Fork during the
New York City blackout. Stumped for a chapter ending, I put on the TV and there
was Irene Dunne being told by some bruiser to “fill every corner of her own
life” and not to depend on him. I flew back to my yellow pad--I write in
longhand, five drafts usually--and bingo, I had the ending for a chapter. Being
immersed in a project is like being in a state of grace for me.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The great review for the book was by Armistead Mauphin. He ended
the review, saying, ‘Read the son of the bitch. You’ll love it!’ That became
the tagline. People would come up to me and say quietly, ‘I loved the son of a
bitch.’</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">If you look at the original cover, it was designed to look like a
bodice ripper. They had to put warning signs up in bookstores. After I
worked with John Ehrlichman on his Watergate bio--I grew to love John--he
called me from some place Out There in Texas where he was on his book tour and
told me how he told all the stores to order <i>Gaywyck, </i>and how one bookstore
in Texas with the book in their window had a bullet shot into it
shattering the glass. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I got a very touching call in the middle of the night because I
was in the phonebook. Calling from a phone booth, this young guy asked me, ‘Is
your book true?’ ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘Is it true that a man can fall
in love with a man?’ ‘Yeah, I’m living with the man I love.’ ‘I was planning to
kill myself,’ he said, ‘because I’m in love with my gym teacher. I was planning
to kill myself but I was on line in the A + P checkout and there was your book.
I looked at it and I realized those were two men on the cover.’ He bought the
book. Before he hung up he said he would find some man to love who would love
him.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Avon was the publisher. It was rejected by everyone. [My agent] Elaine
Markson said forty publishers rejected it. She loved it and refused to give up.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I had a friend named Gwen Edelman. She was an editor at Avon.
Jimmy and I were renting a house in East Hampton. We had moved up from renting
the garage, which Jimmy’s editor at FSG told us about. That’s where Julie
Eisenhower would call me when we were working on her first book. She would
always say, ‘Daddy says hello.’ Daddy was the president at the time. I loved
Julie and had one of my great, private experiences with her and her husband
David during the Nixon madness just before his resignation.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">It was 1979 when Gwen came to see me. She said, ‘You know, I love
this book, but gay men don’t want romance.’ I asked, ‘What are you talking
about?’</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">She had an apartment in the West Village and lived above a gay
bar. All that she saw were these leathermen. “Gay people don’t want romance,”
she said again.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I asked. ‘How long have you known me?’ She had been Alice Mayhew’s
assistant at S&S. I had an office there for over 20 years even though I was
freelance. She knew Jimmy. She knew her boss at Avon, Bob Wyatt, was gay. He
loved it. They bought it. Elaine Markson would not let the book die. Gwen spent
weeks trying to find a “better” title for it. I kept telling her naming the
book after the house was part of the game, like <i>Dragonwyck. </i>I won by
default. She and her office could not come up with anything better, thank god.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: How many copies did you sell?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VV: I have no idea. It went into several printings. Then Bob Wyatt
called Elaine. He told her he planned to do a <i>Gaywyck</i> series because it
was so popular. He had all of these wonderful writers lined up. I asked
Elaine, what is he talking about? She said, ‘He can’t do a series.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had crossed out the paragraph in my
contract that had originally said, if this book is a success, if the house
decides they want to do a series and the author doesn’t want to, the house has
the right to go ahead without the author. Jeez!</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">After <i>Gaywyck</i> came out, I was invited everywhere. I’m
monogamous. I went to these parties. I went to one dinner party given by Ed
White and Joe Brainerd was sitting opposite me with his shirt unbuttoned. He
took off his shoe and was rubbing my crotch with his foot under the
table. The photo taken of me by Jarry Lang for the book got me offers to
do nude centerfolds in gay magazines. Ed White had a boyfriend, John Purcell,
the most beautiful boy in New York. He became my assistant at S&S. He was
constantly going to chic parties. His beauty was his passkey. Ed was not
monogamous. John didn’t show up for work one day. I got a call from him…he was on
one of these private islands off the coast of Georgia. He had been taken there
by jet and was staying at a house called <i>Gaywyck.</i> His host did not
believe him when he said he knew me. So he called and introduced me to his host
over the phone. There were many gay men who named their houses ‘Gaywyck.’ I
received many fan letters with that as a P.S. All those letters are at the
Beinecke Library at Yale with Jimmy and my papers. I still get letters 100
years later. Many tell me I should have a streaming series made of the <i>Gaywyck
Trilogy. </i>I say ‘From your mouth to God’s ears, hon.” </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Then I wrote <b><i>A Comfortable Corner</i></b>, which is about
recovery from alcoholism. That came out in ’82 as AIDS took over the world.
When I met Mark Doty, he told me how when his partner was dying, they read <i>Gaywyck</i>
and <i>A Comfortable Corner </i>out loud together.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">All those people dying. Many of the characters in Jimmy’s <i>Mawrdew</i>
are based on his “sistahs.”..most of them died.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: These were Jimmy’s gay opera lovers?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VV: Yes. All the people from the opera line and the gay universe
he introduced me to when we met at Yale. I had never been to a gay bar. I
bumped into “Goody Greene” on the subway in the last days of his life. I almost
fainted, which was my m.o. confronting Death so directly. . They would come up
to me with their copies of <i>Gaywyck </i>and <i>Corner. </i>I would sign them
with mixed feelings. “I did not want my anonymity broken.” That’s the worst
thing that can happen to me. I’m not special. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">People would ask me about <b><i>A Comfortable Corner</i></b>, how
do you know this? I’d say, “I’m a good researcher.”</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">They would invite me to hospitals. I was constantly going to
hospitals. They wanted me to sign their books.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I’d find myself in hospitals, fainting. I had to go to the
bathroom to put my head on the toilet, so I could avoid fainting. Finally,
Jimmy banned me from going to the hospitals and the funeral homes. When we
bumped into John Purcell in Paris in the last stages of AIDS, I literally had
to sit down and pretend to tie my shoelaces to get some blood to my head. I
hated myself for this weakness. Meanwhile, Jimmy was at dozens of bedsides when
people were dying. The heartache has never left me. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Where was Jimmy going to his Twelve Step Meetings?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VV: Everywhere. He was one of the earliest people at the Perry
Street meeting, a gay one. He’d go to the Red Door meeting. It’s over there on
7</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">th</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> Avenue. It’s in a church that had a red door and still does. He
was going to meetings all the time, as was I. For a time, I was the radio voice
of my Program in 10, 20, 30-second commercials I wrote, community service
messages: ‘You know what the drinking is doing to them but do you know what it
is doing to you?’ Decades later, a guy came up to me at a Meeting in DC and
told me he recognized my voice from the radio. He said I was the message that
made him go to his first Meeting. I think of those radio spots as being among my
brightest moments. Me on the wings of the better angels of my nature. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">They say we who live with or have lived with alcoholics are
the mirror image of them sharing all the horror-show dynamics. I believe it’s
why we are all anonymous in the Rooms because we are all the same in the
disease. I was going to eight meetings a week because it’s a disease of
isolation, among many other things. The isolation becomes so profound, and then
suddenly I had this crazy career with Michael Korda out there in the big wide
world, which I love madly, too. Again, it was all a state of grace.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Gypsy DaSilva was working at the <i>New American Review</i><b> </b>with
Rhona Mostel. I had met everyone when I went in with Jimmy for some reason when
Ted Solataroff bought Jimmy’s story about Mawrdew Czgowchwa. Gypsy and I became
friends. Well, Gypsy called me at <i>NYRB </i>and told me <i>Mawrdew </i>was
being published by Simon and Schuster--they owned <i>NAR--</i>and they did not
want it. They hadn’t a clue what to do with it. They hated it. They were going
to publish it and dump it out there.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I was the typesetter at <i>NYRB</i>. I was there regularly on
weekends for Susan Sontag who was rushing to meet her deadlines. We became
friends. She would bring little David. She’d be smoking and writing and
he’d be puttering around, doing puzzles, homework, and reading. She would give
me the copy and I would set it. She would edit it, and I would reset it. Many
years later, when Jimmy and I were going to her apartment for tea--she had
taken some posh pastries from a dinner party the night before given by Annie
Leibovitz--she opened the door and announced, I may not be a very good writer
but I am a damned good rewriter! I told her she did not have to give me that
piece of news.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">In any case, Gypsy told me that a man named Michael Di Capua from
FSG had called the <i>New American Review </i>saying he loved the piece, the
excerpt from the novel that was the cover piece for #13. Michael was told it
was being published by S&S.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Susan was published by FSG. I called her and told her what was
going on with Jimmy’s book. She had read the <i>NAR </i>bit and loved it. She
told me she would take care of it. And she did! It’s why Jimmy always referred
to her as his literary godmother. Michael bought the rights from S&S. He
was its exquisite, genius editor. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: You grew up partially in Queens?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VV: We lived in Long Island City and I went to the grammar school
at St. Patrick’s. The most important thing that happened to me in Long Island
City was the movie house on Vernon Boulevard, The Beacon. It was a rerun house.
In those days when a movie had its first run in the big theaters, it then went
to the smaller houses. After that, it disappeared. There was no Netflix then.
Jimmy had a similar second-run house near where he lived. We both became
obsessed with the movies at any early age. Spellbound in darkness is where my
life was changed. My family would take me to the movies—“The Wizard of
Oz” changed my life. I would go every single Saturday to the kiddie matinee. I
would walk home from St. Patrick’s and go past the Beacon. I would collect the
programs to see what was coming. Then I would go home.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> I also discovered if I went to the Beacon and attached
myself to a couple that was not paying attention,, I could walk in behind them.
I would then zip into the men’s room, wait ‘til the lights went down, then
slip into the auditorium. I was in 3</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">rd</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> and 4</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">th</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> grade.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The nuns were vile. The nuns were <i>vile</i>. Not all, but most
of them I was constantly getting into trouble with the nuns.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">One said, ’I cried because I had no shoes, but then I met a
man who had no feet.’ It was a lesson in gratitude, right?</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I queried, ‘But sister, I have no shoes. She repeated the story
louder. ‘But sister, it’s winter and I am walking around with no shoes.’<i>
Bam!</i> [She hits the 8 or 9-year-old Vincent.] One day the priest came
in and declared that Jesus was killed by the Jews and the Jews would never go
to heaven. We must be very careful about the Jews.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Now, my best friend, my first boyfriend in the projects, was a
Jewish boy. The priest left and I raised my hand, ‘Sister, if the Jews didn’t
kill Jesus, we would have no religion.’</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> <i>Bam!</i> I went home and my mother told me ‘The Jews did
not kill Jesus. The Romans killed Jesus. Also, everyone can go to heaven. Even
Hitler can be in Heaven if he said he was sorry before he died.‘</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Another day, our nun made the announcement, “They are showing <i>Bitter
Rice</i> at the Beacon. It is condemned by the Legion of Decency. If you go to <i>Bitter
Rice,</i> you will be excommunicated.’ Now, we’re talking a great Italian
neorealist movie with Sylvana Mangano. The poster was this big-tited Mangano
striding a rice field in Northern Italy. No one under eighteen could get in to
see it anyway. On a walk home, I had seen the poster. I knew I could not slip
into that one. Besides it was in Italian. I couldn’t speak Italian and did not
know about subtitles.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I raised my hand and said, ‘I saw the <i>Bitter Rice</i>….’ She
went insane. She grabbed me by the ear and dragged me down to the principal.
‘He saw <i>Bitter Rice</i>!’ They called the priest in to exorcise my demons, I
suppose. They called the theater manager. I couldn’t have seen it: It was
starting that night. And what age was I?</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">They called my mother. My mother was totally agoraphobic. A
neighbor brought her. “How could he have seen that condemned film?” She read
them the riot act. It was one of her bravest moments. Soon after, my father
moved us out to Lindenhurst, Long Island, which was horrible. I lost the Beacon
and my boyfriend. We’d stop the elevator, drop our pants, and snuggle. We’d go
to the movies and hold each other’s dicks under our coats Jeez!</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I had my first serious boyfriend in the 7</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">th</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> grade out
on Long Island. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Did he later become a gay man?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VG: No, not that I know of. He married and had kids, which means
nothing, I know. He was a horny, hung Italian. He loved having sex with me, his
equal. We went bicycling. In the woods, he taught me how to masturbate. His
parents were out all day, so we would meet in his basement and have sex for
hours. I was crazy happy and in love. With him and with sex. Then we went to a
Roman Catholic mission and I was told that I was going to hell, so I cut it
off. He was so horrified and I had a nervous breakdown. It’s recorded in my 8th
grade class picture. I’m writing a memoir called <i>Picture Perfect </i>based
on the truth found in photographs.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> There was a wonderful psychiatrist named Richard Isay, who
played a major role in decriminalizing homosexuality. He wrote a very important
book about how most of his gay clients would claim, “My father hates me. My
father is so withdrawn from me.” Richard deduced that our fathers become aware,
maybe not consciously, that there are emotional demands being made by us gay
sons and pull away to protect themselves and us.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I was truly delighted to work with Richard’s ex-wife Jane,
publisher at Addison Wesley. They did my book <i>Summer</i>. I was the picture
person. Jimmy has a piece in it along with many other writers from <i>The New
Yorker. </i>His mother puts the silver in hock and they take a greyhound bus
across the country. I think Jimmy was 15 or 16. His brother is reading comic
books and he’s reading Dostoevsky. He gets up and goes to the back of the bus
to pee and there is this young sailor. The sailor is reading comic books. He
looks at the sailor. The sailor looks at him and he sits down next to the
sailor. They have sex in the back of the Greyhound bus. Oral sex. It is the
great story.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Well, I deliver the pictures and go out to East Hampton for the
actual summer. I get a call from Jane Isay. She has some kid getting more
pictures for the book. When I saw the layouts, I told everyone that you cannot
use a picture as a frontispiece for each story unless the image has some
relationship, however tenuous with the story. They told me I was wrong and the
art director willy-nilly stuck a picture with each story. Funny how so many
editors are visually illiterate and so many art directors have no sense of
text. Well, guess what? Production people and marketing people began asking why
a box of baseballs was linked with a story about fishing? When Jane told me she
was sending someone out to get more images, I took the train into Manhattan and
said my name is on that book and no one but me will solve the problem of their
own making.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">And I did. It is what I do, after all. The book is fabulous. Then
I get another call from Jane. Addison Wesley is very unhappy with Jimmy’s
story. Very unhappy. ‘You can’t drop his story,’ I said. ‘I will not let you
publish the book with my name on it.’ The story ran and is a total delight, as
are my pictures for it. My fondest memory of the <i>Summer</i> project was
being taken to lunch many times a week at the Union Square Café around the
corner from the publisher. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Was Susan Sontag’s sleeping with the publisher Roger Straus a
transaction?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VV: Susan loved men who could teach her and Straus could teach her
everything about the publishing world.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Susan was an ACOA [Adult Child of Alcoholics]. Susan was always
surprised when people were attracted to her.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Did you spend much time with Susan Sontag and her last
girlfriend Annie Liebowitz?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VV: The couple of nights we spent with Susan and Annie…some of
them were really easy, but some of them were hard. They’d come to dinner at 22</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">nd</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> Street.
When Susan came for dinner, we always put the pot on the table, because Susan
ate as voraciously as she lived her life. We’d make a stew, we’d pot a chicken,
and she would eat.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Annie’s a heroin addict in recovery. They came to dinner one
night. Annie was exhausted. She was flying out to the Virgin Islands to shoot
Harrison Ford. Her crew was going with her at her expense. A fight broke out
over why she needed so many people. It could have been over anything. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Annie called me in DC about four years ago. ‘I’m doing a book,’
she said. ‘I want to know what’s at the Library of Congress about Emily
Dickinson?” I had done many, many books with the Library. Then she added, ‘You
were always so kind to me. Those nights when we would come over, you were
always so nice to me.’</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">We bonded. Annie was a visual creature. Susan was always angry
with her because she never read. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: It was the philosophy queen versus the pop photographer.</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VV: She wanted to take care of Annie. She wanted Annie to improve.
She wanted to perfect Annie. That was her job. They had a really intense
relationship. Annie said to me, ‘I’ve never seen Susan so relaxed as when
she’s with you.’ My only regret is that Annie looked for the camera in her
purse and she had left it home. I would love to have a picture of Susan, shoes
off, legs tucked under her butt, chatting away with Jimmy at full speed.
There’s a chapter in Benjamin Moser’s Sontag bio that takes its title
from an evening at our house. Ben does Jimmy a great disservice in that
book. He does not include how Susan told a friend of ours in Boston, “Jimmy and
Vincent are the only reason for marriage I know of.’ I told Ben that story. He
gives Jimmy short shrift totally ignoring their profound relationship over
decades. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I got the job at the <i>New York Review of Books </i>because my
lesbian wife, Isabel, was having an affair with Sharon Delano, an editor at The
Review. Isabel and I are trying to get a divorce. She’s in England. We’ve
been trying to get a divorce for the last five years. That’s why I can’t marry
Jimmy. Isabel had the papers as instructed by my lawyer, but then we were told
by a clerk in the New York court that she had to go to a consulate in the U.K.
There is no consulate near Cornwall where she lives. Our current Lawyer for the
Arts is still trying for us.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Sharon Delano adored Jimmy and hated me. She once asked him how
someone like him could be living with someone like me. They would go out
drinking together and she adored his work.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Barbara Epstein, one of the founders, was a true, high-end
“intellectual” who couldn’t manage the hold button on her phone. I mean, huh?
She’d be chatting with her pal Gore Vidal in Italy and I’d be working on
deadline waiting for Barbara’s final edits. So I would cut them off. She would
be screaming at Sharon Delano. Distracted like a cat, Barbara would edit the
piece, then get back on the phone with Gore.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">After posting in my copy room what everyone was paid, I got fired.
