NOOTS- October 2024

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Written by Juniper on October 1, 2024

Friendly Reminders: 

  • If you are one of the new volunteers who was not able to fill out a waiver form for your library card please fill one out on your first shift, 3-hole punch it and put it in the black binder labeled “waivers current year.” The forms can be found in the blue folder with the stickers on it.  
  • The bathroom in Malaspina is fine for us to use but not for the public 
  • The light switches for the three bays are labeled cube 1,2 and 3. The cube one switch can be found in the back near the kitchen while the other 2 are across from it and to the right behind a computer 
  • Remember to lock the front door and leave out the side door when you end your shift 
  • New and old volunteers please observe the new opening and closing procedures they are mostly the same but there are some important differences 
  • Returning volunteers we will be selling duplicate books and the books that were donated which do not fit our collections policy in the bookshelf near the desk. Suggested prices are taped up there but it is a pay by donation system. The money box will be in the desk and there is also the donation jar if they still want to donate but don’t want a book
  • After making a book sale please log it in the book sale spreadsheet saved in bookmarks on the computer 
  • Please put the donation jar in the desk before you leave at the end of the day and take it out if you open 
  • Get your forms in! If you don’t we will not be able to set an opening date 
  • We are no longer leaving a return/donation box outside. All donations and returns must be made during open hours 
  • If you are a returning volunteer from the UBC location please find a time before your first shift to come in to learn the space as well as getting your forms in otherwise you will be taken off the schedule there are some key differences that are important to know if you will be working in the new space  

What’s Noots? 

  • OOTS will be opening on Granville Island on Monday October 7th! 
  • We have some shifts in the board because Bri needs to step aside for a while to focus on their thesis Kira has stepped up as OOTS’ President while Juniper has taken their palace as the Vice President and maintaining their role as Volunteer Director so that I can remain the point person for volunteers. We now have an official position for the head of Out In the Dirt (our seed library) being filled by Carly and Eleanor has stepped in as Director at Large. Bri will remain as a Director at Large as well so they’ll still be around. We appreciate everything they have done for the library as President and wish them well on their studies! 
  • We will be helping Malaspina sell prints while we are in this space. Near the side door where you come in you’ll see a number of prints hanging  if someone shows interest in buying one there are instructions for how to sell it near the cabinets across from the side door. It should be pretty straightforward but please ask for help if you need it 
  • The Winter Schedule is out in announcements please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about your shift 
  • Malaspina has invited us to a Pumpkin carving celebration Thursday October 24th from 6-9 pm costumes optional but encouraged. It’s a potluck so bring a snack to share if you are able. You can bring your own pumpkin or email Val at @everyone Malaspina has invited us to join them on October 24 from 6-9 pm for a pumplin carving party. feel free to bring your own pumplin or order one ahead of time by October 14 by emailing Val at  val@malaspinaprintmakers.com bring your own carving tools and snacks for the potluck if you would like costumes are optional but encouraged! by October 14th, bring your own pumpkin carving implements either way and be sure to RSVP! 
  • Last Sunday September 22nd OOTS was featured on CBC news to talk about safe spaces for queer youth in Vancouver!  

Queer Creator Spotlight: 

Ok I know we did a horror host last week but its October and we have to talk about the mistress of the dark, the queen of Halloween herself Elvira! I’ll branch out from horror next month but for now, let me have this. The woman we now know as Elvira has had one of the most wild lives I’ve seen in a while so strap in folks. She was born Cassandra Peterson in 1951 in Manhattan, not Manhattan New York, Manhattan Kansas, that’s right folks a bonafide country girl thought she grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado. When she was a toddler she pulled a pot of boiling water off of the stove and was scalded needing skin grafts over 35% of her body. As a result she had severe burn scars for most of her childhood as she healed and was bullied relentlessly. The first horror film she ever saw was William Castle’s House On Haunted Hill (1959) starring a familiar face from last month our old friend Vincent Price who would become a close friend of Cassandra’s many years later. She has since said in interviews that this experience was part of the reason she was so drawn to the horror genre as a child. Feeling othered in her own life she felt connected to the monsters and the mayhem on the screen. As a teenager she worked as a go-go girl in gay bars around Colorado Springs and Club A-Go-Go. 

