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NICE PEOPLE
“A few weeks ago I found myself scanning photographs of Susan Sontag into my screensaver file.” As you do. So begins Terry Castle’s terrifying and hilarious piece on Sontag, her literary idol; if you don’t wince during Castle’s description of a brutal Manhattan dinner featuring Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, performance artist Marina Abramovic, and a Sprocket-like art curator named Klaus, well, congratulations. You, my friend, are wince-proof.
(Via Blithering Bunny and Clive Davis)
I guess I am wince-proof, for I laughed. I have this mental impression of desperately, almost pitifully narcissistic people, so shallow as to make a carpark puddle resemble an abyssal deep, all trying endlessly to attract 110% of the attention at that party to themselves, and failing.
The truth about these people is that they do not matter. They exist in a tiny bubble outside the flow of history, desperately trying to pretend that the tiny bubble they have made for themselves is the whole universe. But, in reality, few people have ever heard of them, even fewer care for anything they have done.
Dear Terry strikes me as even more pathetic than the professional circle-jerkers at the party. A species of creepy echo of a human, trying to somehow attract the attention of a narcissist, and never once realising the impossibility of the task.
MarkL
CanberraI’ll admit it, I couldn’t help wincing at various times. Especially at this one:
Yet it is hard for me to think about the history of modern feminism, say – especially as it evolved in the United States in the 1970s – without Sontag in the absolutely central, catalytic role.
How truly sad that a narcissistic airhead like Sontag is the best figurehead that “modern feminism” has been able to come up with over the last 40 years. No wonder the movement is taken less seriously than even PETA these days…
Correct, PW.
At the risk of becoming a target for vilification myself: Feminism with a liberal dash of lesbianism has caused quite a few problems for regular women, and therefore families, while solving a couple. (I have that on authority from regular women) That quote you picked out was also on my shortlist. Here are a few more:"one of Nancy’s friends hit the jackpot – she got to watch the artist have a bowel movement."
(so who was suffering for art there - everyone?)
"Yet it wouldn’t be quite right merely to say that everyone ignored me."
(but it would indicate some intelligence on their part)
"she was part of a certain neural development that, purely physiologically speaking, can never be repeated."
(let’s hope so)
Thanks Tim - it’s a goldmine of quotes from an alternative world. No wonder we often use the term parallel universe.I googled some images see what the egregious Terry looks like.
If I were her I wouldn’t be buying any long-playing records.
I wonder if lesbians get to Terry’s age and think, “I’ve wasted my life”. Perhaps they can rationalise their choice somehow.
Posted by walterplinge on 2005 04 10 at 07:20 AM • permalinkI can’t bring myself to be as hard on Miss Castle as some of you guys. For one thing, the article was hilarious. For another, it’s refreshing (well, relieving) to see that one of the pretentious academia-arty-farty set is able to laugh at herself. And also, I must admit some of the activities described therein hit a little close to home, and reminded me of the wasted years of my twenties, when I spent most of my time in the pursuit of various celebrity chimeras (no, not lesbian writers, but the even more pathetic denizens of the world of “alternative music"), and did things like fly to other cities simply to see bands like the Cure and Bauhaus, and sit around griping about Reagan, Thatcher, and how pathetic Madonna fans were.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 04 10 at 09:48 AM • permalinkThat was a great piece. At least Miss Castle can laugh at her starfucking tendencies, her pathetic efforts to keep pace with a famous intellectual who obviously just saw her as a piece of tail. (Terri, light of my life, fire of my loins...)
What I found more disturbing, if not surprising, was that Sontag had clearly given up on hanging out with her intellectual peers and being challenged by them; she could have had vicious arguments with Saul Bellow over Allan Bloom, say, but instead she gathers sullen, uncommunicative rock stars so she can give them intellectual heft and they can give her downtown coolness. (They both got ripped off.) Sontag wasn’t exactly a spent force-- she did write some reasonably solid novels at that point-- but she clearly was coasting to a considerable extent.
