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PARTISAN REVIEW
was set for four. A candle flickered under the warm breath of the
tropical breeze. Marie had cooked the veal and Tennessee made the
turnips with his special sauce, a mixture of vinegar and tarragon.
When we are all at the table, it's an album cover picture.
"I know this is not the subject of a polite conversation,"
Tennessee said, but I have heard that women can reproduce inde–
pendently of men." "Oh, you mean, like chickens" The Lady
exclaimed with complete credulity as she served Tennessee's plate,
having carefully removed the dry chops. "I don't like the dry ones,"
he complained, "I can't eat the dry ones." "No, Tennessee, this is not
a dry one," the Lady said. "Good." The playwright continued ...
"that women can still biologically, produce independently of men,
but all the offspring will be female and that eventually the whole
world would be women." Having completed this prologue which is
a setup, a big soap bubble of fantasy, he leans back in his chair, his
eyes wet with laughter. The Lady, fingering a Greek Cross, said,
"But Tennessee, how is that possible?" "Somebody told me that," he
laughed, "but I don 't believe anything I hear anyway." I said,
"Tennessee, who told you that? Sounds like the Foul Mouthed
Gossiper." "What's that? Gossip?-Oh, yeah, yes! Gossip! Women's
Lib, perhaps?" he chuckled.
His regular speaking voice is sophisticated, European, South–
ern, relaxed, conversational tone, brilliantly phrased-danceable. It's
also his writing voice which he calls cadence.
In
this voice, sound
and meaning are holding hands like lovers, all of his serious
opinions are presented in this voice. On the second level chuckling
indicates improbability. Finally, to indicate the folly of life, he
throws his head back and roars.
"They had me address a Women's Lib Group-Women's Gay
Lib Alternative, whatever
that
means! There are many Lib groups,
you know, but this was a very rough group. A splinter group. They
seduced me into comir,g by writing a very beautiful letter and I
accepted. Bill Barnes, my agent, said, ''I'd better go with you." So, we
went. We were the only men admitted to this meeting, and they
looked like they were all trying to appear as
truck-drivers
("Sailors" I
added encouragingly, Tennessee cracking up on cue) and I was
trapped
but Billie sat near the door-so he could g!lt out, he he he! I
told them that neither sex is completely one sex, that we all have
vestigials of the other sex. Men have, you know, nipples, which are
no longer any use to them. And so, with the female, who has vestigial
counterparts of a male penis! What an awful uproar went up among
