Hitchens, who knew something about tarnishing his own legacy, documented the collapse:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/02/hitchens-201002
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 15:06 (twelve years ago) link
getting anecdotal about the old Orson Welles:
"Why,” he turned to the waiter with small cold eyes, “do you keep bringing me a menu when you know what I must eat. Grilled fish.” The voice boomed throughout the room. “And iced tea. How I hate grilled fish! But doctor’s orders. I’ve lost twenty pounds. No one ever believes this. But then no one ever believes I hardly eat anything.” He was close to four hundred pounds at the time of our last lunch in 1982. He wore bifurcated tents to which, rather idly, lapels, pocket flaps, buttons were attached in order to suggest a conventional suit. He hated the fat jokes that he was obliged to listen to—on television at least—with a merry smile and an insouciant retort or two, carefully honed in advance. When I asked him why he didn’t have the operation that vacuums the fat out of the body, he was gleeful. “Because I have seen the results of liposuction when the operation goes wrong. It happened to a woman I know. First, they insert the catheter in the abdomen, subcutaneously.” Orson was up on every medical procedure. “The suction begins and the fat—it looks like yellow chicken fat. You must try the chicken here. But then the fat—hers not the chicken’s—came out unevenly. And so where once had been a Rubensesque torso, there was now something all hideously rippled and valleyed and canyoned like the moon.” He chuckled and, as always, the blood rose in his face, slowly, from lower lip to forehead until the eyes vanished in a scarlet cloud, and I wondered, as always, what I’d do were he to drop dead of stroke.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1989/jun/01/remembering-orson-welles/
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 15:24 (twelve years ago) link
I remember the yuks over the Rudy Vallee memoir ("Conrad").
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 15:28 (twelve years ago) link
Can anybody explain the "saddest three words in the English language are 'Joyce Carol Oates'" line? I can't find a source on it
― Ówen P., Wednesday, 1 August 2012 15:31 (twelve years ago) link
It was in the AP obit (which is on Salon), but I don't know anything more.
That Welles piece is quite sympathetic and touching, really, and this is nifty:
Writers who teach tend to prefer literary theory to literature and tenure to all else. Writers who do not teach prefer the contemplation of Careers to art of any kind. On the other hand, those actors who do read are often most learned, even passionate, when it comes to literature. I think that this unusual taste comes from a thorough grounding in Shakespeare combined with all that time waiting around on movie sets.
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 15:37 (twelve years ago) link
A filmmaker who loves to read is indeed a rare thing, which is why I often reread bits of Welles' Bogdanovich interviews for his remarks on Kafka, Fitzgerald, Wilder, et al.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 15:42 (twelve years ago) link
In 2000, that essay compendium with the Jasper Johns flag on the cover was a serious fucking game changer for me. So far, I've only read Burr of the historical series, but I loved it. Lincoln has been next in line for a few years.
Most priceless for me were the interviews caught here and there on the radio. The earth scorching way he pronounced 'hagiographer'.
― Lewis Apparition (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 16:24 (twelve years ago) link
Burr is hilariously good
― giallo pudding pops (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 16:26 (twelve years ago) link
It needs to be repeated: the historical novels aren't a drag; they're funny as shit.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 16:27 (twelve years ago) link
RIP
― DX Dx DX (dan m), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 16:33 (twelve years ago) link
Sully's strange obit.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 17:34 (twelve years ago) link
tough year to be an old celebrity with "vidal" as one of your names
― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 17:40 (twelve years ago) link
somehow i still find vidal's stupid lapses -- and they were truly stupid -- more forgivable than hitch's. maybe because his lapses didn't involve sucking up to evil ppl in power.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 18:03 (twelve years ago) link
Vidal's pose was not to show affection so not likely we woulda gotten a Slate essay on Paul Wolfowitz's beautiful literate wife or a defense of Doug Feith's prose.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 18:07 (twelve years ago) link
Vidal's pose was not to show affection
really his most distasteful quality imho. he seems to share with Burroughs a rather unhealthy loathing for affection and sexual intimacy, which just seems sad to me.
― giallo pudding pops (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 18:10 (twelve years ago) link
but the thing is, it could be a pose, which I embrace
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 18:13 (twelve years ago) link
also, he claimed a couple thousand 'lovers' by age 25, so selective loathing.
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 18:14 (twelve years ago) link
there seemed to be plenty of affection in vidal's apparently chaste relationship with his partner, if not the kind he wanted to share in public.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 18:19 (twelve years ago) link
he seems to share with Burroughs a rather unhealthy loathing for affection and sexual intimacy
no evidence of this! The mark of a man is how many friends he's got, and Vidal had hundreds.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 18:21 (twelve years ago) link
the chapter on Howard Austen's death in his memoir is shattering. You know how much pain Vidal was in from how much emotion he suppresses.
well I haven't looked in his little black book, I'm just going by his little witticisms (haven't read his memoirs)
― giallo pudding pops (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 18:22 (twelve years ago) link
i bet you've misinterpreted him as often as you have me, then!
