The Dumb and Joyful Masses
Taki Theodoracopulos's June 2026 American Conservative column lamenting the decline of literary culture in the smartphone age, with Mailer recalled as a contrarian friend. Of documentary value for its firsthand notes: the 2003 TAC Provincetown interview Taki and Scott McConnell conducted, and Mailer's belief that writers' heads are 'literally harder.' An about-Mailer clipping.
Taki (Taki Theodoracopulos). “The Dumb and Joyful Masses.” The American Conservative, 16 June 2026.
A “High Life”–style column on stupidity as the secret of happiness in the smartphone age, with Mailer recalled as a lost-breed friend — “an arch contrarian … who reacted like a truck driver when pushed to the brink.” Its value is firsthand: Taki and Scott McConnell’s 2003 trip to Provincetown to interview Mailer for the magazine (Mailer’s “head was full,” he warned, because Gore Vidal had been “challenging every word”), and Mailer’s notion that writers’ heads are “literally harder, hence the head butting.” Reminiscence rather than assessment, but a late witness to Mailer’s company.