RIPs

[Zarjazzer]

Indeed Gore Vidal had many a wicked turn of phrase. From the movie the Best Man. "Nice thing about you, Joe, is that you can sound like a liberal, but at heart you're an American". He will be missed.

[Heath C Ackley]

Vidal; a literary giant gone.

[Jim_Campbell]

Having so enraged Norman Mailer that he punched him to the ground, Vidal delivered the very bon-est of bon môt when he said: "Ah, Norman -- lost for words again, I see."

I fear the age of Twitter precludes marrying that degree of wit to the equivalent amount of vitriol.

Cheers!

Jim

[JOE SOAP]

William - arguably more camp - Buckley calls Gore Vidal a queer during a live 1968 TV election debate.

[JOE SOAP]

Having so enraged Norman Mailer that he punched him to the ground, Vidal delivered the very bon-est of bon môt when he said: "Ah, Norman -- lost for words again, I see."

Mailer gets pwned by Gore Vidal and everybody else on the Dick Cavett Show.

[klute]

Tony sly singer and guitarist for no use for a name.

Unclear how atm but gutting news .

[Dandontdare]

Having so enraged Norman Mailer that he punched him to the ground, Vidal delivered the very bon-est of Mailer gets pwned by Gore Vidal and everybody else on the Dick Cavett Show.

That's a great clip - I had to Google Janet Flanner, but she was the best. And fingerbowls? WTF? Can't imagine Parky ending an interview like that though...

reading the obits I'm amazed by just how many familiar quotes came from Vidal.

[TordelBack]

Sorry to hear about Gore Vidal and Maeve Binchy, for different reasons.

Vidal's Live from Golgotha was one of my favourite books as a teenager, and as an angryish young man I loved his political essays (like 'Armageddon?'), probably mainly because they made me feel smart when I passed them off as my own ideas. 

Maeve Binchy's novels never did anything for me (although I seem to recall  a hint of boobs in the 80's film version of The Country Girls, for which I was grateful), but I liked her columns and her short stories a lot - when at about 14 or 15 I had grand notions of becoming a writer (subsequently dashed by my having not one molecule of creativity) I went to one of her public readings and hung about to ask her advice afterwards, which she was very generous with, and which I remember to this day, even if I never succeeded in putting it to good use.  Many years later my wife worked with her on a couple of things and always sung her praises, particularly her good humour in the face of truly horrific arthritis. 

Two very different writers, but both will be missed around here.

[JOE SOAP]

There's a book in you yet, Teebs.

[TordelBack]

There's a book in you yet, Teebs.

That's what my proctologist tells me.

[JOE SOAP]

He's read your entrails.

[johnnystress]

The Country Girls was Enda O'Brien...shocking, lurid, filthy stuff. I think Maeve Binchy was more wholesome than that, not that I've ever read her stuff.

I'm one of those people that has never read Gore Vidal..but I'm not letting anyone know that~


oops

[JOE SOAP]

The Country Girls was Enda O'Brien...shocking, lurid, filthy stuff.

Aren't you two beauts showing yourselves up to be quite the little chick-lit groupies, "oh I've never read Gore Vidal but I've read  Edna and lunched with Maeve".

[TordelBack]

The Country Girls was Enda O'Brien...

Hah, you're absolutely right.  I was confusing it with the ghastly Circle of Friends, which also had a tit in it:  Chris O'Donnell.  Like I say, her novels really not my thing.

Quiet, Soap.

[JOE SOAP]

Yes, your highness.