Speaker 1: Hey everybody. Hey, yeah, I'm Eli, I'm Diana. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Ridiculous Romance. That's right, the show where we talk
Speaker 1: about true romances through history. Yes, the weirdest, freakiest, funniest,
Speaker 1: sometimes even most wonderful ones we can find, right, the
Speaker 1: most heartwarming. Today's is actually a very cool story. These
Speaker 1: aren't freaks. These are really awesome people. Amazing people talking
Speaker 1: about these non binary artists Cluk Cahoun and Marcel Moore
Speaker 1: from the nineteen twenties through World War Two. I'm so
Speaker 1: excited about this story. These are awesome people. They are
Speaker 1: so cool. Yep, not like me. I just came over
Speaker 1: here to sit down and my phone flashlight was on,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, wow, I'm an old man. Ah, you
Speaker 1: got a glimpse of your face and startled your show.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's bad. Yeah, the oldest I ever felt, I think.
Speaker 1: And I was like probably thirty two at the time,
Speaker 1: which so you know, not that long. I don't remember
Speaker 1: where I was Starbucks or something, and a much younger girl,
Speaker 1: probably twenty or something, looked up at me and said, oh,
Speaker 1: your flashlights on in your pocket? Oh and and I
Speaker 1: pulled my phone out and sure enough, just the flashlight
Speaker 1: is beaming out of my pocket, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I felt like a ninety year old person who had
Speaker 1: never use technology before. And this whipper snapper just came
Speaker 1: up and was like, hey, do you need me to
Speaker 1: show you how that works? Grandpa? That stings the oldest
Speaker 1: I ever felt. Well, actually I feel old kind of
Speaker 1: a lot because well, no, because I'll text with my
Speaker 1: cousin Sarah. She's she's like twelve or thirteen or something,
Speaker 1: so yeah, it at that point, I know, like she'll
Speaker 1: be on Snapchat or she'll send me a meme or something,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, like, y'all just don't even care
Speaker 1: if there's really a joke, Like it's just some random
Speaker 1: collection or some random stuff. Sometimes you know, um, dick
Speaker 1: jokes are still popular, so there's still I'm good, Like
Speaker 1: I can still hang Wait a minute, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you should be making dick jokes with your twelve
Speaker 1: year old cousin. Listen. I don't really, but she does. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess that's what I was doing and when I
Speaker 1: was twelve to do her parents listen to this show?
Speaker 1: I don't I know that my aunt does, her grandma,
Speaker 1: her grandmother yeah, and sometimes Sarah will and she told
Speaker 1: me she actually was right after we came out with
Speaker 1: the raw Black Messiah episode, which was about shock pornography,
Speaker 1: so it's very very R rated episode. And she texts
Speaker 1: me and she's like, I'm listening to your show, by
Speaker 1: the way, and I was like, I hope not that
Speaker 1: this is not the episode for yikes, and she goes, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: My grandma always tells me when I can listen. So
Speaker 1: I thank you to Aunt Shell for her gatekeeping episodes
Speaker 1: from the children. These kids these days, I know, I'm glad.
Speaker 1: I'm glad she's interested in it. And no definite times
Speaker 1: get listeners say they listen with their kids they're teenagers
Speaker 1: or something. I think that's pretty cool. I think that's great.
Speaker 1: I mean, like I curse or whatever, but it's about sex.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think you've gotten better at the cursing.
Speaker 1: I mean said we got worse, and I'm like, we
Speaker 1: definitely have not gotten worse, because a lot of it
Speaker 1: just comes from nervousness. I think a lot of cursing
Speaker 1: is just like I don't know what else to say,
Speaker 1: or I don't have an adjective here. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: go faster than my brain, so you kind of fill
Speaker 1: in by stuttering out. Well, I think it depends on
Speaker 1: the story too, because some make me mad, and that's
Speaker 1: when I curse. A lot them don't make me mad,
Speaker 1: So I'm like, I'm not cursing because I'm really angry.
Speaker 1: There's no reason to curse at these two, for example,
Speaker 1: although there's plenty of reason to curse at the Nazis.
Speaker 1: That's very true because they were dealing with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I was really interested in this story because
Speaker 1: I'm not only because of who they are Claude and
Speaker 1: Marcel alone, but like usually when you're going through history
Speaker 1: and you're looking at resistance movements during World War Two
Speaker 1: against the Nazis, it's usually stuff like blowing up a
Speaker 1: train or you know, some daring spy mission or sluggling
Speaker 1: Jewish people to safety and all really cool, incredible, thrilling
Speaker 1: stories to hear. But a lot of people's resistance during
Speaker 1: that time was very small, and so some of my
Speaker 1: personal favorite World War two stories are these tiny acts
Speaker 1: of like malicious compliance or sabotage, just little things like
Speaker 1: that that I find so human because it's just us
Speaker 1: pushing back in the tiniest, even in a way we
Speaker 1: find insignificant in the larger picture, but it makes us
Speaker 1: feel like, Okay, I did something right. It can be
Speaker 1: really inspiring because even if it seems like this tiny
Speaker 1: little chip, you're still chipping away at a wall and
Speaker 1: eventually it falls. So today we really want to tell
Speaker 1: you about this resistance movement on the island of Jersey
Speaker 1: that made occupying Nazis believe there was this widespread conspiracy
Speaker 1: amongst their own ranks to rebel against Hitler. But actually
Speaker 1: it was just two middle aged artists who had been
Speaker 1: rebelling in many ways for many years, long before the
Speaker 1: Nazis were ever thought of. Yes, and it's such a
Speaker 1: cool story. So let's learn about Claude Cahoun and Marcel Moore,
Speaker 1: the surrealist artists turned Nazi resistance. Let's go, hey their French.
Speaker 1: Come listen. Well, Elia and Diana got some stories to tell.
Speaker 1: There's no matchmaking or romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships.
Speaker 1: A lover might be any type of person at all,
Speaker 1: and abstract cons a Dora concrete wall. But if there's
Speaker 1: a story where the second clans ridiculous romans, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. All right, The first thing we want to
Speaker 1: say about Claude Cahoun is that they were born Lucy
Speaker 1: Schwab in eighteen ninety four, but they were always kind
Speaker 1: of experimenting with their own gender presentation and identity. Now,
Speaker 1: Claude did use she her pronouns in her own writing,
Speaker 1: but a lot of scholars have argued that if they
Speaker 1: had been around at that time, they would have preferred
Speaker 1: they them pronouns. You know, if those had been widely used.
Speaker 1: In our episode, we'll probably interchange she her and they
Speaker 1: then when talking about Claude, just throwing it out there. Ye. So,
Speaker 1: Claude Cahoun was born Lucy Schwab in Nant, France to
Speaker 1: a family of wealthy Jewish intellectuals and publishers, and she
Speaker 1: had a lot of art bona fides like. Her uncle
Speaker 1: was the avant garde writer Marcel Schwab, and her great
Speaker 1: uncle was an Orientalist named David Leong Cahoun. An Orientalist
Speaker 1: was like a Western European artist who specialized in subjects
Speaker 1: from the Orient, or rather from Asia and the Middle East.
Speaker 1: This was like a big There was a lot of
Speaker 1: Arabic art going on, a lot of Chinese Japanese art
Speaker 1: kind of being incorporated into Christern Art. It was sort
Speaker 1: of one of the first times I think we gave
Speaker 1: a shit about a culture of European culture, right right,
Speaker 1: So probably at the time it was considered kind of progressive,
Speaker 1: which is weird to think of now, obviously, since Oriental
Speaker 1: is like not a good even though they were, They're
Speaker 1: probably just going over there and be like, look at
Speaker 1: this fascinating art. Let me take it home so everyone
Speaker 1: else can look at it too. Allow me to co
Speaker 1: opt this now. When Lucy was only four years old,
Speaker 1: her mother began suffering from mental illness pretty severely, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't long before she was put into an institution
Speaker 1: full time. So Lucy was mostly raised by her grandmother,
Speaker 1: and like early on in life, Lucy is questioning her
Speaker 1: gender identity she's very young. She starts experimenting with different names,
Speaker 1: including Daniel Douglas after Lord Alfred Douglas past episode alert Yea.