When she was 17 years old she was spotted by the production staff at a Live Show on a vacation to Las Vegas. She convinced her parents to sign a contract and became the youngest showgirl in Vive Les Girls. It was here that she met Elvis Presley whom she would date for a while. He was 33 at the time, for shame Mr. Presley. Presley encouraged her to move on from the showgirl life saying that otherwise she’d get stuck there forever. Before that though she would do her first film, a James Bond picture called Diamonds Are Forever in 1971 in which she played a topless dancer. After that she packed up and moved to Italy and did a few more movies as well as becoming the lead singer of several Italian rock bands called Latins 80 and The Snails respectively. Upon returning to the states in 1973 she headed to Miami to become a playboy model and toured the country with her comedy show “Mama’s Boys.” In 1979 she would join the Groundlings a Los Angeles improv group which produced such icons as Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman), Maya Rudolph, Melissa McCarthy, and Jennifer Coolidge. It was here that the bimbo valley girl character that would become Elvira was created.

She missed out on the role of Ginger in the hit show Gilligan’s Island but luckily recieved another offer soon after she was turned down. She was to replace the elegant macabre queen, Vampira as the horror hostess of LA’s KABC TV. The Vampira show ran from 1954-55 cancelled early as Maila Numi, the woman who had created and portrayed the character refused to sell the rights to Vampira to ABC. I had to hold myself back from including more about her, as well she led a fascinating life of her own including the accusation that she had caused the death of James Dead with a well-placed hex. In 1981 she was hired back to revive the show with a new hostess only agreeing as long as she be allowed to select and train the new Vampira. She wanted the show to continue the gothic tone she had created with the original. Numi had chosen Lola Falana, an African-American singer and actress. When the studio brought in Cassandra Peterson’s bubbly bouffanted caricature Numi quit the project. At the time the show was still called Vampira and Numi sued the studio for use of her name and persona without her consent. As a result the character and show were renamed Elvira’s Movie Macabre. While I love what we got I would have loved to see what Falana would have done with the role. 

The now iconic Elvira look was invented by Peterson and her best friend Robert Redding a queer man himself, as a mixture of kabuki make-up and the Ronnettes. The tone of Elvira’s show couldn’t have been more different from Vampira’s. Peterson’s commentary was goofy campy, and, lovingly self-deprecating taking inspiration from Peterson’s teenage years and goofy sense of humor. Each episode would begin with an introduction by Elvira followed by the showing of a movie, generally horror or science fiction which Elvira would occasionally interrupt with her hilarious comments and critiques. The show included recurring bits like a caller played by Patterson’s friend John Paragon, another gay man and co-writer, known as “The Breather.” Elvira’s Movie Macabre ultimately ran from 1981-86. Peterson’s Elvira was a sexy clown who made up for her lack of smarts with her can-do attitude. The same year she became Elvira she began another important relationship, marrying Mark Pierson who would become her personal manager. The pair had one daughter Sadie Pierson. 

Elvira as a character and a product rocketed to popularity in the 80s culminating in her first feature film Elvira Mistress of the Dark (1988) in which the hostess with the mostest heads to a small conservative town to pick up a family inheritance. Here she will be faced with morality leagues and warlocks armed only with a her sharp wits and her massive ahem spirits. Its one of my personal favorite and a strong recommendation for fans of campy horror everywhere. The character of Elvira is sexy and sex positive without the film feeling overly leery, she is in on every joke and makes most of them. Everyone brings their a-game to this thigh-slapping farce that you’ll be quoting for the rest of your life. In 1993 a pilot was filmed for The Elvira Show  a sitcom with a similar plot to Mistress of the Dark in which Elvira and her kooky family move into a suburb whose residents keep trying to get them to move. Unfortunately the show never got past that first episode which is a damn shame because it sounds amazing. Other unused ideas included an Elvira road movie and an animated Halloween special. Though she would get a chance to live her cartoon dreams when Elvira appears in Elvira wouldn’t fill out the big screen again until 2001 when she released the second of her films Elvira’s Haunted Hills. This movie is a more straightforward parody of the gothic horrors Elvira aped on her iconic show in which Elvira goes on a wacky adventure in a haunted house starring alongside such icons as Richard O’Brien writer and star of the Rocky Horror Picture Show  (1975). This film is less well known but just as campy and fun as her first movie. Its a delightful time for anyone but particularly for those familiar with the movies it lovingly spoofs including a memorable bit with a pendulum. Go see it its free on Tubi alongside the original Movie Macabre show and 13 Nights of Elvira a brief revival she did in 2014. 

