New York
Their memorials were held five days apart, each in one of Manhattan’s most hallowed venues, each one attended by more than 2,000 worshipping fans, both attracting A-list mourners as well as the poor and the humble. William Buckley and Norman Mailer had great send-offs, the former, as a devout Catholic, in St Patrick’s Cathedral, on Fifth Avenue, natch; the latter, as a non-practising Jew who called himself an atheist, in Carnegie Hall, where art and imagination have flourished for decades.
As both men had been mentors of mine, their families kindly sent reserved-seat tickets, but it was not to be. Death unites the fallen and abjures snobbery and privilege. Paying homage to the dead means first come first served. One does not tell an old Jewish lady from Brooklyn, or a Catholic for that matter, that they’re sitting in one’s seat.
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