Speaker 1: So she tried a different few different names until she
Speaker 1: settled on Claude Calhoun in nineteen fourteen. Calhoun after her
Speaker 1: great uncle David and also her grandmother who raised her,
Speaker 1: and Claude because in French, Claude could be male or female,
Speaker 1: so they wanted kind of a non binary, gender neutral name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Claude wrote once quote masculine, feminine, It depends on the situation.
Speaker 1: Neuter is the only gender that always suits me. And
Speaker 1: as a teenager, Claude suffered from anorexia, suicidal thoughts, and
Speaker 1: debilitating depression like her mother. That's tough. You could see
Speaker 1: wanting to kind of explore your identity a lot if
Speaker 1: you're having those sort of you know what, feel like
Speaker 1: kind of a dysmorphia, like you know, sort of like
Speaker 1: I'm not happy with my body. Yeah, you know, what's
Speaker 1: something that what's a big thing? I can sort of
Speaker 1: question and see whether I would be happier if it
Speaker 1: was different, right, Annarexia has dysmorphia built into it, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: you're not seeing yourself, yeah, the way you are. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But it also is a lot about control. So I
Speaker 1: wonder if you know, their childhood felt very out of control.
Speaker 1: Their mom is to these institutions, makes wherever their dad is,
Speaker 1: they're going to their grandmas. So they're like, this is
Speaker 1: the one thing I can control is how much foods
Speaker 1: going into my body at any given time. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: Claude's life changed in nineteen o nine when they met
Speaker 1: Suzanne malerb and she was this seventeen year old girl.
Speaker 1: She was an art student. Her father was a doctor,
Speaker 1: and when they met, they both described it as quote
Speaker 1: a thunderbolt meeting. I mean, just total love at first sight,
Speaker 1: just that instant the heavens collided, right, and when the
Speaker 1: dust settled, we were there together, right, just like a
Speaker 1: sense of kins incredible. One time, I just I asked
Speaker 1: my dad, like how he knew Mom was someone he
Speaker 1: wanted to go out with or whatever, and he was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Just when I met her, I felt
Speaker 1: like I already knew her. And I thought that was
Speaker 1: such a cute like way to say that. And it
Speaker 1: kind of sounds like that for them, like they met
Speaker 1: each other and like you're already by person. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: already feels right. That's funny. I think when we met
Speaker 1: it was like let's see no, maybe, yeah, I hate
Speaker 1: a minute, no, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, no, it's good.
Speaker 1: Do you think that summarizes your thought process? Maybe? Well
Speaker 1: obviously yours was, Oh my god, I gotta lock this down.
Speaker 1: There's a once in a lifetime opportunity. I was immediately
Speaker 1: in this guy not let this solid gold get away
Speaker 1: from me. That's actually true, because he would like make
Speaker 1: me cookies in the middle of the nine. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's not many guys who will do that for you,
Speaker 1: all right. So these two met thunderbolt meeting, you know,
Speaker 1: incredible sparks flying right away. They basically immediately began both
Speaker 1: a romantic and creative partnership right there, and then by
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, just three years later, Claude was experimenting with
Speaker 1: the portrait photography that would eventually make them notable, and
Speaker 1: they were writing poetry. By nineteen sixteen, Suzanne had established
Speaker 1: herself as a graphic artist and she was illustrating fashion
Speaker 1: designs and publicity materials. But even this commercial work had
Speaker 1: very avant garde elements, Like in one fashion plate that
Speaker 1: she did in nineteen fifteen, she drew this woman with
Speaker 1: a boyish haircut, wearing a loose fitting blazer and flared pants.
Speaker 1: Right at the time nineteen fifteen, my twenties had not
Speaker 1: come around yet they were not. So not only does
Speaker 1: Suzanne predict the mode Garson fashion future, an art historian,
Speaker 1: a professor, and interurs, a true Lattimer on Queer Cultural
Speaker 1: Center dot org draws our attention to the shadow in
Speaker 1: this picture. It's very obtrusive. It's kind of illogically placed.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make a lot of sense with where the
Speaker 1: light is coming from in the picture, and it even
Speaker 1: kind of obscures the background in places. And this sort
Speaker 1: of elevated the image from you know, just your basic
Speaker 1: ass fashion advertisement into this really like more striking and
Speaker 1: surreal artistic illustration. Like it really made it special, yeah,
Speaker 1: in a way that if you look at it, And
Speaker 1: we'll post a lot of these pictures on our Instagram
Speaker 1: for this episode, so make sure you follow us there.
Speaker 1: You know, you see this shadow and it doesn't make
Speaker 1: a lot of sense, and I'm thinking, boy, if I
Speaker 1: drew it, it would look like this because I'm bad
Speaker 1: at drawing. But she makes it very intentional and it
Speaker 1: has purpose to it. I think that's really cool and
Speaker 1: it makes you look at it just makes you want
Speaker 1: to look at because it's a little off, which is
Speaker 1: the whole point of avant garde, right, was that it
Speaker 1: was sort of just a little yeah wrong, and so
Speaker 1: you felt like you were in a dream. Not to
Speaker 1: mention it's the whole point of advertising, right, Did that
Speaker 1: make people look at it? Yes. In nineteen seventeen, though,
Speaker 1: Claude and Susanne's relationship took a bit of a strange
Speaker 1: turn when Susanne's widowed mother married Claude's divorced father step
Speaker 1: sisters eight years after their romantic relationship. Gun So in
Speaker 1: most writing, when you look them up, they referred to
Speaker 1: as the sisters, even though their their romantic connection did
Speaker 1: come first. You know, and you know, this seems like
Speaker 1: the most awkward thing that could possibly happen to a couple.
Speaker 1: Pretty pretty good premise for a fun rom com. Though,
Speaker 1: that's true. That's true that, like Susanne didn't know what
Speaker 1: to do. Oh, Susanne, I'm so glad your home. I've
Speaker 1: been wanting to introduce you to someone I've been seeing
Speaker 1: Cloudes father. Hell now they'll have to learn what it's
Speaker 1: like to be sisters in love. That's what it's called
Speaker 1: sisters in love from McGee or something. Where's McGee been?
Speaker 1: I don't know, make a movie project would be into
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I mean, it's been a long
Speaker 1: time seen since anybody's seen a McGee's joint McGee joint well, anyway,
Speaker 1: one day we'll make the Cloude Susanne McGee version of
Speaker 1: their story boring movie ever made. Hey, Warner Brothers, have
Speaker 1: we got a movie for you. It's called Sisters in Love?
Speaker 1: And they're like, wait, what they're gonna be like security?
Speaker 1: I think like a flowers in the attic thing or
Speaker 1: what's going on? So, yeah, this seems like something that
Speaker 1: is very weird and awkward and probably not something you
Speaker 1: would want to happen now with you or a loved one.
Speaker 1: But Tursa Latimer does point out that this was probably
Speaker 1: a kind of a blessing in disguise because it allowed
Speaker 1: the two of them to live together without anyone suspecting
Speaker 1: their true relationship. Should they had like a really good
Speaker 1: cover story for why they were together all the time,
Speaker 1: that was more acceptable than we're gay lovers together. But
Speaker 1: the thing is, this dynamic of everyone thinking of them
Speaker 1: as sisters is also part of the problem in their legacy,
Speaker 1: kind of in a way, because Suzanne, who ended up
Speaker 1: taking her own gender neutral pseudonym, Marcel Moore, is actually
Speaker 1: very often erased from conversations about Claude's photographs. Claude's art
Speaker 1: is often called self portraiture, but they likely could not
Speaker 1: have done it without Marcel's assistance, and they both wanted
Speaker 1: us to know it turs a true. Latimer shows this
Speaker 1: example where there's a photograph and the subject is Claude
Speaker 1: as the model in the photograph, but at the bottom
Speaker 1: right hand corner you can see the shadow of Marcel's
Speaker 1: head positioned as Latimer writes, quote, where we're conditioned to
Speaker 1: look for the artist's signature, so it's almost like Marcel's
Speaker 1: shadow is the signature, Like, I look who took this picture? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So not only does this show us that, you know,
Speaker 1: the level of importment involvement that Marcel had in the
Speaker 1: art that Claude created, but it also kind of asks
Speaker 1: us to think about the role of the viewer rather
Speaker 1: than taking on like a voyeuristic quality. We know that
Speaker 1: someone else within the world of the portrait is looking
Speaker 1: at this subject, so it's about Marcel looking at Claude
Speaker 1: rather than us looking into this picture frame right right.
