I finished this job with some great help from an assistant...who turned out to be a bit homophobic. Nothing nasty, him just saying if he'd known he was helping pack up books and archives dealing with GLBT history in the UK, he'd have passed on the job. He found some of the subjects offensive, though he never specified which ones. Otherwise, he was a pleasure to work with.
I honestly didn't react to it, I'm so used to that kind of attitude. I sometimes think I should call people like that out, but truth is, I didn't care. If that's how he wants to be, fine; he worked hard, did the job as needed and left with no other complaint. And the truth is...some of the things in the library startled me, too.
What also startled me was, out of 2000 books of gay lit and nonfiction, not one of my books was in the library. Shallow on my part to have hurt feelings about that since the man died in 2011, but still...he had some that I knew were poorly written. Oh, well.
After getting done, I went to a play the donor was part of -- a long one-act about Lord Alfred Douglas -- Oscar Wilde's muse, who ignored him when he went to trial for sodomy but who, upon Wilde's release from prison, gave him a place to live till he died -- and his wife, and their horrific marriage. Called Olive and Bosie, the lead actor, Nigel Fairs, wrote it and it was quite good. The lead actress, Abi Harris, was playing to the rafters, but not too terribly so. What made it super fun was, it took place in the old Brighton Jail Cells under Town Hall. Very creepy and dismal.
We were taken from a lobby like this...
...down these stairs...
...through a hallway...
...down more stairs...that led to a long room with a single light bulb in it, Abi sitting in a chair reading some correspondence...then once we were seated on narrow benches that ran the length of the room, the play began.
It was part of the Fringe Festival going on in Brighton, right now. All kinds of music and art and theater. After the play, I joined the group at a pub for a Guinness and Scottish Egg, then wound up with them at a gay bar, dancing!
I haven't been dancing in decades...
I honestly didn't react to it, I'm so used to that kind of attitude. I sometimes think I should call people like that out, but truth is, I didn't care. If that's how he wants to be, fine; he worked hard, did the job as needed and left with no other complaint. And the truth is...some of the things in the library startled me, too.
What also startled me was, out of 2000 books of gay lit and nonfiction, not one of my books was in the library. Shallow on my part to have hurt feelings about that since the man died in 2011, but still...he had some that I knew were poorly written. Oh, well.
After getting done, I went to a play the donor was part of -- a long one-act about Lord Alfred Douglas -- Oscar Wilde's muse, who ignored him when he went to trial for sodomy but who, upon Wilde's release from prison, gave him a place to live till he died -- and his wife, and their horrific marriage. Called Olive and Bosie, the lead actor, Nigel Fairs, wrote it and it was quite good. The lead actress, Abi Harris, was playing to the rafters, but not too terribly so. What made it super fun was, it took place in the old Brighton Jail Cells under Town Hall. Very creepy and dismal.
We were taken from a lobby like this...
...down more stairs...that led to a long room with a single light bulb in it, Abi sitting in a chair reading some correspondence...then once we were seated on narrow benches that ran the length of the room, the play began.It was part of the Fringe Festival going on in Brighton, right now. All kinds of music and art and theater. After the play, I joined the group at a pub for a Guinness and Scottish Egg, then wound up with them at a gay bar, dancing!
I haven't been dancing in decades...
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