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GAY WISDOM for Daily Living...
from White Crane a magazine exploring
Gay wisdom & culture http://www.Gaywisdom.org
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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY
SEPTEMBER 30
1207 – JALAL AL-DIN MUHAMMAD RUMI, Persian mystic and poet born (d. 1273) also known as Mawlānā Jalāl-ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī,
but most famously known to the English-speaking world simply as Rumi. Rumi was a 13th century
Persian (Tajik) Muslim poet, jurist and theologian. His name literally translates
as "Majesty of Religion", Jalal means "majesty"
and Din means "religion." Rumi is a descriptive name meaning "the Roman" since he
died in Anatolia which was part of the Byzantine Empire two centuries before.
Rumi was born in Balkh (in present-day Afghanistan),
then a city of Greater Khorasan in Persia and died in Konya (in present-day Turkey).
His birthplace and native language/local dialogue indicates a Persian (Tajik)
heritage. His poetry is in Persian and his works are widely read in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and
in translation especially in Turkey, Azerbaijan, the US, and South Asia. He
lived most of his life in, and produced his works under, the Sejuk Empire.
Rumi's importance is considered to transcend national and ethnic borders.
Throughout the centuries he has had a significant influence on Persian as well
as Urdu and Turkish literature. His poems have been widely translated into many
of the world's languages in various formats. After Rumi's death, his followers
founded the Meylevi Order, better known as the "Whirling Dervishes,"
who believe in performing their worship in the form of dance and music ceremony called the sema.
It was his meeting with the dervish Shams-e
Tabrizi on November 15th 1244 that changed his life completely.
Shams had traveled throughout the Middle East searching and praying for someone
who could "endure my company." A voice came, "What will you give
in return?" "My head!" "The one you seek is Jalal al-Din of
Konya." On the night of December 5, 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking,
Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. It is
believed that he was murdered with the connivance of Rumi's son, 'Ala' ud-Din;
if so, Shams indeed gave his head for the privilege of mystical friendship.
Rumi's love and his bereavement for the death
of Shams found their expression in an outpouring of music, dance and lyric
poems, Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. He himself went out searching for Shams and
journeyed again to Damascus. There, he realized:
Why should I seek? I am the same as
He. His essence speaks through me.
I have been looking for myself!
For more than ten years after meeting Shams,
Mawlana had been spontaneously composing ghazals,
and these had been collected in the Divan-i Kabir. Rumi found another
companion in Salaḥ ud-Din-e Zarkub, the goldsmith. After Salaḥ ud-Din's death,
Rumi's scribe and favorite student Hussam-e Chelebi assumed the role. One day,
the two of them were wandering through the Meram vineyards outside of Konya
when Hussam described an idea he had to Rumi: "If you were to write a book
like the Ilāhīnāma of Sanai or the Mantiq ut-Tayr of 'Attar it would become the
companion of many troubadours. They would fill their hearts from your work and
compose music to accompany it."
Rumi smiled and took out a piece of paper on
which were written the opening eighteen lines of his Masnavi, beginning with:
Listen to the reed and the tale it tells,
How it sings of separation...
Hussam implored Rumi to write more. Rumi
spent the next twelve years of his life in Anatolia dictating the six volumes
of this masterwork, the Masnavi to Hussam. In December 1273, Rumi fell
ill; he predicted his own death and composed the well-known ghazal, which
begins with the verse:
How doest thou know what sort of king I have within me as
companion?
Do not cast thy glance upon my golden face, for I have
iron legs.
He died on December 17, 1273 in Konya; Rumi was laid to
rest beside his father, and a splendid shrine, the Yesil Turbe "Green Tomb", was erected over his
tomb. His epitaph reads:
"When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth,
but find it in the hearts of men."
