oursin | Friday, um, several (Reply)

Obituary of Maureen Colquhoun, Crusading Labour politician who was the first openly gay MP:

Among the many issues for which she campaigned were the abolition of women’s prisons, abortion on demand, creche facilities at political conferences and the decriminalisation of prostitution.

She was outed by the Daily Mail gossip columnist and refused to conceal or deny:

Colquhoun readily acknowledged her change of circumstance, commenting: “The day hasn’t yet arrived when an MP can be unseated by a gossip columnist.” She proved to be only partly correct. When she was deselected, her local party chairman was reported widely as saying: “She was elected as a working wife and mother … this business has blackened her image irredeemably.”

***

Remembering Pearl Alcock, the Black bisexual shebeen queen of Brixton:

Pearl created a space like no other, which is near impossible to replicate – especially as gentrifying forces dig their claws into Black communities. She withstood the forces that always try to erase us, from the moral panic of Thatcherism to persistent misogynoir. In the midst of all that, Pearl made some brilliant art, all while showing love and generosity to the people around her. Her legacy remains. When you live a life defined by giving, you can never truly be forgotten.

***

Sandy Stone on Living Among Lesbian Separatists as a Trans Woman in the 70s

Throughout the 70s, Stone was part of the famous radical feminist music collective, Olivia Records. But her presence did not go unchallenged. She describes attending a community meeting only to be met with an angry swarm of trans exclusive radical feminists (TERFs) assembled for the sole purpose of expelling her from her own collective simply because she was assigned male at birth.
....
[I]n 1987, Stone effectively birthed the academic discipline of transgender studies by publishing her enduringly influential essay, The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto.
....
And, over decades, she has inspired generations of irreverent trans women to fight transmisogyny unapologetically and bring new, unafraid forms of thinking and making into the world.

***

Two grandes dames and a friendship one might not have expected: ‘How many husbands have I had? Not enough!’ Vanessa Redgrave meets Miriam Margolyes (they have actually been friends for 50 years)

***

Sex magic, occult art and acid: the story of the infamous witch of Kings Cross [Sydney] - someone has just made a film about her.

Aged 23 and living away from her conservative family in a variety of lodgings and squats in the seedy Sydney suburb, she began to practise trance magic and, later, sex magic. The former involved invoking spells, rituals and taking substances with the aim of achieving a higher form of consciousness; the latter was popularised by the British occultist Aleister Crowley and involved having sex with multiple partners that invoked rituals similar to Tantra.

I'm not entirely persuaded that there was not, somewhere - maybe not so much in Australia - a community of similarly-minded individuals at that exact period, well before the 1960s, come on down, Gerald Gardner, Dion Fortune et al! (cite to Ronald Hutton's The Triumph of the Moon what).

***

I suppose in this age people can sling around accusations of witchcraft without having to set up pricking, ducking, or identifying familiars: 'Witch' tweets reflect society's fear of older women, says Mary Beard. Query: might there not be something in there about Wymmynz having Knowynngz - 'tes flying in the face of nature, they cannot be using it For Good.

***

Five works by the dazzling and seldom-seen painter Florine Stettheimer emerged on the market in 2020. But some stood on shaky ground.

Born into a moneyed family, Stettheimer did not need or want to sell her art. She once famously said that “letting people have your paintings is like letting them wear your clothes.” After her death in 1944, most of her work went to institutions. Still, every once in a while, a legitimate Stettheimer emerges.

***

And also on the topic of fakery: A celebrated writer and professor, he challenged his students to take hold of their own narrative. But the truth came out — his life story, like his books, was a work of fiction.

***

My dearios will know that I usually sniff suspiciously when somebody is deemed 'forgotten by history', but in this case, this is someone who has pretty much slipped from the record and is here restored to it (well, and in the book by the author): Durex condoms: how their teenage immigrant inventor was forgotten by history. He also had a strong interest in mediumship and spiritualism.

***

Hippos imported illegally into Colombia for Pablo Escobar’s private zoo have gone feral in the lush tropical countryside and must be culled before their invasive presence starts to wipe out indigenous flora and fauna, scientists have warned.
....
Government attempts to control their reproduction have had no real impact on population growth, with the number of hippos increasing in the last eight years from 35 to somewhere between 65 and 80. A group of scientists is warning that the hippos pose a major threat to the area’s biodiversity and could lead to deadly encounters with humans. They say the hippos must be culled or their numbers could reach around 1,500 by 2035. “I believe that it is one of the greatest challenges of invasive species in the world,” said Nataly Castelblanco-Martínez, an ecologist at the University of Quintana Roo in Mexico and lead author of the group’s study.

I am boggling here at the concept of illegally importing something as large and vicious as a hippopotamus.