Yet the strongest feelings I associate with her are anger, contempt, and resentment. It was as if she reserved her positive emotions for works of art, and to an extent their creators, and for people in distress at least six thousand miles away from her usual surroundings. She played the role of neighbor much less charitably than the role of world citizen. The contents of her daily reality exasperated her beyond endurance. She was unflaggingly rude to waiters, cab drivers, hotel clerks. After she was recognized by a diner cashier we’d bought sandwiches from, her displeasure was frightening. ‘He only knew who I was was because he saw me on television,’ she said disgustedly, as if unmasking a former concentration camp guard. -- Gary Indiana from his new memoir, I Can Give You Anything But Love
I love this less-than-charitable portrait of Susan Sontag.
