High life | 28 May 2011

In that wonderful old Broadway musical Guys and Dolls, gambler Sky Masterson is romancing Sister Sarah Brown of the Salvation Army after an all-nighter of boozing it up in Havana. Walking her home to her mission in New York, he tells her that the only place in the world where ‘the dawn is turned on by an electrician’ is Times Square. She swoons. That, of course, was the good old days, when Runyonesque characters like Nathan Detroit, Nicely-Nicely, Harry the Horse, Big Jule from Chicago and Liver Lips Louis ruled Broadway and its environs.

In that magical make-believe world, Nathan married Miss Adelaide (after a 14-year engagement) and Sky got hitched to Sarah. The play had a very happy ending, although if there is a revival any time soon, Nathan will most likely marry Sky and Miss Adelaide Sister Sarah. (The clapped-out NY Times had a long story last Sunday about a transgender’s sex life, and an editorial by a gay man on why people like himself should boycott straight marriages.