Linda Rosenkrantz - Talk

EMILY: Yeah, you’re fantastically critical. And the sun’s really playing games.

MARSHA: Can I borrow your sunglasses?

EMILY: Yeah, but I’m going to take them off pretty soon.

MARSHA: I’ll wear them while you have them on.

EMILY: You want me to tell you what I think about the superego thing?

MARSHA: I thought we weren’t getting into that shit anymore, but we’ll get into it.

EMILY: No, not on a depth level. First of all, your being so critical has to do with anger and disappointment. It’s almost as if you’re making some kind of moral judgment, because the degree to which you get involved is completely out of proportion to reality.

MARSHA: I am very moral, I’m scared to do anything wrong.

EMILY: That’s not moral, that’s scared.

MARSHA: Maybe most morality is based on fear.

EMILY: Most morality, like puritanism and stuff like that is based on tightness and fear, sure. And anxiety.

MARSHA: I’m afraid to lie, afraid they’ll find out.

EMILY: You do lie though, don’t you?

MARSHA: Very rarely.

EMILY: You see, this all goes together with the superego stuff. You don’t lie, you don’t steal, because you’re afraid to be caught. You have this big censor thing, like irresolute judge, judger, judgment.

MARSHA: I don’t think it’s a good idea to steal.

EMILY: It’s a very bad idea.

MARSHA: But you’re criticizing me, you say I’m not free enough to steal.

EMILY: No I’m not. I’m saying it goes together with your other superego things.

MARSHA: Do you have a pimple here that you picked?

EMILY: No, I must have scratched it in my sleep — I don’t pick my pimples. I’m not saying you should steal, Marsha. I don’t think stealing and lying are good, but I think they’re bad for the right reasons, not because of being afraid. Joan steals.

MARSHA: So do you.

EMILY: Not anymore.

MARSHA: You did, you stole from Bloomingdale’s.

EMILY: Macy’s. I certainly did. But it’s very bad to steal because of how it makes you feel. If you were a man, what kind of bathing suit would you wear?

MARSHA: Depends on my body.

EMILY: I think Emil Reinhardt wears the right kind. I don’t like those short things with the jock straps underneath, I think they’re disgusting. Who’s got the nicest body here?

MARSHA: Who cares?

EMILY: I’m curious to see what Nathan Fass looks like in a bathing suit. He says he can’t keep the women off him.

MARSHA: He’s got a tight body.

EMILY: Yeah, he must do very well on this beach; he’s the only man available.

MARSHA: Here comes your boyfriend, Emil, without Diana. Talk to me, quick, so it isn’t so obvious that I’m staring at him. He’s ignoring us and walking over there.

EMILY: How do you know he saw you? Chances are he didn’t, he doesn’t see that well. Hey, where are all these people running? It’s beautiful, isn’t it, all the people running?

MARSHA: I just figured out what’s making the spray — the ocean.

EMILY: I know, it’s spraying our freshly shampooed, freshly non-set hair. They’re all running — it must be a sea animal.

MARSHA: Shark. Now they’re coming back and grabbing their children.

EMILY: They’re all shadows, everybody running. Do you think it’s a whale?

MARSHA: Shark. I love the sunshine that’s not here.

EMILY: It’s terrific. Ma vie que continue . You know this dream I had last night was really weird. Some incredibly rich guy asked me to marry him and I realized after about maybe fifteen minutes that that was exactly what I was going to do, and I was going to do it in direct relation to the rejection I had just gotten from Michael Christy. Then I thought about the things I was going to do for my mother, I was going to buy her things, take care of her. Where’s that fucking Nazi?

MARSHA: Who?

EMILY: Reinhardt, with his towel and everything. He’s looking around, I don’t know if he sees us. You know why I’m really on the beach, the main reason? Therapy for my cold.

MARSHA: Bullshit, the same sun is in back of my house.

EMILY: Completely different sun; this is white sun. Meanwhile the kids have just ruined the whole Emil Reinhardt setup. I can’t see thing one.

MARSHA: Shall we take a little stroll around?

EMILY: Around every which where?

MARSHA: Yeah, down to the water.

EMILY: He could really see me now if he had normal eyes and if the kids weren’t blocking his total view. If he was Clark Kent with X-ray vision, he could see me. Oh, there’s a woman who looks just like Mike Christy. See, with the pink robe and the big sunglasses?

MARSHA: Hey, I don’t blame you for liking this guy, the guy with the nose.

EMILY: Yeah, he’s great, isn’t he? One of the nicest guys on the beach.

MARSHA: If not the .

EMILY: He’s not too hairy, he’s not too old. The new ideal man: he shouldn’t be completely bald, he shouldn’t have to wear glasses all the time, he shouldn’t be too tired after dinner, he shouldn’t lose too many jobs inside of a year, shouldn’t smoke more than six packs of cigarettes a day, shouldn’t forget your name more than every now and then, shouldn’t be too queer. Shouldn’t have too many alcoholic binges, too many crying jags.

MARSHA: Shouldn’t have too much possessive resistance.

EMILY: Too many pairs of the same tassel loafers, too many La Costa shirts.

MARSHA: What’s that?

EMILY: Those tennis shirts with the alligators on them. Shouldn’t have too many friends named Shep, Myron,

MARSHA: Armand. He shouldn’t wear white socks with his tassel loafers.

EMILY: He shouldn’t smoke pot all day and sleep until five in the afternoon. You know I’d really like to talk about love for a second, Marshie, because I’ve said a lot of very twenty-nine-year-old drunken things this summer. But I can say right now that I don’t want any more married men and I don’t want any weak men and I don’t want any men that I’ve ever known before. I think I’m just about ready to find someone who’s healthy enough to take the chance of getting married to me.

MARSHA: Amen.

MARSHA: I’m beginning to think that everything in my life happens offstage, it’s all reverberations and echoes and filters, and that’s exactly what my book is too. Essence is always avoided.

VINCENT: Yes, but that isn’t a defect of the book. If anything, that’s what’s beautiful about it. I think all great art comes from people’s inabilities to do what they want to do, and your book is completely organic to what you are, it’s a very dependent book on other personalities, on the people close to you.

MARSHA: Right.

VINCENT: It’s a very passive book on your part, and yet it’s very positive, just as you are positive but passive. This book is completely you. We all laughed while you sat on the beach knitting while Emmy and I taped your book — you do lie back and let people do things for you. And I’m not saying this to knock you, I’m saying that because you are this way, and because you’re also a writer and a creative spirit, you’re making something new and valid out of your own defect, which is what all great art does. Do you think the Beatles know how to drive a car?

MARSHA: Sure.

VINCENT: They must have learned before they got famous, don’t you think? They wouldn’t have had time since. You know I’ve really gotten cool on Clem. And it’s not because I’m hurt or anything either, I’ve just begun to find him unattractive as a person. Isn’t that awful?

MARSHA: Why is it awful? The same thing happened to me — you won’t think it’s the same — but it happened to me very suddenly with Eliot Simon. For all the years after I stopped seeing him, my feelings were still colored by an emotional residue, but then finally I was able to see him for what he was — not a particularly good or exceptional or even interesting person.