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Eyewitness to the Firing Squad

Eyewitness to the Firing Squad

By on April 27, 2010 in Politics

As a Utah man elects to be executed in a hail of gunfire, Lawrence Schiller recalls his last talks with condemned man Gary Gilmore and what he witnessed as Gilmore chose to die by firing squad. Read the full article on The Daily Beast.

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Considering Norman Mailer and His Work: a Letter

By on November 19, 2009 in Politics, Writing

James Brookfield begins by reconsidering the literary merits of Barbary Shore, Norman Mailer’s second novel, is his article “Considering Norman Mailer and His Work: a Letter.” Brookfield positions his article as a response and commentary on Andras Gyorgy’s recent “The Postwar Novelist in Regression: Norman Mailer (1927-2007)” — mostly a commentary on the “socialist” Mailer. [...]

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Still at War

Still at War

By on February 4, 2009 in Heritage, Politics

I a recent article in the Media Monitors Network, Norman Solomon asks “Why Are We Still at War?” He analyzes the pointlessness of fighting a “war on terror,” supporting his assertion with quotations by Joan Didion and Norman Mailer. He writes: It may be profoundly true that we are not red states and blue states, [...]

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Obama Like JFK

By on January 19, 2009 in Politics

Fred Kaplan, in his article “Forget FDR and Lincoln; Obama Is Most Like JFK” for Slate, argues that “the Kennedy-Obama parallels are, in fact, deeper than they might seem.” Within, he cites — you guessed it — Mailer’s “Superman Comes to the Supermarket”: In the vapid Eisenhower years, he went on, the “life of politics [...]

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Mailer’s Almost Profile of Obama

By on January 16, 2009 in In the Blogosphere, Politics

Dwayne Raymond today recounts the time Esquire offered Norman Mailer the opportunity to travel briefly with Barack Obama. His article “When Mailer Almost Profiled Obama” appears in The Huffington Post and gives a bit of insight into how Mailer felt about our next president. Raymond writes: I said to Norman that I thought Obama might [...]

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The Edge of Mystery

By on January 15, 2009 in Politics

Matt Bia, a political commentator for the New York Times Magazine, likens Barack Obama with Mailer’s hopes for a President Kennedy in his “Superman Comes to the Supermarket.” Bai begins “The Edge of Mystery” by referencing Mailer, the great political commentator of the twentieth century: Weeks before the election of 1960, Norman Mailer, already an [...]

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<i>Frost/Nixon</i> and Mailer

Frost/Nixon and Mailer

By on December 13, 2008 in In the Media, Politics

Norman Mailer is mentioned in Allen Barra’s review of the new film by Ron Howard: Frost/Nixon. Berra comments that Mailer, along with Gore Vidal and Philip Roth, attempted to probe the psyche of Nixon in literature. Berra writes: Mailer, not entirely unsympathetic, probably came the closest to pinpointing Nixon’s Rosebud. At the 1968 Republican Convention, [...]

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NM to JFK

By on December 2, 2008 in Politics

I mean: Wasn’t there anyone around to give you the lecture on Cuba? Don’t you sense the enormity of your mistake – you invade a country without understanding its music. The Village Voice is running an excerpt everyday from their archives, and today’s “An Open Letter to JFK” is by Norman Mailer.

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