MARSHA: Neither did I when I first said it.
EMILY: I think Fidel.
MARSHA: Fidel Castrated.
EMILY: Jack Ruby or Lee Oswald?
MARSHA: Lee Harvey.
EMILY: George Washington or Abraham Lincoln?
MARSHA: Are you kidding? George Washington with his teeth coming out every night and the wig coming off?
EMILY: Lyndon B. Johnson or Harry S. Truman?
MARSHA: Harry Truman.
EMILY: Barry Goldwater or Larry Rivers?
MARSHA: Barry or Larry? Larry.
EMILY: Bob Dylan or Bob Rauschenberg?
MARSHA: Rauschenberg. They have sort of the same face, in a way.
EMILY: Henry Geldzahler or Andy Warhol?
MARSHA: Henry Geldzahler. You?
EMILY: Henry, he’s sweet.
MARSHA: Sweet little porky, porky-pie.
EMILY: Robert Mitchum or Robert Creeley? You’d get more out of the experience with Creeley.
MARSHA: Yeah, but Robert Mitchum’s not stupid. I heard him on the radio. Wally Cox or Henry Geldzahler?
EMILY: I think I’d rather sleep with Henry than anyone. Henry’s a winner.
MARSHA: I got one. Sam Snead or Harry Truman?
EMILY: Well one’s a swinger.
MARSHA: So’s Harry, he shoots in the sixties.
EMILY: Harry Truman.
MARSHA: Ava Gardner or Eva Gabor?
EMILY: Ava Gardner. Eva Gabor or Zsa Zsa?
MARSHA: I think they’re the same person. John Lindsay or Bill Buckley?
EMILY: John Lindsay. You can’t help being influenced by ideology.
MARSHA: Vittorio DiSica or Vittorio Gassman?
EMILY: Gassman as he is in Italy, not here.
MARSHA: Allen Ginsberg or Gregory Corso?
EMILY: Allen.
MARSHA: Sonny Liston or Glenn Gould?
EMILY: Sonny Liston.
MARSHA: Hoagy Carmichael or Stokely Carmichael?
EMILY: Black power. Allen Funt or Bert Parks?
MARSHA: Allen Funt. He’s sort of cute, in his voyeuristic way. Harold Rosenberg or Clem Greenberg?
EMILY: Clem Greenberg.
MARSHA: Roy Lichtenstein or Claes Oldenburg?
EMILY: Roy. Paul Thek or Beni Montresor?
MARSHA: Beni.
EMILY: Really? Not me.
MARSHA: Susan Sontag or Marisol?
EMILY: Susan Sontag. Marisol would be too passive. Hubert Humphrey or Lyndon B. Johnson?
MARSHA: Hubert.
EMILY: Either way. H.H. either way or Lyndon B. either way. Okay, I got a great one. U Thant or the guy who plays Charlie Chan in the movies?
MARSHA: U. Morey Amsterdam or—
EMILY: Who?
MARSHA: Morey Amsterdam.
EMILY: Never heard of him. Bill de Kooning or Claes Oldenburg?
MARSHA: De Kooning. Oldenburg or — we need some new blood. Let’s think of some serious people. Marlon Brando or Paul Newman?
EMILY: Paulie. Miles Davis or Ornette Coleman?
MARSHA: Miles. Menotti or that guy Gino from last night?
EMILY: Menotti.
MARSHA: Yves St. Laurent or Leo?
EMILY: Steinberg?
MARSHA: No, Leo Castelli.
EMILY: Who was the first one?
MARSHA: I don’t remember. Who was it?
EMILY: Yves St. Laurent. Then it’s Leo Castelli, definitely. Paul Newman or Henry Geldzahler?
MARSHA: Henry! Yay!
EMILY: Zeke Sutherland or Michael Christy?
MARSHA: Are you serious? You know we can’t use people we’re involved with in real life.
EMILY: Right. Who aren’t we involved with? Bette Davis or Betty Grable?
MARSHA: I’m involved with Bette Davis, I think she looks like me. Norman Mailer or Philip Roth?
EMILY: I’ve never met Philip Roth.
MARSHA: It’s an interesting choice.