Whitney Ellsworth, the rich publisher, used to tell each of us behind the
closed door of his office that we were getting the highest raises and we must
not tell anyone how many miserable pennies he gave us. Of course, he was
lying. I went out to Long Island on unemployment. I was reading these
Gothic novels. I would get them for my Mom from S&S because I, too,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>loved the genre. If the sublime secret in <i>The
Woman in White </i>were mine, I would kill, too. Well in the modern gothic
romance there is never a crazy wife stashed in the attic or an
illegitimate title. The “secret” was too often that the husband was a faggot
screwing a stablehand or his valet or Whomever was handy in the plot. I said to
myself, “This is fucking gross.” I would write a gay gothic with all the
trimmings. I was also reading <i>Lolita</i> and decided to give my hero
Lolita’s “dimpled knees.” So, the game was afoot!</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">We were out in Hampton Bays because a friend had a house on a hill
overlooking the water. Jimmy got the letter from Maria, Maria Callas, for <i>Mawrdew.
</i>It was forwarded by FSG. He went down the hill to get the mail and I heard
him screaming as he was peddling up that long drive. He was waving a letter and
screaming. “It’s from Maria!” I will never forget that joyful scream! He was
also on the radio with Leontyne Price who loved the book. I had to sit in the
car to get reception. It was the night Beverly Sills was making her Met debut,
and after their conversation about the book, Jimmy asked Leontyne if she were
going to the Met and she said what entered our chat, she said, “Oh, no. Somehow
I don’t think I need demonstrate quite that degree of largesse.” Heaven, no?</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: When did you and Jimmy live on Mott Street?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VV: We left Yale and went to London for two years. We came back
for Jimmy’s brother’s wedding. I worked as a temp typist and sold drinks at
night in theaters. I was saving money to go back. I got the agency to send us
abroad to their London office with a temporary working permit. I was a very
good typist. I wanted to take it in High School but as an “intellectual” was
not allowed to take it or auto mechanic classes. I told my guidance counselor I
needed it so I could type my papers in college. I was the only boy in the
class. I got 99 on my Regents. That skill kept us from starving many a time.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">We were in London for several more years then came back to New
York when Ted Solatraoff bought <i>Mawrdew. </i>There was a postal strike so he
sent Jimmy a telegram: <i>MAWRDEWCZGOWCHWZDAZZLINGSTOPLETTERFOLLOWS GPOSTRIKE. </i>That
cable hung on our walls for years and it was in the stuff we sold to Yale’s
Beinecke Library along with the letter from Maria, which was fading in the
light. When we came home to New York, I was living on Long Island and Jimmy was
living in Queens. We would meet and cohabit in friend’s apartments, sleeping
and fucking in all of our gay friends’ apartments. They would come home from
work and have to deal with these two maniacs in their bedrooms.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">One day, I was walking down the street in Manhattan and ran into
this guy who was at Yale with us, Robert Landau. He was going to be an opera
singer and was getting married. He told me he was getting married and asked me
if we would like his studio apartment. ‘It’s 72 Irving Place. It’s a
rent-controlled apartment, but you have to be me.’</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I moved into the apartment with Jimmy and painted it bright
yellow. It was half a brownstone building with five floors. I was Bob Landau.
Then one morning, Jimmy’s in the bathtub and at the door is the landlord. He
comes in, sits down and says, ‘Bob, I need someone to be the super for the
building. I’ll give you free rent.’ I can’t take free rent because I am not Bob
Landau. I said, ‘No, no, just freeze the rent at 90 dollars. ‘All you have to
do,’ he said, ‘is wash down the floors once a week and make sure the trash is
okay in the front. If anything goes wrong, you call people. I’ll give you a
list.’</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">We are sitting and we are talking, talking and talking. This guy
was fabulous. And Jimmy’s in the bathtub. Finally, 90 minutes later, he gets up
and goes into the bathroom to pee. He’s peeing. Jimmy is in the bathtub.
The man leaves and I’m the super, Bob the super. And Jimmy is freezing.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Years later, his daughter moved in. She was studying acting at
Juilliard. I’m Bob Landau. We became very friendly. She’s adorable. We’d eat
dinner together, watch movies. Finally, we told her. She called her father and
he thought that was the funniest thing that he had ever heard. I was Bob Landau
for about four years. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">A sheriff lived on the second floor. Well, he was murdered. He
brought some guy home and was getting fist-fucked and the guy pulled his guts
out. His studio apartment had heavy furniture and all these paintings of naked
boys and naked men. As the super, I was in most apartments when there were
problems. The police and the sheriffs came because he had disappeared from
work. They would not let me into the apartment and they sent a team to clean
the place.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I went upstairs one day and found 13 pairs of shoes in the
hallway. The workers from a Szechuan restaurant up the block lived in the
apartment above me. They were taking turns sleeping. I walked in and there was
a tribe. They got all upset. I said, ‘I don’t give a shit. I don’t hear a
thing. Just bring the shoes in so I can clean the hall.’ After that, twice a
week there would be dinner hanging on the door in a plastic bag. A professional
photographer lived on the second floor. A silent movie actress lived on the
first. She had posters from her movies on her walls. I wish I had asked her for
a signed photo.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: In publishing, you worked for Michael Korda?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VV: I was Michael Korda’s researcher. I got the job through Gypsy
da Silva. When I went for the interview, he was sitting at a huge desk with his
back to the window. S&S was then on Fifth Avenue. Michael and I talked for
a while and he said, waving his hand over his shoulder to Fifth Avenue, “This
book is not for us, it’s for Them.” We both laughed. From that moment on, I
adored him. He was both enchanting and brilliant and very, very funny. You must
never forget I have Yale on my resume. After I finished working on <i>Success, </i>he
wanted to keep me around. He asked me if I’d ever been a picture editor. I lied
and said sure. He handed me John Wayne’s album, “America, Why I Love Her.” and
told me to make a book out of it.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Also in my building lived Agnes Meyer. She was the head of Random
House’s picture division. In those days, all the publishing houses had picture
departments. I asked Agnes, ‘How do I make a book out of a record? Agnes said,
‘You can’t do this. You can’t turn 12 songs into a book. I couldn’t do it.”</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">“Well, I had to pay the rent. She handed me a book called <i>Picture
Sourc</i>es. In that book, I found the Library of Congress. I was listening and
listening to the album--Wayne has the most beautiful voice and he’s one of my
signed photos, too--and I said to Jimmy, these could easily fit timeless WPA
photos. Their job was to capture America. I can’t use Migrant Mother but I know
enough of them from books to see how they could work here. I didn’t know
that people bought photos. Nobody told me. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I called the Army, Navy, and Marines. They all said yes. I called
Chevrolet, I called Shell Oil. ‘You know those beautiful pictures of America in
your ads?’ They told me, ‘We don’t sell those pictures.’ I told them, ‘Well,
I’m doing a book with JOHN WAYNE. Would you like a credit in a book by JOHN
WAYNE? I’ll give you any credit line you want. They all said yes. They all gave
them to me for free. Then I went and talked to the photographer on the second
floor. When I told him about the project, he offered his pictures for free as
long as he got credit for them. I accepted his offer, something I would never
do today. Now I’d pay him the going rate. But who knew about going rates then?
I went to the Library of Congress and worked with a curator there, Bernie Ryan.
Nearly twenty years later, I was working with him again but he was then the
head of Prints and Photographs. He told me theThomas Jefferson building was
having its centenary and would I do a book with them? The book was the
extravaganza, <i>Eyes of the Nation, </i>published by Knopf. In 1977,
Wayne sold 2 million copies and I was a professional picture editor with a
credit on the copyright page.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Was the place you lived with Jimmy on Mott Street an awful
place?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VV: I was managing a small experimental theater on 59</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 11.0pt;">th</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> Street for
a while. When I found the place, the floor slanted all the way down. There was
one big room, a kitchen, bathroom and one table. I told the crew at the theater
that I needed some help. They put tar paper on the floor. They put a beam along
the rear wall with the back legs of the borrowed couch on it, so the floor
looked level to the eye. I hung curtains on the back, windowless wall with a
poster of Paris for my view. I love Paris. I came out with Jimmy in Paris. They
brought carpets down from the theater. I had found a carpet in the dumpster one
night when I was with the Golubs. The show had starred Keir Dulea. He had
walked barefoot on it and I treasured it. I still have it. The place was a
really swell theatrical set.. You know the line from <i>Boys in the Band</i>?
‘It takes a sissy to make something pretty.’ I painted the bathroom light
blue and stupidly put a huge sheet of heavy plastic on the wall to prevent the
plaster from getting wet. Well, within weeks I had a diverse, flowering
botanical garden behind it that I had to trim around the edges of the plastic
sheet. God only knows what was living in there!. One day, Jimmy was in the bath
and the tub dropped though the floor. Fortunately, it was only a two foot drop.
He seems to have bad karma in tubs.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">There was a Puerto Rican family living upstairs with eight
members. Their adolescent son was so polite and sweet. I met him one day and he
was upset because he had homework to do and there was all this activity
upstairs. I gave him a key to our place so he could do his homework at the
table. I would come home and there would be cookies or some Puerto Rican thing
on the table.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The only problem we ever had there was rats. You had to walk
through the tenement on the street and cross a large courtyard to get to our
place. For some reason, probably construction in the neighborhood, we were
suddenly inundated with rats. I mean, it was heinous. We could hear them
scratching through the walls and see them running around the molding below the
ceiling. Jimmy was often so drunk, he had passed out so I would sit up to make
certain one would not get into bed with us, something that had happened to a
friend living on St. Mark’s Place one cold night. One day I came home and found
one in the bathtub. I got a paper bag, ran the water, the rat ran into the bag,
and I ran outside to put in a garbage can. I mean, what the hell does one do
with a rat too big to flush down the toilet? There I am running down the
hallway. There the rat is gnawing through the paper bag. When I lifted the
garbage can’s lid, it plopped into the empty can. I banged down the lid and
went into the building noticing a bum making his way down the street checking
out the garbage cans. I barely reached my place when I heard the most god awful
screech and the lid banging on the sidewalk. I felt awful. I called the cops
and told the one who answered how my place was full of rats. The cop asked me
how I knew it was rat and not mice. I told him, ‘I’ve read <i>Alice in
Wonderland.’ </i>The smart-ass cop told me, if I could read <i>Alice in
Wonderland </i>I was old enough to deal with a rat in the bathtub. Of course,
he was right. So, I had to fill all the holes in the place with steel wool to
stop them eating the soap and racing around the molding. Well, then, they would
try to eat through the steel wool and the first brave creature to try it would
cut itself and the others would eat it to get more blood. So there would be the
most terrifying screaming rats in the walls. There are a dozen crazy stories
about that house. I’ve got all of them in this first draft of my memoir <i>Picture
Perfect. </i>I got the title from Hillary Clinton who signed a picture to me
when I finished working with her on her memoir, <i>Living History. </i>‘Thank
you for making my book picture perfect.’<i> </i>I did President Bill’s book,
too. We lived on Mott Street during the infamous garbage strike and went back
to England for another two-plus years.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The building is still there. Mott Street is now ridiculous. All
these designers. I wonder what they have done to that two-story townhouse. You
can see it over the wall. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">My father could not believe we were living on Mott Street. He took
me to a Chinese restaurant. We went in the back door like the opening of <i>Goodfellas.
</i>A door in the hallway wall opened when a waiter pushed it for us.
Four men were sitting in a small room. They were in a very bad mood because
Little Bootsie had been shot. Nobody ordered. The food appeared via the
friendly waiter. It was the fanciest Chinese food I had ever eaten. I was
so overwhelmed by this food and all these men sitting around the table, talking
about Little Bootsie. We ate. We went home. Jimmy thought my having a title was
a camp. He used to tease me as a ‘count of no account.’ I inherited the family
title after World War Two when Italy became a kingdom for five minutes. My
father and older brother said no, but I was five and wasn’t asked. So I won the
title. Seems in Italy, ‘count’ is equivalent to ‘earl’ in England. He stopped
teasing when he went shopping after my deluxe Chinese meal. He bought some fish
and the fishmonger gave him an extra piece asking him to ‘say hello to Vinnie.’
The same thing happened in the bakery, extra cookies and the same request. One
day when I was in the bath, one of the suits stuck his head in the bathroom
window to say hello to me. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Even the grin vanished in Venice.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">In London, I had seen “Othello” with Laurence Olivier and Maggie
Smith twice for her. We would queue overnight. I went with the woman who I
would eventually marry so she could stay in the States. The cops would walk up
and down the line, making sure we were okay. We were all wrapped up. In the
morning, Maggie Smith would arrive and would give us coffee. This was the Old
Vic in London. We would buy two-shilling tickets up in the gods and sit on
the steps overlooking the stage because the staff knew us, we were regulars. We
would just go, go and see these great productions over and over again. There
were the trips by train to one of the 500 rep companies and then we went to the
West End several times each week. Plus Covent Garden and The Proms. Mahler was
being rediscovered by the world, too. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Well, one day, I’m heading home from the Old Vic and I fell
down in the street. Severe pain in my side. I’m with Diana Kirkwood, a Yale
classmate now studying at the Old Vic in Bristol. She hails a cab. The driver
asks where’s the pain? I say “Here.” He takes me to the kidney
hospital. They can’t find anything. An Indian doctor does the test three
times. Indeed, I have a touch of TB in the kidney. Why do I have TB? At
Bonaventure, I had a double major. I went to the psychology department and
signed up with them. Then I went to the English department and signed up with
them. This was BC, before computers.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I got straight As. Administration called me in and said you can’t
do this. But, I’m doing this. We had the best basketball team in the United
States. I fell in love with basketball. I fell in love with the players. They
had their own chef. They put me in with these basketball players. I was their
mascot. Little white Vinny with these basketball players who were national
celebrities. Had been on the cover of <i>Time</i>.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">We ate all these special foods. They discovered that the chef had
TB and the whole team had TB. They tested everyone but they didn’t test little
me. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">After the hospital, I had to get some rest. Aubrey Tarbox, who is
Dame Sybil Tarbox in <i>Mawrdew Czgowchw<b>z</b></i>, was a very rich boy.
Tarbox, Massachusetts? His great-grandfather invented the wooden match. They
were very rich. He was demented with money and was a compulsive fantasist
and a formidable liar. He said he would send me to Venice for a month. So he
gave us money to go to Venice.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">We get to Venice. We are staying at a pensione and the money is
coming. Then it stops. Jimmy calls Aubrey and he’s disappeared. No money. We
are stranded. We set a telegram to Diana Kirkwood in London. She responds
immediately. “Money on the way.” Her father was the president of the University
of Beirut. It took almost a week to get to us. The owner of the pensione told
us we had to sign on with the police. I go down and I am sitting there. This
American woman sits next to me. She points to the owner of the pensione. “He’s
a count.”</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">“I’m a count,” I said. “Everybody in this town is a count. He
looked it up in the blue book and, indeed, I am a count. Seems my title is
bigger than his title, if he really has one. Enter Jimmy right on cue to go
with me to sign with the police. The owner is talking to me in Italian. Jimmy
speaks the most beautiful Roman Italian but in the time we were in Venice he
had mastered the Venetian dialect. I told the owner that I never spoke Italian
in Italy because it makes me too sad. Now, Jimmy and I were masters of improve
in school. The owner gave us back the key to the bath and invited us to resume
taking our dinner with the other guest. We were given our bags back. This was
before the 32 million tourists in Venice annually now. We explored all over
Venice that visit. With Diana’s money we went back to London.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I was working as a temp-typist until the work visa ran out. Then I
started working illegally through friends as ‘David Welsh.’ On one job I was a
kitchen porter in a Piccadilly Circus nightclub called Tiffany’s. Soon I was
the short order cook dishing out my spaghetti Bolognese with chunks of bologna
on the chef’s orders, my chips--I peeled and cut by hand a million each night.
On a piece of toast went the pasta and sauce, baked beans, a fried egg, a
sausage, and a mound of chips. A quintessentially English dish.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Irish head bartender co-opted me and taught me how to
‘fiddle,’ slang for cheat.. It was an amazing place. Edward the
Second used to go there when he was Prince of Wales. You opened the
kitchen’s exit door into the back door’s loading dock, went up a flight of
stairs and there you were in the original Edwardian club. It was something out
of a movie. It was intact with the tables and the tablecloths.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Our rent was seven pounds a week. I would bring home 60, 70 pounds
a week. They taught me how to diddle the cash giving change to the customers.
Suddenly I was a professional bartender. I didn’t do cocktails. All I did was
serve the beer and the drinks. We were rich.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">You give me the money for the booze, like two pounds. There are
all these distractions, all these mirrors. I ring up 1.50. I give you the
receipt. Thank you. You go. I kept the 50. Being the crook and the cunning,
manipulative creature I am, I thrived. I loved those guys.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I got the job via Anne Cunningham-Tree, obviously her stage name.
