Viatica Franchise

"It won't be Amazon." -- Leon Wieseltier

No, it won't be Amazon, nor will it be Google Books, but like Leon in his past, I am always broke and skirting the edge of destitution, and gave my ambulatory younger sister and brother four thousand dollars while Trudy Richardson was threatening me on the telephone in an imitation Oprah Winfrey voice that "I would not be living at Riverside." Four years later I wrote her a letter and said back "as an African American woman who can live where you choose, either evict me or leave me alone," and like magic the black police state flips a pancake: "oh of course you're normal, you're not doing anything wrong..." Landlords really hate litigation, don't they, in the munificence of forced egalitarianism of the pluralistic American landscape? Is digital monopolization of publishing good for the dialogic of ideas, the very cause of authorship? Sure, I can teach myself how to take my work straight from hard drive to a kindle file, and turn (a) blog account into a spam market for my own vanity, but would it pay? I am not part of the establishment in which Leon and Marty Peretz wag their inner Jewish mother at the Beltway because we have 2000 years of Hebraic law on which to draw, nor could I maintain the visibility pressure through which David Brooks secures his affluence by being the voice of Everyman. I hate David Brooks, because I have intellectual parity with him and live on rats corn seed and he gets money for saying on air what McCain believes: That American prestige necessitates involvement in a sectarian schism American citizens know we need no part of. McCain may deserve his own affluence, but Brooks? Brooks is where he is because Buckley chanced to offer him a job. Marianna Torgovnick examines the merger of Italiano Americana with the conceit of Jewish men making good husbands. Had I walked I might have been a variation of her, the feminine Italian intellect lost in the humanities shuffleboard with that *good husband* who, even with that veneer of feminine taming, betrays me in some manner that is displeasing. Ed Berkowitz did not mean to set me up with fringe nut cases; it happened because he could not think to tell me that Zach Tollen was a mental health consumer. If Ed had been able to offer this sacrosanct assessment I would have avoided interacting with a nut case with a not unusual Jungian fixation that more or less is an indication of limitation. I will get past all this, but it tells me I was wrong to single out Mr. Berkowitz, to attempt to bridge a gap, or even to worry about my loyalties to whom, since Ed's partner has epilepsy. If you see me as just another fringe player out of the world of James Leo Herlihy, then that defeats the purpose.  

Midnight Cowboy

"Our neighbor's head landed in our house." --a young Syrian refugee


If there is the slimmest possibility that I can manage the relocation necessary for any author who truly takes risks, that I can stave off degeneration long enough to accomplish something and redeem my self-respect, I'd like to end this last score of my life as an investigative journalist. I like asking hard questions, and making everyone uncomfortable, not that this would be easy for a spastic quad on her last legs, but I know my own self-worth. I am smarter and sharper than Josie Byzek, the Jesus dyke who knows whats best except for when it comes to violating my trust, and I am a better writer than Daniel. In truth, I feel some pity for Schneider's wasted potential, and I hit on it yesterday. He does not apply himself to focusing on what he knows how to do in his on voice, and devolves in semi-automatic recriminations that interest no one. My persona and his are not so dissimilar, but I have an agenda. Does he, other than culling stray pups to be his online personal groupie base? If you are one of his sympathizers and think you have some insight, I will approve your comment and let it stand, and I don't bruise easily. If you want to let me have it, you may.

Michael Snyder is more informative on Herlihy than either Dan or I are on any topic, but does not answer the central question. If James and Tennessee were so complete in themselves, why did Herlihy kill himself in 1993? He was aging, certainly, but was he sick, tired of being a one note wonder compared to Steinbeck? Lee's stills are priceless and come as a bit of a shock, as both the playwright and novelist look like wax contortions in pain, not only from a different era, but otherworldly, except that their lifestyle, their coded literary subversions, are as familiar to me as the piss in Erika's urine bag. I am interested in an answer, because I am working, torturing, if you like, an essay on writers suicides, and need more facts on the more notorious, and Herlihy made my list.

I empathize with Voight's Joe in the film, and if I can manage, intend to watch it early Friday morning, again. When I will start the digital etext, only Josie's *baby boy* in the manger may know, but I do agree with other viewer comments that the jump cuts in the film suggesting that Buck was gang raped take the edginess out of Herlihy's seminal accomplishment, because it obscures the narrative arc. If Joe and Ratso trend gay, Schlesinger seems comfortable leaving new wave homoeroticism swinging on its own rope, murky in terms of Buck's future maturity and wisdom.

I want progressives, or left center moderates, to understand something: I treated the Philadelphia community I knew with all the tolerance I had, that started to come to an end in 2006, after Miss Eddy, the mixed race inner city woman, threw all her sexual needs into hitting on me, when she was my agency aide. My anger does not stem from an auto-erotic response. I am physically impaired, and I am tired of being used for target practice by men, women, lesbians, and other sociopathic reflectors, whatever the ethnicity, and I did a disservice to my own esteem in breaking bread with Josie and Ginny, even if that social setting was their gesture of remorse. An atypical opponent, I am not quite an over-simplified redneck. The gay scene is not healthy for heterosexual confidence, not in terms of emotional intimacy, confiding friendships. I am going to dismantle your comfort zone, gay equality be damned.