Life with Bill, Part III
Revisiting William F. Buckley Jr.
Dear readers: This week marks the centennial of William F. Buckley Jr., born on November 24, 1925. On Sunday, I began a series, composed mainly of correspondence with WFB. Part I, here, opens with an introductory note. For Part II, go here.
Bob Bartley—Robert L. Bartley—died on December 10, 2003. He was the (great) editorial-page editor of the Wall Street Journal. On the 11th, Bill wrote me,
Oh, Jay—I will not want to do the obit on Bob Bartley. I did a speech about him a couple of years ago and I find it hard to do 2 takes on somebody.
I know exactly what he means.
***
December 28:
Have been really quite sick. Three days with fever. Absolute immobilization. Trust you enjoyed the music [some concert], the retelling of which will bring so much pleasure to so many.
Me:
Hate the idea of you sidelined and miserable. Anything I can do for you? Send you books, mags, CDs, jokes, porn, whatever?
Him:
Just stay as you are.
***
In late December, Bill sent me something that he had written to run in his Notes & Asides. (“My half-acre,” he once called that space in National Review, his magazine). He was slightly annoyed with me for not responding as fully as he had wanted.
Jay, you said only that you had received it, not that you had read it or approved its publication. Do you recommend running it intact or cutting the last bit??? Are you enthusiastic about running it? Or too offbeat?
(I can’t remember, at this remove, what the article was.) (“Offbeat” was one of his words, by the way. He once said to me—not wanting to go to his usual restaurant for lunch—“Let’s do something offbeat.”)
***
We planned a lunch for March 17 (2004). He wrote,
Okay, thanks. St. Pat’s Day, I note. We will have to be gaily orthodox.
(WFB was of Irish extraction, but it meant nothing to him, as far as I could tell.)
***
Some opera talk, at the beginning of April:
Jay, will there be another “Walküre” with Eaglen and Voigt? Would dearly love to go. I heard it in 1939. Majorie Lawrence, Melchior, Flagstad, Bodanzky ...
Holy-moly, what a lineup—a Wagnerian murderers’ row. (Bill would have been 13 or 14.)
***
On April 28, I commented on a recent column of his, saying that he had started and finished it particularly well. I went on to say that
starting and finishing are arguably the two most important things! (My grandmother, who was a piano teacher, always said that people remember how you began and how you ended.)
Replied Bill,
That’s so nice to hear and so TYPICAL of your grandmother!!!!
(He sort of knew them—both of them—through my quoting them so often.)
***
We were planning some weekend in June. He wanted to be sure I would return from a round of golf in time for dinner. (Bill did not play golf.) He further said,
Will you leave Sunday morning to golf, or will you be here for lunch? Other weekend guests are Schuyler Chapin and his wife, and (Saturday night dinner only) Happy Rockefeller.
Typical Buckley weekend.
***
On June 20, Bill wrote,
It was grand spending a couple of private hours with you. I think the exchange of intimacies strengthens friendship, including our own. Sorry there was a screw-up later on. I felt very inhospitable when your soulmate didn’t show up!
Ah, I think I remember this. He was supposed to drive me back to the train station. But he was involved in something—probably writing—and he asked a member of the staff (household staff) to do it. But who cared! (He must have been concerned I did.)
***
July 19:
An Italian newspaper had published an article about Bill. In forwarding it, I said, “I give you the link in the hope/belief that your Spanish and French will allow you to read enough of the article, if you wish.”
He answered,
Thanks, don’t think I’ll struggle, but will send to an Italian lady who is dear to me.
(Not sure who that was.)
***
July 30:
Jay, BRILLIANT pensées at convention!!!!
That must have been the Democratic National Convention in Boston, which nominated John Kerry for president.
***
August 20 (when I was working at the Salzburg Festival):
Jay, what fine stuff you have been writing. But I miss you. Give me a buzz when you get back.