1924 – TRUMAN CAPOTE,
American author born (d. 1984) Author of short stories and novels, including Breakfast At Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood. He said he was a lonely
child, and taught himself to read and write before he entered the first grade
in school. He was a neighbor and friend of Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, and Dill, a
character in her novel, is based on Capote. He was often seen at age five
carrying his dictionary and notepad, and he claimed to have written a book when
he was nine years old. At this time, he was given the nickname Bulldog, possibly a pun reference of
"Bulldog Truman" to the fictional detective Bulldog Drummond,
popular in films of the mid-1930s.
On Saturdays, he made trips from Monroeville
to Mobile, and when he was 10, he submitted his short story, "Old Mr.
Busybody," to a children's writing contest sponsored by the Mobile Press Register. When he was 11,
he began writing seriously in daily three-hour sessions. Of his early days
Capote related, "I began writing really sort of seriously when I was about
eleven. I say seriously in the sense that like other kids go home and practice
the violin or the piano or whatever, I used to go home from school every day
and I would write for about three hours. I was obsessed by it."
In 1933, he moved to New York City to live
with his mother and her second husband, Joseph Capote, a Cuban-born textile
broker, who adopted his stepson and renamed him Truman García Capote. In 1935, he attended the Trinity
School. He then attended St. Joseph's military academy. His mother wished for
him to become more masculine. She said, "I will not have another child
like Truman, and if I do have another child he will be like Truman." She
aborted two pregnancies for this reason. In 1939, the Capotes moved to
Greenwich, Connecticut, and Truman attended Greenwich High School, where he
wrote for both the school's literary journal, The Green Witch, and the
school newspaper. Back in New York in 1942, he graduated from the Dwight
School, an Upper West Side private school where an award is now given annually
in his name.
When he was 17, Capote ended his formal
education and began a two-year job at The New Yorker. Years later, he wrote,
"Not a very grand job, for all it really involved was sorting cartoons and
clipping newspapers. Still, I was fortunate to have it, especially since I was
determined never to set a studious foot inside a college classroom. I felt that
either one was or wasn't a writer, and no combination of professors could
influence the outcome. I still think I was correct, at least in my own
case." He was fired from this job for misrepresenting himself as a writer
for the magazine, when he was really little more than a copy boy.
Capote was out Gay in a time when it was
common among artists, but rarely talked about. One of his first serious lovers
was Smith College literature professor Newton Arvin, who won the National Book
Award for his Herman Melville biography.
Capote
was well known for his distinctive,
high-pitched voice and odd vocal mannerisms, his offbeat manner of dress
and
his fabrications. He often claimed to know intimately people he had in
fact
never met, such as Greta Garbo. He professed to have had numerous
liaisons with
men thought to be heterosexual, including, he claimed, Errol Flynn. He
traveled
in eclectic circles, hobnobbing with authors, critics, business tycoons,
philanthropists,
Hollywood and theatrical celebrities, royalty, and members of high
society both in the U.S. and abroad. Part of his public persona was a
long-standing
rivalry with writer Gore Vidal ("Truman Capote has tried, with some
success, to get into a world that I have tried, with some success, to
get out
of.")
Despite the assertion earlier in life that
one "lost an IQ point for every year spent on the West Coast," he
purchased a home in Palm Springs and began to indulge in a more aimless
lifestyle and heavy drinking. This resulted in bitter quarreling with the more
retiring Jack Dunphy (with whom he had shared a non-exclusive relationship since the 1950s). Their partnership changed form and
continued as a non-sexual one, and they were separated during much of the
1970s. Dunphy was irritated by the unwavering substance abuse and even went so
far as to allege that Capote had slept with Radziwill. However, others have
alleged that Dunphy, a writer and playwright of far less renown, was
unappreciative of Capote's gifts (including a Swiss condominium that Capote had
little use for) and financial support.
In the absence of Dunphy, Capote began to
frequent the bathhouse circuit in New York, often seducing working-class,
sexually unsure men half his age. This frequently resulted in socially
embarrassing situations; while visiting Marella Agnelli in Italy, Capote's
latest lover—an air conditioner repairman—asked for a baked potato while dining
in an exclusive restaurant.