She was in our acting class. She had a deep, luscious voice and flawless coming
timing. She was also the mistress of the Lebanese ambassador. ‘Safi,’ but he
was impotent. He’d put her in his wife’s jewels and their limo and they’d go
out to all these high-end restaurants. She was a beautiful girl with a cockney
accent when she wasn’t ‘at work’ and sounded like the Queen. One night at the
entrance to a restaurant, she said to him truthfully, ‘You are so adorable,”
and pinched his cheek and he came. Changed her life. Suddenly, he wasn’t
impotent. What he wanted was the rougher the better. We gave her a key. She
would come in the middle of the night. We were living in a bedsit. She would
arrive after fleeing from him. She would be all dolled up. She’d strip to her drawers,
take off her makeup, and tup and tail in our sink before going to sleep on the
floor. Finally, she broke away from him. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The chef would give me all the food to take home on Sunday night
because they were closed until Thursday night. When I was working with Hillary,
she would give me all the food in her fridge, too, because she and Bill would
be gone for weekends and their cook was anxious about keeping it in the fridge
too long. obut much of the week.. The cook gave me a note saying that I
didn’t steal it.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I had so much change in my pockets, I could barely walk home. The
cops would join me and walk home with me on their beat. One night, Paul
McCartney joined me and walked me part of the way home to Notting Hill Gate. We
were living parallel to Portobello Road.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">We stayed by getting a year’s visitor’s visa with notes from
Jimmy’s mother and my Aunt Judy saying we were being supported by
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually, we’d get a note from
the Home Office telling us to renew by sending them four items. We would send
three. Remember, this is BC. Two months later we’d get another letter returning
the three items we sent and requesting we send four. This ruse got us an extra
three or four months each year until we were given an appointment to apply in
person. Jimmy’s mother was sending us $90 a month. My Aunt Judy was sending
$50. That was a lot of money in those days. We would go to the continent
as often as we could.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">During the period when I was legally working as a temp typist,
many opportunities were offered to me. Working for a solicitor, I told his
secretary that what I was typing did not make any sense. It was a brief for
court. The lawyer came out and asked me what was my problem. I read the bit
that was incomprehensible and told him I would not want him representing me. He
laughed and offered me a job. If I worked for him for seven years, I would
become a barrister and get to wear that crazy white wig.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Law is all the same. It’s all precedence. There is no invention,
only cunning collusion. I was making so much money. I had no trouble learning
the ropes, finding my way in his library of previous cases. I love solving
problems. I told Jimmy ‘I can do this.’ But, I knew I could never spend my life
doing such high-end drudge work.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I went to the London Welsh Association in Bloomsbury as a temp
typist around the corner from Virginia Woolf’s bombed-out house. There were
these two clowns supposedly running the London Welsh Association, drunken
goons. I started fielding their calls, writing their reports. I’m the temp
typist representing the London Welsh Association at meetings. One day, I got a
phone call from Lord Aberdare, the patron of the organization. ‘Come have tea
with me,’ he ordered politely. I’ll never forget that huge house, with all
those servants, and his embroidered velvet slippers. He told me flat-out how he
wished I would take over the Association’s reins because he was hearing
marvelous things about me from everyone. The goons were fired and I became the
London Welsh Association. Somehow my visa was never an issue with them. It was
such a camp. I went from 11 pounds a week to 60 pounds a week. We were rich.
Unfortunately, The London Welsh Association with its paneled walls and
portraits was no longer an essential organization for anyone. I certainly
earned my money. Eventually, they shut the place down and I was in need of a
job.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Out of nowhere, I got a green card, a work permit and my insurance
card in the mail. I think Lord Aberdare may have had something to do with this.
He was a kind, gracious, beautiful man. Mysteriously, I was then offered a job
as a civil servant. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I was typing letters to Americans
informing them they could not come to London without a work permit. It was
easy. I set a record for responses in one day. There were all these Brits with
accents from all over England. I'd tell people I was Canadian. A woman said,
"You don't look Canadian." I said, "Well, my mother is
Japanese." That was the end of it. I knew these people and their love of
privacy.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Then Jimmy got the telegram from Ted
Solataroff, who found <i>Mawrdew Czgowchwz</i> dazzling. Jimmy was writing all
the time. He's home writing and I'm out there. I still have a touch of
agoraphobia. When I had my career and was meeting people, I had trouble getting
out of the house. I still have trouble getting out of the house. Jimmy says it
takes me two trips to get out of the house.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Basically, then we came back to the
U.S.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Do you still go to meetings?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">VV: When I go to a meeting and
someone weeps, I feel I am in a state of grace as their denial cracks open in
the safe, blessed space that is the Rooms. That is why I keep coming back. It
is their courage that brings them there. I feel blessed by their courage,
always. And their unconscious contact with the god of their understanding. I
still weep after 43 years.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I hope Jimmy goes over to Perry
Street. The last time he went there, there were still some of the old queens
alive. They all got emotional about him. And he went to the Red Door and they
all got emotional, too. All the survivors like him. And with him.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">In <i>Recovering</i>, Leslie
Jamison wrote about Gordon Lish and Raymond Carver. When Raymond Carver became
sober, Lish still cut the short stories. He didn’t want hope in Carver’s
stories. If any of the characters moved toward hope, Lish would cut them out.
That’s why Carver left Lish at the end, because he kept cutting and cutting.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;">In Program, they jokingly call
alcoholism a three-fold disease—Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.
That’s when it becomes triggered and that’s when it goes through the roof. Our
roof has been on our houses for a long time now. As I keep saying, I’m blessed.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-71108199211445715592020-04-13T08:57:00.001-07:002020-04-13T08:57:54.390-07:00Gerd Stern, Multimedia artist and poet, aged 79, May 13, 2009 <div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> (Gerd Stern in 1963)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">Gerd Stern was born in Germany in 1928. His family fled the Nazis and he wound up living in Washington Heights. Because of tempestuous relationship with his father, a cheese broker, he left home at 16 and moved to Greenwich Village.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">Gerd was seduced by an older woman and started his poetry education by hanging out at the Four Seasons Bookshop on Greenwich Avenue.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">In 1949, at the age of 21, he was living in a burnt-out car in New York, underfed and stressed out. A sympathetic doctor suggested he get himself committed the New York Psychiatric Institute, where he met Beat icons Allen Ginsberg and Carl Solomon.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">Gerd wound up in the San Francisco area, hanging out with the Beat poets. He lived on a barge in Sausalito, and for a time was both the lover and manager of Maya Angelou, during her club singing career at the Purple Onion in San Francisco. Gerd eventually moved back to the New York area, continuing to write original poetry, publishing six poetry books. He also became a prominent multimedia artist. Gerd Stern is a very charming storyteller, but these fantastical life stories are all true.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">I was introduced to Gerd by his friend Gloria Sukenick. Gerd was living in New Jersey, but we spoke at his partner’s apartment on 24<sup>th</sup> Street, in Chelsea. [Gerd is now 91.]</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">DYLAN FOLEY: Did you hang out at the Four Seasons Bookshop?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;"><br /><br />GERD STERN: The people I met in that bookstore were the <b><i>Partisan Review</i></b> people. One of them was Isaac Rosenfeld, who got me a scholarship to Black Mountain. It didn’t really work out, but it put me in touch with people I’ve known the rest of my life.<br /><br />I started out in the West Village, living with Stanley Gould. When I knew him, he wasn’t old then. He was sitting, minding the Potter’s Wheel, a store on 4th Street.<br /><br />Stanley introduced me to Dick Winansky, who shared this apartment with me. I had no idea about dope, no idea about homosexuality. I had no idea about sexuality. I was a refugee boy from Washington Heights. It was all fascinating.<br /><br /><b>DF: Could you tell me about meeting Elaine Goodman, a young woman working in publishing?</b><br /><br />GS: I met Elaine Goldman at a party. She took me home and basically raped me. [Gerd chuckles]. She was forceful. She was big. She was great. I lived with her for months. She convinced me I should become a poet. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">The Village was like, wow, freedom from middle-class oppression, expectation. After Elaine, I had an identity. I considered myself a poet, and I have ever since. The weave was seamless.<br /><br /><b>DF: What kind of poetry books did Toshka Goldman of the Four Seasons push on you? [Editor’s note: After she married, Toshka Goldman became Rosetta Reitz. She died in 2008.]</b><br /><br />GS: I was working at a store called Jabberwocky, next door to the Four Seasons. We made lamps out of vases and bottles and anything people brought in. I learned about Dylan Thomas, the whole New Directions group. Roethke, Pound, Joyce. I was clueless. I started reading the <b><i>Partisan Review</i></b>. She stocked all the little magazines.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">Toshka was a sweetheart. You could sit around with her for hours. It didn’t matter if anybody bought anything. I don’t know if she ever made money. The place that people bought books was at the 8th Street Bookstore.<br /><br />Paul Goodman used to hang out there. This crowd included Delmore Schwartz and Lionel Trilling and a lot of highly intellectual types.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">(Delmore Schwartz, 1930's)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">My first sexual experience was with Paul’s ex-wife Ginny. I met Ginny through a translator at the U.N., who was the first person who turned me on to pot.</span></div>
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(Gerd Stern, left, playing bongos 1955)</div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">DF: Where did you start hanging out in the Village?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;"><br /><br />GS: I started going to the Waldorf Cafeteria, which was the real hangout place. At the Waldorf, you didn’t need to buy a beer. If you bought coffee, you could stay there all day. Jimmy the Greek was my first connection and Al Manion. All the junkies stayed at the Waldorf.<br /><br />I think it was Stanley Gould who introduced me to the Remo. With one beer, you could manage for hours and there were people who bought you beers. Anton Rosenberg came from the same group.<br /><br />Fran Deitch came from Central Park West. She came from a family that owned a toy company. [<b>Editor’s note:</b> Fran Deitch was a torch-song composer who wound up marrying the night-club entrepreneur Jay Landesman.] They had a lot of money. Anton also became a junkie. He died in Woodstock not too many years ago. He was a friend of mine for a long time. He used to buy us beers. We used to stand at the bar, but when Anton was around, he’d put a table together. He’d even buy us booze.<br /><br /><b>DF: In 1949, you were living in a burnt-out out car in New York City and were underfed. How did you wind up checking yourself into the New York Psychiatric Institute? A doctor suggested you go into the hospital to recover from malnutrition.</b><br /><br />GS: I was in a critical situation. I was living on the street in this burned out Willis (a car). My uncle sent me to this doctor. The doctor was right. I wasn’t eating enough. My father was a dangerous, far-away presence to me. My uncle, the doctor, was a real prick, by the way.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;"><br />The sequence was off in my oral history. Transcription is not like writing. I’ve been urged to write a memoir, but it is not one of my more important projects.<br /><br />To me, the story doesn’t seem wild. It is just what happened.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">DF: You knew Beat icon Carl Solomon and Allen Ginsberg at the New York Psychiatric Institute?</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">GS: Carl was a wise guy. We acted up in the hospital, but it was his ironic idea that triggered us. He involved the three of us in these games he played.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">Carl loved to take advantage of people if you weren’t his friend. That’s how he got into the hospital in the first place, by throwing potato salad in the face of Wallace Markfield, a famous proto-anarchist.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">[The aide Carl harrassed] had no business being in that job. He was a nut job. What finally drove the aide over the brink—it was Easter and they put these papier-mache bunnies on the tables where we ate. Carl took the bunny into the bathroom and masturbated into the inside of this rabbit and put it back on the table. It drooled out this little pool of cum. The aide came and said, “What is that? Carl said, “I jerked off into it.” The guy went mad and they took him away. The aide had to be taken away in a straightjacket!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RktSMU3doNk/XpSK6rk_u_I/AAAAAAAABbc/ZvzbEqWPKxsk8C31JAFwRZmzWo1jjEKvwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Unknown-15.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RktSMU3doNk/XpSK6rk_u_I/AAAAAAAABbc/ZvzbEqWPKxsk8C31JAFwRZmzWo1jjEKvwCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Unknown-15.jpeg" /></a><br /><br />When Carl came into the hospital with all those books, Genet was big. Solomon and Ginsberg got me thrown out of the hospital in a Genet-like manner. I wasn’t upset at all. I was ready to go. It set me on a very positive course for the rest of my life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">(Carl Solomon, 1950's. Photo by Allen Ginsberg)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">I had a Dr. Hamdig. He had </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">no business telling me what to do. It was the last time he saw me. He said, “Look, I’m a Freudian. I’m not supposed to do this, but I need to tell you that you can’t live both the life you want to live and the life that your father wants you to live. You better make up your mind.” I made up my mind right then, as soon as the words came out of his mouth. He was right. I hadn’t made up my mind ’til then.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;"><br />I don’t know whatever happened to people I knew then. I was emotionally put out when I saw that Toshka Goldman only died last year. I had no idea what she did after I knew her.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">DF: Do you think Joe Santini, the owner of the San Remo, had hostility towards his new bohemian clientele?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;"><br /><br />GS: The Italians and bohemians didn’t get along too well. The Italians felt we were usurping their turf, but the bar needed the money. It became a magnet. Jimmy Baldwin was there all the time, before he went to Paris. I remember the night before he left.<br /><br /><b>DF: What was the sex vibe in the Village?</b><br /><br />GS: It was very tolerant. I quickly understood that there were two kinds of gender relations and they didn’t mix. Jimmy [Baldwin] was as gay as you could get. He was flaming, even more so than Allen. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">DF: What was the black-Jewish relationship like then?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;"><br /><br />GS: That relationship was intense. Bird [Charlie Parker] once said to me, “I might as well be Jewish. It’s the same thing.” I met Bird in San Francisco.<br /><br />The Remo was it. I would be there every night. You could count on most of your group being there. Stanley Gould would be there. When I met him, he had a job, but very soon after he became a bum. He did a lot of dope deals back and forth. He was always on the take. He was very well liked, by the way.<br /><br />Norman [Mailer] was there. That’s how I met him. Twice a night, we’d walk to the Minetta Tavern, to see who was there. It wasn’t the hangout like the Remo. They were more formal. They didn’t like people standing around without buying anything. Joe Gould was always there. He was the house character, and he took it very seriously.<br /><br /><b>DF: What was the San Remo like?</b><br /><br />GS: It was funky, but it wasn’t dirty. They kept it very clean. It was relatively cheap.<br /><br /><b>DF: What was the sex vibe at the Remo?</b></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;"><br />GS: There weren’t a lot of loose women around. First of all, most of the patrons were men. Most of them were straight. Stanley was bisexual. Dick Winansky was bisexual. After the hospital, Carl Solomon had money because he was working for his uncle A.A Wyn, owner of Ace Books.<br /><br /><b><br />DF: Did Ginsberg imply that Carl Solomon slept with his mother?</b><br /><br />GS: He doesn’t imply it. He quotes him. “Howl” sent Carl back to the hospital and it cost him his job with A.A. Wyn. He wound up at Pilgrim State. I had a lot of things against Allen. The worst thing was that Allen and Jack went to Pilgrim State and got Carl to sign a legal document that he wasn’t going to sue. His mother was about to sue. Then the court case happened [City Lights was being sued over obscenity for <b><i>Howl</i></b>.] I was there. Hey, it’s a wild world. Allen was very good at scheming people. He was a great poet, don’t get me wrong. I kept up a quasi-friendship with him. He was manipulative, and he could be not nice.<br /><br /><b>DF: Ginsberg was a great promoter of himself and his friends?</b><br /><br />GS: He got his gay and bisexual friends published. I got Burroughs published through Carl on <b><i>Junky</i></b>. I was Carl’s West Coast agent. Ginsberg gave me a whole bunch of manuscripts. Ginsberg was a purser on a ship going across the Pacific. He left all these things with me. <b><i>Junky</i></b> was the only thing that worked. I also got Carl to publish Jaime De Angulo’s <b><i>Indian Tales.</i></b><br />Among the manuscripts was a 12- to 16-page letter of Neal Cassady’s, which I supposedly destroyed. Not true. According to Allen, I destroyed it by throwing it off the barge. Not true. It didn’t get lost at all. I gave the manuscripts back to Allen. I believe, honestly, that Jack used it up in one of his books. Allen picked up everything from my wife Ann. He asserted it was missing. [<b>Editor’s note:</b>Gerd was right. The letter had been lost at an old publishing house in a submission pile, being discovered more that 50 years later in 2012. It went up for auction in March 2017 and was sold for $206,000 to Emory University, which has a famed Beat collection.]</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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(A gorgeous Maya Angelou in the 1950's)</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;"><br />I helped build the Living Theatre on 14th Street. Judith Malina is great. USCO Multimedia performed there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0BOkkBnNNro/XpSEVUK8Z5I/AAAAAAAABag/4h30Sz0bAh0Winesur9QNAW-Fg2Ps3FkwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/m1954_usco.flier1a.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0BOkkBnNNro/XpSEVUK8Z5I/AAAAAAAABag/4h30Sz0bAh0Winesur9QNAW-Fg2Ps3FkwCK4BGAYYCw/s320/m1954_usco.flier1a.jpg" width="250" /></a><br /> (USCO flyer)</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">DF: Did you go to the White Horse?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;"><br /><br />GS: It was a circuit, but the White Horse was important on certain dates, when Dylan was in town. I helped carry him home certain times. He was fantastic, but he was also a nasty brute. His poetry was incredible. His poetry was very influential on me, not in writing but in understanding emotionally that it was possible to write that way. I knew a lot of so-called famous poets. Dylan was the worst, really. He was an unpleasant personality because he was rarely not drunk. He was okay when he was not drunk, but that was only early on. It didn’t take him very long to get drunk.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">Dylan Thomas was a groupie object, and for older groupies, as well. Taking him home was a nightmare. It took four or five people to walk him down the street.<br /><br />Later on, there was the Cedar. There weren’t a hell of a lot of painters at the Remo. [The Remo] was a literary and drug place. There was a lot of drug dealing at the Remo, both reefer and heroin. I was never into junk or cocaine. I’ve been a pot smoker for a long time. In those days, we thought a toothpick joint got us high. I just don’t understand how we got high.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">DF: To go back to 1947, you were involved in helped to covertly finance a ship used to transport Jewish refugees from Europe to Israel?</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;"><br />GS: The boat was called the S.S. Ben Hecht. It was financed by the playwright Ben Hecht. Harpo Marx gave us more money, but Harpo said, “If Groucho knew that I gave you money, we’d be in a lot of trouble. [<b>Editor’s note: </b>Money was raised from a 1946 Broadway play written by Hecht called a “A Flag is Born,” with an unknown actor named Marlon Brando. The play raised $400,000. In March 1947, the junky boat, a German-built former yacht, delivered 600 Holocaust survivors from France to new lives in Palestine.]<br /><br /><b>DF: Did you go to the Cedar Bar?</b><br /><br />GS: Oh, absolutely. People I knew. A very close friend of mine was John Chamberlain. John and I would drive down from Rockland County in his Volkswagon bus. He would hangout there all night long. There was a bit of crossover between the Cedar and the Remo. LeRoi Jones and his wife drank at the Remo, then the Cedar. LeRoi was a barfly and Hettie supported him. He was a bastard to her and he’s still a bastard. Yet, he was very talented. I don’t think he is anymore. He’s very self possessed and he thinks a lot of himself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uIM55lVb9eo/XpSImwLcwfI/AAAAAAAABa4/G79uHkLUdVsBY7i8UEL4lhmGBCUmkSRdwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Unknown-6.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: 24pt;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uIM55lVb9eo/XpSImwLcwfI/AAAAAAAABa4/G79uHkLUdVsBY7i8UEL4lhmGBCUmkSRdwCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Unknown-6.jpeg" /></a><br />(San Remo entrance, northwest corner of MacDougal and Bleecker))</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Remo had an aura and a personality that was much bigger than any of the other places. It was like Grand Central Station for the bohemia of the time. It was pre-Beat and pre-any of the movements that were later ascribed to that era, and it had a prime geographic location. You couldn’t do better than the corner of Bleecker and Macdougal. People would come from Europe and head straight for the Remo. It was an internationally known hangout. They’d hardly know three words of English. There was the neighborhood people, but we didn’t pay attention to them. Nobody was hassled. Norman wasn’t even hassled, though he was famous. It was amazing, this feeling, that you felt at home. I don’t remember anyone really getting hassled by the owners and that’s unusual for the bar.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;">Fran Deitch slept around with a lot of musicians, specifically black musicians.</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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(William S. Burroughs in front of the Sam Remo, early 1950's)</div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">DF: Did you know Winnie Meyer, the woman famous for exposing her breasts at the San Remo?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;"><br /><br />GS: Sure. I slept with her. She was a lot of fun, a humorous, generous person. The other girls who came to the Remo was Odetta, the folk singer. She was a big personality.<br /><br />I wasn’t a big drinker, one or two beers a night. I don’t know how we got high in those days. There wasn’t much pot around and what there was wasn’t that great.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">DF: You smoked reefer with Count Basie in San Francisco, making it very potent by feeding tub through your bathtub, turning the bathtub into a gigantic waterpipe. What did he say to you?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;"><br /><br /><br />GS: “I don’t know whether to love you or to hate you.”[said Stern, imitating Basie’s slurred speech.] He got stoned all his life. It wasn’t his last time.<br /><br /><b>DF: How many children do you have?</b></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">GS: I have three and a new one. I got a call, “Your name is on my birth certificate as my father.” The woman was Jackie Gibson. She told people she was pregnant with Jack Kerouac’s baby. The reason I stopped seeing Jackie was that she was hanging out with Allen, Jack and Neal, which wasn’t my scene. Eric is the new child. Radha is my oldest one from the first marriage.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">I was supposed to do sound for “Easy Rider” for Dennis, but I was too busy.<br />Working for <b><i>Playboy</i></b>…I had dinner with Sinatra in Vegas. He was so obscene, I snuck out of the bathroom.<br /><br /><b>DF: Did Carl Solomon and his wife Olive stay married for a while?</b></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;"><br />GS: I think they lasted for four or five years. I can’t remember it exactly. I think Carl enjoyed the gay world. I don’t know if he was sexually gay. I have no proof of it. Certainly, Allen acted like he was. I have a letter that I just found that Carl sent to Ferlighetti that he was going to sue him, and then a second letter saying, “”I’m sorry, that was a big mistake. Allen has been the best friend in my life. I didn’t mean that [the first letter]. I take it back.”<br /><br />I believe that letter was before that, and it was what caused them to go to the hospital [to get Solomon to sign a document].<br /><br />I met Larry Ferlinghetti the first day he came to San Francisco. A few years ago, I saw him at the Woodstock Poetry Festival.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">Jonas Mekas, I’ve known forever…he’s a very good guy.<br /><br /><b>The <i>Partisan</i></b> crowd, they all turned into horrible right wingers.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">DF: Did you know the performance artist Carolee Schneemann?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;"><br /><br />GS: We did a tour together. Intermedia 68. Dancers in paper costumes. She has a studio in New York and a house in Ulster County. She takes herself very seriously. She should.<br /><br /><b>DF: Did you know William S. Burroughs?</b></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;"><br />GS: I knew him, but I didn’t like him.<br /><br /><b>DF: What are you going to do with your archive?</b><br /><br />GS: I want to sell it. I need the money.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 24pt;">[<b>Editors note:</b> Stanford University bought Gerd’s archive in 2013. The material came out to 50 linear feet and in 156 containers. In 2018, the archive list was put online.]</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-69497841912366681962020-04-12T08:58:00.001-07:002021-11-06T19:12:12.954-07:00Caleb Carr describes the Beat Generation film fragment by Robert Frank--1959This video was taken by the filmmaker Robert Frank on the streets of the East Village in 1959. In the video, we see Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Lucian Carr, Carr's three children and Carr's wife Francesca. Carr's sons are Simon, Caleb and Ethan.<br />
