LETTERS READ

This podcast wraps up the 2024 incubator-style programming on the early days of HIV | AIDS. This series is brought to you in support of the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana. Most productions in this series are short, mini-podcasts, five to seven minutes long. This podcast takes longer to wrap up a difficult and emotional topic. It comprises Sims's experience in Los Angeles, ca. 1990s, as director of the second AIDS hospice facility in the country. Sims talks, in a straightforward manner about AIDS, hospice, and dying. Interjecting levity, and, where appropriate, humor. The recording was created in two parts. The original interview with Sims was performed by Nancy Sharon Collins, Letters Read director. The second, narrative part is Collins again. The podcasts circles back to other Letters Read subjects Stewart Butler, Noel Twilbeck, and Mark Gonzalez. Stay tuned to Letters Read for more compelling programming in 2025.

This podcast, and one or two more before year’s end, wrap-up the 2024 incubator-style mini-series on the early days of HIV | AIDS. Brought to you in support of the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana. The recording is about Pierre Rene “Peter”, as he was known, DeLancey. A sad story with a bittersweet ending. He was queer. At a time when being gay or homosexual or light in one’s loafers was not okay in most polite societies. Peter's story brings together two previous Letters Read subjects, Stewart Butler of The Faerie Playhouse and Skip Ward. Both produced, and broadcast, at the beginning of the COVID epidemic in 2020. The featured image is a portrait of Peter from Burt Harter's "Encounters with the Nude Male" self published by Harter in 1997. The image was included in a Doug McCash, Times-Picayune article published June 25, 2002 entitled "The Life and Death of a Painter in Legacy and Limbo".

October 29 at 7:00 pm CDTNewcomb InstituteDiboll Gallery, room 3003rd floor of the Commons43 Newcomb PlaceTulane University campus. A second reading from the archives of Josephine Louise Newcomb. This one performed, live, at Newcomb Institute. Emcee and Readers: Nick Slie, Lisa Shattuck, Shadow Angelina Starkey, and Robert Valley H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College was established by Josephine Louise Monnier Newcomb (“Jo”) as she was called, 1816 to 1901) as a memorial to her daughter Sophie who died at the age of 15. At a time when women were discouraged from education, an institution devoted to higher learning for women was a revolutionary idea. Ladies of Mrs. Newcomb’s privileged class were instead taught to have “accomplishments”. Such as parlor entertainments like piano playing and polite conversation. For the lower classes—who had to hire themselves out as domestic help to survive—cooking, cleaning, sewing, nursing, and caregiving for other people’s families were their lot. For them, education, such as it were, was learned scrubbing pots on the job. Until its post-Katrina consolidation into Tulane University, Newcomb College was a separate, four-year, baccalaureate-giving institution. Entirely – for – women. Through Josephine Louise Newcomb’s letters, this reading tells that tale. It was created in grateful partnership with Susan Tucker and Beth Willinger. In great part, this presentation relies on their scholarship, insights, and their project of the same name, The Letters of Josephine Louise Newcomb.

From 1981 to 1998, K. (Kenneth) Brad Ott wrote, edited, and published the grassroots Dialogue Newsjournal reporting community activism and activities in New Orleans. This third mini podcast in the four-part LETTERS READ series is produced in support of LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana and New Orleans AIDS MemoryProject. Antenna is LETTERS READ fiscal sponsor. This podcast is about activism. Independent publishing in the later part of the 20th Century. At a time when mainstream media would not, The Dialogue Newsjournal published progressive ideas in New Orleans questioning social issues such as: immigration and poverty, police corruption, racism, reproductive rights, gay bashing and AIDS paranoia, that strange new disease plaguing the male gay population, intravenous drug users, sex workers, and marginal members of society country-wide. Until 1982, there wasn’t even a name for the disease later known as HIV|AIDS. Letters Read is an ongoing series in which local performers interpret letters and written documents about culturally vital individuals from various times and Louisiana communities—focusing on New Orleans. Now in its eighth consecutive season. Performances are free and open to the general public.

Segment 3 in the mini-series about the early days of the New Orleans HIV|AIDS epidemic. Comprising two recorded clips from an interview with Noel Twilbeck. In the first, Twillbeck explains the origins of NO/AIDS Task Force. Describing the beginning of the HIV|AIDS epidemic. Early 1980s. The second clip refers to a letter. “The Letter”. Notice of the award from HRSA documenting their new status as an FQHC. As Twillbeck explained, “HRSA” is the Bureau of Primary Health Care. A federal  institution funding affordable, accessible, and high-quality primary health care to underserved communities. A game-changer for NO/AIDS Task Force which then became Crescent Car. This series thanks LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana, Corner Foundation, and LETTERS READ fiscal sponsor Antenna.

