The Newspaper of The Literary Arts BOOKPRESS Volume 3, Number 2 March, 1993 Ithaca, New York COMPLIMENTARY The Voice of the Serpent Lori Burlingame in a communal culture like the emony intensified the interest in I met with Silko, who graciously results from commercialization of Pueblo culture, because that’s how Silko’s earlier short stories, “Yel­ consented to be interviewed, even the artist, Silko pointed out that ‘“a it operates in everyday life... that’s low Woman," ‘Tony’s Story," and though she was at the tail end of a lot of the marketing ploys in recent On January 22, Writers & what's found in the oral tradition.’’ “Lullaby," which years have started Books, a literary center Uiat operates In an interview with Silko in The are included in her to push the per­ in Rochester, NY, launched its Amicus Journal, Gina Maranto 1981 collection son, the maker of “Contemporary American Voices" wrote, “The Pueblo people measure Storyteller. Her the art, rather than series with a reading by Leslie wealth not in material but in epis­ other published die art itself." She Marmon Silko from her 1991 novel temological terms: to them, the works include feels that this is Almanac of the Dead and her current truly poor person is one who knows Laguna Woman: dangerous be­ work-in-progress Sacred Water. no tales. Tales embody the vital Poems (1974) and cause “it confuses Sdko, bom in 1948 in Albuquerque force of the tribe and possess power With the Delicacy die artist with the of mixed Laguna Pueblo, Mexican to shape die future." and Strength of work. They’re and Caucasian ancestry, grew up chi With the publication of her 1977 Lice (with James really separate; at the Laguna Pueblo Reservation, and novel Ceremony, Silko was her­ Wright in 1985). least they always her work is an extension of llie alded by Prank McShane of The New Among the an­ have been. Al­ Laguna Pueblo oral narrative tradi­ York Times Book Review as “the thologies that manac reflects the tion “Stories," she says “are central most accomplished Indian writer of feature Silko’s culture, what was to die way one's identity is formed her generation,” and widi N. Scott poems and stories happening around Momaday, Simon Ortiz, and James are The Man to me. I was like a Welch, she is among the best-known Send Rainclouds sponge. Indi­ » I N S I D E i- contemporary Native American (1974) and The vidual artists very writers, hi Ceremony, Silko affirms Remember ed seldom are aware Laui West Memoir the Pealing powers latent in the Earth (1978). of all the'Ytoees Rooms in College interconnectedness between the Her honors where liieir input' natural world and die story; Tayo, and awards in­ comes from, so page 8 her mixed-blood protagonist, re­ clude a grant from that the work of A Bite o f the A pple covers from die alienation and loss the National En­ any artist or writer of identity which result from his dowment for the (iunilla Feigcnhaum Photograph: Robyn Stoutenburg is actually greater experiences in World War II by Arts (1974), a po­ page 3 than the indi­ being brought back into a harmoni­ etry award from Leslie Marmon Silko vidual; that’s why ous relationship with the earth and Nick Gillespie The Chicago Review (1974), a hectic book tour tor Almanac o f the readers, viewers, or listeners can through a ceremonial reawakening Pushcart Prize for poetry (1977), Dead, in her room at the Strathallan on TV Fans find so much in there, so many tilings to die creative power of the word. and a grant from the MacArthur Hotel in Rochester. Expressing con­ that transcend the individual's life. page 7 The critical acclaim of Cer­ Foundadon (1983). cern over the “personality cult” which see Serpent, page 6 Survival and Transcendence The Third Sex? Dharma Linn: A Biography of good you are, it helps to have a press whereas Schumacher put in eight Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing of television sitcoms, suspense Allen Ginsberg agent out ahead of you beating the years to produce this great while and Cultural Anxiety thrillers. Gothic novels, or beloved Michael Schumacher drums for all he's worth. Miles and shark. It is by orders of magnitude Maijorie Garber Broadway musicals. Not merely in St. Martin's, 765 pp„ $35.00 Schumacher and Ginsberg’s other the more thorough, with 53 pages Harper Collins, 443 pp., paper the “real life” appearances that porte paroles can be thought of as of footnotes to show for its $17.50 seemed to have multiplied on the Mark Shechner advance men for phase II of his scholarship. That’s the good news. streets near my home, in the booths career: posthumous fame. Ginsberg Ihe bad news is that Dharma Lion Susan Malka Choi of my favorite bar, at parties, on Is it dueling bios of Allen in fact is