I’m mightily impressed by the literacy, enthusiasm and high quality of your comments on my previous column, on Norman Mailer.
And I appreciate the nay-sayers as well. (At least as much, I’m sure, as our president “appreciates” his critics.)
Since then, a curious thing has happened.
Much ink was spilled at the time of that notorious show. But I had no idea how much until just now. I Googled “MAILER VIDAL CAVETT SHOW.” And I won’t be hurt if you do so yourself to verify the startling results. It says: “Results: 1-10 of about 30,000 for Mailer Vidal Cavett Show.” (Just for fun I typed “The Dick Cavett Show” and was hit with the words “about 387,000.” That’s more than Nielsen said were watching my first show. Would someone please read all the entries for me? And have your report on my desk by Friday.)
If you somehow don’t have time for them all, you might enjoy checking out “Charlie Rose/Dick Cavett.” I was on Charlie’s show a few years ago, and his producers plucked out and rebroadcast the most notorious segment from the Mailer-Vidal skirmish — the “fold it five ways” section — so you can see it with your own eyes in all its rich and flaring glory. (It’s about a third of the way into Charlie Rose. Note especially the body English.) Sorry for this ego-related detour. Back to our story.
And now for a surprise. To both you and me. “You know, Norman wrote a whole book about that show,” someone said to me a few years after it aired. “It’s called . . . something about dots.” I probably nodded politely, knowing full well that, were this true, I, or someone, would have heard about it.
But here’s the spooky part. Three days ago, wandering for no particular reason to my wall of bookshelves (and books), my eye fell upon a group of four volumes about the same size. Only three of the titles were legible. Idly removing the dim one, donning glasses and holding it to the light, I experienced near syncope. I all but swooned. (Cue eerie theremin music on soundtrack.)
On the spine, in faded gold against deep brown, there it was: “Of a Small and Modest Malignancy, Wicked and Bristling with Dots.” By Norman Mailer.
In disbelief — and intrigued by the catchy title — I eased the cover open. There, in a nice handwriting, appeared:
To Dick,
My remembrance of a
couple of things that passed.
Cheers,
Norman
April ’82
In the popular cliche, my pulse quickened. It’s a small treasure of a book, 120 pages of Norman’s ruminations about — and experiences on — TV. It’s a great read and fully the latter half is about “our show.” I could pass a polygraph test that I know not when or from whence it came into my possession. I must have brought it home years ago from the office in a bag of books and, without looking at them, shelved them.
But for Mailer/Vidal devotees, it’s a bit of a heartbreaker. A page at the very back tells us: “This first edition of ‘Of a Small and Modest Malignancy, Wicked and Bristling with Dots’ is limited to three hundred numbered copies on Mohawk Superfine and a deluxe edition of 100 copies on Curtis Rag bound in leather, all of which have been signed by the author. Printed at The Castle Press for the Lord John Press.”
(I didn’t get a leather one, alas, and I have yet to find its number; but who cares? It’s mine and I love it.)
It deserves a wide audience of Mailer and Vidal fans. I wish I could lend it to you, but as you know, loaning books is a fiction. You give them. Nobody returns the damn things.
Instead I’ll make some disjointed highlight selections for you — some of what they like to call “insider stuff.”
The following bit went unreported. It took place in the green room, where guests sit and watch the show before going on. (I only learned about this afterwards from Vidal.)
In his familiar third-person manner, Norman writes of himself:
When he arrived at the studio, they rushed him to makeup. Vidal had been supposed to go on first, but hadn’t arrived. Would Mailer object to taking his place? He had hardly given his assent before he was informed that Vidal had arrived, after all. Would he now mind if Mr. Vidal went on as originally planned? Since Mailer had formed the little vice when appearing on Cavett of comporting himself as the star, he would not pretend to happiness at finding himself on the shuttle. Still, he kept his mouth shut. He did not wish to jostle his liquor.
At this moment, alone in the green room, he felt a tender and caressing hand on the back of his neck. It was Gore. Vidal had never touched him before, but now had the tender smile of a man who would claim, “It doesn’t matter, old sport, what we say about each other — it’s just pleasant to see an old friend.”
Mailer answered with an openhanded tap across the cheek. It was not a slap; neither was it a punch. Just a stiff tap.
To his amazement, Vidal gave him a stiff tap back.
Norman smiled. He leaned forward and looked pleasantly at Gore. He put his hand to the back of Gore’s neck. Then he butted him in the head.
“Are you crazy?” asked Vidal.
“Shut up,” said Mailer.
“You’re absolutely mad. You are violent,” said Vidal.
“I’ll see you on the show.”
He was, after Vidal left (and that was quickly enough), obliged to pace about. Other people came into the green room, saw him, and went away. It was obvious: he did not feel like speaking.
The show began. Cavett did his monologue, and it was a good one. Cavett had the only smile that came through the valves of video looking wicked and angelic at once.
Then follows the action described in the preceding column. But here are a few more choice exchanges I’d left out, random bits Mailer included in his book.
