Plimpton

Just read that George Plimpton oral history bio George, Being George. Kept waiting for it to start, actually. All sorts of people interviewed, but the man himself is not really present. Maybe that's the point? Sort of Warhol-ian, almost, and someone actually gets close to making that point, he was just always there, observing, sometimes instigating...


One highlight was someone mentioning how he did the old-school prep thing of just having the same carpets, sweaters, what have you until they just fell apart, because that's what one has always had and that's the way it just is. I want to remember to Xerox this page and keep it in my glovebox for when some nosy nogoodnik tells me my car (260,000 miles) is a filthy mess. Yes, maybe it is, but it's supposed to be that way.


One reason I like Plimpton is an audiobook I have where he reads "The Jewels of the Cabots," by John Cheever, and his Porcellian Club lockjaw fits the classy prose like a kid glove. See, and just look at the frowsy sweater Cheever is wearing on the cover of the new bio of him (coming in March), each pill on it bearing out the "fall-apart" philosophy [though maybe I make too much of this]: