Vintage: Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal Smackdown on the Dick Cavett Show
It's a well-worn trusim that we all get the culture we deserve. But lately, thanks to the ubiquity of the zootube's most viewed videos -- coupled with the power of IMs from friends and relentless press releases from PR flacks -- I've been getting the culture you deserve too. In the last few weeks I've been gobsmacked by Brangelina, treated to a blind date with a crack whore, and eye-whipped by uncensored pics of Britney's cash and prizes.
All this high fructose corn culture makes a boy pine for something a little more substantial. I mean, did you know (I didn't) that there was actually an era when literary heavyweights were given national airtime to punk and pillory each other? Case in point: This excellent video from the Dick Cavett show, in which Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal go mensa-a-mensa over a scathing review Vidal penned.
Mailer: You're a liar and a hypocrite...Will you apologize?
Vidal: I would apologize if it hurts your feelings, yes.
Genius! And I don't mean that ironically! A few seconds later, Mailer insults the guests and Cavett, calling them all intellectually inferior, then moves his chair away from the group. Cavett: "Perhaps you'd like two more chairs to contain your giant intellect?"
The entire video is below, but skip to this point (29 minutes in) to watch the boyish brannigan.
p.s. The video is also a good example of how Google is inserting 15-second ads into Google Video now.
p.p.s Thanks to my buddy Jason Boog at The Publishing Spot for IM'ing this video to me.
Priceless!!!!
Posted by: Ben | January 09, 2007 at 12:24 PM
Mailer comes off like a real buffoon in the video. (Fingerbowls? What did that mean?)
Here’s a shorter version of the Vidal-Mailer encounter (at about the 2:20 mark) followed by a ‘twenty years later’ clip showing that they had put aside their differences. Despite his macho clowning most people who knew Mailer have said it was hard to stay mad at him and the reverse was obviously true.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpHnAvs6Wc8
Posted by: Walter Ego | November 11, 2007 at 08:33 PM
an ego fueled orgy of phony sophistication
Posted by: bill | May 27, 2008 at 01:33 PM
haven't sen this yet read about this on NYT Cavett col.
Posted by: billkennedy | November 21, 2008 at 07:42 PM
After Cavett suggested Mailer needed two chairs to contain his giant intellect, Mailer said the rest could use fingerbowls (to contain their own). His meaning was that they needed less space to contain their intellect. That's what the fingerbowl comment meant.
Posted by: Yessir | June 14, 2009 at 05:49 PM