PoBoy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Ink Stains
Or
What Did Tennessee?
“America has only three cities: New York,
San Francisco and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.” Tennessee
Williams
Thomas
Lanier Williams (March 26, 1911- February 26, 1983) arrived in New Orleans from
Saint Louis in 1938. He had been a sickly child (Diphtheria) and had, at an
early age, turned inward, became a reader and eventually began writing stories.
How he chose the name Tennessee is anyone’s guess but, given the options, I
cannot think of another state to choose as a moniker. Be that as it may, he had
his first break in 1944 with The Glass Menagerie and wrote a string of
enormously mind blowing, emotionally gut wrenching and fabulously significant
and hugely popular stage plays and films that starred the best of the best actors
in his time.
Writers,
I believe, suffer from the insecurity of and need to have other people
(possibly strangers) appreciate the written word especially as it is written by
them. Writers believe that they have something to say that you should read and embrace
the emotion that they have put into those words. Those words tell a story, make
a point, defend an idea or are simply an attempt to make some money. Writers, journalists,
poets, playwrights, and even that kid that spray paint scrawls the words “Fu*k
You You lying lying SlutBitch!” on the cinder block wall outside of Rouses
Super Market; they have something to say and they have the need to express it
outside of themselves. Fact, fiction, fantasy or however that person on the
receiving end of that SlutBitch’s lie is feeling, they want to get it out there,
off their chest ( I guess that goes for columnists like myself also) and for
you to know it; see it; feel it; be impressed by it or be ignorant enough to ignore it.
Tennessee
had a lot to say: Night of the Iguana, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly Last
Summer, the big one, set right here, Streetcar Named Desire (and more) and
although some people consider anything that he wrote after 1961 to be pure
crapola, gems of his other works are being rediscovered, reevaluated, unearthed
and performed with alacrity, enthusiasm and vigor continually.
Who
was Tennessee Williams? He was a five foot six gay man who worked on a chicken
ranch, a shoe factory and as an usher in theaters before being able to make
enough money to live on his writing abilities. He was fiercely loyal and
somewhat promiscuous in his love life and enjoyed the down low lush life. He
used eye drops and wrote incessantly and oft-times very well. He was a big fan
(who isn’t) of Meryl Streep and often lied about his age. He smoked, he drank,
caroused and sometimes crawled on his belly like a reptile (okay, I made that
last one up). He was a model of persistence, stick-to-itiveness and drive,
however lazy he may have appeared. He was a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside
an enigma. Go figure.
If
you are literate at all, you are aware of his major works; if you are a maven
of literature, you have coal mined into his life, times and if you know nothing
of him, well, shame on you; however, all is not lost. You can, as a vehicle to
your ever-loving albeit limited awareness look into the 2024 Tennessee Williams
& New Orleans Literary Festival; it’s a genuine really March midmonth
wordgeek three ringed J. K. Rowling
Potteresque style circus. March 20-24 (5 days) in the French Quarter in
its 37th year and it is a sight to behold if you’re astute enough to
witness and possibly partake in it.
Picture
it, you’re on your rounds around the Quarter on a springy spring weekend day
and from the peripheral vision of your awareness there are some folks hurrying
past you in different directions (and indifferent of you) with programs and
notepads and books tucked under their arms and possibly munching a sandwich or
snack with the attitude of the White Rabbit in Alice Through The Looking Glass.
They’re going to writers’ panels, author interviews, theater events, culinary
and cocktail events and if you happen to be in Jackson Square on that Sunday
and see a bunch of kooks shouting “Stella!!” at a Pontalba balcony you might be
taken aback but possibly curious. But, before you know it it’s over and you’ve
missed the whole thing as if it were the Midnight Circus by Erin Morgenstern.
And you’re
left there in the dust asking “what; where; when; who? It was? Shit! well, next
year I promise!” Well, this is your heads up; your wakeup call; your ‘get a
clue phone’ ringing. RING RING! It’s time to knit your brow just a little bit
higher and go get you some literary couth!
I’ve met
people from around the country and around the world at these get-togethers.
Well, I really haven’t met them, nobody really talks to each other, they’re
mostly at this thing to absorb the vibe and learn shit, me included. Be there
or literally be square.
Oh, you
know Tennessee’s eye drops? Well, he used to pull the cap off the bottle with
his teeth to use them and one day while administering those drops, something
surprising happened to startle him and as a result he inhaled the cap which got
stuck in his throat causing him to choke and die. Let that be a lesson to you.
Be careful with those things. See you at
the Fest.
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