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 18:27 (twelve years ago) link
Paris Review Q&A:
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3917/the-art-of-fiction-no-50-gore-vidal
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 18:41 (twelve years ago) link
best vidal urban legend:
He and brute Norman Mailer were at a party when Mailer laid him out with one punch. From the floor, Vidal looked up at him, and (the precise quotation varies) intoned like a total catty bitch, “Words fail Norman Mailer once again.”
― ♆ (gr8080), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 19:12 (twelve years ago) link
Taking a dead man to task for not having more gay sex?
You people.
― Eric H., Wednesday, 1 August 2012 19:15 (twelve years ago) link
um that was not my point
― giallo pudding pops (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 19:22 (twelve years ago) link
Taking a dead gay man to task for not having more straight sex?
― Eric H., Wednesday, 1 August 2012 19:22 (twelve years ago) link
His greatest book might be Palimpsest though
I've had it sitting on my bookshelf for a couple of years. I guess I should finally get around to reading it.
― o. nate, Wednesday, 1 August 2012 21:25 (twelve years ago) link
Lincoln praise seconded, thirded, etc.
― aerosmith suck because their corporate rock that sucks (Myonga Vön Bontee), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 22:11 (twelve years ago) link
Haven't read this yet, but it looks promising.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/105655/christopher-buckley-his-fathers-old-nemesis-gore-vidal
― clemenza, Thursday, 2 August 2012 00:46 (twelve years ago) link
one was left to wonder what it was within him that animated such hatred in him, at such a late stage? I speculated that it might be envy over the outpouring of respect and admiration for WFB—from all corners, by the way, of the ideological map.
or maybe it was WFB's eloquent suggestion that people with AIDS be branded and quarantined?
― (REAL NAME) (m coleman), Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:06 (twelve years ago) link
It seems so weird to me that someone would refer to his father with initials.
― clemenza, Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:14 (twelve years ago) link
Bill Buckley seems like the kind of guy who would refer to himself with initials. when he wasn't using the royal "we"
― (REAL NAME) (m coleman), Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:19 (twelve years ago) link
skimmed through some of that norman podhoretz attack on him from the early '80s, the one that apparently convinced conservatives that vidal was an 'anti-semite.' it's pretty rife with ugly, homophobic stuff.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:22 (twelve years ago) link
theres a horrible NRO thing from whats his face that speculates that vidal wanted to fuck wfb
― max, Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:24 (twelve years ago) link
By Jonah Goldberg
I’m getting a lot of dyspeptic feedback from folks who’re mad that NRO isn’t doing more to mark the death of Gore Vidal (though we do have an excellent little item from Rick Brookhiser). I’m torn about the matter. I’ve been trying to stick to the policy of not speaking too ill, too soon, of the dead. It’s a policy I haven’t always stuck to, but I think it’s worth trying. True fidelity to that principle would require complete silence after typing the phrase “Gore Vidal is dead.” I think though it’s at least worth recalling that Vidal himself showed no respect to such a principle when his better in every regard, William F. Buckley, passed away. Also, I rather like the idea that Vidal’s passing is not being hailed as all that big a deal, because it isn’t.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:26 (twelve years ago) link
Remembering that Buckley's book about his parents was called Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir, between WFB and Pup, WFB suddenly doesn't seem so bad.
― clemenza, Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:27 (twelve years ago) link
Also, I rather like the idea that Vidal’s passing is not being hailed as all that big a deal, because it isn’t.
Silly--it was the lead story on CNN's main page for much of the day.
― clemenza, Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:28 (twelve years ago) link
brookhiser:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/312887/my-visit-gore-vidal-richard-brookhiser
About WFB and Vidal and 1968 — I did not see the famous clash on ABC, though there are clips on YouTube and I read the apologia that WFB wrote for Esquire. God, they hated each other. My speculation is that Bill was enraged because he sensed that Vidal wanted to sleep with him, and Vidal was enraged because he knew that would never happen.
― max, Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:28 (twelve years ago) link
gross. those fucking assholes.
