The Amazing Mr. Vidal

I happened on this today, trolling through my files of interviews with writers, something I do when I'm feeling blue. For the entire mad decades 1994 (Contract on America) through to the present, Mr. Vidal was the only voice that resonated with my inner feelings about the country of my birth. Here's the tail end of a wonderful long interview with him in '09, the last part of which I include here, silently cheering his unfettered honesty as my heart swells with gratitude.  It's just so good.  I particularly feel grateful to him for his description of the Bush admin as a "wrecking crew", perfect and apt, though how the entire country seemed to sleep through that is startling. The entire interview can be viewed here.

What prepares someone to be a novelist, if that is the life they are interested in? Gore Vidal: Reflectiveness about the world they are living in, trying to make sense of it.   A lot of novels, I suspect, come out of people who have been severely shocked at some point in their lives, and never quite knew how to live with the shock, so they want to reconstruct it by writing about it. It's just kind of obvious therapy. The art novel is something more special, and that comes out of a deep knowledge of the art, such as you get in Henry James, who really was our greatest novelist. He never thought of anything else but fiction itself, the perfect phrase, the perfect encounter, the perfect clash. The Golden Bowl is full of the most astonishing scenes. His imagination just was so driven in that book that it is like nothing else. If an aspiring writer came to you for advice, what would you say to them? Gore Vidal: If you need my advice, don't do it. You won't be happy doing it. It's not easy, but if you are a natural at it -- as you are bound to be if you keep at it -- then it's certainly not onerous, and it has all sorts of satisfactions along the way. Looking back, do you have any regrets, things you wish you could do over again or would do differently? Gore Vidal: I don't think so, no. Whatever I did was obviously what I should have done at the time, or so I thought. As we head into the 21st century, what do you see as the biggest challenges that we have in America? What concerns you most? Gore Vidal: Survival. I think there is a very good chance that we won't get through the 21st century due to all the usual reasons, you know, environment gone wrong, the end of fossil fuels, inability to replace them with ethanol or whatever. I think going broke. We have already lost the Constitution of the United States. That is gone, and that is not going to return ever. Maybe in the lifetime of somebody one year old, it might come back, but I will never see it. You will never see it. The young people watching this might never see it either. Everything is smashed. We had a wrecker's crew got in office, and they set out to do everything that you ought not to do: first, to the economy; second, waging preemptive wars against non-enemies, people in no position to do us any harm even though they wanted to. At the time of the attack on Iraq, I said, "Why don't you hit Denmark? It makes much better ruins and it would be more satisfactory, because it's a beautiful place. Iraq is kind of a mess." Every move that you make that could be wrong has been made, but terminally made. You don't get Constitutions back all that easily. You don't get the Fourth Amendment back once you have people taking off their shoes at the airport and you go through all the luggage, and you listen to their conversations. And there's no objection to it. It's as if Americans had never experienced freedom of any kind. It's is if we were living in Paraguay all these years. In one way, I think we have it coming to us. I am not in a kindly mood about my countrymen. On the other hand, I am in a kindly mood in the sense that they never voted for these people. They had no idea what they were voting for. Even 2004, when it was quite apparent about the war, and so on, they could have voted against that anyway, but we will never know because the voting machinery, Diebold, Triad, ESS, these all have been corrupted. We don't even know what the votes were in Ohio in 2004, and Florida in 2000. We will never know. Once a so-called democracy gives up its elections for the leader of the country, it is not a democracy. It isn't anything. It is a sort of Romanesque hull, full of corrupt people who tell lies. This is not good. Why do you think this has happened in America? How do you think we have come to this? Gore Vidal: Vanity!   It's the only explanation I could ever come up with about Vietnam. "How dare this inferior little people..." we thought, although basically their civilization is much older than ours. "How dare they defy us?" "How dare Panama? We are going to go down there and seize their leader and throw him into prison." Even though we have no legal rights over him at all. That was Noriega. Then we get a narrative together. "Oh, he is in charge of all the drugs on earth and he is a great admirer of Adolf Hitler, did you know that? He has got a copy of Mein Kampf!" "Oh no!" "Yes!" "God, he must be evil." "Yes, he is." All these evil people they find everywhere on earth. They could look in the mirror occasionally, if they wanted to see something really evil. How would you like to be remembered? What do you want your legacy to be? Gore Vidal: I don't know. Anyone who worries about being remembered ought not to be born. Is there anything you have not had a chance to say that you would like to say? Gore Vidal: If you have another two or three hours, I will start in at the basement, and we will work our way to the roof. Thank you. That was fascinating. Think I'll go grab a copy of Duluth and see what that's about.

A Different Kind of Betty

Different than Betty White, that is.  Here's to the gal who said the post war generation of moms (that would be our moms) turned their boys into wusses and woefully misled their girls about what was what. The founder of NOW, who died on the same day, same month she was born (a tidy thinking gal).  She's a major idol of mine, right up there with G-L-O-R-I-A...   Take heed, chickies.

Thought For A Rainy Fall Day in Maine

Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle. -Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) 

Thought For The Day

This native American quote by Shawnee Chief Tecumseh about fear and death inspires you to make this life count, to pursue noble undertakings, and live to the fullest  having used all your talents and have no regrets.

“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours.

Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people.

Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none.

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.

Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”

~Tecumseh, Shawnee Chief

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The United States of Amnesia

I know, I know... I'm way behind on reporting about the last days chez nous Taos and the trip back East, and all that blah blah blah. Know what? don't care. It's one of those days I could care less how far behind I am on anything, and it's a damn good thing the sun decided to show its face here in Maine this morn as yesterday, chilly, grey and rainy, left me cringing with sudden loathing for my location, In a "charming cottage" the size of a tissue box, sunk among the trees (you wonder how early settlers hacked living in these teeny things without killing themselves or each other), and ill-equipped to deal with the weather given a suitcase full of weightless summer cottons suitable to dry New Mexico heat.   

I've come to loathe the automobile, hence my in-town location. Here, as in NM, I have to walk a half mile or so to get a 'long view' to anything like a field or body of water; relief from that sense that I'm being entombed, one nail at a time.  I escaped to the cavernous relief of the local theatre and Woody Allen's new film yesterday, cinematically enchanting, but you gotta wonder what's in the guy's head anymore. It felt overacted, going for the witty repartee of an old Kate Hepburn movie, perhaps, a period feel, but Colin Firth, bless 'im, is by nature a slower burn than that, and what'sername from The Help alarmingly wide-eyed and unconvincing in her role. Still, a passably entertaining few hours (despite frequent squirming in my seat), if only for the pleasure of seeing delicately embroidered, diaphanous women's clothes and gorgeous Provence scenery.

Today I read about the difference in how America and Europe raise their chickens, market their eggs,  inner resistance flares as the longing rises from somewhere deep in my soul for a long view out to sea, another lifestyle, a more open minded populace... cheap wine and produce, real pastry, free health care. I was searching my blog archive for a video I thought I'd posted long ago about the resveratrol content of a sencha and jasmine tea combo to send a friend when I came across this video from back when I had more fire in the belly for politics (currently at a low disgusted ebb). It reminds me that there's a price to pay for cowardice, for the willful amnesia to which we as a nation have succumbed.  I wonder what in the end will be the ultimate price of that cowardice, as we fail to hold accountable those who, at our expense, violated their oath, flat out lied to the public, launched Shock and Awe, destroyed our credibility abroad,  sowed the seeds that destroyed  our economy, are in essence responsible for the ISIL mess now, and who the media still pretend are worthy of respectful attention.  

I once saw Robert F. Kennedy, JR., speak on the subject of restoring the nation's rivers.  He is no less eloquent here.

Civilized Zoo

From Harper's Weekly this week:

At a zoo in Crimea, a foal named Telegraph was born to a zebra and a donkey. “Such things don’t happen,” said a spokeswoman for a zoo in Moscow, “in civilized zoos.”

no doubt.

Have You Seen The Walking Woman?

So, here's the deal. A woman bereaved, veiled in black, a veteran of the US Armed Services (according to the BBC), decides there's nothing for it but to go for a long walk. Her reasons for doing so are personal and private. Nobody's business but her own. Were she a lucky resident of France, say, or Wales, she might have chosen to set out along any number of their routes sentiers – long, unpaved quiet pathways through pastoral, often private, property through which the public is entitled to pass unmolested,  winding through countryside or along the seacoast – engendering little or no public notice. But being as how this is Amerka, where no such unending peaceful pathways are easily accessible to the public (apparently none are considered essential), the only walkways long enough to suit her need in this Age of Wheels are public byways, roads; so she took to the highway. Were she riding around in a car or bus, no one would noticed. But because this woman is simply walking as though she had every right to do so, as though walking were a normal choice, destination unknown, and publicly wearing her sorrow, she is a media phenomenon in the US. Our very own Forrest Gump come to save us from ourselves for a brief sensational internet moment.



Consider this:

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business. -Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983) 

Aside from the occasional long-haul perambulator whose purpose is to call attention to moral or political issues, the folks who end up walking America's roads are the have- nots, folks without cars or busfare, much less planefare, to get where they're going. Objects of passing curiosity, or pity, possibly scary oddities to be avoided. Hitch-hikers are rare today. We notice those who walk the highways as something odd, forgetting the story of slow westward settlement in our rush to get somewhere fast. Early pioneers walked for hundreds of arduous and dangerous miles behind heavy mule-drawn wagons, operating under the assumption that their own two legs were the most reliable mode of transportation, that their reasons for doing so were sound. No explanation needed.

When you suffer a cramp or pain – or a tantrum, for that matter – a usual recommendation is, "Just walk it off." Here's a gal who seems to have just felt the need to walk something off. She's not looking for attention, has no desire to explain herself, to "share her pain". (The face speaks volumes.) To the bored American mind this makes her all the more intriguing, as twitterers and facebookers, hooked on a need for the constant affirmation of shared experience, take her picture, video her steps, shout at her, applaud her without knowing why, voyeuristically believing this will somehow unburden her? all the while violating her right to mourn in silence, without explaining herself to anyone. Like Snow White's evil queen, the public stands before that silent dark mirror and hears what it wants to hear, sees what it wants or needs to see, believes what it needs to believe.   There was a time when folks would have left a grieving woman in black to pass quietly unmolested, would have turned away out of respect for her privacy, implicitly understanding that grief is a solitary and private thing.  

No longer.  The public's fascination with and their variously expressed projections regarding this solitary woman are an affront to the very notion of privacy.  Perhaps this is the point she's making, if she's making any point at all.  What makes observers think she, personally, wants or needs their attention? I'm guessing she doesn't.  She grieves. And if nothing else, is a walking question mark for all Americans: What is it we, as Americans, are grieving beneath the veneer of constant titillation? What absolution do we seek as we watch her go?