The Armies of the Night [antikvár]

PART I: Thursday Evening 1: PEN PALS From the outset, let us bring you news of your protagonist, The following is from Time magazine, October 27, 1967. A shaky start Washington's scruffy Ambassador Theater, normally a pad for psychedelic frolics, was the scene of an unscheduled scatological solo last week in support of the peace demonstrations. Its antistar was author Norman Mailer, who proved even less prepared to explain Why Are We In Vietnam? than his current novel bearing that title. Slurping liquor from a coffee mug, Mailer faced an audience of 600, most of them students, who had kicked in $1,900 for a baü fund agamst Saturday's capers. "I don't want to grandstand unduly," he said, grandly but barely standing. It was one of his few coherent sentences. Mumbling and spewing obscenities as he staggered about ^e stage—^which he had commandeered by threatening to beat up the previous M.C.—^Mailer described in detail his search for a usable privy on the premises. Excretion, in fact, was his preoccupation of the night. "I'm here because I'm like LBJ," was one of Mailer's milder observations. "He's as full of crap as I am." When hecklers mustered the temerity to shout "Publicity hound!" at him. Mailer managed to pronounce 13