Capote died in Los Angeles on August 25,
1984, aged 59. According to the coroner's report the cause of death was
"liver disease complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication." He passed away at the home of his old
friend Joanne Carson, ex-wife of late-night TV host Johnny Carson,
on whose program Capote had been a frequent guest. He was interred in the
Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, leaving behind his
longtime companion, author Jack Dunphy. Dunphy died in 1992, and in 1994 both
his and Capote's ashes were scattered at Crooked Pond, between Bridgehampton
and Sag Harbor on Long Island, close to where the two had maintained a property
with individual houses for many years.
1935 – JOHNNY MATHIS,
American singer, born; Although he is frequently described as a romantic
singer, his vast discography includes jazz, traditional bop,
Brazilian and Spanish music, Soul, R&B, soft rock, Broadway, Tin Pan
Alley standards, some blues and country songs, and even a few disco tunes for his album Mathis
Magic (1979). In 1980/81 Mathis recorded an album with Chic’s Bernard
Edwards and Niles Rodgers, I Love My Lady, which remains unreleased.
Mathis also remains highly associated with holiday music, having recorded nine Christmas
albums. According to British recordings chart historian and Guinness Book of
Records Music writer Paul Gambaccini,
Mathis has recorded over 110 albums and sold
more than 350 million records worldwide. His Merry Christmas album of 1958 has
made the USA charts almost every year since its release and is now approaching
6 Million unit sales. This makes Mathis the third most successful male
recording artist ever. He was given the title The Voice Of Romance.
Mathis has the distinction of having the longest stay of any recording artist
on the Columbia Record label, having been with the label from 1956 to 1963 and
from 1968 to the present.
A
1982
US Magazine article quoted Mathis as having said, "Homosexuality is a
way
of life that I've grown accustomed to." He further confirmed a sexual
relationship with a male saxophonist. After more than twenty years of
silence
on the subject, in 2006, Mathis revealed in an interview his silence was
due to death threats he received as a result of that 1982 article. On
April 13, 2006 Mathis granted
a podcast interview with The Strip in which he touched on the subject
once again. Chances are…indeed.
1953 – S.M. STIRLING,
Canadian-born author, born; an American science fiction and fantasy author.
Stirling was born in Metz, France to an English mother and Canadian father. He
has lived in several countries and currently resides in the US in New Mexico
with his wife Jan.
His novels are generally conflict-driven and
often describe military situations and militaristic cultures. In addition to his books' military, adventure & exploration
focus, he often describes societies with cultural values significantly
different from modern western views, especially with a more liberal attitude to
sexuality (Lesbian characters often figure), in a sympathetic or at least
neutral way. One of his recurring topics is the influence of the culture on an
individual's outlook and values, with a particular emphasis on the idea that
most people and societies consider themselves (mostly) moral.
1955 – JAMES DEAN, American actor, died (automobile
accident) (b. 1931); Today, Dean is often considered an icon because of his
"experimental" take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality.
There have been several accounts of Dean's sexual relationships with both men
and women. William Bast was one of Dean's closest friends, a fact acknowledged
by Dean's family. Dean's first biographer (1956), Bast was his roommate at UCLA
and later in New York, and knew Dean throughout the last five years of his
life. Bast has recently published a revealing update of his first book, in
which, after years of successfully dodging the question as to whether he and
Dean were sexually involved, he has finally admitted that they were. In this
second book Bast describes the difficult circumstances of their involvement and
also deals frankly with some of Dean's other Gay relationships, notably the
actor's friendship with Rogers Brackett, the influential producer of radio
dramas who encouraged Dean in his career and provided him with useful professional
contacts. Journalist Joe Hyams suggested that any homosexual acts Dean might
have involved himself in appear to have been strictly "for trade," as
a means of advancing his career.
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September 30, 2013 
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