Mailer for Mayor

Norman Mailer's son writes an engaging account of his father's "left conservative" campaign 40 years ago to be mayor of New York. My favorite line: running mate Jimmy Breslin's lament that "I am mortified to have taken part in a process that required bars to be closed."

Bonus link: a great Mailer/Breslin campaign poster.

Comments

[Episiarch]

That poster is awesome. The Yorkville icon with the beer...excellent. Heidelberg, bitches!

[Suki]

Is psychedelic the style that poster was called back then, or is there a specific name for that style they used then? I have heard people my age use that tern for that style, but they do it for fluorescent posters too.

Nice poster! Would New Your have been better off with Norman Mailer as Mayor then?

[Wicks Cherrycoke]

The poster reminds me of a Monty Python intro.

[hank]

judged by the article it was a very non-libertarian campaign e.g extending rent control, banning cars in Manhattan (although some NY libertarians support this apparently) and shutting down the city once a month in a social engineering attempt at getting people to "talk with each other".

Love Mailler though.

[MNG]

Mailer was a terrible person, thinker and writer imo. Anyone doubting this should read his goofy essay "The White Negro."

[High Every Body]

banning cars in Manhattan (although some NY libertarians support this apparently)

This is where libertarians and cosmotarians meet.

Libertarians banning cars on public roads until they are privatized, cosmotarians banning cars so to fix the feaver of earth.

[MNG]

High
I imagine its been a while since someone told you that you were amazingly stupid, perhaps a full ten minutes...

[High Every Body]

MNG, my what a big brain you have! Been to any good book burnings lately?

[domoarrigato]

High Every Body | May 1, 2009, 9:27am | #

MNG, my what a big brain you have! Been to any good book burnings lately?

ouch.

[Jesse Walker]

Hank: I think it's important to distinguish stuff like the rent control, which obviously isn't libertarian, from ideas like "Sweet Sunday," which was more satiric than serious. Mailer's platform included several joke proposals, including a call for jousting matches in Central Park. They generally had serious points lurking behind them, but you weren't supposed to take them literally.

[P Brooks]

Mailer vs Dinkins

Who gets your vote?

[P Brooks]

I like the poster.

It needs an assortment of sea serpents and monsters guarding the edge of the "known universe" (i e, the Hudson River) to make it truly authentic.

[High Every Body]

Mailer's platform included several joke proposals, including a call for jousting matches in Central Park.

I prefer that one to be literal. Where do I sign up?

[PapayaSF]

Yes, "psychedelic" would be appropriate. Like a lot of late-'60s/early '70s rock concert posters, some of the type is also a tongue-in-cheek exaggeration of Victorian woodblock type. I don't see an artist credit, but if I had to guess, I'd say Milton Glaser or someone else from Push Pin Studios.

[High Every Body]

Looks like someone had a bad dose of slippery fingers at 5:20am.

[Suki]

HEB! That was mean! Maybe accurate, but mean. 😉

[tp]

Imagine if Buckley had won the '65 election and Mailer went up against Buckley instead. That would be the kind of race that could get me interested in politics.