Monday, November 01, 2004
SERIOUSLY. WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE?
UPDATE: Our need for historical accuracy precludes us from deleting the post below, but as of December 6, 2004, we live at www.theoldhag.com, not the address listed below. If hosting troubles force us to move again, we'll take the hint and leave.
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There's something satisfying about moving when you don't have to pack 6000 books into boxes and carry them down three flights of stairs. Blogger, since I started with you before you got normal, nice templates, it has been ugly and difficult. It's time to honor css over substance. Please heretofore go to the new site at www.altehaggen.com. As Crazy Eddie would say, "That's altehaggen. Altehaggen DOT COM!" From now on, you will always, always find me there, not in this dump.* ** ***
* We would be remiss if we did not mention our deep appreciation for this summer's co-blogger, Jimmy Beck. We want him to start a blog, but he is pissing and moaning. Please get up a collection among yourselves and make it happen.
** Those trying to reach Jimmy can use the email they already have, we imagine, or contact us at altehaggen AT altehaggen DOT com.
*** We would also be remiss if we did not thank the BOOG, who did EVERYTHING, we mean EVERYTHING, on this new site. (Except design if, of course.) Without it, there would be a big long page of...nothing. Which some of you actually might prefer -- sorry to disappoint.
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There's something satisfying about moving when you don't have to pack 6000 books into boxes and carry them down three flights of stairs. Blogger, since I started with you before you got normal, nice templates, it has been ugly and difficult. It's time to honor css over substance. Please heretofore go to the new site at www.altehaggen.com. As Crazy Eddie would say, "That's altehaggen. Altehaggen DOT COM!" From now on, you will always, always find me there, not in this dump.* ** ***
* We would be remiss if we did not mention our deep appreciation for this summer's co-blogger, Jimmy Beck. We want him to start a blog, but he is pissing and moaning. Please get up a collection among yourselves and make it happen.
** Those trying to reach Jimmy can use the email they already have, we imagine, or contact us at altehaggen AT altehaggen DOT com.
*** We would also be remiss if we did not thank the BOOG, who did EVERYTHING, we mean EVERYTHING, on this new site. (Except design if, of course.) Without it, there would be a big long page of...nothing. Which some of you actually might prefer -- sorry to disappoint.
Saturday, October 30, 2004
BIRNBAUM AGONISTES
Robert Birnbaum sent me this comment on 1) my post below (just scroll down, don't make me link it) on who folks at Slate are voting for and 2) one of the existing comments on that post (it's all very meta, ain't it?). Anyway, I don't wanna turn this forum into a cable news-esque smackdown, but I have a hard time saying no to Birnbaum and his passion, plus I don't know how to allow for longer comments because I'm Bloggerly-challenged, if not globally stupid. And for the record, I don't really hate Kerry. I do share Weisberg's misgivings, but I also see voting for the dude as an absolute no-fucking-brainer. Got all that?
Jimmy:
"Roth, effete literati"? Bush has a Harvard MBA (he went to Yale too) thus he could run a hardware store. Great!
I see this political season brings out the worst and the idiotic by cheap shot web loggers who could not carry anyone's colostomy bag. There is, I suppose, always a nest of rodents for whom Wieseltier-like pronouncements is good sport and pleasure. So it goes.
George Bush and his faith based Huns are dangerous. Dangerous to civil society, dangerous to the world-at-large. And his prior business accomplishments (and his administration's record, though arguably his cronies' plans disregard the commonweal in pursuit of their own bottomless pockets so their policies are not incompetence) are ample evidence of Roth's assertion.
Corrupt and incompetent is how this court-appointed president will be judged by history. He will not benefit from the kind of revisionism that beatified Reagan (unless Uber-lieutenant Ashcroft incarcerates the next generation of historians via the plague known as the Patriot Act--if ever something reified the aphorism about the refuge of scoundrels).
I think Weisberg at Slate nails it on Kerry. It is something of an irony that the political climate requires the kind of duplicity and disingenuousness that we rightfully dislike Kerry for, but at least Kerry's point of view is reality-based. 101,000 dead Iraqis and American soldiers later, can we say that about George Bush?
el Rojo
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Jimmy:
"Roth, effete literati"? Bush has a Harvard MBA (he went to Yale too) thus he could run a hardware store. Great!
I see this political season brings out the worst and the idiotic by cheap shot web loggers who could not carry anyone's colostomy bag. There is, I suppose, always a nest of rodents for whom Wieseltier-like pronouncements is good sport and pleasure. So it goes.
George Bush and his faith based Huns are dangerous. Dangerous to civil society, dangerous to the world-at-large. And his prior business accomplishments (and his administration's record, though arguably his cronies' plans disregard the commonweal in pursuit of their own bottomless pockets so their policies are not incompetence) are ample evidence of Roth's assertion.
Corrupt and incompetent is how this court-appointed president will be judged by history. He will not benefit from the kind of revisionism that beatified Reagan (unless Uber-lieutenant Ashcroft incarcerates the next generation of historians via the plague known as the Patriot Act--if ever something reified the aphorism about the refuge of scoundrels).
I think Weisberg at Slate nails it on Kerry. It is something of an irony that the political climate requires the kind of duplicity and disingenuousness that we rightfully dislike Kerry for, but at least Kerry's point of view is reality-based. 101,000 dead Iraqis and American soldiers later, can we say that about George Bush?
el Rojo
Friday, October 29, 2004
JENNA'S LIVER'S ENTICING; WE WERE CONTEMPLATING GOING AS A CHENEY FAMILY VIBRATOR
Nancy Reagan
It's never too early to get your daughter into her first little black dress! This elegant approximation of former First Lady Nancy Reagan's moving moment alone with her husband's casket is as touching as it is scary. With just a flag, a casket, a simple black dress, and Grandma's old wig, any little girl can be America's Widow®!
Total cost: Between $25 and $25,000 (depending on the cost of the casket).Total time: Under an hour.
The Stranger unveils some ideas for Halloween costumes. We're going to try to talk the daughter out of Jasmine and into Shoe Bomber Richard Reid.
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It's never too early to get your daughter into her first little black dress! This elegant approximation of former First Lady Nancy Reagan's moving moment alone with her husband's casket is as touching as it is scary. With just a flag, a casket, a simple black dress, and Grandma's old wig, any little girl can be America's Widow®!
