News today that Terry Fallis's The Best Laid Plans has won the Leacock Medal for Humour. The prize, sponsored by TD Bank Financial Group, is awarded annually to the Canadian book that best combines themes of abandonment, loss, and sexual inadequacy. Or maybe rape, self-immolation, and funny librarians. Wait, that's not right...How about sarcastic dogs, ice sculpting, and chemical castration. Yeah, that's the one.
Ever heard what happened when they called Leon Rooke to tell him he hadn't won for Shakespeare's Dog? "I'd be upset," Rooke said, "but I just got the most terrific blow job last night. The lips, the tongue...Twice I had to pull the leash. God, what a night. She must've had a fever, I'll tell you that. And...And...And, what's more--you've got the wrong number."
It's funny that they've named a prize after a man who once said, "The only difference between the comic novel and serious literature is that you use one to jerk off to and the other to clean up--but both are great for train rides."
This was truly a great Canadian.
I'll point out that Fallis had to go begging in order to get his book published. He tried Doubleday, but they had their hands full with an Albertan-authored trans-transgender trilogy (the climax is that it was a dream; she was just sleeping on the remote control). Anansi was doing something with Mennonites, Catholic guilt, and a partial eclipse. And McClelland and Stewart had its hands full with four big incest tomes that all, in some way, feature canoes.
I had to pause for a second when I realized Fallis's book didn't have any ghosts. Where the hell are all the allegories? You mean this book's not patterned after The Iliad? Gee, where's Fallis from? Buffalo?
Fallis takes the $10,000 cheque, and for that I'm sure he's grateful. It wouldn't be Canada if a prize-winning writer didn't pocket 1/3 of an annual SSHRC Doctoral Grant for his full-length novel.
The only thing left to do is read Fallis's book. I was talking about it with my PhD friends, and they all agreed that they're looking forward to his interpretation of the suburban garden-hose douche. "That's Terry Griggs," I said. "This is Fallis."
"Oh. Who the hell's he?"
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Canadian Writers Don't Wear Underwear; or How To Tell If It's A Good Sex Scene
Being a Canadian writer means going briefless. No boxers, no Chocky's; no slips, petticoats, or shorts. Crotchless panties are OK as long as they're red or black.
There's a famous anecdote about Stephen Leacock tearing the crotch of his pants in a badminton game, and bending over suddenly to retrieve the birdie. His fellow players stood in shock, their eyes wide as one large testicle descended through the gaping hole in Leacock's slacks. Leacock, noticing the precipitate decline in athletic chatter, lowered his head between his knees, noticing the errant object of his guests' attention.
"Christ, Stephen," one of the players said. "I didn't even know you were pregnant."
They all had a good laugh, and, when things had calmed down, someone asked the Orillian satirist if he was perhaps a little behind in his laundry.
"I never wear drawers," Leacock is rumoured to have said. "They stifle the spirit."
Good writers just don't wear underwear. A professor tells a story of visiting Alden Nowlan. The latter was sitting at his desk, composing in the nude. "Don't you have any clothes, Alden?" the professor asked. "Sure," Alden said, "but I want to be closer to my words."
That might sound a little strange, but there's something to be said for complete honesty. Too much Canadian writing reads as if the writer's last orgasm came via a long walk in the desert. That reminds me of a line in one of Susanna Moodie's settler narratives; a line in which she desribes the impact of a drought on her husband's strawberry fields: "I had to come" Moodie writes, "it hadn't rained in weeks."
A friend who wrote a book about a trek through the Canadian arctic claims that the region deprives the writer of sex. "All erotic thoughts vanish on the ice; in the whiteness of the place. Not unlike Rosedale."
Which brings me to the question of how to judge the quality of a sex scene in a book. A friend was reading Barbara Gowdy's Mister Sandman a few months ago, and he describes the sensation as follows: "I started feeling something; something strange. Finally I looked, and, sure enough, my penis had shrunk."
"A good sex scene," this friend says, "is one that gives me an erection. I think that's a fair way to judge it. For women, I'd say it's a good sex scene if you feel like doing your husband's laundry."
That's just his opinion, and there's no reason to adhere to it. But the possibility of being aroused by literature is one of the artist's greatest "ins."
