ate my crackers today. I got up at precisely 6:45 a.m. to eat them. I had been anticipating them all night; I dreamed about those crackers! But I opened the cupboard door and the plastic package I had carefully sealed with rubber bands was almost empty, and the rubber bands had been chewed through. My go-to was anger at my boyfriend — but then I realised that — though he is a very very odd fellow — it was unlikely he chewed through those rubber bands. So the day started badly. (Please remember that my favourite cheese crackers are called Cheez-Its, there are no others like them, they are made by ‘Sunshine’ and only recently became available in Canada, and if you want to send me some, do. I won’t tell you my address but if you have my email you can email me, and I will give you my home address I promise.) Last night I watched The White Crow — a movie about Rudolf Nureyev, This movie is alluring, because of course, the guy playing Nureyev is hot, and is glimpsed ‘pretty-much, naked' at least once, and of course he sleeps with a lot of hot young men (and some women — this was annoying -- I’m sure it’s a fact that Nureyev slept with a woman or two -- but why do we have to see it? The next thing you know they’ll be claiming he was bisexual!). I always tell the story about the time I almost slept with Nureyev at the baths (The Romans)—I’ve told it about 1000 times. Suffice it to say I didn’t, but I could have. (So there.) Anyway the movie is pretty hypnotizing because of all the male buttoxess on display — in and out of tights — but also due to Ralph Fiennes lovely performance as Nureyev’s favourite acting teacher (Fiennes also directed the excellent script by David Hare). And then there was Nureyev’s dilemma, which was that he wanted to get out of Russia. I realized though, after awhile, that I was getting far too involved in the movie emotionally. I mean, I’m not trapped in Russia, am I? But then again. The last scene — at the Paris airport — was so riveting— ‘Just tell them you want asylum Rudi. But you have to approach them — they won’t approach you.’ And the Russians are trying to grab him back, but he does finally escape to Paris. So I identified, because I do live in Soviet Russia now, that is all writers do, ever since the ‘woke folk’ decided that certain language is violence. Hate speech was the thin edge of the wedge. I never liked the concept of hate speech. What are we to do with Patti Smith’s fab song ‘Rock 'N Roll N-word?’ I guess we have to throw it in the garbage, now eh? And this is after years of me owning the word 'faggot' and calling myself that quite proudly. It’s tragic to see the death of what I call ‘reverse appropriation,’’ taking back a term of abuse and anointing as our own. The problem with hate speech is that no language or thought should be illegal, period. I can see censoring children’s books but that’s about it. However I think children should stop reading children’s books at age 12. There should be no such thing as ‘teen’ literature. If you’ve got hair on your 'you-know-what' then man-up (or woman-up) and start reading the tough stuff, I suggest Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer to start (though I’ve never been able to read the damn thing, so maybe it will put you off pornography -- which is what the puritans want, anyway). No. Adults should be able to read anything, or say anything, they like. If somebody kills somebody because that person is a trans person, what difference does it make? (Please don’t take that sentence out of context.) What I mean by that is -- they should go to jail for killing someone, period, it doesn’t matter the reason they did it, unless they are mentally ill. Then they had no reason and should be acquitted. If anyone has a reason for killing someone then they should be locked up, period. And what if the killer says: ‘I didn’t kill them because they were trans but because they were an odious person?” Why disbelieve the killer? What do you know about what goes on inside the brain of a twisted, evil, skunk who would kill anyone, for any so-called, blasted reason? And the problem with hate speech is that it -- like beauty -- is in the eye of the beholder. One man’s hate speech is another man’s poetry. As a writer I am appalled by any attempt to limit anyone’s vocabulary; we need words, all of them — no matter how disgusting or offensive — so we can somehow make sense of this crazy world. But the concept of ‘hate speech’ was a step away from ‘words as violence.’ When I was ‘exorcised’ from Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Evalyn Parry kept telling me I had a responsibility to the people who read my blog because I had ‘hurt’ them. Go away, Evalyn! (Thank Heaven, she did!) No writer is responsible for the responses of the reading or viewing public. If we thought we were responsible for the effects of our work we wouldn’t write. How could we? People are nuts, and great poetry is polysemous (which means it has many meanings). And if you are a good poet, or novelist, or playwright, no single meaning can be extracted from your work anyway. The concept of speech as violence is equivalent to book burning, and will kill poetry, okay? Which brings me again to why I found Rudi’s dilemma so compelling — because every time I write these days, I write in fear. I am afraid. In fact I am afraid now. I am afraid I have ‘gone too far’ and will finally be permanently cancelled in one way or another. That’s a good thing probably, I mean it’s probably good for my writing; I have no doubt Rudi was a better dancer because he was terrified that the Russians would take 'the dance' away from him. Oppression/repression invites urgency and adds desperation, and if you create desperately you may, in my view, create something a little closer to the truth. (Whatever that is.) So yes, yes, truth be told, every word I write may be my last word, but that’s okay, because a writer should write like that anyway, and, with that in mind, I say goodbye. It was nice knowing you. If I am banned, please remember that when I dressed in drag, I really wanted to look attractive —it was an accident when I did not. And remember I tried to write, not wisely, but too well. (But it didn’t quite work.)