Total cost: Between $25 and $25,000 (depending on the cost of the casket).Total time: Under an hour.
The Stranger unveils some ideas for Halloween costumes. We're going to try to talk the daughter out of Jasmine and into Shoe Bomber Richard Reid.
Thursday, October 28, 2004
MANAJA HAYTA
Okay, Tony LaRussa, we guess you'll have to be satisfied with George Will and the rest of the Old School baseball Cabal kissing your ass for the next six months, talking about how you overachieved and should never have been there in the first place and what a tribute this is to your managerial skills.
Whatevs.
The truth is, for all of your decades of baseball acumen and your 105 regular season wins, you and your team got to the Series and promptly messed your diapers in the most egregious of ways. The players deserve a lot of the grief, but we would argue that the Cardinals' failure to win a game, to even get a lead, can be laid pretty much at your feet. True, the heart of your order proved that it was sans heart. But baserunning blunders, leaving pitchers in too long, pinch hitting rookies in critical situations--that's on you, babe. It all had the familiar scent of 1990.
So why don't you and erstwhile pitching coach Dave Duncan take solace in a few veggie burgers and come back next year like you always do: pissing and moaning about balls and strikes, asking the umps to check the opponents' bats, shoving Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon, batting the pitcher 8th, grooming some pockmarked steroid-fueled white boy to be the next Mark McGwire, and talking about how so-and-so is such a classy guy. As if you'd know.
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Whatevs.
The truth is, for all of your decades of baseball acumen and your 105 regular season wins, you and your team got to the Series and promptly messed your diapers in the most egregious of ways. The players deserve a lot of the grief, but we would argue that the Cardinals' failure to win a game, to even get a lead, can be laid pretty much at your feet. True, the heart of your order proved that it was sans heart. But baserunning blunders, leaving pitchers in too long, pinch hitting rookies in critical situations--that's on you, babe. It all had the familiar scent of 1990.
So why don't you and erstwhile pitching coach Dave Duncan take solace in a few veggie burgers and come back next year like you always do: pissing and moaning about balls and strikes, asking the umps to check the opponents' bats, shoving Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon, batting the pitcher 8th, grooming some pockmarked steroid-fueled white boy to be the next Mark McGwire, and talking about how so-and-so is such a classy guy. As if you'd know.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
JACK SHAFER: FLAMING LIBERTARIAN
Jacob Weisberg, Editor: Kerry
I remain totally unimpressed by John Kerry. Outside of his opposition to the death penalty, I've never seen him demonstrate any real political courage. His baby steps in the direction of reform liberalism during the 1990s were all followed by hasty retreats. His Senate vote against the 1991 Gulf War demonstrates an instinctive aversion to the use of American force, even when it's clearly justified. Kerry's major policy proposals in this campaign range from implausible to ill-conceived. He has no real idea what to do differently in Iraq. His health-care plan costs too much to be practical and conflicts with his commitment to reducing the deficit. At a personal level, he strikes me as the kind of windbag that can only emerge when a naturally pompous and self-regarding person marinates for two decades inside the U.S. Senate. If elected, Kerry would probably be a mediocre, unloved president on the order of Jimmy Carter. And I won't have a second's regret about voting for him. Kerry's failings are minuscule when weighed against the massive damage to America's standing in the world, our economic future, and our civic institutions that would likely result from a second Bush term.
This pretty much sums it up for us. Now rush on over and see who all the copy editors and interns are voting for. Hey Slate, can we ask some more novelists?
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I remain totally unimpressed by John Kerry. Outside of his opposition to the death penalty, I've never seen him demonstrate any real political courage. His baby steps in the direction of reform liberalism during the 1990s were all followed by hasty retreats. His Senate vote against the 1991 Gulf War demonstrates an instinctive aversion to the use of American force, even when it's clearly justified. Kerry's major policy proposals in this campaign range from implausible to ill-conceived. He has no real idea what to do differently in Iraq. His health-care plan costs too much to be practical and conflicts with his commitment to reducing the deficit. At a personal level, he strikes me as the kind of windbag that can only emerge when a naturally pompous and self-regarding person marinates for two decades inside the U.S. Senate. If elected, Kerry would probably be a mediocre, unloved president on the order of Jimmy Carter. And I won't have a second's regret about voting for him. Kerry's failings are minuscule when weighed against the massive damage to America's standing in the world, our economic future, and our civic institutions that would likely result from a second Bush term.
This pretty much sums it up for us. Now rush on over and see who all the copy editors and interns are voting for. Hey Slate, can we ask some more novelists?
WE'RE HOPEFUL THAT NAVY SEALS CAN HELP US LOCATE OUR DAUGHTER'S POLLY POCKETS
Says author Suzanne Brockmann, whose latest heroine works with former Navy SEALS to find a terrorist's laptop in Flashback (Ballantine, $6.99), out in paperback today: "I love that the heroines are such fabulous role models for women. They have the soul of the warrior, which is what modern women have to have in order to do what we do.
"The heroines I write about have an unwillingness to quit. When they're in danger, they're going to fight hard."
Really? The ones we write about are willing to quit at the first sign of a hangnail or sore throat. They're total pussies. But see, that's our competitive niche.
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"The heroines I write about have an unwillingness to quit. When they're in danger, they're going to fight hard."
Really? The ones we write about are willing to quit at the first sign of a hangnail or sore throat. They're total pussies. But see, that's our competitive niche.
WARNING: CERTAIN CLICHES SUCH AS "FROZEN WITH FEAR" AND "KNIFE FLASHED LIKE A LIGHTHOUSE" MAY HAVE SLIPPED THROUGH
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Tuesday, October 26, 2004
JOHN PEEL, R.I.P.
LONDON (Reuters) - Veteran British broadcaster John Peel, who died suddenly Monday, introduced eclectic music like punk rock to mainstream radio audiences and latterly became a household name with his family tales show "Home Truths."
Peel, 65, whose laconic style and distinctive accent was immediately recognizable, died of a heart attack while on holiday in Peru, the British Broadcasting Corporation said.