Bernard Shaw never wore BVDs. His dick was out all the time. Why then would Canadian writers do a 180 and button up? Too much is said of a writer's "magical" prose. Name one magician you'd like to fuck.
John Metcalf is one of Canada's greatest practitioners of the sexless story. A critic once observed, "Metcalf's fiction has all the erotic appeal of a long bus ride down Weston Road. If a Metcalfian character even attempted sex, one gets the feeling he would struggle to open the jar."
And that, sadly, is Canadian fiction.
There's a famous anecdote about Stephen Leacock tearing the crotch of his pants in a badminton game, and bending over suddenly to retrieve the birdie. His fellow players stood in shock, their eyes wide as one large testicle descended through the gaping hole in Leacock's slacks. Leacock, noticing the precipitate decline in athletic chatter, lowered his head between his knees, noticing the errant object of his guests' attention.
"Christ, Stephen," one of the players said. "I didn't even know you were pregnant."
They all had a good laugh, and, when things had calmed down, someone asked the Orillian satirist if he was perhaps a little behind in his laundry.
"I never wear drawers," Leacock is rumoured to have said. "They stifle the spirit."
Good writers just don't wear underwear. A professor tells a story of visiting Alden Nowlan. The latter was sitting at his desk, composing in the nude. "Don't you have any clothes, Alden?" the professor asked. "Sure," Alden said, "but I want to be closer to my words."
That might sound a little strange, but there's something to be said for complete honesty. Too much Canadian writing reads as if the writer's last orgasm came via a long walk in the desert. That reminds me of a line in one of Susanna Moodie's settler narratives; a line in which she desribes the impact of a drought on her husband's strawberry fields: "I had to come" Moodie writes, "it hadn't rained in weeks."
A friend who wrote a book about a trek through the Canadian arctic claims that the region deprives the writer of sex. "All erotic thoughts vanish on the ice; in the whiteness of the place. Not unlike Rosedale."
Which brings me to the question of how to judge the quality of a sex scene in a book. A friend was reading Barbara Gowdy's Mister Sandman a few months ago, and he describes the sensation as follows: "I started feeling something; something strange. Finally I looked, and, sure enough, my penis had shrunk."
"A good sex scene," this friend says, "is one that gives me an erection. I think that's a fair way to judge it. For women, I'd say it's a good sex scene if you feel like doing your husband's laundry."
That's just his opinion, and there's no reason to adhere to it. But the possibility of being aroused by literature is one of the artist's greatest "ins."
Bernard Shaw never wore BVDs. His dick was out all the time. Why then would Canadian writers do a 180 and button up? Too much is said of a writer's "magical" prose. Name one magician you'd like to fuck.
John Metcalf is one of Canada's greatest practitioners of the sexless story. A critic once observed, "Metcalf's fiction has all the erotic appeal of a long bus ride down Weston Road. If a Metcalfian character even attempted sex, one gets the feeling he would struggle to open the jar."
And that, sadly, is Canadian fiction.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Ezra Pound Wasn't Just An Anti-Semite; He Also Liked To Knit
A friend of mine--a big Pound fan--was down in Hailey, Idaho, about six years ago to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of Ezra's death. The week-long festival thrown by the town's business council included such non-literary events as a barbecue (hamburgers and hot-dogs), a hayride, and a competition to see who could spit watermelon seeds the farthest (the winner of which received a bushel of corn).
It was at the barbecue that my friend got caught up in the free-flowing excitement, and by five o'clock on the great day he was half-drunk on Cockspur rum. He was sitting on a picnic bench, eyes fixed on a church spire about five hundred yards away, when an old man walked over and sat down beside him, his back resting against the table's ketchup-stained top. "You want to know about Ezra Pound?" the fellow celebrant asked him. "Sure," he said. "I'll tell you something about Ezra." "Great. Go ahead."
The man, about eighty, looked at my friend, took a bite of his wedge of watermelon, and licked his lips. "That boy could knit. K-N-I-T. Knit."
My friend laughed.
"Mind you," continued the wizened old man, "I didn't know him well. But it was my mother who taught him. The Moss stitch. The Windmill. The Garter stitch. Large Diamonds, Double Seed. Close Checks. Chevron. Seafoam. It's like it was yesterday. I remember listening to her talk about knitting. Yeah, she used to talk about him all the time. I bet you had no idea."
