MARSHALL BRICKMAN

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF GOSSIP

(JUICY TIDBITS FROM ALL AROUND THE LITERARY SCENE)

WHAT’S got Noam Chomsky smiling so mysteriously these days? Was it the party Robert L. Heilbroner (Limits of American Capitalism, The Future as History) threw for him at Jilly’s to celebrate a smashing new paperback contract? Noam isn’t talking. How about it, Noam? Your fans wouldn’t mind a sample of those fabulous Chomsky “linguistics”! … Bill Styron edged out Eliot Janeway and Nelson Algren in the Boris Pasternak look-alike contest held at Sam Wo’s. Proceeds of the evening will go to buy a new beard for Alexander Solzhenitsyn.… History freak Will Durant credits wife Ariel with a lot of the success he’s enjoyed as a writer and as a human being, too. Will’s really nuts about her, even after many decades of marriage.… No one can accuse craggy Sam Beckett (Endgame, Malone Dies) of not having a great sense of humor—or can they? Friends report the bleak playwright will often put an haricot or green bean into his ear during dinner “just for laughs.” Pretty funny, Sam! … Crinkle-faced pepperpot Henry Miller is brooding because Nathalie Sarraute has never, ever phoned him in over thirty years. “So sue me. I say she’s crispy and tart, like a September apple,” he admitted at Big Sur’s posh Nepenthe restaurant. No argument from this end, Hank, but why not come in out of the sun for a while? … Jean-Paul Sartre spends part of each day grappling with the mysteries of life, then jogs to keep the flab down. His stay-trim secret: an avocado stuffed with farmer cheese. “It’s scrumptious, and packed with all the vitamins I need to ratiocinate,” the sinewy existentialist revealed.… Close friends of Rudyard Kipling deny he’s dead, and to prove it they’re taking over the Belmore Cafeteria for a giant one-hundred-and-tenth-birthday blowout.… Norm Mailer (Armies of the Night), Norm Podhoretz (Making It), and Norm Cousins (Talks with Nehru) huddled at the All-Norman Gala thrown by Paddy Chayefsky at the Parkway Restaurant (Roumanien Broiling, unborn eggs). Also present: Bernie Malamud looking trendy in a blue suit, dancing to the exciting polyrhythms of Petrouchka (Bob Craft tickled the eighty-eight).… Is talented harmonist Walter Piston busily composing a brand-new cello concerto for Mstislav Rostropovich or not? Walter, no blabbermouth, won’t say. But that twinkle in his eye must mean something! Better keep the rosin handy, Mstislav! … Was that Dwight Macdonald in a cream-and-tangerine Porsche trying to beat the lights down Park Avenue the other night at 2 A.M.? Dwight, sporting a new look in sideburns (both on the same side), explained how he makes the fifty-one blocks from Hunter College to Union Square without stopping. “I drop her into second, floor it, and scream my lungs out until I hit Twenty-third Street,” the essayist confided. “After that, it’s a piece of cake.” Those in the know claim Dwight’s fuel-injection system and 11-inch disc brakes help him get manuscripts to the publisher more quickly, thereby preserving a certain freshness of insight and that fabulous Macdonald contemporaneousness.… Jonas and Adolfas Mekas, arriving at the Bleecker St. Cinema for a midnight showing of Nosferatu, encountered Al and Dave Maysles exiting. The four exchanged rueful smiles.…

EAVESDROPPINGS:

Henry Moore: “Some folks claim I’m a kook because I sculpt. But if you want to move concepts through a juxtaposition of plastic and tactile forms, what else can you be—a hockey player?”

Lillian Hellman: “There’s nothing wrong with a little housework.”

Leslie Fiedler: “Everybody’s always asking me which comes first, my career or having fun. Honestly, I’m never sure what the right answer is!”

André Malraux: “I’m a pretty lucky guy. I mean, when you’ve got your health (santé), that’s pretty much the whole ball of wax, isn’t it?”

Henry Steele Commager: “Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I sneak down and make a bacon-and-onion sandwich. Just a lot of bacon, raw onion, mayonnaise, and white bread. Before morning I’m nauseous, but I can’t help myself!”