In conjunction with LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana, Letters Read brings you this first of four, mini podcasts on the early days of HIV|AIDS. This segment is based on original source material from the 1990s ACT UP organization, here. These ACT UP New Orleans records, from the second, local itiration, were collected, and stored, by Mark Gonzalez. A loyal and very active member. I thank him for allowing me access to these files and for answering my many many questions about the organization and the arc of the group’s history. Photo: Early New York City ACT UP demonstration. A nod to the failed relationship between New Orleans ACT UP and the Big City folk.

Allow us to introduce the 2024 mini-series of letters and documents from the early days of HIV|AIDS. A late 20th century crisis. Most of the material is New Orleans in particular, Louisiana, and then the country at large. This mini-series is produced in partnership with the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana and I thank them for their diligence preserving history and for helping in this production. Each mini launches at noon, Central time, on the following dates and remain available thereafter. June 6 Mark Gonzalez, protest and ACT UP Aug 8 Noel Twillbeck and Crescent Care Oct 3 Brad Ott and underground publishing as activism Dec 5 Aids Hospice, Pierre Rene “Peter” DeLancey & commentary by Hywel Sims. This is a gently evolving series subject to change.

Listen to this clip from an interview with Jarret Lofstead whose role it was to wade through, and strategically process, thousands, and thousands, of pages of court documents building the Letters Read narrative for the Jospehine Louise Newcomb readings. Lofstead is a writer/researcher and producer at The Bend Media + Productions. Whose recent release is the documentary film, George Dureau: New Orleans Artist. Lofstead spends a fair amount of his career dealing with topics in the humanities. Including social justice and jurisprudince. Two prominent Letters Read themes. Lofstead was instrumental in bringing information and perspective to the full program, Letters of Josephine Louise Newcomb performed live April 13, 2024, and available here.

Recorded Saturday, April 13 2024 in front of a live audience at Catapult in New Orleans. Featured Readers:Emcee Chris Kamenstein, Director Nancy Sharon Collins, Shadow Angelina Starkey, and Robert Valley. H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College was established by Josephine Louise Monnier Newcomb (“Jo”) as she was called, 1816 to 1901) as a memorial to her daughter Sophie who died at the age of 15. At a time when women were discouraged from education, an institution devoted to higher learning for women was a revolutionary idea. Ladies of Mrs. Newcomb’s privileged class were instead taught to have “accomplishments”. Such as parlor entertainments like piano playing and polite conversation. For the lower classes—who had to hire themselves out as domestic help to survive—cooking, cleaning, sewing, nursing, and care giving for other people’s families were their lot. For them, education, such as it were, was learned scrubbing pots on the job. This program heavily relies on Susan Tucker and Beth Willinger, their scholarship, and superb, online, project, The Letters of Josephine Louise Newcomb. Additional thanks go to writer/researcher Jarret Lofstead and audio producer Steve Gilliland.

This production was created from material collected during the creation of Drugs, Sex, Rock & Roll: A Year of Magic and Wonder. Which coincided with the project’s director/writer’s move back from New York to New Orleans. Quoting from the script, Collins’s observation was that moving home was “kind of like sleeping with an old lover.” Meanwhile, significant municipal water issues collided in both cities and, in the Middle East. Audio production is by Steve Chyzyk, ⁠⁠Sonic Canvas Studio⁠⁠. Want to support this compelling series, we'd love you to. Go to ⁠⁠https://lettersread.net/donate/⁠⁠. IMAGE: Henniker, Frederick. Notes, During a Visit to Egypt, Nubia, the Oasis, Mount Sinai, and Jerusalem. London: John Murray, 1823. Shown above is an aquatint fold-out view of Jerusalem “whose precision could let a traveler use it for wayfinding.” —https://www.drawingpalestine.com/jerusalem.htm

Listen to this iteration of an oft-told tale. How easily an innocent out of towner is drawn to the dark side of New Orleans. This specific story, ca. 1985, focuses on one year, one incredibly transformative year. For one man. Emblematic of many lured to the Big Easy, a famously lurid city. Counter intuitively, this potentially tragic tale resolves itself into a beautiful, tie-dye butterfly. In which a Tulane undergraduate magically emerges going on to a fulfilling queer life and hugely successful, big city, New York City career. Geoff Munsterman reads as the subject named James, just James. Shadow Angelina Starkey reads as Nancy Sharon Collins, the project director. Historic context has been corroborated by consultant, Royd Anderson. Production was performed by Munsterman and Starkey.