Terry Castle; Lou Reed; Laurie Anderson; performance artist Marina Abramovic;art curator named Klaus
Who the hell are any of these clowns?
Why does this Terry clown think anybody cares?
All these idiots have carried narcissism to its highest form - absurdity.
Posted by Barbara Skolaut on 2005 04 10 at 12:19 PM • permalink..."the wasted years of my twenties, when I spent most of my time in the pursuit of various celebrity chimeras (no, not lesbian writers, but the even more pathetic denizens of the world of “alternative music")...
Andrea, you have struck too, too close to home, only substitute The Cure and Bauhaus with The Minutemen and Sonic Youth…
Posted by rick mcginnis on 2005 04 10 at 01:03 PM • permalinkJorgen — “He that becomes a beast gets rid of the pain of being a man” (Nietzsche)
“He that pays attention to these people gets rid of the chance to ever have a meaningful opinion again.” Me.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 04 10 at 02:44 PM • permalinkActually, I think this is a very readable and enjoyable piece: if it weren’t for the provenance, I would be voicing the same thought as GuinsPen. It’s a sufficiently withering portrait of Sontag as a vacuous poseuse, and it answers a question from my early life: “Whatever happened to Marina Abramovic”? Back in my own early bohemian days in Melbourne, Marina Abramovic was one half of a local perfomance art duo, and even then I had the sneaking suspicion that she was just a bullshitter. Now I have confirmation.
I think the word we’re looking for is DRIVEL.
I once went to a Mothers of Invention concert. Frank Zappa told the audience “I’ve suffered for my music. Now it’s your turn.”
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2005 04 10 at 08:16 PM • permalinkRog2 — How do you write about that crown and NOT have it come out as parody? The question becomes, did the author realize it?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 04 10 at 10:58 PM • permalinkI thought it was hilarious and bitter at the same time. I know it’s not quite the same world, but I couldn’t help being reminded of the set-pieces about society dinners in Tom Wolfe’s novels - that combination of total irrelevance and breathtaking self-importance on the part of most of the participants (I can’t in fairness count the author - she can obviously tell in retrospect what was really happening).
Much as I hate Sontag and now Marina Abramovic I must admit that my own dinner parties are just like that.
Posted by James Hamilton on 2005 04 11 at 02:32 AM • permalinkActually, that was a very nice piece of writing, and pretty much spot-on sums up Sontag and her circle, the myopic denizens of the sad little rural backwaters of 10th Avenue and 24th street or Mercer and Spring.
I have been to parties like that, with similar people, and I can say that it’s much more wince-inducing actually being there.
As for Klaus, I’m pretty sure it’s Klaus Kertess who was a guest at that dinner. He’s everything you would expect, and more.
If there’s a more revolting, parasitic, useless organism than a freelance art curator, I’d love to know.
J F Beck links an article about Hanoi Jane, her defence for her actions remains “but they lied to me” (they being the Govt)
Just how big is Fonda’s ego? As big as that Sontag crowd? (crown)
I think Ms. Castle deserves congratulations. It can’t have been easy to confess to being used like that.
On Sontag’s side ... wow. I can imagine being a bit pompous and full of yourself, but to the point where you are convinced your nap habits are the source of intense interest to your acquaintances? There’s something profoundly monstrous in that.
Posted by John Nowak on 2005 04 11 at 06:37 AM • permalinkJoseph Cornell liked Susan Sontag, so she couldn’t be all bad. No American should use “twee” in a sentence. Lou Reed’s cell should include a picture of Jon Bon Jovi, whatever Amnesty International might think.
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2005 04 11 at 09:01 AM • permalink
You have not experienced Sontag until you have read her in the original
Gibberish.
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2005 04 11 at 03:37 PM • permalink
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Terrifying indeed. Terry Castle should be sentenced to an indefinite period at a Marina Abramovic party.