PLAGUE DIARY 33: SKY WRITES REVIEWS OF OLD BAD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO KEEP HIM SANE DURING THIS TIME OF HORRIFIC INSANITY

Out of the Past (1947)
I have a lot of trouble not believing everything will end; and of course it will — but today that idea seems more potent than ever. I didn’t want to review a movie tonight, but I hoped this much-praised-film-noir might carry me away. It didn’t. I suppose I can understand why Out of the Past is so popular — the actors do a helluva a lot of very sexy smoking — so much smoking that it’s almost ludicrous — and the femme fatale is about as fatale as a femme can get. The dialogue is delivered at such a pace and with so little thought that one can’t help imagining that the lines just might be witty. But the wittiest one I could find was  —“A dame with a rod is like a guy with a knitting needle” (which is actually witty by accident, because a rod only meant a pistol in 1947). Speaking of murder, Out of the Past is also lethally misogynistic. Jane Greer is an empty actress, and all that is required is that she be beautiful and point guns at people. I suppose some might be sexually aroused; for me she is Karla Homolka — irredeemable — and since that’s what so many men already think women are, do we really need to see it? Anyway — reading the Wikipedia reviews,  it’s very revealing to discover I’m not alone in finding the plot inscrutable. I hate plots, but I love narrative. You can trust a narrative because it loves you back, but a plot is something that confounds you — merely out of cruelty and arrogance. Remember that TV show (I never saw it) — that was always befuddling everyone because they couldn’t figure out the secret — and then it turned out there wasn’t one? That’s pretty much Out of the Past. Is there, perhaps no secret? I mean, generally? I’ve suggested before that the secret is beauty. I could write about Robert Mitchum’s eyes. Are they perpetually crying, or perpetually laughing? Both perhaps. But God gave them to him, or if you don’t believe in God, then it was an accident of nature, a confusion of atoms. At any rate, there’s no sense in congratulating Robert Mitchum on it. Then there’s the 22 year old Dickie Moore, child actor, who in this particular b-move plays a stunning deaf mute with amazing eyes, cheekbones and teeth (what could be more symbolic?). I could talk about his beauty. But I won’t. Speaking of deaf mutes, here is the writing advice I received from Mavor Moore, who was the worst writing teacher I ever had. I know he was a giant of Canadian theatre but he was also a stunning charlatan. I learned from his writing seminars at York University how to format a script. That’s it. Oh — and one day, he gifted the entire class with this dramaturgical gem: “Here’s some valuable advice. Write a play about a deaf mute girl. I guarantee, there’s a lot of money in it.” (He was referring to his hit musical version of Johnny Belinda.) I wasn’t offended as much by his dismissal of the suffering of disabled people as I was by his raging commercial instinct. (A raging commercial instinct is not unlike a raging hard-on — it’s very pleasant for those that have it, but not always for those that are on the receiving end.) But I’m tired of trying to entertain you, or more properly, trying to entertain myself. On a night like this — with three weeks to go — and they — everyone says— will surely extend the social distancing guidelines after that — who cares? Apparently there are people who actually enjoy living like this? I don’t have the time or inclination to ponder the demented craziness of someone who actually enjoys self-isolation. I couldn’t get ahold of a friend for a week, and she said she hadn’t answered my emails because she was burning incense and praying. I don’t believe that —not that she was praying and burning incense for a week — but that she couldn’t pick up her phone. It’s an endless nothing. And then of course the thought came tonight — because it will be dark and cold tomorrow, and so many people I know are on the verge of cracking, and that guy in Halifax just killed 19 people  — what if there was nothing anymore to write about? That’s my m.o. : I think everyone will leave me, and no one will read my work or watch my plays. I imagine everything ending, but specifically my talent. I know that sounds conceited to imagine even that I have talent. But don’t worry, at the same time as I imagine I have it, I also imagine it will disappear. So I might as well not have any talent at all. (I probably don’t.) I wish I could write about nothing, Shakespeare was very good at that. And also Hemingway (A Clean Well Lighted Place). Perhaps that is the measure of a writer, being capable of writing about nothing, zero, nada (Pause) Aporia. That’s what this is, isn’t it? Tell me it’s just a pause? I’ve imagined  that things will get better after the endless pandemic — sexier, maybe — but I know they won’t.  I’ve had a lot of ‘If I died’ talks with people lately. ‘If I died right now, would it be okay?’ And the ones I love say: ‘if I died right now it wouldn’t matter because I’ve lived the life I want to live.” Do those words strike terror in your heart? Well it’s my theory that the people who love self-isolation are the ones who have not lived their lives. They regret everything, and nothing could make them happier than to continue on in exactly the same manner — without regret — because, after all, what is there now for them to do? I always think of Susan Sontag in this respect. She had cancer for I think nearly thirty years; her life was always being ripped away from her. And i like to think that she wanted to live, and that’s one of the reasons why she stayed alive. (But we all know that’s not true — some people are just taken, even when they want so much not to go, and that is the nightmare.) But although I am one of the ones who likes to say ‘If I went now it wouldn’t matter because I’ve lived the life I want to live’ I am lying. Because it would matter — to me. (I can admit this because I am a submissive — not so much in bed but — well yes, that too — but also just generally, believe it or not). I wish I could say I’m fine with dying because I’ve lived my life to the fullest. But I would say no no please  don’t take it away — not because I’m afraid of the nothingness that is death, but because life is just too much damn fun. I suppose I'm privileged for enjoying my life especially at this late age. But I’m crazy enough to think it should be that way for everyone, and that to want to die — to want nothing — as opposed to everything — is a kind of pathology. Nothing, nada. For Shakespeare ‘nothing’ was also slang for female genitalia. (I’m phrasing that tactfully just in case you are reading this aloud to your children every night, after origami and calisthenics, during this 'trying time that we are all enduring together.') But I think perhaps that pun made ‘nothing’ bearable for Shakespeare, which is perhaps why he was a genius, and a real writer. Sadly, it’s not enough for me.