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<a href="https://youtu.be/gR-qxHoL5Yk">Beat Video, East Village 1959 by Robert Frank on YouTube</a><br />
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Caleb Carr, a novelist, most famous for <i><b>The Alienist</b></i>, was approached years ago by an archivist who found the footage. Carr bought the film footage of his father and his two Beat friends. Without Carr's permission, the video wound up on YouTube.<br />
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I interviewed Caleb Carr on his most recent novel <i><b>Surrender, New York</b></i>, in the spring of 2016. He told me what he knew about the five-minute film from 1959:<br />
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<b>DYLAN FOLEY: Did you find this film of your family?</b><br />
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CALEB CARR: I actually did find it. It was originally sent to me. Some guy in Germany had it. "He wrote me, saying "I have this short film of what I believe is you and your family, hanging out on street corner, outside a bar. Do you want to buy it?"<br />
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I thought, what the hell? I bought it and had the film transferred, so I could watch it. I showed it to a few people. The next thing I knew, it was all over YouTube.<br />
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<b>DF: Is that you and your brother in the stripped shirts?</b><br />
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CC: I'm the one who is sitting on Kerouac's lap. It's my older brother who is sitting on Kerouac's shoulders, which was kind of how it worked out.<br />
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<b>DF: Do you think the film was definitely taken by Robert Frank?</b><br />
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CC: We just have no idea. There has been a lot of speculation on whether Frank shot it. His wife and kids are in it.<br />
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I suspect that's what happened, some Robert Frank freak in Germany found this little snippet of film among other stuff. He probably bought an odd-lot of things shot by Frank. It would have been unusual for Frank to let anything get out of his hands. You never know.<br />
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The older you get, the more you realize how wasted they were in the scene. They were dead drunk and that's really unfortunate. My older brother was just pounding on my father's head with his fist. We spent half our childhood in bars. They'd stick us in a booth with a bunch of Cokes and tell us to watch television. We were always going, "Can we go home now?" It was not fun.<br />
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<b>DF: What were the Beats like in a group?</b><br />
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CC: It's so hard to describe. They could go back and forth from being entertaining, to most of the time being a nightmare. It was screaming and yelling all night long. As a child, you could never understand what it was about, or if anyone was serious. What the hell is going on? Shit's smashing and breaking all the time. You're just trying to figure out what is going on.<br />
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Both of my brothers developed this compulsive ability to put themselves to sleep. I could never sleep through it. I would get up in the little house we had on Horatio Street. I would go and sit at a the top of the stairs to figure out what was going. It never made any sense.<br />
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At the same time, Kerouac could be very charming. He could be wonderfully charming.<br />
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Allen [Ginsberg] was a charter member of NAMBLA. [<b>Editor's note:</b> North American Man-Boy Love Association, a pederast organization] It's scary stuff. When you are a young boy, you sense it. You pick this up. There are people that are okay, and there are people you have to watch out for. Living in New York, you pick these things up very early.<br />
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<b>DF: Did you have a particularly difficult relationship with your father Lucian Carr?</b><br />
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CC: I was the one of my brothers that my father singled out for punishment. Very often, and I would include myself in this category, men who grew up as abused boys, don't want to have children because they don't want to perpetuate the cycle. It's always there. People who have genuinely suffered abuse, there is always the lurking sense that you'll fall into the same trap. I decided early in my life that it was going to end with me, that I would not have children.<br />
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My father was an abused child, too. So it goes on and on.<br />
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I had good mentors. That was a more comfortable role for me than the father-son role. My father and I had an uncomfortable relationship 'til the day he died. It was never really a loving relationship.<br />
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<b>DF: In 1995, Daniel Pinchbeck, the son of the novelist Joyce Johnson, wrote an article for the <i>New York Times Magazine</i> called "Children of the Beats." In the article, Christina Mitchell, the daughter of Aline Lee, the Kerouac muse, and an old girlfriend of your father, said that bohemians should not have children due to the high price the children pay.</b><br />
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CC: Yeah, Christine. Aline Lee and my father were actually married, but there was some question of legality. We grew up around Christine.<br />
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<b>DF: Was growing up with the Beats a difficult experience?</b><br />
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CC: Absolutely. It followed me around for my whole life. I was an early adolescent in the late 1960's, early 1970's . That's when the revival and the worshipping of the Beats started. People thought that I had this glorious childhood. It followed me forever. People wanted to know, how great was it? You turn to them and you say, it wasn't so great, guys. It really wasn't." They can't believe it, whether I was in school in Ohio or wherever I was. I had people coming from very staid backgrounds, who can't believe that it was the most wonderful, liberating childhood in the world. It really wasn't.<br />
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You are surrounded by violence your whole life and the city where I lived was very violent when we were young."<br />
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Christina Mitchell weighed in on the dysfunctional Beat world in the 1995 <i><b>Times </b></i>piece. "I think the Beats were extremely dysfunctional people who had no business raising children," she said.<br />
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Christina and her mother lived with Lucian Carr for 10 years. She recalled a childhood marred by violence. It was "ten years of fighting, screaming, hitting, going to the police station in the middle of the night, going to Bellevue, wandering the streets, watching Mom and Carr beat each other to a pulp." The narcissism was all consuming. "I was a nonperson to them. I don't think they knew I was there."<br />
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[For those who don't know, Lucian Carr committed the first Beat original sin. While a Columbia student, he murdered David Kammerer, his ex-Scoutmaster from St. Louis who had sexually abused him as a child and was pursuing him around the country. Carr killed the man in Riverside Park and tried to sink his body in the Hudson River. Jack Kerouac tried to help cover up the crime, and escaped jail by marrying his girlfriend Edie Parker. Carr was sentenced to only two years for manslaughter, using a version of the "gay panic" defense, that he was defending his honor from Kammerer. (Friends of Kammerer argued years later that he did not stalk Carr. See the Lucian Carr Wikipedia page.)]<br />
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Carr became an alcoholic editor at United Press International for the next 47 years. Carr died in 2005.<br />
<br />As part of the back story for the video, Robert Frank was then working with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg on a film version of Kerouac's play "The Beat Generation," which was retitled "Pull My Daisy," a line from Allen Ginsberg's first published poem called "Song: Fie My Fum. The poem was published in <i><b>Neurotica</b></i>, Volume #6, 1950. When it was published, the poem was considered obscene.<br />
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Editor's note:Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-13833452489932656742020-04-12T08:21:00.001-07:002020-04-12T08:22:11.396-07:00Beat Generation - Kerouac & Ginsberg - New York 1959<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gR-qxHoL5Yk" width="480"></iframe>Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-77571362545786378432020-04-10T17:07:00.001-07:002020-04-11T16:53:47.169-07:00Jack Dowling on His Lucrative Decade Running a Gay Erotica Mail-Order Company<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">(Jack Dowling in his loft in the 1967)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Jack Dowling, a writer and painter, was born in New Jersey in 1931. As a 12-year-old, he would take the ferry from his hometown of Sewaren, biking around and exploring New York City. At the age of 18, he received a scholarship to the elite Cooper Union, the art and architecture school in Greenwich Village. He moved to New York in 1950, never looking back.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Jack became a successful painter and obtained a loft on East <sup> 24th Street, where he painted and sold his art. In 1971, New York City took the loft by eminent domain, Jack found himself homeless and unemployed, his paintings in storage. Twenty years after he came to New York, Jack was back where he started, 40 years old and working in the mailroom, this time at Colt Studios, a troubled mail-order photo agency that sent photographs of male nudes around the United States.</sup></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><sup><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In chaos, there is opportunity. Jack went from mailboy to partner in two years, and revolutionized the product Colt was selling. Gay men didn’t want pictures any longer of men in togas, but preferred the modern look of men dressed in leather with facial hair, men in dungarees. Colt exploded after these changes. For Jack, his decade at Colt was quite lucrative and life transforming.</span></sup><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<sup><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In his youth, Jack Dowling cut a striking figure in Greenwich Village, with a handsome, high-cheekboned face and a preternaturally slim and muscular physique. At 88, he is still handsome and slim. From his gorgeous studio apartment in the Westbeth artists’ community, where he has lived since 1972, Jack spoke of the wild 1970s in the Village.</span></sup><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><sup><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">At Westbeth, Jack is an institution, running the Westbeth Gallery for 14 years, from March 1998 to March 2012. He is still on the admissions committee.</span></sup><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">(Westbeth)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DYLAN FOLEY: Did Westbeth suffer flooding during Hurricane Sandy in 2009?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JACK DOWLING: The basement got 9 feet.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Not only did the artists who had studios get flooded, but the building management lost the Westbeth records.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Were these the applications and personal statements?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Yes. You had to do more than that. You had to prove you were a working artist. I’m on the admissions committee. It’s the one I remain on. It’s very, very tricky. We are rent stabilized, where people think they can end their days. We get artists applying and I look at the dates of their shows and if they are really far back. I look at where they are living now, if they seem to be secure. If its someone who is 70 years old and they are pumping out art and have shows everywhere, that’s fine.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Jack Dowling)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">In the case of somebody who is 65 and they haven’t painted since they were 45 and that’s the only reference, or when their last exhibit was 20 years ago, its problematic. Trying to get young people in the building is very hard because there are all these people in front of them.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Jack Dowling, Ladies in America, 1967)</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: I do see more young people in the building. Do young people inherit their parents’ apartments?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">That’s very few. Most of the young people you see are from Martha Graham’s dance studio.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">You have to go online and put his name in. I remember a name, Greta Sultan. She was a pianist who interpreted and played a lot of John Cage’s work. She’s on YouTube. I found her name on the original Westbeth tenant’s list. She died a long time ago.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did you know the difficult Westbeth resident, the pianist Patti Bown?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">She had a double kind of thing—Hi honey, how are you?” And then…</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What was happening in your life when you were 40 years old?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD: I had been to that loft on First Avenue and 24<sup>th</sup>Street over the years before. Two people I knew had it. I loved it. It was enormous. Those guys were not painters. One worked at Look Magazine and the other worked for a department store. I said, If you ever give this up, let me know. Before they had been tenants, the loft had been used by the Paper Bag Players as a rehearsal place and as a living space for some of the members.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">They did call me one day and said, “We are moving.” I said, “How much do you want?” It was key money days. They came back to me in a day of two said, “We are going to ask you for $285.” It was the stove and other things that they had installed. I thought, that’s easy, $285 for that place. Not that I had the money. I agreed.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I had a friend staying with me, who sort of liked to think of himself as my boyfriend. We were living at 641 Hudson. We were back in that building again At Horatio. I lived there before I went to Europe in 1958 after graduating from Cooper Union. An apartment had become vacant when I got back. I told him I was going to the loft by myself. I moved into the loft in ’61. I would have been 31. That’s where I actually started painting seriously. I painted in Italy when I was teaching. They were nice interesting abstract paintings, but I was just knocking them off. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">The one thing I did know was that the loft was sitting on Title I land, which meant that the land could only be used for public housing. That is what gave them the right to tear down the existing structure. I saw that as being way off in the future. The city was buying up pieces of property that was in an area that was called Bellevue South. It runs from 23<sup>rd</sup>Street all the way up to 32<sup>nd</sup>Street. My loft was on 1<sup>st</sup>Avenue and 24<sup>th</sup>Street. I was across the street from the veteran’s hospital. With that understanding, I bought the loft. I was paying $100 to the man who owned it.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">My painting career really grew there. Eventually, I had the support of Ivan Karp at the Leo Castelli Gallery. He was the director of the Leo Castelli Gallery. He put me into a lot of shows although he didn’t offer me a show at Castelli.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> (Jack Dowling, Crossing Over, 1967)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">The city was demolishing buildings two blocks away from me. I got a Legal Aid attorney. He found out that they city was going to give the building to NYU. That’s totally illegal. I took it to court and that court case went on for over two years.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">It cost me money because I wasn’t painting and didn’t have any money coming in.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">That’s when I got the part-time job as a mailboy at Colt Studios, three days a week. All of a sudden, things happened real fast in court. I was given three days to get out. I had all my stuff, all these things from the ‘50’s—books, records, music equipment, furniture.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">(Jack Dowling in the 1950's)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I called everyone I knew. The city recognized the loft space as commercial, so they were required to put the paintings in storage. I got some compensation, under $2,000. I called all my friends and said, “Come get my stuff.” I slipped books into the painting storage. I had two cats and gave one to a friend and kept the other one. I was working at Colt part time and they had a space on Barrow Street. I was sleeping there sometimes. A friend of mine who lived on Leroy Street was way for the summer, so I stayed there.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I was never on the list to get into Westbeth, but I had a Department of Cultural Affairs certificate that I was an artist-in-residence. It started in Soho, where they recognized the legality of the artists living in the lofts. I got a call to come over here to Westbeth. I was a man called Dickson Bane, one of the early administrators. He said that the city had contacted him and asked him if there was any space for me.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Was this a guilt-wracked administrator?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD: I did establish a relationship with the man from the city who was responsible for getting me out of the loft. He kept finding me one-bedroom apartments in odd neighborhoods, that would be impossible for a painter to live in, to work in or to carry materials in. There were still a lot of good low-rent neighborhoods in the 1970’s. The apartments were not suitable for a painter. I had to turn them all down.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I had a motorcycle, a big, heavy Motoguzzi. In the entry of the loft building on First Avenue, it was big enough that I could park it there, lock the front door and the bike was there. It was safe.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">One day. I went there and the bike was gone. I went to the deli downstairs and they said the city workers had come and taken it. They had a garage on 27<sup>th</sup>Street.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I went to 27<sup>th</sup>Street and I walked in. There were guys standing around. I saw my bike in the back. They had stole it. That’s my bike, I said. “I’m taking it.” “I’m taking it out of here. The guy who I had the ongoing relationship which was there. I could have called the cops. They would have tried to sell it. I rode it out of the garage. He saw the whole thing. He knew that I did not want to make trouble for those guys. They were the guys who worked for him. I just wanted my bike back. He knew NYU was getting the property.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">There were three things that happened—I was homeless, I was working for Colt. I could see the mistakes they were making at Colt and how badly they were promoting themselves.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I was in debt and the apartment they gave me in Westbeth was 359 square feet. Tiny little place. When I had my paintings delivered there. They took up half the apartment. There was my bed, my kitchen and that was it. I couldn’t paint in the space. I couldn’t even stand back to see what I was doing. I did get, maybe a year later, a studio on the 3<sup>rd</sup>floor, where I moved all the paintings, but by that time, I had essentially stopped painting. I had lost my connection with Ivan Karp, because nothing was going on. I was 40 and I could see that I could make some money at Colt. So I put my energies into that and never really realized that I would be good at figuring out how a business should be run and how this business was not being run. There was competition between the two guys who owned and I was hired. After I became more full time Colt, I gave them some suggestions and found them a new space [for the company]. They offered me a junior partnership. I took that, which increased my salary.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">(Jack Dowling, left, on Fire Island)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: You started in the mailroom?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD: Yeah, I started as the mailboy. I was getting maybe 75 dollars [a week].</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Did you have to buy a chunk of the company?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD: They asked if I would commit to being there for three years and they made me a junior partner. Then when Lou Thomas left, it turned out that yes, I am a partner. It was Lou Thomas and Jim French, who produced all the photographs. Everything was sent to New York, to be processed, approved and sent out again.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I came up with a lot of good moneymaking ideas. We made a lot of money.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Jim French was shooting a particular kind of image, like buff men, body builder types. You wanted a more modern look?