"About knitting?" asked my friend.
"Right-o."
"No, I didn't."
"You know he knit his own shroud. Big, must've been ten feet around. A big, blue-fringed thing with a nice big swastika right in the middle. That's the goddamn truth. Couldn't stand Jews. Why? He never forgave them for stealing the bagel. Making it theirs. Sonuvabitch was a real bastard. Oh, even my mother knew that. Knew it when she caught him pulling himself...you know...in a slice of warm bread. My mother baked all her own bread. A boy of twelve masturbating right in her kitchen. Now what kind of boy does that? Yeah, but she got him. Made him eat the bread. What do you think about that!"
"I don't know...What kind of bread?"
"And now people come here for his poetry. Never liked it. But it's good for business. I own the drug store 'round the corner. I'll tell you this: I've never sold more condoms in a week. Condoms and vinegar. Go figure that!"
Finally my friend begged his leave, saying that he had to find his wife. The stranger clapped his hand on my friend's shoulder and bade him farewell. But just as our Pound fan was almost out of earshot, he heard the thin voice yell "Wait a minute!" My friend turned. "I've got one box left," the druggist said, "if you need 'em."
It was at the barbecue that my friend got caught up in the free-flowing excitement, and by five o'clock on the great day he was half-drunk on Cockspur rum. He was sitting on a picnic bench, eyes fixed on a church spire about five hundred yards away, when an old man walked over and sat down beside him, his back resting against the table's ketchup-stained top. "You want to know about Ezra Pound?" the fellow celebrant asked him. "Sure," he said. "I'll tell you something about Ezra." "Great. Go ahead."
The man, about eighty, looked at my friend, took a bite of his wedge of watermelon, and licked his lips. "That boy could knit. K-N-I-T. Knit."
My friend laughed.
"Mind you," continued the wizened old man, "I didn't know him well. But it was my mother who taught him. The Moss stitch. The Windmill. The Garter stitch. Large Diamonds, Double Seed. Close Checks. Chevron. Seafoam. It's like it was yesterday. I remember listening to her talk about knitting. Yeah, she used to talk about him all the time. I bet you had no idea."
"About knitting?" asked my friend.
"Right-o."
"No, I didn't."
"You know he knit his own shroud. Big, must've been ten feet around. A big, blue-fringed thing with a nice big swastika right in the middle. That's the goddamn truth. Couldn't stand Jews. Why? He never forgave them for stealing the bagel. Making it theirs. Sonuvabitch was a real bastard. Oh, even my mother knew that. Knew it when she caught him pulling himself...you know...in a slice of warm bread. My mother baked all her own bread. A boy of twelve masturbating right in her kitchen. Now what kind of boy does that? Yeah, but she got him. Made him eat the bread. What do you think about that!"
"I don't know...What kind of bread?"
"And now people come here for his poetry. Never liked it. But it's good for business. I own the drug store 'round the corner. I'll tell you this: I've never sold more condoms in a week. Condoms and vinegar. Go figure that!"
Finally my friend begged his leave, saying that he had to find his wife. The stranger clapped his hand on my friend's shoulder and bade him farewell. But just as our Pound fan was almost out of earshot, he heard the thin voice yell "Wait a minute!" My friend turned. "I've got one box left," the druggist said, "if you need 'em."
Canadian Men You Should Never Trust
Here's a short list of Canadian men you should never trust compiled by interns at Conde Nast while on an Easter picnic. I'll admit that they were pretty damn close to the mark. The list is only one item long, but it encompasses the broad spectrum of a kind of Canadian maleness that veers away from GQ values.
Canadian Men You Should Never Trust...
1: Never trust a Canadian man who...wears sunglasses flipped over his head like a barrette. Unless you really like canoeing. Because that's where such a man will take you. Right off Yonge Street, north on the 400, and you'll be spendin' your time boiling lake water on a fire stoked with palm needles. You'll know why that's funny when you try brushing your teeth with said water, and realize why we don't typically eat pine trees.
Canadian Men You Should Never Trust...
