Could we get pictures?
Sure, but he has to die first, or someone is going to have to hold him down. BTW, my dog has also shit on the graves of Alice Roosevelt, Henry Adams, Upton Sinclair, the guy who created Wonderbread and Tim Russert. These weren’t editorial shits, but it’s hard to take a poop in Rock Creek Church graveyard without hitting someone famous.
Thanks. I’ve printed it out for later reading.
Cool. I’ll be looking forward to them.
(And I’ll have to remember to tread lightly should I ever visit Rock Creek Church graveyard in D.C. :D)
His partner of 50+ years is already buried there (it’s a double plot) and was much nicer and much more moderate, so please make sure the dog stays on the left side.
As for Vidal- he stopped being funny and provocative many years ago and crossed into the realm of total asshole. He’s far more intellectual and intelligent and informed that Ann Coulter but he’s her peer in terms of saying the most absurd and ridiculous incendiary claims to get press, especially as he gets older and is more and more forgotten. He’s a literary Norma Desmond now- most of his hardcore fans are old or baby boomers and most people under 50 just know him as a memorable name they should know ala Adlai Stevenson or John Foster Dulles, so in order to get press of any kind he has to say the most ridiculous things to get mention. And oh, currently, he’s selling a book- probably his last.
Vidal’s archenemy in life wasn’t Buckley half so much as fellow queer-pioneer author Truman Capote. They were friends and possibly fuck buddies in the late 1940s when they were both described as cutting edge wunderkinder but by the 1950s they disliked each other and by the 1960s it was mutual hatred. Much was due to Capote’s success- Vidal is even by his own admission insanely jealous of other people’s success. (Trivia: both were the sons of alcoholics named Nina who married wealthy men and abandoned them.)
I’ve said before that I think one reason for Vidal’s hatred of Capote is evident when you read their fiction: Capote, imo and in that of most people I know who’ve read them both, beats Vidal to a bloody pulp in terms of characterization and quality of writing and dialogue. Vidal’s protagonists are invariably bitchy queens far more concerned with being pithy and witty than being real, while Capote just absolutely nails people in a single phrase (and for those who’ve never read Capote, he did NOT write like he talked- Christmas Memory, oy you’ll be ferklempt).
I think the reason for this is that Vidal has no concept of compassion or even, that I’ve seen evidence of, love (platonic or romantic- he and his partner were essentially companions and not lovers). Were he a woman you’d call him an ice queen; of either gender he strikes me as borderline sociopath who is utterly unconcerned with and unfamiliar with human emotions.
I think his reference to the girl as an ‘underaged whore’ (who even if it was a seduction-for-blackmail setup- which there is no evidence it was- the girl was 13 at the time and I seriously doubt it was her idea- it just means she’s a victim of her mother [or whoever] as well as Polanski) was completely calculated to gain him print coverage. He probably couldn’t give a damn if it was violent rape or seduction, and he knows she’s not likely to sue him and hell- at this stage even if she did he’ll be dead before she gets a verdict (he’s in his mid 80s, confined to a wheelchair, and has many health problems) so he’s having some fun and getting some press for him which may help book sales. (I don’t think he needs the money from book sales so much as a stroked ego.)
Well well well, so Gore Vidal is a hateful dick, who could have guessed?
When was the last time Vidal was even relevant to anything?
I know exactly where his grave is, when I’m in DC I walk in that graveyard about twice a day. No promises on where she craps, but I do always pick it up. I’ve seen his partner’s grave and Gore’s is actually there, but with a start date, no date of death. He’s near Grief, Henry and Mrs. Adams’s grave (and one of Eleanor Roosevelt’s favorite spots to meditate when she was first lady). BTW, IIRC Gore is on the right and Henry? Howard? is on the left.
That would be your right and his left, right?
If you are standing and looking, I think his partner is on the right and Gore is on the left. I’m more a fan of Count Gore de Vol (WDCA shout out). I’d like to get word to Mr. Vidal that we are planning for his grave shitting. Maybe he’s a fan of the dope.
Probably not after this thread… 
There is usually a significance to this placement, but I don’t know if it is strictly true in this case and I really don’t wish to ask.
You lost me…at least I’m hoping you’ve actually lost me, because I don’t take you for the kind of person who still thinks that someone plays the “man” and the other the “woman” in gay relationships.
You should really start a blog. People could make requests.
Well, that’s kind of what I meant, but not what in the way you’re getting at. Since there is a traditional placement of names on the tombstone, I was just wondering how that was handled for people in nontraditional relationships.
While I am sure people work things out in their way, it also seems to me that this might cause some debate in some circles - almost everything else does.
Okay…I get what you’re saying. Truthfully, I have no idea. I don’t think there’s any “standard” for that, given that it’s only quite recently (the last 15-20 years, probably) that a gay couple would probably ever even be buried side-by-side the way traditional spouses are (either because of their surviving families’ wishes or because cemetery management wouldn’t allow it).
Winner, winner, erm, tuna, dinner.
Vidal, despite his scrawlings hasn’t truly been relevant for years. Must be feeling the cold, dank breath of obscurity on his neck.
Alice Roosevelt? As in Alice Roosevelt Longworth? Alice kicked ASS! “If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me.”
That chick could be anywhere from 12 to 20, judging by those photos.
I don’t happen to agree. But even leaving that aside, Polanski stipulated at his plea hearing that he knew the victim was thirteen and did not claim that he thought she was any older than that.
And of course, there is the problem that this became sort of a pattern of behavior for Polanski - after he fled to Europe he conducted an affair with Nastassja Kinski when she was fifteen as well as other less well known teenagers.
So your call, but it seems pretty cut and dried to me.
Clyde Tolson (also D.C. interred but Congressional Cemetery) supposedly wanted to be buried next to J. Edgar Hoover- or at least in the Hoover family plot- but had to settle for being buried about a dozen spaces away. No idea if they’ve tried burrowing closer together. I would guess that Hoover’s is the most dogshit covered grave in the country.