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD: Jim started out drawing, then he became <i>the </i>photographer. He became one of the leading nude male photographers in California. Lou was here in New York. Lou competed with Jim by taking photos. Jim resented that. He called it his company. He called it his company. They had this falling out. Eventually Lou decided to leave. We had enough money to buy him out at $50,000. He formed Target Studios and a disco. He had a very crazy lover called the Swamp Lady, a tall rangy man from the South Africa, a blonde 6-foot tall, shambly, crazy guy. They opened up a disco south of Houston called Frankenstein. Within two years, both failed.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I built the house on Fire Island. I paid for it in stages.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Jim would call me at 1am or 2am on Sunday. He’d have a great idea. I drank a lot in those days. At one point, I told him to stop fucking calling me at that hour. He took that badly.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I’d fly to London to try to stop the copying of Colt material there. They were bootlegging. The copies were terrible. They were very bad.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Who was the big iconic model of Colt studios?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /><br />JD: His real name was Occum. He was a model we discovered who photographed really beautifully.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">We had no contracts on anybody.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">He was about 5’6” or 5’7”, sexy as hell, with a beautiful cock on him. Another photographer said, he’d never met anybody whose skin photographed as beautifully. I might be related to him. His name was Occum and on the Indian line going way back, my great-great-great-great grandfather was Sampson Occum. The skin tone might have come from that. He was permanently tan, naturally and it had a sheen to it.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">All the guys running around the streets were wearing cutoffs and boots. You couldn’t get into the Eagle’s Nest unless you were dressed like that. Sometimes a guy would come in wearing a hardhat, trying to look like a rigger. Costume time. We did that photograph. There was no Village People. On the back of the album, it says “Thanks to Colt Industries.”</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Was the Village People a real band?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD: No. Not at all. Whoever put this group together recorded these songs with pick-up artists. They came to Colt Studios. He wanted to have a mix of Village looking guys. Joseph, who worked for me packing orders, hung out in the Village and knew a lot of guys. One of those guys in the picture also worked for me. He was a mailboy. Joe rounded up some of the guys he knew. He put an Indian headdress on one. He got a black fellow he knew. He posed them in front of the old Ramrod Bar on West Street and took the picture that became the cover and has remained the cover for eons.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">The song took off, especially “YMCA.” The guys in the photo were Village people, but not The Village People. It’s never really come out who the performers were. They were pick-up people. They sang the songs and dispersed.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Jim and I were coming to a head. Jim always considered Colt to be his company, even though we were splitting the profits 50-50. He decided he wanted the company to be in California and didn’t want the company to be associated with me anymore.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">He went to a man in New York who owned a number of magazines, including <b><i>Blue Boy</i></b>. Jim offered Colt Studios to him and he named a price. They decided they didn’t want to take over Colt, because they were already buying photos from other people.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Jim said he was going to buy me out. I got a letter from his attorney, George Towers. Jim said that the lawyer said he had to pay me one half the price that Jim had offered to sell it to <b><i>Blueboy</i></b>. As half owner, I was due $100,000. I thought to myself, should I get an attorney or should I get out of this and put it behind me? I decided to go with the deal, to send everything out to California, including files that were 10, 15 or 20 years old, but Jim was so paranoid, he wanted very last paperclip Everything was sent out there in ’78.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">The Fire Island house was already in progression. I’d laid out $40,000. I took a mortgage for the balance of the construction, but paid it off in three years. The house was free and clear.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I had a collection of the small portrait books. I had copies of <i>Man</i>,<i>Another Man</i>and <i>Olympus</i>. I decided to sell them on Ebay. I had photographs and drawing that Jim had sent me as samples. There is not one piece of Colt in this apartment. If, when I had started at Colt as the mailboy, if I had kept a copy of everything we produced, it would be worth millions today.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Are you referring to Colt’s small magazines?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD: The small ones are worth more. They sell for more.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: You were dating a porn star?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD: I wasn’t dating him. He was my lover. It had nothing to do with Colt. He wasn’t a porn star. He was an antique dealer. I met him in the bar. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">In the <i>New Yorker </i>last year, there was an article on photographer Peter Lujar. The article opens with a photograph of a man lying on the Christopher Street pier; you can’t see his face. It was Stanley.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I met Stanley in the bar. I had seen him around on the docks or in another bar. He was always looking at me. I went up to him in the Eagle. I had my motorcycle with me. I said, “Everywhere I go, you are always staring at me. Why?” “I like you,” he said. “You don’t even know me and you like me.” “I like what I see,” he said.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">He was in his early 20’s and I was in my early 30’s. “I said, “You want to come home with me?” I was living in a friend’s apartment on Leroy Street. I said, “Ever been on a bike?” He said no. I said, “Just lean when I lean.” We were together 17 years. This was ’72 to ’88. Stanley was very popular. He was in his early 20’s. There was a 12-year difference. I knew he was screwing around. That was the pattern. I never lived with him. I helped buy him a house in Beacon., so he could expand his antique business. It was $27,000 in the late ‘70’s. Sometimes I would come up and there’d be some guy in the backyard working on something and Stanley would say, “I am trying to teach him how to refinish.” Yeah, sure, I thought.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Somewhere along the line, Stanley ran into somebody who made films. He convinced Stanley to make a film with Jack Wrangler, the big porn star of the time. I walk into the Eagle’s Nest, I glance up and there’s this Jack Wrangler film up there and Stanley comes into the scene. I hear the two guys standing next to me say, “He’s hot and he’s playing pool in the next room.” I walked into the next room and there indeed was Stanley playing pool. I said, “You know anything about this? You never told me about making this movie.” “Well, maybe they paid me for it.” I said, “Don’t you ever make another movie again.” He said he didn’t want to again, because he didn’t like being told what to do…”Go down on him now. Suck his dick.”</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I went to Jack Modaco, who owned the bar. It was on 21<sup>st</sup> and 11<sup>th</sup>. I asked Jack, could you please stop showing that film again? He agreed.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: After Colt, how did you survive?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD: I built the house as an investment and rented it out. I bought the Beacon house. I bought another house on Fire Island for $53,000. I fixed that up and sold it in a year for over $100,000. I went to Key West and bought a house for $37,000, held it for a couple of years and sold it for $100,000.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">With Colt, I didn’t get $100,000 at once. I got $25,000, then a thousand dollars a month for three years.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I would get art jobs. I did a whole lot of faux marb for rich Park Avenue ladies that paid very well. There was a big wave in the ‘80’s. Some jobs paid $5,000 or $6,000 for the lobby. I was very good at it.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">The money was coming in from the rental house. I met Wallace and he wanted to spend time out there in the summer. Wally took early retirement from the State of New York. He was a socialworker, but went into the administration and worked his way up. The last five years, he got tiered up very well.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Wallace had to sell a brownstone he owned on Jane Street with his former lover. The ex-lover got into deep drug debt, the kind of debt you can’t ignore. So the house had to be sold.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What happened to Stanley?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD: Stanley died of AIDS in October 1988. He had the wasting syndrome. That’s all he had. He lived in the house in Beacon, scooting around in a chair with wheels. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">He had a sister in Colorado. I got a call from him. “I feel bad.” He never used that word. I went up to Beacon. The nurse was there. The nurse said, “You have to put him in the hospital.” He always wanted to die at home. We put him in Vassar Hospital in Poughkeepsie. He died within four or five days. He went from a guy that was 145 or 150 pounds to barely a hundred.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">This was ’88. I spent a year trying to figure out what to do with the house and his collection. He had no recordkeeping whatsoever, what was his, what was on consignment. He had three checking accounts. If he was overdrafted, he would go to open another checking account.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Stanley was in the last stage that happened to many gay men where they are going to die, they spend out their retirement funds or would max out their credit cards. They knew they would die they before it had to be paid.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">It took me a long time to sort things out. He was a specialist in Hudson Valley furniture. His sister started claiming that things were hers or her mother’s. He had given her his half of the house. While Stanley was alive, she was telling him to his face she was taking certain things.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I got a call from Stanley. “Come up here.” We went to his attorney. “I’m cutting her out of the will.”</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">When she showed up after his death, I told her that the contents of the house belonged to me, but I would give her the cut-glass collections, like punch bowls and decorative glass. It was very valuable, worth over $10,000.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">She packed everything up in Stanley’s truck and I never heard from her again.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Where did you grow up?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD: We grew up in a great Victorian house on the Arthur Kill in New Jersey. The Arthur Kill is the piece of water that separates Staten Island from New Jersey. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Sewaren was a very small town that had been a high-end resort town for people from New York. They were big houses. Our living room was 40-feet long. Now the town has rebuilt the old waterfront.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">There had been a dock where steamboats from New York would come. They would bring people from the Battery.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Our house had been broken down into rooms for seamen.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: When did you come to New York?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD: Even though I had the Cooper Union scholarship since 1951, I kept making excuses not to go. I came here in late 1950 or ’51. I knew I’d be coming to New York for a long time.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: Where did you first live in New York?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD: My first place in Manhattan was a 7-dollar-a-week rented room on East 58<sup>th</sup>Street between First and Second Avenues. Like the Village, all the houses had been broken up into rooming houses. All the grand houses over here on Horatio Street were workingmen’s houses. Streets like Horatio Street or Jane Street had no trees on them. They were working-class streets, very Irish. The docks were all going full blast. The warehouses were all there.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: When did the West Side docks die?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD: They were still operating when I was ln 641 Hudson. In the 1950’s, they were still bringing the freight trains over. The freight trains were running to Pier 40. What was killed by the World Trade Center was the cheese market. There were dozens of cheese stores. There was Radio Row, where they would buy and sell radios. There were lots of small businesses that were specialized.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">DF: What do you know about the 7<sup>th</sup>Avenue extension?</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">JD: The traffic going down 7<sup>th</sup>Avenue would go down Greenwich Avenue. There was a big warehouse right there. If you go down 7<sup>th</sup>Avenue, you’ll see that all the buildings are sheared off.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">The railroad coming through Westbeth was built in the 1930’s. They got the train off 11<sup>th</sup> Avenue because it was killing people.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">When I moved into Westbeth, the tracks still went down Christopher Street, where the trucks were parked under them and the gay boys played. There was a pony ride for kids and there was parking under the old Miller Highway. It was a very gritty, gritty neighborhood.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Not many people had cars in the city in the 1950’s. I could park anywhere. When I drove my car out to Fire Island in 1956, there were no cars by the boat launch. The boat was getting ready to leave. It was a 10 o’clock boat. “What should I do with my car?” “Just leave it there,” they said.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">I am hoping that I can be out on Fire Island for most of the summer and that’s it. Then it’s going on the market. The house across the street from me, on the by, old for one million, two-hundred thousand. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">My house cost $62,000 to build. I’m 15 feet above sea level. I’m on the third dune.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">The model was Andrew Occum. Most of the models went from AIDS.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">When Colt moved into porn, not long after I left, Jim opened up another company called Buckshot. They were doing hardcore porn. That’s long before anyone thought of using condoms. I didn’t want anything to do with porn.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-1598297020753704212020-04-06T20:12:00.000-07:002020-06-02T14:27:16.579-07:00Gloria Sukenick, San Remo scenster and housing activist, interviewed on April 30, 2009<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--Mc9e0p2Ef0/XovtfPsYwJI/AAAAAAAABU0/-Nu1p2TkGNAxR_XKmqUcAS5manEMx6xXQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/A-recent-photo-of-Gloria-Sukenick.-Courtesy-Limited-Equity-and-Affordability-at-Penn-South-619x413.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--Mc9e0p2Ef0/XovtfPsYwJI/AAAAAAAABU0/-Nu1p2TkGNAxR_XKmqUcAS5manEMx6xXQCK4BGAYYCw/s400/A-recent-photo-of-Gloria-Sukenick.-Courtesy-Limited-Equity-and-Affordability-at-Penn-South-619x413.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">(Gloria Sukenick, 2019)</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">Interviewed by Dylan Foley</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">Born in Brooklyn in
1925, Gloria Sukenick studied art at Columbia, then went to the Yale School of
the Arts. She came back to New York, living in Hell’s Kitchen. She married and
moved down to the Village, on Perry Street. When the marriage went south, she
became a Village scenster, working as a waitress and frequenting the San Remo
Café, on Bleecker and MacDougal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">After her wild youth, Gloria
eventually became a housing activist. She was very active in the Chelsea fight
to prevent Barney’s Department Store from evicting four to five buildings full
of rent-stabilized tenants to expand their women’s store on West 17<sup>th</sup>
Street and Seventh Avenue. At one demonstration, she wore a dress made out of
fake $100 bills, mocking the greed of the Barney’s executives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p> (Gloria Sukenick in her Barney's demonstration costume)</o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VL52LOSilFI/Xovt-JZ2_cI/AAAAAAAABVI/yv-VqF5kwfc0RxCbBL8m79HoFYzbrWdKQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Sukenick-in-dollar-dress-and-cohorts-picket-Barneys.-File-photo-courtesy-Gloria-Sukenick-550x382.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VL52LOSilFI/Xovt-JZ2_cI/AAAAAAAABVI/yv-VqF5kwfc0RxCbBL8m79HoFYzbrWdKQCK4BGAYYCw/s320/Sukenick-in-dollar-dress-and-cohorts-picket-Barneys.-File-photo-courtesy-Gloria-Sukenick-550x382.jpg" width="320" /></a></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">(Barney's housing demonstrations)</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">Though the Barney’s
tenants were evicted, the activists’ demonstrations forced Barney’s to find
other affordable housing for the tenants.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">Gloria’s brother was the
late literary critic <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ronald Sukenick,
who also chronicled the Village in his history <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Down and In: Life in the Underground.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">I interviewed Gloria
Sukenick in her sunny, art-filled apartment at Penn South, on West 24<sup>th</sup>
Street, where she had lived since 1991. During our interview, Miles Davis
played softly in the background. An observant, very sharp woman, Gloria
Sukenick painted vivid portraits of the Greenwich Village characters she hung
out with in the 1940’s and 1950’s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">Gloria died on May 26,
2019, one month after her 94<sup>th</sup> birthday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">DYLAN FOLEY: Your
apartment is quite impressive, full of crafts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">GLORIA SUKENICK: I do
ceramics. I also do wall hangings, as well.<br />
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DF: The artist Larry Rivers said that Louis’ Tavern was the best pick-up joint
in the Village?<br />
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GS: He had a lot of competition from the Remo.<br />
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DF:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You went to art school?<br />
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GS: I was a fat kid out of Brooklyn. I had no clothes. I wore a shirt and some
kind of skirt. I went to Columbia University, where I was taking a
painting class and working on the Manhattan Project as a messenger in the
afternoon. I went there for a year, then I went to the Yale School of Fine
Arts. I could get in because it was the last year of the war. There were few
young men around. They let me in. I was there for a year and a half. The white-shoe
boys and I didn’t get along. The white-shoe boys, what they call the kids from
the wealthy Northeast families, and me were not a good mix at all. I left
after a year and a half and came back to Hell’s Kitchen, which was near the Art
Students League.<br />
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My apartment was a six-floor, cold-water flat, complete with rats. How did I
get downtown? I got married for a short, brief, unhappy time.<br />
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My sister-in-law lived on Avenue B and 10th Street, replete with stuff from
local junkies, who would bring her stuff they stole from various apartments. I
tried to buy my brother’s manuscript back once because his whole filing cabinet
was stolen.<br />
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I moved to Perry Street with my husband when the marriage was really on the
rocks. It didn’t save the marriage. I was about 22. I got involved in Reichian
therapy, with the orgone box. Then I started hanging out at the San Remo and
the Minetta Tavern, then moved to another cold-water flat on Prince
Street, where Anatole Broyard, Carl Solomon and Stanley Gould, the first
Jewish junkie lived. Stanley had no teeth left, so he got Norman Mailer to
spring for a new set of teeth.<br />
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I’m 84 now.<br />
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This was the early 1950s. Stanley was the first guy to die of AIDS [in the
early 1980’s]. I don’t think he knew what he had. He was the thinnest creature
you’d ever seen.<br />
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DF: What kind of jobs have you had over the years?</b><br />
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GS: I’ve done many things, from teaching ballroom dancing to witnessing. I
waitressed in Bermuda, Woodstock and Provincetown. I’d leave my 15-dollar-a-month
cold water flat and let my friends stay there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">I had this job with a
fake labor newspaper. I didn’t know it was fake at the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">DF: Did you know that artist Anita Steckel?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;"><br />
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GS: She did a wonderful thing during the early women’s movement. She made a
dollar bill with a penis running down the middle.<br />
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DF: Do you know my friend Harriet Sohmers Zwerling? She slept her way through
the Village.</b><br />
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GS: Who didn’t?<br />
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My sister-in-law owned the shop on Avenue B. She was a gorgeous woman. She went
with Carl Lee, Candida Lee’s son. He acted in “The Connection” He got my
sister-in-law hooked on drugs. Sonya Milling. She had kid after kid after kid.<br />
<br />
Did you hear of a guy named Red Madden, Rouge Montaigne? Sonya had about eight
biracial kids. She was living with a junkie, shooting speed. She died, must
have been in the late 1960s, early 1970s. One day, she picked up the wrong
needle, and shot heroin instead of speed. The guy she was living with was so
frightened, he left her there and she died. The kids were wandering around the
building. My ex-husband made sure all the kids were adopted.<br />
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DF: What was the San Remo like?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">GS: You could go and get
the martini at the San Remo and that was good for hours. Everybody was buying
martinis. It was the best buy in town, and the most bang for the buck.<br />
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It was mobbed from the doorway to the bar. Maxwell Bodenheim would stand at the
door, cursing everyone in a stentorian voice. Joe Gould was a Minetta man. The
energy was amazing. I saw Miles Davis there once, fresh from wherever he’d
come, mid-country. He had short black hair and was dressed in a suit. He was
very closed. The bar was so crowded, there was a waiter who could pinch asses
and nobody would know. There wasn’t even room to lift your arm and smack him.<br />
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It was the place to find out where the parties were and who was doing what. It
was the place to make contact.<br />
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I also worked at the Modern Art.<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DF: You lived in the same building as
Carl Solomon?</b> <br />
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GS: I lived on the sixth floor. Carl Solomon was across the hall. He was away a
lot of the time in mental hospitals. He was very quiet and withdrawn.<br />
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I was going with this trumpet player Johnny Caressi. He had a brother named
Jimmy Caressi who was working at an airplane factory. He was bound and
determined that he was going to straighten out Stanley Gould. He got Stanley a
job at an airplane plant. Every morning, he’d pick Stanley up take him
downstairs. Everyday for a couple of weeks, but it didn’t stick. He was a semi-functioning
junkie. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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You could never see the floor, the Remo was so crowded. One thing the bar did
have was people from uptown coming to the San Reo to make a connection with the
real bohemians. It was a good source of money or drinks for people. There was
one guy named Larry Burns, whose father had a men’s store on Central Park South.
