January is proving a busy month for the Calgary Gay History Project. We would like to introduce two new volunteers on the project: Ayanna Smart and Nolan Hill. Ayanna is sleuthing through old issues of the Body Politic, mining them for Calgary references and Nolan is focusing on the queer history at CJSW radio, 90.9 FM.
I (Kevin) will be on the West Coast during the last week of January, in Victoria on January 26th and Vancouver, January 27-30th. The intent of the trip is to visit queer archives on the coast, such as the Univeristy of Victoria’s Transgender Archives as well as meet with former Calgarians who have resettled to lotus land, who can recall Calgary’s gay community from yesteryear.
If you know someone we should be meeting in either city, please contact the project so we can get in touch with them.
Over the holidays, mining my own personal history I was delighted to learn a queer history tidbit in one of my favourite 1980s new wave music videos: ’til tuesday’s Voices Carry.
The video delighted me as a 14-year old. But it would have delighted me more if it had a same-sex storyline. Apparently record executives shut down the female-female relationship plot line and recast it in a heterosexual mold. The song seems to make more sense now, in retrospect, with this new revelation.
Finally, I am on holidays for the month of February, but the other Calgary Gay History Project researchers are stepping up to do the weekly posts on the website in my absence – give them lots of positive regard!
{KA}
Calgary Gay History 