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Speaker 1: Hey everybody. Hey, yeah, I'm Eli, I'm Diana. Welcome back

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Speaker 1: to Ridiculous Romance. That's right, the show where we talk

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Speaker 1: about true romances through history. Yes, the weirdest, freakiest, funniest,

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Speaker 1: sometimes even most wonderful ones we can find, right, the

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Speaker 1: most heartwarming. Today's is actually a very cool story. These

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Speaker 1: aren't freaks. These are really awesome people. Amazing people talking

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Speaker 1: about these non binary artists Cluk Cahoun and Marcel Moore

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Speaker 1: from the nineteen twenties through World War Two. I'm so

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Speaker 1: excited about this story. These are awesome people. They are

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Speaker 1: so cool. Yep, not like me. I just came over

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Speaker 1: here to sit down and my phone flashlight was on,

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Speaker 1: and I'm like, wow, I'm an old man. Ah, you

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Speaker 1: got a glimpse of your face and startled your show.

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Speaker 1: Yeah it's bad. Yeah, the oldest I ever felt, I think.

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Speaker 1: And I was like probably thirty two at the time,

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Speaker 1: which so you know, not that long. I don't remember

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Speaker 1: where I was Starbucks or something, and a much younger girl,

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Speaker 1: probably twenty or something, looked up at me and said, oh,

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Speaker 1: your flashlights on in your pocket? Oh and and I

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Speaker 1: pulled my phone out and sure enough, just the flashlight

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Speaker 1: is beaming out of my pocket, and I was like,

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Speaker 1: I felt like a ninety year old person who had

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Speaker 1: never use technology before. And this whipper snapper just came

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Speaker 1: up and was like, hey, do you need me to

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Speaker 1: show you how that works? Grandpa? That stings the oldest

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Speaker 1: I ever felt. Well, actually I feel old kind of

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Speaker 1: a lot because well, no, because I'll text with my

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Speaker 1: cousin Sarah. She's she's like twelve or thirteen or something,

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Speaker 1: so yeah, it at that point, I know, like she'll

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Speaker 1: be on Snapchat or she'll send me a meme or something,

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Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, like, y'all just don't even care

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Speaker 1: if there's really a joke, Like it's just some random

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Speaker 1: collection or some random stuff. Sometimes you know, um, dick

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Speaker 1: jokes are still popular, so there's still I'm good, Like

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Speaker 1: I can still hang Wait a minute, I don't know

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Speaker 1: if you should be making dick jokes with your twelve

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Speaker 1: year old cousin. Listen. I don't really, but she does. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I guess that's what I was doing and when I

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Speaker 1: was twelve to do her parents listen to this show?

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Speaker 1: I don't I know that my aunt does, her grandma,

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Speaker 1: her grandmother yeah, and sometimes Sarah will and she told

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Speaker 1: me she actually was right after we came out with

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Speaker 1: the raw Black Messiah episode, which was about shock pornography,

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Speaker 1: so it's very very R rated episode. And she texts

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Speaker 1: me and she's like, I'm listening to your show, by

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Speaker 1: the way, and I was like, I hope not that

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Speaker 1: this is not the episode for yikes, and she goes, no, no, no.

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Speaker 1: My grandma always tells me when I can listen. So

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Speaker 1: I thank you to Aunt Shell for her gatekeeping episodes

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Speaker 1: from the children. These kids these days, I know, I'm glad.

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Speaker 1: I'm glad she's interested in it. And no definite times

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Speaker 1: get listeners say they listen with their kids they're teenagers

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Speaker 1: or something. I think that's pretty cool. I think that's great.

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Speaker 1: I mean, like I curse or whatever, but it's about sex.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, I think you've gotten better at the cursing.

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Speaker 1: I mean said we got worse, and I'm like, we

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Speaker 1: definitely have not gotten worse, because a lot of it

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Speaker 1: just comes from nervousness. I think a lot of cursing

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Speaker 1: is just like I don't know what else to say,

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Speaker 1: or I don't have an adjective here. I'm trying to

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Speaker 1: go faster than my brain, so you kind of fill

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Speaker 1: in by stuttering out. Well, I think it depends on

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Speaker 1: the story too, because some make me mad, and that's

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Speaker 1: when I curse. A lot them don't make me mad,

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Speaker 1: So I'm like, I'm not cursing because I'm really angry.

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Speaker 1: There's no reason to curse at these two, for example,

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Speaker 1: although there's plenty of reason to curse at the Nazis.

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Speaker 1: That's very true because they were dealing with that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, I was really interested in this story because

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Speaker 1: I'm not only because of who they are Claude and

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Speaker 1: Marcel alone, but like usually when you're going through history

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Speaker 1: and you're looking at resistance movements during World War Two

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Speaker 1: against the Nazis, it's usually stuff like blowing up a

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Speaker 1: train or you know, some daring spy mission or sluggling

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Speaker 1: Jewish people to safety and all really cool, incredible, thrilling

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Speaker 1: stories to hear. But a lot of people's resistance during

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Speaker 1: that time was very small, and so some of my

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Speaker 1: personal favorite World War two stories are these tiny acts

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Speaker 1: of like malicious compliance or sabotage, just little things like

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Speaker 1: that that I find so human because it's just us

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Speaker 1: pushing back in the tiniest, even in a way we

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Speaker 1: find insignificant in the larger picture, but it makes us

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Speaker 1: feel like, Okay, I did something right. It can be

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Speaker 1: really inspiring because even if it seems like this tiny

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Speaker 1: little chip, you're still chipping away at a wall and

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Speaker 1: eventually it falls. So today we really want to tell

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Speaker 1: you about this resistance movement on the island of Jersey

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Speaker 1: that made occupying Nazis believe there was this widespread conspiracy

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Speaker 1: amongst their own ranks to rebel against Hitler. But actually

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Speaker 1: it was just two middle aged artists who had been

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Speaker 1: rebelling in many ways for many years, long before the

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Speaker 1: Nazis were ever thought of. Yes, and it's such a

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Speaker 1: cool story. So let's learn about Claude Cahoun and Marcel Moore,

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Speaker 1: the surrealist artists turned Nazi resistance. Let's go, hey their French.

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Speaker 1: Come listen. Well, Elia and Diana got some stories to tell.

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Speaker 1: There's no matchmaking or romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships.

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Speaker 1: A lover might be any type of person at all,

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Speaker 1: and abstract cons a Dora concrete wall. But if there's

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Speaker 1: a story where the second clans ridiculous romans, a production

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Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. All right, The first thing we want to

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Speaker 1: say about Claude Cahoun is that they were born Lucy

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Speaker 1: Schwab in eighteen ninety four, but they were always kind

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Speaker 1: of experimenting with their own gender presentation and identity. Now,

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Speaker 1: Claude did use she her pronouns in her own writing,

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Speaker 1: but a lot of scholars have argued that if they

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Speaker 1: had been around at that time, they would have preferred

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Speaker 1: they them pronouns. You know, if those had been widely used.

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Speaker 1: In our episode, we'll probably interchange she her and they

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Speaker 1: then when talking about Claude, just throwing it out there. Ye. So,

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Speaker 1: Claude Cahoun was born Lucy Schwab in Nant, France to

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Speaker 1: a family of wealthy Jewish intellectuals and publishers, and she

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Speaker 1: had a lot of art bona fides like. Her uncle

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Speaker 1: was the avant garde writer Marcel Schwab, and her great

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Speaker 1: uncle was an Orientalist named David Leong Cahoun. An Orientalist

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Speaker 1: was like a Western European artist who specialized in subjects

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Speaker 1: from the Orient, or rather from Asia and the Middle East.

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Speaker 1: This was like a big There was a lot of

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Speaker 1: Arabic art going on, a lot of Chinese Japanese art

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Speaker 1: kind of being incorporated into Christern Art. It was sort

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Speaker 1: of one of the first times I think we gave

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Speaker 1: a shit about a culture of European culture, right right,

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Speaker 1: So probably at the time it was considered kind of progressive,

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Speaker 1: which is weird to think of now, obviously, since Oriental

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Speaker 1: is like not a good even though they were, They're

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Speaker 1: probably just going over there and be like, look at

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Speaker 1: this fascinating art. Let me take it home so everyone

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Speaker 1: else can look at it too. Allow me to co

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Speaker 1: opt this now. When Lucy was only four years old,

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Speaker 1: her mother began suffering from mental illness pretty severely, and

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Speaker 1: it wasn't long before she was put into an institution

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Speaker 1: full time. So Lucy was mostly raised by her grandmother,

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Speaker 1: and like early on in life, Lucy is questioning her

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Speaker 1: gender identity she's very young. She starts experimenting with different names,

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Speaker 1: including Daniel Douglas after Lord Alfred Douglas past episode alert Yea.

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Speaker 1: So she tried a different few different names until she

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Speaker 1: settled on Claude Calhoun in nineteen fourteen. Calhoun after her

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Speaker 1: great uncle David and also her grandmother who raised her,

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Speaker 1: and Claude because in French, Claude could be male or female,

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Speaker 1: so they wanted kind of a non binary, gender neutral name. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Claude wrote once quote masculine, feminine, It depends on the situation.

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Speaker 1: Neuter is the only gender that always suits me. And

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Speaker 1: as a teenager, Claude suffered from anorexia, suicidal thoughts, and

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Speaker 1: debilitating depression like her mother. That's tough. You could see

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Speaker 1: wanting to kind of explore your identity a lot if

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Speaker 1: you're having those sort of you know what, feel like

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Speaker 1: kind of a dysmorphia, like you know, sort of like

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Speaker 1: I'm not happy with my body. Yeah, you know, what's

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Speaker 1: something that what's a big thing? I can sort of

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Speaker 1: question and see whether I would be happier if it

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Speaker 1: was different, right, Annarexia has dysmorphia built into it, Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: you're not seeing yourself, yeah, the way you are. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But it also is a lot about control. So I

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Speaker 1: wonder if you know, their childhood felt very out of control.

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Speaker 1: Their mom is to these institutions, makes wherever their dad is,

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Speaker 1: they're going to their grandmas. So they're like, this is

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Speaker 1: the one thing I can control is how much foods

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Speaker 1: going into my body at any given time. Yeah. But

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Speaker 1: Claude's life changed in nineteen o nine when they met

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Speaker 1: Suzanne malerb and she was this seventeen year old girl.