Peterson did do some acting outside of her Elvira drag as well including a character known as “Biker Mama” in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985) and as the normie mom of a horror geek in Peaches Christ’s All About Evil in 2010 among other appearances. This latter is my personal favorite. Patterson gets the chance to play completely outside of her usual shtick and she’s still amazing. The movie itself is a hilarious romp in which Natasha Lyonne plays a maverick film maker who starts making real snuff movies to keep her theater open. It’s fantastic go see it. As of now Catherine Peterson is hoping to make Mistress of the Dark into a hit musical as well as a possible biopic about herself in which she’d like to be played by Dolly Parton. 

A couple years after the release of Elvira’s Haunted Hills Peterson and her husband signed divorce papers. Around the same time Peterson met her current partner Teresa Wierson whom Peterson calls “T” affectionately. The pair were out only to close friends keeping their relationship private until 2021 when Peterson came out via her book Yours Cruelly: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark. Peterson has always been a friend to the queer community through her work with other queer creators and activism work raising money for HIV/AIDS efforts among other worthy causes. Queer folks have always loved Elvira and Peterson for her campy performance and connection to what we know as gay christmas, but the knowledge that she has been one of us this whole time has brought a new energy to her queer fan base as she continues her reign as the Mistress of the Dark. Peterson understands the significance of her place in Halloween for herself and her queer fan base saying to focus regarding that holiday that “t’s so fun, and you can be somebody else for a night, and it’s OK. It’s so freeing, and you know, the gays, they love to dress up in costumes. And there’s nothing like a gigantic gay party on Halloween night. No other straight parties come close to that.  And I just think that gay people are more open to dressing up and being somebody else and looking fabulous than your general straight crowd, you know? Everything there is — the masquerade balls, the carnivals — the gays are the ones who are the heads of it. They’re the ones who are the leaders; they’re the ones who do the best costumes and have the best time. It’s just a born-in thing.” 

Since her coming out the cult of Elvira has only grown more powerful! At 73 years old Peterson still looks amazing and continues to attend and host spooky events today. Regarding her gender and sexuality Peterson has said on an interview with Focus that “I actually thought of myself as a gay man — I really did, my whole life. I swear. I feel like a gay man, and that’s why when I dress up as Elvira, I feel like I’m doing drag, which I absolutely am. There’s no difference between me and a drag queen, except for tucking. And I don’t do that. Saves me a lot of time and pain. But yeah, I hung out with so many gay men, that I finally just felt like I was one. So now, I’m a gay man in a relationship with a woman, so what does that make me?” Now if that isn’t gender icon behavior I don’t know what is. Elvira is an inspiration for drag performers, Halloween enthusiasts, freaks and queers everywhere. I know that for me personally her particular balance between sincere confidence, slapstick comedy style and shamelessly ooky-spooky aesthetic has been a comfort and aspiration in times of need. Whether your’re familiar with her work or a newcomer to the cult of Elvira her movies and television work are a joy to revisit every October or any time of the year really. They’re a great place to start if you’re not super comfortable with scary movies but want to participate in the Halloween spirit. Unpleasant dreams! 

