The Liz Smith Column | 04/28/2009 12:00 am

Liz Smith: Is the American Conservative (Magazine) Dead?

Our Gossip Girl also brings us Manhattan meanderings: Allegra Huston, Norris Mailer, Salman Rushdie, Lauren Bacall and more.

By Liz Smith

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The American Conservative

“What is most admirable in the fantastic is that the fantastic doesn’t exist; all is real,” said Andre Breton.

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Two of my favorite politically conservative publications start me off today. First comes news that The American Conservative magazine, launched by Taki Theodoracopulos and Pat Buchanan, will cease publishing on May 7 unless some rich benefactor intervenes. As this magazine of the right was vociferous in criticizing both Democrats and the Bush administration over the recent past, this leaves “who” to ride to their rescue? I will certainly miss it.

National Review, created by the late William F. Buckley Jr., has what I call a “truth is stranger than fiction” story of the decades in its April 20 issue. I don’t think the editors will mind if I print it here:

Nagasaki resident Mr. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was on a business trip in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The atom bomb caught him in the open, and he was badly burned. After stumbling through the shattered city and its horrors for some hours, Mr. Yamaguchi managed to get on a train back to his hometown. After treatment for his injuries, he dutifully reported back to work at his company in Nagasaki on the morning of August 9. His boss demanded an explanation for his bandaged appearance, and was incredulous when told of the destruction of Hiroshima (of which the Japanese media had said nothing). He had just lost his temper and accused Mr. Yamaguchi of lying when there was an almighty flash … Mr. Yamaguchi, now 93 years old, has been formally certified as one of the very few to have survived both nuclear blasts; and, of that few, to have been closest to both – about two miles in each case.

Incredible story!

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At a recent bash for the Literati and Glitterati downtown on the East Side, I rubbed shoulders with a gang of the most famous. They were there to salute Allegra Huston for her stunning book, Love Child. (It’s all about how director John Huston and his relatives shifted her from pillar to post during her motherless growing up!)

Glimpsed cramming up to the serving table to eat the fabulous creations served up by chef Anita Clark were such stars as Lauren Bacall, Brian de Palma, Jeremy Irons, Anjelica Huston, Roger “Pink Floyd” Waters, John Richardson, Joan Juliet Buck, Nell Campbell (this reigning nightclub doyenne of the ’60s/’70s now lives in Sydney, Australia), R.J. Wagner and Jill St. John, John Patrick Shanley, Lillian Ross, Earl McGrath and I’m sure I’ve dropped and lost the names of tons of VIPs.

Norris Church Mailer, looking beautiful as usual, was there telling me she has until July to finish her Random House memoir, A Ticket to the Circus, all about her life growing up in Arkansas and then meeting and marrying the famous Norman Mailer. She has suffered mightily since his death, but told me, “I think I’ve finally forgiven Norman for everything!” We had to agree he was one of the most dynamic men we’d ever met. Norris’s book is one I can’t wait to read.

Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer and Liz, from Liz’s personal photos

Another truly famous author was Salman Rushdie, who said he was out socializing even though he was writing a children’s book and almost at the end of it. This distinguished guy — who had a fatwa declared against him for insulting Mohammed and who has been knighted by the queen — said, “Never in my life have I enjoyed anything like writing this book for kids. I have a 12-year-old and his input and influence on me has just been astounding. Unlike most authors almost at the end of finishing a book, I am happy and not hysterical and pressured. It has really been great.”

9 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

It’s so sad that you don’t get out and about more, Liz. What a life! Great stuff.