Speaker 1: And I think that's so fascinating the way they played
Speaker 1: with the gays. Yeah in gays as in gay z right,
Speaker 1: because they played with the games. But like I just read,
Speaker 1: they're uh, really they wanted to play a lot with
Speaker 1: who's looking even a lot of Claude's or Marcell's pictures
Speaker 1: where they look back at the Yeah, what they're looking
Speaker 1: at in what angle and everything. It's all much, very
Speaker 1: much a part of the message of the art yea,
Speaker 1: and what you're supposed to be thinking about as you're
Speaker 1: looking at it, right, because you got to look at
Speaker 1: Photography is like really new at this point, and everybody
Speaker 1: is just kind of using photographs to record things that
Speaker 1: really happen, like things that are true, Like I'm snapshotting
Speaker 1: reality now you can look at at any time in
Speaker 1: this picture. But these two are like subverting those expectations, right,
Speaker 1: not just about their gender expression, but like what photography is.
Speaker 1: They're playing with it as like an art form. You know,
Speaker 1: they're showing things that couldn't exist in reality, which is
Speaker 1: sort of what became the surrealist movement. Yeah, they're showing fantasy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think that's really interesting. Remember we talked about
Speaker 1: Henry and Caress Crosby in the past episode, and they
Speaker 1: were also around the twenties publishing work, and we're some
Speaker 1: of the first people to consider photography to be an
Speaker 1: art form. Yeah, So I think It's really interesting to
Speaker 1: think about the idea of like, oh, picture is realistic.
Speaker 1: I'm taking a picture of you, and that is exactly
Speaker 1: how you look at this time, in this place. And
Speaker 1: there's no lie in this photo, right, And Claude and
Speaker 1: Marcel were like, but there could be a lie exact
Speaker 1: or I could show you what could be true later
Speaker 1: if I in another world, Yeah, in another time. If
Speaker 1: I have the tools of reality in my hand, why
Speaker 1: would I not tinker with it to manipulate reality? You know.
Speaker 1: That's that's like god level kind of stuff. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's very cool. Yeah, but we are going to share
Speaker 1: a lot of pictures. Oh, they do some really stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love surrealism, always kind of have. It's
Speaker 1: really more accurate to call these two an artistic team
Speaker 1: or collaborators, even as India Burgita Jarvis writes in her
Speaker 1: article Historical Heroines quote two halves of a whole identity.
Speaker 1: Yeah again, I think of another episode. Christo and John Claude.
Speaker 1: Christo and John Claude. Yes, two artists, yeah, right, who
Speaker 1: collaborated together. Jean Claude was extremely important to what work
Speaker 1: was made and how it was made. But everyone calls
Speaker 1: it a Cristo A Cristo, A Cristo, and it's the
Speaker 1: very same thing Claude. It's always Claude Cahoun's work, Claude
Speaker 1: Cahoun's work, but they're like, Marcella is an essential part
Speaker 1: of this work. I kind of want to link that
Speaker 1: episode in the show notes because if you haven't heard
Speaker 1: that Cristo episode and Jean Claude, it's so cool, incredible,
Speaker 1: and some of the resources were very interesting talking about
Speaker 1: that because they were just talking about like how art,
Speaker 1: the art world really prefers a solo genius, like this
Speaker 1: very special person who could you know only this person
Speaker 1: could be this type of person, right, instead of a
Speaker 1: collaborative teamwork effort, which is actually harder. It's I think
Speaker 1: it's harder to marry multiple visions than to create your
Speaker 1: own all alone. Right. So in nineteen twenty Claude and
Speaker 1: Marcel left the provinces and they moved to Paris and
Speaker 1: they attended poetry reading, Russian ballets, literary salons, gallery exhibitions
Speaker 1: and theater productions with some of the weirdest and coolest
Speaker 1: artists in France. And we will hear all about it
Speaker 1: right up to this welcome back everybody. So Claude and
Speaker 1: Marcel are in the Stick of it All in Paris
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty, and of course they continue to produce art.
Speaker 1: Their work, of course, was often about playing with gender
Speaker 1: identity and expression. Costuming and staging were very important elements, right.
Speaker 1: Claude often has a shaved head, and they pose in
Speaker 1: a way that kind of obscures their body, so that
Speaker 1: makes them appear to be genderless. Okay, sometimes they look
Speaker 1: like both genders. Sometimes they're very lean, very hard into masculinity,
Speaker 1: sometimes very hard into femininities. They are constantly playing. In
Speaker 1: one portrait, Claude wears like heavyweight boxing shorts and they
Speaker 1: hold weights like they're a heavyweight boxer. But they also
Speaker 1: have pasties on their nipples and these painted on kind
Speaker 1: of cupid's bow lips and spit curls to emphasize their femininity.
Speaker 1: And the picture is captioned don't kiss me, I'm in training.
Speaker 1: Love it, I know, right, so cool, and Latimer says
Speaker 1: this kind of go ahead. No, I'm just laughing at that.
Speaker 1: I know, a lot of the captions are so witty
Speaker 1: and cute, like don't kiss me, I'm in training. So good, Yes,
Speaker 1: she has another one where they have another one where
Speaker 1: it's but it's them. It's two of their own heads
Speaker 1: like it's a photo collage kind of thing, and one
Speaker 1: of their heads is sort of looking at the other
Speaker 1: one with this kind of weird face on, and the
Speaker 1: caption is what do you want from me? Which I
Speaker 1: love too because how often are you saying to yourself like,
Speaker 1: what do you? What do you want? Because you're making
Speaker 1: no sense? Yes, also, I mean you just don't kiss me.
Speaker 1: I'm in training. It says so much too, because it's
Speaker 1: also saying I can't do. I need to give you
Speaker 1: a reason, yea, not to just walk up and kiss me. Fine,
Speaker 1: I'm training for boxing. Right now, I'll punch you in
Speaker 1: the kisser literally right. And actually that's something turns the
Speaker 1: true Latimer is talking about in their article acting Out,
Speaker 1: and she says this kind of invites us to question
Speaker 1: what Claude is in training for exactly, like training to
Speaker 1: be a boxer, or a training to learn to be
Speaker 1: a woman or to unlearn being a woman, or how
Speaker 1: to be a lesbian or you know what are they
Speaker 1: in training for? Just training for life? Like you don't
Speaker 1: interrupt me, get out of my way. Who knows. So
Speaker 1: it's just lets you ask a lot of questions. And
Speaker 1: Latimer points out, you know that at this period of time,
Speaker 1: quote theories emphasizing the role of social conditioning in the
Speaker 1: production of gender, we're coming into circulation at this time.
Speaker 1: Also in nineteen twenty nine, Claude translated the writing of
Speaker 1: Havelock Ellis into French. Have Luck. Ellis was a doctor
Speaker 1: who studied human sexuality, and he had very controversial theories
Speaker 1: about a third sex that united female and male traits,
Speaker 1: but we're neither. He's like very early on, like Magnus Hirshfield,
Speaker 1: one of these early sex scientists who's like trying to
Speaker 1: understand instead of condemn. And that's in a I feel
Speaker 1: like probably several non Western cultures especially, that's common exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean you know, there you go. This is
Speaker 1: this is such a cool thing about history. It does
Speaker 1: not happen in a vacuum. Yeah, you have Orientalism, for
Speaker 1: lack of a better phrase, right coming into vogue. Right,
Speaker 1: So Eastern culture is a much more interesting to people.