The Gay Agenda 

Queer Story Recommendation: 

In honor of the holiday I’m going to stick to another spine-tingling queer horror flick. When I’m not working I’m researching or consuming horror stories so it was really hard to choose a single movie to recommend for this Halloween if you want more don’t hesitate to reach out as queer horror is my favorite thing to talk about. Because I went more campy with the creator spotlight I wanted to go with a scarier recommendation, a modern classic that I think should be more prominent in today’s conversation around the genre. Knife + Heart (2018) or Un couteau dans le cœur is a neo-giallo film directed and co-written by Yann Gonzalez a queer French filmmaker. Gonzalez has directed several short films and one other feature You and the Night (2013) all of which carry his signature lush psychosexual imagery. Knife + Heart Prix Jean Vigo award for French cinema the year it came out. The film takes us back to Paris in 1979 following Anne a prolific gay porn director based loosely on Anne Marie-Tensi a gay porn director active in Paris at the time. On top of Anne’s break-up with her cinematographer Lois, her actors are being murdered one by one by a brutal killer. As a response she begins filming on a pornographic version of the events and attempts to hunt down the killer before he puts the whole of the queer porn scene of Paris in the ground. 

One of the things that makes this movie so special is its queering of the giallo genre which was born out of Italy in the 1960s and launched itself into prominence in the horror sphere in the 1970s. The genre gets its name from the yellow covers of a series of crime pulp novels cirucualting in Italy at the time, Giallo meaning ‘yellow.’ Gialli are murder mystery films noted for their carefully shot gruesome kill scenes in which the death is made beautiful through aesthetically staged and filmed kill scenes. Gialli are defined by style more than anything else but most have a tinge of psychosexuality in their murder mystery plots. Their often faceless killers are likely to be driven by some repressed sexual obsession or pop-psychological hangup. A specific moment of trauma which drives them to murder. Giallo films are marked by lurid colors, discordant scores and beautiful women being cut to pieces. These films helped to inspire the American slasher boom of the late 70s and early 80s which resembled the Giallo structure even if many would not be given the critical acclaim of these gorgeously gory classics. As previously mentioned the targets of most Giallo killers are beautiful women whose deaths are made into cinematic works of art. 

Knife + Heart queers the genre by featuring a series of pretty queer people, largely gay men, as its victims their deaths made just as sumptuous as their predecessors. Upon being asked why, as a queer man himself, he kills off many of the queer characters in his movies creator of Chucky the Killer Doll Don Mancini said something to the effect of ‘straight people have been carved up in fun ways in movies since forever, its our turn.’ I think that sentiment has a place here and in the greater conversation about queer characters in horror, its a scary movie, people die. Here though these deaths also bring to light the rampant violence against queer people that goes on under the surface to this day when the systems of justice in place don’t care about us. Unlike many films in the psycho killer subgenre Gialli and slashers alike its sex worker protagonists are not framed as immoral for their occupation and the film offers a wide variety of well-rounded characters tightly knit by their community in this highly specific point in queer history. The film takes a lot as well from Cruising a thriller from William Friedkin director of The Exorcist (1973) in which Al Pacino must go undercover in the gay leather community in New York to uncover a killer who seems to be targeting gay men. A film that was picketed at the time by queer activists and has since had a rocky history in queer film criticism in that it showed a community which was not often acknowledged at the time. Whether the film is sympathetic or othering towards its queer characters has been debated since its release. Either way it’s place in queer horror cannot be denied and continues to influence the genre as we can see in films like this one which contains scenes which directly parallel kill scenes from Cruising. Overall Knife + Heart is a gorgeous celebration of Giallo, queer subcultures and the queer sexual revolution of the 70s before the AIDS crisis. Its one of the most gorgeous movies I’ve seen in a long time from the costumes to the music to the cinematography its a feast for the eyes. It’s certainly something I plan on revisiting again and again finding new meaning and moments every time. A word of warning the film depicts many graphic scenes of hate crimes, murders and sex (full-frontal, you have been warned) throughout and may not be for the faint of heart. However if you’re up for it, its well worth a watch this October.

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