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The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/Norman’s Crystals: Difference between revisions
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I had attended several sessions when I met with Larry for a lunch. Schiller said,“The workshops, to my surprise, have really worked well.”Next year he will enlarge the summer programs with additional weeklong sessions: one on the art of interviewing, one on what agents know and writers need to know, and another on how writers and photographers collaborate. The future is concurrent with the present, in Schiller’s Mailer existentialism, and I am apprised of forthcoming surprises fellows. Don DeLillo will show up sometime this summer on an unexpected weekday, joining the Mailerlows. DeLillo will get up to speed with the group, have lunch, go fishing, and then have some brilliant things to say the next day at breakfast. Schiller intends to spring a series of these spontaneous interruptions, calling them “Conversations with the Fellows.” | I had attended several sessions when I met with Larry for a lunch. Schiller said,“The workshops, to my surprise, have really worked well.”Next year he will enlarge the summer programs with additional weeklong sessions: one on the art of interviewing, one on what agents know and writers need to know, and another on how writers and photographers collaborate. The future is concurrent with the present, in Schiller’s Mailer existentialism, and I am apprised of forthcoming surprises fellows. Don DeLillo will show up sometime this summer on an unexpected weekday, joining the Mailerlows. DeLillo will get up to speed with the group, have lunch, go fishing, and then have some brilliant things to say the next day at breakfast. Schiller intends to spring a series of these spontaneous interruptions, calling them “Conversations with the Fellows.” | ||
These surprise visits are not meant to surprise, but to serve as coaxing catalysts, encouraging casual brilliance, much as Norman fostered in the circles that surrounded him. The vortex of Mailer’s creative energy was sociological in its theatrical presentations, and Schiller’s jolting “conversations,” may foster genuine opportunities for discourse. | |||
Schiller is happy about the success of the program, but unhappy that people who promised financial support failed to deliver. He said that without the generous patronage of Tina Brown, Spas Roussev, and close to another 100 contributions, the Colony would not exist. His benefactors were mindful of his great admiration for Mailer and trusted his determination and commitment. Schiller has worked with kings, queens, murderers, and rapists. Now he has departed from Los Angeles and taken on Provincetown, which Norman once called “the wild west of the east.” | |||
One day when I spoke with Schiller at the Mailer house, as a session was breaking up, I saw that he was wearing a white shirt with the stitched blue- and-gold cloth badge of the Connecticut State Police. The shirt was a gift from Dr. Henry Lee—worn on Court TV for the mini-series Schiller pro- duced about the forensic expert’s investigations. Schiller is a short fellow who weighs 240 pounds. A former athlete, he learned not to be afraid to use his weight to achieve a goal. | |||