silver springs

all of richard’s character in the secret history is foreshadowed at the very beginning. “á moi. l’histoire d’une de mes folies.” (page 5)

the quote is from a french poem “a season in hell”

angsty teenage rimbaud’s descent into complete mental turmoil, self-annihilation and revolt from the ennui of bourgeois society.

Camilla stayed single all her life. She lives alone in her grandmother's old house in Virginia, and sits in the rocking chair at night and stares at the fireplace, smoking a Lucky Strike with old country songs murmuring on the radio, and tries to read Jane Eyre, but her thoughts always wander. To Henry. To Charles. To what once was.

Charles never did move out of the trailer he used to share with his girlfriend. Francis's yellowed, unopened letter is still lying somewhere deep in a drawer. He gets the odd job sometimes, washing cars or dishes or toilets. All the little money he has goes to liquor. What more does he need, anyway? His only aim in life is to forget. The owner of his usual place lets him stay past closing time sometimes, and play the out of tune piano, and slurred notes of Chopin fill the empty place, and he imagines they're all still there, in the library, where they can hear him play. But when he's finished, the lazy applause of his friends and the bright smile of his sister fail to appear.

The older Francis gets, the younger the men he goes home with. The doorman sees a new small nineteen year old blond leaving the building every morning, some looking shameful, others almost proud. He meticulously keeps up his socialite facade in public, but as soon as he's home alone, the mask is dropped, the cigarette is lit, and he sits in the windowsill chainsmoking. Looking at the sky. Wondering where Henry is. Wondering what could have been. Wondering why he's still here. His bright red hair slowly but surely fades to gray.

The documentary includes a brief clip of a 1954 televised newscast about the rise of homosexuality. The host of the program interviewed psychologists, a police officer, and one “known homosexual”. The “known homosexual” is 22 years old. He identifies himself as Curtis White, which is a pseudonym; his name is actually Dale Olson.

So I tracked down the newscast. According to what I can find, Dale Olson may have been the first gay man to appear openly on television and defend his sexual orientation. He explains that there’s nothing wrong with him mentally and he’s never been arrested. When asked whether he’d take a cure if it existed, he says no. When asked whether his family knows he’s gay, he says that they didn’t up until tonight, but he guesses they’re going to find out, and he’ll probably be fired from his job as well. So of course the host is like …why are you doing this interview then? and Dale Olson, cool as cucumber pie, says “I think that this way I can be a little useful to someone besides myself.”

1954. 22 years old. Balls of pure titanium.

Despite the pseudonym, Dale’s boss did indeed recognize him from the TV program, and he was promptly fired the next day. He wrote into ONE magazine six months later to reassure readers that he had gotten a new job at a higher salary.

Curious about what became of him, I looked into his life a little further. It turns out that he ultimately became a very successful publicity agent. He promoted the Rocky movies and Superman. Not only that, but get this: Dale represented Rock Hudson, and he was the person who convinced him to disclose that he had AIDS! He wrote the statement Rock read. And as we know, Rock Hudson’s disclosure had a very significant effect on the national conversation about AIDS in the U.S.