tv [untitled] CSPAN June 6, 2009 1:30pm-2:00pm EDT
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do that. there were very willing to use their own names. many of the people started one came from the midwest and rural america and when i went to los angeles part of their mission was to talk to those people that are still back in rural americans and the sioux have this amazing thing going on out here and you're not as low as you thank you are. allot of it was out region that is why one magazine was born to talk to those people and say you are not alone. many of these people though, these men and women as they became elderly started to rethink this. they knew how vulnerable they were in the began to get scared especially hearing stories about the matthew shepard beating, they're moving back to their homes in louisiana and colorado. it is one thing to be out an active as an activist and los angeles, but when you are a boy
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in louisiana is different. many of them said to heck with it, i am an activist and will not turn my back on my past and we're glad i was using their real names to tell their story but one individual which was one pseudonym i call antonio sanchez. when i first contacted tony probably three or four years ago now, he was very receptive and tried to know that his story was being told and we had an amazing conversation but then i talked to him a week later after the first conversation and he said i'm glad you are recording my story but i have to let you know when i realize you're putting my name on the web and broadcasting and publishing it in books and papers i had motion sensors installed in my house and i bought a gun. i really hope is my real name. in the other activists and away thought tony was betraying his past, that he had become a
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coward but then i went to visit tony on his remote spread near delores, colorado and when i actually saw the motion sensors he had, indeed, install and i did see the gun as i entered into his house right there. i realized how these people have become and so it's kind of interesting bit as people were open and aware and very glad to put this aside and other people were open to begin with in the '50s as they become older and isolated they actually retreated once again back behind a pseudonym. >> is interesting because i remember i was going to say right after you finish reading i know what happens next because when jennings after the big show trial and he started running and harry hays who was a loud a kind of communist guy. >> they were communists. >> i can only see these guys doing things and a half. but jennings went into the private life again to maquis
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knew he could never have it. he had been out publicly and nationally and was no way he can retreat back into that lifestyle. he wants to have his cake and eat it too ideally. he one of his career in film making but he wanted -- and i have to say during world war ii especially jennings went through three marriages not one of them lasted longer than a week. [laughter] >> i wonder why the iraqis have locker room stores for the boys but then he had this other life and i wonder how many people were living that sort of broke back on lifestyle prior 21950 and a lot of them actually, harry a. when the first are debating the fashion designer, he was married and he too was living a double life. and part of the activism of these people in the '50s was saying we're tired of this, we don't want to how to divide our live and it is not fair to us and our wives and our children. jennings since he was basically
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out anyway, jennings but from one -- split from mattachine when he had started one magazine published in january 1953 and 1 was on a later in 1953 and one magazine is an amazing periodical. i was so surprised more people haven't heard about it here it is delightful in a lot of the arguments of one magazine actually anticipate many of the conversations we're having today such as one about homosexual marriage and is promiscuous males, are there problem, what about women, one about minorities? all these issues have been actively discussed now for 60 years. >> and try to organize my many questions. i think this is another one for both of new it is has an offshoot of that era to correct this clause if i'm wrong. though i thank you are both writing history in coming to it from where studies perhaps and
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from -- and this sounds condescending but these books are really ratable. they read like a novel because they are covering some very dramatic interesting stuff and these are solid academic people and in writing these books and that anybody, it is so absorbent. when you made these decisions about how you are writing this story what sort of, do you feel the distance of time that you're seeing a whole shift of the history in front of you in terms of basically going into these things from the inside, are we supposed to now look at this material, are we supposed to be the anthropologist looking away from a distance? distance on the subject is a weird way around this question done. >> will take a stab at answering that, i came as a person who
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studies and rises reeducation so falling pretty much the kinds of questions that historians pose and so forth and we talked earlier about that distancing question. history of education was laid to look any kind of gay and lesbian history actually and there are two excellent books, personal freedoms, private constrained and the book that came out in 2005 fit to teach but other than those dubos we don't have a book wake study basically on the history of the gay and lesbian teachers. when a lot of people might know is the fear that began with anita bryant, a crusade in 1977 and that was the moment nationally when teachers among all professions for use as a wedge issue to promote the far right's agenda to get in on school boards and other local level kinds of positions to set a certain political agenda and
