Gore Vidal passed away today

by glenster 9 Replies latest social entertainment

  • glenster
    glenster
  • smiddy
    smiddy

    Well he certainly lived a full life , more than a lot of people do. R.I.P. gore Vidal

    smiddy

  • designs
    designs

    Gore v Buckley debates were classics. What a contrast to today's political landscape.

  • Terry
    Terry

    I always admired Vidal's dry trenchant wit. He understated his views in sharp contrast to William F. Buckley who tended to pontificate.

    The days when you could watch conversations with people like Buckley or Gore Vidal have long passed.

    Instead of ideas, insightful and informed observations and literate recherche today we have dumbasses bloviating hot air.

    If you ever get the chance watch Visit to a Small Planet which Vidal wrote.

  • Quendi
    Quendi

    Simply put, Gore Vidal was one of my heroes. And for those of us old enough to remember, who can forget Lily Tomlin's hilarious Ernestine vs. Vidal sketches on the old Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In in addition to the thrust and parry conversations with Bill Buckley?

    Quendi

  • Quendi
    Quendi

    I've been fascinated with the YouTube videos which Glenster listed and I find myself dwelling on Terry's words about the total lack of this kind of public discourse and dialogue in America today. You don't have to agree with Gore Vidal to appreciate that his was a mind of the first rank, and that his death has opened a void that will be very difficult to fill. The kind of education that shapes a mind like his is very hard to find nowadays if not impossible. Our society needs men and women like Vidal, Buckley, et al., to keep it vigorous. People like them were the intellectual heirs of Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson whose pens were indeed mightier than the sword.

    Quendi

  • runesandmen
    runesandmen

    We lost the last of a certain breed of person with him. I remember reading The City and The Pillar for the first time and having my mind blown.

  • Glander
    Glander

    I have read some his books. I thought "Julian" was great. Other wise, Vidal, as a person, was a total snob. It has taken me a good 2 minutes to recover from the loss of this irrelevant icon of the past.

  • botchtowersociety
    botchtowersociety
    I always admired Vidal's dry trenchant wit. He understated his views in sharp contrast to William F. Buckley who tended to pontificate.
    The days when you could watch conversations with people like Buckley or Gore Vidal have long passed.
    Instead of ideas, insightful and informed observations and literate recherche today we have dumbasses bloviating hot air.
    I've been fascinated with the YouTube videos which Glenster listed and I find myself dwelling on Terry's words about the total lack of this kind of public discourse and dialogue in America today.

    Riiiiiiiiiight.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gore_Vidal#Vidal_versus_Buckley

    Vidal versus Buckley

    In 1968, ABC News invited Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr. to be political analysts of the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions. [62] Verbal and nearly physical combat ensued. After days of mutual bickering, their debates degraded to vitriolic, ad hominem attacks. During discussions of the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests, the men were arguing about freedom of speech with regard to American protesters displaying a Viet Cong flag when Vidal told Buckley to "shut up a minute" and, in response to Buckley's reference to "pro-Nazi" protesters, went on to say: "As far as I'm concerned, the only sort of pro-crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself." The visibly livid Buckley replied, "Now listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I'll sock you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered." After an interruption by anchor and facilitator Howard K. Smith, the men continued to discuss the topic in a less hostile manner. [63] Buckley later expressed regret for having called Vidal a "queer," but nonetheless described Vidal as an "evangelist for bisexuality." [64]

    Later, in 1969, the feud was continued as Buckley further attacked Vidal in the lengthy essay, "On Experiencing Gore Vidal", published in the August 1969 issue of Esquire. The essay is collected in The Governor Listeth, an anthology of Buckley's writings of the time. In a key passage attacking Vidal as an apologist for homosexuality, Buckley wrote, "The man who in his essays proclaims the normalcy of his affliction [i.e., homosexuality], and in his art the desirability of it, is not to be confused with the man who bears his sorrow quietly. The addict is to be pitied and even respected, not the pusher."

    Vidal responded in the September 1969 issue of Esquire, variously characterizing Buckley as "anti-black", "anti-semitic", and a "warmonger". [36] The presiding judge in Buckley's subsequent libel suit against Vidal initially concluded that "[t]he court must conclude that Vidal's comments in these paragraphs meet the minimal standard of fair comment. The inferences made by Vidal from Buckley's [earlier editorial] statements cannot be said to be completely unreasonable." [citation needed] However, Vidal also strongly implied that, in 1944, Buckley and unnamed siblings had vandalized a Protestant church in their Sharon, Connecticut, hometown after the pastor's wife had sold a house to a Jewish family. Buckley sued Vidal and Esquire for libel. Vidal counter-claimed for libel against Buckley, citing Buckley's characterization of Vidal's novel Myra Breckinridge as pornography. [citation needed]

    The court dismissed Vidal's counter-claim; Buckley settled for $115,000 in attorney's fees and an editorial statement from Esquire magazine that they were "utterly convinced" of the untruthfulness of Vidal's assertion. [65] However, in a letter to Newsweek, theEsquire publisher stated that "the settlement of Buckley's suit against us" was not "a 'disavowal' of Vidal's article. On the contrary, it clearly states that we published that article because we believed that Vidal had a right to assert his opinions, even though we did not share them."

    As Vidal's biographer, Fred Kaplan, later commented, "The court had 'not' sustained Buckley's case against Esquire ... [t]he court had 'not' ruled that Vidal's article was 'defamatory.' It had ruled that the case would have to go to trial in order to determine as a matter of fact whether or not it was defamatory. [italics original.] The cash value of the settlement with Esquire represented 'only' Buckley's legal expenses [not damages based on libel] ... " Ultimately, Vidal bore the cost of his own attorney's fees. [11]

    In 2003, this affair re-surfaced when Esquire published Esquire's Big Book of Great Writing, an anthology that included Vidal's essay. Buckley again sued for libel, and Esquire again settled for $55,000 in attorney's fees and $10,000 in personal damages to Buckley. [citation needed]

    After Buckley's death on February 27, 2008, Vidal summed up his impressions of his rival with the following obituary on March 20, 2008: "RIP WFB — in hell." [66] In a June 15, 2008, interview with the New York Times, Vidal was asked by Deborah Solomon, "How did you feel when you heard that Buckley died this year?" Vidal responded:

    I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred. [67]
  • glenster
    glenster

    They both lost it in the heat of temper. I didn't agree with everything said or written by either of them otherwise, either. Still, they were very bright people it could be fun to listen to. When Gore described reading books for his blind grandfather, I thought I would have liked hearing him tell stories or read his favorite books for audibooks.

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