#schmear the queer

[popculturelib]

Schmear the Queer #1 is a 2001 fanzine/perzine by Scott Berry, featuring articles written by queer Jews about being queer and Jewish. A transcription of the introduction is below the read more.

The Browne Popular Culture Library (BPCL), founded in 1969, is the most comprehensive archive of its kind in the United States.  Our focus and mission is to acquire and preserve research materials on American Popular Culture (post 1876) for curricular and research use. Visit our website at https://www.bgsu.edu/library/pcl.html.

(introducing schmear the queer)

welcome to the first issue of schmear the queer. a new queer-n-jewish fanzine. perhaps journal, but definitely not a magazine. what’s the difference? this endeavor is committed to including as wide a variety of voices and visions as possible, with no regard whatsoever for target marketing, advertising revenue or focus groups. if you appreciate these priorities and like what you see here, then please spread the word and better yet, submit something to the next issue. i decided to put this together a couple years ago when i was meeting other jewish activist & artist types and we would kibbitz about how many wonderful queer jews we all knew and how there should be outlets for us: potlucks, film festivals, ‘zines and the like. so, here’s something, and i hope you like it. issue #2 is going to be the “superhero/heroine” issue. as all folks who do ‘zines say: i hope to put out 3 or 4 issues per year, but it’s largely up to you> (sic) the more interest there is, the more issues will materialize.

i'd like to think that some wide conceptions of what is queer and/or jewish were used to put this thing together. obviously Jewishness is cultural, religious, aesthetic and gastrointestinal. and queerness is definitely related to sexuality, but I also think to being an outsider. the call for submissions stated “queer-n-jewish are how you define them”, and I hope that future issues continue to explore the overlaps, similarities, and differences.

the title of this ‘zine comes from my childhood, a grade school experience at edward j. dekeyser elementary school in sterling heights, michigan. the version of dodge ball that was played during recess where there were no boundaries and people could get as close to you as possible and hit you with that awful red ball [overinflated, of course] was called ‘smear the queer’…guess who got smeared?

this issue is dedicated to three women whose lives ended much too soon: my mother, elsie rachelle miller berry; my nana, clare jane abrahams miller pecis; and my cousin rachelle [shellie] ethel kasoff leitson.

special thanks to all the contributors, and all who contributed. to jesse sanford for office access, all who helped design pages, may height for the cover, all of the readers who have given so generously of their time. my heartfelt appreciation to brian kay, who has assisted me along the way with editing suggestions, and his usual candor, verve, wit and wisdom.

- scott berry

new york

may 2001

hand silkscreening: matt height/artstrike press

on the cover: yigal amir

page layout: rodrigo chazaro, john fanning, sarit m., jesse sanford

shiksa goddess ‘zine insert: brian kay

[the-excellent-ezra]

I'm here, I'm Queer, and I really love salmon schmear

Me, the bitch

[therightprometheanfire]

Tag Game

I got tagged by @nerdygingerandproud, y’all!

1. Relationship status:  Single

2. Lipstick or chapstick: Definitely lipstick. I have one in a light pleasant pink and another in a dark red and that last one especially is one of my favorite things.

3. Three favorite foods:  Hmmmm. Burgers (particularly this burger joint back home in VT is just... fucking incredible, my dudes), strawberries, aaaaand I’m gonna go with the steak that my brother makes, because when I was still at home and he was working at the grocery store and tired all the time, he learned what the cheapest cuts of meat in the store that still tasted good were, so he’d bring home five dollar cuts of meat that he’s so good at cooking, and idk, I’ve been missing it a lot lately

4. Song stuck in your head:  this is a weird pull, but when I went home last weekend my brother and I rewatched the Simpsons episode “Homer’s Barbershop Quartet”, and there’s this bit where Jasper’s singing to the tune of “Theme from a Summer Place” but instead of the lyrics he sings “it’s the theeeeeeme from a suuuuummer plaaaaace, from a summer plaaaace, it’s the theeeeme from a suuuummer plaaaace”, and on and off ever since it has been going in a goddamn loop in my brain

