Author Erica Jong Alienates Some with Tone, Length of Commencement Speech (College of Staten Isand)

The Staten Island Advance ^ | 6/3/05 | Michelle Maskaly

[gopwinsin04]

Best selling author Erica Jong was booed and told to 'Shut Up!' and 'Go Home!" during her 40 minute commencement address at the College of Staten Island.

A little less than halfway through her graduation speech, some graduated began tossing around an inflatable beach volleyball.

Some even got up from their chairs, just yards from the podium, to go chat with friends and family who were seated behind them.

Ms. Jong, best known for her 1973 novel 'Fear of Flying' continued unfazed. She continued to speak as if everyone was listening attentively.

'Politicans speak the opposite of what they mean. They say clear skies when they mean pollution, They say colleratal damage when they mean killing civillians.'

She gave a political spEech when she was supposed to be doing a pep talk, said one CSI graduate, whoever heard of a commencement speaker talking about body bags? We wanted to throw stuff at her.'

'It was despicable, said a CSI mother, 'It was personal spewing.'

[gopwinsin04]

This would have been amusing to see.

[lilylangtree]

Sounds like the graduates are leaving school smarter and wising up to the tactics of the liberal leftist demoncRATS. Makes my heart proud.

[gopwinsin04]

Looks like those working class kids are actually learning something on Staten Island!

[Hildy]

Erica Jong? Were the graduates even born when she had her ONE best seller?

[MikefromOhio]

who the hell is Erica Jong?

[gopwinsin04]

[RushCrush]

Who is Eric Jong, has she written anything lately?

Why does every commencement address have to be political?

[gopwinsin04]

I was almost thinking of putting 'best selling author' in quotation marks...

[Lizavetta]

who the hell is Erica Jong?

A porn writer who some confused individuals mistook for a writer.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

...We wanted to throw stuff at her.'...

If I'd been there I would have.

[MikefromOhio]

hehe...

she wrote her best selling book 7 years before I was born and probably more like 10 years before any of the kids that graduated in this class were born....

[RushCrush]

This from the college's president: " Her message, that we need to look closely at words and (that) their power is important, I'm sure our audience understands."

I'm SURE the audience that paid thousands upon thousands of dollars to attend this college understands that you chose a crappy commencement speaker!!!

[gopwinsin04]

She was in Vanity Fair for something apparently recent. News to me...

[genew]

her remarks on the power of words: "I want you graduates to get mad when you're deliberately lied to."

They didn't waste any time taking that one to heart, did they?

[ex-snook]

My old home town comes through. Great.

[fish hawk]

Erica Jong is a mediocre poet who hates men and has written one insignificant book a long time ago. In other words she is a nobody.

[gopwinsin04]

Im sure all of those class parents will think twice before sitting through another CSI graduation speaker like that!

[RushCrush]

Ouch! the ravages of time........

[Veto!]

'It was despicable, said a CSI mother, 'It was personal spewing.'

Jong has made a career and a ton of money with nothing but personal spewing. She even married a psychiatrist (Dr. Jong) in hopes that he'd be eternally fascinated with her personal spewing. He was not.

However, Fear of Flying, her first book, was great fun to read, as she's a clever writer. After that, however, her spewing was repetitive.

[MikefromOhio]

thats kinda what I figured :)

[gopwinsin04]

Most upstate folks don't have time for that kind of nonsense. Sounds like she was a little bit out of her East side element!

[RushCrush]

Go here to sign her website guest book:

http://www.ericajong.com/contact.htm

[JAWs]

For those of you who don't know, her one 'great' novel, the sexually explicit Fear of Flying came out in 1973. It was part of the zeitgeist. In other words, she'd another damned throwback blinking in her saurian manner at the upstart mammals assailing her.

[gopwinsin04]

She looks like Dr. Joyce Brothers now...

[RushCrush]

Someone posted this on her web page guest book:

Date: 03 Jun 2005 Time: 19:11:56 Comments Dearest Erica, So much talk about truth and lies, I couldn't help but tell you the "real truth"---- YOU SUCK! Thank you for ruining my sister's graduation day with your B.S! -CSI alumni '00

[Hildy]

She was also responsible for the term "zipless f--k." Very classy lady.

[JAWs]

Am I the only one amused by the institution's initials? CSI. I will stop before I joke about Jong surrounded by a chalk outline.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Sounds like the graduates are leaving school smarter and wising up to the tactics of the liberal leftist demoncRATS.

They got the paper in hand and don't have to suck up to the commie profs anymore.

[Racehorse]

A porn writer who some confused individuals mistook for a writer.

Count me as a frequently confused individual.

