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INSOMNIAC PRESS
Copyright © 2003 by Stephen Harold Riggins All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from Access Copyright, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5E 1E5. Edited by Richard Almonte Copy edited by Adrienne Weiss Cover designed by Mike O'Connor Interior designed by Marijke Friesen
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data Riggins, Stephen Harold, 1946The pleasures of time / Stephen Harold Riggins. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-894663-46-2 1. Bouissac, Paul. 2. Riggins, Stephen Harold, 1946- 3. Gay men— Biography. I. Title. HM479.R54A3 2003 305.38'9664'0922
C2003-900714-6
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council and the Department of Canadian Heritage through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program. We acknowledge the support of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation's Ontario Book Initiative. Printed and bound in Canada Insomniac Press 192 Spadina Avenue, Suite 403 Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5T 2C2 www.insomniacpress.com
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FOR THE ARTS SYRCT
THE CANADA DEPUTS
ONTARIO ARTS COUNCIICONSEIL OES ARTS DE L'ONTARIO
Mozart combines just enough of this touch of pleasurable sadness with the easy cheerfulness and elegance of a mind lucky enough to take in what is agreeable. —Eugene Delacroix
As bamboo shadows sweep the stairs, no dust is stirred; as the moonlight penetrates the pond, no ripple is made on the water. —Huanchu Daoren
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After having admired the most lovely tulip under the magnifying glass of the Haarlem gardener, one still loves the little bouquet of forest violets: simple flowers, but gifted with an enduring perfume. —Jules Combarieu
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Preface
9
The Circus Is His Kingdom
13
The Old Opossum's Bad Apples
61
The Pleasures of Time
107
Interlude: Indiana Fugue
177
The Search for the Unexpected
203
Stolen Time
231
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Preface
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I share the opinion of James Boswell, my eighteenth-century model of a tireless biographer, that private conversations are the most absorbing side of literary life. Conversations disappear with little trace unless stubborn and persistent witnesses make it their goal to record—sometimes secretly— what others are saying. When I began writing this book, I was a graduate student in Sociology, still uncertain whether I had chosen the right field of study. In fact, a whole decade passed before I realized I had indeed made the right decision. I wanted to turn the eyes of an archivist upon my life with Paul Bouissac, upon ourselves and our friends. I wanted to write a book that would give as much attention to the obscure as to the famous, where the philosopher Michel Foucault and the composer John Cage could rub shoulders with people they never met but would have enjoyed. Most of all I wanted to document the surrealist vision and Buddhist philosophy of my partner. I began the diary which is the basis for this book on November 20,1972. The Pleasures of Time is a journal of love, friendship and domesticity, a collection of shards and remnants from two seamless lives. Paul was already thirty-five years old when we met in 1969.1 grew up in the comparative affluence of 1950s and 60s America; he, in the sombre and insecure France of the 1940s and 50s. In comparison with the wild, exotic Otherness which he appreciated so much in the circus, I lived in what seems to me a profoundly straight world, one shaped by Midwestern unpretentiousness. In theory, of course, Paul could record his life better than anyone else. Yet I knew he was disinclined to revisit his past, especially when it required reliving some tense personal failures. At first I kept my diary a secret from him. I trained myself to remember what Paul said long enough to make copious notes out of sight. Later, I also interviewed him. It might seem odd that I formally interview a person with whom I was to live for more than thirty years. But my Samuel Johnson was probably less cooperative than the original. (A comparison is difficult because we know Johnson's reactions through the writings of his biographer. Sometimes Johnson helped Boswell; at other times he subverted #