No one—not Gore Vidal, not William Styron, not anyone—ever took down Norman Mailer the way Cynthia Ozick did at Town Hall in 1971. The setting: a debate on “women’s liberation,” as it was then called. The players: Mailer v. Germaine Greer, Diana Trilling, Jill Johnston, and Jacqueline Ceballos. (The event was later memorialized as a documentary.) Everyone focused on the exotic beauty and wit of Greer, the antics of Johnston (which prompted Mailer to say, “Come on, Jill, be a lady”), and the demure, sly presence of Susan Sontag in the audience, but to my mind it was Ozick who stole the show. When she asked, in her neurotic and nervous way, the following question: This question, I have been […]

Some bits and bobs for the holiday weekend… 1. Against my better inclinations, I’ve written a short piece on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. It’s in the journal Democracy, along with reflections from Orlando Patterson, Michael Kazin, Avishai Margalit, and other smart people. My conclusion? The politics of fear is dead; the politics of fear is alive and well.  Or, as Ed Tufte, a professor of mine at Yale, used to say: Some do, some don’t. 2. On this Labor Day weekend, it’s useful to remember that virtually nothing about the economy that we’re talking about these days is new.  Thanks to Roseanne for the reminder!   3. Speaking of comedy from days gone by, Dennis Perrin, a FB friend […]