Continuing our New York/New Orleans journey, we bring you the only project Robert Moses ever did in the Crescent City. Locally referred to as the ⁠Riverfront Expressway⁠. Robert Moses, the greatest builder New York has ever known, is so often credited with it. Even though it never happened. As frequently, he is also incorrectly blamed for the Claiborne Expressway. That, horrendously, did.  This podcast is part of the ongoing script development for a fully realized live performance later this year about Moses, his engagement in this project, and the historic outcomes. The reading is based on primary source research in The Robert Moses Collection at the New York Public Library and Moses’ 1946 Arterial Plan for New Orleans commissioned by the state of Louisiana. Additional information comes from newspaper articles, past and current, hearsay, Facebook, Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, Richard Baumbach and William Borah’s The Second Battle of New Orleans, and Hilary Ballon’s Robert Moses and the Modern City.  For information on the current fight to remove the Claiborne Overpass and links to other resources used for this production, go to lettersread.net/resources. 

Introducing Season 7. Letters Read director, stationer, Nancy Sharon Collins talks about this year’s theme: the two very different cities that she loves. And, a lagniappe as they say in south Louisiana. A little something extra to maybe pull at your heartstrings, just a little. Audio production is by Steve Chyzyk, ⁠Sonic Canvas Studio⁠.

Premiering 6:00 pm EDT New Years’ Eve 2022, LEMONS TO LEMONADE. And available here thereafter. Finishing up the Lady Louisiana Artist series for 2022 is a true lemons to lemonade story. Magen Raine Gladden. Commercial artist. She was born into a hippy dirt road collective along River Road in South Louisiana with a lifetime of health challenges. Now a leader through the lens of workplace equity and inclusivity rights. This podcast goes live on  December 31st.  Shadow Angelina Starkey reads as Gladden. Shadow is a Cajun poet and photographer whose family has called New Orleans home since 1727.   Geoff Munsterman—poet, editor, & book artist from Plaquemines Parish now living in New Orleans’ Holy Cross neighborhood—narrates.  Find out more about six full programming seasons at LETTERS READ. Want to support this compelling series, we'd love you to. Go to https://lettersread.net/donate/.

As our name suggests, Letters Read focuses on letters. Personal and business. From institutional archives and special collections, private and commercial libraries. In addition to letters, in our programming, we read other forms of written correspondence. Like faxes, text messages, emails, and now this collection of letters literally picked up off of New Orleans streets.  Describing these as letters may be a stretch. The best manner of talking about them is as missives. Notes. Notes to self. Lists. To-do lists. Some reading like poetry. Formulas, recipes.  This is one of our incubator presentations. Works in process. Experimental. It is dedicated to Diana, a great lover of poetry. And supporter of this project. Heartfelt thanks to Bob. You will hear more about him in the podcast.

Co-hosted by Neal Auction Company. Angela Gregory was born to the New Orleans intellectual white elite in 1903. A time when proper ladies accompanied their mother to country club tea. With her parent’s blessing, Angela took a different path. At an early age, she knew that she wanted to be an artist. Not just an artist, a sculptress in stone, to be precise! Her earliest influence was her mother, Selina Brès Gregory. A Newcomb College alum and recognized Newcomb Pottery artist. Angela was precocious. When 14, she learned clay modeling and relief casting from Ellsworth Woodward at Newcomb. She also took classes from Albert Rieker at the Arts and Crafts Club in New Orleans and spent a summer working in the New York studio of Charles Keck. She graduated from Newcomb in 1925. With her parent’s patronage, she moved to Paris to study art. It is to be remembered that in 1925 it would be rare if not impossible for a lady to travel abroad alone without a husband, brother, or other trusted chaperone such as a matron auntie. Life as in independent individual was squarely the privilege of men. For the determined Angela, this was no barrier. In Paris, she became the only American ever to study in Antoine Bourdelle’s stone sculpture studio. Angela Gregory credited her unusual success as a an early lady artist to Bourdelle’s tutelage and belief in her as an artist. In the middle of the twentieth century when women had just been granted the vote, Angela Gregory became the “doyenne of Louisiana sculpture”. Producing major public and private art commissions significant today. This podcast quotes from Gregory and Nancy Penrose's biography of Angela Gregory, from which the image can be found, A Dream and a Chisel. Angela Gregory’s artwork, and that of many of her influences such as Selina Brès Gregory, William and Ellsworth Woodward, Newcomb pottery, are prized valuable pieces of art today. Her independent drive also influenced artists living today such as lady Louisiana artist, Jacqueline Bishop. Many Louisiana artists in this podcast are supported by Neal.