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motion and so going back to look at this incident in florida and generation before that i think a very unique situation even though gay and lesbian teachers who surfaced throughout mid-20s century would have been fired. i think the fact the way the state pursue this and the length of time spent on and the number of resources spent makes it unique in that regard. >> that is great. i thank you answer the question and made me also augment for you and ask whether books upon which the shoulders of giants upon which you stood a? >> absolutely. john de melo, an anthropology the work of people like william lee, esther newton, esther was an amazing role model for me. without her book, mother camp, published in 1976, processors and kansas city, but also on the straight side of things. barbara meyer rauf was one of
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the first and apologist is setting her own people in a jewish committee in venice, california. i needed that an apology as a study of the other and we're expecting to go often to distant lands and learn from languages and the more remote the better in terms of prestige and the discipline. here i was setting my own people and i was actually confronted by people in the american anthropological association saying to me, point out you are not an anthropologist and what you are doing is an anthropology so i have to confront that and say what is an apology? to me it is a mind-set, a way of seeing the world and it is a discipline, a series of mouth as you can use to study a bowling alley down the street just as well as you can study a tribe in australia or africa. but is something i have to deal with with a lot of my colleagues in anthropology who did not seen as legitimate anthropologist's but i haven't had a history
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class since i was an undergrad. i am not an historian, i am an anthropologist to the corporate [laughter] what makes i think for the anthropology comes out in this book while i spend a lot of time and archives i spend as much time as possible interviewing the people who had survived and participating in their lives. they became friends of mine. they took care of the organization's and helps. >> i took an active role in helping them further their goals and their mission and that was something that we apply to an apology especially in to me it is an active imagination not always but we try to put ourselves into the mindset of the people we're standing so rather than try to put myself in the mines that other tribes person or a person in different nation is taking direct language, i was trying to imagine the look in the world to
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the perspective of a homosexual person living in 1950's los angeles. and that was like visiting a foreign land. and i try to recapture that in the book and try to capture a sense of perspective. i also being a linguist for the power of narrative so it is improper for me even though i was dealing with facts and figures and names it was overwhelming in the buck to tie them altogether by telling a good story and unifying it to the narrative structure with the climax of being the division in 1965. >> i am watching the time go so quickly. we have about five minutes left for questions from the audience cheered yes please come to the microphone to speak. go ahead and. >> i noticed that you pronounces the word mattachine, what is the
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etymology of it, the origin of it? i first heard around 1953 and i did not know how to pronounced said. >> that is actually a story i tell in the book of the camel put the word. there was believe that there was a society of wolves in ancient rome the men and that it had manifesting 10 innings in france and spain and italy and the call themselves the mattachine society of walls and it was the tradition of the court jesters who always spoke truth to power of the often had to do so cashed in humor. and harry hays somehow had founded the society of the mattachine tradition. he presented himself as an academic and a scholar, but he wasn't entirely and now that we try to retrace his thoughts on where they origins of that word are gets big. but the concept cost of being a
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society a fool streaking truth to power and having to do so in an underhanded kind of clever ways and there's also some controversy because hate oys told a story as soon as he said that word there was like this mystical coming together yes, that is what we are in jennings was like, yes right. a lot of us are laughing at his notion. so what is cool they found their name and they found their purpose and it took off and mattachine society had been, indeed, spending of all over the society very rapidly. they call themselves collectively mattachine and first it was the mattachine foundation which split and then later mattachine the move his headquarters to seven cisco about 1953 and there was a purging in 1953 because many of the original people in the mattachine foundation for in the communists. they had met in the communist party and in order to purify the
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new society and got ready most of their founders including dale jennings and harry and was interesting because in 1953 they were evicted from the homosexual movement for being communists at the same time evicted from the communist movement for being homosexuals. [laughter] >> how do you spell it? >> mattachine. >> had to get that sound out of the ch? >> i'm pronouncing it the way my consultants pronounced it, i have heard it mattachine by people who were there but the people that were a round another organization have pronounced it mattachine. >> the women that connected with it, most of their problems or as women rather than lesbians. >> that is a big topic. there were eight women and men together and it is sad to say the men did not treat the women
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very well and that is documented in my book. many of the women formed their own organization called the daughters of the elitists letter and the history of that is told by marcia gallo and her book, different daughters, which i have the recommend. >> thank-you. >> in you're opening commentary you mentioned in the organization formed i believe six or seven years after the world war and that there was an arrest. >> 1950 was the first meeting. >> there is another organization that formed. >> henry gerber in chicago. >> just a few years after n like you're subject it hasn't been a well researched other than what mr. katz has done in his book and, of course, i am here to tout in chicago which has begun researching all of a the vacuums that are in our history.
