S9E4: Jacob Israël de Haan
Today's subject, Jacob Israël de Haan, wrote one of the first gay Dutch novels. Born in 1881 in the Netherlands, he was assassinated by the Haganah paramilitary at the age of 42 in Palestine, having moved there to establish Zion, and then having turned on the Zionist project because of its treatment of the Arabs. His love of young Arab men was both a source of scandal and a very troubling source of evolving solidarity.
Today's subject, Jacob Israël de Haan, wrote one of the first gay dutch novels. "What is it that I long for," he asked. "The sanctity of Israel or an Arab male prostitute?" Born in 1881 in the Netherlands, he was assassinated by the Haganah paramilitary at the age of 42 in Palestine, having moved there to establish Zion, and then having turned on the Zionist project because of its treatment of the Arabs. His love of young Arab men was both a source of scandal and a very troubling source of evolving solidarity.
SOURCES:
https://archive.ph/wkF8y#selection-1069.0-1074.0
http://www.corpse.org/archives/issue_5/critical_urgencies/giebels.htm
https://www.gerthekma.nl/ewExternalFiles/Jacob Israël de Haan. Pederast poet between Amsterdam and Jerusalem.pdf
https://rabbidunner.com/assassination-in-the-holy-city/#_edn12
https://glreview.org/article/article-964/
https://www.the-low-countries.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/TLC_24_Chronicle_WASSING_NASSAU.pdf
https://www.the-low-countries.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/TLC_24_Chronicle_WASSING_NASSAU.pdf
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/jacob-de-haan-political-poet
https://glreview.org/article/article-964/
https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/c9843d1e-4703-45eb-a317-4de724d686a1/The multiple lives of Jacob Israel de Haan.pdf
https://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/jq-articles/Jacob Israel de Haan - A Queer and Lapsed Zionist in Mandate Palestine.pdf
S9E3: Charles Hitchen
A man who got rich playing both sides of a pay to play criminal justice system while touring through London's infamous "molly houses," back rooms of taverns or gin houses where queer men could meet and cruise.
Let us take ourselves back to a very exciting time: we’re talking London, at the turn of the 18th century. The city is the largest in Europe, and growing - it’s passed the half a million mark and by the end of the century will have doubled. Crime was rife, and getting worse. The law was administered by a pay-to-play criminal justice system: and today's subject, Charles Hitchen, got rich playing both sides while touring through London's infamous "molly houses," back rooms of taverns or gin houses, where queer men could meet, cruise, and even fuck. These developed a much richer culture, with their own slang, faux marriage rituals, and drag performances including a queen giving birth to a wheel of cheddar cheese.
SOURCES:
Gerald Howson, Thief-Taker General: Jonathan Wild and the Emergence of Crime and Corruption as a Way of Life in Eighteenth-Century England (Routledge, 1985)
Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime And Civil Society In The Eighteenth Century (Verso, 2006)
Rictor Norton, The Georgian Underworld, https://rictornorton.co.uk/gu00.htm.
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner. This podcast may contain copyrighted material, and its use is under the principles of fair use for purposes such as commentary, criticism, and parody. All rights belong to the respective copyright holders.
S9E2: Dorian Corey
Many people in our audience will have seen Jennie Livingston’s 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning, an exploration of Black and Latinx ball culture in New York City. One of the film’s primary interview interlocutors is Dorian Corey, who is one of the film’s most quotable characters. Corey's life helps us explore the history of drag from balls for enslaved people in the 1870s to today. And did you know that Corey knew, during all those serene interviews in Paris Is Burning, that the man she had murdered in self-defense and not trusted police to handle it (would you?) was mummified in the closet behind her.
Many people in our audience will have seen Jennie Livingston’s 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning, an exploration of Black and Latinx ball culture in New York City. One of the film’s primary interview interlocutors is Dorian Corey, who is one of the film’s most quotable characters. Corey's life helps us explore the history of drag from balls for enslaved people in the 1870s to today. And did you know that Corey knew, during all those serene interviews in Paris Is Burning, that the man she had murdered in self-defense and not trusted police to handle it (would you?) was mummified in the closet behind her.
SOURCES:
https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19931218/1737662/deceased-drag-show-star-leaves-mummy-mystery-behind-in-closet
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/24/burning-down-the-house-debate-paris-is-burning
https://files.eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/5381/2016/06/16101213/hooks_paris-is-burning.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/18/style/paris-has-burned.html
https://www.swervmagazine.com/entertainment-2/pioneers/
https://queermusicheritage.com/drag-pearl.html
https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/November-2005/The-Gay-30S/
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/drag-queen-slave-ball/
https://www.harlemworldmagazine.com/the-legendary-hamilton-lodge-ball-home-at-the-rockland-palace-dance-hall-in-harlem/
https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/queens-and-queers-rise-drag-ball-culture-1920s
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2935316?seq=1
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/24/burning-down-the-house-debate-paris-is-burning
https://zagria.blogspot.com/2010/08/dorian-corey-1937-1993-performer.html
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner.
S9E1: Little Richard
Little Richard, inventor of rock’n’roll, contained multitudes: a pioneering rock and roll musician who stunned audiences with his fast-paced hits in a quite macho rock world, a huge influence on musicians from Elvis and The Beatles to James Brown, Prince, Patti Smith, Andre 3000, and more, a Seventh Day Adventist preacher from the deep south of the United States who preached about sin, and a drag performer under the name Princess LaVonne.
Today's episode is about three very different men and how their lives overlapped. The first was a pioneering rock and roll musician who stunned audiences with his fast-paced hits in a quite macho rock world: a huge influence on musicians from Elvis and The Beatles to James Brown, Prince, Patti Smith, Andre 3000, and more. It was a very eclectic mix and he lived an equally fast-paced private life off stage. The second man was a Seventh Day Adventist preacher from the deep south of the United States who preached about sin. The third person was a young Black queer man thrown out of his home by his domineering pastor father in the late 1940s who became a drag performer under the name Princess LaVonne, performing in clubs and for traveling medicine shows and dressing in capes and turbans, singing obscene songs about anal sex while cruising bathrooms for sexual contacts with men. These were all one and the same man: Richard Wayne Penniman, better known by his performing name, Little Richard.
SOURCES
Abdurraqib, Hanif. "What Little Richard Deserved." The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/what-little-richard-deserved
Freeman, Scott. "Remembrance: How Little Richard Invented Rock'n'roll in Macon, Georgia." ArtsAtlanta. https://www.artsatl.org/remembrance-how-little-richard-invented-rock-n-roll-in-macon-georgia/
Little Richard: I Am Everything. HBO, dir. Lisa Cortes
Little Richard, Live in Paris, 1966: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7TWclEcASU&themeRefresh=1
Nyong'o, Tavia. "Too Black, Too Queer, Too Holy." The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/may/12/too-black-queer-holy-why-little-richard-never-truly-got-his-dues-turbaned-drag-queen-sexual-underworld
Smith, Jami. "The Drag Queens Who Helped Little Richard Invent Rock And Roll." https://www.songsthatsavedyou.com/p/drag-queens-who-helped-little-richard
White, Charles. The Life and Times of Little Richard: The Quasar of Rock (Da Capo Press, 1994)
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner. This podcast may contain copyrighted material, and its use is under the principles of fair use for purposes such as commentary, criticism, and parody. All rights belong to the respective copyright holders.