But, the writing in that first novel was absolutely first rate.  The rest were . . . boring . . . unreadable.  And her published poetry (back then she claimed to be a poetess not a novelist) was never really that good.

Give the devil her due for one interesting, nicely crafted, if indecent, book.

[Tribune7]

Kudos to the parents and students at the College of Staten Island. From an interview with Erica Jong last year:

"I don't know what's happened to feminism," answered Jong, who was wearing a pink linen jacket and red pants and carrying a pink Marc Jacobs bag. "I see all these young women wanting white weddings and wanting to nab the guy, get the ring--whereas I remember we wanted to get away from all that. Now all of that is back with a vengeance."

(snip)

More important, she added, the kind of fundamental changes that would have turned the rhetoric of the '70s-era feminist movement into, for instance, actual economic parity, didn't happen. "To play devil's advocate for a moment, I remember in my generation when all these women left their husbands," she said. "Gloria Steinem was saying, 'No more alimony, we are not slaves, blah blah blah.' Women went out on their own and their standard of living plummeted. They could not get jobs that were commensurate with their skills or experience. It was still a man's world. And a lot of women who didn't have particular skills, who weren't famous actors or famous writers or famous computer inventors--they went straight into poverty.

(snip)

Though she's written seven other novels, six books of poetry, a memoir, a biography, a critical assessment of Henry Miller, and various other works, it was 1973's "Fear of Flying," selling 7 million copies in the United States alone, that turned Jong into a pop culture icon--an embodiment of the zeitgeist, chastised on national television by a talk-show host who demanded Jong admit she and other feminists just wanted to be able to urinate standing up. She was a champion of female freedom who got letters from women who said her book had inspired them to leave their marriages--and letters from men who wanted her to send them her panties.

[gopwinsin04]

This ought to be fun to read that guest book in the coming days!

[jsh3180]

Kind of reminds me of my son's graduation from Vassar College in May 2003.

Susan Sontag was the keynote speaker, wow, she launched into an anti-Bush tirade that had the parents of the graduates booing.

Now she's dead.

[Cicero]

A forty-minute commencement address. They're lucky their president didn't invite Fidel Castro, or it would have been four hours.

[Major_Risktaker]

Erica Jong

Tell us something we don't know.

[gopwinsin04]

Poor Erica is worried about the destruction of feminism. May the likes of her movement never been seen again!

[Rummyfan]

Date: 03 Jun 2005 Time: 19:11:56 Comments Dearest Erica, So much talk about truth and lies, I couldn't help but tell you the "real truth"---- YOU SUCK! Thank you for ruining my sister's graduation day with your B.S! -CSI alumni '00

ROTFLMAO!

[Enterprise]

"Politicians speak the opposite of what they mean."

I sure that was a life changing revelation for the listeners.

[gopwinsin04]

'Monogamy is impossible among interesting people...'

This is what passed for great literature in the early 1970's?

[Dad yer funny]

Staten Island was commonly refered to as Satan Island on the old WLIB before Franken et al took over,they hated its voting record for Rudy

[gate2wire]

Who?

[Dad yer funny]

very good post,short'n sweet,on the $$$

[gopwinsin04]

Poor Erica finds out the hard way what life is like and what people really think outside of Manhattan Island.

[Owl_Eagle]

That's Erica Jong?  And I always thought she was Chinese.  Guess that says something about the impact she's had on me.

Owl_Eagle

(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,

 it was probably sarcasm)

[gopwinsin04]

I would have reognized her in that current picture.

[Frank_2001]

Great comment, LOL!:)

[cgbg]

Thanks.

I went over there and shared the love. :-)

[Bonaparte]

It's become routine for colleges to invite commencement speakers like this -- a lacklustre assortment of airheads, criminals and political hacks. Many of them are booed, some just put everybody to sleep. Brokaw, Biden, Hedges, Abu, etal. Why anybody bothers to attend these spectacles is a mystery to me.

[Enterprise]

"I see all these young women wanting white weddings and wanting to nab the guy, get the ring--whereas I remember we wanted to get away from all that. Now all of that is back with a vengeance."

People want companionship and closeness. People want someone who is going to be their friend, lover, co-parent, and backup for life. Admittedly marriage isn't perfect, but it's worth a try. And it sure as hell beats hanging around with bitter feminists.

[Cowboy Bob]

Am I the only one amused by the institution's initials? CSI. I will stop before I joke about Jong surrounded by a chalk outline.

I thought the same thing. I just couldn't think of a witty comment!

[Dad yer funny]

yup , even Manhattan is changing , slllowwly , but there is an ebb and flow to things, the bolshevik SOS is tired , it is like a museum on the streets of the Upper West Side when the LaRouchies have their card tables set up , and then the CARE brigade has their "sidewalk-block" , throw in GreenPC