THE CASE AGAINST TS ELIOT – A COMPELLING PAMPHLET DISCOVERED BY CRISPY (see facsimile imprint pamphlet cover, dated 1968, below)

When Gore Vidal described Abraham Lincoln’s death, he started to cry. It was terribly strange–after all, Lincoln died 150 years ago, Gore never met him, and gore is usually quite quick with a quip, and slightly snippy, usually, about heterosexual relationships, even, say, Abe and Mary Todd’s. Honestly though, tears came to his eyes and he was all choked up and sniffly. Isn’t it wonderful? A man you never met can have an effect on you through his words and deeds even when those words and deeds are wispy and far away, and even when you are witty and smart and sarcastic.

I imagine that Gore, being Gore, cries less about his family than he does about Abraham Lincoln. I know that Abraham Lincoln cried more about the deaths of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson than he did about the death of his father. Gore Vidal said so. Although to be fair, he cried less about all three than he did about his son Willy who died, broke his heart, and how long did he come out to the crypt and open it up to visit him and look at his son’s pale face?

I don’t know how Abraham Lincoln felt about Willy, but I think I know how he felt about Washington and Jefferson, even though I know less about them, and even though I am not Abraham Lincoln. Just recently, for example, I began to read a biography of Europe’s greatest creators. It’s called ‘The Creators’ by Daniel Boorstin and it is the capstone to one of the great careers in the history of American intellectual endeavor. What a delight to read of Homer, Cervantes, Gibbon, Rabelais, Shoenberg, Giotto and the rest, who include Mozart, Beethoven, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot and of course Boswell. They almost seem so real that you feel as though you can reach out and touch them if you want to. It’s an inspirational feeling! Suddenly I am squeezing Beethoven’s arm, and then I am winking at Rabelais, and the next thing I know I am giving Virginia Woolf a big smooch on the lips, which are pale and pouty looking.

T.S. Eliot, who I haven’t mentioned yet because he upsets me so much, I would simply have to punch. I would just have to and I would like to punch him once in the stomach and hear him say “ouch” and then once on his big schnoz. “That’s what you get for thinking you’re so smart and witty and European!” I would say. Why, with this book alone I can think of ten people who were smarter–I don’t even have to name them, it is so obvious. And I can think of twenty people who are more European, starting with James Joyce and ending with Pablo Picasso. I think that acting like you’re European when you are really from St. Louis (not St. Louis, France, either) deserves an additional kick in the butt, or, as the British Europeans would say, “bum.” And once you have done that, you have to say, “You think you’re so big and smart and European but you’re really not those two things and you’re actually one of us!”

Somehow, though, even with two punches and one kick I still didn’t feel any better.

When I first thought of doing this, I was sure that it would be a very soul-satisfying experience. Maybe it would be, normally, but it wasn’t now.

Maybe it was thinking about Gore Vidal, who seemed so invincible and now is crying.

Or Constanz, when Mozart died, so alone. He was so young.

Or maybe I am still thinking about Willy Lincoln, gasping for breath.

Or maybe, just maybe, kissing Virginia Woolf wasn’t such a great idea.

all artwork, including monsters but not old timey photographs,
® mr. crispy flotilla, 2007