Gore Vidal

"CALIGULA," the notorious toga epic that scandalized audiences in 1980, is not one of cinema's finest moments, but it is one of its most fascinating monuments to excess. In keeping with that spirit of indulgence, this tale of the depraved boy emperor and the sexual appetites and torture techniques of 1st century Rome is being reissued on DVD this week in a curiously comprehensive (if wholly unnecessary) three-disc "imperial edition."

YOU hear Gore Vidal long before you see him, the steady tap-swish-tap of foot and cane on an upstairs landing in his sunny Spanish Colonial house in the Hollywood Hills; then there's the slow whir of a mechanical chairlift carrying the novelist-essayist-playwright-screenwriter downward.

Hello, this is Gore Vidal," the East Egg baritone announced. "Is Richard there?" I stammered a return greeting as the voice continued, "I read your story . . ." and then halted. On a Sunday in the spring of 1982, my article about Vidal's campaign for the California Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate had appeared in the San Jose Mercury News. Titled "The Plight of the Writer in Politics," it keyed off the upcoming primary pitting Vidal against soon-to-be-ex-Gov. Jerry Brown.

"I guess there \o7is\f7 something wrong with me, Mr. Beckman, because I can't for the life of me see what business it is of anyone else what I do." So says the protagonist of "The Zenner Trophy" -- an exceptionally bright young man about to be expelled from a fashionable prep school over an ongoing affair with another youth.

IN an era when droves of American writers have deserted the novel for the cozier pleasures of the confessional -- and when pouring your heart out, preferably on television, has become a national sport -- Gore Vidal remains an unlikely memoirist. Long ago, he pronounced himself "the least autobiographical of novelists."

PEN USA, the center for International PEN on the West Coast, will honor the distinguished American writer Gore Vidal with a Lifetime Achievement Award tonight. Playwright David Mamet will present the award to Vidal, whose books, including 1948's "The City and the Pillar" and 1968's "Myra Breckinridge," established him as well ahead of his time. -- Anne-Marie O'Connor

TOM WOLFE is screaming. He screams softly, this Southern gentleman, his trademark white suit unwrinkled, his spats unwavering even as a giant granite boulder hurtles down upon him. It looks to be the end of the pioneering New Journalism author of "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." "Aaaaaaaahh! Wait, no, that wasn't good, let me start over." "How did you scream last time a boulder was hurtling toward you?" asks Carolyn Omine, executive producer of "The Simpsons."

Last week, as TV screens filled with images of dust-storm-shrouded supply convoys, U.S. POWs being paraded for propaganda and grieving, angry Iraqi civilians denouncing President Bush, some commentators registered surprise at how a war that began swiftly and efficiently had suddenly turned slower and messier. Gore Vidal, taking in the scene from his Hollywood Hills home, was not among those caught off-guard.