Monk

Dick Cavett wrote a column about John Updike. It's a little funny to see the old guy take on the role of eulogist for all his friends passing away. The column was actually about both Updike and John Cheever. Cheever is one of those big names whose works I have managed to miss entirely somehow.

Cavett posted videos of an interview with both writers, and I was so enrapt watching them, as though trying to look at them as a model of what I aspire to be. Although I get a little giddy like a fangirl listening to them intellectualize over all things literary, it was a little depressing to see how far removed they are from anything I know or can be. And I wasn't even sure if I really wanted to be like these two old, very white, kinda gayish sounding men. But I do share their interest in the art of crafting an excellent sentence. In my case, it is to make reality more bite-size and to render it richer in meaning or humor, that one might get more out of life and be less overwhelmed by it.

And how silly I am to still be thinking in terms of what I want to be when I grow up!

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I don't suppose I have many Dick Cavett fans among my friends. I'm not such a fan that I even knew of the story of a guest that died on his show. Anyway, he tells that story today on his blog, and it is interesting and humanly perverse enough that I will share it.

( Cavett )

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“Cheney would have sent General Custer a congratulatory telegram.”

-- Dick Cavett

Great line. See, Cavett still has it. Even if he really is suffering from jet lag.

A little useful context. Just this week, in response to the British pulling out of Iraq, Vice President Cheney said this was another great sign of how well things are going in Iraq, and one doesn't bother to ask Cheney what does that say about our surge, as there really is no point in asking Cheney anything since we are only going to get Orwellian double-think bullshit anyway.

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Dick Cavett has a blog at the Times. I don't know if that will draw a lot of young people to lay down their cash for TimesSelect, but some of we older types appreciate the man's literary intelligence and gentle wit, and he is still going strong. I'll lay down his own handle on the God question:

I’m not an atheist exactly, but remain what you might call “suggestible.” (Is there a category of almost-atheist? A person who does not have the courage of his nonconvictions? I guess Woody Allen has, as so often, had the ultimate comic word on the subject. “You cannot prove the nonexistence of God; you just have to take it on faith.”)

(Source: Dick Cavett for The New York Times)

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