January 4

Events

• Current events

• 1785 - He was a philologist? What kind of pervert is that? - Jakob Grimm, who along with his brother Wilhelm produced a famous collection of fairy tales, was born in Hanau in what is now Germany on this date. Among the many famous stories they collected were "Hansel and Gretel," a story that taught children of the dangers of taking candy from strangers and "Little Red Riding Hood," which taught children to be wary of adults pretending to be friendly, distant relatives. One of their least known stories is "Rumpled Foreskin," a tale of a pedo who tries to pretend to be "normal," but fails in all his attempts to get it up while dating women.

• 1947 - Stories of boys and love - Novelist Forrest Reid died on this date. He wrote a great deal about boys in his works. Critic John Cronin, wrote that "Boyhood ... is his special province.... Forrest Reid withdrew from the life around him into a fantasy world of boyish innocence which he explored in novel after novel." John McRae, in the introduction to, The Retreat wrote, "Mr Reid ... has somehow kept his memory of boyhood so alive in himself that he writes almost with the feeling of a contemporary." In 1944 Reid wrote Young Tom, a novel in which two boys fall in love. In one passage he writes of Tom's love, James, "He had simply emerged from his soiled and much-patched clothing like a butterfly form a chrysalis, and the contrast between his fair hair and the golden brown of his body and limbs appeared to the smaller boy [Tom] as attractive as anything could be." Critic Eamonn Hughes wrote, "Apostate finishes ... at the point at which Reid’s identity, most importantly but not exclusively, his sexual identity, is about to be revealed to another person.... He lacks interest in the public, adult world in and by which one’s identity is usually formed ... we are therefore shown his youthful mental world and his adult public existence but are given no access to the personal life which bridges the two." Reid said of his own work that he "could get along swimmingly until I reached ... the point where a boy becomes a man. There something seemed to happen, my inspiration was cut off, my interest flagged, so all became a labour, and not a labour of love." There were also boys in his real life. When he was in his 40s he met Kenneth Hamilton, 13 year old boy, for whom he produced Kenneth’s Magazine of stories and poems. The two maintained a relationship by correspondence after the adult Hamilton joined the merchant navy. After Hamilton died, Reid committed himself increasingly to writing out of the consciousness of boyhood.

• 1960 - Shiny Happy Pedo? - Michael Stipe, lead singer of R.E.M., was born on this date. For many years he refused to discuss his sexuality in interviews, but in more recent years he has more openly discussed his bisexuality. It is also widely rumored that he has contributed financial support to NAMBLA. Anyone who has seen the R.E.M. videos for "Losing My Religion" or "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" could not possibly be shocked by that.

• 1986 - Something in the way they move - Novelist and playwright Christopher Isherwood died on this date in Santa Monica, California. He was born eighty years earlier in Disley, England. In 1914, at age 8, he was sent to St. Edmund's preparatory school, where he made friends with the future poet and fellow pedo, W. H. Auden. During his career he also worked with fellow pedo Benjamin Britten. When asked about his pedo attraction, he said: "Why do I prefer boys? Because of their shape and their voices and their smell and the way they move."