Let me tell you about Norman Mailers

Source: Telegraph.co.uk (Original Article)

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Source: New York Magazine (Original Article)

We would like to call your attention to one crucial detail, however, which is in the section of the profile just after Frey hit bottom. Post-Oprah, Frey was a pariah — constantly attacked in the media, scorned by the publishing world, the recipient of angry e-mails from fans, the target of a handful of lawsuits. How did he get his groove back? Well, in part from a visit to Norman Mailer, who broke out the boxing metaphors to tell Frey, “You should prepare to take huge shots every time out because they’ll never stop.”

But Frequent Flyer Cards Frey also found courage from … New York’s Approval Matrix!

Source: The Plain Dealer - cleveland.com (Original Article)

One by one, the literary voices of my parents’
generation are going silent. Gone just in the past few years
are Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer, Mary Lee Settle, Kurt
Vonnegut, Arthur Miller, William Styron.

Posthumous volumes by Settle and Vonnegut have already ap
peared, and now comes “Havanas in Camelot,” a
col lection of per sonal essays that Styron was assembling
when he died in 2006. His wife, poet Rose Styron, and his
biographer, James L.W. West III, finished the job, adding a
piece discovered after his death, “Walking With
Aquinnah,” a gentle, moving essay about his daily
exercise with his dog.

The title essay refers to the cigar-smoking that
flourished among the men in the Kennedy administration.
Styron was present at the 1962 dinner the Kennedys arranged
to honor Nobel laureates and, though admittedly
“prematurely plastered,” was moved when JFK
delivered that memorable line about its being the greatest
gathering of talent in the White House “with the
possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined
alone.”

We know what waited in Dallas, so that JFK’s every
word to Styron trembles with fatal significance.

One of the best pieces here is “A Case of the Great
Pox,” Styron’s account of his hospitalization
during World War II with a diagnosis of syphilis. (Styron
also dramatized these events in his 1973 play, “In the
Clap Shack.”) The experience gave him the opportunity
to record not just his personal difficulties but also to
reflect on the history of the disease itself, on evolving
cultural attitudes toward sexually transmitted diseases, on
the grim persistence of Puritan attitudes.

In a 1994 speech at an Indianapolis library, reprinted
here, Styron lashed out at anti-intellectual forces he
feared were gaining strength. “The written word is in
peril,” he declared, “and its enemies are not just
the yahoos and the censors but those who dwell in the
academic camp.” For evidence, ANZ Visa Debit he summarized
someone’s clownish doctoral dissertation …continue reading

Source: Toronto Star (Original Article)

UNCENSORED

Let’s compare apples and pampered millionaire
movie stars
"I think [Tom Cruise] gets a raw deal, just as I think the orphans in Malawi get a raw deal."
MADONNA

Look there it is! No, no. There. No, there
"I said I had a small penis as a joke. And they took it literally when it’s not the truth."
ENRIQUE IGLESIAS

‘Cause how could someone possibly not be attracted to me?
"I kind of had my eye on him. I was getting nowhere and I was super-confused."
KATHERINE HEIGL about gay co-star T.R. Knight.

We shiver before thee, begging forgiveness, oh child of darkness
"People always call out, ‘Hi Rachel.’ I hate it. I’m not Rachel. That’s my middle name. They’re all dyslexic. Can’t they see Evan comes before Rachel?"
EVAN RACHEL WOOD

Also, I don’t actually get invited
"You’ll never see me in the front row of a fashion show. . Aged Domains .I find it trivial and banal and boring."
JAMIE LEE CURTIS

marpe@thestar.ca

Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Original Article)

NORMAN MAILER, the late giant of American letters, was also a formidable lover, a former mistress has said in accounts of their sexual encounters, one of which stretches to 50 pages.

Carole Mallory, a former actress and model who enjoyed a decade-long affair with the six-times-married writer, has sold seven boxes of documents and photographs to Harvard University, which include extracts of her letters, books and journals.

The papers include two sex scenes based on their love life. One is part of an unpublished novel, When I Fall In Love, which was written as a bet with Mailer that she could stretch an account of their lovemaking to 50 pages. The other, Making Love With Norman, is 20 pages.