Speaker 1: They're looking into it. They must have seen stuff about
Speaker 1: oh this third sex, Yeah, what is that? How? You know?
Speaker 1: Kind of opening up your mind a little bit. I
Speaker 1: mean maybe that had something to do with that, especially
Speaker 1: for people who are probably like like, oh wow, this
Speaker 1: very rigid, stiff, stuffy way of life I've been living
Speaker 1: isn't fulfilling me. I feel kind of bored and constrained. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: when I'm alive in the physical universe and it feels
Speaker 1: like it should be more exciting than this for real. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also data is painter Marcel Duchamp even like unveiled
Speaker 1: a female alter ego of his that he named Rose Selviny.
Speaker 1: But as the art story dot org points out, unlike Duchamp,
Speaker 1: Claude Marcel's gender neutral pseudonyms and their artwork and everything,
Speaker 1: we're quote not about changing gender but about escaping such oppositional,
Speaker 1: constructed ties altogether. Ah. Yes, so very much non binary
Speaker 1: life before that was even a fully understood, right idea. Right,
Speaker 1: I've always found that very interesting. The idea of kind
Speaker 1: of gender bending in some ways, in some fashion also
Speaker 1: still reinforces the idea that a gender is supposed to
Speaker 1: be something, or look like something, or wear something, you know.
Speaker 1: And the more we sort of break it down and say, look,
Speaker 1: you know, if I wear a skirt, I'm not dressing
Speaker 1: like a woman, right, you know that's probably something that
Speaker 1: should change, tying particular looks or names or whatever to
Speaker 1: one gender or the other. Right, And how much have
Speaker 1: we talked in the past about like you wore a
Speaker 1: man's clothes, you were a man like. People literally could
Speaker 1: not grasp that you had a different body under the right. Right.
Speaker 1: Other portraits that these two created together, some of them
Speaker 1: have Claude sort of as a like a character of
Speaker 1: an aviator or a dandy, a doll, bodybuilder, vampire, or
Speaker 1: an angel Buddha in one of them. There's one where
Speaker 1: it's a Japanese puppet, and the Museum of Modern Art
Speaker 1: website says that Claude once explained, quote under this mask
Speaker 1: another mask, I will never finish removing all of these faces.
Speaker 1: I love it. Yes, so interesting. It's like I'm not
Speaker 1: you know, hoops amongst us is one thing, right? And
Speaker 1: if you take this off of me, this there's something
Speaker 1: else in there? And can you ever find right the
Speaker 1: one true face? Right? Is there only one? Probably not?
Speaker 1: Why would you want one? Right? Again? Like we're here
Speaker 1: for X number of you know, years, If we're lucky
Speaker 1: in a goofy ass mess of protons, neutrons and electrons
Speaker 1: that all grouped together to make this thing. And why
Speaker 1: are we deciding what that needs to mean? You know,
Speaker 1: what it has to be in relation to each other
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Yeah, and like limiting. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: much of what we can experience, our feel, or enjoy.
Speaker 1: While Claude and Marcel were in Paris, the Surrealist movement began,
Speaker 1: and this was headed up by Andre Breton, who they
Speaker 1: did make friends with, even though this guy, if you
Speaker 1: don't know him, he was a homophobe and a misogynist. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, the whole surrealist movement was kind of homophobic
Speaker 1: and misogynist. Yeah, Louise Downey writes, and Heritage Magazine quote
Speaker 1: it was a very much male dominated group, led by
Speaker 1: the function and image of women in surrealist art was
Speaker 1: often the role of muse child or femme fatale. Women
Speaker 1: were treated as objects to inspire male genius. Their bodies
Speaker 1: were for use as esthetic objects and for male desire.
Speaker 1: But in Claude's photographs, as Moment explains, they quote staged
Speaker 1: images of themselves that challenge the idea of static gender, right,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's why Breton never really liked Claude, right,
Speaker 1: he didn't like their weird outfits, he hated their same
Speaker 1: sex relationship. But they were so damn good. They were
Speaker 1: so brilliant and coming up with this like just unthought
Speaker 1: of techniques and compositions. Even he had to put some
Speaker 1: respect on their name. He once said that Claude was
Speaker 1: quote one of the most curious spirits of our time,
Speaker 1: which I love is a compliment and also not a
Speaker 1: compliment at the same time. He's just like, that's a
Speaker 1: weirdo over there. And yeah, even though they were never
Speaker 1: like quote unquote official members of the surrealist movement, which
Speaker 1: how do you know, Well, it was a card, but
Speaker 1: it was printed on an orange peel. Oh okay, yeah
Speaker 1: makes perfect, Yeah surrealist sence. Right. Um, so yeah, they
Speaker 1: were never like a fish on the orange polist or whatever,
Speaker 1: but it should be noted that they were both at
Speaker 1: the forefront of that esthetic. Yeah. In the mid nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: a publisher asked Claude to write basically an autobiography, what
Speaker 1: the publisher called a confessional, and Claude was real reluctant
Speaker 1: because you know, they're kind of like under this face
Speaker 1: another face. How could I ever explain to you. Sure,
Speaker 1: I could never get it down to just fact quote
Speaker 1: unquote fact. There's no such thing as fact. In my opinions,
Speaker 1: I am Claude, I am an artist, and I am
Speaker 1: a rhinoceros, and I am a liquid puddle on the ground.
Speaker 1: That's right, I meant much right. So then two years later,
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty eight, Claude handed this publisher friend a
Speaker 1: manuscript of their book, Avoul non Avenue, which is translated
Speaker 1: in different places as disavowed confessions, canceled confessions, disavowals, or
Speaker 1: simply denials. Okay, now, Latimer calls it a quote anti realist,
Speaker 1: indeed surrealistic critique of autobiography because it's both confession and
Speaker 1: denial at the same time. Okay, sounds like the weird
Speaker 1: Ol movie, right it right? Like Claude probably would have
Speaker 1: fucking loved the weird Al movie. Let's be real plots
Speaker 1: like you write your own story baby. In the introduction,
Speaker 1: Claude writes, quote, until I see everything clearly, I want
Speaker 1: to hunt myself down, struggle with myself. I think it
Speaker 1: describes their art a lot too, because again, it's a
Speaker 1: lot of exploring who they are and what they could
Speaker 1: be sure thing. So that publisher friend did decline the
Speaker 1: man your script and they were like, this is a
Speaker 1: little far out for me. But it was published by
Speaker 1: the anti Nazi publishing house care it For in nineteen thirty.
Speaker 1: And since we don't have a full poem by Claude
Speaker 1: to share with you, we're going to share some of
Speaker 1: what they wrote in this collection of quote poem essays
Speaker 1: or essay poems. So let's go down to poetry essay
Speaker 1: a corner and hear a few excerpts from Avoux non
Speaker 1: Avenue by Claude Cahun. I welcomed young monsters into myself
Speaker 1: and nurtured them, but the makeup I had used seemed indelible.
Speaker 1: I rubbed so hard to remove it that I took
Speaker 1: off all the skin, and my soul like a flayed face, naked,
Speaker 1: no longer had a human form. Surely you are not
Speaker 1: claiming to be more homosexual than I. Yes, permit me
Speaker 1: to warn reckless young women seeing the trap doesn't prevent
Speaker 1: you from getting caught in it, and that doubles the pleasure.
Speaker 1: What does a well behave child dream about, apart from
Speaker 1: the inhumane, the monstrous, the impossible, the ordinary. Oh, may
Speaker 1: the birds not expect any speeches about aviation from me.
