1968 Writers and Editors War Tax Protest

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MalignD at aol.com [mailto:MalignD at aol.com]
> 
> << (in re Annie Hall's Academy of the Overrated, members including Heinrich 
> Boll and Norman Mailer) >>
> 
> And not Woody Allen?
> 

That'd be up to Annie Hall, I guess...

I like the Woodman and his oeuvre, though 

as for Heinrich Boll, wasn't he a pacifist in Hitler's Germany - gotta respect that

Norman Mailer, I think, has poured a lot of juice into being a public figure so his writing reflects that, and he's done a lot of (what I consider to be) revved-up hypothesizing about various mystiques that I have never been that into (boxing, Marilyn Monroe, guys on death row)  

In his books about things I was interested in - the march on the Pentagon, the moon shot - he brought together some interesting facts which was a plus, and he existed as a major character in the narrative which was - kinda unusual but not terrible...took some getting used to, the thought of him getting drunk and making this speech full of cuss words and saying "but what's really obscene is this war" or words to that effect
and ya know, goddamn it, that's still true...impolitic, but true...

I took a badly damaged video of him out of the library and heard him ruminating about how a writer, when he was growing up, was a public figure and an opinion-shaper; and he explained various phases of his career.  Couldn't hear or see him very well - it makes me want to get a good copy of the vid, because it sounded quite interesting

-- there's a metaphor in The Naked and the Dead about a catenary, which (the metaphor, and come to think of it, the catenary) was thought-provoking -- if he did more stuff like that and (dare I suggest) drank a little less...

BTW RIP William Sloane Coffin