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He was writing passionately, and he was disintegrating, at the end of the era when sex was still real. That he never obtained the precious title of Doctor might be tragic — if the title had not become so meaningless. That I am a Doctor and you are a Doctor has, of course, more to do with the fact that we have somehow been able to satisfy the various corporations that now go under the name of universities. In Dash’s time, academia had not quite reached that stage of decadence. It’s important to note that these were once at least semi-real institutes of learning. There was a very earnest pursuit of research, and some accent was actually placed on teaching. However, it’s true that even in Dash’s time this was all changing. The obsession with technology would eventually lead to our present situation — the cold, soulless efficiency of virtual classrooms in which human teachers have become obsolete. It’s so easy to forget that the beginning of the millennium was still, to some degree, in the shadow of the sixties; that there was still a notion of academic freedom — even though universities were gradually receiving less and less funding from the government and beginning to work in the service of business. Today it behooves us to justify the pragmatism of everything we do; back then this was only just starting to occur. I have you to thank, as usual, for the fact that I can research pretty well anything I desire. But your well-inflected but dangerous implication — I was surprised that you dared — that I was a very famous person hiding in secret (in the secrecy of an unrecognizable body, in fact!) was enough to subsidize a fat salary for me until I die. (If I ever die.) Nothing interests a university more these days than the possibility that one of its professors might become a cybercelebrity. But aren’t we all cybercelebrities?
    Back then it was much the same, in terms of academia. Dash got his position as a rather elderly graduate student because he had some experience in the “gay theatre.” His name had been in the newspapers (remember how important the newspapers once were?) for founding a gay theatre in Toronto. At the turn of the century, we find Dash desperate for work. He has been turned out of the theatre he founded. The cause? A lessening interest in identity politics, and a general abandonment of experimental and political work by both artists and funding bodies. The sad part is that Dash could never come to terms with what had happened to him.
    Now, of course, we understand that old people are just that — old. As soon as their bodies begin to be replaced by the necessary machinery, it is time for them to be seen as rarely as possible and certainly never heard. At that time there was still a romantic notion that age might be meaningless. I remember eagerly watching romance movies during the sixties. Older women fell for younger men or vice versa, and the precious
de rigueur
lines of the era included the ubiquitous “age means nothing to me.” The irony today is that the old still have sex with the young, or try to. But when the young perceive that a potential partner may be somewhat cyborgian, they reject them. When people look into each other’s eyes these days, they are trying to detect laser eye surgery, and will summarily abandon their potential partner if there is even the hint of a cataract. I’m sure you’ve heard that some young people actually carry metal-detection devices to root out the more ancient suitors.
    But when Dash was fired from his little gay Toronto theatre, he was in his early fifties. And though life had clearly passed him by — that is, his creative and romantic life was effectively over — he was valiantly and pathetically trying to jump-start a second career to remain young. I know this because he wrote several articles that are still easily findable, articles that deal with aging. In these articles he