― horseshoe, Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:29 (twelve years ago) link
at least Brookhiser ate some of Vidal's cheese.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:29 (twelve years ago) link
in that book Pup comes across better than Mum because she was, in her son's estimation, a heartless snob and difficult i.e. a total bitch
― (REAL NAME) (m coleman), Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:30 (twelve years ago) link
i don't know how you guys can stand to look at that site even for fun -- my teeth would have fallen out by now from constant grinding.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:31 (twelve years ago) link
ugh
― (REAL NAME) (m coleman), Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:32 (twelve years ago) link
J.D., for me it's like replenishing bullets at an armory. I still have batshit relatives.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:33 (twelve years ago) link
leaving aside the sheer homophobic creepiness of that, the implication that WFB was somehow out of vidal's league looks-wise is pretty wtf
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:34 (twelve years ago) link
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_yh0p83tykh0/TThbGRcHFwI/AAAAAAAAADQ/kGwJp0qcfv4/s1600/william-f-buckley-jr.jpg
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:36 (twelve years ago) link
well i think the implication is more that WFB didnt sleep with men
― Hungry4Ass, Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:40 (twelve years ago) link
ratfaced bastard xp
Rick Brookhiser looks like a fucking '50s space alien btw
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:41 (twelve years ago) link
I'll defend Brookhiser's The Outside Story, his acocunt of the '84 campaign. Good bon mots.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 2 August 2012 01:44 (twelve years ago) link
That was even nastier, agree--it was an unprovoked ambush (the infamous insult wasn't, notwithstanding how crude and personal it was), zeroing in on a touchy relationship for Vidal. Somehow he got off a couple of good lines as he eyed the letter.
For me, the link between then and now was handled as well as was needed in the end-credit clips, although I'm pretty well versed in the now. Someone unfamiliar with the Crossfire-type shows might need more.
― clemenza, Friday, 21 August 2015 14:26 (nine years ago) link
bringing out the letter is simultaneously so ridiculously vicious and so irrelevant i suspect vidal's little smiles are not forced but restrained. eyeing buckley trying to figure out if he genuinely thinks he's scored a triumph here.
― playlists of pensive swift (difficult listening hour), Friday, 21 August 2015 16:38 (nine years ago) link
Really I was watching and thinking "How Does he get out of that?" Looked effortless.
Over here you get to be well-versed in the emptiness of these arguments on the news/Question Time (which is worse than ever). What I wanted to see is more analysis of a politics gone completely wrong.
Also wasn't that convinced by Vidal's liberalism. They are too pro-elite, and looking back its the 'expat' jibe that probably made Vidal most uncomfortable. Can totally see why he is not v much read.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 22 August 2015 10:59 (nine years ago) link
he's not?
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 22 August 2015 14:04 (nine years ago) link
Doesn't feel like it, at least over here.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 22 August 2015 14:33 (nine years ago) link
Vidal's series of novels on American history seem like they'll continue to be read in the USA for at least the next few decades.
― Aimless, Saturday, 22 August 2015 18:19 (nine years ago) link
Definitely
(Burr is great)
― Οὖτις, Saturday, 22 August 2015 18:35 (nine years ago) link
“I am sorry to see Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon’s Best of Enemies being hailed for remembering a golden age when intellectuals fought out profound issues in public,” writes Gary Wills for the New York Review of Books.
Now that I've seen it, I can say Wills is Wrong.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 6 September 2015 23:15 (nine years ago) link
I had a couple problems with Best of Enemies. The first is that it is significantly padded, an obvious consequence of having to structure a feature length documentary around whatever the total running time of the debates was (they seemed short; did the film significantly excerpt them?). Most of what the talking heads had to say was just explaining/mildly elaborating on what had just been shown in the film; the linguist (I forget his name) talking about what constitutes profanity then vs. now was by far the most insightful moment. Second, and seemingly less significant but even more annoying to me, is the way that it presents clips from some of Vidal's work. Obviously it is a lot easier to show clips from Myra Breckinridge than to display passages of the novel on film, but by presenting the film as representative of Vidal's work--which it does, mainly by failing to acknowledge that the film was a notorious flop, which Vidal called "an awful joke"--the film implicitly confirms Buckley's dismissal of it. Even more infuriating is the labelling of a clip from Caligula (accompanying someone or other's speech about moral decay) as Gore Vidal's Caligula, which a) the film was never called, and b) Vidal took his name off of once his original scrip was drastically altered. Whether intentional or not, the filmmakers seem okay with equating Vidal with trash without really examining the content of his writing.
The United States of Amnesia, the other Vidal documentary from a few years ago, was way better.
― pitchforkian at best (cryptosicko), Sunday, 21 February 2016 05:02 (eight years ago) link
I finished Parini's mediocre bio a few days. I didn't Vidal the workaholic was also a functioning alcoholic.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 21 February 2016 13:19 (eight years ago) link
Really? "Functioning alcoholic" is the first thing I see when I look at Vidal. Extremely highly functioning yes but it's very clear.
― Mr. Hathaway. (jed_), Friday, 15 April 2016 01:53 (eight years ago) link