Did you know Marilyn DuPont? Did you know Marilyn Kanterman? Iris Brody, me and
Marilyn Kanterman went to Bermuda together to waitress.</span><br />
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Iris was very beautiful. She was on drugs. When we went to Bermuda to work at
the same hotel, both Iris and Marilyn went to live with Shane O’Neill, the son
of Eugene O’Neill, whose father had a house there.</span><br />
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I’d only seen Shane around the Village. He was a harder gone junkie than
Stanley, if that was possible. Heroin.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4K2GXYHZJE8/XoyJ9EdQKQI/AAAAAAAABVk/_8JBGhAHPSQfbxEkOTKxhgpvPD8e_PtqQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Unknown-19.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: 24pt;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4K2GXYHZJE8/XoyJ9EdQKQI/AAAAAAAABVk/_8JBGhAHPSQfbxEkOTKxhgpvPD8e_PtqQCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Unknown-19.jpeg" /></a><br />(The art of Iris Brody)</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">Iris would wind up in jail periodically. She had a bookstore at one point, and
did some wonderful paintings. I remember the way she looked when she was tall
and thin, model beautiful with sunken cheekbones. She’d go to jail at the
Women’s House of Detention and would come out bloated, because heroin kept her
very thin. The [jail] food was pretty starchy. She’d go back on junk, lose
weight and start modeling again. She had a child with a musician and the
musician left her. She was dependent on her mother. I don’t know if she was
broken up over the guy leaving, but she jumped off the roof.<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DF: Did you know Sheri Marinelli?</b><br />
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GS: She was pretty much a knockout. <br />
<br />
Gerd Stern had a son whose mother had told him that Jack Kerouac was his
father.<br />
Gerd and I know a lot of the same orgone accumulator people. I owned one when I
lived in a loft of 21st Street.<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DF: Were you friendly with the bookstore
owner Rosetta Reitz?</b> <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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GS: I lived next door to her on 16th Street. Rosetta was tough and a half. Her
daughters were Rainbow, Robin and Rebecca. <br />
She had a fling with Lee Konitz.<br />
I met her during the second-wave women’s movement. There was<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Older Women’s Liberation group. She
told people that she founded OWL, but she didn’t. It was a consciousness
raising group.<br />
Fairness was not one of Rosetta’s traits.<br />
She was going with an African-American jazz critic. Very opinionated.<br />
<br />
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When I was living on Avenue B and 10th, you had to walk outside with one of
those sprays, pepper spray. People were shooting at each other.<br />
<br />
Q. Brownmiller?<br />
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At Cornell, Brownmiller had a thing about prostitutes. She tried prostitution
herself, my brother said.<br />
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The original Five Spot was on Fifth Street and 3rd Avenue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Marilyn DuPont was a friend of Iris Brody and another suicide. My brother met
her at a party at my loft. He was in from Cornell. The next morning, my mother
called me. “Where is Ron? He never came home last night.” I knew her from the
Remo. She was madly in love with Larry Burns. She had the most beautiful smile
I have ever seen. I met her at Provincetown, married to a poet. Her sexual
behavior was very strange. She lived in a railroad flat. Whenever she felt like
it, she’d go upstairs or downstairs and would have sex with whomever was
around. Things went from bad to badder. She tried to live with the wife of the
one-armed locksmith on MacDougal Street. She spent some time in a mental
institution.<br />
<br />
I was hooked speed--pills, Dexedrine and Benedrine inhalers. That’s what I was
doing through my marriage and after. That’s how I got to be nice and thin.
You’d soak the inhaler in juice. I got a prescription somehow from an obliging
druggist on Abingdon Square. My father was the worst and poorest dentist in
Brooklyn, but he had a prescription pad that I used. I was on pills from my
mid-20s to 31 or 32. To keep me going. I finally had to give up waitressing and
I had to learn how to type. I got off Dexedrine. I stayed home to readjust. I
got a job copyediting and writing retail advertising.<br />
<br />
Mark America was a student of my brother’s.<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DF: Did you know the musician David
Amram?</b><br />
<br />
GS: I knew David Amram. We had a fling. He was a sweetheart. He was as folksy
as you could get while still being able to work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">It could have been at
the Remo. He had just gotten back from Korea.<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DF: Were you involved with the women’s
movement?</b><br />
<br />
GS: The second wave women’s movement. My life opened up again.To me, I saw the
women’s movement as a way of reordering the world, but then I see women
with <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wall
Street Journals</i></b> under their arms, heading downtown in the morning. It
turned out to be a personal solution. What needed to be fixed was the system
itself.<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DF: Did you go to the Minetta Tavern
much?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;"><br />
GS: They had a better, bigger kitchen. The Minetta was the place to eat.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">DF: Was there a toughness to the waiters at the
San Remo?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;"> <br />
<br />
GS: My experience was only with Joe the Asspincher. The Café Bohemia was good.
David Amram played there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;"><br />
Michael Harrington used to eat at the Blue<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mill. They specialized in steak.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;"><br />
Rosetta Reitz worked the classified section at the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Village Voice</i></b> for a while.
She was trying to set me up, so she put in an ad in, which said, “Loves
Trumpets, Raccoons.” Crystal Field’s brother showed up because he played
trumpet. He was vey unappealing.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DF: What did you think of the White Horse Tavern in the 1950’s?</b><br />
<br />
GS: It was very self consciously literary.<br />
<br />
My marriage was annulled. One of us said we didn’t want to have children. We
were together for four or five years in total misery. He was very controlling.
He gave me a diary with a key. Idiot here wrote down everything, including the
time I was not faithful to my husband. Every night, he would open the diary
with his own key and read it. I started to have terrible crying jags. I don’t
know where they came from.<br />
<br />
I was working as a 9 to 5er.. It was pretty restrictive.<br />
There were Marxist -feminist study groups.<br />
Red Madden was an A #1 grifter., always staying at some woman’s apartment. I
was involved with him for a while. He won a million-dollar lottery. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">There was Corinne
Coleman..she had a loft on Greene Street for a long time.<br />
Bridget Poke? She used to give herself injections through her blue jeans. I’d see
her at the Remo. Very tall,very beautiful.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">I went from Montgomery
Ward to Gimbels and Alexanders. Anti-union. I switched to housing activism. I
ran off flyers on their copy machines. That was the time they had pitbulls in
the hallways and fires to chase the tenants out in Chelsea.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MWWOqgzzwtU/XovtwLY1BeI/AAAAAAAABVA/imT27JGvyPg1D6-Zng61fj9gBflwOgvFQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Gloria-Sukenick-takes-her-%25E2%2580%259CBarney%25E2%2580%2599s-Bill-of-Rights%25E2%2580%259D-dress-for-a-test-run-before-joining-others-in-protest.-File-photo-courtesy-Gloria-Sukenick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 32px;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MWWOqgzzwtU/XovtwLY1BeI/AAAAAAAABVA/imT27JGvyPg1D6-Zng61fj9gBflwOgvFQCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Gloria-Sukenick-takes-her-%25E2%2580%259CBarney%25E2%2580%2599s-Bill-of-Rights%25E2%2580%259D-dress-for-a-test-run-before-joining-others-in-protest.-File-photo-courtesy-Gloria-Sukenick.jpg" width="281" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">(Gloria Sukenick in her Barney's demonstration costume)</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;">I got involved with the
Barney’s protest, where they were taking affordable housing on 17th Street to
put up their ladies’ store. They took 4 or 5 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>tenement buildings. We had people lined up
from 6th to 7th Avenue. We had Christmas stories and Easter stories, people
reading from the same script. “Once there was a man named Barney and he had a
store for men and fat little boys.” We were reading in unison. We made their
lives miserable….some good street theater. Those boys went bankrupt. They knew
nothing about business. If it makes a buck, it’s okay.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DP4tVoKijXk/XovvFJEVcFI/AAAAAAAABVY/I7zl8lK_0awywDI_N7BGWdBHAL0MrDmHwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Unknown-18.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 24pt;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DP4tVoKijXk/XovvFJEVcFI/AAAAAAAABVY/I7zl8lK_0awywDI_N7BGWdBHAL0MrDmHwCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Unknown-18.jpeg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">(1950's orgone box)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: x-large;">
There was Chuck Mangravite…he made orgone boxes. He had a loft on 6th Avenue
and Canal. You’d sit in there and you’d feel energy coming off it. Something was
being accumulated in the box. The therapy was effective. They’d manipulate your
body and that contained certain attitudes. Verbal therapies were worthless.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-63730867365584961802020-04-05T20:28:00.001-07:002023-07-17T11:17:44.828-07:00An Interview with Alice Denham, Writer, Feminist and Playboy Centerfold, April 1, 2009<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 19.2pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 19.2pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hvh0xOiTx6A/Xoobplw2KqI/AAAAAAAABTU/ApjQVYV9_Ms7mdlChCBoebzBN80SM95HQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Unknown-15.jpeg"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hvh0xOiTx6A/Xoobplw2KqI/AAAAAAAABTU/ApjQVYV9_Ms7mdlChCBoebzBN80SM95HQCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Unknown-15.jpeg" width="400" /></a></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 19.2pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<b>(Alice Denham, 1956)</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 19.2pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 19.2pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;">My friend Alice Denham died on January
27, 2016 at the age of 89. She was a Playboy centerfold, novelist and sexual
adventurer, pursuing some of the biggest writers of the 1950's and 1960's,
including Philip Roth, David Markson and James Jones. (The married Joseph
Heller would only make out, no sex.)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 19.2pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;">I interviewed Alice in 2009. She was a
charming Southern belle, very honest and witty about her dating past. She
could also be steely. When I mentioned that her ex-lover Ted Hoagland had wrote
a derogatory description of her in his own memoir, she noted that he never
brought women to orgasm because his erections were never fully hard, like a
piece of asparagus.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 19.2pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 19.2pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;">Alice was a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Playboy</i> centerfold in 1956, and had a short story published in the
same issue. She had sex with Hugh Hefner and said that he was technically
proficient, but more like a metronome than a lover.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 19.2pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kYnOUHqibpg/Xoob1GMyrSI/AAAAAAAABTc/ZHO0fP88SBgpi9rbbJVG5YFIlVTDNn--wCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/images-4.jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kYnOUHqibpg/Xoob1GMyrSI/AAAAAAAABTc/ZHO0fP88SBgpi9rbbJVG5YFIlVTDNn--wCK4BGAYYCw/s400/images-4.jpeg" /></a></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 19.2pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<b>(Alice with human metronome Hugh Hefner, 1956)</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 19.2pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 19.2pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"> In Alice's memoir <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sleeping with the Bad Boys</i>, she noted
that her relationship with Playboy ended when the magazine's ad executives
tried to pimp her out to their major advertisers. When Alice Denham refused to
be used, the magazine cut her off.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;">Alice was a pure delight, wise and sexy. Here is
the interview:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;">DYLAN FOLEY: You came up
from the south to Greenwich Village as a college escapee. It took guts for a
woman to do that in 1951. Was there some culture shock for you?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cK_Q8r-mPZQ/XoocA3vBNSI/AAAAAAAABTo/d0PidxELJB0PygE182ZqpF7XNiPsOFPlgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/images-5.jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cK_Q8r-mPZQ/XoocA3vBNSI/AAAAAAAABTo/d0PidxELJB0PygE182ZqpF7XNiPsOFPlgCK4BGAYYCw/s400/images-5.jpeg" /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p> (Alice Denham in the 1960's)</o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SS7O54Qbz9w/XoocNjUasVI/AAAAAAAABTw/OxDmSNCi8c0_YT5hX29qJ4n7ItC27-_5QCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/images-7.jpeg"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SS7O54Qbz9w/XoocNjUasVI/AAAAAAAABTw/OxDmSNCi8c0_YT5hX29qJ4n7ItC27-_5QCK4BGAYYCw/s400/images-7.jpeg" width="400" /></a></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">(Alice's first novel <b><i>My Darling from the </i></b></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><b><i>Lions</i></b>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;">ALICE DENHAM: I was
always that way.<br />
Back then, James Baldwin wasn’t famous. The Kettle of Fish was pitch black. I
was on a great adventure. I went to Louis’ Tavern… because I knew a bunch of
actors.<br />
I went to lots of Village parties. I was modeling.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eqLpQNk2fMI/Xooc3uGOq1I/AAAAAAAABUI/LiqmQH0qFxwc62lKsddDkHcYTXbtXBHUQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/images-8.jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eqLpQNk2fMI/Xooc3uGOq1I/AAAAAAAABUI/LiqmQH0qFxwc62lKsddDkHcYTXbtXBHUQCK4BGAYYCw/s400/images-8.jpeg" /></a><br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;">Bruce Jay Friedman, David Markson, Joe Heller, and William Gaddis all worked at
Magazine Management Company[</span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24pt;">Editor’s
note:</b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"> The company included such men’s magazines as </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><i>Stag</i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;">, </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><i>For
Men Only</i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"> and </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><i>Swank</i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;">.]. They would permit them to
work on their novels, and would introduce them to their clients as “our
novelists.” Nothing was more important than art and literature. Male writers
were gods and the women couldn’t get jobs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;">There was no occupation more
important for the American male than writing the Great American Novel.<br />
<br />
I did pin-up modeling. I was known as a classy model.<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DF: What were the parties like?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><br />
AD: It wasn’t like it is now, where you provide food. They would start after
dinner. People would bring liquor….it was B.Y.O.B. The host might provide a
cheap bottle of whiskey, some peanuts or potato chips. Most of the parties were
open. There was a <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Village Voice</i></b> columnist named John Wilcock and he would mail
everyone the party list.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;">I was very leery of
being trapped into becoming a mother. I really wanted to be a writer. In those
days, if you were married, you were expected to be a wife and a mother.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wg5FCWCD1Us/XoodAeS3thI/AAAAAAAABUQ/MTv9PpCDDLQEbNwIDV9Cs7UDLtSj3SdrQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Unknown-16.jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wg5FCWCD1Us/XoodAeS3thI/AAAAAAAABUQ/MTv9PpCDDLQEbNwIDV9Cs7UDLtSj3SdrQCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Unknown-16.jpeg" /></a><br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DF: The writer Dan Wakefield often
moaned how hard it was to get a date in the 1950’s. Did you know him?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><br />
AD: He never got it. He was a square. At that time, his face was covered with
bumps. No one wanted to go with him. He was an unappetizing character.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;">DF: Did you think much about the sexual
revolution in the 1950’s?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><br />
<br />
AD: I don’t think we thought much about it. We liked sex and had a lot of it.
We all had diaphragms and felt pretty safe. We thought of ourselves as
bohemians, as opposed to squares. America was very provincial and conservative
then. I couldn’t have been free in Washington D.C., no matter where I lived.
Things were so constricted in the 1950s. There was no such thing as a single
mother. You were a fallen woman with an illegitimate child.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yK7E9oGrhgc/XoodEEvJsaI/AAAAAAAABUc/SqzWfTAgWws2uh3vtqw3BQ3WA3GY3vfOgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/images-6.jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yK7E9oGrhgc/XoodEEvJsaI/AAAAAAAABUc/SqzWfTAgWws2uh3vtqw3BQ3WA3GY3vfOgCK4BGAYYCw/s400/images-6.jpeg" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DF: You had a one-night stand with
Anatole Broyard, where Greenwich Village’s most famous lover couldn’t perform.
