RIP Gore Vidal

[TigerVols]

At 86.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/01/gore-vidal-dead-author-playwright-intellectual-obituary_n_1726666.html

 

[HejiraHenry]

For extra credit, explain the link between Gore Vidal and Lily Tomlin. No Google.

 

[LongTimeListener]

I hope to catch the celestial feed of his debate with William F. Buckley on gay marriage.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Will only say that "Burr" and "Lincoln" were wonderful historical novels, and way outside the voice and thoughts of Vidal the man. To me, that's a real novelist's work. RIP.

 

[Chef2]

For extra credit, explain the link between Gore Vidal and Lily Tomlin. No Google.

Isn't she a stepdaughter of his?......Another trivia......What former president was he a distant cousin of?

 

[Michael_ Gee]

If you can find them, and it'll take some doing, because they've been out of print for at least half a century, I heartily recommend three murder mysteries Vidal wrote under the pen name Edgar Box. Two of the titles were "Death in the Fifth Position" and "Death Likes It Hot." I forget the third title. Nice, light, breezy mysteries in which the first person narrator is about as different from Vidal as could be imagined.

 

[Brian]

If you can find them, and it'll take some doing, because they've been out of print for at least half a century, I heartily recommend three murder mysteries Vidal wrote under the pen name Edgar Box. Two of the titles were "Death in the Fifth Position" and "Death Likes It Hot." I forget the third title. Nice, light, breezy mysteries in which the first person narrator is about as different from Vidal as could be imagined.

Is the third "Death Before Bedtime?"

They are available as e-books in IBooks, and Vidal's name is now on the cover. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[JR]

The NYTimes has a long and rambling obit but worth reading.

They don't make them like Mr. Vidal any more.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/books/gore-vidal-elegant-writer-dies-at-86.html?_r=2

 

[HejiraHenry]

For extra credit, explain the link between Gore Vidal and Lily Tomlin. No Google.

Isn't she a stepdaughter of his?

Not even close.

 

[mpcincal]

Hearing about Vidal's death had me recalling a clip of "The **** Cavett Show" I once saw, which ended with a memorable line from Cavett (which I thought he had said to Vidal, but actually Norman Mailer was on the receiving end). I just found it on YouTube. It was Cavett, Vidal, Mailer and writer Janet Flanner:



With all the shoutfests you see on the cable news channels these days, I was fascinated by how heated and childish, yet so intellectual, this four-way argument was.

 

[Blitz]

RIP Gore Vidal.

 

[YankeeFan]

The NYTimes has a long and rambling obit but worth reading.

They don't make them like Mr. Vidal any more.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/books/gore-vidal-elegant-writer-dies-at-86.html?_r=2

I can't wait until a prominent "birthed" idea, and the Times celebrates their life and intellect:

Some of his political positions were similarly quarrelsome and provocative. Mr. Vidal was an outspoken critic of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, and once called Norman Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary, and his wife, the journalist Midge Decter, “Israeli fifth columnists.” In the 1990s he wrote sympathetically about Timothy McVeigh, who was executed for the Oklahoma City bombing. And after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he wrote an essay for Vanity Fair arguing that America had brought the attacks upon itself by maintaining imperialist foreign policies. In another essay, for The Independent, he compared the attacks to the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor, arguing that both Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and George W. Bush knew of them in advance and exploited them to advance their agendas.

 

[Guy_Incognito]

Hearing about Vidal's death had me recalling a clip of "The **** Cavett Show" I once saw, which ended with a memorable line from Cavett (which I thought he had said to Vidal, but actually Norman Mailer was on the receiving end). I just found it on YouTube. It was Cavett, Vidal, Mailer and writer Janet Flanner:



With all the shoutfests you see on the cable news channels these days, I was fascinated by how heated and childish, yet so intellectual, this four-way argument was.

Mailer is really something, it takes a lot to fight with Vidal and come off looking like that big a jerk.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Hearing about Vidal's death had me recalling a clip of "The **** Cavett Show" I once saw, which ended with a memorable line from Cavett (which I thought he had said to Vidal, but actually Norman Mailer was on the receiving end). I just found it on YouTube. It was Cavett, Vidal, Mailer and writer Janet Flanner:



With all the shoutfests you see on the cable news channels these days, I was fascinated by how heated and childish, yet so intellectual, this four-way argument was.

Mailer is really something, it takes a lot to fight with Vidal and come off looking like that big a jerk.

NM remains one of NYC's great literary characters now and forever, but it's as if the guy lived for conflict. Life's too short.