the memory palace

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show and independent media, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate.

This episode was originally released in 2016 in the days after the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. It is re-released every year on the anniversary of the incident.

A note on notes: We’d much rather you just went into each episode of The Memory Palace cold. And just let the story take you where it well. So, we don’t suggest looking into the show notes first.

Notes and Reading:
* Most of the specific history of the White Horse was learned from "Sanctuary: the Inside Story of the Nation's Second Oldest Gay Bar" by David Olson, reprinted in its entirety on the White Horse's website.
* "Gayola: Police Professionalization and the Politics of San Francisco's Gay Bars, 1950-1968," by Christopher Agee.
* June Thomas' series on the past, present, and future of the gay bar from Slate a few years back.
* Various articles written on the occasion of the White Horse's 80th anniversary, including this one from SFGATE.Com
* Michael Bronski's A Queer History of the United States.
* Radically Gay, a collection of Harry Hay's writing.
* Incidentally, I watched this interview with Harry Hay from 1996 about gay life in SF in the 30's multiple times because it's amazing.

Music
* We start with Water in Your Hands by Tommy Guerrero.
* Hit Anne Muller's Walzer fur Robert a couple of times.
* Gaussian Curve does Talk to the Church.
* We get a loop of Updraught from Zoe Keating.
* We finish on Transient Life in Twilight by James Blackshaw

This show is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

This episode was originally released in November, 2015.

Music
* Under the credits is Harlaamstrat 74 off of John Dankworth’s Modesty Blaise score.
* They first meet to a piece called Brouillard (version 1) from Georges Delaure’s extraordinary score to Jules et Jim. (A second version comes in later when J.J. Audubon is living the high life in England).
* We also hear Waltz by Mother Falcon.
* I go back to the Marcelo Zarvos/Please Give well when the Scotsman arrives at their store. Note: it’s the go-to soundtrack for “People Arriving at One’s Store With A Life Changing Proposition” here at the Memory Palace. Also: go watch Please Give.
* The little piano piece is from Nathan Johnson’s score to The Day I Saw Your Heart.
* Lucy and John titter like plovers to Andrew Cyrille’s dope, skittering drums on Nuba 1.
* The especially sad bit, right before the end is Dream 3 (in the Midst of my Life), from Max Richter’s giant, From Sleep album.
* A couple times, including the ending, we hear “the Lark Ascending” from Ralph Vaughn Willliams. It is beautiful. You should buy it.

Notes
As per usual, I read a lot about the Audubons and the Bakewells.
I relied most upon the charming and smart, On the Road with John James Audubon by Mary Durant, and Carolyn DeLatte’s lovely, thoughtful book, Lucy Audubon: a Biography.
* Just a quick note: there’s a very enjoyable PBS/American Masters/Nature documentary about Audubon. It’s a fun and informative watch. But, I’ll say, you come out of that thinking that things were fundamentally swell between Lucy and John in a way that I’m not entirely sure is supported by the facts. Or jibes with, you know, human nature.

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate. I have recently launched a newsletter. You can subscribe to it at thememorypalacepodcast.substack.com.

Order Eliza McGraw's wonderful new book, Astride: Women, Horses and a Partnership that Changed America.

Music

• Hallogallo from Neu!, basically one of the best songs there is.

Notes

• There is a lot written about Bessie, including some wonderful children's books. The best thing I read about her was in Ann Farrar (a journalist and biker herself)'s book Hear Me Roar: Women, Motorcycles, and the Rapture of the Road.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show and independent media, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate. I have recently launched a newsletter. You can subscribe to it at thememorypalacepodcast.substack.com.

Notes

• Read about the change in policy here. And the article that helped prompt the policy change here.

Music

• Pipeline by H.Takahashi
• Sad Seine by Lambert
• Dance PM by Hiroshi Yoshimura

This episode was originally released in 2015.

Proceeds from this episode are being donated to the Transgender Law Center.

Music
*Under the credits is Harlaamstrat 74 off of John Dankworth’s Modesty Blaise score.
*The piece opens with Rainfall, by David Darling and Michael Jones.
*Her brief love story is scored by Nathan Johnson’s Penelope’s Theme from his score to The Brothers Bloom.
*When she lands her first gig, we start Garde a Vue, and roll into Le Roi de coeur, from Chantal Martineau.
* The vibraphone piece is “Opening” by Nathaniel Bartlett.
* The recurring violin piece is called Geometria del Universo by the one-named Colleen.
* It ends on Romain’s First Love, again by Georges Delarue, from his fantastic score to Promise at Dawn.

Notes
* I read a lot about Mary, but by far the most useful and most thorough works I came upon were: Sharon M. Harris’ Dr. Mary Walker: An American Radical and A Woman of Honor: Dr. Mary E. Walker and the Civil War, in which author Mercedes Graf does a great job walking the reader through Walker’s unpublished memoir.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia, a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts.