Linda Rosenkrantz - Talk

MARSHA: What was her name?

EMILY: No, maybe she called her Estelle. It was Wilma’s mother. Yes Estelle, yes she does. Oh. Oh, it’s Wilma’s doll. Oh, I see. No no no, I’ll tell her. That’s fine. Of course. Terrible. Yes I will. ’Bye. My mother told me that Wilma’s mother said Wilma wanted her doll back and she would return the trading cards. So my mother scolded me and sent me downstairs by myself with the doll in my arms and I waited for Wilma to come down. While I was waiting — I was out on the sidewalk looking for the bus — I forget if it was winter or spring or whatever the hell it was — I kept looking at the doll and looking at the post that held up the canopy, and at a certain point, I found myself bashing the head of the doll against the post. I started to stamp on the face, I completely destroyed the doll. I took the hair and I chewed it up.

MARSHA: Some story.

EMILY: Very sad story, isn’t it?

MARSHA: Yup.

EMILY: You should have seen what happened then. Wilma became hysterical, she called her mother, her mother called my mother, my mother came down and told them how terrible I was and everything else. Very sad story. I have so many sad childhood stories I could tell you.

EMILY: Look at Tim over there. Doesn’t he look Persian, with the dark glasses and the moustache and the towel on his head?

VINCENT: He wants to do a work of art with me. A major American work of art — that’s the only kind I do.

MARSHA: Yes, but he can’t paint, you know. Although he used to do fantastic trompe l’oeils .

EMILY: Fool the eyes.

VINCENT: Foulards? Oh, I used to do those too, and also paisleys.

MARSHA: What could you do together?

VINCENT: I could paint on one of his white sculptures. Why not? They’re both real life.

MARSHA: No, yours is real-life pornography, his is abstract.

VINCENT: Mine is the most pornographic art in New York.

EMILY: Yours is obscene, to quote Dr. Fass.

VINCENT: Yes, Nathan Fass, major American art critic, says Vincent Miano’s work is obscene.

EMILY: And Emily Benson, major-major American art critic, says that’s not what it’s about at all. It’s about a juxtaposition of images, which arouses upsetting anxieties.

VINCENT: I want that piped into subway johns all over New York.

MARSHA: Subway johns, that’s where Tim said Clem hangs out. And funeral parlors. You know Clem told him he’s a necrophiliac?

VINCENT: He’s a negrophiliac? Clem makes love to Negroes?

MARSHA: No. They were talking about subway johns.

EMILY: That’s not negrophilia, that’s subwayphilia.

MARSHA: That’s metrophilia.

VINCENT: Feelyaphilia.

EMILY: Fellatiophilia. Did you hear what I said? Fellatiophilia.

VINCENT: What ever happened to plain old Ophelia?

MARSHA: He also makes it with many spades.

VINCENT: Well now that is perverse. I tried it once with a hoe, but never a spade.

EMILY: Look at Diana working with her needlework over there.

VINCENT: That family unit, it’s just like Coney Island.

EMILY: She’s sewing a cock cover.

MARSHA: A what?

EMILY: A cock cover.

VINCENT: He needs it. You know coming in contact with the art world again brings out all my anxieties and everything, it’s just fantastic. Tim is the art world, you know. Emily, how does that guy get such a tight body?

EMILY: It’s because he’s tight spiritually. You know it’s very interesting that Emil never comes over and says hello to anyone.

MARSHA: Yeah.

EMILY: Why do people always expect us to do the going over and saying hello? I’m sorry.

VINCENT: We’ll wave to them when we leave.

MARSHA: You know Tim said this collector said that Oliver Haupt thinks he’s the hottest young sculptor in town.

VINCENT: Really?

MARSHA: I think he should try to get a show with Oliver Haupt.

VINCENT: My doctor told me I could get dandruff on my penis.

EMILY: From what?

VINCENT: I have dandruff in my hair, I can get it on my eyebrows, on my chest, under my arms.

MARSHA: Come on, what about Oliver Haupt? Do you think Tim should go to him and be honest and say he’s looking for a new gallery?

VINCENT: I think he definitely should. It might be good for Zinner to know he’s thinking of leaving. The thing is, there are just a handful of galleries that would pay him a monthly salary.

MARSHA: Yeah, and he owes Zinner money too.

VINCENT: He does?

MARSHA: He owes them four thousand dollars. At least.

VINCENT: He should marry a rich girl. He should marry your father.

MARSHA: He could tell Oliver Haupt he’ll go with him if he pays off his debts.

EMILY: Or tell Zinner he has some hot information worth four thousand dollars. Like he’ll tell the world Dolph Zinner is queer. By the way, Vinnie, I found out in this book that masturbation is completely homosexual.

VINCENT: Masturbation is no good. I don’t do it anymore.

EMILY: Don’t be ridiculous, darling, it can be very important. It prevents social crime, because a criminal lives out a fantasy life when he masturbates. With the risk of unsettling you a little bit, Marsha, I’m going to lean my head on your leg.

MARSHA: Vinnie, she’s threatening me.

VINCENT: Marshie, you’re getting an erection.

EMILY: She’s been masturbating too much.

VINCENT: Or not enough.

EMILY: Vinnie, you have beautiful hands.

VINCENT: Thank you, and you have a beautiful face. You know, I can get away with all sorts of physical things with women.

EMILY: Vinnie, I do not like erotic behavior on the beach.

VINCENT: Why? It’s a good answer for social crime. It all depends how you do it. Style is everything. That’s why most actors are lousy, because they’re not intelligent. I was telling Emmy that before. I told her she’s got everything: she’s got looks, talent, she’s got that special something to make her the intimate star of the theatre.

MARSHA: I don’t think she wants to be a star.

VINCENT: She doesn’t. She doesn’t even want to be in the theatre. You know what she wants? She wants when she’s out here in three years to come on this beach and for everyone to know who she is.

EMILY: I’ve always had that need.

VINCENT: I have it too.

MARSHA: I would love to be famous.

VINCENT: I want to go to the laundromat, come out with my bag, and have all the people waiting for the bus in front of it know who I am.

MARSHA: Famous artists don’t become that much of a star.

EMILY: Famous actors do.

VINCENT: Andy Warhol is.

MARSHA: What about writers?

EMILY: Rona Jaffe, people don’t know her.

VINCENT: Mary McCarthy they do.

MARSHA: No, not on the street.

VINCENT: Susan Sontag’s gotten pretty famous. But I don’t want just anyone to know me, I don’t want to be like an Andy Griffith or an Andy Williams.

MARSHA: I do.

EMILY: Can’t we be serious for a minute? Can’t we all interpret the meaning of something? Like what does it mean that this beach ball is between my legs? Beyond the obvious, what do you think it means, Vinnie?

VINCENT: I think it means that it’s a boring idea. What do you think it means?

MARSHA: That she’s trying to simulate one of Tim’s sculptures.

VINCENT: Okay, what does it mean what Marsha thinks it means?

EMILY: That I’m trying to make one of his sculptures?

VINCENT: Simulate does not mean make. Simulate means to get along with all groups.

EMILY: My analyst says that I interpersonally relate quite well.

VINCENT: Let’s try not to talk about you for thirty seconds and see if we can survive.