First in the 2022 mini-series, Lady Louisiana Artist is letters and missives to and from eco-feminist artist, and Letters Read Executive Advisory Board member, Michel Varisco. Our subject in this recording creates photography, assemblages, and installations that bear witness to our relationship with nature as observed in architecture, engineered, and the wild. Varisco writes further about the promotional image for this listing...“Sr. Alison McCrary, the radical nun and lawyer is holding a dead yellow warbler. She had told me she was mourning the slow death of the Catholic Church, while I mourn the disconnect of religion for the environment and the future of all sentient beings.” —2019 King Tides exhibit, Good Children Gallery, New Orleans, LA. In addition to letters from Varisco’s wide family of friends, cohorts, fellow artists and collaborators, this podcast includes edits from the email exchange between Letters Read Director and lady Louisiana artist, Jacqueline Bishop. Bishop contributed in an advisory manner for this production. Her work reflects on complex connections between climate change, species extinction, and migration. Christopher Kamenstein, co-artisic director of Goat in the Road Production, reads Varisco's letters and other correspondence of interest. The audio production is by Steve Chyzyk, Sonic Canvas Studio. About the image: WARBLER, thermal dye print on aluminum, by Michel Varisco. Of this piece, Varisco writes, “I used a warbler ... Ersy's gift stuck in my mind, just not that specific bird. this one I froze years later to use."

Wrapping-up the previous programming season, Doing Business in New Orleans, we present the story of Clay Shaw. On March 1, 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested him on conspiracy charges. Shaw was a beloved, successful, local businessman, and closeted queer man. On January 29, 1969, Garrison tried Shaw in Orleans Parish Criminal Court on three conspiracy charges. A little over a month later the jury took less than one hour to acquit Shaw. After, “…jurors expressed their bewilderment as to motive. Respectable socialite Clay Shaw, it strained credulity as to why he would become involved in the murder of the President. Jim Garrison believed that Shaw was acting as Oswald’s shepherd in New Orleans, under instructions from CIA. But he couldn’t prove it, certainly not beyond a reasonable doubt.” —Joan Mellen. Many theories swirl around these, now infamous, Big Easy characters. Both Shaw and Garrison. This reading strives to represent the man who was Clay Shaw and, to a lesser extend, who was Garrison. Robert Valley reads as the voice of Shaw, David Zalkind is Jim Garrison. Audio production is by Steve Chyzyk, Sonic Canvas Studio. PHOTO: 1956. Clay Shaw dressed for Mardi Gras. From an original 35mm slide in a boxed tray labelled, “Carnival, 2/14/56. Sally Del Sue Ray.” Property and copyright of Letters Read.

Wrapping-up the 2021 Doing Business in New Orleans season is a true, rags to riches story. Another incubator-style, informal production, with stuff found along the way. That may or may not fit into full-length Letters Read, Louisiana and New Orleans-centric, programming. This material surfaced while researching the Clay Shaw story. That story is postponed until 2022. Shaw is referred to more than once in this reading because there’s a rhyme in it, a theme that repeats in this story, and in Clay Shaw’s. Throughout, the reader is Letters Read Director, Nancy Sharon Collins. Additionally, a link to the 2008 panel discussion referred to in this broadcast is HERE. And a link to the other referred-to party, a Letters Read Executive Advisor, Michel Varisco, is HERE.

Premiering Thursday, November 25, letters and ephemera created in 1962 by a local professional association for graphic designers. If you liked the TV show, Mad Men, you’ll love the real thing, New Orleans-style. Art Directors and Designers Association of New Orleans (ADDA) was chartered in 1961. Illustrators, lettering artists, art directors, photographers, commercial artists, and graphic designers banded together and promoted themselves to advertising executives throughout the Gulf South. Central to this was a promotional slideshow presentation. Digitized in 2008. You can view an animation of it HERE. If you are curious about the then new-fangled entertainment gizmo, slideshows, watch the Mad Men scene about their origin, HERE. In this compelling podcast, join reader Colin B. Miller, himself a practicing graphic designer, as he continues the 2021 programming theme, Doing Business in New Orleans. For this production, thanks are given to Steve Chyzyk and Steve Himelfarb, Sonic Canvas Studio. To Paul Broussard for additional recording. To Antenna, the project's fiscal partner. Thanks always to major funders, Corner and Reba Judith Sandler Foundations, Mark Cotton, Robert Heriard, Gayle Boudousqie, and to our executive advisory board Bill Hagler, Cole Halpern, Chris Kamenstein, and Michel Varisco. Additionally, thanks to Letters Read alum, Adam Newman. The very last ADDA vice president and, to this day, a practicing graphic designer. Special thanks to the first president of ADDA. Don Smith, now 92. Who physically gave the slideshow presentation to Mrs. Collins, project director. Thanks to Don’s work chum back in the day at Knox Reeves Fitzgerald, Ron Thomson, now President - Marketing, Beuerman Miller Fitzgerald. The current agency from who Knox-Reeves Fitzgerald evolved. Thanks to Dave Walker, THNOC. Big thanks to Kure Croker, Loyola University Special Collections and Archives for ongoing support of the History of Graphic Design in South Louisiana physical archives and to Jennifer Abrams, director, T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History for her unwavering support of the oral history part of that project.  Intro and outro-music are from the reel-to-reel audio tape recording of the original jingle composed and performed in 1961 by Paul Guma. Image: Slide 32 in the 1962 Art Directors and Designers Association of New Orleans slideshow presentation.