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Speaker 1: She was an art student. Her father was a doctor,

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Speaker 1: and when they met, they both described it as quote

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Speaker 1: a thunderbolt meeting. I mean, just total love at first sight,

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Speaker 1: just that instant the heavens collided, right, and when the

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Speaker 1: dust settled, we were there together, right, just like a

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Speaker 1: sense of kins incredible. One time, I just I asked

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Speaker 1: my dad, like how he knew Mom was someone he

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Speaker 1: wanted to go out with or whatever, and he was like,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Just when I met her, I felt

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Speaker 1: like I already knew her. And I thought that was

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Speaker 1: such a cute like way to say that. And it

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Speaker 1: kind of sounds like that for them, like they met

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Speaker 1: each other and like you're already by person. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: already feels right. That's funny. I think when we met

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Speaker 1: it was like let's see no, maybe, yeah, I hate

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Speaker 1: a minute, no, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, no, it's good.

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Speaker 1: Do you think that summarizes your thought process? Maybe? Well

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Speaker 1: obviously yours was, Oh my god, I gotta lock this down.

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Speaker 1: There's a once in a lifetime opportunity. I was immediately

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Speaker 1: in this guy not let this solid gold get away

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Speaker 1: from me. That's actually true, because he would like make

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Speaker 1: me cookies in the middle of the nine. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there's not many guys who will do that for you,

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Speaker 1: all right. So these two met thunderbolt meeting, you know,

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Speaker 1: incredible sparks flying right away. They basically immediately began both

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Speaker 1: a romantic and creative partnership right there, and then by

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Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, just three years later, Claude was experimenting with

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Speaker 1: the portrait photography that would eventually make them notable, and

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Speaker 1: they were writing poetry. By nineteen sixteen, Suzanne had established

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Speaker 1: herself as a graphic artist and she was illustrating fashion

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Speaker 1: designs and publicity materials. But even this commercial work had

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Speaker 1: very avant garde elements, Like in one fashion plate that

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Speaker 1: she did in nineteen fifteen, she drew this woman with

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Speaker 1: a boyish haircut, wearing a loose fitting blazer and flared pants.

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Speaker 1: Right at the time nineteen fifteen, my twenties had not

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Speaker 1: come around yet they were not. So not only does

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Speaker 1: Suzanne predict the mode Garson fashion future, an art historian,

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Speaker 1: a professor, and interurs, a true Lattimer on Queer Cultural

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Speaker 1: Center dot org draws our attention to the shadow in

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Speaker 1: this picture. It's very obtrusive. It's kind of illogically placed.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't make a lot of sense with where the

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Speaker 1: light is coming from in the picture, and it even

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Speaker 1: kind of obscures the background in places. And this sort

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Speaker 1: of elevated the image from you know, just your basic

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Speaker 1: ass fashion advertisement into this really like more striking and

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Speaker 1: surreal artistic illustration. Like it really made it special, yeah,

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Speaker 1: in a way that if you look at it, And

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Speaker 1: we'll post a lot of these pictures on our Instagram

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Speaker 1: for this episode, so make sure you follow us there.

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Speaker 1: You know, you see this shadow and it doesn't make

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Speaker 1: a lot of sense, and I'm thinking, boy, if I

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Speaker 1: drew it, it would look like this because I'm bad

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Speaker 1: at drawing. But she makes it very intentional and it

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Speaker 1: has purpose to it. I think that's really cool and

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Speaker 1: it makes you look at it just makes you want

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Speaker 1: to look at because it's a little off, which is

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Speaker 1: the whole point of avant garde, right, was that it

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Speaker 1: was sort of just a little yeah wrong, and so

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Speaker 1: you felt like you were in a dream. Not to

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Speaker 1: mention it's the whole point of advertising, right, Did that

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Speaker 1: make people look at it? Yes. In nineteen seventeen, though,

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Speaker 1: Claude and Susanne's relationship took a bit of a strange

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Speaker 1: turn when Susanne's widowed mother married Claude's divorced father step

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Speaker 1: sisters eight years after their romantic relationship. Gun So in

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Speaker 1: most writing, when you look them up, they referred to

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Speaker 1: as the sisters, even though their their romantic connection did

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Speaker 1: come first. You know, and you know, this seems like

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Speaker 1: the most awkward thing that could possibly happen to a couple.

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Speaker 1: Pretty pretty good premise for a fun rom com. Though,

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Speaker 1: that's true. That's true that, like Susanne didn't know what

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Speaker 1: to do. Oh, Susanne, I'm so glad your home. I've

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Speaker 1: been wanting to introduce you to someone I've been seeing

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Speaker 1: Cloudes father. Hell now they'll have to learn what it's

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Speaker 1: like to be sisters in love. That's what it's called

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Speaker 1: sisters in love from McGee or something. Where's McGee been?

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Speaker 1: I don't know, make a movie project would be into

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Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I mean, it's been a long

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Speaker 1: time seen since anybody's seen a McGee's joint McGee joint well, anyway,

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Speaker 1: one day we'll make the Cloude Susanne McGee version of

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Speaker 1: their story boring movie ever made. Hey, Warner Brothers, have

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Speaker 1: we got a movie for you. It's called Sisters in Love?

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Speaker 1: And they're like, wait, what they're gonna be like security?

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Speaker 1: I think like a flowers in the attic thing or

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Speaker 1: what's going on? So, yeah, this seems like something that

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Speaker 1: is very weird and awkward and probably not something you

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Speaker 1: would want to happen now with you or a loved one.

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Speaker 1: But Tursa Latimer does point out that this was probably

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Speaker 1: a kind of a blessing in disguise because it allowed

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Speaker 1: the two of them to live together without anyone suspecting

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Speaker 1: their true relationship. Should they had like a really good

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Speaker 1: cover story for why they were together all the time,

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Speaker 1: that was more acceptable than we're gay lovers together. But

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Speaker 1: the thing is, this dynamic of everyone thinking of them

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Speaker 1: as sisters is also part of the problem in their legacy,

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Speaker 1: kind of in a way, because Suzanne, who ended up

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Speaker 1: taking her own gender neutral pseudonym, Marcel Moore, is actually

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Speaker 1: very often erased from conversations about Claude's photographs. Claude's art

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Speaker 1: is often called self portraiture, but they likely could not

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Speaker 1: have done it without Marcel's assistance, and they both wanted

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Speaker 1: us to know it turs a true. Latimer shows this

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Speaker 1: example where there's a photograph and the subject is Claude

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Speaker 1: as the model in the photograph, but at the bottom

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Speaker 1: right hand corner you can see the shadow of Marcel's

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Speaker 1: head positioned as Latimer writes, quote, where we're conditioned to

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Speaker 1: look for the artist's signature, so it's almost like Marcel's

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Speaker 1: shadow is the signature, Like, I look who took this picture? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So not only does this show us that, you know,

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Speaker 1: the level of importment involvement that Marcel had in the

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Speaker 1: art that Claude created, but it also kind of asks

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Speaker 1: us to think about the role of the viewer rather

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Speaker 1: than taking on like a voyeuristic quality. We know that

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Speaker 1: someone else within the world of the portrait is looking

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Speaker 1: at this subject, so it's about Marcel looking at Claude

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Speaker 1: rather than us looking into this picture frame right right.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's so fascinating the way they played

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Speaker 1: with the gays. Yeah in gays as in gay z right,

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Speaker 1: because they played with the games. But like I just read,

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Speaker 1: they're uh, really they wanted to play a lot with

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Speaker 1: who's looking even a lot of Claude's or Marcell's pictures

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Speaker 1: where they look back at the Yeah, what they're looking

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Speaker 1: at in what angle and everything. It's all much, very

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Speaker 1: much a part of the message of the art yea,

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Speaker 1: and what you're supposed to be thinking about as you're

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Speaker 1: looking at it, right, because you got to look at

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Speaker 1: Photography is like really new at this point, and everybody

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Speaker 1: is just kind of using photographs to record things that

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Speaker 1: really happen, like things that are true, Like I'm snapshotting

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Speaker 1: reality now you can look at at any time in

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Speaker 1: this picture. But these two are like subverting those expectations, right,

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Speaker 1: not just about their gender expression, but like what photography is.

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Speaker 1: They're playing with it as like an art form. You know,

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Speaker 1: they're showing things that couldn't exist in reality, which is

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Speaker 1: sort of what became the surrealist movement. Yeah, they're showing fantasy. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I think that's really interesting. Remember we talked about

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Speaker 1: Henry and Caress Crosby in the past episode, and they

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Speaker 1: were also around the twenties publishing work, and we're some

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Speaker 1: of the first people to consider photography to be an

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Speaker 1: art form. Yeah, So I think It's really interesting to

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Speaker 1: think about the idea of like, oh, picture is realistic.

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Speaker 1: I'm taking a picture of you, and that is exactly

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Speaker 1: how you look at this time, in this place. And

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Speaker 1: there's no lie in this photo, right, And Claude and

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Speaker 1: Marcel were like, but there could be a lie exact

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Speaker 1: or I could show you what could be true later

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Speaker 1: if I in another world, Yeah, in another time. If

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Speaker 1: I have the tools of reality in my hand, why

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Speaker 1: would I not tinker with it to manipulate reality? You know.

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Speaker 1: That's that's like god level kind of stuff. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: it's very cool. Yeah, but we are going to share

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Speaker 1: a lot of pictures. Oh, they do some really stuff.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I love surrealism, always kind of have. It's

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Speaker 1: really more accurate to call these two an artistic team

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Speaker 1: or collaborators, even as India Burgita Jarvis writes in her

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Speaker 1: article Historical Heroines quote two halves of a whole identity.

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Speaker 1: Yeah again, I think of another episode. Christo and John Claude.

