The Decline of Gay Mirth.

A Lament Staged Over Girlie Drinks at the Gist & Tangent Pub.

Introduction

It was one of those evenings when fate shuffled the Council’s deck. None of the usual characters at the G & T Pub — no Julius booming at the bar, no Black Cloud in the corner with a notebook, not even Cliff Langour muttering about films. Instead, three unlikely figures collided by accident:

Mrs. Begonia Contretemp, scandalized to discover she’d mistaken the Pub for the Supper Club, but deciding to stay regardless;

Dr. Faye C. Schüß, dropping in “strictly off duty,” though she always carried a pen for hygienic observations;

and the Accidental Initiate, who arrived last, clutching a barmaid’s attempt at a Shirley Temple he didn’t want, too shy to order anything stronger.

Finding themselves alone at the big round table, the three began to talk — and what began as small chatter soon turned into a full lament about the decline of gay mirth, the exile of jesters, and the strange comedy of our age.

THE SPARK

Accidental Initiate (glancing around the subdued room):

“You know, I expected more sparkle. Something like Rip Taylor with a glitter cannon. Remember when gay meant fun? A riot, even?”

Mrs. Begonia (arching an eyebrow):

“My dear, once upon a time gay people were the jesters of the realm — flinging confetti in the faces of propriety. Now they have uniforms, flags, catechisms. Gay visibility has hardened into ideology. From flaunting the rules to writing them.”

Dr. Faye (clinical, yet amused):

“Acute Ideological Encapsulation. Once gay camp was spontaneous, now it is catechetical. They do not throw glitter; they issue guidelines.”

THE FAVORITES

Accidental Initiate (eyes bright):

“Rip Taylor! You couldn’t watch him without laughing. Even his confetti was comic timing. You never laughed at him, you laughed with him, because he was already laughing at himself and at you.”

Mrs. Begonia (smiling thinly):

“My heart belongs to Quentin Crisp. He had an aristocratic clarity as sharp as cut glass. He never begged to be respectable — he cultivated being the perpetual outsider, a dandy of disobedience. He proved visibility without conformity was the true victory. Today, alas, gay visibility is draped in polyester banners, wielded like vestments.”

Dr. Faye (adjusting her scarf):

“For me, it was Charles Nelson Reilly. His wit was antiseptic — disinfecting hypocrisy through sheer silliness. Every double-take, every exasperated sigh was a scalpel. He reminded us that laughter is mental hygiene.”

THE ROUTINE

Suddenly the Accidental Initiate leapt up, eyes gleaming:

“Like this! Watch — Rip Taylor!”

He grabbed the basket of bar peanuts and flung them high.

“Confetti!” he shouted.

They rained down pitifully, skittering across the table.

He slapped a coaster to his head as a toupee, then let it “fall” with tragic exaggeration. When nobody laughed, he upended the salt shaker: “Glitter! Well… sodium glitter!”

Silence.

Mrs. Begonia (clapping once, dry as sherry):

“Darling, your failure is exquisite. Rip Taylor was funny because he made himself ridiculous without trying. You tried — and so were merely ridiculous.”

Dr. Faye (noting on her napkin):

“An instructive demonstration. True gay camp bursts forth unbidden. When imitation replaces spontaneity, the confetti clumps.”

The Initiate sat down, red-faced, brushing salt from his gaiter.

THE ACCIDENTAL NOTING

Accidental Initiate (half to himself, but overheard):

“It’s strange though… these days, the real laughter doesn’t seem to come from the prog side at all. Isn’t it the ones everyone calls Nazis — the so-far-right with their frogs and their memes — who are actually laughing? They act like outsiders, and somehow they’ve stolen the jesters’ role. It’s incongruous , but—funny, in its own way.”

Mrs. Begonia (sharply, with a sigh):

“Alas, yes. My sweeties of the so-far-right have seized the weapon of mirth the way gay jesters once did. These outsiders, at times unsavory, have become the clowns of the age. The irony is almost too exquisite: those accused of being the new fascists are funnier than the self-appointed liberators.”

Dr. Faye (scribbling furiously):

“Joyful weaponization of memes — that is their true art form. Pepe as jest, caricature as contagion. It is nonviolent, yet destabilizing. They laugh — and because they laugh, they win ground. Humor, like hygiene, does not care who wields it. But when the jesters defect to the enemy, one must ask: who abandoned the field first?”

THE LAMENT

Mrs. Begonia (sighing, almost tender):

“We do not despise the jesters. We mourn their exile. Gay people once mocked the church ladies; now they have become them. Meanwhile, the so-far-right outsiders they reviled have learned to play the clown — and with laughter, have grown.”

Dr. Faye (nodding):

“Gay activists have, in their pursuit of respectability, ruined their own public relations — feeding the mill of their opponents. Humor once disarmed the enemy; solemnity now furnishes the enemy with fodder. Just as in a clinical way we have noted, the Jewish groups feed the anti-semites. It is the fate of many oppressed-but-ascendant groups: they turn into what they once parodied. And encourage their detractors, neigh, they prove their detractors and provide grist for their mill. Gay people in the past didn’t seem to proselytize, while now they do, feeding into the fears of the concerned straight.

Accidental Initiate (lifting his blackberry tea and maraschino):

“Then here’s to Rip, to Quentin, to Charles — to laughter as both weapon and balm. May the uniforms be folded back into costumes, where they belong.”

Mrs. Begonia (raising her glass, with a final sigh):

“To rules broken with style. And let us remember the word gay itself — once a byword for lightness, laughter, and riotous joy. How strange the inversion: what was merry has grown dour, what was flamboyant has become bitter. May the jesters return, and may the confetti refuse to clump.”