Rare spoken words; to sleep or not; "The Pillow Book"; watching "Rebel Without a Cause"; Dean and Mineo; "cross currents of sexual tension"; questions about my fascination with Dean

As I was walking in the door a few minutes ago, I realized that I've probably spoken less than fifty words all day. A few words to various clerks at different times and that was it. Certainly no more than six or seven words at a time.

Last night was another example of sleeping and being awake at odd intervals. I went to bed after midnight and woke up at 2, could not go back to sleep, traipsed into the living room, turned on the TV and watched about an hour of "The Pillow Book" on Cinemax. A visually stunning effort, but emotionally remote. It was as if the characters stood stationary as the visual effects floated by. And in a sense that is what happens. An amazing amount of male full frontal nudity that is more curious than erotic.

This afternoon I watched one of the great classics of American moviedom - "Rebel Without a Cause." It was one of the very rare times that I did nothing but watch. No reading, no playing with cats, no web surfing. I'd actually never seen it until a few years ago, and when I first watched I became mesmerized. James Dean is hypnotic! There are so many subtle things he does with his eyes, facial expressions and body language. Especially the eye movements. And that half-mad laugh, as though at any moment he's going to collapse into a psychotic state.

With Dean are Natalie Woods and Sal Mineo. Natalie is the obligatory female love interest. But it is Sal Mineo as John Plato that provides a twist. Plato is intimated to be gay and in love with Dean. (There's a quick scene of Plato at his locker, and inside the door is a photo of Alan Ladd, an actor of the time.) But Dean is also a surrogate father to Plato. Dean trusts and respects Plato and never rejects him as everyone else appears to. The only one who seems to care about Plato is the maid.

I've read that in real life, Mineo adored Dean from the first second they met. Mineo was gay and to suddenly be faced with Dean must have been a very heady experience. For Dean was at the very least bi, very sexually aggressive, and very much into rough trade.

I thought about what it must have been like to have seen "Rebel" when it premiered. Certainly there had not been anything like Dean's performance before: moody, mercurial, kinetic, laconic, explosive, sensual. The cross currents of sexual tension must have come as a shock. It may also have been one of the first movies to deal with adolescence in a valid manner.

I also wonder what my fascination with "Rebel" reveals. Interesting that I watched it the day after making an entry about my relationship with my father. I'm sure that has something to do with it. Maybe, I feel as Plato did: a yearning for a father figure. Or could it be that I'm lusting after Dean? Or do I want to BE the Dean character?

PAX!