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Speaker 1: Christo and John Claude. Yes, two artists, yeah, right, who

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Speaker 1: collaborated together. Jean Claude was extremely important to what work

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Speaker 1: was made and how it was made. But everyone calls

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Speaker 1: it a Cristo A Cristo, A Cristo, and it's the

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Speaker 1: very same thing Claude. It's always Claude Cahoun's work, Claude

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Speaker 1: Cahoun's work, but they're like, Marcella is an essential part

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Speaker 1: of this work. I kind of want to link that

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Speaker 1: episode in the show notes because if you haven't heard

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Speaker 1: that Cristo episode and Jean Claude, it's so cool, incredible,

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Speaker 1: and some of the resources were very interesting talking about

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Speaker 1: that because they were just talking about like how art,

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Speaker 1: the art world really prefers a solo genius, like this

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Speaker 1: very special person who could you know only this person

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Speaker 1: could be this type of person, right, instead of a

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Speaker 1: collaborative teamwork effort, which is actually harder. It's I think

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Speaker 1: it's harder to marry multiple visions than to create your

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Speaker 1: own all alone. Right. So in nineteen twenty Claude and

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Speaker 1: Marcel left the provinces and they moved to Paris and

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Speaker 1: they attended poetry reading, Russian ballets, literary salons, gallery exhibitions

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Speaker 1: and theater productions with some of the weirdest and coolest

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Speaker 1: artists in France. And we will hear all about it

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Speaker 1: right up to this welcome back everybody. So Claude and

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Speaker 1: Marcel are in the Stick of it All in Paris

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Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty, and of course they continue to produce art.

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Speaker 1: Their work, of course, was often about playing with gender

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Speaker 1: identity and expression. Costuming and staging were very important elements, right.

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Speaker 1: Claude often has a shaved head, and they pose in

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Speaker 1: a way that kind of obscures their body, so that

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Speaker 1: makes them appear to be genderless. Okay, sometimes they look

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Speaker 1: like both genders. Sometimes they're very lean, very hard into masculinity,

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Speaker 1: sometimes very hard into femininities. They are constantly playing. In

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Speaker 1: one portrait, Claude wears like heavyweight boxing shorts and they

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Speaker 1: hold weights like they're a heavyweight boxer. But they also

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Speaker 1: have pasties on their nipples and these painted on kind

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Speaker 1: of cupid's bow lips and spit curls to emphasize their femininity.

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Speaker 1: And the picture is captioned don't kiss me, I'm in training.

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Speaker 1: Love it, I know, right, so cool, and Latimer says

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Speaker 1: this kind of go ahead. No, I'm just laughing at that.

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Speaker 1: I know, a lot of the captions are so witty

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Speaker 1: and cute, like don't kiss me, I'm in training. So good, Yes,

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Speaker 1: she has another one where they have another one where

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Speaker 1: it's but it's them. It's two of their own heads

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Speaker 1: like it's a photo collage kind of thing, and one

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Speaker 1: of their heads is sort of looking at the other

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Speaker 1: one with this kind of weird face on, and the

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Speaker 1: caption is what do you want from me? Which I

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Speaker 1: love too because how often are you saying to yourself like,

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Speaker 1: what do you? What do you want? Because you're making

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Speaker 1: no sense? Yes, also, I mean you just don't kiss me.

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Speaker 1: I'm in training. It says so much too, because it's

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Speaker 1: also saying I can't do. I need to give you

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Speaker 1: a reason, yea, not to just walk up and kiss me. Fine,

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Speaker 1: I'm training for boxing. Right now, I'll punch you in

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Speaker 1: the kisser literally right. And actually that's something turns the

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Speaker 1: true Latimer is talking about in their article acting Out,

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Speaker 1: and she says this kind of invites us to question

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Speaker 1: what Claude is in training for exactly, like training to

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Speaker 1: be a boxer, or a training to learn to be

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Speaker 1: a woman or to unlearn being a woman, or how

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Speaker 1: to be a lesbian or you know what are they

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Speaker 1: in training for? Just training for life? Like you don't

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Speaker 1: interrupt me, get out of my way. Who knows. So

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Speaker 1: it's just lets you ask a lot of questions. And

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Speaker 1: Latimer points out, you know that at this period of time,

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Speaker 1: quote theories emphasizing the role of social conditioning in the

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Speaker 1: production of gender, we're coming into circulation at this time.

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Speaker 1: Also in nineteen twenty nine, Claude translated the writing of

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Speaker 1: Havelock Ellis into French. Have Luck. Ellis was a doctor

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Speaker 1: who studied human sexuality, and he had very controversial theories

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Speaker 1: about a third sex that united female and male traits,

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Speaker 1: but we're neither. He's like very early on, like Magnus Hirshfield,

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Speaker 1: one of these early sex scientists who's like trying to

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Speaker 1: understand instead of condemn. And that's in a I feel

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Speaker 1: like probably several non Western cultures especially, that's common exactly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And I mean you know, there you go. This is

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Speaker 1: this is such a cool thing about history. It does

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Speaker 1: not happen in a vacuum. Yeah, you have Orientalism, for

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Speaker 1: lack of a better phrase, right coming into vogue. Right,

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Speaker 1: So Eastern culture is a much more interesting to people.

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Speaker 1: They're looking into it. They must have seen stuff about

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Speaker 1: oh this third sex, Yeah, what is that? How? You know?

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Speaker 1: Kind of opening up your mind a little bit. I

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Speaker 1: mean maybe that had something to do with that, especially

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Speaker 1: for people who are probably like like, oh wow, this

399
00:22:32,119 --> 00:22:36,200
Speaker 1: very rigid, stiff, stuffy way of life I've been living

400
00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:41,760
Speaker 1: isn't fulfilling me. I feel kind of bored and constrained. Yeah, right,

401
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Speaker 1: when I'm alive in the physical universe and it feels

402
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Speaker 1: like it should be more exciting than this for real. Yeah.

403
00:22:47,320 --> 00:22:51,399
Speaker 1: And also data is painter Marcel Duchamp even like unveiled

404
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Speaker 1: a female alter ego of his that he named Rose Selviny.

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Speaker 1: But as the art story dot org points out, unlike Duchamp,

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Speaker 1: Claude Marcel's gender neutral pseudonyms and their artwork and everything,

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Speaker 1: we're quote not about changing gender but about escaping such oppositional,

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Speaker 1: constructed ties altogether. Ah. Yes, so very much non binary

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Speaker 1: life before that was even a fully understood, right idea. Right,

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Speaker 1: I've always found that very interesting. The idea of kind

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Speaker 1: of gender bending in some ways, in some fashion also

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Speaker 1: still reinforces the idea that a gender is supposed to

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Speaker 1: be something, or look like something, or wear something, you know.

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Speaker 1: And the more we sort of break it down and say, look,

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Speaker 1: you know, if I wear a skirt, I'm not dressing

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Speaker 1: like a woman, right, you know that's probably something that

417
00:23:44,080 --> 00:23:49,000
Speaker 1: should change, tying particular looks or names or whatever to

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Speaker 1: one gender or the other. Right, And how much have

419
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:55,239
Speaker 1: we talked in the past about like you wore a

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Speaker 1: man's clothes, you were a man like. People literally could

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Speaker 1: not grasp that you had a different body under the right. Right.

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Speaker 1: Other portraits that these two created together, some of them

423
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:08,720
Speaker 1: have Claude sort of as a like a character of

424
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:14,680
Speaker 1: an aviator or a dandy, a doll, bodybuilder, vampire, or

425
00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:18,200
Speaker 1: an angel Buddha in one of them. There's one where

426
00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:21,359
Speaker 1: it's a Japanese puppet, and the Museum of Modern Art

427
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:25,119
Speaker 1: website says that Claude once explained, quote under this mask

428
00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:29,679
Speaker 1: another mask, I will never finish removing all of these faces.

429
00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:33,879
Speaker 1: I love it. Yes, so interesting. It's like I'm not

430
00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:38,000
Speaker 1: you know, hoops amongst us is one thing, right? And

431
00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:40,560
Speaker 1: if you take this off of me, this there's something

432
00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:43,679
Speaker 1: else in there? And can you ever find right the

433
00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:47,320
Speaker 1: one true face? Right? Is there only one? Probably not?

434
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:50,680
Speaker 1: Why would you want one? Right? Again? Like we're here

435
00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:53,520
Speaker 1: for X number of you know, years, If we're lucky

436
00:24:54,280 --> 00:25:00,520
Speaker 1: in a goofy ass mess of protons, neutrons and electrons

437
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 1: that all grouped together to make this thing. And why

438
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:08,439
Speaker 1: are we deciding what that needs to mean? You know,

439
00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 1: what it has to be in relation to each other

440
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:13,199
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Yeah, and like limiting. Yeah, so

441
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:17,359
Speaker 1: much of what we can experience, our feel, or enjoy.

442
00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:22,399
Speaker 1: While Claude and Marcel were in Paris, the Surrealist movement began,

443
00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 1: and this was headed up by Andre Breton, who they

444
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:28,480
Speaker 1: did make friends with, even though this guy, if you

445
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:31,760
Speaker 1: don't know him, he was a homophobe and a misogynist. Yeah.

446
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:35,200
Speaker 1: In fact, the whole surrealist movement was kind of homophobic

447
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 1: and misogynist. Yeah, Louise Downey writes, and Heritage Magazine quote

448
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:43,240
Speaker 1: it was a very much male dominated group, led by

449
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:46,679
Speaker 1: the function and image of women in surrealist art was

450
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:50,560
Speaker 1: often the role of muse child or femme fatale. Women

451
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 1: were treated as objects to inspire male genius. Their bodies

452
00:25:54,560 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 1: were for use as esthetic objects and for male desire.

