Reading in her obits about Hardwick's central role with the New York Review of Books gave me a gust of déjà vu. Oh, I remember the New York Review of Books -- it's something I subscribed to faithfully in the 1970s and '80s. I had to jog myself to recall that it's still being published. The NYRB is now a fringe periodical that I never see anywhere and hardly hear mentioned. When one of its articles ends up posted by chance online, my eyes cross at its dreary, archaic verbosity. What a small, incestuous world its readers and writers inhabit.
Of course, I could say that about the New Yorker too -- another publication I literally never see anywhere except in airports. I've never been a fan of the New Yorker (except for its cartoons) in any of its incarnations. All that precious, fussy, gassy prose. I listen to real American voices all day long -- on sports radio, political talk radio and 24-hour news. And ever since the birth of Salon in 1995, I've been a creature of the dynamic Web. Those people at the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books are living in an airless cultural void.
On to something far more exciting -- it's Pattie Brooks singing that disco classic, "After Dark," from the soundtrack of "Thank God It's Friday" (1978). What silky vocal lines and rapturous lyrics: "The moonlight, the music, and you ... The night has fallen, and the moon is shining near ... The music is you." Those thunderous, drilling, midpoint congas! That exquisite, soaring, farewell glissando with the silvery, tinkling chimes!
Now here's Pattie Brooks last year introducing a new remix of "After Dark." She looks fabulous -- showing a ton of leg and a veritable ripe-fruit basket of bosom and butt. Whew! But what's happened to the song? It's been given the standard current gay club treatment -- an impersonal, mechanistic pounding. All the lyricism, romance, attunement to nature, and artistic touch are gone. Are we hearing the baleful influence of crystal meth on the gay male world? An obsessive focus on hard partying and status display? Just asking.
Let's end with a bang. A Salon reader in Germany who signs himself Bougle Fragts sent this amazing video of Sandra Bernhard and Tom Jones on Bernhard's 1992 HBO special, "Sandra After Dark." (WARNING, as per Perez Hilton: If you are easily offended, then do not click here!)
Fragts says of the clip, "This is like when sex was provocative instead of being a given, and Bernhard still is. So much so, Tom Jones can't keep up and looks too slow." Bernhard's parodic, scantily clad, randy showgirl turn is a mind-boggling demonstration of sheer sassy athleticism.
I asked Sandra for permission to use the video here. (I've known her for years and interviewed her onstage this fall at the University of the Arts, where she was a smash success.) Giving her imprimatur, Sandra mused about "Sandra After Dark":
can you imagine that now? with all the dumbed down, crystal methed, paris hiltoned, britney speared, one note american idol deal or no dealed fucked up shrunken world view people wandering around in some prescription stupor
i want sexy upscale fun angie dickinson, burt bacharach martini whispering in red velvet banquetted steak houses burt reynolds in the centerfold of cosmopolitan magazine
oh i've got to slow down before i freak out!
Mega-dittos from me in Philadelphia!
Camille Paglia's column appears on the second Wednesday of each month. Every third column is devoted to reader letters. Please send questions for her next letters column to this mailbox. Your name and town will be published unless you request anonymity.
About the writer
Camille Paglia is the University Professor of Humanities and Media Studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Her most recent book is "Break, Blow, Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-Three of the World's Best Poems."
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