Lunch with Gore Vidal

The Financial Times ^ | 5/19/07 | Victor Mallet

[Clemenza]

Ping!

[firebrand]

Doesn’t he have a habit of calling black people the “n” word to their face?

[Cacique]

I have never liked Vidal. Any idiot who shares his genes with Al Gore is under suspicion. However after this amnesty fiasco I may agree with him about Bush.

CALL! CALL! CALL! CALL! AND KEEP CALLING TILL THE LINES FRY!

WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! TILL YOU RUN OUT OF INK IN YOUR PEN!

Bombard the Democrats as well, especially the ones that ran on an anti immigration plank and the ones in marginal districts who could be vulnerable. keep pounding on them.

STOP AMNESTY NOW!! WE CAN DO IT!!

The best way to stop Shamnesty

[Clemenza]

From what I understand, in person he is quite the racist. He is also something of an anti-semite, as has been revealed in a few essays that he has wrote over the decades.

Although GV styles himself as a "paternalistic progressive", he remains very much his grandfather's "son" (he spent more time with him than any other male figure growing up) who was a segregationist Senator from Oklahoma who imparted in his grandson a resentment of the "other" (whether that be Jews, blacks, Catholics, even certain low-rent factions in the gay rights movement), which he never quite shook. If you read his essays you will see that he presages catty remarks about certain groups of people by saying things like "I have always admired the Jewish people's support of progressive causes, BUT..."

Gore Vidal is just another bitter old man whom life has passed by...

[cynwoody]

I’ll read it all later but I must say artichoke soup sounds yummy!

I would hope so. The check:

Mandarin Grill, Hong Kong
6 oysters
1 x artichoke soup
1 x organic salad
2 x Dover sole
1 x Australian ribeye steak
2 x hazelnut creme brulee asparagus, mashed potato
1 x apple crumble
1 x dry Martini
1 x Bloody Mary
2 x glasses of Sauvignon Blanc
1 x Tsingtao beer
1 x cognac
1 x calvados
mineral water
coffee
Total: HK$4,273.50 (£277.93) [US$ 548.55]

I'll settle for Trader Joe's.

[Billthedrill]

Have you watched him speak? That little-boy face, mouth ajar, dazed eyes. The rumour round Washington is that he’s gone back to drinking. Well, thank God, he might make a little more sense. A group of us each vowed we would send him a bottle of whisky, but I think it’s heroin probably that he would need.

Wow, what scintillating wit. Don't know that I could stand to have lunch with such a staggering intellect, I'd probably choke on a French fry in awe and admiration.

Vidal is that saddest of things - a formerly articulate author who has lost his game, a formerly independent thinker now a slave to oppositionism, and a formerly influentual East Coast cultural figure now famous principally for being famous. It would no doubt disappoint his admirers to find that they have mistaken stridency for intellect, but it's difficult to picture them capable of it.

[Clemenza]

I miss TJs (the closest one to me is 35 miles away). Used to save alot on my groceries when I lived in Seattle and northern NJ when I shopped there.

My former boss ate at the Mandarin Grill and claimed that it was overrated. I will take his word on that, and keep in mind that, even in Hong Kong, its the booze that really sends your check through the roof.

[Steely Tom]

That little-boy face, mouth ajar, dazed eyes.

Coming from public homosexual Vidal, this metaphor is a tad unsettling.