Jesus and Mary Chain, Loudon Wainwright III, XTC, Belle and Sebastian, J. Mascis, Captain Beefheart, PJ Harvey, Billy Bragg, Flaming Lips, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Neil Young--Peel pimped them all and about a bajillion others.
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Peel, 65, whose laconic style and distinctive accent was immediately recognizable, died of a heart attack while on holiday in Peru, the British Broadcasting Corporation said.
Jesus and Mary Chain, Loudon Wainwright III, XTC, Belle and Sebastian, J. Mascis, Captain Beefheart, PJ Harvey, Billy Bragg, Flaming Lips, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Neil Young--Peel pimped them all and about a bajillion others.
BUT CAN ANYTHING BE DONE ABOUT THAT AWFUL LAWRENCE KASDAN MOVIE?
"Grand Canyon: A Different View" was put together by Tom Vail, who in his own contribution says he was working as a rafting guide in the canyon in 1994, "telling folks that the exquisite and varied rock layers came about through completely natural processes," when a woman on one of his trips introduced him to the Bible. Within a few months, he relates, "I had made a conscious decision to believe in the Gospel." Soon, he and his passenger were married and now he and his wife, Paula Vail, operate Canyon Ministries, leading river tours with a creationist bent.
It's amazing, ain't it? Dude gets his first taste of born-again poon-tang and science gets kicked right to the curb. A grand canyon indeed.
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It's amazing, ain't it? Dude gets his first taste of born-again poon-tang and science gets kicked right to the curb. A grand canyon indeed.
BUY THE BOOK
Anyone who collects old books knows that most of what we call 'literature' is never read. Large collections of books are fetish objects rather than authentic scholarly resources. I'm like all those architecture students who feel compelled to buy a pair of expensive and uncomfortable Barcelona chairs. I have not yet given up on my professorial aspirations, and each new book is a small investment in that future, which, with any luck, could last another 40 years.
Thomas Benton discusses his book-buying bathos, seemingly the equivalent of our $45 dollar Whole Food herb purchases which wind up tossed in the trash two weeks later.
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Thomas Benton discusses his book-buying bathos, seemingly the equivalent of our $45 dollar Whole Food herb purchases which wind up tossed in the trash two weeks later.
HE ALSO NEATLY EXPLAINS WHY, WHEN NOT WRITING, THE WRITER'S LOSER-STATUS CANNOT BE GAINSAID
The subjects of your stories—the Hollywood leftovers, the barflies, a rock drummer who finds himself drawn to the life story of a janitor—often reflect the themes you touch on in your films. Do you have a specific reason for telling the stories you tell?
My short stories are immersions into very specific worlds. There's this idea implicit in my writing that Americans have these parallel lives—all over the place, these parallel cultures and societies exist independent of one another. People live in their own little bubbles and only occasionally do people in the media have a reason to cover them or find out what they're all about. These are people who are in the police force or who are firemen or in the world of newspaper reporting—all of these are tight little worlds. It's such a bubble that if you're completely immersed in it, you may not hear about O.J. Simpson or whatever. In my longer fiction and in my movies, I tend to immerse the reader into one of these worlds and try to express the hermetic nature of those worlds. Some of them are just funny kinds of micro-communities that may only last for a little while and then evaporate. A particular bar with a particular clientele or a sports team. There is a culture in any sports team and then the next year it's totally different. It even changes when someone gets hurt—within that culture, if they're not playing, they're not a person. Three weeks later, when they're done with their injury, they become a person again. Almost every world has that. A sort of office politics—either you're in favor or you're out of favor; either you're a player or a loser. These kinds of social dynamics are very particular to a place and time.
The COMPLETELY HOT (who new?) director John Sayles talks to Mediabistro about his new book, Dillinger in Hollywood.
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My short stories are immersions into very specific worlds. There's this idea implicit in my writing that Americans have these parallel lives—all over the place, these parallel cultures and societies exist independent of one another. People live in their own little bubbles and only occasionally do people in the media have a reason to cover them or find out what they're all about. These are people who are in the police force or who are firemen or in the world of newspaper reporting—all of these are tight little worlds. It's such a bubble that if you're completely immersed in it, you may not hear about O.J. Simpson or whatever. In my longer fiction and in my movies, I tend to immerse the reader into one of these worlds and try to express the hermetic nature of those worlds. Some of them are just funny kinds of micro-communities that may only last for a little while and then evaporate. A particular bar with a particular clientele or a sports team. There is a culture in any sports team and then the next year it's totally different. It even changes when someone gets hurt—within that culture, if they're not playing, they're not a person. Three weeks later, when they're done with their injury, they become a person again. Almost every world has that. A sort of office politics—either you're in favor or you're out of favor; either you're a player or a loser. These kinds of social dynamics are very particular to a place and time.
The COMPLETELY HOT (who new?) director John Sayles talks to Mediabistro about his new book, Dillinger in Hollywood.
GREAT MOMENTS IN JOURNALISM (PACE T-MUFFLE)
Heather Saucier learned the lesson of the "nut graf" the hard way. (In journalism jargon, the "nut graf" is a paragraph near the top of a story that concisely lays out its thesis.)
Ms. Saucier was still in college, working as an intern for the now-defunct Houston Post. She filed a piece on the city's troublesome squirrel population. The story was fine, her editor said, 'But you're missing a nut graf.'
She'd already written about squirrels chewing through telephone wires and gnawing on wood, so she dashed off a short paragraph about their diet: nuts.
The CS monitor puzzles over why J-school endures. Obvious. Students must also understand that "lead" is spelled "lede."
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Ms. Saucier was still in college, working as an intern for the now-defunct Houston Post. She filed a piece on the city's troublesome squirrel population. The story was fine, her editor said, 'But you're missing a nut graf.'
She'd already written about squirrels chewing through telephone wires and gnawing on wood, so she dashed off a short paragraph about their diet: nuts.
The CS monitor puzzles over why J-school endures. Obvious. Students must also understand that "lead" is spelled "lede."
UNFORTUNATELY, BILLY COLLINS DOMINATION IN THE WORLD AT LARGE CANNOT BE STYMIED
Jeffrey Levine, editor of the excellent Tupelo Press, wants to assure us that our fears about rampant Billy-Collins domination are unwarranted:
1) The past two Dorset Prizes, offering the nothing-to-sneeze-at $3,000 awards, attracted many of the poetry famous. Fact is, our contests are judged anonymously, and both previous winners were first books.
