I find the following in the New York Review of Books archives:

The cult of the same obtains in American letters, and if you don't regard Henry James and Fitzgerald with "holy assinity," you can't be any good yourself.

do you think this is just a(nother*) typo for asininity (which belabors the normal sense), or is this a *really obscure word?

*google gets a few dozen hits, almost all of which are obvious typos

If there is anything Henry James and Fitzgerald had in common, it was not asininity. I can't
see that term fitting either of them. Incidentally, is there only one Fitzgerald?

the quote is very much out of context, but I gather that it is the cult that treats James and Fitzgerald with "holy assinity". (you could google the quote to see the rant in its entire asininity.)

In reply to:

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Incidentally, is there only one Fitzgerald?

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Well, Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda S. Fitzgerald, tried her hand at writing for a while.

or maybe whoever wrote the article waf very old-ftyle and (really ftretching it here!) used "s" where s/he meant to ufe "f"....

okay, okay, I know it waf the other way around! but "holy affinity" just makef fo much more fenfe in thif context! doefn't it?!

Incidentally, is there only one Fitzgerald?

Oh, yes, Dr Bill - the only Fitzgerald is he who translated, from the Persian, the Rubayait of Omar Khayyam

the only Fitzgerald is he who translated, from the Persian

I don't think Edward counts for very much in the field of American letters.

And much as wine has played the Infidel, And robbed me of my coat of honor, well
I wonder oft what the vintners buy, One half so precious as the stuff the sell.

Good question your "assinity" question. I think that he meant exactly what he wrote and deliberately misspelled for impact.

But I think a better question is...

What was Mister tsuwm doing reading a October 12, 1967 letter to the New York Times Review of Books from an obscure author complaining about an unfavorable review of his latest obscure book written by an even more obscure book reviewer?

Lonesome?



Letter : AJAX'S SHEEP
By Edward Dahlberg, Reply by Robert M. Adams
In response to "Crier in the Wilderness" (August 24, 1967)

>What was Mister tsuwm doing...

approximately and exactly what mr. minderbinder was doing in expiscating the reference, I'd wager....

Ah my dear tsuwm, evoking a clever retort from you is like pulling hen's teeth (a southern saying), but when you come up with zingers like "expiscating", while not enough to make the ladies crème dans des leurs jeans (a french saying), it is well worth the effort.
___________________________________________________

What was Mister tsuwm doing reading a October 12, 1967 letter to the New York Times Review of Books from an obscure author complaining about an unfavorable review of his latest obscure book written by an even more obscure book reviewer?

Why, he was looking for Hogwash® words!

Okay--first, I agree with milum despite being offended by the remark about ladies that the writer probably meant what he wrote. I found the article, so we can have some context--not that it helps.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/11940

I have tentatively concluded that somebody somewhere coined this as a word for a kind of "syndrome", as in "there's the equivalent of an a-- in it" syndrome. Possibly a synonym for stupidity.

I just put assinity into the address bar in my internet window, and got "about 19" hits. Here are a couple that led me to this conclusion.
Another example of Tippen's assinity came when... , and some paragraphs down there is Unfortunately, our legal system does not allow a sentence for attorneys for acting like buttheads in court.
http://hometown.aol.com/okamwoc/santee2.htm And,

...commentary on stupidity wherever we find it, from the perspective of a disenfranchised academic insider, viz., me. You'll read my take on current events and academic assinity.
http://www.pitt.edu/~rice/

Thanks, tsuwm; I really enjoyed this "research"!

So is "asinine" is one ass more or one ass fewer than "assassinate"?

Or can it be both at the same time? (cross-thread to Schroedinger and his cat)

I am surprised that nobody so far considered the expression holy assinity as a direct derivative of the expletive "holy ass" (similar or ironical to "holy cow"), suggesting unreflected veneration. If assinity here were replaced by asininity, the link would be destroyed.
edit: don't google "holy ass" - I did it only afterwards, and ..