1: Never trust a Canadian man who...wears sunglasses flipped over his head like a barrette. Unless you really like canoeing. Because that's where such a man will take you. Right off Yonge Street, north on the 400, and you'll be spendin' your time boiling lake water on a fire stoked with palm needles. You'll know why that's funny when you try brushing your teeth with said water, and realize why we don't typically eat pine trees.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Whatever Happened To Edna St. Vincent Millay's Dildo?
Walter Benjamin writes something about the deluding capacities of the relic. Just because the B-52s composed Love Shack on John Lennon’s Steinway doesn’t mean the song channels the dead Beatle in any metaphysical way. Same goes for D.G. Jones’s Butterfly on Rock. Just because Jones wrote the thing on Sea-Hi takeout menus doesn’t mean the book tastes like rice.
But it’s fun to own things possessed by (literary) celebrities, and many authors have adopted sacred totems as the means to extract stories from their pale and poorly toned bodies. Sinclair Lewis wore a pair of Mark Twain's slippers while writing; Jean Anouilh smoked one of Ibsen's pipes; Gilbert Parker wore Felicite Angers's chastity belt.
The Holy Grail, if you will, of literary relics, is an ivory dildo once owned by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The dildo’s existence first entered the popular imagination in 2001 with the publication of Nancy Milford’s Savage Beauty, a Millay biography. In Milford’s preface we get an excerpt from a letter written to her by Edna’s sister Norma, in which the latter admits to having burned the famous pole--though it wasn’t easy. "I tossed it in the fire, but it wouldn't catch. It just kept getting blacker and blacker. You know how long it takes to burn one of those things? A lot longer than it takes to cool one down, I'll tell you that much."
Most people figured that was the end of it; the dildo was buried in a Maine dump, cracked, and finished. But that’s just not the case. That dildo's been Canadian-owned for more than fifty years. And if it could speak...Gwen Davies'd sue it for copyright infringement.
Edna’s ivory dildo is kind of a legend in the Canadian literary community. The shaft, about twelve inches long and eight inches in circumference, was said to be modelled after the penis of Zwelunke Obi A Mulla, a nineteenth-century Zulu chief famed for his ability to communicate with the animals of the African interior. (Incidentally, Dr. Dolittle was based on Obi A Mulla, but producers axed the large penis references, fearing it would scare children and anger pregnant women. The original script called for Harrison to wear “long shorts--long as necessary to conceal the ‘device.’” Eventually though they just went with grey pants.)
The actual dildo was white, an irony that never ceased to amaze Millay. “Apparently the black-tusked ones went extinct. At twelve by eight, it ain’t tough to figure out why.”
Carved with a concentric “rope’ pattern of thick, cylindrical bands, the toy had an ebony grip, which was drilled-through to accommodate a thick leather thong. The thong acted as an ersatz handle, which could be used to clip onto or loop around a laundry peg for open-air drying. This was, of course, in the days before dishwashers.
After Millay’s death in 1950 the dildo was boxed, wrapped in brown butcher paper, and sent to Gabrielle Roy. A note attached to the parcel stated simply, "Here. You need it more than I do. ESVM." It stayed with Roy just long enough to inspire Street of Riches and Where Nests the Water Hen, disappearing from her bedroom after a visit from Douglas LePan. It’s rumoured that LePan sent the tool to Henry Kreisel as a belated wedding present, but it’s more likely that it remained in LePan’s possession until 1966 when, upon visiting Margaret Laurence at Elm Cottage, Adele Wiseman discovered it hanging from a pot rack in Laurence’s kitchen.
“Margaret!” Wiseman said, shocked. “Don’t you know where that goes?”
“Sure,” Laurence said, demurring, “but I can’t keep it there, can I?”
After that, the trail of Edna’s dildo becomes a little hazy. Some say it went to Atwood, some say it went to Marie-Claire Blais. The Atwood angle seems credible, and some theorists have suggested that The Handmaid’s Tale is nothing more than a crude pun. "See her chipped tooth," an academic wag is said to have commented. "Nuff said." The only other thing I’ve heard re: the dildo is that Brian Moore inherited it from Laurence’s daughter, had Mordecai Richler’s face scrimshawed onto the business end, then sent the package to Timothy Findley.
It’s interesting to think that some of the greatest works of Canadian fiction could’ve been inspired by a large African dildo. But sometimes art imitates life.