453
00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:03,760
Speaker 1: But in Claude's photographs, as Moment explains, they quote staged

454
00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:08,800
Speaker 1: images of themselves that challenge the idea of static gender, right,

455
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 1: and maybe that's why Breton never really liked Claude, right,

456
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:15,440
Speaker 1: he didn't like their weird outfits, he hated their same

457
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:19,239
Speaker 1: sex relationship. But they were so damn good. They were

458
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:23,400
Speaker 1: so brilliant and coming up with this like just unthought

459
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:28,159
Speaker 1: of techniques and compositions. Even he had to put some

460
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:30,600
Speaker 1: respect on their name. He once said that Claude was

461
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:34,200
Speaker 1: quote one of the most curious spirits of our time,

462
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 1: which I love is a compliment and also not a

463
00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:39,439
Speaker 1: compliment at the same time. He's just like, that's a

464
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:42,520
Speaker 1: weirdo over there. And yeah, even though they were never

465
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 1: like quote unquote official members of the surrealist movement, which

466
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:51,240
Speaker 1: how do you know, Well, it was a card, but

467
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 1: it was printed on an orange peel. Oh okay, yeah

468
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: makes perfect, Yeah surrealist sence. Right. Um, so yeah, they

469
00:26:59,040 --> 00:27:01,800
Speaker 1: were never like a fish on the orange polist or whatever,

470
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:04,159
Speaker 1: but it should be noted that they were both at

471
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 1: the forefront of that esthetic. Yeah. In the mid nineteen twenties,

472
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:12,439
Speaker 1: a publisher asked Claude to write basically an autobiography, what

473
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:16,359
Speaker 1: the publisher called a confessional, and Claude was real reluctant

474
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:19,240
Speaker 1: because you know, they're kind of like under this face

475
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:22,200
Speaker 1: another face. How could I ever explain to you. Sure,

476
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 1: I could never get it down to just fact quote

477
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:27,960
Speaker 1: unquote fact. There's no such thing as fact. In my opinions,

478
00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 1: I am Claude, I am an artist, and I am

479
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 1: a rhinoceros, and I am a liquid puddle on the ground.

480
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 1: That's right, I meant much right. So then two years later,

481
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:44,439
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty eight, Claude handed this publisher friend a

482
00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:49,800
Speaker 1: manuscript of their book, Avoul non Avenue, which is translated

483
00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 1: in different places as disavowed confessions, canceled confessions, disavowals, or

484
00:27:56,880 --> 00:28:01,840
Speaker 1: simply denials. Okay, now, Latimer calls it a quote anti realist,

485
00:28:02,040 --> 00:28:07,399
Speaker 1: indeed surrealistic critique of autobiography because it's both confession and

486
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:10,640
Speaker 1: denial at the same time. Okay, sounds like the weird

487
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:14,080
Speaker 1: Ol movie, right it right? Like Claude probably would have

488
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:17,439
Speaker 1: fucking loved the weird Al movie. Let's be real plots

489
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:20,639
Speaker 1: like you write your own story baby. In the introduction,

490
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:24,680
Speaker 1: Claude writes, quote, until I see everything clearly, I want

491
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 1: to hunt myself down, struggle with myself. I think it

492
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:31,280
Speaker 1: describes their art a lot too, because again, it's a

493
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 1: lot of exploring who they are and what they could

494
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: be sure thing. So that publisher friend did decline the

495
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:40,480
Speaker 1: man your script and they were like, this is a

496
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:43,479
Speaker 1: little far out for me. But it was published by

497
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 1: the anti Nazi publishing house care it For in nineteen thirty.

498
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:50,719
Speaker 1: And since we don't have a full poem by Claude

499
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 1: to share with you, we're going to share some of

500
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:56,000
Speaker 1: what they wrote in this collection of quote poem essays

501
00:28:56,160 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 1: or essay poems. So let's go down to poetry essay

502
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 1: a corner and hear a few excerpts from Avoux non

503
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 1: Avenue by Claude Cahun. I welcomed young monsters into myself

504
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 1: and nurtured them, but the makeup I had used seemed indelible.

505
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 1: I rubbed so hard to remove it that I took

506
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 1: off all the skin, and my soul like a flayed face, naked,

507
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 1: no longer had a human form. Surely you are not

508
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 1: claiming to be more homosexual than I. Yes, permit me

509
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:39,280
Speaker 1: to warn reckless young women seeing the trap doesn't prevent

510
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:43,720
Speaker 1: you from getting caught in it, and that doubles the pleasure.

511
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: What does a well behave child dream about, apart from

512
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 1: the inhumane, the monstrous, the impossible, the ordinary. Oh, may

513
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 1: the birds not expect any speeches about aviation from me.

514
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:03,920
Speaker 1: Oh my god boy, we need that quote. I want

515
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 1: that written in the sky. That is like everyone, I

516
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:09,200
Speaker 1: was like, that's the most poetic way to say, stay

517
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:12,600
Speaker 1: in your laying. You know what. I'm not gonna go

518
00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:16,040
Speaker 1: give the birds a monologue about flying, which I love

519
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:20,000
Speaker 1: because surely they're like, stop telling me what a woman is. Yeah,

520
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 1: stop telling me what a man is. I'm a human

521
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:24,480
Speaker 1: being and I know what it is. Yeah, I'll tell you.

522
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 1: You know, I just think that's true. Don't tell me

523
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 1: about my own life. So good, angels with patched wings, sales, flirtations,

524
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:36,720
Speaker 1: less midden modesties. Let's use up heaven down to the dregs,

525
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 1: the verb, down to the insult, the espadrilla, and the liar,

526
00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:46,720
Speaker 1: down to the last string. I am ambiguous to you, nuther.

527
00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 1: You can neither make head nor tails of me. I

528
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 1: provoke your metoxinphobia, your fear of the in between. I

529
00:30:56,240 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 1: challenge you to a dual gaze. Who looks away first loses.

530
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:08,760
Speaker 1: Oh that's so good. The duel gays look, We're both

531
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:10,520
Speaker 1: going to look at each other. Can you handle it?

532
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:13,360
Speaker 1: Because I can handle it, that's right, and she I

533
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 1: mean they do spell it duel yeah, d u e L.

534
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 1: So not just duel d u a L two gays,

535
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:23,960
Speaker 1: but rather I'm challenging. I love it brilliant. Now, besides

536
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 1: writing this surrealist, you know, anti biography, Claude and Marcel

537
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:31,959
Speaker 1: made their mark in other ways on the overall surrealist movement.

538
00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 1: In one of their photos of Claude and Trafalgar Square

539
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:39,880
Speaker 1: with this flower arrangement obscuring their heads surrounded by birds,

540
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 1: It's been reprinted in several books about surrealism. I took

541
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:45,760
Speaker 1: a look. I've definitely seen this before. You probably have

542
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 1: two very cool, very surreal, very much looks like a dream.

543
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 1: And in addition, according to Terza Latimer, Claude not only

544
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:57,640
Speaker 1: quote signed but helped compose many of the political tracks

545
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 1: generated by Breton and his porters during the nineteen thirties. Right,

546
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 1: and this wasn't I didn't want to get too much

547
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:09,080
Speaker 1: into this, but it's another interesting parallel to today. Yeah,

548
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:11,560
Speaker 1: in a way was that Claude was like, my life

549
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 1: is already politicized. High identity is politicized. Right, I'm Jewish

550
00:32:16,480 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 1: in the thirties, so beyond any sexuality, gender identity, anything.

551
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:27,400
Speaker 1: My very existence is being politically debated. Yeah. Now, Claude

552
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:31,600
Speaker 1: and Marcel were also creating puppets and like and surrealist

553
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:35,360
Speaker 1: photos that involved these puppets that quote negotiated between the

554
00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:38,719
Speaker 1: theater of political opposition and the theater of dreams, the

555
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 1: psyche and the revolution, the two polls, in other words,

556
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 1: of surrealist practice. One of their puppets, for example, was

557
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:51,400
Speaker 1: of I'd like this Nazi soldier, but it was created

558
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 1: from the pages of a communist newspaper, and this was

559
00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 1: meant to show the quote merger of two totalitarian schools

560
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:02,880
Speaker 1: of thought, that of Hitler and that of Stalin m

561
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 1: oh They almost formed the same kind of murder machine.

562
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 1: And it was basically this schism that spelled the end

563
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:13,880
Speaker 1: of the surrealist movement in nineteen thirty five, because many

564
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:16,960
Speaker 1: of the artists joined the French Communist Party at the

565
00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 1: expense of their surrealist activities. But Claude and Marcel, along

566
00:33:21,120 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 1: with Andre Breton, kind of rejected the idea that communism

567
00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 1: was the only answer to rising fascism. It was people

568
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 1: being like, how do we really fix this Hitler problem?

569
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:33,680
Speaker 1: I know, we'll do it in the political arena, and

570
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 1: they felt that art again was political and could play

571
00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 1: its part. Yeah. In an essay that Claude wrote called

572
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 1: bets Are on the Art story dot Org writes that

573
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 1: Claude quote promotes a type of art that uses poetry

574
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: rather than propaganda to spread its message through indirect action,

575
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:53,800
Speaker 1: as they called it, and Breton loved this. I think

576
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 1: it was after they wrote this that Breton was like,

577
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:59,000
Speaker 1: I guess you're all right. You're a curious spirit there.

578
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:02,560
Speaker 1: So yeah, even again, just to say, even though their

579
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:06,480
Speaker 1: names are not in the list of historic surrealists, they

580
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:09,560
Speaker 1: did help create that movement. They were fully part of

581
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:11,919
Speaker 1: founding that. It's got to be interesting too to kind

582
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 1: of ally with someone like Breton. It's like homophobe and

583
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:20,319
Speaker 1: chauvinists against rising fascism, right, which is like a lot

584
00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:23,120
Speaker 1: of their whole platform too. I know, so you're really

585
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, strange bedfellows, which, of course Breton

586
00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:29,919
Speaker 1: would say, no strange bedfellows, I know, right, I only

587
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 1: want predictable bedfellows, or I'll take strange bed ladies. Yeah,

588
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:39,720
Speaker 1: but no bed fellows for me. So Claude and Marcel

589
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:45,920
Speaker 1: spent seventeen years in Paris. They made poetry, essays, articles, sculptures,

590
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:51,360
Speaker 1: photo montages, portraits, collages, theatrical productions. They founded this certain

591
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 1: you know, they helped found the surrealist movement, and they

592
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 1: got involved in politics. And the body of work that

593
00:34:56,560 --> 00:34:59,200
Speaker 1: they created in that time is enough to make an

594
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:01,920
Speaker 1: episode about that, enough to give them a place in history.

595
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 1: But their greatest project was yet to come, and we

596
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 1: would get to that right after these words welcome back.

597
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:17,560
Speaker 1: So in nineteen thirty five, Claude co founded a group

598
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:21,760
Speaker 1: protesting the rise of Hitler and the spread of fascism.

