In her recent post about a conference on Futurism at SFMOMA, Marjorie Perloff raises several important literary-historical questions.  One of them:  To what extent do a writer's noxious political opinions require us to construe as suspicious his or her activities and affiliations earlier in life?

On the weekend of October 15, SFMOMA sponsored a Futurist conference-festival that raised some fascinating issues for me.  My own talk--the keynote the first night--was on Marinetti's 1909 Manifesto and its offshoots, culminating in a look at Gertrude Stein's portrait "Marry Nettie" as a tongue-in-cheek critique of the great Futurist Impresario.