{"id":102017,"date":"2016-08-26T15:50:05","date_gmt":"2016-08-26T19:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=102017"},"modified":"2016-08-26T16:38:29","modified_gmt":"2016-08-26T20:38:29","slug":"poker-game-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/26\/poker-game-play\/","title":{"rendered":"The Poker Game We Play"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_102021\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/isherwoodbachardy.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-102021\" class=\"wp-image-102021\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/isherwoodbachardy.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"458\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-102021\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bachardy, left, and Isherwood, soon after they met.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>Christopher Isherwood, born on this day in 1904, met a teenager on the beach in Santa Monica in the early 1950s. It was Don Bachardy, with whom Isherwood began one of the first openly gay relationships in Hollywood. In their love letters, the pair adopted pet names and, with them, exaggerated identities: Isherwood became \u201cDobbin\u201d and Bachardy \u201cKitty.\u201d Their correspondence is published in\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Animals-Letters-Christopher-Isherwood-Bachardy\/dp\/0374105170\" target=\"_blank\">The Animals: Love Letters Between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy<\/a><em>, edited by Katherine Bucknell. The excerpt below is from a March 1963 letter from\u00a0Isherwood.<\/em><br \/><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>If only we could talk! Like the evening before last, I had actually just stayed the night at the house where I\u2019d been drinking, purely and simply because they didn\u2019t want me to drive back drunk. But I couldn\u2019t tell you that, because telling you would have suggested that you minded; and that\u2019s the kind of minding we never talk of. We only either kid each other about it, or get angry. Oh\u2014I am so saddened and depressed when I get a glimpse, as I do so clearly this morning, of the poker game we play so much of the time, watching each other\u2019s faces and listening to each other\u2019s voices for clues. And then you say, for example, Dobbin\u2019s in a strange mood, and then things start to get tense. And, because I know this, I start playacting to get them untense again, and that makes everything worse. And you are much the same. Although, somehow or other, you always seem franker than I am. Is that because you can afford to be? Am I scared of you? Yes, in a way. But I really almost wish I could be more scared. How can I explain that? It\u2019s hard. But, to try to get at what I mean, I was so happy the other day when you said that about Dobbin having been a jailer and now being a convict. I sort of wish that were true all of the time. Masochism? Oh, Mary\u2014what do I care what it\u2019s called? I only know that isn\u2019t a <em>wrong <\/em>thing for me to feel \u2026 I have written all this and maybe, having read this far, you will say, what an egomaniac. I have quite other problems, you will say, which have nothing to do with him. Yes, I know that. And again, if I say I would like to talk about them, you may reply that I am merely trying to get possession of them \u2026 I am going to send the letter because the one thing I do want you to know is that I <em>care<\/em>. I really do ache with misery when the wires are crossed. But then, I realize, it is sheer egotism to talk about caring. Oh shit \u2026 I feel I have somehow gotten something said, but I don\u2019t quite know what. I love you. C.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Christopher Isherwood, born on this day in 1904, met a teenager on the beach in Santa Monica in the early 1950s. It was Don Bachardy, with whom Isherwood began one of the first openly gay relationships in Hollywood. In their love letters, the pair adopted pet names and, with them, exaggerated identities: Isherwood became \u201cDobbin\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1047,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1900],"tags":[775,12531,24203,13868,24202,995,24204,182,2111,13335,21992,24201,14057,3988,24200],"class_list":["post-102017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-correspondence","tag-california","tag-christopher-isherwood","tag-dobbin","tag-don-bachardy","tag-gay-relationships","tag-hollywood","tag-kitty","tag-letters","tag-love","tag-love-letters","tag-masochism","tag-nicknames","tag-pet-names","tag-romance","tag-the-animals"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\u201cThe Poker Game We Play\u201d: A Letter from Christopher Isherwood<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In an unusually candid letter to his lover Don Bachardy, Isherwood ponders the games they play with each other.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/26\/poker-game-play\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Poker Game We Play by Christopher Isherwood\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"August 26, 2016 \u2013 Christopher Isherwood, born on this day in 1904, met a teenager on the beach in Santa Monica in the early 1950s. 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