599
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:25,600
Speaker 1: But Paris was becoming kind of an uncomfortable place to

600
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:29,399
Speaker 1: be Jewish, like so many places at that time. So

601
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty seven they chose to move to the

602
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:36,239
Speaker 1: island of Jersey. Yeah, they had spent a lot of

603
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:39,600
Speaker 1: childhood vacations there. They were highly familiar with the Island

604
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:41,879
Speaker 1: of Jersey. They were into it. They were like, let's

605
00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 1: go where we were happy. They were like, you know, Jay,

606
00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 1: z Ali, Jay, let's go to the Jersey shoe a baby.

607
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: But after France felt the Nazis in nineteen forty, Jersey

608
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:56,400
Speaker 1: and Guernsey were occupied by the Nazis. That was the

609
00:35:56,440 --> 00:35:59,640
Speaker 1: closest the Nazis ever got to actually getting into England.

610
00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:03,520
Speaker 1: Most people left these islands as quickly as they could,

611
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:08,080
Speaker 1: but Claude and Marcel decided they weren't going nowhere. They said, well,

612
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:11,120
Speaker 1: we'll art our way out of this. I'm old, I'm

613
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 1: sick of moving. Yeah. It's like those people that stay

614
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 1: at the foot of the volcano and you're like it's

615
00:36:17,200 --> 00:36:20,360
Speaker 1: erupting tomorrow and they're like, yeah, but I'm still working

616
00:36:20,400 --> 00:36:23,759
Speaker 1: on that wicker furniture outside. I'm going nowhere. The art

617
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 1: story dot Org says quote. At this time, Cahoun and

618
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:30,279
Speaker 1: Moore started to use their original names again, and they

619
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:33,239
Speaker 1: became known as Les Madame to the other local inhabitants

620
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:36,880
Speaker 1: of Jersey, and they gained a reputation for strange behaviors,

621
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 1: such as taking their cat for a walk on a

622
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 1: leash and wearing trousers. What so everyone in Jerseys just like, oh,

623
00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 1: these two ladies over here, they're walking there cats, Lucy

624
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:53,439
Speaker 1: and Suzanne. They're always wearing pants. You know what. They're

625
00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:56,279
Speaker 1: clearly old and kooky. This is how we all talk

626
00:36:56,400 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: in Jersey. What I love about that is that they

627
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:03,799
Speaker 1: clearly were like, you know, trying to be a little

628
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:07,200
Speaker 1: dl They're like, we'll be Lucy and Suzanne. Yeah, you know,

629
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:09,920
Speaker 1: we'll try to look like sisters. You know, we're not

630
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:13,960
Speaker 1: gonna parade our relationship around. It's kind of dangerous. But

631
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:16,400
Speaker 1: they also were like, and also, we're still weird and

632
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:19,239
Speaker 1: we're not going to conform. Yeah, completely, So I kind

633
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:21,720
Speaker 1: of love that they sort of found like a line

634
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 1: to walk. I guess there's nothing no character I like

635
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 1: better than a than a kook in their fifties, you know,

636
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:33,960
Speaker 1: just total unconventional weirdo out there living life. They're like,

637
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 1: I've done the thing for too long and now I'm

638
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:38,640
Speaker 1: gonna be myself, right, you know, I think we should

639
00:37:38,640 --> 00:37:41,640
Speaker 1: all aspire that if not younger, these two would also

640
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:45,359
Speaker 1: sunbathe naked together. It likely not anywhere where people could

641
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:49,080
Speaker 1: see them, right, you know, most people just assumed that

642
00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 1: they were a couple of weirdo spinster sisters. And of

643
00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 1: course this was a really good cover for them. That's right,

644
00:37:55,040 --> 00:38:00,359
Speaker 1: because their biggest project during the Nazi occupation was resistant Yes,

645
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 1: putting their political, artistic and writing abilities to work, they

646
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:09,360
Speaker 1: launched an anti Nazi propaganda campaign that reached every corner

647
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:12,840
Speaker 1: of the islands. That indirect action that Claude had a

648
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:16,719
Speaker 1: spouse in bets are on sure. Jeffrey H. Jackson, a

649
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:20,839
Speaker 1: history professor, wrote the definitive biography of this particular part

650
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:24,120
Speaker 1: of their lives in his book Paper Bullets, which I love.

651
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:28,319
Speaker 1: The idea of paper bullet so cool. He says, it

652
00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:30,680
Speaker 1: all started when the two of them found a photo

653
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:33,800
Speaker 1: in a German magazine of a marching regiment of soldiers.

654
00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:36,280
Speaker 1: And of course this is a German magazine. It's supposed

655
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:38,399
Speaker 1: to make them look really badass and cool in their

656
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:41,320
Speaker 1: winning and everything's going great. But the two were struck

657
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 1: by the fact that the top of the photo featured

658
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:46,560
Speaker 1: the soldier's arms swinging, that it had a sense of

659
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:50,880
Speaker 1: action in progress, but the bottom featured their mud covered boots,

660
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:53,480
Speaker 1: and econom made them look, as Claude wrote in a

661
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 1: letter quote, as though they were stuck in mud. So

662
00:38:57,320 --> 00:38:59,640
Speaker 1: Claude and Marcel ripped the picture in half. They just

663
00:38:59,719 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 1: kept a part of the boots looking like they were

664
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:06,240
Speaker 1: stuck in mud. Right, They wrote own end or without

665
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:09,279
Speaker 1: end in German cross it sorry if I pronounced that wrong,

666
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:12,359
Speaker 1: And then they removed this beloved picture they had of

667
00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:16,200
Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas from a beautiful frame

668
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 1: they had, and they replaced it with these endlessly marching,

669
00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:23,719
Speaker 1: mud covered Nazis in this like beautiful frame. Then they

670
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 1: snuck into this abandoned house that was about to become

671
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:29,960
Speaker 1: soldiers quarters, and they hung the picture on a wall

672
00:39:30,040 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 1: right where the sun would hit it and make it

673
00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:36,320
Speaker 1: impossible to ignore. Yes, Jackson writes in Paper Bullets quote.

674
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:39,719
Speaker 1: The soldiers might not immediately see the image, but when

675
00:39:39,719 --> 00:39:42,880
Speaker 1: they did, each would likely think that perhaps one of

676
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:45,719
Speaker 1: the other men had hung it. Such a thought might

677
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:49,760
Speaker 1: so confusion and mistrust in their ranks. Yes, and Claude

678
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 1: and Marcel hoped the men would start thinking that Hitler's

679
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:56,000
Speaker 1: war might never end. Oh I love that. Yeah, you know,

680
00:39:56,239 --> 00:39:59,520
Speaker 1: some soldier sees these boots and it's like you'll know

681
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:03,080
Speaker 1: now is if I think about it? Are we going

682
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:05,600
Speaker 1: to be doing this forever? Now? This was just the

683
00:40:05,680 --> 00:40:09,600
Speaker 1: beginning for Claude and Marcel. These artists would listen to

684
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:13,239
Speaker 1: the BBC, which was illegal to do, right, and they

685
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 1: would translate what was said into German, which Marcel was

686
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 1: fluent in. Although obviously the Nazi occupiers didn't know that

687
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 1: she was. They would type up or write the words

688
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:25,799
Speaker 1: on small pieces of tissue paper and they would sign

689
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:30,279
Speaker 1: them the Soldier with no name as an example. One

690
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 1: famous message was a drawing of a Nazi soldier on

691
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:38,360
Speaker 1: a sinking ship called the ss Reich, sporting a Swastika

692
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:41,279
Speaker 1: flag and clearly like waving his arms desperately in the

693
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:48,279
Speaker 1: air hoping to be rescued. Means most of the messages

694
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 1: that Claude put out would urge the troops to mutiny

695
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:55,359
Speaker 1: and shoot their officers. And then Claude and Marcel would

696
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:59,279
Speaker 1: get dressed up and attend German military events and this

697
00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:01,600
Speaker 1: all out of the to kind of slide up to

698
00:41:01,760 --> 00:41:06,440
Speaker 1: soldiers and slip these little pamphlets into their pockets or

699
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:08,799
Speaker 1: like put them on their chairs they were there when

700
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:11,239
Speaker 1: they came to sit back down. Usually Marcell was one

701
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:14,040
Speaker 1: doing this, and I just can't imagine the danger. No,

702
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:16,840
Speaker 1: they were putting themselves in to do this. It's incredible.

703
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 1: It's so funny too, to like pickpocket, but you're adding

704
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 1: a plick pocket. Yeah they're a click pocket. But yeah,

705
00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:28,440
Speaker 1: apparently Marcell took the greatest risk. Yeah, so that's cool too. Again,

706
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 1: Marcell doesn't get as much attention as Claude, but Marcelle's

707
00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 1: balls of steel. I mean this time as somebody who's

708
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 1: sliding an illegal pamphlet saying please shoot your officer into

709
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:42,879
Speaker 1: some guy's pocket. I'm hoping he don't notice. That's I mean,

710
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:46,040
Speaker 1: you know, I would get scared passing a note to

711
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:48,680
Speaker 1: my friend in the back of French class. It just

712
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:51,319
Speaker 1: said like, you know, farts with a little picture of

713
00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: a cloud on it, and we'd like giggle and stuff,

714
00:41:54,160 --> 00:41:56,239
Speaker 1: and that's the scariest thing in the world. Would be

715
00:41:56,320 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 1: someone to say, Eli, what was on that note? Elena,

716
00:41:59,160 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 1: share with the class? But scary, Oh my god, so scary.

717
00:42:04,480 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 1: Other times they would hide messages inside the cover of

718
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:10,640
Speaker 1: a cigarette box and be like, oh, you left your

719
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:14,480
Speaker 1: smokes over here. Um. Sometimes they would hide these messages

720
00:42:14,520 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 1: in the pages of German language magazines. Sometimes they'd even

721
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 1: just crumple them up on a piece of paper and

722
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:22,319
Speaker 1: throw them through the windows of cars, right of like

723
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:25,920
Speaker 1: German officers cars. One of the biggest pranks is when

724
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:29,880
Speaker 1: they hung a banner in a church that said quote,

725
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:35,560
Speaker 1: Jesus is great, but Hitler is greater because Jesus died

726
00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:42,239
Speaker 1: for people but people die for Hitler. WHOA wow, that

727
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:46,000
Speaker 1: is like, oh my god, that's the most ice called burn.