“It’s very steamy. Norman was a real man and he knew what he was doing,” said Mallory, 66, who appeared in the films Looking For Mr Goodbar and The Stepford Wives (1975).

She will not say how much she was paid for materials, and neither will Harvard.

Mailer, who died last November at 84, sold his archives to the University of Texas for $US2.5 million ($2.6 million).

Mallory said she waited to release his papers until after his death out of respect for Mailer and his family. She said she decided to sell them because she “knew they were valuable” and also wanted the papers to be a part of history.

Like Mailer, who was 19 years her senior, Mallory has led an eventful life. She dated Warren Beatty, Peter Sellers, Richard Gere and Rod Stewart and was once engaged to Claude Instant Approval Credit Cards Picasso, the son of the Spanish painter.

Telegraph, London; Associated Press

Source: CBC.ca (Original Article)

The late U.S. writer Norman Mailer left his archives to the University of Texas, but his alma mater, Harvard University, has bought a collection of papers belonging to his longtime mistress.

Harvard paid an undisclosed sum for papers belonging to Carole Mallory of Jeffersonville, Pa., an actress and aspiring writer herself.

Her papers include lengthy accounts of their sex life, as well as photos, transcripts of interviews with Mailer and accounts of writing lessons he gave to her.

“We’d have a writing lesson, we’d make love and then go to lunch in whatever order that would be, and I saved all the writing lessons,” said Mallory, 66. “I wanted him to teach me to be a writer. He was one of our greatest writers in America.”

Mallory saw Mailer weekly between 1983 and 1992, while the author of The Naked and Dead was married to his sixth wife, Norris Church.

“I don’t believe in shame,” Mallory said. “I believe in making love and love. I’m not going to go around and harbour secrets or shame about … loving someone. And I don’t think sex is something to be ashamed of.”

Mailer would have approved of her attitudes. A key figure in postwar American literature and a controversial writer on women’s liberation, he was a notorious womanizer.

Mallory appeared in TV programs such as Archie Bunker’s Place and Starsky and Hutch, and also had film roles in The Stepford Wives and Looking for Mr. Goodbar.

She said Mailer encouraged her in her writing, including an unpublished memoir that contains a 20-page sex scene with him.

She also is passing to Harvard a 50-page sex scene which she says is based on her relationship with the writer.

Among the principles Mailer emphasized, and Mallory recorded in her notes: keep the dialogue punchy; stay away from adverbs and don’t lecture the reader.

Both Harvard and Mallory refused to release terms of the archive sale, but Mallory said she wanted the Student Credit Card papers to be part of history.

Beth …continue reading

Source: NHL - ESPN (Original Article)

Melrose: Sharks, Flames Game 7 Preview

The general consensus is that, despite compiling six points in as many games, Jumbo Joe Thornton is once again proving to be the largest disappearing act since Houdini made Jenny, a 10,000-pound elephant, vanish at the New York Hippodrome in 1918.Puck-moving defenseman Brian Campbell was supposed to be the final piece in a revolutionary design when he was picked up from the Buffalo Sabres at the trade deadline. Yet, so far in this series, he has designs solely on anonymity.Who, pray tell, is going to step up for the San Jose Sharks in their hour of inquisition Tuesday night?We know full well the names of the men prepared to take the assignment for the Calgary Flames tonight at HP Pavilion. The inspirational Jarome Iginla. Rollicking Robyn Regehr. And, in his own erratic but compelling way, hold-on-to-the-seat-of-your-pants defenseman Dion Phaneuf.They’re guaranteed to bring energy, commitment and that difference-making attitude to their team’s unlikely push for the upset.But on the Sharks? Who, specifically, will match them? Therein lies the quandary.”If I have to manufacture desperation,” coach Ron Wilson admitted, “we are in dire straits.”Patrick Marleau accepted the always-daunting role of messiah for Games 3, 4 and 5, scraping himself off the ice from that now-infamous Cory Sarich hit to look every inch an inspirational Iginla-esque captain. But he faded noticeably in Game 6 as the Sharks botched their first opportunity in the series to finally shed that hard-earned reputation as hockey’s great underachievers.Jonathan Cheechoo has played with verve the past three games, and the gritty Ryane Clowe has proved to be an unlikely source of offensive power.But Game 7s usually are reserved for star players. These are the games in which reputations are forged and names seared forever into the public consciousness.”Ultimately,” the late Norman Mailer wrote, “a hero is a man who would argue ER dvd with the gods, and so awakens …continue reading