2) Our next annual first book award will likewise offer a $10,000 prize in keeping with our mission to further the notion that poetry matters.
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1) The past two Dorset Prizes, offering the nothing-to-sneeze-at $3,000 awards, attracted many of the poetry famous. Fact is, our contests are judged anonymously, and both previous winners were first books.
2) Our next annual first book award will likewise offer a $10,000 prize in keeping with our mission to further the notion that poetry matters.
IF ONLY THE REAL WORLD WORKED LIKE FLASH
When giving George Bush a brain, the trick, it seems, is to wait until he comes to you.
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TOTALLY STOKED ON DOUBLE D
In an odd bit of synchronicity (sorry, Sting), both CAAF at Tingle Alley and Other Voices editor Gina Frangello (in a terrific interview at TEV with blogstitute Tod Goldberg) make sheepish references to a certain 1980s pop group. Guess we'll totally see you dudes in Atlanta...
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Monday, October 25, 2004
OATES UPDATE
She-scribe-who-shall-remain-unnamed reports from a recent author's trade show:
Joyce Carol Oates looked pensive, possibly because she was thinking of the two novels she could have written in the time it took her to be honored by the booksellers.
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Joyce Carol Oates looked pensive, possibly because she was thinking of the two novels she could have written in the time it took her to be honored by the booksellers.
WHICH IS, INCIDENTALLY, WHAT PEOPLE KEEP SAYING ABOUT RICK MOODY
This year, the National Book Foundation decided for the first time in 55 years to go outside New York (all the way to St. Paul, Minnesota) to announce the finalists. “And what do we do?” asks foundation director Harold Augenbraum. “We end up with a parochial lineup. Who would expect that all five would be women from New York?” Certainly not Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, a first-time novelist living in Fort Greene.
“I thought I was getting cranked,” says the author of a cycle of dark, dreamlike fragments called Madeleine Is Sleeping (Harcourt).
We first read that as "I thought he was on crank".
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“I thought I was getting cranked,” says the author of a cycle of dark, dreamlike fragments called Madeleine Is Sleeping (Harcourt).
We first read that as "I thought he was on crank".
HERE I SIT, BROKEN-HEARTED...
Archaeologists in Germany say they may have found a lavatory where Martin Luther launched the Reformation of the Christian church in the 16th Century.
The toilet is in a niche set inside a room measuring nine by nine metres, which was discovered during the excavation of a garden in the grounds of Luther's house.
Dr Treu said there can be little doubt the toilet was used by Luther, the radical theologian who argued for a more "earthy Christianity", which regarded the entire human body - and not just the soul - as God's creation.
Guess that explains the 95 feces he nailed to the door.
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The toilet is in a niche set inside a room measuring nine by nine metres, which was discovered during the excavation of a garden in the grounds of Luther's house.
Dr Treu said there can be little doubt the toilet was used by Luther, the radical theologian who argued for a more "earthy Christianity", which regarded the entire human body - and not just the soul - as God's creation.
Guess that explains the 95 feces he nailed to the door.
DAILY DEALY
DailyCandy founder Dany Levy just made a sweet deal with Hyperion publishers, The Post has learned.
The founder of the daily e-mail service on style has contracted for two books with the Disney-owned publishing house. Senior Editor Kelly Notaras negotiated the high-six-figure deal with the William Morris Agency.
DailyCandy, founded in 2000, sends subscribers a free daily e-mail telling them about the newest, hottest designers, restaurants, beauty secrets, books and more.
We stopped reading Daily Candy about the time they advertised a grass-covered shitbox for felines. For six figures, though, we would agree to permanently go in one. [via Gawker]
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The founder of the daily e-mail service on style has contracted for two books with the Disney-owned publishing house. Senior Editor Kelly Notaras negotiated the high-six-figure deal with the William Morris Agency.
DailyCandy, founded in 2000, sends subscribers a free daily e-mail telling them about the newest, hottest designers, restaurants, beauty secrets, books and more.
We stopped reading Daily Candy about the time they advertised a grass-covered shitbox for felines. For six figures, though, we would agree to permanently go in one. [via Gawker]
THAT WOULD BE FUNNY, EXCEPT IT'S NOT
Okay. Now Blogger is posting my posts, but in reverse order. I am reduced to a "bottom."
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IN FORTHCOMING INTERVIEWS, MERKIN WILL DISCUSS CHOOSING "GRAY" WITH CYNTHIA OZICK AND COMPLIMENT LORRIE MOORE'S FACE FOR REMAINING RELATIVELY UNLINED
Munro is a trim, beautiful woman with relatively unlined skin and coiffed silvery gray hair; long gone are the slightly unkempt curls of her early photos. She is elegantly but unfussily put together, wearing a light enhancement of makeup, dressed in an ivory silk blouse, off-white pants and arty yet sophisticated earrings. Munro gets up to give me a warm hello, and I am immediately struck by a lack of pretense that all the same seems too considered to be entirely guileless. Perhaps it is no more than the undercurrent of quiet amusement emanating from her gray-green eyes, which suggests a watchful inner self behind the easygoing, even intimate manner. A witty, sometimes brutally observant self, held in check by the need to pass herself off as conventionally and graciously female. When I compliment her on having remained thin, she corrects me, stressing the difference between ''thin'' and ''thinnish'' as though she were a weight counselor. ''I've always been thinnish,'' Munro insists, only half-jokingly. ''I was never a thin girl.''
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PERHAPS THEY ARE FOLLOWING THE EXAMPLE OF AMERICAN PEACEKEEPING FORCES
Will Haygood begins his review of Russell Banks A Passage to Liberia with the observation: "It is a wonder that more American novelists don't set their works on the African continent."
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Sunday, October 24, 2004
SHOULD WE KVETCH TO THE WEBMASTER OR JUST GO STRAIGHT TO OKRENT?
Given that our resting state alternates between narcissism and guilt, we can't help but wonder if our--that is to say, Jimmy's--relentless busting of the Gray Lady's balls is not somehow causally--or at least synchronistically--linked to the fact that our proprietrix's stunning review of Arthur Nersesian's new book Unlubricated cannot be found on the NYT website. At any rate, we urge you to go to Starbucks or B&N and read it for free.
