Sunday, August 5, 2012

Red Emma remembers Gore Vidal



Red Emma remembers Gore Vidal:
Gore Vidal Remembered  
     Almost everybody in Southern California has, or should have, a Gore Vidal story, because if you have been in any way active in anything here—anti-war or civil rights or environmental activism, you would have encountered—and I use the word pointedly, admiringly—Vidal, at a debate, lecture, reading, demonstration, book fair, any public celebration of the life of the mind, and of civic participation. 
     He lived here, in the Hollywood Hills, and regularly attended marches and gatherings, in fact was one of the small, reliable group of local Left stalwarts who'd add their names and deliver their bodies to a cause. 
     As an undergraduate years ago at Cal State Long Beach, and as a young, eager and impressionable student activist, I met him. I'd been invited to join a small group meeting with the candidate when he visited campus during his 1982 run for US Senate. Sincere, good-hearted liberal and progressive faculty, staff and other students were there, with their questions for the Great Man, who seemed to only put up with the responsibility of listening to his presumed constituents, the whole tiny opera of expectations a farce of course, since we were all there to listen to him, to be delighted, impressed, instructed, amused and, yes, empowered to imagine, absurdly, that an American man of letters, of history, a radical gay public intellectual and literary artist might stand a chance of being elected to one of nation's highest offices as a Democrat....
To read the rest (published on Portside) click here.

To revisit Red's previous post about Vidal's last visit to Orange County, click here

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Andrew Tonkovich

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love how eclectic the blog gets during the summer.

Anonymous said...

Gore Vidal was an influence on my thinking when I was in school but so was his conservative and thoughtful counterpart with whom he so often sparred.

Anonymous said...

I like the cat on his shoulder!

Anonymous said...

So gay!

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...