well positioned for phase II is one of the clumsiest books you planes, in the grocery store. This is Ginsberg we've got here? Even by virtue of what someone has called will ever read, and you have to The 'third" is that which questions not to say that transvestism as an dueling authorized bios? You'd “the Ginsberg cottage industry”—a wonder how someone with such a binary thinking and introduces crisis intentional activity has gained in think so, with Barry Miles's small army of assistants, secretaries, basic quarrel with the English — a crisis which is symptomatized by popularity. Nor does it seem that I Ginsberg: A Biography just three agents, clerks, bibliographers, language ever got attracted to poetry both the overestimation and the had in some way become more years old and now Michael transcribers, translators, lawyers, in the first place. How did St. underestimation of cross-dressing. perceptive to transvestite practices Schumacher's biography, Dharma accountants, investigators, and Martins’ copy editors sleep through But what is crucial here — and I can which had been until then invisible Lion, hitting the stores before the editors who can be found at his farm his calling an illegal smoke an “elicit hardly underscore this strongly tome. Duplicitous transvestites were presses have stopped humming from in Cherry Valley, New York, cigarette,” or descendants enough — is that the "third term ” is not revealed behind the guises of its predecessor. And both appear to working on various aspects of "ancestors,” or the prosecutor of not a term....The "third” is a mode of “ordinary people,” ordinary people have Ginsberg’s imprimatur. He Ginsberg’s poetry or journals or the Moscow Trials “Puchinski” (it articulation, a way of describing a were starting to look like encouraged both writers, who research or reputation. But then was Audrey Vyshinsky)? There is space of possibility. Three puts in “transvestites.” This reaction was worked more or less simultaneously, maybe the eagerness to publish his no end to these gaffes. To make question the idea o f one: o f identity, what Garber might call a crisis of and was generous to both with his life reflects nothing more than matters worse, Schumacher writes self-sufficiency, self-knowledge. categorization; its result being, in time and his archives. But then Ginsberg’s own gospel of nakedness, at times as though the scales had addition to a deep feeling of suspicion Ginsberg has always lent aid and his lifelong insistence that he has fallen from his eyes about five About halfway through Maijorie toward first impressions, my comfort to those who have devoted nothing to hide because nothing is minutes ago. Garber’s Vested Interests: Cross- uncertainty as to whether it was the themselves to carrying his word shameful and everything is, as he Not to worry: Ginsberg survives Dressing and Cultural Anxiety, I “ordinary person” or the Maybe that’s just Ginsberg’s hunger said in “Howl,” holy. the gaffes and the grammar. His began to feel the way I imagine Gaiber “transvestite” that demanded the for immortality, since in America A new biography was needed. life is too abundant to be obscured herself may have felt while she was ironic imprisonment of quotation immortality starts with publicity. Miles’s book, which weighed in at by bad writing. After all, Ginsberg writing the book. I saw cross-dressers marks. Literary immortality works like any 588 pages, took just five years to is one of the key literary figures of everywhere. Not only where they The argument Garber seeks to other hall of fame; no matter how write—a wink in biographer time— see Survival, page 10 appeared as the crucial plot element see Third Sex, page 2 page 2 the BOOKPRESS March, 1993 Letters to the Editor The Third Sex? Kahn Responds about these later—but my specific same thing: the way society saves is continued from page 1 Garber’s efforts to do away with this on the Economy proposal here is “we need to use by devoting a portion of its output to make throughout her tremendous emancipatory ideal by renaming it a taxation to encourage private investment in plant, equipment, in­ documentation of the transvestite in “mode of articulation.” To the Editor: investment...tax credits for real frastructure, technology, and Western culture is that the The problem of terminology will Since I know that Professor private investment, R&D, appren­ people—is central to the process of transvestite is not a “third term” or become more apparent after taking a Mahr would not intentionally ticeship and worker training economic growth. “third sex” but the mark of a crisis of look at the way Garber’s book is mischaracterize any argument of programs, and expanded employ­ • But for this.