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Friday, October 22, 2004
...
OR MAYBE IT'S JUST A BIG HINT FROM THE OVERLORDS OF THE BLOGOSPHERE
Apparently, IN FACT, Blogger has been deliberately, shamefully and egregiously erasing my posts. As Uncle Grambo would have it, thanks for leaving my cheese swinging in the wind, you fucking douchebags.
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LIMNING THE CHOKE JOB
And the Yankees' very identity as destiny's darlings had been shredded as well in a spectacular reversal of fortune in which baseball's eternal losers, the scruffy, hopelessly jinxed Boston Red Sox, pulled off the unimaginable: toppling the once-proud Yankees in the most shaming and mind-boggling fashion - after the Bronx Bombers had been ahead, three games to none, in the American League Championship Series and a mere three outs away from the World Series.
What's even worse is now that the suddenly ham-handed, flatfooted, flatter, flabbier, cringe-making, curdled, formulaic, smugly reductive, paint-by-numbers, weary, narrow, claustrophobic, frayed and shopworn Yankees have lost, I have to go back to my day job.
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What's even worse is now that the suddenly ham-handed, flatfooted, flatter, flabbier, cringe-making, curdled, formulaic, smugly reductive, paint-by-numbers, weary, narrow, claustrophobic, frayed and shopworn Yankees have lost, I have to go back to my day job.
LOOK OUT FOR THE NEW URL SOON
Blogger keeps erasing our posts. We had a lovely one on Wonkette's book sale, as well as a long exegisis on J-Fly's new movie game. We're sure you can hardly handle the loss—but we do apologize, cuz we, like Marvin Gaye, have no idea what's goin' on.
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PROPS TO P-DUB
The Pony Express brought the new Poets & Writers mag yesterday (Nov-Dec 2004; Norman "Smoke A Fat" Dubie on the cover), which always makes for a productive trip to the bathroom. Unfortunately, none of it is online yet so all we can do is titillate and frustrate you (but then, if you're a regular reader or our spouse then you know that that's what we do best). Anyway, M.J. Rose--the doyenne of DIY publishing and right up there on our list of heroes next to Gerard Jones--has a kick-ass article on making the most of one's first novel, i.e., getting published as opposed to just getting printed. The fact that we're in danger of neither did nothing to diminish our enjoyment of the piece.
Also, there's a story on Iowa Short Fiction Award Winner Merrill Feitell (Here Beneath Low-Flying Planes) and her neuroses and feelings of inadequacy after winning the award. Ms. Feitell comes across as devoted to her craft, determined and humble--she strikes us as a real (wo)mensch. By all accounts, she's a terrific writer. Still, reading the article, we wished she could enjoy her good fortune and were reminded of the words of the late great Last of the Red Hot Mamas, Sophie Tucker: "I've been rich and I've been poor. And believe me, rich is better."
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Also, there's a story on Iowa Short Fiction Award Winner Merrill Feitell (Here Beneath Low-Flying Planes) and her neuroses and feelings of inadequacy after winning the award. Ms. Feitell comes across as devoted to her craft, determined and humble--she strikes us as a real (wo)mensch. By all accounts, she's a terrific writer. Still, reading the article, we wished she could enjoy her good fortune and were reminded of the words of the late great Last of the Red Hot Mamas, Sophie Tucker: "I've been rich and I've been poor. And believe me, rich is better."
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
THOUGH WE'D DROP DOLLARS FOR A FIRST EDITION OF "ALL OF YOU BASTARDS WILL PAY"
|WE HEART SUSIE ESSMAN
Ms. Essman, better known as Jeff’s wife on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, was on a roll, telling Trump: "We met once, but you don’t remember because you weren’t trying to sleep with me. That’s ’cause I’m not your type. It’s O.K.—because, you know, I’m smart, my tits are real, and I speak English." Mr. Trump looked into the audience and smiled reassuringly at Ms. Knauss.
"I think you should make the Trump condom, and you should have your face right on the tip. That way at least someone is getting fucked by you besides your business partners …. At this point, the only thing you own that’s not going down is Melania," quipped Ms. Essman before turning her tongue on Ms. Couric, who wore a glittering silver "K" pendant on her black sweater.
"Katie Couric had been dating the owner of the Boston Red Sox. The Boston Red Sox! I mean, why don’t you just fuck Saddam Hussein?" And Mr. Sharpton: "He probably has no idea who I am. Essman is a Hebrew word for Tawana." And, of course, Bill O’Reilly: "Bill O’Reilly has a new reality-TV show on NBC. Jeff Zucker just told me it’s called The O’Reilly Fucked Her. He’s also pushing a new children’s book, it’s called When Billy Gets Big."
Jesus Christ, this chick brought her "A" game to the Trump roast.
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"I think you should make the Trump condom, and you should have your face right on the tip. That way at least someone is getting fucked by you besides your business partners …. At this point, the only thing you own that’s not going down is Melania," quipped Ms. Essman before turning her tongue on Ms. Couric, who wore a glittering silver "K" pendant on her black sweater.
"Katie Couric had been dating the owner of the Boston Red Sox. The Boston Red Sox! I mean, why don’t you just fuck Saddam Hussein?" And Mr. Sharpton: "He probably has no idea who I am. Essman is a Hebrew word for Tawana." And, of course, Bill O’Reilly: "Bill O’Reilly has a new reality-TV show on NBC. Jeff Zucker just told me it’s called The O’Reilly Fucked Her. He’s also pushing a new children’s book, it’s called When Billy Gets Big."
Jesus Christ, this chick brought her "A" game to the Trump roast.
NO MORE MR. FAKE-NEWS GUY
There is nothing more painful than watching a comedian turn self-righteous. Unless of course, the comedian is lashing out at smug and self-serving television-news personalities. Jon Stewart could not resist a last dig at CNN's 'Crossfire' during his monologue on Comedy Central on Monday night . 'They said I wasn't being funny,' the star of 'The Daily Show With Jon Stewart' said, rolling his eyes expressively. 'And I said to them: 'I know that. But tomorrow I will go back to being funny,' Mr. Stewart said, adding that their show would still be bad, although he used a more vulgar expression…(He also used an epithet for the male reproductive organ to describe Mr. Carlson.)
