S9E5: Angela Calomiris
Behind Angie’s role as a local doyenne, she trailed a dark secret about her life as a young photographer in New York. How did Angela end up in Provincetown, and why was the mere sight of her name enough to induce horror in a fellow photographer?
Today we’re discussing a strange and compelling figure, the photographer Angela Calomiris. We can start at the end of her life, as a denizen of Provincetown, the little resort at the tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts that has long been a haven for LGBTQ people. Angie had a reputation as a formidable figure in the town as a tough, and not always fair, businesswoman. She had made good money through some stiff deals. But she was also regarded as generous, if eccentric, by others. Yet behind Angie’s role as a local doyenne, she trailed a dark secret about her life as a young photographer in New York. How did Angela end up in Provincetown, and why was the mere sight of her name enough to induce horror in a fellow photographer? In today’s episode, we’ll discuss Angela’s life of FBI collaboration, naming names, secrets and lies.
SOURCES:
Lisa Davis, Undercover girl : the lesbian informant who helped the FBI bring down the Communist Party (Imagine, 2017)
Lisa Davis, The Spy Who Came in from the Closet https://glreview.org/article/the-spy-who-came-in-from-the-closet/
David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare (Chicago University Press, 2004)
Mason Klein, The radical camera : New York's Photo League, 1936-1951 (Yale University Press, 2011)
Carol A. Stabile, The Broadcast 4: Women and the Anti- Communist Blacklist (Goldsmith's Press, 2018)
Sophia Starmack, The rise and fall and P’town rebirth of Angela Calomiris https://eu.wickedlocal.com/story/provincetown-banner/2017/05/18/the-rise-fall-p-x2019/4502034007/
Veronica A. Wilson ‘I chose the values I regarded as American’: Sexuality, ethnicity, and FBI informant Angela Calomiris https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/lwish/tcc/2021/00000020/00000020/art00005
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.
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.