THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 30

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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 13^th 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 15^th 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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