After Norman has complained that Gore has attacked him in the magazine article “as part of his particularly dirty little literary game,” we get:
Vidal: Well, I’ll begin to answer Norman’s charge about what a bad person I am. The attack on him. Really if you want to know, Norman, is simply what I detest in you — and I like many things in you, as you know, I’m a constant friend despite this — but your violence, and your love of murder, your celebration of rage, of hate. Your “American Dream” — what was the dream? A man murders his wife and then buggers this woman afterwards to celebrate an American man’s dream. This violence, this knocking people down, this carrying on, is a terrible thing. Now, it may make you a great artist — an interesting artist, I don’t say that, but to the extent that one is interested in the way the society is going, there is quite enough of this violence without your celebrations of it. [Vigorous applause]
Gore began to speak again, when suddenly Norman heaved up out of his chair and lurched toward him, a bit shakily. The audience gasped. Gore, an old army man too, raised one arm to deflect what looked about to be a right hook. I thought I was going to be in a real fight before the cameras, wondering just what part of Norman’s anatomy I would go after, and thinking, Do I take my jacket off? But Mailer merely snatched the offensive article from Gore’s hands and wobbled back to his seat, pleased with the shock he had delivered.
* * *
More from our forest of oddities that night. You will recall from last time that Mailer had at one point asked the audience, “Are you all really, truly idiots, or is it me?” And that a chorus of “YOU!”s was roared back. The laugh I then got with, “Oh, that was the easy answer,” served to deepen the Mailer scowl. This was followed by some far-from-average audience participation:
Cavett: I’m sorry, Norman, I interrupted you. You were talking to the assembled audience.
Mailer: Yes, I was going to ask the audience what I was doing that was making them cheer every time the other side connected with a pass.
Man in audience: You’re rude.
Woman in audience: You’re a snot.
Mailer: That’s fair. Someone said I’m rude and someone said I’m being a snot.
Woman in audience: You’re a pig. Why do you have to argue so negatively and insultingly to your guests?
Mailer: They’re not my guests any more than they’re your guests.
Cavett: It seems it’s your show now.
Woman in audience: Why do you have to answer them with insults and nasty statements, and they’re answering you maturely and with dignity? [Applause]
Mailer: That’s because they’re mature and full of dignity and they’d cut my throat in any alley, and I answer crudely because I’m crude and a lout and a clod, that’s why.
(No one argued with this.)
* * *
And as we neared the end of this warm and peculiar happening, a brief disquisition on murder:
Vidal: I made my case very carefully in the article [about Norman’s propensity for violence] but I will say, giving you a few minutes more on the program, you will prove my point … I come back to what I said. I detest this violence in you. You have actually written that “murder is never nonsexual.”
Mailer: Well, is it ever nonsexual?
Vidal: Well, I’m —
Mailer: Don’t you know, Gore?
Vidal: Not having murdered anybody lately, no, I don’t know … I’m going to give you a line that Degas said to Whistler — two celebrated painters — and Whistler was a great performer like Norman, and Degas said, “You know, Whistler, you act as if you had no talent.” You, Norman, represent yourself as if you really had no talent at all, and of course you are one of our best writers.
[Norman “exposes” the fact that he, too, saw that quote in a recent article by Edmund Wilson and “thought it was marvelous.”]
Vidal: Good. I’m glad that we both agree that the sentiment is correct.
As it must to all good things, the end was coming when Norman insisted on clarifying the incident of the murdered woman in his novel “An American Dream.” The one Gore had attacked for its ghastly violence. Note how the less-than-totally-savory moment is so expertly seasoned by the great Janet Flanner:
Mailer: … in fact, he did not simply bugger a woman, he entered her another way as well, and…
Flanner: Oh, goodness’ sake. [Laughter]
Mailer: I know you’ve lived in France for many years, but believe me, Janet, it’s possible to enter a woman another way as well.
Flanner: So I’ve heard. [Laughter]
Cavett: On that classy note …
Flanner: I don’t think it’s restricted to French information, dear. [Laughter] Practically international. [More laughter]
Mailer [subdued]: Are we quitting on that classy note?
(We had to, returning for less than a minute.)
Cavett: Well, it’s been an interesting evening around the old table. Miss Flanner, I’m glad to see you got those cookies [from a commercial] that you wanted.
Flanner: It’s the only solace. [Laughter]
Cavett: Could you all come back New Year’s Eve? [Laughter] Let us know who you think won and we’ll see you next time we’re on the air. If.
* * *
Of the years of shows I’ve done, this was the only one where I consciously thought, in the middle of it, I wish I could be sitting out front watching this.
Mailer’s version, in his book, of the last seconds: “The good-byes were short. Mailer turned around, and Vidal was gone.”
And mine: In the long shot, as credits rolled, you saw three of us still seated, with Norman walking off slowly. Alone. Like an old fighter who has absorbed a goodly number of body blows.
Comments are no longer being accepted.