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Vanity Fair
December, 1993
Planet
Geezers
by Henry Alford
Hired
as the activities director at the Duplex Nursing Home in the suburbs
of Boston in 1979, David Greenberger started interviewing the home's
residents and publishing their strange and sometimes visionary answers
in a
magazine he called The Duplex Planet. Filled with aphoristic aperçus
such
as "If you are an old man, and you go into a bar in pajamas,
people will
buy you drinks," the publication has, in its 15-year history,
drawn a cult
following, including among its subscribers Jonathan Demme, George
Carlin,
Allen Ginsberg, Penn & Teller, and R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe (who
asked one
resident/contributor to do artwork for the R.E.M. album Out of Time).
Indeed, Greenberger's gambit has spawned an entire industry -- a Duplex
Planet CD collection, a set of Duplex Planet collector's cards, and,
yes,
even a Duplex Planet coffee mug. (Can the Duplex Planet tote bag be
far
off?)
Next
month, Faber and Faber will publish the Duplex Planet book -- Duplex
Planet: Everybody's Asking Who I Was, a collection of the more poignant
and
amusing interviews from the magazine's history. "I try to avoid
oral
history," says Greenberger, whose interview questions put a premium
on
reaction rather than reflection, tending to run along the lines of
"Why do
people spit?," "What do you think George Washington's voice
sounded like?,"
and "What is embarrassment?" Intent on eroding our societal
fear of aging,
Greenberger -- who, now that the Duplex is closed, is interviewing
nursing
home residents in the Boston area and upstate New York -- is making
cult
heroes of his magazine's recurring characters. "I'm trying to
recast them,"
he says, "as individuals."
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