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thank you for what you're doing. for you m'aam do think that economics had anything to do with the teachers being pursued in florida? i found in researching the of arrests and questioning come all the same kind of questions of the same techniques for used when trying to get the waves purged after second world war because they no longer needed them economically, the jobs were not needed, and also the same kind of techniques have been in the libraries across the country. there is a new biography of gen at howard foster that was recently published and the author has gone all across the country and there were purchase and their arrests and people losing their jobs etc.. all across the country in that time. to you associated almost totally with the political climate?
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and not economics? >> yes especially since the teacher shortage was going on but the way economics would play into this is teaching is a pretty conservative institution and often been for social mobility and so a person who becomes a teacher for all kinds of reasons but including social probability is not to rock the boat and make trouble or challenge issues regarding the institution they're about to join and so the teachers did not -- they certainly denounce the but the teachers who are being interrogated. >> hasn't changed so they throw out the teachers and now have a shortage of translators in iraq and brought out the days you can do that. [laughter] >> thank you so much, there -- these books are so rich and i highly recommend them. there will be sold in the other room. thank you so much can i thank you for attending today's discussion and supporting the chicago tribune commitment to literacy. a book signing and will take
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rights", part of the chicago tribune printers row lit fest will return. >> this summer booktv is asking, what are you reading? >> i am amy, a reliable source, is for the washington post and i'm looking for to my summer reading list. a lot of people think that summer is the time for light reading and as far as i'm concerned is the time for reading the heavy books. last year i tackled the fountainhead of a ricin vacation. it this year i am looking forward to pushing anna carona, i tried to read it 15 years ago and could not do it and came up with a new translation would just aren't on vacation in february from a chipping away at it but i'm half way through and probably on vacation will be able to finish most of it. with the new pulitzer prize-winning novel by elizabeth strauss the, i will take a look at that, and i will finally read the manhunt, the lincoln history by jim swanson which has been up
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for a few years now, and a couple other things a the story of address i tell which everyone else in my family has read and raved about or america by, and some light reading is called for and i hope to finally tackle twilight. i love the movie more than nine expected and everybody said the books are even better. >> to seymour summer reading lists and other program information, visit our web site at booktv.org. >> one we're at the 2009 book expo convention in new york city here with china temple, publisher from new york, want to tell us about what's coming out this fall? >> this fall one of the books we are most excited about is a graphic novel by the great black
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film maker melvin van peebles adel a book that inspired his new film of his that is going to begin premiering in august and september of this year simultaneous with the publication of the book. and he is the godfather who of the black exploitation of man and we're proud to be working with them and currently right about now we are publishing a new book by the actor and activist mike farrell who is best known whether role vijay hi ken, show and mash, one of the greatest shows of all time in this book of man is a road book and i wrote a memoir and we are putting him back on the road and keeping him busy. >> how long have you been publishing books? we have been publishing since 1997 and republished literary fiction as the heart and soul of
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the company and have a sort of an outsider sensibility though some of our books are quite popular but our books are often provocative and one way or another and we do a little bit of a nonfiction as well, political nonfiction, writers we publish in the nonfiction realm included mike farrell, robert scheer, ron coverage, and other sort of cultural heroes of the last -- >> you are the publisher and founder of akashic books, how did you get into this and decide to start a publishing house? >> i stumbled into book publishing, in my previous life i was a rock-and-roll musician and i spend most of the 1990's touring the world with my band putting out albums in doing all the things that rock and rollers do when i finally arrived at the thing that rock and rollers do best in the money after made some money that published a book basically as an experiment. i found i really enjoyed
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publishing the book, it was quite successful and i published a second book again as a hobby and after publishing three or four books i have the publishing bug. i started transitioning away from rock-and-roll and into book publishing and there was no looking back. >> now, as a publisher based in brooklyn, you live in brooklyn and the founder of the brooklyn book festival, can you tell us about that? >> the berglund book festival is hosted by brooklyn hall, new york city has one mayor but five of burroughs and a to the five boroughs as a borough president and elected president, and brooklyn's very popular borough president is marty mark tourette's. and when he came into office fibre six years ago or maybe seven years ago he always wanted to start a big book festival because brooklyn is the home of creators and has a literary tradition dating back -- dating back to walt whitman, richard wright them and these days we have many best sellers living in brooklyn so it was a very