Source: Christian Science Monitor (Original Article)

from the April 22, 2008 edition

Not Quite what I was Planning

Editors: Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser

Norman Mailer, a writer often noted for excess verbiage, wrote a poem in 1966 called “The shortest novel of them all.” It
clocked in at a mere 80 words. Yet today, it seems a relic of the era of typewriters and mimeographs. In other words, way
too long for this new collection of ultrashort literature, Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure.

These mini-memoirs are six words, tops. Close to 800 were collected from a contest sponsored by online Smith magazine. Some
are poignant; others are forgettable. There’s chef Mario Batali (”Brought it to a boil, often”), chanteuse Amy Winehouse (”Couldn’t
cope, so I wrote songs”), and graffiti artist Mare 139 (”Wasn’t noticed so I painted trains”).

But the most telling briefs describe mundane, everyday truths: “Alive 38 years, feels like 83.” “Grading AP essays, I crave
Tolstoy.” “Civil servant answers phones after five.”

Not all the six-worders are clever or pithy and the book’s attempts at visual gimmicks detract from the tight precision of
the memoirs. Still, the authors’ skill in parsing phrases is admirable, entertaining, and quite practical in a world of text
messaging, blogging, and Twitter (where character limits are set at 140.)

Why only six words? The idea apparently stemmed from a six-word “novel” by Ernest Hemingway: “For sale: baby shoes, never
worn.”

Since its publication, millions have left six-word comments about “Not Quite What I Was Planning.” Others typed out four-word
film reviews and Found Magazine is now sponsoring a six-word photo-captioning contest.

This trend toward succinct prose has been brewing for the past 10 years. Shortly after the publication of Judith Kitchen and
Mary Paumier Jones’s 1996 anthology, “In Short: A Collection of St George Platinum Card Brief Creative Nonfiction,” the online journal …continue reading

Source: Variety (Original Article)

Norman Mailer celebrated at Carnegie
Random House stages poignant tribute to scribe

By DADE HAYES

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Source: TIME (Original Article)

(NEW YORK) — You need a big block of time, and space, to say goodbye to Norman Mailer.

More than 2,000 mourners filled Carnegie Hall to near capacity Wednesday for a two-hour-plus memorial, concert, literary tribute, family therapy session and Friars Club roast for the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of The Armies of the Night and The Executioner’s Song.

Talk-show host Charlie Rose served as master of ceremonies, while speakers praising Mailer, who died in November at 84, included such famous names as magazine publisher Tina Brown, fellow authors Joan Didion and Don DeLillo and actor Sean Penn, who read a brief statement from his Blackberry that he had composed.

The warmest drama, and wickedest comedy, came from Mailer’s children — nine of them, plus a stepson — all of whom seem to have inherited his storytelling power, if not his booming physical presence.

Mailer, the writer, was a Hemingwayesque tumbler of fear and boasting, bound to write The Great American Novel even as he grunted over comma placement and wondered each morning if he had the stuff to fill a page.

Mailer, the father, was a Hemingwayesque patriarch — daring his offspring to risk death, conquer fear, startle their minds, question authority and “get to know each other under dire circumstances,” recalled daughter Kate Mailer, who began her speech by reflecting on her teenage years and lamenting: “It is hard to rebel against your father when your father is Norman Mailer.”

Son Stephen Mailer, an actor, referred to himself as the “wild card” of the family as he channeled his late father, falling to the floor and then rising in character as Norman Mailer, ambling to the podium and calling out, “Can you hear me in the back?”

Mailer, it was revealed, distrusted garlic, hated plastic, TV commercials and false piety. He loved pot roast, oysters and Hershey’s chocolate. He encouraged, Amex Blue Sky Credit Card scolded, terrified and comforted.

Kate Mailer spoke …continue reading