The most entertaining Norman Mailer story I’ve read since the wake began:
“The stories of his macho posturing are legion, from the time he dismissed America’s leading women writers as ‘fey, old hat, quaintsy and dykily psychotic’, to the day he encountered a passing punk while walking his poodles in Brooklyn. According to Peter Manso’s biography of Mailer, the punk incautiously suggested to the burly author that his poodles were homosexual. ‘Nobody’s gonna call my dog a queer,’ Mailer exploded, before throwing himself at the punk and almost losing an eye in the ensuing altercation.”
You know, I used to have a poodle as a kid, and that didn’t mean I … oh, wait.
Incautious punk, I salute you, wherever you are!
(From a post at Towleroad that also includes a nice Gore Vidal quote.)
Yee haw! But you don’t LOOK like a poodle?!
Jane, that’s because you can’t see the little argyle doggie sweater I’m wearing right now.
I suspect that the reason Mailer “couldn’t get through” to people is that people eventually just filtered the things he said through his perceived (and clearly demonstrated) insanity instead of taking them at face value.