Rad Geek People's Daily

I will probably be preparing some kind of pseudo-comprehensive round-up of Andrea Dworkin memorials toward the end of the week when I have the time and the energy to collect myself and put the links together in one place. For the time being, I just want to mention two fantastic remembrances, from One Good Thing (2005-04-12) and Sappho’s Breathing (2005-04-13).

This is from Letters from a War Zone, a collection of Andrea’s essays, articles, and speeches, 1976 – 1989. The Nervous Interview was originally written in 1978.

In 1978 I wrote a whole bunch of short articles. I desperately needed money and wanted to be able to publish them for money. Of these articles, Nervous Interview is probably the most obscure in its concerns and certainly in its form and yet it was the only one that was published at all, not for money. Norman Mailer managed to publish lots of interviews with himself, none of which made much sense, all of which were taken seriously by literati of various stripes. So this is half parody of him and his chosen form and half parody of myself and my chosen movement.

…

Q: Can I ask you about your personal life?
A: No.

Q: If the personal is political, as feminists say, why aren’t you more willing to talk about your personal life?
A: Because a personal life can only be had in privacy. Once strangers intrude into it, it isn’t personal anymore. It takes on the quality of a public drama. People follow it as if they were watching a play. You are the product, they are the consumers. Every single friendship and event takes on a quality of display. You have to think about the consequences of not just your acts vis-?@ef;bf;½-vis other individuals but in terms of media, millions of strange observers. I find it very ugly. I think that the press far exceeds its authentic right to know in pursuing the private lives of individuals, especially people like myself, who are neither public employees nor performers. And if one has to be always aware of public consequences of private acts, it’s very hard to be either spontaneous or honest with other people.

Q: If you could sleep with anyone in history, who would it be?
A: That’s easy. George Sand.

Q: She was pretty involved with men.
A: I would have saved her from all that.

Q: Is there any man, I mean, there must be at least one.
A: Well, ok, yes. Ugh. Rimbaud. Disaster. In the old tradition, Glorious Disaster.

Q: That seems to give some credence to the rumor that you are particularly involved with gay men.
A: It should give credence to the rumor that I am particularly involved with dead artists.