728
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:51,800
Speaker 1: I totally roasted, totally roasted. And they hung a banner.

729
00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 1: I know, right. That takes a second. That's not like

730
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:57,799
Speaker 1: slipping something into someone's pocket. That ain't no quick thing.

731
00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 1: You gotta first show up with a all right, and

732
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:03,560
Speaker 1: then the pastor has to be like, sure you need

733
00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:05,920
Speaker 1: some thumbtachs or like what do you need? Did anyone

734
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 1: see anyone walk through these doors with a giant banner

735
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:13,399
Speaker 1: into hands? Not? I. This is another cool thing and

736
00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:16,800
Speaker 1: kind of frustrating thing as person knew likes history about

737
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:19,840
Speaker 1: pockets of resistance to the Nazis is that even after

738
00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:22,799
Speaker 1: the Nazis were gone, people still didn't talk about it.

739
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:24,800
Speaker 1: You know, they were like, it still could put you

740
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:27,759
Speaker 1: in danger. Yeah, some people are still alive. They still

741
00:43:27,800 --> 00:43:31,200
Speaker 1: have feelings about what happened or whatever. And I need

742
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:33,840
Speaker 1: to keep this to myself. There's plenty of things that

743
00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:36,120
Speaker 1: we're never going to know anything about that people did.

744
00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:38,720
Speaker 1: And so I imagine they show up at this church,

745
00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:43,399
Speaker 1: somebody looked the other way to let them hang that up. Yeah, exactly. Now,

746
00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:47,759
Speaker 1: for four years Claude and Marcel did this incredible four years.

747
00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:50,800
Speaker 1: They got away with this and it drove the Nazis crazy.

748
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:53,919
Speaker 1: The best thing to do. I know, I'm incredible. These

749
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:57,439
Speaker 1: guys were convinced that there was some widespread conspiracy within

750
00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 1: their ranks. So there was this large scale resistance movement

751
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:02,640
Speaker 1: going on right under their noses. And it was like, oh,

752
00:44:02,680 --> 00:44:04,640
Speaker 1: we're making them so crazy that they couldn't figure out

753
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:08,600
Speaker 1: who it was. But then in nineteen forty four, the

754
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:12,239
Speaker 1: woman who sold Claude and Marcel the tissue paper that

755
00:44:12,320 --> 00:44:16,319
Speaker 1: they used to write these messages on informed on them,

756
00:44:17,239 --> 00:44:20,839
Speaker 1: and Claude and Marcel were arrested for treason. They were

757
00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:25,480
Speaker 1: both subjected to quote arduous interrogation, as Latimer calls it,

758
00:44:25,719 --> 00:44:29,240
Speaker 1: because they would not reveal the names of their collaborators. Wow,

759
00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:33,120
Speaker 1: and that's because the Nazis were convinced that some men

760
00:44:33,520 --> 00:44:37,640
Speaker 1: must be involved. These are two fifty something women. I mean,

761
00:44:37,880 --> 00:44:40,720
Speaker 1: what can you do the way you're doing this by yourself,

762
00:44:41,960 --> 00:44:45,040
Speaker 1: Just just a couple of old ladies, still not capable

763
00:44:45,080 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 1: of anything but being grandmothers, on baking cookies, on having

764
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:53,359
Speaker 1: some cat Now tell me the name of the man

765
00:44:53,440 --> 00:45:03,360
Speaker 1: who masterminded this entire amazing resistance movement photographs pants. Some

766
00:45:03,840 --> 00:45:08,720
Speaker 1: man gave you his pants. As Claude Calhoun put it, quote,

767
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:11,400
Speaker 1: they were forced at the end of the day to

768
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:16,240
Speaker 1: condemn us without believing in our existence. Wow. So Claude

769
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:19,359
Speaker 1: and Marcel were charged with listening to the radio and

770
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 1: inciting the troops to rebellion, and the first charge had

771
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:27,200
Speaker 1: a sentence of six years in prison. The second charge

772
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:31,520
Speaker 1: had a death sentence, and apparently after she heard this,

773
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 1: Claude stood up in the courtroom and asked the judge

774
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 1: which sentence would be served first. Incredible. She also apparently

775
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:46,520
Speaker 1: said that she would have to be shot twice, once

776
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:49,600
Speaker 1: for being a resistor and once for being Jewish, and

777
00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:52,320
Speaker 1: all this witch got a big laugh in the courtroom.

778
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:58,040
Speaker 1: No one could deny that she was funny. The prosecuting

779
00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:00,400
Speaker 1: Nazi officer probably took off his hat and punched a

780
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:03,560
Speaker 1: whole right. Oh, heat one's a funny, I wasn't me.

781
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 1: So Claude and Marcel were thrown into separate prison cells,

782
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:11,480
Speaker 1: and this was the first time since they met that

783
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 1: they would ever live apart. It's unclear from records whether

784
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 1: their death sentences were commuted or if the Nazis just

785
00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:22,440
Speaker 1: ran out of time because the island of Jersey and

786
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:25,640
Speaker 1: our heroines were both liberated when the Allies showed up

787
00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:29,440
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty five. But by then their house had

788
00:46:29,480 --> 00:46:32,680
Speaker 1: already been requisitioned by the Nazis, so of course most

789
00:46:32,719 --> 00:46:36,000
Speaker 1: of the art inside was destroyed, including artwork by Max

790
00:46:36,160 --> 00:46:40,839
Speaker 1: Ernst and Joan Merrow. But sadly prison was really detrimental

791
00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:44,239
Speaker 1: to Claude's health, which had never been great to begin with.

792
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:47,560
Speaker 1: But you know, we can imagine how terribly they were

793
00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:50,560
Speaker 1: treated in jail, considering that they were Jewish and a

794
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:53,799
Speaker 1: lesbian and a resistor, which is like the trifecta of

795
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:57,360
Speaker 1: Nazi hatred right right that they died in nineteen fifty

796
00:46:57,360 --> 00:47:01,040
Speaker 1: four at the age of sixty. Cell relocated to a

797
00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:04,560
Speaker 1: smaller house and there's literally absolutely just nothing recorded about

798
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:07,879
Speaker 1: her until nineteen seventy two, and she died by suicide

799
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:11,319
Speaker 1: and she's buried next to Claude in Saint Crolaid's Church

800
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:14,640
Speaker 1: in Jersey. Claude and Marcell's life and legacy were pretty

801
00:47:14,719 --> 00:47:18,280
Speaker 1: much lost to history until the nineteen nineties, when Francois

802
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:25,319
Speaker 1: le Pelier published the biography Claude Cahoun Masks and metamorphoses. Then,

803
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:28,839
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven, none other than David Bowie,

804
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:31,880
Speaker 1: who is of course another appreciator of playing with gender

805
00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:36,040
Speaker 1: expression and presentation, curated an exhibit of Claude Cahoun's work

806
00:47:36,120 --> 00:47:39,760
Speaker 1: for the New York Highline Festival. Claude and Marcell's radical

807
00:47:39,800 --> 00:47:45,040
Speaker 1: exploration and challenging of femininity, gender, beauty, social and economic boundaries.

808
00:47:45,280 --> 00:47:48,560
Speaker 1: Everything that they had encompassed in their work had finally

809
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:52,600
Speaker 1: been unearthed and given new appreciation. In twenty eighteen, a

810
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 1: street in France, near where they had lived in Montparnasse,

811
00:47:55,760 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 1: was named for them, and that same year Christian Dior

812
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:03,320
Speaker 1: unveiled an entire androgynous fashion line inspired by Claude Cahoun. Amazing.

813
00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:05,840
Speaker 1: They also got like a Google doodle and stuff, So

814
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:08,880
Speaker 1: just really recently, you know, a lot of interest around

815
00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:13,040
Speaker 1: their work. At these two were obviously incredible artists. They

816
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 1: refused to be defined by anything, not their time, their gender, society,

817
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:20,520
Speaker 1: their government, not even their work. To find them, they

818
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:24,000
Speaker 1: were constantly experimenting, like constantly playing, like we said, just

819
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:27,520
Speaker 1: manipulating reality in every way that they could. And their

820
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:33,200
Speaker 1: commitment to one another is equally Amazing India. Brigitte Jarvis

821
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 1: in that article Historical Heroines wrote, quote from nineteen oh

822
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:40,279
Speaker 1: eight to Cahoun's death in nineteen fifty four. They lived

823
00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:44,799
Speaker 1: together first and then in Paris then Jersey, created and

824
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:48,920
Speaker 1: published together, walked their cats on leashes together, sun bathed

825
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:53,880
Speaker 1: naked together, resisted Nazi occupation together, were arrested together, and

826
00:48:54,120 --> 00:48:58,640
Speaker 1: sentenced to death together. So really, you know, a total

827
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:01,799
Speaker 1: twin flame kind of situation. Yeah, Like once they were

828
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:04,320
Speaker 1: like this is it? That was it? Like they were

829
00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:07,839
Speaker 1: inextricably linked. I mean, they were so ahead of their

830
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:11,439
Speaker 1: time that even now, like a hundred years later, their

831
00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:14,759
Speaker 1: work is still a revelation. Yeah, they're still saying things

832
00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:18,800
Speaker 1: that are fresh and weird and new. Yeah. But something

833
00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:21,319
Speaker 1: I love about them too is that they always appreciated

834
00:49:21,360 --> 00:49:23,560
Speaker 1: that the gaze of the viewer or the participation of

835
00:49:23,600 --> 00:49:27,399
Speaker 1: the reader was essential to the work, which is something

836
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:30,040
Speaker 1: that I really love about theater and performance in general.

837
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:33,080
Speaker 1: I feel like theater without an audience is a rehearsal. Right,

838
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:35,800
Speaker 1: It's not done until it's put in front of someone

839
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:39,480
Speaker 1: and you get to have that energy come back to you.

