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By James Poniewozik
Why Brill's Content is too good for this world
(12/15/98)

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________Out's LIQUID LUNCH, LOLITA VS. HUMBERT AND OTHER MARVELS OF MEDIA MADNESS | BY SUSAN LEHMAN

After a much publicized spat that included flying water glasses, Out magazine editor James Collard and writer Michelangelo Signorile parted ways in August. This month Signorile appears on the Advocate's masthead as editor at large. Signorile's first contribution to the magazine: an attack on Collard and Out.

The savaging surfaces in the course of Signorile's critique of the "postgay" and "ex-gay" movements. Predicated on a rejection of gay identity politics and the constellation of consumer habits associated with gay life, the postgay sensibility, in Signorile's view, offers an intellectually safe harbor for the politically complacent.

"In the case of Out magazine, it seemed that the play was to use postgay as a marketing tool," Signorile writes, "Any intellectual gimmick, however, needs a compelling leader, and from the start Collard just didn't seem to have it in him."

Collard is away on vacation and could not answer questions about this and related matters. An Out insider, however, said, "We were expecting this. James fired him. This is his way of getting back at James -- making it seem as if postgay were a marketing gimmick, something we made up to get publicity." Yes, says the Out source, it's true that Signorile ended an unpleasant lunch at the Blue Water Grill last summer by throwing his drinking water in Collard's face.

Signorile acknowledged "there was an exchange," but wouldn't comment on whether fluids were involved. "People will say whatever they will say. I have been charged with everything imaginable because of my writing," he says. "I'm not removed from my subject matter. I'm often in the center of it -- whether I'm writing about the party circuit or about issues of magazine wars."

- - Insta-impeachment reissue routes royalty rubles to Rehnquist's robes

Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who will preside over any impeachment trial that takes place in the Senate, wrote a little book called "Grand Inquest: The Historic Impeachment of Justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson." The book has been moldering away since 1992 and is now out of print. News of the House's historic decision, however, sparked a mad rush for the Rehnquist title.

An online out-of-print book locator service identified Green Apple Books, a San Francisco bookstore, as the only book purveyor in the nation with copies of the book. The store was promptly flooded with requests. "We got calls from Kennedy's office, someone from Tom Brokaw's office called and tried to impress us with that. We didn't care, though," says a Green Apple worker, "we didn't have the book." (The store's manager says Green Apple sold its sole copy months ago to an unidentified purchaser.)

William Morrow, Rehnquist's publisher, spent much of the last week consumed with fear: What if it re-released the book and then impeachment proceedings ground to a halt in the Senate? The publisher would be stuck with 100,000 doorjambs. In the end, the company decided to throw caution to the wind: On Jan. 15, Morrow will reissue "Grand Inquest" as a Quill Paperback.

- - Let the nymphet speak!

"It would have been a delicious case," Farrar Straus & Giroux president Robert W. Straus told the New York Times in November after his house announced it was canceling plans to publish "Lo's Diary," a retelling of Vladimir Nabokov's classic "Lolita" from the nymphet's point of view. (The book, written by Italian writer Pia Pera, has been published in Italy and six other countries.) Farrar, Straus' decision ended the lawsuit Nabokov's estate filed in response to what estate lawyers termed "esthetic and literary vampirism." The suit raised rich questions about ownership rights to literary characters -- questions that were put to rest when FSG pulled the plug. Enter Barney Rosset.

Rosset, the legendary publisher, founded Grove Press in 1951 and ran it until 1986, when he sold it to Ann and Gordon Getty and, in Rosset's words, "Grove went to hell." During Rosset's tenure, Grove published numerous erotic classics, including "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer." (As one of the leading postwar political and avant-garde publishers, Rosset's other authors included Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Jean-Paul Sartre, Eugene Ionesco and Samuel Beckett.) Now, Rosset says, he wants to publish Lo's diary. And he's ready to brave legal challenges from Dmitri Nabokov and the Nabokov estate.

"Am I willing to fight it out? The answer is yes," says Rosset, who has retained Leon Friedman, the lawyer who represented FSG in its aborted tussle over "Lo's Diary," and has notified the book's Italian publisher he's interested in publishing an American edition. "We'll see what happens," says Friedman.

- - Clinton impeached!

The New York Times headline announcing the news was the fourth biggest in the paper's history. The 64-point header was smaller than "Men Walk on the Moon," Nixon Resigns" and "Housing Points Down One Share," all of which ran in 86-point. (OK, just kidding about the housing head.) Here's an idea of how momentous the headline was: The Page One Times piece announcing Tina Brown's departure from the New Yorker, which ran on July 9, was just 26-point.

- - Undercovered stories of the year

Last week, Doctors Without Borders released a list of the top 10 under-reported stories of 1998. The international medical relief agency says that the media was too preoccupied with the presidential scandal to notice that nearly 3 million people faced famine in the Sudan, hundreds of civilians were mutilated in Sierra Leone and hundreds of thousands of people may be infected with sleeping sickness, a potentially fatal illness. Absorption with Monica Lewinsky and related matters doesn't account for the complete omissions in coverage, says Doctors spokeswoman Barbara Kancelbaum. "Over the past few years we've seen a real reduction in the amount of foreign coverage in newspapers and on TV as a result of declining budgets for foreign bureaus and travel and as a result of the false perception that the public is not concerned with foreign issues," says Kancelbaum, adding, "It's difficult for people to be concerned when they don't have regular and reliable information that helps them put international events into context."

God rest ye merry, Salon readers, and to all a good night.
SALON | Dec. 24, 1998

Susan Lehman's Media Circus appears column every Wednesday.