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GAY WISDOM for Daily Living...
from White Crane
Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture
DECEMBER
31
NEW YEARS
EVE -- Be Safe!
Hogmanay in
Scotland;
The roots of Hogmanay reach back to the celebration of the winter
solstice among the Norse, as well as incorporating customs from the
Gaelic New Year's
celebration of Samhain. In Europe, winter solstice evolved into the
ancient
celebration of Saturnalia, a great Roman winter festival, where people
celebrated completely free of restraint and inhibition. The Vikings
celebrated Yule,
which later contributed to the Twelve Days of Christmas, or the "Daft
Days" (really) as they were sometimes called in Scotland. The winter
festival went underground with the Protestant Reformation and ensuing
years,
but re-emerged near the end of the 17th century.
192 C.E. – COMMODUS, Roman emperor, dies (b: 161); It’s New Year’s Eve and, after a
long year’s journey, we are finally at the end of this year. To be on the safe
side, why not stay home and watch old reruns of Guy Lombardo and spend a quiet
evening in memory of the emperor Commodus, who called his exceptionally
well-endowed cup-bearer “my donkey,” and was strangled by an over-enthusiastic
wrestler named Narcissus on this day.
In 2000's Gladiator,
Commodus was portrayed by Joaquin
Phoenix in an Academy-Award-nominated performance. The historical character of
Commodus is fictionalized in the movie as a deranged megalomaniac
who murders Marcus Aurelius to usurp the throne. (There is no historical
evidence suggesting Marcus Aurelius was murdered, much less by his own son.)
However the movie removes some of the most bizarre eccentricities of Commodus.
The film's protagonist, Maximus Decimus Meridius (played by Russell Crowe) is
loosely inspired by Narcissus, and was named so in a previous draft of the
screenplay, but as in The Fall of the Roman Empire Commodus is killed in
hand-to-hand combat. Commodus's death marked the end of the Nervan-Antonian and
of the Pax Romana.
1908 - SIMON
WIESENTHAL was born on this date in the small Ukrainian town of Buczacz.
Trained as an architectural engineer, Wiesenthal survived the Nazi concentration
camps losing over 80 members of his extended family and dedicated the rest of
his life to seeking justice for all those who died by bringing Nazi war
criminals to justice. He was later celebrated as a "Nazi-hunter" and
portrayed by Laurence Olivier in "The Boys from Brazil," but for many
years, as Cold War governments had forgotten about Nazi atrocities, Wiesenthal
was a veritable prophet in the wilderness, tirelessly working in the memory of
all those who had died. He wrote a number of bestselling books including
"Murders Among Us," "Justice, Not Vengeance," and "The
Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness." Through his
efforts countless Nazi criminals stood trial. Without Wiesenthal's
activity and vision, there would not have been war crimes hearings about
Rwanda, Bosnia, or a permanent War Crimes tribunal in the Hague.
For the sake of this Gay Wisdom
listserve, we would point out that Wiesenthal spoke for all those who had lost
their lives and was an early outspoken activist for the thousands of
homosexuals who died in the holocaust, pointing out that they had all been
buried together in mass graves and should all be acknowledged. Wiesenthal died
of natural causes in 2005 at the age 96.
1948 – DONNA SUMMER, American singer, born; an American singer, songwriter and artist,
best known for a string of dance hits in the late 1970s that earned her the title
"Queen Of Disco" (and here I thought I was the queen of disco!) and as one of the few disco-based artists
to have longevity on the charts through the late 1980s. Summer died of lung
cancer in May of 2012
1972 - HENRY
GERBER was among the earliest gay rights activists in America (b: 1892).
He founded the nation’s first gay organization and gay publication. Born Joseph
Henry Dittmer in Bavaria, Germany, Gerber moved to Chicago in 1913. From 1920
to 1923, he served in the U.S. Army during the occupation of Germany.
While in Germany, he was exposed to the homosexual emancipation movement.
