The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Israel, Vol. 9 (July – Aug. 2012)

Hi lee
How r u? I’m good! thank you for ssking!So…….
As much as you may dislike the parenteer and find it not to be to your taste, would you ever consider putting me in touch with a publicist or agent who could help me sell this as a book? The onion does a year-end/best of kind of thing, and this would be similar. Many people really do like the paper, do I think there is certainly a market for it. Any contact would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
James .

2:01pm
[After I sent her links to agencies that represent parenting books, to pass along to James:]
how good and smart you are  i will indeed send him those links and of course i was kidding about giving him your number  perfect albeit temporary solution.  lee

7/21/12, 6:56am
Fw: issue 8

If you feel like it ….this is issue 8 of The Parenteer. …this is as it came to me, before I cleaned it up …now you know why Dr. Pinky needed to intervene very aggressively. [See Vol. 6 of these emails for the great Dr. Pinky saga!] Just awful, no? But the four hundred a month is welcome. …I forwarded your leads to him (James). He knew that I coulda done more, but they served to shut him up…If this issue is typical, you’ll notice his obsession with womanly detritus –placentas, lactation, that sort of thing. Lee

10:19am
But he seems seriously retard-O, and with no word knowledge at all … he thinks language and literary sophistication are somehow extraneous…
his errors are errors of the illiterate. he writes “peoples’ ” and “irregardless” If I had to cast him it would be Aldo Ray —-you are too young and hetero-cultural to know who he was …you sound like you think he might have “something” …… I am not a good person. A little while ago, I was afeared that he might be discouraged. Not wanting him to close his shop (profitable to me), I made up a conversation I overheard in our elevator –a guy telling another guy how good and funny was The Parenteer. Made his day!

7/27/12, 9:40pm
no

jack it is boring!

7/28/12, 1:07pm
[After I asked if her message had referred to the Yankees/Red Sox game, which I hadn’t seen. Note: After her thievery, Lee was banned from the New York Public Library system.]
I too was gallivanting, but not apparently that successfully, I was home in time to watch the last of it…See how bad I am at keeping up? I didn’t realize the Socks (ha ha) weren’t doing very well…Was out with my friend/ lawyer. He wants to sue the New York libraries into letting me in again. But I might have first to get arrested for trespass.

7/28/12, 1:11pm
Changing times

Imagine today’s NY Times headline —APPLE OFFICIALS SAID TO CONSIDER STAKE IN TWITTER –being read even twenty years ago. And they couldn’t Google to find out more.

7/29/12, 6:59pm
[After Mitt Romney delivered a speech in Israel:]
Real name Mittski.

Now that Rodney, he’s a real jew!

8/2/12, 5:38pm
My Day

How are you? I am having a yearly dental checkup tomorrow. And a cleaning. I’m going to try to watch some Chekhov presently and care about the characters and their serfs (or is that “serves”?) Lee

6:05pm
[After I said I’d been watching the Summer Olympics. Her response references an extended, disturbing discussion of her book in since-deleted online comments of England’s Telegraph newspaper back in 2008.]
I was so hoping to get a response from you about those luridly anti-Semitic morsels I sent…I really care very little about the Olympics. I wouldn’t mind watching the tennis but I don’t know how one does that.

7:10pm
I probably didn’t explain it well. The only reason they stuck out for me –and I viewed them only recently, though they happened four years ago–is that the target kike was me. .
There must be similar hard-core site here in the gold ole USA. They don’t reflect much except the vileness that underpins even subtle Jew hatred…I loved reading this because I quite enjoy being flabbergasted. Of course the description of the values and lifestyle fits the Mitt like a glove.

8/4/12, 9:43am
[After I provided more tennis-watching info:]
Thanks, Jack. I may not be able to watch today’s. Writing a letter to Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer winning bio, lately Cleopatra. I’m not a big fan of that one. It’s a little too arch –as not in shoes. .But she loves my work. , and I want her to help me get back into the library…You’re a doll. (signed) The Kike. (spell check didn’t correct; means they acknowledge the word)

11:00am
Apropos of nothing. I think I’m becoming an old Jew, because I just bought a coffee cake. Lee

8/5/12, 3:57pm
[After a Yankees game in which Mariners pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma faced his old teammate Ichiro Suzuki:]
broadcasting

Ichiro this. Ichiro that. How wearisome!