Speaker 1: Oh my god boy, we need that quote. I want
Speaker 1: that written in the sky. That is like everyone, I
Speaker 1: was like, that's the most poetic way to say, stay
Speaker 1: in your laying. You know what. I'm not gonna go
Speaker 1: give the birds a monologue about flying, which I love
Speaker 1: because surely they're like, stop telling me what a woman is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: stop telling me what a man is. I'm a human
Speaker 1: being and I know what it is. Yeah, I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: You know, I just think that's true. Don't tell me
Speaker 1: about my own life. So good, angels with patched wings, sales, flirtations,
Speaker 1: less midden modesties. Let's use up heaven down to the dregs,
Speaker 1: the verb, down to the insult, the espadrilla, and the liar,
Speaker 1: down to the last string. I am ambiguous to you, nuther.
Speaker 1: You can neither make head nor tails of me. I
Speaker 1: provoke your metoxinphobia, your fear of the in between. I
Speaker 1: challenge you to a dual gaze. Who looks away first loses.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so good. The duel gays look, We're both
Speaker 1: going to look at each other. Can you handle it?
Speaker 1: Because I can handle it, that's right, and she I
Speaker 1: mean they do spell it duel yeah, d u e L.
Speaker 1: So not just duel d u a L two gays,
Speaker 1: but rather I'm challenging. I love it brilliant. Now, besides
Speaker 1: writing this surrealist, you know, anti biography, Claude and Marcel
Speaker 1: made their mark in other ways on the overall surrealist movement.
Speaker 1: In one of their photos of Claude and Trafalgar Square
Speaker 1: with this flower arrangement obscuring their heads surrounded by birds,
Speaker 1: It's been reprinted in several books about surrealism. I took
Speaker 1: a look. I've definitely seen this before. You probably have
Speaker 1: two very cool, very surreal, very much looks like a dream.
Speaker 1: And in addition, according to Terza Latimer, Claude not only
Speaker 1: quote signed but helped compose many of the political tracks
Speaker 1: generated by Breton and his porters during the nineteen thirties. Right,
Speaker 1: and this wasn't I didn't want to get too much
Speaker 1: into this, but it's another interesting parallel to today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in a way was that Claude was like, my life
Speaker 1: is already politicized. High identity is politicized. Right, I'm Jewish
Speaker 1: in the thirties, so beyond any sexuality, gender identity, anything.
Speaker 1: My very existence is being politically debated. Yeah. Now, Claude
Speaker 1: and Marcel were also creating puppets and like and surrealist
Speaker 1: photos that involved these puppets that quote negotiated between the
Speaker 1: theater of political opposition and the theater of dreams, the
Speaker 1: psyche and the revolution, the two polls, in other words,
Speaker 1: of surrealist practice. One of their puppets, for example, was
Speaker 1: of I'd like this Nazi soldier, but it was created
Speaker 1: from the pages of a communist newspaper, and this was
Speaker 1: meant to show the quote merger of two totalitarian schools
Speaker 1: of thought, that of Hitler and that of Stalin m
Speaker 1: oh They almost formed the same kind of murder machine.
Speaker 1: And it was basically this schism that spelled the end
Speaker 1: of the surrealist movement in nineteen thirty five, because many
Speaker 1: of the artists joined the French Communist Party at the
Speaker 1: expense of their surrealist activities. But Claude and Marcel, along
Speaker 1: with Andre Breton, kind of rejected the idea that communism
Speaker 1: was the only answer to rising fascism. It was people
Speaker 1: being like, how do we really fix this Hitler problem?
Speaker 1: I know, we'll do it in the political arena, and
Speaker 1: they felt that art again was political and could play
Speaker 1: its part. Yeah. In an essay that Claude wrote called
Speaker 1: bets Are on the Art story dot Org writes that
Speaker 1: Claude quote promotes a type of art that uses poetry
Speaker 1: rather than propaganda to spread its message through indirect action,
Speaker 1: as they called it, and Breton loved this. I think
Speaker 1: it was after they wrote this that Breton was like,
Speaker 1: I guess you're all right. You're a curious spirit there.
Speaker 1: So yeah, even again, just to say, even though their
Speaker 1: names are not in the list of historic surrealists, they
Speaker 1: did help create that movement. They were fully part of
Speaker 1: founding that. It's got to be interesting too to kind
Speaker 1: of ally with someone like Breton. It's like homophobe and
Speaker 1: chauvinists against rising fascism, right, which is like a lot
Speaker 1: of their whole platform too. I know, so you're really
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, strange bedfellows, which, of course Breton
Speaker 1: would say, no strange bedfellows, I know, right, I only
Speaker 1: want predictable bedfellows, or I'll take strange bed ladies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but no bed fellows for me. So Claude and Marcel
Speaker 1: spent seventeen years in Paris. They made poetry, essays, articles, sculptures,
Speaker 1: photo montages, portraits, collages, theatrical productions. They founded this certain
Speaker 1: you know, they helped found the surrealist movement, and they
Speaker 1: got involved in politics. And the body of work that
Speaker 1: they created in that time is enough to make an
Speaker 1: episode about that, enough to give them a place in history.
Speaker 1: But their greatest project was yet to come, and we
Speaker 1: would get to that right after these words welcome back.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen thirty five, Claude co founded a group
Speaker 1: protesting the rise of Hitler and the spread of fascism.
Speaker 1: But Paris was becoming kind of an uncomfortable place to
Speaker 1: be Jewish, like so many places at that time. So
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty seven they chose to move to the
Speaker 1: island of Jersey. Yeah, they had spent a lot of
Speaker 1: childhood vacations there. They were highly familiar with the Island
Speaker 1: of Jersey. They were into it. They were like, let's
Speaker 1: go where we were happy. They were like, you know, Jay,
Speaker 1: z Ali, Jay, let's go to the Jersey shoe a baby.
Speaker 1: But after France felt the Nazis in nineteen forty, Jersey
Speaker 1: and Guernsey were occupied by the Nazis. That was the
Speaker 1: closest the Nazis ever got to actually getting into England.
Speaker 1: Most people left these islands as quickly as they could,
Speaker 1: but Claude and Marcel decided they weren't going nowhere. They said, well,
Speaker 1: we'll art our way out of this. I'm old, I'm
Speaker 1: sick of moving. Yeah. It's like those people that stay
Speaker 1: at the foot of the volcano and you're like it's
Speaker 1: erupting tomorrow and they're like, yeah, but I'm still working
Speaker 1: on that wicker furniture outside. I'm going nowhere. The art
Speaker 1: story dot Org says quote. At this time, Cahoun and
Speaker 1: Moore started to use their original names again, and they
Speaker 1: became known as Les Madame to the other local inhabitants
Speaker 1: of Jersey, and they gained a reputation for strange behaviors,
Speaker 1: such as taking their cat for a walk on a
Speaker 1: leash and wearing trousers. What so everyone in Jerseys just like, oh,
Speaker 1: these two ladies over here, they're walking there cats, Lucy
Speaker 1: and Suzanne. They're always wearing pants. You know what. They're
Speaker 1: clearly old and kooky. This is how we all talk
Speaker 1: in Jersey. What I love about that is that they
Speaker 1: clearly were like, you know, trying to be a little
Speaker 1: dl They're like, we'll be Lucy and Suzanne. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: we'll try to look like sisters. You know, we're not
Speaker 1: gonna parade our relationship around. It's kind of dangerous. But
Speaker 1: they also were like, and also, we're still weird and
Speaker 1: we're not going to conform. Yeah, completely, So I kind
Speaker 1: of love that they sort of found like a line
Speaker 1: to walk. I guess there's nothing no character I like
Speaker 1: better than a than a kook in their fifties, you know,
Speaker 1: just total unconventional weirdo out there living life. They're like,
Speaker 1: I've done the thing for too long and now I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be myself, right, you know, I think we should
Speaker 1: all aspire that if not younger, these two would also
Speaker 1: sunbathe naked together. It likely not anywhere where people could
Speaker 1: see them, right, you know, most people just assumed that
Speaker 1: they were a couple of weirdo spinster sisters. And of
Speaker 1: course this was a really good cover for them. That's right,
Speaker 1: because their biggest project during the Nazi occupation was resistant Yes,
Speaker 1: putting their political, artistic and writing abilities to work, they
Speaker 1: launched an anti Nazi propaganda campaign that reached every corner
Speaker 1: of the islands. That indirect action that Claude had a
Speaker 1: spouse in bets are on sure. Jeffrey H. Jackson, a
Speaker 1: history professor, wrote the definitive biography of this particular part
Speaker 1: of their lives in his book Paper Bullets, which I love.