***
September 14:
What would you say to 12:15? N.Y. Yacht Club? What I would really like is if you had a restaurant you especially wanted to go to, in which case we’d go there. Advise. (I had a horrible feeling you were in Israel!!)
That was a little later, I think.
***
September 23:
Pat tells me she has a lovely letter from you. I told her you write the loveliest letters.
(He should have talked.)
***
September 27:
Stirring on “Otello”! [I must have reviewed that Verdi opera.] Hadn’t known that Toscanini rated it #1. [Arturo Toscanini was WFB’s boyhood hero.] Have been listening to “La forza del destino” [another Verdi opera]. God, it’s beautiful! [It is.]
***
October 2:
Jay, I must have missed it before, but in the new New Criterion book your essay on classical music is truly wonderful, compendious, fascinating. Also the anecdotes. I didn’t know you and Marilyn Horne were such buddies!! I miss you.
Ha, “buddies.” (It is enough merely to know her.) (The New Criterion book to which WFB referred is Lengthened Shadows: America and Its Institutions in the Twenty-first Century.)
***
On October 7, I said this to Bill, about his latest column: “And I so much like how you use the verb ‘train’ (how you do so generally, not just in this column).”
He answered,
Thanks, pal. Hope I can use the word again unselfconsciously!
Oops.
***
October 12 (I record this one only because it reflects WFB’s use of language):
I am ... sick. It may take a few days to fix me up.
“To fix me up”—very him.
Next day:
Jay, will keep you posted. It looks (for the short term) bad.
The parenthetical phrase was reassuring.
***
October 28:
Jay, your Mahler piece was lovely. How do you KNOW so many things????
This was a refrain of Bill’s: “How do you know so much?” The companion refrain was: “How do you write so much?” In both cases, the appropriate response was: “Look who’s talkin’.”
***
January 12, 2005:
What did I ever do in the years I didn’t know you!!
(He stumbled along okay.)
***
Later in the month, Johnny Carson died. I asked Bill whether he cared to do an obit. I further said, “Incidentally, I will be leaving for Davos tomorrow afternoon.”
He answered,
Jay, tell you what. Can you hold on [for receipt of an obit] until Tuesday? I am quite sick but have an uncancellable train trip tomorrow and perhaps could get it done. GLAD you will be at Davos to record any mischief.
Later (and verbatim):
jay, can I fuss with that? i ajm so exhausteed at this piojhnt i can’t thihnk well (you wsee how it hs affefdcted mkly typijg!)
***
January 31:
Every time I read you, I discover profounder depths of my ignorance, e.g., on Hoiby [the American composer Lee Hoiby]—knew nothing about him. Which reminds me: After yours on Andsnes [the Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes], I MUST hear him play!!!
***
March 17:
Jay, I miss you terribly. Am making slow but substantial progress. I just ordered via Amazon (to be sent to Stamford) Till Fellner’s “Well-Tempered.” Hope it’s good! Don’t tell me if it isn’t.
Critics can be such killjoys, true. (Till Fellner is an Austrian pianist, and Bill was referring to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, in two volumes, or “books.”)
***
On May 27, I wrote,
. . . went to Washington, where I attended a dinner in honor of Václav Havel (Czech embassy). Many heroic figures there ...
Bill:
Coincidence: Alistair Horne is here, and he was at a Havel dinner. Much disappointed by his refusal to use an interpreter.
I had also said, in a P.S., that I had just eaten at Blue Smoke, an excellent barbecue place in New York, where Bill and I had been not long before.
Wrote Bill:
And another coincidence: I took Pat to Blue Smoke and she threw up four times that afternoon!!!! Never wants to go near it again. We missed you!
Oh, geez.
Is that enough for today? Are you Buckley’d out? Or me’d out? Well, where WFB is concerned, a centennial is a singular event. See you tomorrow.
Never Buckley’d nor Nordlinger’d out. Great series.
More.