But it’s fun to own things possessed by (literary) celebrities, and many authors have adopted sacred totems as the means to extract stories from their pale and poorly toned bodies. Sinclair Lewis wore a pair of Mark Twain's slippers while writing; Jean Anouilh smoked one of Ibsen's pipes; Gilbert Parker wore Felicite Angers's chastity belt.
The Holy Grail, if you will, of literary relics, is an ivory dildo once owned by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The dildo’s existence first entered the popular imagination in 2001 with the publication of Nancy Milford’s Savage Beauty, a Millay biography. In Milford’s preface we get an excerpt from a letter written to her by Edna’s sister Norma, in which the latter admits to having burned the famous pole--though it wasn’t easy. "I tossed it in the fire, but it wouldn't catch. It just kept getting blacker and blacker. You know how long it takes to burn one of those things? A lot longer than it takes to cool one down, I'll tell you that much."
Most people figured that was the end of it; the dildo was buried in a Maine dump, cracked, and finished. But that’s just not the case. That dildo's been Canadian-owned for more than fifty years. And if it could speak...Gwen Davies'd sue it for copyright infringement.
Edna’s ivory dildo is kind of a legend in the Canadian literary community. The shaft, about twelve inches long and eight inches in circumference, was said to be modelled after the penis of Zwelunke Obi A Mulla, a nineteenth-century Zulu chief famed for his ability to communicate with the animals of the African interior. (Incidentally, Dr. Dolittle was based on Obi A Mulla, but producers axed the large penis references, fearing it would scare children and anger pregnant women. The original script called for Harrison to wear “long shorts--long as necessary to conceal the ‘device.’” Eventually though they just went with grey pants.)
The actual dildo was white, an irony that never ceased to amaze Millay. “Apparently the black-tusked ones went extinct. At twelve by eight, it ain’t tough to figure out why.”
Carved with a concentric “rope’ pattern of thick, cylindrical bands, the toy had an ebony grip, which was drilled-through to accommodate a thick leather thong. The thong acted as an ersatz handle, which could be used to clip onto or loop around a laundry peg for open-air drying. This was, of course, in the days before dishwashers.
After Millay’s death in 1950 the dildo was boxed, wrapped in brown butcher paper, and sent to Gabrielle Roy. A note attached to the parcel stated simply, "Here. You need it more than I do. ESVM." It stayed with Roy just long enough to inspire Street of Riches and Where Nests the Water Hen, disappearing from her bedroom after a visit from Douglas LePan. It’s rumoured that LePan sent the tool to Henry Kreisel as a belated wedding present, but it’s more likely that it remained in LePan’s possession until 1966 when, upon visiting Margaret Laurence at Elm Cottage, Adele Wiseman discovered it hanging from a pot rack in Laurence’s kitchen.
“Margaret!” Wiseman said, shocked. “Don’t you know where that goes?”
“Sure,” Laurence said, demurring, “but I can’t keep it there, can I?”
After that, the trail of Edna’s dildo becomes a little hazy. Some say it went to Atwood, some say it went to Marie-Claire Blais. The Atwood angle seems credible, and some theorists have suggested that The Handmaid’s Tale is nothing more than a crude pun. "See her chipped tooth," an academic wag is said to have commented. "Nuff said." The only other thing I’ve heard re: the dildo is that Brian Moore inherited it from Laurence’s daughter, had Mordecai Richler’s face scrimshawed onto the business end, then sent the package to Timothy Findley.
It’s interesting to think that some of the greatest works of Canadian fiction could’ve been inspired by a large African dildo. But sometimes art imitates life.
The Five Things Alice Munro Did That Bothered James
Alice Munro (nee Laidlaw) was born in Wingham, Ontario, in 1931. Those were the days--according to my grandfather--when people were born, got married, and died. But Munro skewed the paradigm, divorcing her husband James in 1972, twenty-three years after their marriage in 1959.
Did Alice leave James? Did James leave Alice? Let's say that it was a mutual separation. But how could any man leave--even unwillingly--such a warm, caring woman? A woman who can make ice with a smile. A woman who'll have sex "when I'm done this paragraph. You know Athol Fugard is so much more interesting in Dutch."