EMILY: Yeah. I’ve never met Philip Roth, but I think it would probably be Mailer.
MARSHA: It would. Jonas Mekas or Gregory Markopolous?
EMILY: Gregory Markopolous. He might make me a superstar.
MARSHA: John Chamberlain or Ivan Karp?
EMILY: John Chamberlain.
MARSHA: Edward Albee or Henry Geldzahler?
EMILY: Henry! Yay!
MARSHA: Hey, I got a whole new thing, the Beatles, Dionne Warwick, Leslie Gore, Gore Vidal, the whole rock n’ roll contingent.
EMILY: Okay, Ringo or Paul?
MARSHA: Paulie. Dionne Warwick or Leslie Gore?
EMILY: Dionne Warwick. Gore Vidal or McGeorge Bundy?
MARSHA: Oh, I’d much rather make it with McGeorge Bundy, just to be able to whisper the name McGeorge.
EMILY: Baby Jane Holzer or Tuesday Weld?
MARSHA: What ever happened to Baby Jane? Sinatra or Belmondo?
EMILY: Belmondo. Up to very recently it would have been Frank, but he’s gone just a little too far, the mafioso.
MARSHA: Yeah. Robert Trout or Walter Cronkite?
EMILY: Robert Trout. Cardinal Spellman or Menasha Skulnik?
MARSHA: That’s disgusting. I’m not going to answer.
EMILY: Bobby or Teddy?
MARSHA: I think Teddy.
EMILY: No, Bobby, definitely.
MARSHA: Which of your two brothers?
EMILY: David. Your father or Henry Geldzahler?
MARSHA: Henry! Yay!
EMILY: You know this game can push you into a whole new feeling about people.
MARSHA: You’re right — I can hardly wait until I see Henry again.
EMILY: Who else is around?
MARSHA: Hedda or Louella?
EMILY: Whichever is still alive.
MARSHA: Goebbels or Goering?
EMILY: The fat one.
MARSHA: Huntley or Brinkley?
EMILY: Brinkley.
MARSHA: Jules or Jim?
EMILY: Jim.
MARSHA: Funny, I thought you would have picked Jules.
10. EMILY AND MARSHA COMPARE CHILDHOOD TRAUMATA
MARSHA: I had this image all through my childhood that my mother was a saint. She never raised her voice, she never hit me, she was a complete goody-goody. One day I was standing on my canopied bed in the Bronx — my mother had made me a beautiful princess’s room and I had this very high bed with white ruffles on top. Now you know I was a model child — the only time I ever was bad was when I’d ask for glasses of water and sing and dance to avoid going to sleep and this one night I must have been particularly rambunctious. Finally my mother really got angry. She came in and said Marsha, you are a little stinker. Well! You can’t imagine what it meant for me to hear that vile obscenity come out of my mother’s pure mouth. It shot the whole image to hell. I started to cry and weep and scream. She tried to wiggle out of it by saying she just meant I smelled because I didn’t take a bath that night, and that stinker was a perfectly good English word — but I knew it wasn’t.
EMILY: She meant you were a bitch or a bastard, isn’t that what she meant?
MARSHA: Yeah, and I never got over it.
EMILY: No kidding. It’s interesting, but God almighty, it’s really not much in terms of traumas.
MARSHA: Sorry, that’s all I have to offer. It was a very big thing to me, believe it or not, because of this incorruptible image I had of her. She never raised her voice to my father, she was just this gentle, giving, loving, flowing indulgent mother with flesh like silk.
EMILY: I don’t remember my mother raising her voice either. Flesh like silk?
MARSHA: Satin, old-fashioned satin. Probably I’m remembering her nightgowns. But I used to get the creeps, her skin was so soft and smooth — like marble — I thought there was something wrong with her. She never shaved her legs, under her arms, she had no hair.
EMILY: Really? Sounds like a Chinese.
MARSHA: My grandfather is the same way.
EMILY: What about your sister? Does Rochelle have hair under her arms?
MARSHA: She’s hairy with eyebrows that grow all over. In fact when she was about six and getting a little fuzz, I used to constantly tell her how hairy she was.