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Interview with Norman Mailer: Difference between revisions
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'''CB''': Economy? | '''CB''': Economy? | ||
'''NM''': Economy. In other words, in Tough Guys one of the happiest moments I had — I didn’t write the book here but I edited it here — was when the father, Dougy Madden, was talking to the son about pro football and handicappers. The father says, “Listen, if God handicapped the football spread, He’d be right 80 percent of the time.” The son asks how he arrived at that. The father says, “Well, the best handicappers, for a little while, can be up to 75 percent for a few weeks, not more. So I figure if they do 75 percent, God can be 80 percent, no trouble at all.” Madden’s son asks why God can’t do 99 percent or 100 percent. He just passes over the teams at night and He sees what their energy is and He says the Giants are up and the Steelers are down. I’m going to pick the Giants. And He’s right 80 percent of the time.” So Madden’s son says, “Yeah, but why can’t He do it 100 percent of the time?” And the father looks at him sternly and says, “Because footballs take funny bounces.” | '''NM''': Economy. In other words, in ''Tough Guys'' one of the happiest moments I had — I didn’t write the book here but I edited it here — was when the father, Dougy Madden, was talking to the son about pro football and handicappers. The father says, “Listen, if God handicapped the football spread, He’d be right 80 percent of the time.” The son asks how he arrived at that. The father says, “Well, the best handicappers, for a little while, can be up to 75 percent for a few weeks, not more. So I figure if they do 75 percent, God can be 80 percent, no trouble at all.” Madden’s son asks why God can’t do 99 percent or 100 percent. He just passes over the teams at night and He sees what their energy is and He says the Giants are up and the Steelers are down. I’m going to pick the Giants. And He’s right 80 percent of the time.” So Madden’s son says, “Yeah, but why can’t He do it 100 percent of the time?” And the father looks at him sternly and says, “Because footballs take funny bounces.” | ||
'''CB''': Oh, God that is funny! | '''CB''': Oh, God that is funny! | ||
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'''CB''': So the ethical is limited by a need to balance sacred energy on the fulcrum of divine purpose? My belief is that God didn’t create us, we created Him, but that may sound like blasphemy to you. | '''CB''': So the ethical is limited by a need to balance sacred energy on the fulcrum of divine purpose? My belief is that God didn’t create us, we created Him, but that may sound like blasphemy to you. | ||
'''NM''': Well, that is beyond my purchase, and I don’t want to get into it. What I will say is that if we take the notion that God is capable of doing everything and anything at any given moment, it takes away the last of our human dignity. I much perfer the notion that God is just doing the best that He or She can do, or that it’s a marriage that They can do. I’ve never believed, for one moment, that God intervenes at every moment and takes care of everything. So my god is an existential god, a god that does the best that can be done under the circumstances. A tired general will not always prevail. I wanted to get across the Gospel that when Jesus removed demons from people, He didn’t do it for nothing. It cost Him a great deal. He was as exhausted as a magician after a long night of performance. | '''NM''': Well, that is beyond my purchase, and I don’t want to get into it. What I will say is that if we take the notion that God is capable of doing everything and anything at any given moment, it takes away the last of our human dignity. I much perfer the notion that God is just doing the best that He or She can do, or that it’s a marriage that They can do. I’ve never believed, for one moment, that God intervenes at every moment and takes care of everything. So my god is an existential god, a god that does the best that can be done under the circumstances. A tired general will not always prevail. I wanted to get across in the Gospel that when Jesus removed demons from people, He didn’t do it for nothing. It cost Him a great deal. He was as exhausted as a magician after a long night of performance. | ||
'''CB''': Speaking of performance, the 1996 cover subject of ''Provincetown Arts'', Karen Finley, told me she decided to become a performance artist when, as a teenager, she witnessed speeches at the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968, when people like Abbie Hoffman and Allen Ginsberg were giving these emotional rallies before larger audiences. She saw them as an art form. The whole concept of performance art started in this political realm. In other words, there was a perception about politics as theater. In your book, ''Of A Fire on the Moon'', about the Apollo moon shot, you have a concluding section called “A Burial by the Sea” A broken-down car is buried in a P’town backyard. | '''CB''': Speaking of performance, the 1996 cover subject of ''Provincetown Arts'', Karen Finley, told me she decided to become a performance artist when, as a teenager, she witnessed speeches at the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968, when people like Abbie Hoffman and Allen Ginsberg were giving these emotional rallies before larger audiences. She saw them as an art form. The whole concept of performance art started in this political realm. In other words, there was a perception about politics as theater. In your book, ''Of A Fire on the Moon'', about the Apollo moon shot, you have a concluding section called “A Burial by the Sea” A broken-down car is buried in a P’town backyard. | ||
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'''CB''': The lawyers have a term, “excited utterance,” to describe statements said under the compulsion of an emotional moment. The astronauts had no quotable excited utterances — no surprise of the heart. | '''CB''': The lawyers have a term, “excited utterance,” to describe statements said under the compulsion of an emotional moment. The astronauts had no quotable excited utterances — no surprise of the heart. | ||
'''NM''': Nothing but “a small step for man and a mighty step for mankind.” It’s not that good a quote, nothing remarkable. It doesn’t reach. But a requirement of NASA was to be deadly dull. These astronauts, however, had a double life. They all had Corvettes in those days and they would drive at 100 miles an hour down those Texas highways, one foot away from each other. When they cut up, they cut up. I’m not talking about Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins, who were on Apollo 11, because they were probably the purest of the pure, looking back on it. They took the three most dependable guys for that shot. Let’s say they took the six or nine guys out of the pool of 25, or whatever they had, and said, “Among these nine are the guys we can count on.” And when they had those three, they said, “This is a very good | '''NM''': Nothing but “a small step for man and a mighty step for mankind.” It’s not that good a quote, nothing remarkable. It doesn’t reach. But a requirement of NASA was to be deadly dull. These astronauts, however, had a double life. They all had Corvettes in those days and they would drive at 100 miles an hour down those Texas highways, one foot away from each other. When they cut up, they cut up. I’m not talking about Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins, who were on Apollo 11, because they were probably the purest of the pure, looking back on it. They took the three most dependable guys for that shot. Let’s say they took the six or nine guys out of the pool of 25, or whatever they had, and said, “Among these nine are the guys we can count on.” And when they had those three, they said, “This is a very good three. Let’s go with them.” | ||
'''CB''': To be conscious of the excitement would have been a distraction from working. | '''CB''': To be conscious of the excitement would have been a distraction from working. | ||