Dylan Thomas, that's for sure. Emlyn Williams was a Welsh writer and actor; like Frank Vosper he had great success with ‘thrillers’ in the 30s. But Williams is eternal corn (hence his runaway hit The Corn is Green). The play Night Must Fall is pretty fascinating, the reason it has traction in film and theatre -- even to this day, is this: it has a great leading part for an actor as a psycho-killer -- who comes apart during the last five minutes. Emlyn Williams wrote the part of ‘Danny’ for himself, Robert Montgomery produced the film hoping to get the Oscar (he got a nomination). On the other hand Montgomery's damn good in it -- a part ham-written for a ham-actor. He gets to be both charming and a killer. A friend of mine once said: ‘Anyone who can charm you within 10 minutes of meeting you is a psychopath.’ Somewhat of an exaggeration, but there is some truth in it. Well, I am on the side of charm. Night Must Fall is not, and that’s why I don’t like it. But also, come on — when the killer is exposed at the end, his speech is worthy of David Garrick’s misappropriations of Shakespeare. Garrick rewrote Macbeth in the 18th century because well, the problem was a) we sympathise with Macbeth too much and b) he doesn’t get punished enough at the end. So Garrick wrote a horrid, maudlin, unlikely speech for Macbeth (which I will paraphrase here) about being dragged into hell “I’m sinking — there is no help! I am wicked. God forgive me for what cannot be forgiven. ARUGH! I am choking suffocating…the flames! Agh!” Or some such rot. Macbeth, of course, isn’t the least bit interested in the flames at the end, but instead has a heartbreaking speech about art and representation, one we all know by heart and love: “Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” It’s not the bad writing in Might Must Fall that I object to, but the idea that it’s toxic to live in your imagination. Or, I should say; merely toxic, alone. Danny is a quintessential Irish charming liar. You’ll find this type in so many plays and movies — The Playboy of the Western World for instance. And there is an American variant (watch out for it, more dangerous than ‘Delta’!) — The Music Man. These are charming liars who seduce both men and women, they teach people how to live; because it is from the imagination that we come to understand human possibility. But they are not villains, especially not killers. Emlyn Williams cheap psychoanalysis is this: Danny can’t stand the horror of his reality, so he chooses to live in fantasy. He is a charmer by day and a killer by night. The film also has an ancillary message: ‘Girls! Beware of charmers!’ — i.e. marry a dullard. I hate this shit. The fact is that most of us live in fantasy, but most of us are not murderers. For instance I am a great writer -- that is, in my imagination. Truth is, I will go down in history (if at all) as a ‘gay activist’ who at times was too ‘militant’ for his own or anyone else’s good (John Clum already called me ‘militant’ in print. For him and for Richard Ouzonian and for Urjo Kareda too, I was the quintessential too faggoty faggot, too outrageous for my own good, this is reflection or projection, okay I’ll stop there.) ‘I am that I am,’ as Shakespeare says, but what I am exists only in who I imagine myself to be, and the same is true for you. It’s best we don’t know who we actually are, and that we attach ourselves to people who are too terrified to tell us. So don’t pick on the imagination Emlyn — it just shows your lack of it. And yes, all you ugly, fat, boring, men are permitted to go on about how all the evil charming men unjustly get the women, but those guys usually have larger than usual sexual equipment. And if they don’t, they somehow manage to convince us they do (which is the same thing). I will stop defending the imagination -- indeed I am setting out on the train to Montreal to obliterate my own imagination. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I went on vacation from writing this? If life was so intense that I didn’t need art? I fear I will be compelled though, to tell you my dirty stories, to brag if nothing else — and of course to ornament reality. (Did I tell you about the f-buddy I had once with the very large penis? I was praising it once, and he said 'Oh for me, it’s just an ornament’ — he was a bottom you see, so was I — it made sex testy, to say the least. Anyway, amazingly, he went on to have that ‘ornament’ cut off, and is now a trans woman. I am hoping his member has been preserved somewhere though, because it was not so much an ornament as a monument. In formaldehyde perhaps?) Yes — thanks for asking — I have brought my ‘Looking for Loads’ hat that my partner sweetly crafted for me at Christmas, and also my socks that say ‘bottom’ on them. I am tempted to wear both the 'Looking for Loads’ hat and the ‘bottom’ sox on the same outing? Is that too much? Will that mean I’ll end up being the ‘lonely girl’ at the prom? I just want people to look at me; I’m an exhibitionist, always have been, there’s nothing I like better than appalling people, and the older I get, the easier it is to appall. My boyfriend says my tits are gone (no gym). Well I managed not to gain any weight during COVID (or perhaps just a little) so what can I say? All I want is to be desired. Is that too much to ask? At this late date? A friend of mine said about another friend that he’s 'past his due date’ — terrifying thought. But this was about a boy who had only one thing going from him -- his beauty. Edmund White talks about that in States of Desire — he goes to some town in Godforsaken-knows-where America and remarks on how the boys there have grown older, but are only accustomed to being sex objects (much like straight women) and have nothing to offer except rapidly dwindling echoes of their dusky youth. I’m lucky; I never was very sought after, so my aged neglect is only a slight alteration on my youthful wallfowerness. Wish me luck. If there is no fun-- then I will imagine it.