The complete accuracy of Jon Stewart's assessment's aside, with all the ass-fucking going on lately at the Times, you'd think they could get it up -- heh -- to say "suck". (Even "blow"! Totally sexist.) So if Alessandra Stanley's recap is too dick-free for you, try the unexpurgated version here.
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The complete accuracy of Jon Stewart's assessment's aside, with all the ass-fucking going on lately at the Times, you'd think they could get it up -- heh -- to say "suck". (Even "blow"! Totally sexist.) So if Alessandra Stanley's recap is too dick-free for you, try the unexpurgated version here.
RIDE 'EM, JEWBOY
Kinky Friedman talks to Nerve:
Not to keep bringing the conversation back to sex, but it's sort of my job. What historical or political figure do you find the most sexually compelling?
(Long silence.) Well, I … I always liked Joan of Arc.
The short haircut does it for you?
I like that boyish look. I'd like to see how Anne Frank developed.
(Horrified laughter)
What's funny about that? She's one of my heroes.
Link via Bookslut's Michael Schaub, who's doing a bang-up job, by the way.
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Not to keep bringing the conversation back to sex, but it's sort of my job. What historical or political figure do you find the most sexually compelling?
(Long silence.) Well, I … I always liked Joan of Arc.
The short haircut does it for you?
I like that boyish look. I'd like to see how Anne Frank developed.
(Horrified laughter)
What's funny about that? She's one of my heroes.
Link via Bookslut's Michael Schaub, who's doing a bang-up job, by the way.
WE HAVE ONLY ONE PIECE OF ADVICE: NEVER READ A WORD BY STANLEY CROUCH
O’Nan said that he has read “The Plot Against America,” Roth’s new book, which, arguably, has been the year’s most celebrated literary release. “I think it’s a wonderful reworking of history that he tries to then fulfill. And it works for a while, but then he realizes he’s painted himself into a corner he can’t get out of, and he throws his hands up and says, ‘Oh, help!’” He added, “It’s a good try.”
Roth ranks higher on O’Nan’s list than Tom Wolfe, however, whose novel, “I Am Charlotte Simmons,” is due out next month. “Ay-yi-yi, John Irving was right: the guy’s not a novelist,” O’Nan said. “It’s nice that he thinks he’s the new Dickens, but he’s just not. Wow! What are you gonna do?”
Stewart O'Nan, either plied with ale by Ben McGrath or sporting a major death-wish.
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Roth ranks higher on O’Nan’s list than Tom Wolfe, however, whose novel, “I Am Charlotte Simmons,” is due out next month. “Ay-yi-yi, John Irving was right: the guy’s not a novelist,” O’Nan said. “It’s nice that he thinks he’s the new Dickens, but he’s just not. Wow! What are you gonna do?”
Stewart O'Nan, either plied with ale by Ben McGrath or sporting a major death-wish.
DOES THAT INCLUDE "AND THIS IS WHERE PRIESTS ARE TRAINED TO DIDDLE LITTLE BOYS?"
Giovanna Pizzorno told the paper she was just showing a group of friends the fountain, but police said she was standing in for a professional guide, and breaking a 1985 law that bans unauthorized guides in a bid to uphold the quality and livelihoods of professionals who have to sit exams to get a license.
A special undercover police unit regularly patrols Rome's top tourist sites, including the Colosseum and the Forum, to trap unlicensed tour guides. Police issue around 1,000 fines a year to those breaking the law.
Although the police should fine only people taking money for their services, the newspaper warned friendly Romans to check they are not being watched before offering visitors the benefit of their local knowledge on the city's world famous monuments.
"If a Japanese couple stop you and challenge your faltering English to tell them something about the Spanish steps, just tell them 'I don't know'," the paper advised its readers.
Well, hey, never mind tourism or hospitality, at least the trains still run on time, right?
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A special undercover police unit regularly patrols Rome's top tourist sites, including the Colosseum and the Forum, to trap unlicensed tour guides. Police issue around 1,000 fines a year to those breaking the law.
Although the police should fine only people taking money for their services, the newspaper warned friendly Romans to check they are not being watched before offering visitors the benefit of their local knowledge on the city's world famous monuments.
"If a Japanese couple stop you and challenge your faltering English to tell them something about the Spanish steps, just tell them 'I don't know'," the paper advised its readers.
Well, hey, never mind tourism or hospitality, at least the trains still run on time, right?
NOTE TO SELF: INCREASED VIDEO RENTAGE = MACARTHUR "GENIUS" GRANT
What are you going to do with all your newfound money?
I still take the bus and subway. I don't want to own anything that I can't fold up and bring into my apartment.
Would you like to buy a house?
No. I don't want to live on more than one level.
You could buy a ranch house.
That might be more room than I need. I'm a solitary person. I try to depend on no one. It's the way I've always done it. I eat dinner with myself. I cook for myself, though I don't know if you can really call it cooking. I've been eating a lot of salads from the supermarket.
Is that a full life?
I can't say that I'm unhappy. People invite me out, but I don't want to stand around with a glass of ginger ale.
Have you ever had a great adventure?
Yes. When I rented ''Raise the Red Lantern.'' I thought that was a wonderful movie. I am not hankering to do a lot of things.
After accusing Ted Kooser of being a tobacco-chewin', heartland ignoramus, Deborah Solomon reveals heretofore unexplored interest in the subleties of real estate in this interview with The Known World author Edward P. Jones.
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I still take the bus and subway. I don't want to own anything that I can't fold up and bring into my apartment.
Would you like to buy a house?
No. I don't want to live on more than one level.
You could buy a ranch house.
That might be more room than I need. I'm a solitary person. I try to depend on no one. It's the way I've always done it. I eat dinner with myself. I cook for myself, though I don't know if you can really call it cooking. I've been eating a lot of salads from the supermarket.
Is that a full life?
I can't say that I'm unhappy. People invite me out, but I don't want to stand around with a glass of ginger ale.
Have you ever had a great adventure?
Yes. When I rented ''Raise the Red Lantern.'' I thought that was a wonderful movie. I am not hankering to do a lot of things.