Speaker 1: The idea of paper bullet so cool. He says, it
Speaker 1: all started when the two of them found a photo
Speaker 1: in a German magazine of a marching regiment of soldiers.
Speaker 1: And of course this is a German magazine. It's supposed
Speaker 1: to make them look really badass and cool in their
Speaker 1: winning and everything's going great. But the two were struck
Speaker 1: by the fact that the top of the photo featured
Speaker 1: the soldier's arms swinging, that it had a sense of
Speaker 1: action in progress, but the bottom featured their mud covered boots,
Speaker 1: and econom made them look, as Claude wrote in a
Speaker 1: letter quote, as though they were stuck in mud. So
Speaker 1: Claude and Marcel ripped the picture in half. They just
Speaker 1: kept a part of the boots looking like they were
Speaker 1: stuck in mud. Right, They wrote own end or without
Speaker 1: end in German cross it sorry if I pronounced that wrong,
Speaker 1: And then they removed this beloved picture they had of
Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas from a beautiful frame
Speaker 1: they had, and they replaced it with these endlessly marching,
Speaker 1: mud covered Nazis in this like beautiful frame. Then they
Speaker 1: snuck into this abandoned house that was about to become
Speaker 1: soldiers quarters, and they hung the picture on a wall
Speaker 1: right where the sun would hit it and make it
Speaker 1: impossible to ignore. Yes, Jackson writes in Paper Bullets quote.
Speaker 1: The soldiers might not immediately see the image, but when
Speaker 1: they did, each would likely think that perhaps one of
Speaker 1: the other men had hung it. Such a thought might
Speaker 1: so confusion and mistrust in their ranks. Yes, and Claude
Speaker 1: and Marcel hoped the men would start thinking that Hitler's
Speaker 1: war might never end. Oh I love that. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: some soldier sees these boots and it's like you'll know
Speaker 1: now is if I think about it? Are we going
Speaker 1: to be doing this forever? Now? This was just the
Speaker 1: beginning for Claude and Marcel. These artists would listen to
Speaker 1: the BBC, which was illegal to do, right, and they
Speaker 1: would translate what was said into German, which Marcel was
Speaker 1: fluent in. Although obviously the Nazi occupiers didn't know that
Speaker 1: she was. They would type up or write the words
Speaker 1: on small pieces of tissue paper and they would sign
Speaker 1: them the Soldier with no name as an example. One
Speaker 1: famous message was a drawing of a Nazi soldier on
Speaker 1: a sinking ship called the ss Reich, sporting a Swastika
Speaker 1: flag and clearly like waving his arms desperately in the
Speaker 1: air hoping to be rescued. Means most of the messages
Speaker 1: that Claude put out would urge the troops to mutiny
Speaker 1: and shoot their officers. And then Claude and Marcel would
Speaker 1: get dressed up and attend German military events and this
Speaker 1: all out of the to kind of slide up to
Speaker 1: soldiers and slip these little pamphlets into their pockets or
Speaker 1: like put them on their chairs they were there when
Speaker 1: they came to sit back down. Usually Marcell was one
Speaker 1: doing this, and I just can't imagine the danger. No,
Speaker 1: they were putting themselves in to do this. It's incredible.
Speaker 1: It's so funny too, to like pickpocket, but you're adding
Speaker 1: a plick pocket. Yeah they're a click pocket. But yeah,
Speaker 1: apparently Marcell took the greatest risk. Yeah, so that's cool too. Again,
Speaker 1: Marcell doesn't get as much attention as Claude, but Marcelle's
Speaker 1: balls of steel. I mean this time as somebody who's
Speaker 1: sliding an illegal pamphlet saying please shoot your officer into
Speaker 1: some guy's pocket. I'm hoping he don't notice. That's I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I would get scared passing a note to
Speaker 1: my friend in the back of French class. It just
Speaker 1: said like, you know, farts with a little picture of
Speaker 1: a cloud on it, and we'd like giggle and stuff,
Speaker 1: and that's the scariest thing in the world. Would be
Speaker 1: someone to say, Eli, what was on that note? Elena,
Speaker 1: share with the class? But scary, Oh my god, so scary.
Speaker 1: Other times they would hide messages inside the cover of
Speaker 1: a cigarette box and be like, oh, you left your
Speaker 1: smokes over here. Um. Sometimes they would hide these messages
Speaker 1: in the pages of German language magazines. Sometimes they'd even
Speaker 1: just crumple them up on a piece of paper and
Speaker 1: throw them through the windows of cars, right of like
Speaker 1: German officers cars. One of the biggest pranks is when
Speaker 1: they hung a banner in a church that said quote,
Speaker 1: Jesus is great, but Hitler is greater because Jesus died
Speaker 1: for people but people die for Hitler. WHOA wow, that
Speaker 1: is like, oh my god, that's the most ice called burn.
Speaker 1: I totally roasted, totally roasted. And they hung a banner.
Speaker 1: I know, right. That takes a second. That's not like
Speaker 1: slipping something into someone's pocket. That ain't no quick thing.
Speaker 1: You gotta first show up with a all right, and
Speaker 1: then the pastor has to be like, sure you need
Speaker 1: some thumbtachs or like what do you need? Did anyone
Speaker 1: see anyone walk through these doors with a giant banner
Speaker 1: into hands? Not? I. This is another cool thing and
Speaker 1: kind of frustrating thing as person knew likes history about
Speaker 1: pockets of resistance to the Nazis is that even after
Speaker 1: the Nazis were gone, people still didn't talk about it.
Speaker 1: You know, they were like, it still could put you
Speaker 1: in danger. Yeah, some people are still alive. They still
Speaker 1: have feelings about what happened or whatever. And I need
Speaker 1: to keep this to myself. There's plenty of things that
Speaker 1: we're never going to know anything about that people did.
Speaker 1: And so I imagine they show up at this church,
Speaker 1: somebody looked the other way to let them hang that up. Yeah, exactly. Now,
Speaker 1: for four years Claude and Marcel did this incredible four years.
Speaker 1: They got away with this and it drove the Nazis crazy.
Speaker 1: The best thing to do. I know, I'm incredible. These
Speaker 1: guys were convinced that there was some widespread conspiracy within
Speaker 1: their ranks. So there was this large scale resistance movement
Speaker 1: going on right under their noses. And it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're making them so crazy that they couldn't figure out
Speaker 1: who it was. But then in nineteen forty four, the
Speaker 1: woman who sold Claude and Marcel the tissue paper that
Speaker 1: they used to write these messages on informed on them,
Speaker 1: and Claude and Marcel were arrested for treason. They were
Speaker 1: both subjected to quote arduous interrogation, as Latimer calls it,
Speaker 1: because they would not reveal the names of their collaborators. Wow,
Speaker 1: and that's because the Nazis were convinced that some men
Speaker 1: must be involved. These are two fifty something women. I mean,
Speaker 1: what can you do the way you're doing this by yourself,
Speaker 1: Just just a couple of old ladies, still not capable
Speaker 1: of anything but being grandmothers, on baking cookies, on having
Speaker 1: some cat Now tell me the name of the man
Speaker 1: who masterminded this entire amazing resistance movement photographs pants. Some
Speaker 1: man gave you his pants. As Claude Calhoun put it, quote,
Speaker 1: they were forced at the end of the day to
Speaker 1: condemn us without believing in our existence. Wow. So Claude
Speaker 1: and Marcel were charged with listening to the radio and
Speaker 1: inciting the troops to rebellion, and the first charge had
Speaker 1: a sentence of six years in prison. The second charge
Speaker 1: had a death sentence, and apparently after she heard this,
Speaker 1: Claude stood up in the courtroom and asked the judge
Speaker 1: which sentence would be served first. Incredible. She also apparently
Speaker 1: said that she would have to be shot twice, once
Speaker 1: for being a resistor and once for being Jewish, and
Speaker 1: all this witch got a big laugh in the courtroom.