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natural place where a big book fastball and i contacted borough hall and was able to help them to realize this vision of a big book festival and has quickly become the city's best book festival. this year sunday september 13th will be the fourth annual brooklyn the bequest of all, we will have over 150 authors participating in programs, 150 exhibitors and publishers, literary magazines, literacy organizations, it's a very committed the based book festival and international book festival but with a strong brooklyn flavor. >> johnny temple, founder and publisher of akashic books and founder of the brooklyn book festival. >> thank you very much. >> this summer booktv is asking, what are you reading? >> c and then the wolf blitzer,
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what will you be reading this summer? >> i got the books i hope to read beginning with the emperor's new clothes, a book by richard who is a very well-known washington lawyer and an old friend of mine, he was very much involved many years ago in watergate and the 9/11 commission. the and. close i want to get through because i thank you have some good stories about what is going on in washington and certainly what happened over the past several decades. another book is by william cullen entitled house of cards, a tale of hubris and success on wall street. this is a book that basically tells the story of how the collapse on wall street occurred in, what was going on here and i've had him on my show and he's really smart and i think this is -- i have read parts of the book already but i want to get through it as a result of what i've heard directly from william cohen. there is a book coming out this summer entitled myths, listens and peace, fighting in a direction for america in the middle east by dennis ross, a
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longtime special middle east envoy who is now working in the obama administration on iran among other subjects and david wyss is a fellow at the washington institute. david and i go way back and used to work with me so i'm interested in what these two guys have to say about the arab-israeli conflict since both of them either worker covered so long so that is another book i will be going through. another book is by david shanker of "the new york times" untitled, the inheritance: to the world obama confronts and the challenges to american power. having read him for years in "the new york times" i know what a terrific reporter he is. he has now put together was really an important book on what the president of the united states has basically inherited. he has been on my show, he is smart and i think this is going to be an important book i will learn something reading from. finally the one fiction piece of fiction that i want to read this summer i hope to read and some
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others but i definitely want to read the new book, a mad desire to dance, because he is such a terrific writer and what he writes is so important. i was really moved by what he said a few weeks ago when he spoke openly about having lost his foundation, so much money with the bernard and made off fiasco. he was so smart and he has lost millions, but this is a book of islam that continues what he has been riding for some years about the holocaust so i want to get to this book if i can the summer. those of the five books. i plan on meeting this summer and hope to get to them all and start of some more. >> you are obviously a busy man and, if we find to reading, where do your reading and find time to do it? >> i tried to read a little before i go to sleep at night. i tried to read on weekends, just go out on my deck in the backyard and relax especially if the weather is good. whenever you can. i am a busy guy, i don't have a
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whole lot of time to do fun rating, but she made time and it's important and i really appreciate books. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> to seymor summer reading lists another program information, visit our web site at booktv.org. >> we are back with more live coverage from the "chicago tribune". chicago tribune printers row lit fest a. coming out next elizabeth brackett correspondent for pbs our cover her new book is "pay to play: how rod blagojevich turned political corruption into a national slideshow". [inaudible conversations]
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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] bodman [inaudible conversations] >> welcome to the 25th annual "chicago tribune" printer's row fast, we would like to give special thanks to our sponsors and community partners to help make this event possible. it just a few housekeeping notes before we begin today's program. please turn off your cellphone and all other electronic devices, also flash photography is not permitted. today's program will be broadcast live on c-span2 booktv. if there is time of the end for question and answer session with the author we asked them to use the microphones located in the center of the room so that our home viewing audience
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