QUICKIES:

 … Izzy Stone and Nancy (“Zelda”) Milford sweating it out on adjoining rowing machines at the 92nd St. “Y.” …

 … Gallic publishing dreamboat and pioneer pornster Maurice Girodias at the Gotham Book Mart for a Joyce Society meeting, thumbing a Portable Emerson. How’s that, Maury? Going transcendental on us?…

 … Tom (Gravity’s Rainbow) Pynchon lobbing hot chestnuts at the tourists on Fifth Avenue from the Brentano’s penthouse, on a dare by William (Fiction and the Figures of Life) Gass. “What a gass, Bill!” chuckled Tom.…

KEEP YOUR EYE ON:

Robert Penn Warren (“Incarnations”). Bob hates the idea of dating dull models or secretaries. Warren, who rarely dances, describes an ideal evening as a leisurely dinner, followed by lively discussion, coffee, then some late-night nit-picking. Bob’s favorite bedside reading: Paul Tillich’s Grooming Tips.… Alvin Toffler. Future Shock Al eschews expensive hair-styling salons, does all his own tonsorial chores at home with a bowl and pinking shears. He calls his sexy new pompadour “the wave of the future.”

DOWN MEMORY LANE WITH:

Rainer Maria Rilke. Lyric-poetry buffs will have no trouble remembering the main man of postsymbolist wordsmithery, “His Nibs,” the fantastic “Rags” Rilke. Born in romantic Prague (near Czechoslovakia), the young, handsome Rilke went to Paris to become secretary to famous chipsmith Auguste Rodin (who put his Kiss on everyone’s lips!). One day, Rilke noticed that certain words sounded alike. “Words such as ‘mice’ and ‘advice,’ ” he was later to recall. “It was right then that I got into my poesy bag.” A familiar figure in Saint-Germain, “Rags” cut a wide swath in the unofficial uniform of the vagabond versifier—suede knee-boots, a puff-sleeved raw-silk bolero shirt, green velvet breeches, and a large wooden hat. A favorite in rhyme circles for years, Rilke hit it really big in 1906 with his narrative poem Die Weise von Liehe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke. Occasionally scored for being stodgy, Rilke loosened up toward the end of his life, and, with the encouragement of Thomas Mann, once mailed some sneeze powder to Sylvia Beach.

THE MAILBAG:

Dear Editor:

Where can I get the Martin Buber sweatshirt advertised in your last issue? Also, anyone having any pictures or interviews with Pär Lagerkvist, please contact me.

Nan Sloat      
Maspeth, L.I.

Dear Nan:

The Martin Buber sweatshirts, pot holders, and ice-crushing bags, plus a glamorous 8 × 10 glossy photo of Pär Lagerkvist in a dwarf suit, are all available through the Buber-Lagerkvist Fan Exchange, Kungsgatan 72, Box 3, Stockholm, Sweden.

Dear Editor:

I have always been worried by the abruptness of Gerald’s death in Chapter 5 of E. M. Forster’s The Longest Journey. What happened? Why did Forster do that?

Hadrian Kornbleet, Ph.D.
Reed College                  
Portland, Oregon            

Dear Professor Kornbleet:

We’ll bet you didn’t like Leonard’s seduction of Helen in Howards End, either. If surprises turn you off, better lay off the belles-lettres and get into something certain, like insurance.

Dear Editor:

What’s Gunnar Myrdal’s secret of always looking so fresh? Everybody I know thinks he’s the absolute tops in sociohistorical analysis, too.

Dmitri Reutershan      
Prairie du Chien, Wis.

Dear Dmitri:

Before lecturing or undertaking any serious talking, Gunnar always pops a clove into his mouth and puts one under each arm. As a result, he’s the only Swedish economist around who emits an aroma of mince pie.

Dear Editor:

One day recently, I saw Letty Cottin Pogrebin wearing a pair of black slacks. Less than a week later, I saw Susan Sontag wearing what appeared to be identical slacks! Realizing the importance of individuality in attire as well as prose style, I must ask, Do you feel Susan was trying to “make it hot” for Letty?

Sri Murtiswammy
Trenton, N.J.      

Dear Sri:

No, it was probably just a coincidence, as Letty and Sue are “best of friends.” Looks like you’re guilty of what Lionel Trilling would call “the Intentional Fallacy”! (Incidentally, criticism fans who have not already done so may still order the NYRG durable vinyl tablecloth, clearly imprinted with a refutation of the Intentional Fallacy, in Professor Trilling’s own words. The text is cogent and aesthetically pleasing, and, like the professor himself, can be wiped clean with a damp cloth.)

1975