BENEFIT for MAMA BEARS Way, Here's Our Day to Socialize
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GROWING NEWS PAINS & NOTES August 1st marks a year since some Aug-Sept 1984 VoM, No 3 •Mama Bears' decided to rent the space we are in. There was no wiring, no plumbing, no side windows, and the floors were mostly dirt. Alice being who she is, looked at it and saw a M A M A B E A R S wonderful space. I could only look at it one eye at a time because all I & s^aw was a lot of work - and ask where BEACON PRESS all the money and energy would come from, anyway. * Proudly Celebrate Publication of Then things started to. happen. ANOTHER MOTHER TONGUE: Some very wonderful women held a par ty for us at which they raised about GAY WORDS, GAY WORLDS S900 to help us pay on our attorney's fees. Then our lawyer said, "Go ahead by and open a new space, don't worry Judy Grahn about paying me right now." Mickey Phillips (Arlene Slaughter's son) W ith a Party at Mama Bears from Central Realty not only arranged the lease for us, but believed in the > Sunday, August 5, 1984 vision enough to arrange some loans 4 PM for us. The I Ching said, "It'fur thers one to cross the great water." uie invite you—our sisters & brothers—to join We-were on our way. w ith us and Ms. Grahn in marking this joyous Several other; loans and donations event came to us; ranging from $10'to-$1000 from wonderful women who believed in Preface us. A small legacy ($2000) also ar rived about that time from a woman one who had been a true and active femin Interview With Judy Grahn Sashay Down the Lavender Trail • l ist, whose,suicide was at.least part Hermes, Diana. Lavender, Amethyst. Narcissus, HyacinLhus, Pansy Pinky Rings ly due to alcohol and disillusionment [Alice Moll.oy, Interviewer, and JUDY: I know what you mean...I used a with the women's movement. Packaged Eloise, Poet, met with Judy Grahn kind of code-word, a sentence of TWO with the loans and donations were be at Mama Bears, July 6, 1984] A']Ice's: "When action proves..." The Original Underground 21 lief in us and the project, and the Closet, Coming Out. Demeter/Kore, Pomegranate, ALICE: That was Ursula LeGuin. enormous amount of energy needed to ALICE: I get the feeling that your Shamanism. Baubo, Dike keep us going. new book ANOTHER MOTHER TONGUE was JUDY: Oh, "When action proves unpro THREE Needless to say, there were delays something you had to do, a mission. fitable gather information." From Gay Is Very American 49 (we were Supposed to open Sept. 15, How, or when, did- you y n ceive of the . LEFT HAND OP DARKNESS, by Ursula Das, Murfidal. Winkle. Huame, Koshkadaka. NadJe, but didn't until Oct. 30) and unex scope of the project? • LeGuin. Well,...I suffered Turquoise Hermaphrodite. Joya, WUa-Numpa pected expenses, but here we are and we're surviving. JUDY: In the early 70's I think I had more with that than anything else FOUR However, we're having growing a great desire to write something I've done, because I would say, 'who Fairies nnd Frtry Q ueens • u pains. Some of the loan* made to us about Gay people and had an und^r- , are you to do this?'. I had to work Fairy Tattooing, Ear rings, Halloween. Drag Queens are coming due and need refinancing-. standing that there was a connection it through, kind of lead myself around the tunnel hand over hand, and rive We need to raise some capital to fix between Gay people and women and that We Go Around the World 101 up the coffee house part» We need an women's history of matriarchy was that was very hard. It came together in pieces, a piece at a time and -get Spinsters. Oya. Eshu. Ondele. Angakok, Shamanism. ice machine so's we can have iced somehow connected to Gay history. Fricatrice, Bonzes, SahacaL Lollepot, Mariposa. ting feedback. I finally found that drinks and get the salad bar happen Maflcona. Links % ing. We need to get a hood installed ALICE: You had a'sense...