"If you hear a song you associate with your mother; if you smell a scent that was distinctly hers; if you overhear a voice that reminds you of hers--you experience a pain deep within you, at your very core. They call it Mama Bones, and I felt it for the first time sitting in those theaters, watching those movies, and thinking 'I must tell Mama how outrageous Miriam Hopkins is,' or 'Bette Davis has totally incorporated the druggists's wife's mannerisms,' and I would feel this pain, and suddenly realize that the person with whom I wished to share these reactions, these observations, was someone I believed I hated. The person I thought I hated, and felt I didn't understand, had made me someone who could appreciate these images, these illusions, and who had probably made me a writer."
--Tennessee Williams in FOLLIES OF GOD: TENNESSEE WILLIAMS AND THE WOMEN OF THE FOG
(@vintageanchorbooks) by James Grissom. Happy Birthday, Tennessee.
[Follies of God]
