Release the white doves — Camille Paglia is back on Salon.com after a 6-year absence. Given the way the site is trumpeting it, I guess it’s important for them (and for her).

I don’t begrudge them their celebrity columnist — and here’s her first new post, if you’d like to see it (may require registration). But I couldn’t help noting the self-obsession leaching through every line of it. We shouldn’t expect more of celebrity bloggers, but if you’re going to put on airs, at least really put on airs. Don’t be so transparent about your megalomania unless you’re doing it for laughs. I was willing to let it all go as yet more postmodernism (Camille about Camille about Camille) until the following caught my eye:

A final news item: Mitchell Lichtenstein, an actor (“Lords of Discipline,” “Miami Vice,” “Law & Order”) and a student of mine from Bennington College in the 1970s, has written and directed his second film, “Teeth,” which was screened at the Sundance Film Festival last month. It was immediately bought for distribution by Weinstein/Lionsgate, and the lead actress, Jess Weixler, won a Sundance award.

Mitchell’s theme — brace yourself! — is the vagina dentata or toothed vagina, an ancient myth that he first heard about in my classes and that, he has told interviewers, he never forgot. At his request, I specially wrote some lines for the film but have yet to see it. Web reports from Sundance have raved about the film’s comic mix of retro horror with satiric sociology. This week, “Teeth” is having its international premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. Bon appétit!

Here was my Thought #1: Hey, this is what Mitchell has been up to! (He was in a play of mine in 1990.) Thought #2: Hey, Mitchell was Camille Paglia’s student — I didn’t know that. Thought #3: I’ve been making references to the vagina dentata for years and I never studied with Camille Paglia, and Thought #4: Now when I mention the vagina dentata people who understand the reference will think I got it from Camille Paglia or Mitchell Lichtenstein. Which led to —

Thought #5. This train of thought is so self-referential and all-consuming that I could blog for Salon.

Postmodernism. Everything comes full circle.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 at 11:47 pm and is filed under On reading, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.