MISSING FLORENCE KING
Re: Colby Cosh’s Our Florence
Nightingale:
Most of today’s Florence King fans do not know some of her best
work, notably her (first) 1978 book, He: An Irreverent Look at
the American Male. Amazon lists it as “out of stock,” with
“used and new” copies available starting at $37. The introduction,
at about 40 pages, may be the funniest sustained writing in 20th
Century American humor, as it describes King’s own “Dagwood
Bumstead” sexual history. (King expanded this memoir to become the
later Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady.) It proceeds
to an absolute evisceration of a baker’s dozen American man
archetypes (“The Michael Man,” “William ‘Bill’ Flanagan,” etc.).
Strangely, National Review house ads for various King
collections always leave this one out.
— Lawrence Henry
Many thanks for Colby Cosh’s excellent March 26th review of
Florence King’s Stet, Damnit! He wonderfully captured a
bit of her tone in his appreciation, and it always is a happy
occasion to hear of another fan of Miss King’s work and read
another sound encouragement for others to discover the depth of her
brilliance, both technical in the craft, and observational in
selective cultural commentary.
Cosh noted the “King cult” and provided example members as
writers and his known “female King devotees aged 75 and 25.” Would
you believe another cell of the cult is gay Southern males? Both
conservative and otherwise? I once passed a particularly pleasant
evening (not for the reasons you think, happily married thank you.
Old friend’s dinner party, doncha know), in the company of such a
cell, where the entire evening’s conversation was the “divine”
Florence King. We all hurled quotes and recollections around the
table, and pulled her books open — ready at hand on nearby shelves
— to settle arguments. When I asked the obvious question why so
many Southern gay males knew about her work, and knew it so well I
was met with blank stares and shrugs all around. “We just all read
her, and everyone I know has read her.” It was one of the few
pieces of empirical evidence I’ve ever encountered that there
really is a gay culture distinct from the typical American.
Once upon a time I wrote Miss King a note, asking her a few
questions, trifles really. I also, like Cosh, feared she would
“snicker” at me if I made an error. You can imagine my astonishment
and delight when I received a reply in her own hand,
answering my questions in a tone so friendly I nearly wept with
joy. She even made an aside that she envied my living in France
(her only erroneous view, but another subject). Needless to say,
this correspondence now is a treasure.
But Cosh’s review also had a bittersweet quality, for his
defense of her leave-taking does not satisfy. “Really it’s no
wonder she quit.” Yes, but we miss her just the same. Horribly,
painfully, for parting is a taste of death, and it tears at the
heart, and reminds us of hell.
One’s instinct is to gush, grovel, and beg her to write more.
But knowing she would have contempt for the weakness, we politely
acquiesce to the lady’s wish to retire, and instead withdraw to
shed a furtive tear.
But oh dear Lord, how we miss her.
Dear Editor, isn’t there something you can do? Please?
And Miss King, if you should perhaps read this, please recall
that I remain always
Your obedient servant,
— James N. Ward
Paris, France
I read with great interest the Cosh review of Ms. King’s latest
offering the compilation of her Misanthrope columns. As one who is
within 12 months of being the same age of Ms. King, as one that
grew up in the same area (Ms. King in NW Washington and I a block
over the line from NW Washington in Maryland), as one that
appreciated Ms. King’s many descriptions of her family and
realizing the many similarities with my own (particularly at the
Grandmother level), as one who recognizes and celebrates the
similarities of life philosophy in each of us, I have been in
almost constant mourning since the time of her retirement. I could
have dealt with that eventually, but her relocation to the
Northwest from Virginia has been altogether too much to handle.
While I admire and share so very many of Ms. King’s views on
life and American society, I devoutly wish that I had acquired even
half of her knowledge and talent with the English language —
grammatically, logically, and creatively. Ms. King, you have
abandoned us to the enemy.
— Ken Shreve
New Hampshire (Formerly of the Wash. D.C. area)
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
Re: RiShawn Biddle’s Malthus’s
Quarreling Children:
Another wedge issue that could be developed among Sierra Club
members is road construction. The economic development angle is a
rising consideration in both state and federal departments of
transportation. The alleged jobs that roads have a potential for
creating puts a few members of the Sierra Club in strange
territory. They want to support the program that offers jobs but
they don’t want to build anything that might have an economic
impact if it simultaneously has an environmental impact. The
exaggerated claims of jobs vs. the exaggerated claims of ecological
catastrophe leaves the intellectually lazy in an unenviable
dilemma.
— Danny L. Newton
Cookeville, Tennessee
FREEPERS OF THE FLAME
Re: Shawn Macomber’s Dean Dumb
Come:
I believe the 40 or so Bush supporters at the Democrat’s “Unity
Day” Shawn Macomber saw were organized by the D.C. chapter of Free
Republic of the FreeRepublic.com website.
The head of the chapter wrote a thread on the site of their
efforts and the harassment they received from the Democrat
supporters.