5. Last movie you watched: if documentaries count, an American Masters on Edgar Allen Poe. It was only okay: they were bending over backwards to excuse how Poe was kind of a dick (although he’s not a dick in all the ways we commonly believe him to be, which the documentary was pushing pretty hard, he still married his thirteen year old cousin, so)

6. Top three shows— Classic: I always went more hardcore on classic movies than classic TV shows and my brain is a garbage fire in general, so these will probably be the ones that I remember (some of these I haven’t even seen in ages but remember loving dearly), BUT: Monty Python, most of the early SNL stuff, and The Twilight Zone. I haven’t watched enough Star Trek OTS to call it a favorite, but I’ve seen enough that I like and appreciate it a bunch.  Recent: The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine Nine, and American Experience. Really, any PBS documentary is good with me.

7. Books I’m currently reading:  I haven’t been reading as much as I have been listening to audiobooks, so for audiobooks I’m working on The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore and Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Mark Harris. The physical book I’m trying to finish is Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day by Peter Ackroyd. Queer City is very well written, and pretty interesting, but it advertises as being a history including gays, lesbians, transgender folk, and that it is not very good at it. It’s mostly a history of gay men, and also some lesbians, and a very small amount of trans folk. As a gay male history of London, it’s exceptional, but as far being an all encompassing queer history book, it definitely falls way short of the mark.

8. Last thing I googled:  "queer city book”, because I couldn’t remember the full title or author, and it’s on my bookshelf but I do not have the vision necessary to read the author from here and my comforter is very warm.

9. Time: 5:52 pm

10. Dream trip: God, dudes, I want to travel so bad. I think I answered one of these recently talking about how my next trip I wanted to be to NYC, and that is still true, but as far as dream trip, fuck, man. I would love to do a road trip across the US because I’ve always wanted to do a road trip, but for one thing that costs money, and for another a loudmouthed queer woman traveling on her own across the country is... probably not a good thing to be doing at the moment. But I also really wanna go to Britain. I’m really interested in English and Irish history and would love to travel to see historical landmarks (yes, I would be that tourist), I’ve been a Shakespeare nerd since I was about seven or eight and I’ve always wanted to see a production at the Globe, I have friends in Britain I’d love to see (looking at you, @dont-offend-the-bees and @lavellington).

11. Anything you want:  Gosh. Well, okay. I’d like for the world to not be such a fucking nightmare, and if the US weathers Trump, I would really like for liberals and the left to not dust off their hands and go “yay, we fixed it!”, because getting rid of Trump will not mean “we fixed all the problems that led us here”, and we still have a lot of work to do with racism and misogyny and transphobia and homophobia. Getting rid of the asshole at the top of the system does not mean we have fixed the problems inherent in the system.

That, obviously, is the big one. On a smaller scale,  I’d like to be able to set up a both at craft shows, for one thing, I love crochet and I’d love to be able to showcase it to a bunch of people and have a bunch of people buy my stuff (and definitely validate my yarn habit). I would love to get a book published- I have a couple long term book plots churning, but I think an anthology of poetry and short stories would be good for me. I want to lose some weight cause even though I actually really like being fat, I have arthritis, and the less weighing on my joints, the less I’ll be in pain. Kind of foiling that last wish, I really want a plain untoasted bagel with a smoked salmon schmear from the cafe about eight minutes from me.

All right, I’ve definitely fuckin talked enough, let’s get tagging. I’m supposed to tag fifteen people, but I always struggle with hitting the exact number, so I’m gonna do my best and if y’all feel like doing it, go for it.

@dont-offend-the-bees, @klaudiart, @princessparadoxical, @punkpuppydragon, @singlemaltantiseptics, @lavellington, @elijahwoodnot

[quibblesquabblebicker]

S3: Client 14 - Schmear The Queer w,/comedian and NJ gay icon Ike Avelli #fyp #podcastersoftiktok #comedy #lgbtq #pulitzer #rickymartin #beastieboys #sopranos #gay #eyelashes #billcosby #weasels @ikeavelli https://www.instagram.com/p/CUbCaYOF6lT/?utm_medium=tumblr