Here, for the first time, are the five things Alice did that really irritated James. Married readers will be shocked to see that, yes, Munro's feet have actually touched ground in past. Not anywhere near a McDonald's, mind you, but she has heard of it.
(As told by James Munro to Ann Veldt of Girl magazine, Oct. 1973)
1: Singing: "Alice used to sing the most awful songs. And she could never remember the lyrics, so she would just repeat one line of the chorus. And she'd repeat it over, and over, and over again. 'Joy to the world. Joy to the world. Joy to the world. The fishes in the deep blue sea. All the boys and girls.' Last year...I can't even remember the name of the song, but it was by that Jewish boy and his family. 'One bad apple can't spoil the bushel. Give it a try, give it a try, yeah.' [Note, Munro was referring to 'One Bad Apple,' by the Osmond Brothers; the song hit #4 on Billboard's Top Hits of 1971. The Osmonds, as readers will know, are a Mormon family--not even half-Jewish.] Over and over she sung it. I thought I was going to lose my mind. When I finally heard the thing on the radio, I realized she wasn't even singing the right words. I told her, 'Alice, the least you can do is get the line right.' God, don't even get me started on that 'It's Too Late' song. 'Too late for what?" I used to say. 'Dinner?'"
2: Leaving Kleenex Around The House: "She used to blow her nose and leave the Kleenex all over the house. On the night table, on the floor. In a bag of chips. Oh, it was horrible. I keep a glass of water by the side of the bed. One night I reached over, took a drink, and there was a Kleenex floating in it. 'This has to stop!' I said. 'Right now.' The next day I opened the TV Guide and there was a Kleenex stuck between the pages. 'What's this doing here?' I yelled. 'Oh, I was just marking where The Carol Burnett Show was. It's on Thursday this week. And Paul Lynde's back!' She loved Paul Lynde! Couldn't get enough of him."
3: Making The Bed: "She could not make the bed. I did all the laundry. I don't know what's so hard about it. Here's a fitted sheet, here's a counterpane, here's a blanket. Simple, right? No, not for her. I was downstairs, watching TV, and I'd here a shout. 'James. The sheets aren't on the bed.' 'So put them on,' I'd yell. Nothing. She couldn't do it. Sometimes I'd go up at two in the morning and she'd be lying on the floor with a towel covering her, a pile of sheets at her feet. Couldn't make the bed! She kept telling the Rector I deprived her of sleep. I said, 'He sleeps on an army cot. Not gonna get much sympathy there!' But she loved talking to the Rector. It was Rector this, and Rector that. I'd say, 'The church life would've been perfect for you. All those fasts--they're not supposed to eat dinner.'"
4: Every Part Of Her Body Was Cold: "Some women I know have cold hands, cold feet. My mother always used to tease my father by sticking her hand down the back of his shirt. Alice was colder. But she didn't like to do those teasing things. Every part of her body was cold. And I mean every part. I used to joke with her that she could rent herself out as an air conditioner. Then she'd touch me with her bare feet. I stopped that joking pretty quick."
5: She Had The Worst Taste In Clothes: "Now, I don't need a fancy Cosmopolitan kind of girl, but there has to be a middle ground. I've seen Alice wear a potato sack. I said, 'What are you doing in that thing?' She said, 'It's the only dress I could find that hides my ankles.' But she didn't find it; she made it. I'd like to say we at potatoes all week, but she'd taken the damn thing from the trash outside the grocery. No potatoes in it. 'We've got money,' I said. 'You can buy clothes in the store.' 'They don't have anything I like,' she'd say, and she'd toss the catalogue at me. 'Well, I guess not,' I'd say, flipping through it. 'This is for Persian rugs.'
"But I'll say this about Alice: not once--never--in our years together did I find a pubic hair on the soap. She was always good about that."
What a relationship.
Did Alice leave James? Did James leave Alice? Let's say that it was a mutual separation. But how could any man leave--even unwillingly--such a warm, caring woman? A woman who can make ice with a smile. A woman who'll have sex "when I'm done this paragraph. You know Athol Fugard is so much more interesting in Dutch."
Here, for the first time, are the five things Alice did that really irritated James. Married readers will be shocked to see that, yes, Munro's feet have actually touched ground in past. Not anywhere near a McDonald's, mind you, but she has heard of it.