Why’d you bed him?</b><br />
<br />
AD: It was because he was terribly handsome and women were all over him. People
just assumed that he was a great lover. He always went with someone who was
significantly dumber than I was. Equality threw him off. Everybody knew he was
part black.<br />
<br />
I knew other men who did not like educated women. They called us aggressive.<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DF: Did you keep figurative notches on
your bedpost for how many men you slept with?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><br />
AD: I did. I had a list. I’ve never told anyone my secret number,” [Denham gave
the most charming laugh at this point]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;">DF: Could you tell me about Norman and Adele
Mailer doing a striptease at a party at their how to promote a sexual reaction
from you and the man you were with, a lion tamer?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><br />
AD: I wrote everything down as it happened. I had a good memory. I wrote scenes
and I would put them in folders. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it.<br />
<br />
DF: How did you wind up t the Lion’s Head on Christopher Street? [<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Editor:</b>The Lion’s Head was a legendary
journalists’ bar where Pete Hamill and the Clancy Brothers hung out.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><br />
AD: I moved to this apartment on Grove Street in 1967. David [Markson] came
over and said, “Why don’t you come over to the Lion’s Head? That’s where
everyone goes.”<br />
They were all dismissive of Frank [McCourt, a teacher who won the Pulitzer for
his hard-luck Irish childhood memoir <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Angela’s Ashes</i></b>.] They called him
“the teacher.”<br />
<br />
It was very much a journalist’s bar, but there were longshoremen and everybody
Irish. Even the Aer Lingus pilots.<br />
<br />
Anita [Steckel, the controversial artist] made herself up so ridiculously. She
looked like a whore, the amount of paint she had on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;">In the end, we are all
too old at the Lion’s Head. By the time it closed, we were all going to the
dining room. Most of us were too old to drink.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DF: You’re ex-lover Ted Hoagland wrote
mean things about you in his own memoir. What was your experience with him?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><br />
AD: I’ll tell you about him because he talked about me. [Denham’s eyes
narrowed] He had a dick like a banana. He said he’d never given a woman an
orgasm. I know why. His dick was like a piece of asparagus. It was soft.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;">DF: You state in your memoir that the writer
David Markson was the best lover in your life. To your shock and dismay, he got
married very suddenly in the mid-1950’s. What happened?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZQPbszI8PrE/XoodW5XhaGI/AAAAAAAABUo/SK8od_afaHAcYDnlqfVDSd5pB7ms7x-YQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Unknown-17.jpeg" style="font-size: 24pt;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZQPbszI8PrE/XoodW5XhaGI/AAAAAAAABUo/SK8od_afaHAcYDnlqfVDSd5pB7ms7x-YQCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Unknown-17.jpeg" /></a><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->(David Markson, Village heartthrob, 1960's)<span style="font-size: x-large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;">AD: David and Elaine
Markson went out on their first date and decided to get married.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;">A month later, David
called me, pleading that it was a mistake and trying to sleep with me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 24pt;"><br />
David would show up at 4 a.m. “Go down on me,” he’d say. I’d say, “You go down
on me!” He once said, “You give me a hard-on, maybe because you are so mean.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-1177328646880192112020-04-03T16:26:00.001-07:002020-10-15T17:54:22.458-07:00An Interview with Anita Steckel, a controversial feminist artist, who used erotica to challenge and mock the patriarchy. <style>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-infn780IfEg/VwBUmZ_NmAI/AAAAAAAAA_Y/roEYdmEi74QP0gQbJROySvZYOmvqzIpeA/s1600/23216486_Capture.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-infn780IfEg/VwBUmZ_NmAI/AAAAAAAAA_Y/roEYdmEi74QP0gQbJROySvZYOmvqzIpeA/s400/23216486_Capture.PNG" width="304" /></b></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "american typewriter"; font-size: 16pt;">The feminist artist Anita Steckel was born in Brooklyn in 1930,
the daughter of Russian immigrants. She was educated at the High School of
Music and Art and Cooper Union.</span>
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Greenwich Village, where she held salons. At the age of 19 in 1949, she dated
Marlon Brando, who was then performing on Broadway in “A Streetcar Named Desire.”</b></span></div>
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and MacDougal. She would sell sketches for a dollar for drinks, spending time
with the dissolute poet Maxwell Bodenheim, who would recite fragments of poems
for shots of whiskey. She was also befriended by Anatole Broyard, who wrote
about her crew of young hipsters in his essay “A Portrait of the Hipster” in
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Partisan Review</i>.</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "american typewriter"; font-size: 16pt;">Steckel started exhibiting as a painter in the early 1960s. </span>In 1963, Anita created her
famous collages, draping a large black woman over the shoulder of a white
southern woman in a photograph, satirizing the bleak history of race in
America. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Her
first project to get major attention was a series of drawings called “Giant
Women,’ which showed giant nude women climbing through the iconic skyscrapers
of New York, including one woman who was impaled on a spire.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7UZHVjpa2Hk/XojmmfIafuI/AAAAAAAABSg/noJdfuM5wfoYNQBp9DAvQ2ldN6k5IJYvwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Unknown-12.jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7UZHVjpa2Hk/XojmmfIafuI/AAAAAAAABSg/noJdfuM5wfoYNQBp9DAvQ2ldN6k5IJYvwCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Unknown-12.jpeg" /></a></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "american typewriter"; font-size: 16pt;">In 1973, Steckel was up for a job in the art department of
Rockland Community College and was warned to remove all sexual items she had in an upcoming exhibit. </span>At the opening of “The
Feminist Art of Sexual Politics,” Anita passed out copies of drawings of dollar
bills with a silhouette of an erect penis called "Legal Gender," which critiqued
the fact that women were paid much less than men for the same work.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: "American Typewriter"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>During the Rockland controversy, Steckel broke out with a feminist
manifesto on art. In biting satire, she mocked the predominantly male curators
refusal to allow images of erect penises in their museums.</b></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: "American Typewriter"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "american typewriter"; font-size: 16pt;">“</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter"; font-size: 16pt;">If the erect penis is not wholesome enough to go into
museums it should not be considered wholesome enough to go into women,” wrote
Steckel in March 1973. “And if the erect penis is wholesome enough to go into
women then it is more than wholesome enough to go into the greatest art
museums.”</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>In the early 1970s, Steckel moved into the Westbeth Home for the Arts, the artists’ colony in Bethune Street, near the Hudson River. </b><b> Her neighbor Diane Arbus knocked on her door and asked Anita
to be her subject to try out a new lens. Diane Arbus gave Anita copies of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>prints and contacts of the gorgeous photos
that resulted. [Arbus killed herself at Westbeth in 1971]<o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
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drinker and as a lover, she hung out at the Lion’s Head on Christopher Street,
famous for the journalists and novelists, like Pete Hamill and David Markson,
who drank there. Steckel also frequented the 55 Bar, two doors down, famous as
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photo collages. When I met her in 2008, the project she was working on
consisted of euphoric women water skiers in a line, with the face of George W.
Bush pasted to their groin areas. </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "american typewriter"; font-size: 16pt;">I first interviewed Steckel in 2008 at her Westbeth live-work
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cluttered and had the smell of roach poison.</b></span><br />
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<!--StartFragment--><!--EndFragment--><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>We met a second time
at the Bus Stop restaurant off Abingdon Square near Westbeth, small Greek eatery where Steckel
took most of her meals for the last decade of her life.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Anita Steckel died at the age of 82 in 2012.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>In 2012, the art critic Richard Meyer wrote an influential obituary of Anita Steckel in <i>ArtForum</i>, elevating her work. In April 2019, the Verge Center for the Arts in Sacramento held a </b></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>massive retrospective of Anita's work, called "Legal Gender: The Irreverent Art of Anita Steckel."</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: "American Typewriter"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Here is my interview:</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: "American Typewriter"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: "American Typewriter"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DYLAN FOLEY: You<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>were friendly with Anatole Broyard in the 1940’s. What was he like?</b><br /><br />AS: With the mambo, it was the same thing. Anatole was always a little outside. He was a delightful person. He wanted to be an insider, but he wasn’t.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: "American Typewriter"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">DF: How did you meet Marlon Brando?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: "American Typewriter"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">AS: I met him through (the folk singer) Dave Van Ronk. My
relationship with Brando never leaves my life. People are always interested in
that.</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: "American Typewriter"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "american typewriter"; font-size: 16pt;">DF: At
your loft on East 10<sup>th</sup> Street, did you run a salon in the 1940s?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "american typewriter"; font-size: 16pt;"><br />
<br />
AS: That was a big part of the bohemian scene. Mark Connelly, the playwright,
went there. He wrote “Green Pastures.” Brando brought people there because it
was such an extraordinary place. The Katherine Dunham Dance School would come
and dance, playing congos.<br />
<br /><br /><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DF: You knew Diane Arbus at Westbeth?</b><br />
<br />AS: I have a series of photographs, 10” x 14”, taken by Diane. She was a fan of
my work. She came to some of my shows. She was trying out a new lens. She gave
me the contacts and negatives.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "american typewriter"; font-size: 16pt;">DF: Where did you socialize in the Village?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "american typewriter"; font-size: 16pt;"><br />
<br />
AS: I drank at the 55 and the Lion’s Head. Dennis Duggan (the late newspaper
columnist) thought I was some ideal of the female species. The group at the
Lion’s Head was wonderful. It was Irish and it was journalists. We partied
outside the bar. We became a family outside of the bar. I was going through
some very hard times. For about seven years, I was drinking heavily. Being with
the Irish during those times was the most wonderful thing, the way they look at
hard times. Somebody dies, and of course they will be sad, but then they have a
party. They have a wonderful sense of life. Frank McCourt was the main one.<br />
<br />
The Lion’s Head wasn’t the most enlightened place. They had bartenders that
were very rude to the women. I was a very strong person. I didn’t go for being
attacked. It didn’t stop me from being with people I wanted to be with. Women
who came into the bar often felt that they were being mistreated.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "american typewriter"; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "american typewriter"; font-size: 16pt;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YAc7xjHQ9nE/Xojm2Cv5NMI/AAAAAAAABS8/iKL36Z82KZMeBpR-5IMvCSt2CZP7L5v3QCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/images-3.jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YAc7xjHQ9nE/Xojm2Cv5NMI/AAAAAAAABS8/iKL36Z82KZMeBpR-5IMvCSt2CZP7L5v3QCK4BGAYYCw/s400/images-3.jpeg" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: "American Typewriter"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DF: Were the women treated like meat?</b><br />
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AS: No. That would have been nice. That was the 55.<br />
<br /><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DF: Was the 55 a dating bar?</b> <br />
<br />
AS: The word “date” was a little fancier than what went on. It was an
interracial bar. That was its big thing. People would come down there.<br />
<br /><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DF: How did you become involved in making
photo collages?</b><br />
<br />
AS: Did you ever hear of Ray Johnson? He was a very close friend of mine. We had
a friend in common named Bill Wilson. He wrote about Ray and collected his
work. In 1962, Bill sent me four sepia photographs. The photos saddened me, so
I started painting on them, changing the reality here and there. I started
laughing. I had a show of those collages in the Hacker Gallery in 1963.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;">DF: You taught at the Art Students’ League for
26 years. Was Harriet Sohmers Zwerling a model there?</span></b><span style="color: black;"><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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AS: Harriet was the best model at the Art Students’
League. <br />
Harriet has become a mean snake. She starts out friendly but if she can, she’ll
get you.<br />
<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><b>DF: You became a feminist artist?</b><!--[endif]--><!--EndFragment--></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: "American Typewriter"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">AS: I became heavily involved with the feminist art movement.<br />
<br />
Censorship issues? I was completely uninhibited, so the work I did was
completely uninhibited. In the late 1960s, the women’s movement was very
prescient. I was aware that I was a painter, but then I became aware I was a
woman painter. My work became gender identified. Previously, women did not want
their work to be gender identified. If someone said, “You work like a woman,”
that was an insult.<br />
<br />
I had a show at the Rockland Community College. They tried to close the show.
This was the early 1970s. One of the teachers called me and said, “If you want
a job here, you better take anything sexual out of the show.” That threw me
into a tizzy. It became clear to me that I could not censor the show, for it
became clear to me that I would find myself censoring myself in the future.
That’s the worst thing I could do as an artist.. I brought in everything I had
that was sexual to the show. I went in fighting. I also brought a paper that
was about censorship.<br />
<br />
The next morning, I was awakened by a radio show.</span></div>
<br />Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-12244603870650836402020-04-01T17:09:00.000-07:002020-04-01T18:44:37.009-07:00An interview with the Painter and Artbook Publisher Floriano Vecchi, August 11, 1998<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nWpIO4hjFI8/XoUcaehBa1I/AAAAAAAABQc/djlZRt_xa6QgkVlkry9MUmYVVl1yDMbrQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/MillerVecchiHartigan.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nWpIO4hjFI8/XoUcaehBa1I/AAAAAAAABQc/djlZRt_xa6QgkVlkry9MUmYVVl1yDMbrQCK4BGAYYCw/s320/MillerVecchiHartigan.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "new serif" , serif;"><o:p> (Richard Miller, Floriano Vecchi and the painter Grace Hartigan, 1950's)</o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "new serif" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "new serif" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">While doing a coronavirus spring cleaning in March, I found the
audiotape of an interview I had done with Floriano Vecchi, an artbook publisher
and painter in 1998. Floriano had passed away in 2005 very suddenly, so it was
surreal to hear his rich Italian accent again. I transcribed the tape this week.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "new serif" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">In 1998, I was working on a profile of Tobias Schneebaum, the
sexual anthropologist and painter, for the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Observer</i></b>. Tobias gave me
the name of Floriano Vecchi, an art book publisher and painter, who was one of
Tobias’ oldest friends.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "new serif" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I met Floriano in his glorious apartment on West 11<sup>th</sup>
Street, which had 12-foot ceilings and leather-bound books on the shelves. There
was modern abstract art on the walls. Floriano told me his story of coming to
New York from Italy in 1952, barely speaking English. He fell in with the New
York intelligentsia, including the second-wave Abstract Expressionists like
Jane Freilicher and Grace Hartigan, as well the poets Frank O’Hara and Kenneth
Koch. He and his work and life partner Richard Miller set up the Tiber Press in
1953, named after the river that runs through Rome.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "new serif" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gW87tjvOFBo/XoUdPIvGYmI/AAAAAAAABQo/68SXi2csf9QOrYPybZvR8Xw-E_sRjlIkwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/md30130124726.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gW87tjvOFBo/XoUdPIvGYmI/AAAAAAAABQo/68SXi2csf9QOrYPybZvR8Xw-E_sRjlIkwCK4BGAYYCw/s320/md30130124726.jpg" width="254" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "new serif" , serif;"><o:p> (</o:p></span><span style="font-family: "new serif" , serif;"><i>The Poems</i> by John Ashbery. Artwork by Joan Mitchell)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "new serif" , serif; font-size: 24px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "new serif" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">In 1954, Floriano was approached by the writer Vance Bourjaily to produce
a book called <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Girl with the </i></b></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "new serif" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">Abstract Bed</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "new serif" , serif; font-size: 18pt;">. The artist was a painter
named Tobias Schneebaum. This project led to a 50-year friendship between
Floriano and Tobias.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "new serif" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The same year, Tobias went to Peru and wound up walking into the
Amazon jungle. He disappeared and was listed as missing. Tobias reappeared
eight months later, after living with a cannibal tribe in the jungle. Tobias
later wrote about the experience in his 1969 book <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Keep the River on Your Right.</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "new serif" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">In 1960, the Tiber Press did one of its greatest projects, pairing
four young poets with four young painters, printing the poetry with artwork in
glorious color plates. The poet Frank O’Hara was paired with painter Mike
Goldberg; poet James Schuyler was paired with painter Grace Hartigan; Kenneth
Koch was paired with Alfred Leslie, and John Ashbery was paired with Joan
Mitchell. The four volumes now sell as a set for $15,000.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "new serif" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The bread-and-butter business of the Tiber Press were
silk-screened Christmas cards, which sold at high-end places like Bergdorf
Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue. Tobias would work at the Tiber Press for months,
then would travel the world, going to such far-flung places as Afghanistan, the
Philippines, Burma and South America, writing about their sexual cultures and
his own interactions with men in these countries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "new serif" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">Floriano shutdown the press in 1977. In 2005, I made an
appointment to interview Floriano for my Last Bohemians photo-and-text exhibit.
A few days before our interview, Floriano called me in great agitation, saying
he had to cancel because he had tremendous back pain. He died two weeks later at the age of 84.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "new serif" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">In our interview, Floriano was a gracious host. A compact,
handsome man, Floriano talked about the great cultural explosion in the New
York art world in the 1950’s and his everlasting friendship with Tobias
Schneebaum.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FLORIANO VECCHI: </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "new serif" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">I’ve
known Tobias since 1954. That’s quite a few years, 43 or 44 years. In these
days, I had just come from Italy. I was struggling. I opened a little place,
which I named the Tiber Press. I didn’t know what I was doing. Eventually,
after one year, I was doing silkscreens. It was fascinating. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">One day a writer, a friend of
a friend who was rather well known called Vance Bourjaily, he came to the Tiber
Press with a manuscript to be published. It was simple and funny, but no one
wanted to publish this this little book. I had a friend, who was a kind of
partner in the press, who loved the book. I saw the illustrations for the book,
which were very suitable for the silk screening. We said yes and we published
it, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Girl in the Abstract Bed</i></b>. The artist was Tobias Schneebaum. That’s how
I met him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pTeFUC7ka78/XoUeDVWp-LI/AAAAAAAABQ0/z-ML_kMIzDI4TFAdgKAaJdFUB__TnU53gCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Girl-in-the-Abstract-Bed-01.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pTeFUC7ka78/XoUeDVWp-LI/AAAAAAAABQ0/z-ML_kMIzDI4TFAdgKAaJdFUB__TnU53gCK4BGAYYCw/s320/Girl-in-the-Abstract-Bed-01.jpg" width="207" /></a></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span>(<i><b>The Girl in the Abstract Bed</b></i> by Vance Boujaily and Tobias Schneebaum)</o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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<o:p><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HRKF2TRj0aE/XoUeTW3zLeI/AAAAAAAABRA/ABStXMhdbH858vqjgma2c9po66UYSxdGgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Girl-in-the-Abstract-Bed-02.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HRKF2TRj0aE/XoUeTW3zLeI/AAAAAAAABRA/ABStXMhdbH858vqjgma2c9po66UYSxdGgCK4BGAYYCw/s320/Girl-in-the-Abstract-Bed-02.jpg" width="209" /></a></o:p></div>
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<o:p>(An interior page from <b><i>Abstract Bed</i></b>)</o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">A few months later, Tobias
made his first trip to Peru. We became good friends. We keep writing each other.
It was like a journal. I used to get all these letters throughout the trip. It
took a long time. It was like hitchhiking, all the way down to Peru. He saw all
these terrible things, then he disappeared. After eight months, he resurfaced
one day in Lima. I began getting some letters, then he came back. Our
friendship was established and we saw each other a lot during the years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">Tobias always loved to
travel. He used to work at Tiber Press when Tiber Press could afford a helper
during the Christmas season. At that time, I was making my money by printing
Christmas cards and related things. Tobias would work for a month or two,
helping us. He’d make enough money, then he would go every place in the world.
His passion. He went to Africa, all over the place, and the Libyan desert. He
went all the way down to Ethiopia and Somalia, then he went down to South
America. He went to Mexico. Once he went to Greece and that area including
Israel and Turkey. He started going to the Orient. He fell in love with New
Guinea. New Guinea became his love. He’s been there many, many times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He still goes there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DYLAN FOLEY: When did Tobias start writing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Keep the River on Your Right</i>?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: I had a house in Tuscany.
It was after many years. It was in the early 1960’s. He came and spent one
month or maybe more, at my house in Tuscany. He decided to start writing that
book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Keep the River on Your Right</i>.
He had a very old, funny-looking typewriter. Every day, he’d work on it. He’d
write three or four pages, five pages. I read those pages right before I went
to sleep. I read that book in installments. He finished it and he went back to
New York and it was published.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qS_uKvgC-A4/XoUfHkGz5oI/AAAAAAAABRM/r1mMXNf8-y4OLCzIGKjr2lhI5bbxnJexwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Unknown-2.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qS_uKvgC-A4/XoUfHkGz5oI/AAAAAAAABRM/r1mMXNf8-y4OLCzIGKjr2lhI5bbxnJexwCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Unknown-2.jpeg" /></a></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span>(<b><i>Keep the River on Your Right</i></b>)</o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Tobias had amazing but very violent experiences in
Peru. How do you compare the Tobias who returned?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: It’s written in the book.
That made a huge, huge impression on him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For so many years, he was totally unable to put it down on paper. He
finally felt that he had to write it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s how he wrote the book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">I got to know Tobias after he
came back. Through his letters and the great enthusiasm and huge curiosity to
meet these people and they were so wild and he loved these people. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">In Italy, going through some
old things, I found a group of portraits. He took photographs of them. When I
sold the house, I put them in storage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: It took 15 years for Tobias to write the book. Did
you discuss Peru with him?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: He talked a lot about the
people. He had a friend, a great writer named Isabel Bolton. She wrote under
two names—Mary Miller and Isabel Bolton. She wrote a book with Tobias for
children called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jungle Journey</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Do you think Tobias was ever able to exorcise the
demons of his cannibal experience?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: He was forced, but he was
always willing to enter the community, to be one of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Do you think he was traumatized by Peru?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: I don’t think he was. He
took it as an incredible experience not to be traumatized. He was made better
to learn something unusual in life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: As a child, Tobias was traumatized by his father
and others over his appearance. Do you think by searching for wild men through
the world he was looking for alternative kinds of beauty?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: Yes. He wrote about how
everybody thought he was ugly when he was young. He thought he was ugly. The
people in Peru just adored him. They thought he was a very beautiful man. He
had a lighter skin than they did. The kids [in the jungle in Peru] thought that
he had painted himself lighter. They accepted him because he was totally
innocent. He was like someone who had come from the sky.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: What was the social life like in your intellectual
circle in the 1950’s?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: I was very lucky when I
came to America. I was a very, very simple Italian man, not sophisticated. I
didn’t speak one word of English. I happened to fall in among this group of
intelligent, sophisticated young people, writers, painters and poets. There
were parties. They liked me, they loved me, they thought I was very handsome.
They thought I was very unusual. I had an accent that they loved. The adored
me. Tobias was one of them. He was slightly outside. He was a loner because he
was always away. He was not totally well known by these people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Do you think Tobias is a shy person?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: He might give the
impression that he is shy, but he is not shy. He is probably the most
outspoken, honest person that I know. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">There was a group everybody knew.
I worked with them more than Tobias. They loved success. If you were a painter,
your painting had been bought by a museum. If you were a writer or a poet, your
story or poem had been bought by the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New Yorker</i></b> or another magazine. Now
they are either dead or very famous, like Frank O’Hara, Kenneth Koch, Norman
Mailer. Norman Mailer was a very close friend of Tobias’. It was once Tobias’
birthday. This was the ‘50’s. Norman and Adele were throwing a little dinner
party and he could bring two friends. Tobias brought me and another friend.
Norman Mailer wasn’t really that famous at that time. He had <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Naked and the Dead</i></b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
evening, Norman had found out that Hollywood had bought the rights to his
novel. They had given him what we thought was the greatest amount of money,
$30,000.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: What was the social mix like in the 1950’s?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: There were a lot of homosexuals.
It was a fabulous mix of straight people and homosexuals. They all really
respected and loved each other. The art society was just like that. New York
was the same size as it is now, but for the artists, there were only 10
galleries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Who were some of the painters?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: There were the old
timers. They were already famous, like de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Franz
Kline and many others. This was the first generations of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Abstract Expressionists. The younger
painters, they hung around with the poets, Frank O’Hara, Kenneth Koch, James
Schuyler, John Ashbery and many others. Ed Field was one of those poets in
those days.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Where were the locations for this scene?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: It was all over. It was
Greenwich Village and uptown. The young painters, the group, included Joan
Mitchell and Grace Hartigan. She was the most famous of the younger painters.
Grace was young and beautiful. By the late 1950’s, every great museum had
brought paintings by her. She was very close with Frank O’Hara. Jane Freilicher
was the darling of all the poets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--a7UsnqQ5-Q/XoUfgvcnRfI/AAAAAAAABRY/-auNZo0Y6kQG6X4Y3EO2hqf8L3kg-qYmgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/hartigan-rivers-ohara-Worcester.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--a7UsnqQ5-Q/XoUfgvcnRfI/AAAAAAAABRY/-auNZo0Y6kQG6X4Y3EO2hqf8L3kg-qYmgCK4BGAYYCw/s320/hartigan-rivers-ohara-Worcester.jpg" width="220" /></a></span></div>
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(Frank O'Hara, Larry Rivers and Grace Hartigan at the Five Spot jazz club)</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">Tobias was a little out of
it, for he was never here in New York. For 3-4-5 or 6 months, he’d be away. If
he was here, he’d always be at my house, for I gave little parties.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">At that time, the Tiber Press
was almost in Yorktown, 3<sup>rd</sup> Avenue and 82<sup>nd</sup> Street. I
gave that up about 15 years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Did you push Tobias to write <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Keep the River on Your Right</i>?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: I might have told him
that he had to write the book. I was responsible for the publication of it. I
knew that Tobias wanted to do it. It went very quickly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">It went to publishers and
they didn’t want to publish it. The subject was rather unusual, to say the
least.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: In 1969, Tobias did not write about having sex
with the tribesmen himself.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: The relationships are all
very clear in the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tobias almost
died himself, trying to bring his friend to the jungle mission.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">I am in total agreement with
you. If you are not gay, you can’t catch all of that. In all the other books,
he has been totally honest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xSAUxOe46Hg/XoUg7l0GJpI/AAAAAAAABRw/oiuaEk28toIEDe9w9HJBWDul1-PEfe_qQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Unknown-6.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xSAUxOe46Hg/XoUg7l0GJpI/AAAAAAAABRw/oiuaEk28toIEDe9w9HJBWDul1-PEfe_qQCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Unknown-6.jpeg" /></a></span></div>
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(<i><b>Tobias Schneebaum in the 1950's</b></i>)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">Keep the River on Your Right</span></i></b><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"> is almost in the form of a novel. All the rest of his
books are totally autobiographical. He became more assertive himself and the
world became more different. Nobody is afraid to say, “I’m gay, I’m out.” It’s
accepted. It is better for the writing to say what one feels like.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: How did the social life change in the 1970’s and
‘80’s?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: More people came to New
York and everything changed. People moved out of New York. They grew up. Some
of the struggling first great artists became very, very rich. They moved out of
New York and bought homes in the Hamptons. Some of them died. Some of the
younger artists were part of the influx that started Pop Art. Pop Art put an
end to all the Abstract Expressionism. Pop Art was more aggressive and more
successful. The writing just developed by itself. John Ashbery became one of
the most important poets in the United States. Frank O’Hara died and he became
a cult figure. A beach taxi [on Fire Island] killed him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">Six or 10 galleries in New
York became 500 galleries. It all began with Andy Warhol.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">By the way, Andy Warhol was
part of the Tiber Press, because I taught him how to silkscreens. I gave him
the paint, I gave him the silkscreen. He became the most famous artist of this
century.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">[<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Editor’s note: </b>Floriano Vecchi’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i></b> obituary
on June 9, 2005 confirmed the account…Warhol showed up with a hand-drawn dollar
bill. Floriano had Warhol redraw the dollar bill on Mylar, then showed him how
to silkscreen it.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">How did your social life change over the years?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: It was more intimate in a
sense. He and I selected different people. We became more selective. Tobias and
I spent a lot of evenings with Isabel Bolton, a beautiful woman. Tobias
depended very much on Yaddo, the artists’ colony. When he wasn’t traveling, he
was at Yaddo. We saw each other constantly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: In his book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wild
Man</i>, Tobias wrote about having a sexualized infatuation with the Wild Man
of Borneo, a Coney Island sideshow, as a child in Brooklyn. Did this inspire
his rough, often dangerous travel to the jungles of Peru and New Guinea?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: The Wild Man of Borneo. I
have a friend who was obsessed with King Kong since he was a child. He had an
orgasm, but since he was a little boy, all he could do was piss his pants.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">That is the kind of thing… as
a child, it can be a dream, it can be an image, it can be something that you
can relate to, to the point where you can fall in love with a monster. Then you
spend your whole life looking for something. He goes to the jungle because
there is something that holds him there. He is most happy when his feet are in
the mud. When you see something that is totally different than your life in New
York, yet something similar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MmQfFC0bpnA/XoUhOwUclmI/AAAAAAAABR8/kKxzKR408pQ_afihegKu0dfOWWl2d8WtQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/images-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MmQfFC0bpnA/XoUhOwUclmI/AAAAAAAABR8/kKxzKR408pQ_afihegKu0dfOWWl2d8WtQCK4BGAYYCw/s400/images-1.jpeg" /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(<i><b>Tobias in New Guinea</b></i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Were the men Tobias slept with and wrote about his
ideals of masculine beauty?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: Romantic, certainly, for
he relates to wild people, wild in the sense that they are in their wilderness,
which is beautiful, pure and innocent, a world that hasn’t been spoiled, which
is genuine. There is respect for their customs, their way of living. Tobias
admired that and he would long for that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Do you think he was motivated by his unhappy
childhood?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This thing about an unhappy childhood and everything…
Tobias is a very happy person. He has found happiness within himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know anything about gurus, but the
idea of a guru would describe Tobias.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: The novelist Allan Gurganus said “I don’t believe
in shamen, but if there were to be a shaman, it would be Tobias.”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: Exactly. Everytime
something wretched happens, all you have to do is talk to Tobias, and he has a
beautiful reason to put you at ease.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Tobias has a very pleasing voice and you feel that
nothing will disturb him.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: I’ve heard that voice for
so many years that it has become part of my head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: How did Tobias respond to the AIDS epidemic in
Greenwich Village?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">Tobias had a lot of friends
that died. With great sympathy, I met the first man with AIDS at a small party
at Tobias’ home. I felt so moved. I got up and embraced him before he left. He
was so emaciated. I cannot tell you how many times he was in the hospital. He
never, never, never left people alone. He was always there to keep the [dying] men
company.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: How does Tobias support himself?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some angels up there. When he runs out of
money, there is always something that happens. Now he jokes about it…someone
giving him a Sunday dinner, someone giving him a beautiful gift. He knows how
to live in the most frugal way without suffering at all. All his friends pitch
in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Tobias also battled cancer?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: Cancer took all his
family. Most of his family died of cancer. Over 30 years ago, he had cancer of
the colon. Two hip replacements in the same hip. Climbing up those mountains
and being in the mud all that time didn’t do any good for him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was operated on a second time and it
didn’t go very well. He had the third operation and it was very good. Now, he’s
not perfect, but he can walk without a cane.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">He has a beautiful way of
walking. Thirty or 40 years from now, there won’t be anymore Tobias
Schneebaums.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the end of that kind
of gentleman.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Do you think that Tobias’ gentleness is dying out
in society?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: The world is becoming so
chaotic. I hope not. I’m getting old and I’ve lived a long life. I’ve seen so
much. What I see is not that encouraging. It has to be that way. I am sure 70
years ago, someone was talking that way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p> (<b><i>Where the Spirits Dwell</i></b>)</o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Where the
Spirits Dwell</i>, Tobias’ book on New Guinea and the Asmat tribesmen, who
writes about their way of life being decimated by modern society.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: They say destroyed, but
it is just changing. The civilization is there, if you see it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ruins are still there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: Floriano, are you painting?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: I am a painter. I do
paint That is what keeps me alive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: What kind of painter are you?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: Ask Tobias what he thinks
of my painting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hate to talk about my
painting. What I paint is what I feel. It’s not abstract, obviously. It’s
realistic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: How has Tobias changed since 1954?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: He was much taller than
me, but as he becomes older, he becomes shorter. We all do that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">Tobias’ face is much more
interesting and beautiful now. When he was young, he wasn’t as unattractive as
he said. He was a very nice looking man.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">What I feel is a great deal
of tenderness. We took the F train on Sunday, to visit a very good friend of
ours named Paula Fox. She is a novelist and very famous for her children’s
books. This was on Clinton Street, not far from the river in Brooklyn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">Her husband Martin Greenberg
is the brother of the late Clement Greenberg, the most influential art critic
of the period. I kept looking at Tobias as I was sitting across the table.
Tobias is extraordinary. He makes the world beautiful. There should be more
Tobiases.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">DF: You have a very peaceful apartment here.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">FV: Everybody who comes to
this place feels at peace here. I feel at peace myself. When I am away, I long
for this place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">I don’t feel like an Italian
anymore. I lived long enough here that I feel this is my home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">When you leave a country in
your twenties, it is already done. You will never lose your accent. The “H” in
every word is difficult. I was formed in different country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2762153377087283536.post-72897505747008032732020-03-31T17:32:00.000-07:002020-04-12T15:05:56.066-07:00Rosetta Reitz, Rest In Peace<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Hjf5VFwde7Y/SReThLBy-3I/AAAAAAAAAII/ErPNjYi_d2s/s1600-h/Rosetta+Reitz+Photo.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266840487338376050" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Hjf5VFwde7Y/SReThLBy-3I/AAAAAAAAAII/ErPNjYi_d2s/s400/Rosetta+Reitz+Photo.jpg" style="float: left; height: 292px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 226px;" /></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">ROSETTA REITZ, bookstore owner and writer, age 84</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Rosetta Reitz died on November 1, 2008. In the last few years of her life she was working on her memoirs and was frustrated that she couldn't find an agent. She died surrounded by her three daughters.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Rosetta Reitz came to New York City in the mid-40s. She opened her avant garde bookshop on Greenwich Avenue, which soon became a hub for writers like e.e. cummings, James Merrill and Saul Bellow. She lived in Chelsea.</span><br />
<br />
I came from Utica, N.Y. My family owned a bakery. After I went to the University of Wisconsin, I didn’t want to live the life I lived in Utica. For me, living in Greenwich Village was the only thing to do That was the place where there were writers and politics. For me, the best place to be was a bookstore. I went to the bookstore I admired most, the Gotham Book Mart. The owner had fought battles for “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and “Ulysses” and won them both. It must have been my karma. I went in there and she adored me.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AyjfrETocwM/Xo9OqiQblZI/AAAAAAAABWc/BTrnXHiu_kUB7NNeavUhEUxyZoEi2-SgQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/rosettareitz.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AyjfrETocwM/Xo9OqiQblZI/AAAAAAAABWc/BTrnXHiu_kUB7NNeavUhEUxyZoEi2-SgQCK4BGAYYCw/s320/rosettareitz.jpeg" width="240" /></a><br />
(Toshka Goldman at University of Wisconsin, 1945)<br />
<br />
<br />
After four years, I scouted around and found my own location. I opened the Four Seasons Bookshop at 21 Greenwich Avenue. The rent was 45 dollars a month. I started the bookstore in 1947. At the time, New Directions was a small publishing house. They had a new Djuna Barnes novel then. She lived across the street at Patchin Place. She would come in the store, as would e.e. cummings and his wife Marion. Marion had long hair and she would come in and ask me to braid her hair. James Merrill and his prep school buddies would also hang out in the store.<br />
<br />
My two most special authors, who I barely spoke to because I adored them so much, were Saul Bellow and Ralph Ellison. Both were teaching at NYU. They would meet at my bookstore because they took the subway up to the upper West Side together.<br />
<br />
Anais Nin would stop by. She was such a pest. She always wanted me to introduce her to Richard Wright. She had written her first book for a real American publisher, “Ladders of Fire.” She conned me into throwing a book party for her.<br />
<br />
One day, Anais stopped in when she was going for a walk. I don’t know how this came up, but she said to me, “I always put my diaphragm in before I go out. You never know who you are going to meet.” She was being very serious.<br />
<br />
There was a new paperback translation out of Raymond Radiguet’s “Devil in the Flesh.” We were excited about the book. I think it was 1950. My future husband Robert Reitz found a department store mannequin without a head. He gave it a pointed beard and put it in the window. I opened the door Saturday morning and there was a cop standing in front of the window. When the store closed at 11 p.m., I was arrested for having an indecent window display. My lawyer bailed me out. The newspapers had a field day, running headlines like “Curvaceous Bookstore Owner and Devil in the Flesh.” The assistant district attorney was a literary guy. He knew it wasn’t a trashy book. The art critic Clement Greenberg was on the jury. We had artists as witnesses. The case was dismissed. It turned out the bishop had called the complaint in, because the display would corrupt the morals of local schoolchildren.Dylan Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13686904445806799765noreply@blogger.com0