Gerber subscribed to gay publications and was inspired by Magnus Hirschfeld,
founder of a German homosexual and science advocacy organization.
After
returning to Chicago, Gerber founded the Society for Human Rights, which
advocated for gays and lesbians. He published the organization’s newsletter,
“Friends and Freedom.” Gerber limited membership in the Society for Human
Rights to gay men. Unknown to him, the vice president, Al Weininger, was
married with children. In 1925, Weininger’s wife reported the organization’s
activities and it was shut down for moral turpitude. The Chicago police
arrested Gerber and tried him three times. Although Gerber was found not
guilty, the legal fees cost him his life savings and his job.
Gerber
moved to New York City and reenlisted in the Army, where he served for 18
years. He led a correspondence club called Connections, which became a national
network for gay men. Under a pen name, he wrote articles for various
publications, arguing the case for gay rights. At 80, Gerber died in the
U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home in Washington, D.C. In 1992, he was inducted
posthumously into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame. In 2001, the Henry
Gerber House was designated a Chicago landmark.
2010 - LAMBDA
RISING, an LGBT bookstore that opened in 1974 in Washington D.C.
closed its doors. Founded by Deacon Maccubbin in 1974 with 250 titles, it was
known for its wide selection of books, ranging from queer theory and religion
to erotica, as well as DVDs, music CDs and gifts.
The bookstore was
originally located in 300 square feet at 1724 20th Street NW. It moved to a
900-square-foot retail space at 2001 S Street NW in 1979 and, in 1984, moved to
a 4,800-square-foot space at 1625 Connecticut Avenue in Dupont Circle, one of
Washington's popular gay and lesbian neighborhoods.
A second store in
Baltimore, MD believed to be the only gay bookstore in Maryland, opened in 1984
and closed in the spring of 2008. Director John Waters declared that store's
closing "very, very sad". Waters, a long-time customer, said the
Baltimore shop was "a seriously good bookshop, with the added touch of
porno. ... I always went in there to find books that I didn't know about and
couldn't find anywhere else." A third store in Rehobeth Beach, Delawareopened
in 1991 and closed in December 2009. A fourth store in Norfolk, VA, opened in
1996 and closed in June 2007.
In February 1975, Lambda
Rising ran the world's first gay-oriented television commercial. It aired on WRC (owned
by NBC) and WTOP (the local CBS affiliate, now WUSA). Also in 1975, Lambda
Rising organized Gay Pride Day, the forerunner to Capital Pride, Washington's
first annual gay pride celebration, and continued to host the event for the
next four years before turning it over to a non-profit organization.
To support LGBT
literature, Lambda Rising created the Lambda Book Report in 1987 and the
annual Lambda Literary Award, also known as "the Lammys," in 1989. In
1996, Lambda Rising turned those projects over to the new non-profit Lambda
Literary Foundation.
In February 2003, Lambda
Rising bought the Oscar Wilde Bookshop, the country's first gay and lesbian bookstore,
to save it from closing. The store was founded by Craig Rodwell in 1967 at 15
Mercer Street in Greenwich Village, later moving to the corner of Christopher
and Gay Streets in Manhattan. After working with the New York staff staff for
three years and getting the store on solid financial footing, Lambda Rising
sold the store to the long-time manager in order to return the store to local
control. In December 2009, Maccubbin announced that Lambda Rising's two stores
would close by January 2010. In his statement, Maccubbin said, "The phrase
'mission accomplished' has gotten a bad rap in recent years, but in this case,
it certainly applies…"When we set out to establish Lambda Rising in 1974,
it was intended as a demonstration of the demand for gay and lesbian
literature. We thought... we could encourage the writing and publishing of LGBT
books, and sooner or later other bookstores would put those books on their own
shelves and there would be less need for a specifically gay and lesbian
bookstore. Today, 35 years later, nearly every general bookstore carries LGBT
books."
The store closed its doors
on December 31, 2010.
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