There are several things concerning the Rorem diaries that I want to mention. Perhaps they’re of interest to me alone, but nevertheless, I want to write them down.

In 1970 Rorem writes about caustic references to "fags" on the same page of the Village Voice as a compassionate report of a "Gay-In," whatever that was. He also writes about reading comments of distaste regarding Andre Gide’s "buggery," and he sets the record straight, which I enjoyed. "For the record, those who would know maintain that Gide was not at all impelled to the act of buggery. His sexuality, when not simply vicarious, was no more 'responsible' or 'sophisticated' than anonymous masturbation of little boys in darkened movie theaters. Mauriac... publicly lamented his colleague's wicked ways. During the war an anecdote circulated about Gide's making love with an Algerian youth. Gide tells the boy, 'You've just slept with France's greatest author.' 'Yeah? What's your name?' 'Francois Mauriac.'"

Writing further about the Gay-In, Rorem says that gays remain the last group subject to derision... from all classes, including presumably tolerant intellectuals, noting a "beaming reference by Norman Mailer, on the Dick Cavett show, to Sade as a faggot," which got a "nervous laugh—nervous only because people wonder who Sade is." lol I wonder too. Well, we should not be surprised at derisive comments from Mailer.

At a dinner with Gore Vidal in Italy Rorem recalls how excited Vidal was that he'd seen Sartre in town that very day. Vidal observed Sartre waiting patiently in line at the bank for an hour. Vidal seems to be a talker, and Rorem noted, "We are silenced only by those we admire..." He goes on, "Gore is American in seeing greatness as an aspiration rather than as a fait accompli..., but he's French in that small talk becomes big, nothing's unimportant, there's little letup, guests must all be alert." God, just reading about it makes me sleepy. I haven't the energy for it.

Rorem writes on a few occasions in the first few years of the 1970s about the women's liberation movement, and all the attendant ideology. "Cunt is no more insulting for a woman than Prick for a man. What about man-as-object? [This has been my point for years—person-as-object is the essence of lust, and so no more harmful than our own innate desires.] To homosexuals rough-trade is an object though his role is hardly passive: he does the work, ramming the twitching lips, and is paid off without a word … But who's to prove he's a 'thing' without knowing what goes on behind the scenes of all concerned? That 'passive' homosexual deals the cards, purchases the merchandise (I command you to dominate me!), writes the sonnet, ends up literarily if not literally on top. Yet the trade, when he murders his client, does so for having been sucked off or sucked into, verbs indicating passivity. Meanwhile, everyone knows that some snatches have snapping teeth while others, like blotters or quicksand, are capable of absorbing whole human bodies. That aggressive cramp a twat inflicts might kill a man, and Wagner's not the only one to have died in flagrante." I'm not sure what he's referring to with the Wagner mention, but I like Rorem's use of the gay perspective to comment on, and to cast doubt upon, the prevailing dogma of the women's lib movement of the time. Do gay men stand in a better position to comment on women's issues than heterosexual men? I tend to think so, though I'm certain the keepers of the faith have by now absorbed and neutralized gay men into their overall ideology. I think Rorem can't decide whether to dislike Mailer for his hostility towards gays or embrace him for his confrontation of dogmatic women's libbers. At one point he says of Mailer: "...I found him quite cute. Mailer: speaks before he thinks and writes it down afterward." Lol On the same page Rorem uses the term "bull dyke"—one of my current favorites, though I was under the impression that it had only in the last few years entered common parlance. Not so.

In June of 1971 Rorem named a few new friends he'd recently made, among them a Robert Lucid, this during some discussion of Mailer. I'm certain this Robert Lucid is the same Robert Lucid who was the master of Hill House when I was at Penn living in that dorm my freshman year. Lucid was a professor of English at Penn, and a friend of Mailer. When I was living in Hill House, Lucid, as master of the house, brought Mailer to stay in the dorm for a few days. I met Mailer there and served him dinner. So this is my three degrees of separation from Rorem. Dan – Lucid – Rorem.

Also in 1971 Rorem met Anais Nin at a book signing. Rorem went to Gotham Book Mart at which Nin was signing books. Rorem got her to sign her newest diary. He doesn't seem to think much of her, though. They are both renowned diarists. It seemed noteworthy

Here's a funny simile from Rorem: "twinkling like crab lice in a massive black vagina."

Who does Rorem admire? Actually, more than you might imagine. He seems to have a good dose of vulnerability and doubt about his own value, and to harbor a (suppressed, to advance his own stature, it seems—reasonable) healthy admiration for many of the greats. He mentions meeting Messiaen in 1972, and writes, "I'm intimidated for the first time in years." That's nice, and he's right to be intimidated. He of course writes respectfully of Stravinsky. How can one not? He defends Cocteau with genuine affection and respect. And he says that Bach was the greatest composer to ever walk the planet. He's right again.

The term "flaming faggot," Rorem writes, "originates from the auto da fe which could produce flames foul enough to consume a witch only by tying homosexuals into bundles of kindling." It seems like something spun by zealously defensive gays.

It's funny that Rorem writes at one point about how he values the artifacts of correspondence he's had with certain luminaries, just as I value my things of David Diamond. "Letters from geniuses scribbled or maltyped n'importe comment, I value as things, as microscopes focused on my being, like those ten or twelve Cocteau (now irremediably glued in yellowing scrapbooks rather than singly breathing between cool museum folders) or the one from Gide, Gide who knew Wilde who knew Victoria who could have known Schubert..."

Here's a little bit on aging, applicable to me as well. Rorem had dinner with a few old friends he hadn't seen in years. "They hadn't changed much, except for the cobweb masks worn by everyone over forty. Their build and physiognomy seemed the same as fifteen or twenty years ago. The same, with the urgent difference that although they spoke of sexuality they no longer exuded any. How locate this invisible switch? Like trees in late afternoon, identical to their morning selves but without the direct sunlight. Shadows flutter in the evening, waving at their real selves so recently lost. I am embarrassed. But not until later do I direct the embarrassment at myself, for I feel so physically good."

Rorem on the Last Tango (the Marlon Brando movie): "Now the guiding fantasy of Last Tango is a male-homosexual one. The obligatory anonymous encounter is far less germane to heterosexuality, even in brothels, than to men among themselves who mutely endow their partner—who just may be a ribbon clerk—with the attributes of a gladiator." Perhaps, but I for one certainly have little interest in gladiators.

Another interesting bit re David Diamond: "In the twenty-nine years of our up-and-down friendship I've received twice that number of letters from David; rereading them this morning made my very body reexperience the flux of temperature he continually underwent; but he was nothing if not committed. If he's difficult, am I less so?"

I got done nothing that I regard as productive tonight. I felt compelled to write down these little Rorem notables, and so now am free to ... move on to the earlier Paris and New York Diaries. Tomorrow I'll try to go through some junk and pack away some things. I have a long list of things I want to do. Rorem at one point wrote something like "Life has become a series of lists." For me too.