Speaker 1: No one could deny that she was funny. The prosecuting
Speaker 1: Nazi officer probably took off his hat and punched a
Speaker 1: whole right. Oh, heat one's a funny, I wasn't me.
Speaker 1: So Claude and Marcel were thrown into separate prison cells,
Speaker 1: and this was the first time since they met that
Speaker 1: they would ever live apart. It's unclear from records whether
Speaker 1: their death sentences were commuted or if the Nazis just
Speaker 1: ran out of time because the island of Jersey and
Speaker 1: our heroines were both liberated when the Allies showed up
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty five. But by then their house had
Speaker 1: already been requisitioned by the Nazis, so of course most
Speaker 1: of the art inside was destroyed, including artwork by Max
Speaker 1: Ernst and Joan Merrow. But sadly prison was really detrimental
Speaker 1: to Claude's health, which had never been great to begin with.
Speaker 1: But you know, we can imagine how terribly they were
Speaker 1: treated in jail, considering that they were Jewish and a
Speaker 1: lesbian and a resistor, which is like the trifecta of
Speaker 1: Nazi hatred right right that they died in nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: four at the age of sixty. Cell relocated to a
Speaker 1: smaller house and there's literally absolutely just nothing recorded about
Speaker 1: her until nineteen seventy two, and she died by suicide
Speaker 1: and she's buried next to Claude in Saint Crolaid's Church
Speaker 1: in Jersey. Claude and Marcell's life and legacy were pretty
Speaker 1: much lost to history until the nineteen nineties, when Francois
Speaker 1: le Pelier published the biography Claude Cahoun Masks and metamorphoses. Then,
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven, none other than David Bowie,
Speaker 1: who is of course another appreciator of playing with gender
Speaker 1: expression and presentation, curated an exhibit of Claude Cahoun's work
Speaker 1: for the New York Highline Festival. Claude and Marcell's radical
Speaker 1: exploration and challenging of femininity, gender, beauty, social and economic boundaries.
Speaker 1: Everything that they had encompassed in their work had finally
Speaker 1: been unearthed and given new appreciation. In twenty eighteen, a
Speaker 1: street in France, near where they had lived in Montparnasse,
Speaker 1: was named for them, and that same year Christian Dior
Speaker 1: unveiled an entire androgynous fashion line inspired by Claude Cahoun. Amazing.
Speaker 1: They also got like a Google doodle and stuff, So
Speaker 1: just really recently, you know, a lot of interest around
Speaker 1: their work. At these two were obviously incredible artists. They
Speaker 1: refused to be defined by anything, not their time, their gender, society,
Speaker 1: their government, not even their work. To find them, they
Speaker 1: were constantly experimenting, like constantly playing, like we said, just
Speaker 1: manipulating reality in every way that they could. And their
Speaker 1: commitment to one another is equally Amazing India. Brigitte Jarvis
Speaker 1: in that article Historical Heroines wrote, quote from nineteen oh
Speaker 1: eight to Cahoun's death in nineteen fifty four. They lived
Speaker 1: together first and then in Paris then Jersey, created and
Speaker 1: published together, walked their cats on leashes together, sun bathed
Speaker 1: naked together, resisted Nazi occupation together, were arrested together, and
Speaker 1: sentenced to death together. So really, you know, a total
Speaker 1: twin flame kind of situation. Yeah, Like once they were
Speaker 1: like this is it? That was it? Like they were
Speaker 1: inextricably linked. I mean, they were so ahead of their
Speaker 1: time that even now, like a hundred years later, their
Speaker 1: work is still a revelation. Yeah, they're still saying things
Speaker 1: that are fresh and weird and new. Yeah. But something
Speaker 1: I love about them too is that they always appreciated
Speaker 1: that the gaze of the viewer or the participation of
Speaker 1: the reader was essential to the work, which is something
Speaker 1: that I really love about theater and performance in general.
Speaker 1: I feel like theater without an audience is a rehearsal. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not done until it's put in front of someone
Speaker 1: and you get to have that energy come back to you.
Speaker 1: You know. That's just something I find so powerful about it. So,
Speaker 1: to use Claude's own words, quote, if the adventuress has
Speaker 1: managed to get rid of the whole paraphernalia of facts,
Speaker 1: has made herself invisible man and invisible woman, it's due
Speaker 1: to the indispensable collaboration of the reader. I love that
Speaker 1: because I think you and I have talked to about
Speaker 1: when you take in art or watch a movie or something,
Speaker 1: the way you're watching it really matters, Yes, the mood
Speaker 1: you're in, if you're willing to go along with it
Speaker 1: or not. It changes if you like it. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: you have to collaborate in the work that you take
Speaker 1: in and consume the collaboration of the observer of a
Speaker 1: piece of art. I just love looking at that because
Speaker 1: it affects the art. It is what the art is
Speaker 1: in many cases about is the impact that it has, right,
Speaker 1: And I like being an observer, like participating in that respect. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And there's so many times when I'm like, I just
Speaker 1: I wasn't in the mood for this. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: can't tell you if it was good or bad objectively
Speaker 1: or even subjectively. I was not willing to receive it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I you know, maybe one day when I am
Speaker 1: I kind of felt that we watched Huby Halloween Adam
Speaker 1: Sandler and Halloween movie. Wow, what a thing to compare
Speaker 1: to Claude and Martian. No, I don't even like it
Speaker 1: that much, but I just remember we put it on
Speaker 1: and I was like, Okay, it's an Adam stand like
Speaker 1: I'm in the movie, you know, I'm I've got my
Speaker 1: headspace together for an Adam Sandler movie. I am fine
Speaker 1: with whatever dumb shit he wants to do. And it
Speaker 1: was more enjoyable period than when I But you sit
Speaker 1: there and watch with your arms folded and you're like
Speaker 1: ready to hate it. You're not gonna like it, even
Speaker 1: if it is very good. Meanwhile, what's funny to me
Speaker 1: is that I grew up appreciating Adam Sandler more than
Speaker 1: you did, and I couldn't. I couldn't get myself in
Speaker 1: that space for Hubie Halloween. That was one where I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't care how much I prepared myself
Speaker 1: for what I was about to get. I was bothered
Speaker 1: every second fear. It was a kind of an annoying movie.
Speaker 1: But I just remember that was just a moment when
Speaker 1: it felt really clear to me, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you were willing to receive this movie and the spirit
Speaker 1: that it was given to you, and it made you
Speaker 1: enjoy it more. Yeah, I've had moods. I was here.
Speaker 1: Here's a story I was in while we're talking about
Speaker 1: bad movies. I was coming out of a phase of
Speaker 1: depression that I ad in my twenties and really had
Speaker 1: had a particularly bad day. And not because of this,
Speaker 1: but just circumstantially, my dad and I had decided to
Speaker 1: go see a movie that day, and I was like
Speaker 1: struggling to get myself out of the house, but just
Speaker 1: you know, we went. We decided to go. We saw
Speaker 1: Wanted right with James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie Right and
Speaker 1: the bullet bending. Yeah, And as I watched that movie
Speaker 1: and just kind of climbed out of the funk that
Speaker 1: I was in. I walked out of that movie and
Speaker 1: was like, this is one of my favorite movies. I
Speaker 1: loved it, I had. I felt so much better walking
Speaker 1: out of it than I did going into it. And
Speaker 1: so for a while I was telling people, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what, guys, I really liked Wanted, to the point
Speaker 1: that when we had a friend group movie night going
Speaker 1: and it was my turn to pick. I said, hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: let's watch Wanted. And it was one of the most
Speaker 1: uncomfortable movie view experiences I've had, because from minute ten
Speaker 1: onwards you could tell everybody else in the room was
Speaker 1: hating it. And I didn't even care for it that
Speaker 1: much when watched it again, and I think I had
Speaker 1: prefaced it with like, I saw this in a bad
Speaker 1: mood and it made me feel better. So I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's really good. I just I liked it,
Speaker 1: and I didn't really like it very much the second time.