By SuzannedeCornelia3 on 04/28/2009 5:30 am

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There’s a new fat book out containing Mailer’s letters. Here’s an excerpt from one written in 1952 to Lillian Ross, a New Yorker writer:

Anyway, I’m back from vacation, suntanned, fat and pretty, with a hole in my heel and piles in my bottom. The piles I got from not writing for two weeks, and the hole in my heel by trying sand-skiing on a sand dune, sitting on a plank. So I limp and qvetch and people say, what a poor gimp, so young…[now talking about Hemingway] I know what it is about him I can’t stand. He is always saying in effect I am a man who happens incidentally to be a great writer. I know all of you will be interested in my noble, strong, and beautiful attempts to exercise myself as a great man, and I will be happy when I succeed except for professors, other writers, and assorted cocksuckers.

By phyllisDoylePepe on 04/28/2009 11:21 am

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"…..and I will be happy when I succeed except for professors, other writers, and assorted cocksuckers." One of a kind from the great era of American writers.

By SuzannedeCornelia3 on 04/28/2009 4:31 pm

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It took me thirty years, but I finally… finally… sent Lauren Bacall a letter of appreciation a few months ago. How do you tell someone who’s never met you that you get such a kick out of them without it sounding lame? Oh well, too late. Anyway, she very kindly signed a few pics for me, which I posted on my blog if anyone wants to check them out.

http://happymayberry.wordpress.com/2009/04/26/lauren-bacall-adds-a-link-to-the-good-karma-chain/

By BeeDublyew on 04/28/2009 12:10 pm

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Thanks for the link…..great pictures, lucky you….and loved your post about Arlen Specter…great writing:

"Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter made like a passenger on the Titanic and stepped into the warm and welcoming lifeboat of the Democratic Party today when he renounced his errant ways as a Republican.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael “Looney Boots” Steele immediately responded with voodooesque remarks about Specter’s mama and a threat to throw him down on a mat and give him a Melvin."

Friend me on Facebook….lots of people in my group would love your writing.

By SuzannedeCornelia3 on 04/28/2009 4:35 pm

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Suzanne,

The lifeboat you described has no marking in it ….either Democrat or Republican. The only marking on it is ‘America’ and it is sinking from a $11.1 trillion dollar national debt and $55 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities. There is no money in the Social Security Trust Fund. Just IOU’s. In just 11 weeks, Obama has spent 4 times (with borrowed money) what Bush spent in 8 years. In 94 years, the dollar has lost 96% of it’s value. China doesn’t want our bond debt and they are moving to copper and gold. Prepare yourself for a gallon of milk next year that costs $9 and see what effect that has on the 2010 election.

By RobertFinnegan1 on 04/28/2009 5:24 pm

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‘Liz Smith Encourages Teen Sex in Texas’

NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT

I just wanted to see how certain pundits could selectively choose words from a paragraph to have their way with the facts. In the current ‘Texas Monthly’, 81 Texans were asked how to improve the state. Among those consulted, Liz Smith, native of Fort Worth and legendary newspaper columnist.( and PHS grad)

What our gossip maven actually said was two fold: 1) "Texas should lead the nation in turning down useless federal funds for..absinence.. classes, " and 2) "Comprehensive sex education in schools is the answer.’

Now Liz Smith did’t get her facts from her Big Apple connections Turns out, "Texas now has one of the highest teenage birthrates in the country," while at the same time, "Texas boasts the unfortunate reputation as the number one state in the union when it comes to spending for abstinence-only programs"

Now you know what she actually said in case…no names shall be mentioned…says something otherwise on his radio program.

And please, Liz Smith, please point out to Mr. Rushie that because of current economic restraints ‘fatwads’ are considered tasteless, if anyone should even be so lucky…

Peace and grace

By BethWillis on 04/28/2009 5:59 pm

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Rusdie………of course., Pardon my blooper

By BethWillis on 04/28/2009 6:02 pm

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I will be sure to get the Norris Mailer book because I’m a huge fan of Norman Mailer and was shocked to hear that he once stabbed his wife at a party!

What I’m reading right now though is really fantastic. The autobiography of Osama Bin Laden’s African mistress, Kola Boof, "Diary of a Lost Girl." Highly recommend it. Much, much better than I could have ever thought.

By JudyPace on 04/28/2009 6:23 pm