MJ Walker wrote:
> Since I've been asked - Schadenfreude. The adjective is schadenfroh. I
> found Camille very amusing & stimulating in SP, not so much in what
> followed, which I have merely sampled. It/she seems repetitive &
> obsessional. This review is apparently on the ball. CP obviously has no
> idea about contemporary poetry & is just scattershooting from the hip.
I hope Camille Paglia did not learn how to read poetry from the late
Milton Kessler at Binghamton. As I recall she was in with some pretty
distinguished company in the mid/late 1960s--Donald Revell, Michael
Blumenthal, and Molly Peacock also were around at roughly the same
time. They became poets. Paglia...well, I should not say much because
I cannot read her books. I read some of her journalism on the Salon
website before they started charging for the privilege. I heard her
interviewed on some radio show during afternoon drivetime. The current
article in The Nation gives an interesting overview, a grand "Aha!" that
throws the articles I read into perspective.
Groucho Marx. "Whatever it is, I'm against it!" The suggestion: she is
no more serious a thinker and writer than Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken
are serious political thinkers. She is an entertainer. She does
schtick. As such her mission is to say whatever will stir up the
reader. This is the same strategy Richard Goldstein employed in June
1967 when, in the pages of the Sunday New York Times, he blasted The
Beatles *Sgt. Pepper*. Goldstein was attacked in print by the likes of
Ned Rorem. Motto: no publicity is bad publicity, and Richard Goldstein
had made his bones by taking out the biggest available target in popular
music.
Maybe Paglia's entertainments are harmless unless a reader takes her
seriously. I'm straight, I'm gay, I'm bi, I'm conservative, I'm
radical, I'm whatever it takes to get your attention.
I think I'll go look for a rental of *Horse Feathers.*
Ken
--
Kenneth Wolman http://kenwolman.com http://kenwolman.blogspot.com
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"Poetry is tribal not material....this is where you can remember the good
times along with the worst; where you are not allowed to forget the worst,
else you cannot be healed."--C. D. Wright
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