Wednesday night, if you may recall, was my evening with my Guy and Gore Vidal. As part of the Luminato festival, Gore Vidal was speaking at the Elgin Theatre, in the company of Adam Gopnik, author and staff writer for the New Yorker.
The tickets were general admission, and we got there an hour early, which I thought was enough time to get a decent seat, but goodness, all the Vidal-lovers came out of their caves that night – the line-up was already quite extensive. And as the minutes passed, the line grew longer and longer outside the theatre. People walking along the sidewalk were curious as to what was going on – who could possible get all these old folk to stand outside on hard concrete for so long? (I haven't got cold hard stats, but I'm willing to bet the average age of the ticket-holders that night was well over the age of 30). At one point a fire truck drove by and one of the firemen asked me what was going on, so I told him Gore Vidal was speaking tonight and he smiled and gave a big thumbs up, but I'm pretty sure he didn't have a bloody clue whom I was talking about.
You know what? I'm ashamed to say that until June 6th 2007, I'd never been inside the Elgin Theatre. It's simply stunning. The perfect venue for Mr. Vidal, I'd say. Very lush and grand. Here's a pic of inside the theatre:
We actually ended up getting pretty darn good seats because although many of the front row seats were reserved for all the grand media muckety mucks, many of them didn't show up, so hoi polloi such as ourselves were able to scramble up to better spots.
Now, should I mention the excruciatingly dull speeches given by Tony Gagliano and Greg Sorbara before Mr. Vidal came on stage? No. Suffice to say it was like getting the cod liver oil before the chocolate cake. Oh, and then John McFarlane, editor of Toronto Life magazine had to say something, too (though thank goodness he had the presence of mind to be extremely brief), and by this time you could see all the people on the edge of their seats, chomping at the bit, ready to kill the next person on stage who wasn't Mr. Vidal. Ok, they weren't going to kill Mr. Gopnik. Maybe. And then finally Mr. Vidal was wheeled on stage by a tall, young man with very long golden dreads. Yes, wheeled – Gore Vidal is over 80 now, and though I don't know what his condition is, he is sadly in a wheelchair, though his mind seemed to be quite intact, at least for the next hour or so.
What to say about Mr. Vidal? He is charming, of course. Very charming. Lovely voice, though not as strong as it once was – there were times that it trailed off into an almost inaudible whisper, and I had to crane my neck and really concentrate so I wouldn't miss what this great mind was telling us. And what did he tell us? So many things. The conversation was obviously not rehersed – Mr. Gopnik asked a variety of questions throughout the evening, but it was clear to all that Mr. Vidal was the one in charge, and he pretty much led the conversation to wherever he wanted it to go.
It's hard to remember all the subjects discussed that evening, because it was just like sitting in a friend's room, relaxing and listening to wonderful conversation (sadly without the alcohol), but let me think....let's see...Mr. Vidal talked a great deal about Franklin D. Roosevelt, and especially Eleanor. Vidal obviously has a great deal of respect for Eleanor Roosevelt, and all that she achieved throughout her life. Though he did refer to FDR in a rather snide tone as 'The Emperor', Vidal did concede that Roosevelt's creation of Social Security and the GI Bill made the US the great country it once was. Was, because of course, Vidal has no love for Dubbya and the Republicans. As far as Mr. Vidal is concerned, it's just a matter of time before "the chickens come home to roost" as a result of George W's inadequate presidency. Which chickens will that be? Well, Mr. Vidal didn't get specific. He left it to our own imaginations.
Some things about Gore Vidal that I didn't know...I had no idea that he was hired as a screenwriter for MGM, and that he worked on the screenplay for Ben-Hur. Nor did I know that he was friends with Orson Welles. Can you imagine what their conversations were like? Two giant, witty egos in one room?
At one point in the conversation, Mr. Gopnik asked Mr. Vidal if he could choose only three of his books to take with him on a desert island, which ones would he take, and Vidal being Vidal, said only one, Creation. As far as he was concerned, that was, and still is, his best work. When asked if he could name any writers that he really admired from the 20th century, Mr. Vidal said the only one was Calvino, because as far as Vidal was concerned, Italo Calvino was the only 20th century writer with imagination – all other writers in the U.S. are unimaginative hacks who only seem to write about domestic matters. I don't agree with the guy, but I wasn't about to stage a demonstration over the issue.
Another interesting tidbit – Mr. Vidal claims that most of the clever quotes found online attributed to him are not true. I think he's just being modest. Who else could come up with great lines like, "Write something, even if it's just a suicide note", or "Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies"?
The evening ended rather abruptly– at the end of a sentence, Mr. Gopnik suddenly thanked Mr. Vidal, and that was it. I wonder if Gopnik noticed that Mr. Vidal was beginning to get really tired – he did talk pretty much non-stop for well over an hour. That's a lot for anyone, especially an octogenarian in a wheelchair.
One thought that keeps crossing my mind since Wednesday night, and since that evening with Nader – people like Gore Vidal and Ralph Nader have lived a long life and have amassed a great deal of knowledge, and contributed so much to our society, be it through writing, or political activism. Can you name any contemporary writer or leader who could fill the shoes of these men? Who are the great thinkers and intellectual rebels of this generation?
If you'd like to read some more about Mr. Vidal, here's an interview he gave with the Toronto Star while he was in town.
And if you want to see the ol' crank being interviewed by George Stroumboulopoulos, click here.
As far as I know, Mr. Vidal has been mentioned twice on the Simpsons – once when Lisa Simpson is lamenting the fact that Gore Vidal's kissed more boys than she has, and of course, that episode with Chabon, Franzen and Wolfe:
Yup – you know you've really made it when you're an animated cartoon.
Anyway, it was another amazing evening with another amazing writer and thinker. Now if I can just finagle a way for Guy to see Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn speak, my work on this planet will be done.
