12/01/1989: abolish the damned thing

"Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, along with [Elizabeth] Hardwick, [William] Gaddis, [James] Merrill, [Helen] Frankenthaler. The solemnity of it all in that vast, empty assembly room, especially laughable when the big discussion came up whether or not to abolish the damned thing. [Ralph] Ellison piped up, no, he believed in hierarchy."

~~ from Alfred Kazin's Journals, Selected and Edited by Richard M. Cook

June 1, 1985

"An evening with the lost generation. . . Karl Shapiro, Alfred Kazin, Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, etc. . . .Now in their 70s, still smoking, hale and hearty sex lives. . . . Of course, some of us wear white on white shirts like Jewish dentists or brokers or nuclear engineers. . . . and some of us have had as many wives as Henry VIII, as many mistresses as Dracula or Jack Kennedy. Resolutely thin, carrying on as usual, determined not to sink like our fathers, but o my! how our social opinions reflect our top lofty incomes, and what excuses we do find (we who once had no trouble execrating everyone in power) for those in power."

~~ from Alfred Kazin's Journals, entry from June 1, 1985

May 29, 1933

"The world of today is at the crossroads--[t]he whole scheme of aimless capitalism and the last dregs of traditionalist nationalism are being seen more clearly in their death struggle."

~~ from Alfred Kazin's Journals, entry from May 29, 1933