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Si tacuisses...
Aug. 2nd, 2012 08:40 amBeing with the Aged Parents for August is great except for the technological disadvantage part (Dad's computer is an old model, and my trusty Ipad is splendid but not equipped for certain things.)
Yesterday I came across a couple of death notifications. One was for Jonathan Hardy, whom I know nothing about except that he voiced Rygel in Farscape, thus co-created one of my favourite characters on the show, and thus I'm sad he is gone.
By far the most famous person whose death became news yesterday was Gore Vidal. I read a couple of his essays. Never made it through all of his novel about the Emperor Julian, which surprised me because Julian is so deeply intriguing in history (he was the Emperor who tried to bring paganism back). I also was in Los Angeles at the time The Cellluloid Closet came out containing Vidal's claim that he doctored the Ben Hur script to include gay subtext between Messala and Ben Hur, something the actor who played Messala, Stephen Boyd, was aware of but Charlton Heston was not because the director thought he couldn't handle it. That was Vidal's story, anyway, it's hilarious and it led to an exchange of fiery letters to the Los Angeles Times between Charlton Heston and him, because of course Heston firmly denied this had ever happened or would have happened etc., text book reaction. Old Chuck was hopelessly outmatched in the verbal fencing department by Gore "Master of Aphorism" Vidal, of course.
But. Precisely because Vidal tended to produce good one liners in interviews, I read a couple of them. And a few years ago, back when Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland, I also came across this exchange, in this interview:
Q: In September, director Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland for leaving the U.S. in 1978 before being sentenced to prison for raping a 13-year-old girl at Jack Nicholson’s house in Hollywood. During the time of the original incident, you were working in the industry, and you and Polanski had a common friend in theater critic and producer Kenneth Tynan. So what’s your take on Polanski, this many years later?
A: I really don’t give a fuck. Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she’s been taken advantage of?
He then goes on to explain that it was all about anti-semitism ("Anti-Semitism got poor Polanski. He was also a foreigner.") and hypocrisy. But it's this sentence - "Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she's been taken advantage of? - that killed any sympathy for Vidal as a human being in me. He was a great essayist and a witty man. But if you ever need an illustration of someone on the left utterly emersed in rape culture, then, going by this particular interview, he was that as well.
Yesterday I came across a couple of death notifications. One was for Jonathan Hardy, whom I know nothing about except that he voiced Rygel in Farscape, thus co-created one of my favourite characters on the show, and thus I'm sad he is gone.
By far the most famous person whose death became news yesterday was Gore Vidal. I read a couple of his essays. Never made it through all of his novel about the Emperor Julian, which surprised me because Julian is so deeply intriguing in history (he was the Emperor who tried to bring paganism back). I also was in Los Angeles at the time The Cellluloid Closet came out containing Vidal's claim that he doctored the Ben Hur script to include gay subtext between Messala and Ben Hur, something the actor who played Messala, Stephen Boyd, was aware of but Charlton Heston was not because the director thought he couldn't handle it. That was Vidal's story, anyway, it's hilarious and it led to an exchange of fiery letters to the Los Angeles Times between Charlton Heston and him, because of course Heston firmly denied this had ever happened or would have happened etc., text book reaction. Old Chuck was hopelessly outmatched in the verbal fencing department by Gore "Master of Aphorism" Vidal, of course.
But. Precisely because Vidal tended to produce good one liners in interviews, I read a couple of them. And a few years ago, back when Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland, I also came across this exchange, in this interview:
Q: In September, director Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland for leaving the U.S. in 1978 before being sentenced to prison for raping a 13-year-old girl at Jack Nicholson’s house in Hollywood. During the time of the original incident, you were working in the industry, and you and Polanski had a common friend in theater critic and producer Kenneth Tynan. So what’s your take on Polanski, this many years later?
A: I really don’t give a fuck. Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she’s been taken advantage of?
He then goes on to explain that it was all about anti-semitism ("Anti-Semitism got poor Polanski. He was also a foreigner.") and hypocrisy. But it's this sentence - "Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she's been taken advantage of? - that killed any sympathy for Vidal as a human being in me. He was a great essayist and a witty man. But if you ever need an illustration of someone on the left utterly emersed in rape culture, then, going by this particular interview, he was that as well.