After accusing Ted Kooser of being a tobacco-chewin', heartland ignoramus, Deborah Solomon reveals heretofore unexplored interest in the subleties of real estate in this interview with The Known World author Edward P. Jones.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
RELATED: WHERE IS T-MUFFLE WHEN YOU NEED HIM?
A lovely morning drink,'' he said, and I had to agree: I was instantly soothed, the sin of the liquor and the wholesomeness of the milk entwining, making me feel as if I had been wrapped in a blanket. The sun went to bother someone else, and Doc turned to the sad state of cocktail scholarship.
If history is written by the winner, the history of the cocktail has largely been written by the drunk. ''Somebody invents something, they drink it and they forget it,'' Doc said. ''That's the sad thing.'' The milk punch dates back to Jerry Thomas's legendary 1862 ''Bar-Tenders' Guide,'' the first book to collect what was then an oral tradition of recipes. But Thomas merely wrote it down -- no one really knows the origin of the milk punch. ''There are some drinks that we absolutely know who invented them,'' Doc explained. ''Trader Vic created the mai tai. Joe Santini invented the brandy crusta. But otherwise, we don't always know. Everyone wants to have invented the martini, the margarita.''
John Hodgman, creator of the Little Gray Books reading series, incredibly longtime, longtime alcohol enthusiast and author of the forthcoming The Areas of My Expertise, take on the dearth of cocktail prosedy.*
*We are so ashamed to admit that we have had a rare-cocktails book with a wooden cover on the floor of our car that we fully intended to send to Mr. Hodgman for ONE YEAR. We are going to get it to you before your infant daughter goes to college, John. Or, at the very least, graduates.
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If history is written by the winner, the history of the cocktail has largely been written by the drunk. ''Somebody invents something, they drink it and they forget it,'' Doc said. ''That's the sad thing.'' The milk punch dates back to Jerry Thomas's legendary 1862 ''Bar-Tenders' Guide,'' the first book to collect what was then an oral tradition of recipes. But Thomas merely wrote it down -- no one really knows the origin of the milk punch. ''There are some drinks that we absolutely know who invented them,'' Doc explained. ''Trader Vic created the mai tai. Joe Santini invented the brandy crusta. But otherwise, we don't always know. Everyone wants to have invented the martini, the margarita.''
John Hodgman, creator of the Little Gray Books reading series, incredibly longtime, longtime alcohol enthusiast and author of the forthcoming The Areas of My Expertise, take on the dearth of cocktail prosedy.*
*We are so ashamed to admit that we have had a rare-cocktails book with a wooden cover on the floor of our car that we fully intended to send to Mr. Hodgman for ONE YEAR. We are going to get it to you before your infant daughter goes to college, John. Or, at the very least, graduates.
THIS "SEX IN THE CITY" DESCRIPTION IS REMINISCENT OF SHABBAT DINNER AT THE CAMPUS HILLEL
I have a lot of guy friends, and from listening to them I know there is just as much of a dearth of "good" women as "good" men. From my own experience and from observation, it seems like women fall into two categories: either they're successful with guys or they're not. Either guys fall for them hard and right away, or not at all. Either they always call, or they never call. And there's no way of telling who is going to fall into which category - it certainly seems to have nothing to do with looks. When Jack Berger told Miranda that the guy who didn't call her back just "wasn't that into" her, he should have added "Because you and your friends are desperate, painfully un-funny, materialistic cunts who have nothing to offer conversation-wise but lists of things you've recently purchased and no interests of your own and no curiosity and no motivation but snagging a rich husband as soon as possible."
Lindsay takes issue with the Chick Lit/Sex in the City ethos.
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Lindsay takes issue with the Chick Lit/Sex in the City ethos.
YOU MEAN IT'S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE AS WE AGE?!
Q. Why do older people seem to suffer more from flatulence?
A. Many bodily changes and circumstances that affect older people are associated with the release of intestinal gases, among them diseases, prescriptions, diet changes and loss of muscle tone.
Lookit, if Dooce can hit a home run with pooping, you can't begrudge us the occasional fart post.
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A. Many bodily changes and circumstances that affect older people are associated with the release of intestinal gases, among them diseases, prescriptions, diet changes and loss of muscle tone.
Lookit, if Dooce can hit a home run with pooping, you can't begrudge us the occasional fart post.
PITCHER IN THE RYE
"The Catcher in the Rye" is now, you'll be told just about anywhere you ask, an "American classic," right up there with the book that was published the following year, Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." They are two of the most durable and beloved books in American literature and, by any reasonable critical standard, two of the worst. Rereading "The Catcher in the Rye" after all those years was almost literally a painful experience: The combination of Salinger's execrable prose and Caulfield's jejune narcissism produced effects comparable to mainlining castor oil.
Jonathan Yardley gets medieval on Salinger. He calls Catcher in the Rye "sentimental," "squishy," damn near puke-provoking, "flagrantly manipulative," exploitative, "an exercise in button-pushing," "an adult's unwitting parody of teen-speak," "maladroit" and "mawkish."
We don't remember it as the greatest book ever written, but compared to some of the other gems on our high school reading list back in the Paleozoic (e.g., "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown," "The Rise and Fall of Lewis Lapham"), we're not entirely sure it deserves this kind of ardent assfucking.
At any rate, good citizen that we are, we immediately reported J-Yard to Snarkwatch and, as a sympathetic gesture, sent a fruit basket to "J.D., Somewhere in New Hampshire." (Can you get us a street address, Birnbaum?--we promise to keep it top secret) Of course, we would be remiss if we didn't note that Yardley's tirade is mitigated by his deployment of "jejune" in a manner so apt and beautiful it borders on the transcendent. {link via the jejune-meister himself}
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Jonathan Yardley gets medieval on Salinger. He calls Catcher in the Rye "sentimental," "squishy," damn near puke-provoking, "flagrantly manipulative," exploitative, "an exercise in button-pushing," "an adult's unwitting parody of teen-speak," "maladroit" and "mawkish."
We don't remember it as the greatest book ever written, but compared to some of the other gems on our high school reading list back in the Paleozoic (e.g., "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown," "The Rise and Fall of Lewis Lapham"), we're not entirely sure it deserves this kind of ardent assfucking.