At one point they were told they had to move by someone they
weren’t sure was a Police officer or just hired security. The
reason? He told them that they were inciting violence.
When asked how, the man with the gun said because they were
agitating the Democrat supporters across the street.
Gee, by those standards I must really agitate them by driving
around with a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker on my car. I guess it will
be my fault if someone decides to ram my vehicle.
Fortunately, the Freepers didn’t budge. Ah, the never ending
stories of the Democrats and how they protect free speech.
— Greg Barnard
Franklin, Tennessee
VALENTI NO
Re: Brian Doherty’s Goodbye,
Valenti:
How can anyone forget that the very deep thinking Jack Valenti
once commented that he thanked God every night that Lyndon Johnson
was his president. Not many people can say that!!
— Bill Read
Syracuse, New York
Lacking from this excellent piece is the threat to Valenti’s vision
from within. Like so many industries before it, the MPAA, is tied
to the big bucks, high production movie type to support the
extremely expensive capital infrastructure they must feed. The
likes of UA, MGM, TriStar do not fear the consumer theft angle as
much as they fear lower supply chain providers on the front
end.
This is why the Passion is all the buzz in Movieland.
Regardless of the Christian-Jewish relationship issues, the Execs
are more concerned of the production angle. Here comes a movie, all
of $25m, that will likely out gross all other movies this year at
the box office. Holding no real estate, using contracted production
facilities and crews and a second tier national distributor, Gibson
fashions a block buster. Now if I am the CEO of MGM I would be
really concerned. The shareholders are going to ask some pretty
probing questions. Like what are we getting out of the multibillion
dollar real estate holdings, or why are the production costs so
high, or how do you justify your salary Mr. CEO?
So as professional digital systems continue to drop in price,
this technology leap is leaving the embedded production companies
in tenuous situation. The new production companies can work with
lower budgets and slimmer margins. Having a lower production value,
their releases can be shown in fewer theaters and still make a
profit. The older production companies have a choice, either move
up the value chain relying solely on large budget nationwide block
busters or adopt the mantra of the new guys and shed the excess
financial weight.
Jack Valenti is seemingly standing there laying groundwork so
that the MPAA does not need to make a choice. Too bad his
foundation sits in an earthquake
zone.
— John McGinnis
Arlington, Texas
There is so much that is reprehensible in contemporary culture and
politics that one could find himself daily neglecting occupational
responsibilities to remark on them and to some extent I have — and
I hereby apologize to Spectator on-line readers for my
garrulousness.
However, after noting this morning that the Washington
Times has celebrated Jack Valenti as its “Noble of the week”
(I only can surmise that he has been a drinking buddy of Tony
Blankley) I am compelled to bellow — as the immortal John Candy
did in the wonderful Second City’s send up of The Tonight
Show, “The Sammy Maudlin Show” — in Ed McMahon-like
stentorian terms, “The boss [Brian Doherty, in this instance] is so
right.” (Actually I know that Joe Flaherty based the Maudlin
character and the skits more on Sammy Davis and a talk show Davis
once did.)
The preternaturally thin-waisted, Armani adorned, and perfectly
barbered Valenti was present at the borning of LBJ’s Great Society
and certainly responsible to some extent for the resulting havoc
wrecked on every class of Americans — especially black Americans.
He then joined the movie industry and shortly afterwards that
industry abandoned even a pretense of producing much that was
literate (even comprehensible ) and decent. Nevertheless Slick Jack
supported his new masters sled length — as we used to say in labor
relations parlance — lo these many decades. He was loyal liegeman
to knaves like the Miramax producing brothers. He should be
consigned to a hell watching The Crying Game endlessly —
occasionally punctuated by one of those films in which the
screenwriter believed high art was attained by having actors utter
“sh-t” and “as-h—-” throughout the movie.
— J.R. Wheatley
Harper Woods, Michigan
I hate to carp because Mr. Doherty’s article on Jack Valenti hits a
variety of nails squarely on the head. Nevertheless, might he have
been referring to Herman Mankiewicz, the brilliant scriptwriter
(Citizen Kane) and brother of the late Joe Mankiewicz? If
not, I apologize and will go look for Howard’s credits.
— Bill Lannon
Rockland, Maine
TORCH SINGING
Re: The Washington Prowler’s Kerry
Alarm:
Mean Old Menino and the Case of the Kidnapped Chorus. Has a ring
to it. Not up there with Ted Kennedy’s “Dude, Where’s My Car?” but
charming in its own right…
If the Kerry camp really thinks music is a zero-sum game, they
probably shouldn’t be trusted with fixing the economy…
— Richard McEnroe
Who needs to embarrass the Democratic Party, they seem to be doing
a great job on their own.
— Mike Ward
Dallas, Texas
GREAT WHILE IT LASTED
It was great the way RET exposed “Boy Clinton” for what he was back
in the '90s. For RET to not go after the “Boy Emperor” with the
same gusto is more than a little disappointing.
— Michael Faulkenberg
Bloomington, Indiana