8/7/12, 5:08pm
New York Story

A charming , REAL New York story. I am played by Roseanne Barr.
I was at the post office this morning, mailing two small packages. They have bulletproof windows that have to be opened and then closed again laboriously when a package is weighed. I didn’t know when to close the window –to weigh the items together or separately. The clerk is in his cage and I could hardly hear his talk. And it went back and forth and he’s losing his patience and beginning to foam at the mouth (as they are wont to do in their cages) And he was gesticulating frantically.And saying the same thing over and over again. I said to him,”Stop talking to me like I am a goddamned idiot.”
And he told me to get away from his window and go to the end of the line for my vulgarity. I went to his supervisor to complain and she is such as to make Patsy Kelly look like Grace. She agreed that goddamn was a vulgar word. Our discourse ended –during which I pointed out each of her double negatives –and I went back to his window; he was serving another customer. Now you can’t whisper if you want to be heard..so I did not whisper. And I said, “Damn is not vulgar. Do you want to hear vulgar? Here’s vulgar, GO FUCK YOURSELF! .That’s vulgar.”.

6:47pm
Did you know Patsy’s work? I met her when I was doing the Bankhead book. Tallulah took her in when she was broke and park-benched..and Patsy had funny stories to tell about Tallu. Trying to explain her laziness, Patsy said, “Tallulah dropped an egg and stepped aside.”
Looking forward to Thursday. Leigh

8/11/12, 2:59pm
JACK Afraid there is an “episode” in my near future. Remember the New York Story, detailing problem that morning with the post office?. Well, the two small packages I thought I had mailed came back to me, each marked “no postage.” Well, I have a receipt saying I was charged for the two packages, the address to which I tried to send, etc. Go fuck yourself apparently had a “colleague” reach into the bag, take out the packages, etc. I think I have to write a letter. I think the federal mails have been compromised. I will air my complaint and ask for action, or at the very least, a refund. The letter will be signed Lee Israel and not Dr. Pussy (or whatever the name) and will be registered (at the post office).. I was hoping I wouldn’t find the receipt, but now I am compelled to act.Lee

7:21pm
The package should have been stamped. There is no evidence of that stamp.Perhaps she didn’t stamp it in the first place. She was stationed only two stations to the left of this guy. And she was very cold to me. So maybe, he alerted her. The point is I have the packages in tact, with evidence that I was charged, and lead to believe that they were merrily on their respective ways. Each was weighed before the receipt was handed to me/ But I will mention the back story. This guy had precipitated the frst “goddamn” by being very very rude to me. “No postage,” same handwriting, is stamped on each package.I can’t think of any other scenario. They said, “Let’s get this bitch.” And tried. The only other scenario:. She made a simple clerical error. Didn’t stamp. Put them in her basket. Filled out the receipt? I don’t think so…Lee

8/12/12, 1:21pm
[After I strongly suggested that, in dealing with the post office, she downplay the backstory:]
There’s no law about cursing that I know of. But I did think about what you say now last night. And I think you’re right. .I thought about telling the story up to go fuck yourself. But nothing changes or justifies their monkeying with the mail. That is a fairly serious infraction. And I think I have strong evidence. I’m gonna go with everything but go fuck yourself. Good thinking, Jack. And ..go fuck yourself! Lee

8/26/12, 10:47am
Tear down this wall, New York Public Libraries

Jack and Jill…How are you surviving this heat? Yes, I Know. I’m talking about the presidential campaigns and the convention of feudal lords scheduled for Florida on the morrow..I’ve told you that I am writing to several notable “‘fans” asking their help in persuading the library to let me back in. Tear down this wall, Libby Librarian! Byron Dobell, a most distinguished editor- ex of Esquire, back when it was really something-, has just emailed the bitch-in-charge asking for my readmission. I’ve reason to believe that Stacy Schiff, who won a Pulitzer and recently published that bio of Cleopatra, will also go to bat.. I don’t know yet about David McCullough. I have, however dismissed Liz Smith, the gossip columnist, now Blogger. I’ve known Liz for decades, and her response to my letter was flabbergasting and I’m not easily flabbed. Here it is, if I can mange to copy it Are you getting work? Love Lee

From:
“lizziesmith3838@aol.com”
To:
leeisraelone@yahoo.com
LEE I HAVE TO THINK ON THIS IAM FED UPWITH CHARITABLE ACTS AT THIS PT. LIZ

( I actually mailed both below because I wasn’t sure the “dining out” one got through. She was so outre that I wasn’t even hurt.)