840
00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:42,640
Speaker 1: You know. That's just something I find so powerful about it. So,

841
00:49:42,840 --> 00:49:47,399
Speaker 1: to use Claude's own words, quote, if the adventuress has

842
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 1: managed to get rid of the whole paraphernalia of facts,

843
00:49:51,480 --> 00:49:56,040
Speaker 1: has made herself invisible man and invisible woman, it's due

844
00:49:56,080 --> 00:50:00,440
Speaker 1: to the indispensable collaboration of the reader. I love that

845
00:50:00,480 --> 00:50:02,719
Speaker 1: because I think you and I have talked to about

846
00:50:02,719 --> 00:50:05,560
Speaker 1: when you take in art or watch a movie or something,

847
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:08,080
Speaker 1: the way you're watching it really matters, Yes, the mood

848
00:50:08,080 --> 00:50:09,719
Speaker 1: you're in, if you're willing to go along with it

849
00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:12,000
Speaker 1: or not. It changes if you like it. Yeah, So

850
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:14,399
Speaker 1: you have to collaborate in the work that you take

851
00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:17,160
Speaker 1: in and consume the collaboration of the observer of a

852
00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:19,880
Speaker 1: piece of art. I just love looking at that because

853
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:23,520
Speaker 1: it affects the art. It is what the art is

854
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:28,879
Speaker 1: in many cases about is the impact that it has, right,

855
00:50:29,160 --> 00:50:35,960
Speaker 1: And I like being an observer, like participating in that respect. Yeah.

856
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:38,120
Speaker 1: And there's so many times when I'm like, I just

857
00:50:38,880 --> 00:50:41,040
Speaker 1: I wasn't in the mood for this. Yeah, So I

858
00:50:41,080 --> 00:50:44,040
Speaker 1: can't tell you if it was good or bad objectively

859
00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:47,800
Speaker 1: or even subjectively. I was not willing to receive it. Yeah,

860
00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:50,680
Speaker 1: So I you know, maybe one day when I am

861
00:50:51,360 --> 00:50:55,440
Speaker 1: I kind of felt that we watched Huby Halloween Adam

862
00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:58,000
Speaker 1: Sandler and Halloween movie. Wow, what a thing to compare

863
00:50:58,080 --> 00:51:00,759
Speaker 1: to Claude and Martian. No, I don't even like it

864
00:51:00,800 --> 00:51:02,600
Speaker 1: that much, but I just remember we put it on

865
00:51:02,719 --> 00:51:04,640
Speaker 1: and I was like, Okay, it's an Adam stand like

866
00:51:04,719 --> 00:51:06,440
Speaker 1: I'm in the movie, you know, I'm I've got my

867
00:51:06,480 --> 00:51:10,440
Speaker 1: headspace together for an Adam Sandler movie. I am fine

868
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:12,960
Speaker 1: with whatever dumb shit he wants to do. And it

869
00:51:13,040 --> 00:51:15,839
Speaker 1: was more enjoyable period than when I But you sit

870
00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:17,640
Speaker 1: there and watch with your arms folded and you're like

871
00:51:17,719 --> 00:51:19,839
Speaker 1: ready to hate it. You're not gonna like it, even

872
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:22,239
Speaker 1: if it is very good. Meanwhile, what's funny to me

873
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:25,719
Speaker 1: is that I grew up appreciating Adam Sandler more than

874
00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:28,719
Speaker 1: you did, and I couldn't. I couldn't get myself in

875
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:31,040
Speaker 1: that space for Hubie Halloween. That was one where I

876
00:51:31,080 --> 00:51:33,520
Speaker 1: was like, I don't care how much I prepared myself

877
00:51:33,520 --> 00:51:36,560
Speaker 1: for what I was about to get. I was bothered

878
00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:40,200
Speaker 1: every second fear. It was a kind of an annoying movie.

879
00:51:40,280 --> 00:51:42,279
Speaker 1: But I just remember that was just a moment when

880
00:51:42,280 --> 00:51:43,839
Speaker 1: it felt really clear to me, and it's like, oh,

881
00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:46,600
Speaker 1: you were willing to receive this movie and the spirit

882
00:51:46,640 --> 00:51:48,279
Speaker 1: that it was given to you, and it made you

883
00:51:48,520 --> 00:51:52,600
Speaker 1: enjoy it more. Yeah, I've had moods. I was here.

884
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:55,359
Speaker 1: Here's a story I was in while we're talking about

885
00:51:55,360 --> 00:51:59,000
Speaker 1: bad movies. I was coming out of a phase of

886
00:51:59,040 --> 00:52:03,080
Speaker 1: depression that I ad in my twenties and really had

887
00:52:03,120 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 1: had a particularly bad day. And not because of this,

888
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:09,400
Speaker 1: but just circumstantially, my dad and I had decided to

889
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:12,040
Speaker 1: go see a movie that day, and I was like

890
00:52:12,280 --> 00:52:14,640
Speaker 1: struggling to get myself out of the house, but just

891
00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:17,040
Speaker 1: you know, we went. We decided to go. We saw

892
00:52:17,600 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 1: Wanted right with James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie Right and

893
00:52:23,040 --> 00:52:28,320
Speaker 1: the bullet bending. Yeah, And as I watched that movie

894
00:52:28,520 --> 00:52:31,160
Speaker 1: and just kind of climbed out of the funk that

895
00:52:31,239 --> 00:52:33,279
Speaker 1: I was in. I walked out of that movie and

896
00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:36,759
Speaker 1: was like, this is one of my favorite movies. I

897
00:52:36,840 --> 00:52:39,879
Speaker 1: loved it, I had. I felt so much better walking

898
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:42,239
Speaker 1: out of it than I did going into it. And

899
00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:46,560
Speaker 1: so for a while I was telling people, I'll tell

900
00:52:46,560 --> 00:52:50,239
Speaker 1: you what, guys, I really liked Wanted, to the point

901
00:52:50,320 --> 00:52:52,879
Speaker 1: that when we had a friend group movie night going

902
00:52:53,280 --> 00:52:55,360
Speaker 1: and it was my turn to pick. I said, hey, everybody,

903
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:58,680
Speaker 1: let's watch Wanted. And it was one of the most

904
00:52:58,760 --> 00:53:02,839
Speaker 1: uncomfortable movie view experiences I've had, because from minute ten

905
00:53:03,040 --> 00:53:05,600
Speaker 1: onwards you could tell everybody else in the room was

906
00:53:05,719 --> 00:53:08,040
Speaker 1: hating it. And I didn't even care for it that

907
00:53:08,120 --> 00:53:10,120
Speaker 1: much when watched it again, and I think I had

908
00:53:10,160 --> 00:53:12,319
Speaker 1: prefaced it with like, I saw this in a bad

909
00:53:12,360 --> 00:53:14,560
Speaker 1: mood and it made me feel better. So I don't

910
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:16,640
Speaker 1: know if it's really good. I just I liked it,

911
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:19,120
Speaker 1: and I didn't really like it very much the second time.

912
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:24,120
Speaker 1: But but talk about your headspace and your experience affecting

913
00:53:25,560 --> 00:53:28,799
Speaker 1: you how you felt about a work of art, right, Yeah, absolutely,

914
00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:30,840
Speaker 1: it is big of a stretch as it maybe to

915
00:53:30,920 --> 00:53:33,239
Speaker 1: call Wanted a work of art, right, you know what

916
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:35,160
Speaker 1: I mean? Yeah, you know what I mean. But yeah,

917
00:53:35,160 --> 00:53:37,279
Speaker 1: I think I had that too with like some friends

918
00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:39,040
Speaker 1: of mine when I worked at the restaurant, I didn't

919
00:53:39,040 --> 00:53:41,000
Speaker 1: go to too many like arts events, and I remember

920
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:44,400
Speaker 1: kind of asking why and they'd be like, well, I

921
00:53:44,440 --> 00:53:46,000
Speaker 1: just feel like I don't get it or I don't

922
00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:48,279
Speaker 1: how to act. And I was like, but you don't

923
00:53:48,320 --> 00:53:50,200
Speaker 1: have to get it. I mean, you don't have to

924
00:53:50,280 --> 00:53:53,000
Speaker 1: like it. You're not no one. I mean, the artist

925
00:53:53,440 --> 00:53:56,279
Speaker 1: of course would prefer it, I'm sure, but you don't

926
00:53:56,320 --> 00:53:58,279
Speaker 1: actually have to like it. Any way that you feel

927
00:53:58,320 --> 00:54:00,920
Speaker 1: about it is fine. Yeah, And I think if you

928
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:03,920
Speaker 1: go into an art, any art thing, period, even if

929
00:54:03,960 --> 00:54:07,720
Speaker 1: it's wanted or whatever, it is thinking it's okay, however

930
00:54:07,760 --> 00:54:09,920
Speaker 1: I feel about this, but I'm ready to like it.

931
00:54:10,480 --> 00:54:12,719
Speaker 1: I'm ready to receive it. First of all, it makes

932
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:14,760
Speaker 1: it more enjoyable. Even if you don't end up liking

933
00:54:14,760 --> 00:54:18,799
Speaker 1: the art itself, the experience is more and you don't

934
00:54:18,800 --> 00:54:20,600
Speaker 1: have to feel shamed like you don't. You don't need

935
00:54:20,640 --> 00:54:23,040
Speaker 1: to feel like out of the loop with the art

936
00:54:23,080 --> 00:54:25,440
Speaker 1: world or some shit like I don't really have a

937
00:54:25,480 --> 00:54:28,239
Speaker 1: lot of patience with that. So I remember we went

938
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:31,080
Speaker 1: to something and I was like, they were like laughing

939
00:54:31,120 --> 00:54:34,160
Speaker 1: at times that I thought were inappropriate during this performance,

940
00:54:34,480 --> 00:54:36,040
Speaker 1: and I remember I kind of frowned at one of them.

941
00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:38,800
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, you know, and I saw the shame.

942
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:41,560
Speaker 1: It was that sense of like, oh, this is not

943
00:54:41,640 --> 00:54:44,920
Speaker 1: my world. I'm a guest here and I shouldn't be

944
00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:47,560
Speaker 1: acting like this. And I felt ashamed because I was like,

945
00:54:47,600 --> 00:54:49,839
Speaker 1: you just made them dislike this more. You made them

946
00:54:49,880 --> 00:54:52,680
Speaker 1: feel alienated from this experience, like they were not allowed

947
00:54:52,719 --> 00:54:54,600
Speaker 1: to be here, and I went I was like, I'm

948
00:54:54,640 --> 00:54:57,160
Speaker 1: so sorry I did that. If you want to laugh, laugh,

949
00:54:57,440 --> 00:54:59,239
Speaker 1: it's it's not up to me to decide when you

950
00:54:59,239 --> 00:55:02,600
Speaker 1: should laugh. If you feel uncomfortable, that is a human response, right.