(As told by James Munro to Ann Veldt of Girl magazine, Oct. 1973)
1: Singing: "Alice used to sing the most awful songs. And she could never remember the lyrics, so she would just repeat one line of the chorus. And she'd repeat it over, and over, and over again. 'Joy to the world. Joy to the world. Joy to the world. The fishes in the deep blue sea. All the boys and girls.' Last year...I can't even remember the name of the song, but it was by that Jewish boy and his family. 'One bad apple can't spoil the bushel. Give it a try, give it a try, yeah.' [Note, Munro was referring to 'One Bad Apple,' by the Osmond Brothers; the song hit #4 on Billboard's Top Hits of 1971. The Osmonds, as readers will know, are a Mormon family--not even half-Jewish.] Over and over she sung it. I thought I was going to lose my mind. When I finally heard the thing on the radio, I realized she wasn't even singing the right words. I told her, 'Alice, the least you can do is get the line right.' God, don't even get me started on that 'It's Too Late' song. 'Too late for what?" I used to say. 'Dinner?'"
2: Leaving Kleenex Around The House: "She used to blow her nose and leave the Kleenex all over the house. On the night table, on the floor. In a bag of chips. Oh, it was horrible. I keep a glass of water by the side of the bed. One night I reached over, took a drink, and there was a Kleenex floating in it. 'This has to stop!' I said. 'Right now.' The next day I opened the TV Guide and there was a Kleenex stuck between the pages. 'What's this doing here?' I yelled. 'Oh, I was just marking where The Carol Burnett Show was. It's on Thursday this week. And Paul Lynde's back!' She loved Paul Lynde! Couldn't get enough of him."
3: Making The Bed: "She could not make the bed. I did all the laundry. I don't know what's so hard about it. Here's a fitted sheet, here's a counterpane, here's a blanket. Simple, right? No, not for her. I was downstairs, watching TV, and I'd here a shout. 'James. The sheets aren't on the bed.' 'So put them on,' I'd yell. Nothing. She couldn't do it. Sometimes I'd go up at two in the morning and she'd be lying on the floor with a towel covering her, a pile of sheets at her feet. Couldn't make the bed! She kept telling the Rector I deprived her of sleep. I said, 'He sleeps on an army cot. Not gonna get much sympathy there!' But she loved talking to the Rector. It was Rector this, and Rector that. I'd say, 'The church life would've been perfect for you. All those fasts--they're not supposed to eat dinner.'"
4: Every Part Of Her Body Was Cold: "Some women I know have cold hands, cold feet. My mother always used to tease my father by sticking her hand down the back of his shirt. Alice was colder. But she didn't like to do those teasing things. Every part of her body was cold. And I mean every part. I used to joke with her that she could rent herself out as an air conditioner. Then she'd touch me with her bare feet. I stopped that joking pretty quick."
5: She Had The Worst Taste In Clothes: "Now, I don't need a fancy Cosmopolitan kind of girl, but there has to be a middle ground. I've seen Alice wear a potato sack. I said, 'What are you doing in that thing?' She said, 'It's the only dress I could find that hides my ankles.' But she didn't find it; she made it. I'd like to say we at potatoes all week, but she'd taken the damn thing from the trash outside the grocery. No potatoes in it. 'We've got money,' I said. 'You can buy clothes in the store.' 'They don't have anything I like,' she'd say, and she'd toss the catalogue at me. 'Well, I guess not,' I'd say, flipping through it. 'This is for Persian rugs.'
"But I'll say this about Alice: not once--never--in our years together did I find a pubic hair on the soap. She was always good about that."
What a relationship.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Edna St Vincent Millay Gets Off Sinclair Ross
Milton Berle tells a great story about a meeting with Norm Crosby in which the latter's love life was discussed. Berle was backstage at a benefit, getting ready to go on, when he was tapped on the shoulder by Crosby. "Where were you?!" Berle asked, turning. "You fucker; you're supposed to introduce me. I'm on in thirty seconds!" "I'm sorry. I lost track of time," Crosby said, a sheepish smile on his face. "Joan and I were fooling around, and...You'll never believe this, but I discovered a new way to have sex." "No shit," said Berle, one eye on Crosby, one eye on the stage. "Well," Norm said, shrugging his shoulders, "a little."