1.”What you said to me is so awful that it is colorful. Gin, I bet. Lee Israel.”
2.Never thought of myself as a charity case.But don ‘t bother your pretty little head. You’ve given me a great dining out story. Lee

12:05pm
I remember once many, many years ago, I was at Elaine Stritch’s apartment around brunch time Sunday morning, maybe later. Elaine didn’t get up until three. . Stritch and I were working on a book together. And I was with her all the time. The phone rang and it was Liz –Elaine’s best friend now, and I suspect then. Elaine got off the phone and said, “That was Liz Smith. Yelling. Jealous that you were here.She must be knockin’ back the gin again.” This was not a sexual thing, of course. Just about jealousy.Gin makes people angry. Lee

8/29/12, 4:07pm
my latest

Are you home? I don’t expect to hear from you until after the 9th inning…Goddamn Yankess..Anyhow this is a letter to the guy who was the publisher at Simon and Schuster when they book came out. He now is at this house, Blue Rider. Two copies here. You need read only one. Lee.

-+-++++++++++++
Lee Israel 98 Riverside Drive New York, NY 10024

David Rosenthal. Publisher
Blue Rider Press
Penguin Group
375 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
August 29, 2012

Dear David,

Some time back, your friend David McCullough wrote a darling note to you about me. He had just read and admired my memoir, Can You Ever Forgive Me? “Where is she now? And what has she done since? McCullough asked. The answer to his last question? Nothing much. This is due to a large extent to the fact that I am barred from all public libraries in New York. I am still forbidden – almost twenty years since the crimes chronicled in my book – to set foot in any facility in the New York Public Library system, under threat of arrest for trespassing. I am attempting to have this crippling embargo lifted, with the help of a small group of notable supporters who have expressed – in personal letters and reviews – admiration for my talent. I am sending out petitionary letters to Stacy Schiff, Byron Dobell, David McCullough, Thomas Mellon, and even Liz Smith. As the original publisher of the memoir, I hope that you might lend your support. Consider this a kind of restitution: Inexplicably, Simon & Schuster, with you at its helm, allowed my critically acclaimed memoir to die on the vine for lack of any investment at all in its survival.

A couple of e-mailed paragraphs would do. They should be addressed to Ann Thornton, Andrew W. Mellon [more on him anon] Director of NYPL, annthornton [at] nypl.org. You might cherry-pick from the following (concentrating on the roman type).
. . . .
Ms.Thornton, I am writing on behalf of Lee Israel. I was her publisher at Simon & Schuster when her book Can You Ever Forgive Me? appeared four years ago to some wonderful reviews – reviews that cited her original “voice”; her coruscating wit; and her raw, appealing honesty (no irony intended). Thomas Mellon, in The New York Times, called the memoir “slender, sordid and pretty damned fabulous.” (In the interest of fairness and balance, Ms. Thornton, it should be noted that the Mellon review of Aug. 3, 2008, was followed, the very next week, by a letter-to-the-editor written by a disgusted biographer out of Lyndhurst, N.J., who vowed never to forgive Lee Israel for her misdeeds, and expressed a desire to see Lee’s “head on a pike in front of the New York Public Library as a warning to others”; and, too, further in the interest of fair and balanced disclosure, Mellon’s encomium ended, “If I were an editor I’d sign her up …If I were a librarian, I wouldn’t let Lee Israel through the door…’)

Lee Israel has never been prolific. She once told a reporter that output-wise, compared with herself, “Harper Lee was an Octo-Mom.” But Lee is hopelessly impeded by NYPL’s cutting off her source of professional nourishment. She needs the libraries to survive. The uses of punishment, it seems to me, should be preventative and/or punitive. Surely, the simplest kind of on-site surveillance ought to preclude recidivism. As to the punitive aspect: Nineteen years of deprivation ought to be enough. Lee has served her time. In her absence, the book world is deprived of an original and audacious talent.
.
And before lecturing Lee Israel on the evil of her ways, Ms. Thornton, please do a little reading up about your eponymous Andrew W. Mellon, who among other achievements was indirectly responsible for the Johnstown Flood. Really. That’s the emmis. Please see
Wikipedia, under Mellon, Andrew W.

Tear down this wall, Ms. Thornton!

Sincerely,

David Rosenthal, Publisher
Blue Rider Press, Penguin Group

—-
Sincerely,
Lee Israel

• Volume 1: 2005–6
• Volume 2: 2007–8
• Volume 3: 2009
• Volume 4: 2010
• Volume 5: 2011
• Volume 6: Apr. 2012
• Volume 7: May 2012
• Volume 8: June 2012