951
00:55:02,640 --> 00:55:04,879
Speaker 1: If you think it's funny, that's a human response. That's

952
00:55:04,880 --> 00:55:07,480
Speaker 1: fair when you put art out there, that's what you're

953
00:55:07,480 --> 00:55:09,799
Speaker 1: asking for, is a human response. Of course, there are

954
00:55:09,800 --> 00:55:12,680
Speaker 1: ways to be disrespectful during a performance, but you know

955
00:55:12,719 --> 00:55:14,520
Speaker 1: that's not what they were. They weren't being disruptive. They

956
00:55:14,520 --> 00:55:17,120
Speaker 1: were really just reacting. Yeah, and you know, so you

957
00:55:17,160 --> 00:55:19,640
Speaker 1: can tell the difference. There's a line, for sure, but

958
00:55:19,960 --> 00:55:22,200
Speaker 1: but yeah, so I just remember just having that was

959
00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:24,799
Speaker 1: such a like a thunderbolt moment for me, I guess

960
00:55:24,960 --> 00:55:27,160
Speaker 1: as kind of feeling like, oh, you know, this is

961
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:30,520
Speaker 1: what makes people feel like they can't participate in this world. Yeah,

962
00:55:30,520 --> 00:55:32,719
Speaker 1: so I want to get back to their resistance too,

963
00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:37,279
Speaker 1: because I was so struck by. As we're reading through this,

964
00:55:37,440 --> 00:55:41,440
Speaker 1: I'm thinking it's important to be reminded that this kind

965
00:55:41,440 --> 00:55:44,080
Speaker 1: of stuff works, right, because I think it's so easy

966
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:49,000
Speaker 1: to say, oh, you know, a little piece of art

967
00:55:49,840 --> 00:55:52,640
Speaker 1: is irrelevant. It's it's a drop in the bucket. It's

968
00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:56,080
Speaker 1: it's throwing a pebble at a giant. You know, Oh,

969
00:55:56,120 --> 00:55:58,480
Speaker 1: that's cute that you made your little art as a

970
00:55:58,520 --> 00:56:01,320
Speaker 1: resistance piece or something, but what are you actually doing.

971
00:56:01,560 --> 00:56:03,400
Speaker 1: If you're not out there using your hands and getting

972
00:56:03,400 --> 00:56:07,440
Speaker 1: stuff done, it doesn't matter. But it does. It matters

973
00:56:07,480 --> 00:56:10,839
Speaker 1: so much. It's it's like really effective. And like you said,

974
00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:13,800
Speaker 1: it's chipping away at the wall and little chips matter.

975
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:19,000
Speaker 1: And you know, everybody's looking at all the men and

976
00:56:19,080 --> 00:56:21,760
Speaker 1: the elves and the dwarves and they're big, powerful weapons

977
00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:23,760
Speaker 1: and stuff, and they're not paying attention to the Hobbits,

978
00:56:23,760 --> 00:56:27,799
Speaker 1: so they're ring to Mount Doom. It's so easy to

979
00:56:27,840 --> 00:56:31,560
Speaker 1: dismiss that stuff as fantasy and inspirational story and oh

980
00:56:31,640 --> 00:56:35,080
Speaker 1: that's cute, but what's it actually doing? And then to

981
00:56:35,120 --> 00:56:38,680
Speaker 1: see a story where it it mattered. You know, they

982
00:56:38,680 --> 00:56:40,799
Speaker 1: had an impact. I don't know that they brought down

983
00:56:40,840 --> 00:56:44,160
Speaker 1: the Nazis by themselves, but think what all those soldiers

984
00:56:44,160 --> 00:56:46,640
Speaker 1: on that island might have been accomplishing if they weren't

985
00:56:46,680 --> 00:56:50,719
Speaker 1: worried about where's this resistance movement they're hiding right beneath us.

986
00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:53,680
Speaker 1: They must have spent some time or resources. You're trying

987
00:56:53,719 --> 00:56:56,319
Speaker 1: to find the men that they were so sure, yep,

988
00:56:56,440 --> 00:56:59,399
Speaker 1: we're in charge of this, and they must have been

989
00:56:59,680 --> 00:57:02,319
Speaker 1: question shing each other. Yeah. That's the other thing is

990
00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:04,759
Speaker 1: they're so right that it doesn't take that much to

991
00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:09,200
Speaker 1: just make the distrust matters. Like army, you know, a

992
00:57:09,600 --> 00:57:13,800
Speaker 1: troop morale is really important. And it sounds like, oh,

993
00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:16,760
Speaker 1: you know, give them some chocolate, what's the big deal,

994
00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:19,200
Speaker 1: But it like makes them able to fight, you know, like,

995
00:57:19,360 --> 00:57:23,960
Speaker 1: and they were keeping that from happening, Like, yeah, it's

996
00:57:24,000 --> 00:57:25,600
Speaker 1: it's it is often seen. I feel like, is a

997
00:57:25,640 --> 00:57:27,720
Speaker 1: way that oh, you made yourself feel better because you

998
00:57:27,760 --> 00:57:29,600
Speaker 1: did a little something and it's not really going to

999
00:57:29,640 --> 00:57:33,720
Speaker 1: accomplish anything, but you feel like you did something. Absolutely

1000
00:57:33,720 --> 00:57:37,720
Speaker 1: it does. But but yeah, I think and also is

1001
00:57:37,720 --> 00:57:40,600
Speaker 1: that a bad thing for me to if that's all

1002
00:57:40,640 --> 00:57:43,320
Speaker 1: I can control is how I feel. I made myself

1003
00:57:43,360 --> 00:57:46,160
Speaker 1: feel like I did something. Maybe you don't find it

1004
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:47,920
Speaker 1: as useful as other things I could do, but you

1005
00:57:47,920 --> 00:57:50,600
Speaker 1: don't know my situation that I'm capable of or what

1006
00:57:50,640 --> 00:57:53,280
Speaker 1: I'm able to do in my space where I am at.

1007
00:57:53,640 --> 00:57:55,680
Speaker 1: So I love that they kind of straight up found.

1008
00:57:56,200 --> 00:57:57,840
Speaker 1: They were like, do what you can with what you

1009
00:57:57,880 --> 00:58:00,560
Speaker 1: have where you are, And so they said, we got

1010
00:58:00,600 --> 00:58:04,080
Speaker 1: these soldiers, we got our skills, how can we shake

1011
00:58:04,160 --> 00:58:07,280
Speaker 1: this tree? Yeah, and I bet there were some soldiers

1012
00:58:07,280 --> 00:58:11,160
Speaker 1: that did definitely leave, I mean, or try, you know,

1013
00:58:12,320 --> 00:58:14,720
Speaker 1: or at least want to, and had had questions that

1014
00:58:14,760 --> 00:58:19,360
Speaker 1: they didn't have before. You put any group of people together, right,

1015
00:58:19,560 --> 00:58:23,560
Speaker 1: whether it's just ten dudes or or a whole battalion

1016
00:58:23,640 --> 00:58:28,120
Speaker 1: or whatever, and there's drama and there's trust issues and

1017
00:58:28,240 --> 00:58:30,880
Speaker 1: there's people trying out maneuver each other and all this stuff.

1018
00:58:30,880 --> 00:58:34,080
Speaker 1: It's not hard to poke and prod and cause a

1019
00:58:34,080 --> 00:58:37,600
Speaker 1: bunch of strife within any group of people, you know.

1020
00:58:37,800 --> 00:58:39,800
Speaker 1: Take it from me. I was in a theater company.

1021
00:58:41,600 --> 00:58:45,080
Speaker 1: So I love those kinds of movements because they're they're

1022
00:58:45,120 --> 00:58:48,000
Speaker 1: so effective. And I'll tell you what bad people are

1023
00:58:48,040 --> 00:58:50,560
Speaker 1: doing that they know that to be true, So you

1024
00:58:50,600 --> 00:58:53,040
Speaker 1: got to you gotta do it back, that's right. I

1025
00:58:53,080 --> 00:58:55,040
Speaker 1: just think this is such a cool story. I love

1026
00:58:55,120 --> 00:58:57,320
Speaker 1: Claude and Marcel, so I hope that you love their

1027
00:58:57,320 --> 00:58:59,800
Speaker 1: story as much as I did. Claude Cahoun and Marcel

1028
00:59:00,120 --> 00:59:01,800
Speaker 1: or please look them up so you can see some

1029
00:59:01,840 --> 00:59:04,000
Speaker 1: other work. As Eli said, we will be posting a

1030
00:59:04,040 --> 00:59:06,360
Speaker 1: lot of pictures on our Instagram. Please look it up

1031
00:59:06,400 --> 00:59:08,640
Speaker 1: and let us know what you thought. Our email is

1032
00:59:08,720 --> 00:59:11,200
Speaker 1: ridic Romance at gmail dot com. That's right. You can

1033
00:59:11,240 --> 00:59:13,520
Speaker 1: find us on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at o Greate,

1034
00:59:13,600 --> 00:59:16,240
Speaker 1: It's Eli, I'm at Cyanamite Boom, and the show is

1035
00:59:16,280 --> 00:59:20,000
Speaker 1: at riddic Romance and ron TikTok at Ridiculous Romance as well.

1036
00:59:20,120 --> 00:59:22,360
Speaker 1: It's right. Follow along. Make sure you catch us the

1037
00:59:22,400 --> 00:59:24,800
Speaker 1: next episode and we will see it in love you

1038
00:59:24,880 --> 00:59:29,200
Speaker 1: Bye bye, so long friends, it's time to go. Thanks

1039
00:59:29,200 --> 00:59:33,200
Speaker 1: for listening to our show. Tell your friend's name's uncle's

1040
00:59:33,240 --> 00:59:36,320
Speaker 1: indan to listen to our show, Ridiculous Roll Dance