It's more or less common knowledge that Sinclair Ross was gay, but not many people know of his one-night tryst with the American poet Edna St Vincent Millay. Nancy Milford, author of Savage Beauty, a biography of Millay, uncovered the anecdote during the course of her research into Millay's life. She was advised, for a bevy of legal reasons, to excise the story from her text, but it survived the "urban legend" stage to trickle down the ivy-covered wall and into the gossipy academic domain.
It happened in 1938, three years before Ross published As For Me and My House. Sinclair was in Boston visiting relatives, and he was introduced to Millay through Henry Allen Moe, who headed the Guggenheim Foundation. Moe, who suspected Ross's homosexuality, was also familiar with Millay's tendency to "generate a lot of laundry--mostly sheets." Moe, a muscular Christian type, pointed Ross at Millay, and urged him to "just once, give it a try." Ross hesitated, but one night at Moe's, after a few drinks, Millay was enjoying the chase. Moe had alerted her to the plan to deflower Sinclair (Jim), and she "thought it would be a lot of fun."
Finally, toward the end of the evening, Millay managed to trap Ross in Moe's guest bedroom. She'd finished half a bottle of Gordon's gin, and Ross was half-drunk on Creme de Menthe. "I'll tell you this," Ross said to Millay. "Put on a baseball mitt and I'd be a little bit excited."
The rest of the story is, according to Moe, as follows:
"Ross asked Millay what she was going to do. She told him she was only going to recite a poem, and that he should just relax. He sat down on the bed, and as soon as Millay'd finished the last stanza her shirt came off. Ross was flustered. He didn't know what to do. He said something like, 'I can't do this. No.' Edna just looked at him and said, 'Calm down, huh. We'll try it your way first. If you don't like that, I've got an emery board in my purse.'
"Forever afterward Ross sweared that nothing had happened, but Edna insisted that she'd scored a conquest. The only thing that made me doubt him was that, later, about a day or so, he came down with a terrible stomach ache, and was in bed for a few days. When I finally saw him again, he said, "Henry...next time I'll wash my hands.'"
It's more or less common knowledge that Sinclair Ross was gay, but not many people know of his one-night tryst with the American poet Edna St Vincent Millay. Nancy Milford, author of Savage Beauty, a biography of Millay, uncovered the anecdote during the course of her research into Millay's life. She was advised, for a bevy of legal reasons, to excise the story from her text, but it survived the "urban legend" stage to trickle down the ivy-covered wall and into the gossipy academic domain.
It happened in 1938, three years before Ross published As For Me and My House. Sinclair was in Boston visiting relatives, and he was introduced to Millay through Henry Allen Moe, who headed the Guggenheim Foundation. Moe, who suspected Ross's homosexuality, was also familiar with Millay's tendency to "generate a lot of laundry--mostly sheets." Moe, a muscular Christian type, pointed Ross at Millay, and urged him to "just once, give it a try." Ross hesitated, but one night at Moe's, after a few drinks, Millay was enjoying the chase. Moe had alerted her to the plan to deflower Sinclair (Jim), and she "thought it would be a lot of fun."
Finally, toward the end of the evening, Millay managed to trap Ross in Moe's guest bedroom. She'd finished half a bottle of Gordon's gin, and Ross was half-drunk on Creme de Menthe. "I'll tell you this," Ross said to Millay. "Put on a baseball mitt and I'd be a little bit excited."
The rest of the story is, according to Moe, as follows:
"Ross asked Millay what she was going to do. She told him she was only going to recite a poem, and that he should just relax. He sat down on the bed, and as soon as Millay'd finished the last stanza her shirt came off. Ross was flustered. He didn't know what to do. He said something like, 'I can't do this. No.' Edna just looked at him and said, 'Calm down, huh. We'll try it your way first. If you don't like that, I've got an emery board in my purse.'
"Forever afterward Ross sweared that nothing had happened, but Edna insisted that she'd scored a conquest. The only thing that made me doubt him was that, later, about a day or so, he came down with a terrible stomach ache, and was in bed for a few days. When I finally saw him again, he said, "Henry...next time I'll wash my hands.'"
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