Buckley & Ginsberg, r.i.p.

William F. Buckley Jr. died today.

"A 1973 study in Psychology Today found that many women fantasized about Mr. Buckley during intercourse."
--"How 'Firing Line' Transformed the Battleground", by Laurence Zuckerman, 12-18-99

I find my favorite image of Buckley not in bed but in Jerry Aronson's documentary The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg (1993, available on DVD).
Strange bedfellows, this meeting of the revolutionary, gay Beat poet Ginsberg, who declared that "life should be ecstacy," and the Roman Catholic conservative, whom Gary Morris called a "straight queen," and Hillel Italie describes in his obituary as having a "handsome, reptilian languor."

Here Ginsberg sings Hare Krishna (25 sec.), utterly unselfconsciously, for Buckley, who appears genuinely open to the experience:

Because this video doesn't seem to show up embedded in Safari, here's the livelink:
Allen Ginsberg Sings on Firing Line.

The men, who seemed to belong to different species, both expanded my vision of what it means to be human. They shook up my ways of thinking, with their entirely different intelligences and word-smithing. There aren't many people who can do that for us, of any political persuasion. And yes, I do think it's sexy.
May they rest in peace. Or, er...have a really terrific next incarnation. Or whatever.