[lbo-talk] RIP Norman Mailer

[Max B. Sawicky]

Mailer's mayoral 'campaign' was my first political project.
I got into it through my English comp professor Peter Manso,
then a Mailer buddy, later not.  Manso is a character unto
himself.  For my benefit he gave his name on the phone once as
follows:  "Manso.  Man as in 'yeah man,' so as in 'so what.' "
Little short guy.  I haven't kept in touch with him.  I'd tell you his
story,
but I doubt he'll ever be famous enough to be noticed on LBO.

I never actually met NM, but I devoured his books in college.
One of my friends then accused me of trying to emulate him.

My role in the campaign was mucking around with some
wonky policy stuff in which as you could imagine the
candidate (and everyone else) had zero actual interest.
Something relating to NM's idea to build a monorail around
Manhattan, which actually still doesn't seem like a bad idea.

The NY Times article was interesting.  I never got around to
reading Naked & the Dead, nor Deer Park.  It was the later stuff
that engrossed me, especially the essays, An American Dream,
and Why Are We In Vietnam, one portion of which I can nearly
recite from memory, something like:

" . . . bonging the gong, blasting the ass, chewing the milch,
milking the chintz . . . "

I haven't kept up with the later stuff either, though I have
Ancient Evenings and Harlot's Ghost and vague intentions
of reading them some day.

I can't speak on the later fiction, but Mailer's politics didn't
evolve much.  He was still serving up the same lines he did
in the 60s, lines which had gotten old.

-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On Behalf Of Dennis Perrin
Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2007 9:55 AM
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] RIP Norman Mailer

My tiny tribute:

<http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2007/11/mailers-ghost.html>

Dennis

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