Word: tildenized
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...building's entryway, a large photograph of L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology's founder, looks out into the room. Hubbard grew up in Tilden, Nebraska and founded dianetics in 1950 after a number of years as a science fiction writer and a stint with the Navy in World War II. According to Velona, Hubbard "affirmed to himself that man is a spiritual being. Whereas dianetics had dealt just with the mind, Hubbard realized it branched off into more of a spiritual philosophy." The first Church of Scientology was founded in Washington in 1954. Hubbard headed the faith until...
...Broadway's Theater de Lys, concerns itself with a zany Illinois farm family. Dodge (Richard Hamilton), the grandfather, is a prickly relic whose security blanket is the whisky bottle under it. His wife Halie (Jacqueline Brookes) is the voice of the nag incarnate. The eldest son Tilden (Tom Noonan) is laconic, even for a neo-Neanderthal. For him, the barren fields yield armfuls of corn and carrots, which are duly shucked, sliced and nibbled onstage...
...comedic menace, very much in the Pinter vein, there is the homecoming of the grandson Vince (Christopher McCann), who returns unrecognized after a six-year absence. The family's horrific secret emerges when Tilden unearths a baby's black mummified body, his incestuous offspring by Halie, drowned in in fancy by Dodge. With the family purged of this infamous act, the farm will presumably thrive under Vince...
Schuyler's comments (see box) are themselves worth the price of the novel. Vidal has no peers at breathing movement and laughter into the historical past. His book teems with offbeat details: Tilden's dyspepsia and private collection of erotic literature; the Petronian orgy of a White House banquet ("25 courses and six good wines"); the surprisingly low and musical quality of Grant's voice. Even though the results have been in for 100 years, Vidal marshals his research so that the 1876 election reads like a cliffhanger...
...outcome dashes Schuyler's hopes. Tilden collects over 250,000 popular votes more than his Republican opponent, Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes, but outright frauds, payoffs and congressional deals make Hayes the victor by one electoral vote. Even the profoundly cynical Schuyler is shocked by the brazenness of the theft. A further jolt awaits him. His daughter catches a millionaire husband-and there is evidence that she may have abetted his first wife's death to do it. "Why write any of this?" a distraught Schuyler asks near the end. "Answer: habit. To turn life to words...