Speaker 1: But but talk about your headspace and your experience affecting
Speaker 1: you how you felt about a work of art, right, Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: it is big of a stretch as it maybe to
Speaker 1: call Wanted a work of art, right, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Yeah, you know what I mean. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I had that too with like some friends
Speaker 1: of mine when I worked at the restaurant, I didn't
Speaker 1: go to too many like arts events, and I remember
Speaker 1: kind of asking why and they'd be like, well, I
Speaker 1: just feel like I don't get it or I don't
Speaker 1: how to act. And I was like, but you don't
Speaker 1: have to get it. I mean, you don't have to
Speaker 1: like it. You're not no one. I mean, the artist
Speaker 1: of course would prefer it, I'm sure, but you don't
Speaker 1: actually have to like it. Any way that you feel
Speaker 1: about it is fine. Yeah, And I think if you
Speaker 1: go into an art, any art thing, period, even if
Speaker 1: it's wanted or whatever, it is thinking it's okay, however
Speaker 1: I feel about this, but I'm ready to like it.
Speaker 1: I'm ready to receive it. First of all, it makes
Speaker 1: it more enjoyable. Even if you don't end up liking
Speaker 1: the art itself, the experience is more and you don't
Speaker 1: have to feel shamed like you don't. You don't need
Speaker 1: to feel like out of the loop with the art
Speaker 1: world or some shit like I don't really have a
Speaker 1: lot of patience with that. So I remember we went
Speaker 1: to something and I was like, they were like laughing
Speaker 1: at times that I thought were inappropriate during this performance,
Speaker 1: and I remember I kind of frowned at one of them.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, you know, and I saw the shame.
Speaker 1: It was that sense of like, oh, this is not
Speaker 1: my world. I'm a guest here and I shouldn't be
Speaker 1: acting like this. And I felt ashamed because I was like,
Speaker 1: you just made them dislike this more. You made them
Speaker 1: feel alienated from this experience, like they were not allowed
Speaker 1: to be here, and I went I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry I did that. If you want to laugh, laugh,
Speaker 1: it's it's not up to me to decide when you
Speaker 1: should laugh. If you feel uncomfortable, that is a human response, right.
Speaker 1: If you think it's funny, that's a human response. That's
Speaker 1: fair when you put art out there, that's what you're
Speaker 1: asking for, is a human response. Of course, there are
Speaker 1: ways to be disrespectful during a performance, but you know
Speaker 1: that's not what they were. They weren't being disruptive. They
Speaker 1: were really just reacting. Yeah, and you know, so you
Speaker 1: can tell the difference. There's a line, for sure, but
Speaker 1: but yeah, so I just remember just having that was
Speaker 1: such a like a thunderbolt moment for me, I guess
Speaker 1: as kind of feeling like, oh, you know, this is
Speaker 1: what makes people feel like they can't participate in this world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I want to get back to their resistance too,
Speaker 1: because I was so struck by. As we're reading through this,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking it's important to be reminded that this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff works, right, because I think it's so easy
Speaker 1: to say, oh, you know, a little piece of art
Speaker 1: is irrelevant. It's it's a drop in the bucket. It's
Speaker 1: it's throwing a pebble at a giant. You know, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's cute that you made your little art as a
Speaker 1: resistance piece or something, but what are you actually doing.
Speaker 1: If you're not out there using your hands and getting
Speaker 1: stuff done, it doesn't matter. But it does. It matters
Speaker 1: so much. It's it's like really effective. And like you said,
Speaker 1: it's chipping away at the wall and little chips matter.
Speaker 1: And you know, everybody's looking at all the men and
Speaker 1: the elves and the dwarves and they're big, powerful weapons
Speaker 1: and stuff, and they're not paying attention to the Hobbits,
Speaker 1: so they're ring to Mount Doom. It's so easy to
Speaker 1: dismiss that stuff as fantasy and inspirational story and oh
Speaker 1: that's cute, but what's it actually doing? And then to
Speaker 1: see a story where it it mattered. You know, they
Speaker 1: had an impact. I don't know that they brought down
Speaker 1: the Nazis by themselves, but think what all those soldiers
Speaker 1: on that island might have been accomplishing if they weren't
Speaker 1: worried about where's this resistance movement they're hiding right beneath us.
Speaker 1: They must have spent some time or resources. You're trying
Speaker 1: to find the men that they were so sure, yep,
Speaker 1: we're in charge of this, and they must have been
Speaker 1: question shing each other. Yeah. That's the other thing is
Speaker 1: they're so right that it doesn't take that much to
Speaker 1: just make the distrust matters. Like army, you know, a
Speaker 1: troop morale is really important. And it sounds like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, give them some chocolate, what's the big deal,
Speaker 1: But it like makes them able to fight, you know, like,
Speaker 1: and they were keeping that from happening, Like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's it is often seen. I feel like, is a
Speaker 1: way that oh, you made yourself feel better because you
Speaker 1: did a little something and it's not really going to
Speaker 1: accomplish anything, but you feel like you did something. Absolutely
Speaker 1: it does. But but yeah, I think and also is
Speaker 1: that a bad thing for me to if that's all
Speaker 1: I can control is how I feel. I made myself
Speaker 1: feel like I did something. Maybe you don't find it
Speaker 1: as useful as other things I could do, but you
Speaker 1: don't know my situation that I'm capable of or what
Speaker 1: I'm able to do in my space where I am at.
Speaker 1: So I love that they kind of straight up found.
Speaker 1: They were like, do what you can with what you
Speaker 1: have where you are, And so they said, we got
Speaker 1: these soldiers, we got our skills, how can we shake
Speaker 1: this tree? Yeah, and I bet there were some soldiers
Speaker 1: that did definitely leave, I mean, or try, you know,
Speaker 1: or at least want to, and had had questions that
Speaker 1: they didn't have before. You put any group of people together, right,
Speaker 1: whether it's just ten dudes or or a whole battalion
Speaker 1: or whatever, and there's drama and there's trust issues and
Speaker 1: there's people trying out maneuver each other and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: It's not hard to poke and prod and cause a
Speaker 1: bunch of strife within any group of people, you know.
Speaker 1: Take it from me. I was in a theater company.
Speaker 1: So I love those kinds of movements because they're they're
Speaker 1: so effective. And I'll tell you what bad people are
Speaker 1: doing that they know that to be true, So you
Speaker 1: got to you gotta do it back, that's right. I
Speaker 1: just think this is such a cool story. I love
Speaker 1: Claude and Marcel, so I hope that you love their
Speaker 1: story as much as I did. Claude Cahoun and Marcel
Speaker 1: or please look them up so you can see some
Speaker 1: other work. As Eli said, we will be posting a
Speaker 1: lot of pictures on our Instagram. Please look it up
Speaker 1: and let us know what you thought. Our email is
Speaker 1: ridic Romance at gmail dot com. That's right. You can
Speaker 1: find us on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at o Greate,
Speaker 1: It's Eli, I'm at Cyanamite Boom, and the show is
Speaker 1: at riddic Romance and ron TikTok at Ridiculous Romance as well.
Speaker 1: It's right. Follow along. Make sure you catch us the
Speaker 1: next episode and we will see it in love you
Speaker 1: Bye bye, so long friends, it's time to go. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to our show. Tell your friend's name's uncle's
Speaker 1: indan to listen to our show, Ridiculous Roll Dance