-? people were bringing me information six so's we can have soup and a real oven once I knew vJhat questions to ask. JUQY: After reading Elizabeth Gould Pretty soon these people began to be Butchtt, Bulldaqs and the (Oakland Health Dept, laws are very Davis and SCUM MANIFESTO and numerous strtct about this). Wp need a slicing anthropologists who would say, Q ueen of BulldiKery 133 other things that were out at the Boudlca. Buildike. Buiidagger. Bodacious Butch. machine and we really would like to "ch§ck out this paper, because this time. I had finished writing A WOMAN information really needs to surface." Femme. Tomboy Amazon Queens. Joan of Arc do something about the floors. IS TALKING TO DEATH and I felt that I r Earlier this year we got one loan had pretty much summerized everything seven I knew in poetry up to that point and .ALICE: Did the scope change as you that enabled us to buy a large re Riding with the A mazons 163 fridge/freezer and another to buy air that in order to go further with a went along? African and Caucasus ML Amazons. Penthesilea. Rhard of Jhansi. Judith the Hebrew, King Nzihgha cleaning equipment (presently back thought I would have to undertake JUDY: I- discovered very early on ordered). You've prpbably figured out prose, whether I wanted to or not. that I couldn't tell the women's e iO M T by now that what I'm trying to do is Poetry is such a synthesis and I had story without telling the men's story ask fdr money, but it's hard, wh$t run out of things to synthesize. I nor understand the traditions and, Flaming, Flaming Faggot Kings 203 FaggoL Flnnochio. Fagus. Enarees, Rufus, Thomas, with working-class pride and all that.' thought, "I have to go and dig in the that there is a women's culture. And mountain; I have to go and get the Normans, King Sacrifice, Butch/femme, Camp. Up to now women have come to us that's what gave me the understanding. Transvestite, Gala. Clranus, Rainbows and that was so much easier But, the raw material because I have run out." Thje scope gave itself to me - by woman'who loaned us the money for the That was as far as I could think at broadening the scope the information nine air cleaners wanted to know-why we ^:he time... would come. Friction A m ong Women 233 hadn't asked. So, I'm asking. Besides, The project is about men and women, Am a Terasu. Uzume, Arani, Kali, Fricatrice, I know you're all tired of cheese Elizabeth Gould Dav/i$ said women tribal people and modem people, in- "• Tribadism. Frigging have had power before. Well, that was sandwiches, anyway, and it's really duStrialized Gay culture and folk Gay ten in your self-interest to move-us a new idea. I said, what if Gay peo culture, all different kinds of peo ple had power before? And how could I Gay Is Good and Gay Is Also Baed 263 along. Love IT Affection, Carol ple. It's an immense scope. I didn't BaedelL Baed, Buggery Crossroads find out? It seemed like such varied think I could tell the story without information. So, I began by making having that broad of a perspective. lists of words and cultural charac teristics and researching them along ELOISE: Do -you think that Gay men and with the women's culture, women's - Lesbians formerly had more in conroon? ideas and other thinqs. I did them JUDY: It varied from culture to cul all in time and I called them all ture. Certainly at times when both benefit for prose. Now I will do prose. were being persecuted there was com In fact, this book was originally monality, and ig some social func footnotes for the novel ancl it just tions. In those societies where both mama bears turned into a full-sized book very have been spiritual leaders there gradually. I did presentations about would be some, kind of overlap of un Linda (Tui) Tillery, Mary it. By 1980 I thought I had an 85 derstanding^. ..having to do with the • Watkins, Joy Julkes, and page book, which I had with Perse fact that all these particular people phone Press when they went down. I were the spiritual leaders of that Bonnie Johnson--playing was revising it and finally under particular group. I'm sure there*are together to help Mama Bears stood that I had abput 300 pages. plenty of fairies and faggots and raise money. Sunday, August ELOISE: How did you proceed from the dykes in Hollywood who...overlap 19, 3’6 pm. 'face of no knowledge' to the sense their knowledges and information. of expertise? . cont. on page 2 2 JUDY GRAHN INTERVIEW - CONTINUED And she dreamed. About the women who had lived, long ago. hamc haa. Who ALICE: More so than in the grocery JUOY: That's what I'm hoping for, had lived near caves, near streams. Who had known magic far beyond the simple business? that everybody will check out their Charms and spells the modems knew. Who were the Spider. The Spider Medicine own corner of the world...go digging JUDY: Yes. Society.' The women who created, the women who directed people upon their true and find twenty-five more things.