Deep Though Invisible Tracks

“Think of two people, living together day after day, year after year, in this small space, standing elbow to elbow cooking at the same small stove, squeezing past each other on the narrow stairs, shaving in front of the same small bathroom mirror, constantly jogging, jostling, bumping against each other’s bodies by mistake or on purpose, sensually, aggressively, awkwardly, impatiently, in rage or in love – think what deep though invisible tracks they must leave, everywhere, behind them!”

Christopher Isherwood
A Single Man

 

Christopher Isherwood and Bill Caskey. Photograph by George Platt Lynes

Afraid of Being Rushed

“Staring and staring into the mirror, it sees many faces within its face – the face of the child, the boy, the young man, the not-so-young man – all present still, preserved like fossils on superimposed layers, and, like fossils, dead. Their message to this live dying creature is: Look at us – we have died – what is there to be afraid of?

It answers them: But that happened so gradually, so easily. I’m afraid of being rushed.”

Christopher Isherwood
A Single Man

 
 

George Tooker with Paul Cadmus and Jared French in Mirror. Photo by George Platt Lynes, c.1949

One Drifts Apart

“Friendships, even the best of them, are frail things. One drifts apart.”

Virginia Woolf
To the Lighthouse

 
 

Paul Cadmus and Jared French photographed by George Platt Lynes