Noel E. Parmentel, Jr., was a leading figure on the New York political
journalism, literary, and cultural scene during the third quarter of
the 20th century.Born in 1926 in Algiers (a part of greater New
Orleans), Parmentel attended Tulane University after service in the
Marine Corps, and migrated to New York in the 1950s. There he quickly
became a prominent fixture in literary circles and in political
journalism, "the tall, shambling New Orleans freelance pundit," known
for his witty essays, usually targeting those he considered "phonies,"
be they of the left or the right. "Anyone who knew anything about New
York then knew Noel," wrote Dan Wakefield in New York in the Fifties,
describing Parmentel's making "a fine art of the ethnic insult,"
dining out on his "reputation for outrageousness," and savaging the
right in The Nation, the left in National Review, and both in Esquire.
He was "a respecter of no race or tradition or station," his style
"that of an axe-murderer, albeit a funny one," in the words of his
early protégé John Gregory Dunne; William F. Buckley, Jr., wrote
admiringly of Parmentel's "vituperative art." In the New York of the
day, though "phonies" were proportionately distributed among the
political classes, the left was more numerous than the right;
Parmentel thus had the reputation in some circles of being an
arch-conservative, which in fact he was not. (Carey McWilliams, editor
of The Nation, credited Parmentel with introducing the much-quoted
line about Richard Nixon, "Would You Buy a Used Car From This Man?".)
Those he respected as not "phonies" included such varied figures as
the sociologist C. Wright Mills, the politician Adam Clayton Powell
Jr., the Tammany Hall boss Carmine DeSapio, and Father James Harold
Flye, mentor of James Agee.Among his most widely remembered essays
were a piece on Young Americans for Freedom entitled The Acne and the
Ecstasy, one called John Lindsay - Less Than Meets the Eye, and one on
Henry Kissinger called Portnoy on the Potomac. In 1964 he and Marshall
Dodge published Folk Songs for Conservatives, illustrated by the
caricaturist David Levine and containing such lyrics as "Won't You
Come Home, Bill Buckley," "Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dewey," "D'Ye Ken
John Birch", and "I Dreamed I Saw Roy Cohn Last Night", with a
companion LP record of the songs purportedly sung by "Noel X and the
Unbleached Muslims"; and he and Levine published a booklet of rhymes
and caricatures of Johnson Administration figures called Meanwhile,
Back at the Ranch.Parmentel was associated in several ventures with
the novelist Norman Mailer (who said of him, according to Dunne, "I
must love him, otherwise I'd kill him," but who spoke of Parmentel as
"a marvelously funny guy.") He appeared in Mailer's films Beyond the
Law and Maidstone; it was he and Village Voice columnist Jack Newfield
who proposed to Mailer that he conduct his famous campaign for mayor
of New York in 1969. Parmentel worked in Mailer's campaign, and
contributed what The New York Times called a "witty article" to a
collection of essays about that venture.
journalism, literary, and cultural scene during the third quarter of
the 20th century.Born in 1926 in Algiers (a part of greater New
Orleans), Parmentel attended Tulane University after service in the
Marine Corps, and migrated to New York in the 1950s. There he quickly
became a prominent fixture in literary circles and in political
journalism, "the tall, shambling New Orleans freelance pundit," known
for his witty essays, usually targeting those he considered "phonies,"
be they of the left or the right. "Anyone who knew anything about New
York then knew Noel," wrote Dan Wakefield in New York in the Fifties,
describing Parmentel's making "a fine art of the ethnic insult,"
dining out on his "reputation for outrageousness," and savaging the
right in The Nation, the left in National Review, and both in Esquire.
He was "a respecter of no race or tradition or station," his style
"that of an axe-murderer, albeit a funny one," in the words of his
early protégé John Gregory Dunne; William F. Buckley, Jr., wrote
admiringly of Parmentel's "vituperative art." In the New York of the
day, though "phonies" were proportionately distributed among the
political classes, the left was more numerous than the right;
Parmentel thus had the reputation in some circles of being an
arch-conservative, which in fact he was not. (Carey McWilliams, editor
of The Nation, credited Parmentel with introducing the much-quoted
line about Richard Nixon, "Would You Buy a Used Car From This Man?".)
Those he respected as not "phonies" included such varied figures as
the sociologist C. Wright Mills, the politician Adam Clayton Powell
Jr., the Tammany Hall boss Carmine DeSapio, and Father James Harold
Flye, mentor of James Agee.Among his most widely remembered essays
were a piece on Young Americans for Freedom entitled The Acne and the
Ecstasy, one called John Lindsay - Less Than Meets the Eye, and one on
Henry Kissinger called Portnoy on the Potomac. In 1964 he and Marshall
Dodge published Folk Songs for Conservatives, illustrated by the
caricaturist David Levine and containing such lyrics as "Won't You
Come Home, Bill Buckley," "Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dewey," "D'Ye Ken
John Birch", and "I Dreamed I Saw Roy Cohn Last Night", with a
companion LP record of the songs purportedly sung by "Noel X and the
Unbleached Muslims"; and he and Levine published a booklet of rhymes
and caricatures of Johnson Administration figures called Meanwhile,
Back at the Ranch.Parmentel was associated in several ventures with
the novelist Norman Mailer (who said of him, according to Dunne, "I
must love him, otherwise I'd kill him," but who spoke of Parmentel as
"a marvelously funny guy.") He appeared in Mailer's films Beyond the
Law and Maidstone; it was he and Village Voice columnist Jack Newfield
who proposed to Mailer that he conduct his famous campaign for mayor
of New York in 1969. Parmentel worked in Mailer's campaign, and
contributed what The New York Times called a "witty article" to a
collection of essays about that venture.
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