Bash Compactor: He Lives By ‘Night’
Despite a long literary career, George Plimpton was never far from the center of East Hamptonsor Manhattans nighttime social firmament. So a few Julys after he passed away at 76, his son Taylor packed his ashes tightly into a firework tube, lit the fuse and watched it burst into a smiley face pattern against the black sky above Amagansetts Devon Yacht Club. Noting ruefully that bits of teeth and bone were in the ashes, Plimpton, who has inherited his fathers ski-slope nose, thick tousled hair and wide, amicable grin, says, It was hardcorebut an exhilarating experience. Its also the definition of a hard act to follow, especially as Plimpton, a writer himself, has chosen his own experiences whirling through early-aughts downtown clubs like Lotus and Marquee as the subject of his first book, Notes From the Night.
Last Wednesday night, in front of Dumbos powerHouse Arena, where he had just given a reading, I spoke with Plimpton about what its like to try to carve out your own niche in the wake of one of the great post-war literary icons. Its great to have people just look at your writing, but when you do get something published, people will say thats the reason, Plimpton says, taking a drag off of an American Spirit. Theres nothing I can do about it. But he says even as a kid, watching his father suffer through every sentence, he wanted to be a writer.
A major thread running through Notes is how a devotion to nightlife can freeze a man in a sort of perpetual late adolescence. [T]hats the kind of magical (and sinister) thing about the night: it freezes time and you along with it, he writes, in an effective Jay McInerneystyled passage. Indeed, Plimpton, who is wearing an updated twist on a private schoolboy uniformbaggy blue blazer and preppy tieis a preternaturally youthful 34. As for the difference between nightlife as it was experienced by his father, a Studio 54 fixture who never wanted to go to bed, Plimpton says, The innocence is gone now, you cant go out, do tons of cocaine and have unprotected sex and think youll get away with it.