At any rate, good citizen that we are, we immediately reported J-Yard to Snarkwatch and, as a sympathetic gesture, sent a fruit basket to "J.D., Somewhere in New Hampshire." (Can you get us a street address, Birnbaum?--we promise to keep it top secret) Of course, we would be remiss if we didn't note that Yardley's tirade is mitigated by his deployment of "jejune" in a manner so apt and beautiful it borders on the transcendent. {link via the jejune-meister himself}
Monday, October 18, 2004
FRESHAIR.ORGY
Q: You’re stuck on a desert island with three people you’ve interviewed. Which people would you want to have with you?
A: I would take Richard Thompson with me and force him to perform. I would probably take John Updike with me, and he could read his work, and he could describe for me everything that was going on around us, because I feel like when he describes something or somebody, I understand it better, because he knows just the right word. I might have Martin Short with me, to keep me laughing. Oh, can I bring a fourth person? I’d bring Richard Price with me, because I love his writing, and he’s one of the best talkers in the world. He wrote Clockers and a lot of screenplays. If I was stuck on a desert island, I would just so enjoy hearing him verbally riff.
Thompson will begin by servicing me while playing a reggae version of "Hand of Kindness." John Updike will describe the act via smoke signals to be sent off to David Remnick for the upcoming "Desert Island Radio Hostess Issue" of the New Yorker. Updike and Thompson will then duel--naked of course--with Richard T. wielding his guitar and Updike a 7-iron. Martin Short will wear his Jiminy Glick costume for the duration and humiliate me with farting noises and by throwing every obnoxious question I ask back in my face. Meanwhile, Richard Price will be called to account for Kiss of Death. I will forgive him because I just so enjoy hearing him verbally riff.
I am Terry Gross and I have spoken. That is all.
PS On my island, there will be a fund drive four times a year .
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A: I would take Richard Thompson with me and force him to perform. I would probably take John Updike with me, and he could read his work, and he could describe for me everything that was going on around us, because I feel like when he describes something or somebody, I understand it better, because he knows just the right word. I might have Martin Short with me, to keep me laughing. Oh, can I bring a fourth person? I’d bring Richard Price with me, because I love his writing, and he’s one of the best talkers in the world. He wrote Clockers and a lot of screenplays. If I was stuck on a desert island, I would just so enjoy hearing him verbally riff.
Thompson will begin by servicing me while playing a reggae version of "Hand of Kindness." John Updike will describe the act via smoke signals to be sent off to David Remnick for the upcoming "Desert Island Radio Hostess Issue" of the New Yorker. Updike and Thompson will then duel--naked of course--with Richard T. wielding his guitar and Updike a 7-iron. Martin Short will wear his Jiminy Glick costume for the duration and humiliate me with farting noises and by throwing every obnoxious question I ask back in my face. Meanwhile, Richard Price will be called to account for Kiss of Death. I will forgive him because I just so enjoy hearing him verbally riff.
I am Terry Gross and I have spoken. That is all.
PS On my island, there will be a fund drive four times a year .
WE ENTERED, BUT WE ARE JUST TRYING TO RID OUR APARTMENT OF PAPER
For any poets -- or for anyone who will now suddenly decide to be a poet -- Tupelo Press's Dorset Prize pays $10,000 this year. Of course, since it's not a first book prize, and poetry pays nothing, people like Louise Gluck and Billy Collins are probably going to enter and, as we said in our grammar school days, "fuck up the curve."
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CALLING EUROTRASH
Just FYI: THERE ARE OVER 500 COMMENTS IN A THREAD ABOUT POOPING on Dooce.
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DAMN YOU, ARIEL KAMINER, AND YOUR BLOG-POACHING WAYS
End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones—Like some M. Night Shyamalan scenario gone haywire, this movie is narrated by three dead men. The recent passing of Johnny Ramone (and before him, Joey and Dee Dee) gives 'End of the Century' (Magnolia Pictures) a funereal air, which is unfortunate: it's a classic rock 'n' roll story. A tour through the birthing pains of punk, the film documents the coming together, falling out and 'Spinal Tap'-like array of drummers of the band least likely to succeed. Tommy, if you're reading this, please see your doctor once a year.
Alex Balk was the author of the blog 'The Minor Fall, the Major Lift.'
Ahhh...is that the most poignant byline in recent memory, or what?
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Alex Balk was the author of the blog 'The Minor Fall, the Major Lift.'
Ahhh...is that the most poignant byline in recent memory, or what?
UNLESS THIS IS THE RESULT OF OUR SIMPLY BEING TERRIBLY IMMATURE
WASHINGTON – The Food and Drug Administration on Friday ordered that all antidepressants carry 'black box' warnings that they 'increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior' in children who take them.
Patients and their parents will be given medication guides that include the warning with each new prescription or refill.
Dr. Lester Crawford, acting FDA commissioner, said the agency based its decision on the 'latest and best science.'
"We continue to believe, however, that these drugs provide significant benefits for pediatric patients when used appropriately,' he told reporters.
It's currently in vogue to think that suicidal impulses caused by antidepressants result from a patient's becoming just-undepressed-enough from the brief lift provided by the drugs to finally contemplate how one actually ties a slip knot and get going with the deed. While this may happen, we think in the main it's one of those wonderful theories psychiatrists love that is in fact not true. On Prozac, for the first time, we entered into a walloping depression the likes of which we've never experienced -- within a week. While we are a fat old lady who has no intention of killing herself whatever terrifying and debilating feelings arise, we can't imagine the effect of this on a child, particularly one whose parents/doctors are not watching out for exactly the opposite of the predicted outcome. Which is to say, the black box is a good thing, but it's not limited to the adolescent brain.
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Patients and their parents will be given medication guides that include the warning with each new prescription or refill.
Dr. Lester Crawford, acting FDA commissioner, said the agency based its decision on the 'latest and best science.'
"We continue to believe, however, that these drugs provide significant benefits for pediatric patients when used appropriately,' he told reporters.
It's currently in vogue to think that suicidal impulses caused by antidepressants result from a patient's becoming just-undepressed-enough from the brief lift provided by the drugs to finally contemplate how one actually ties a slip knot and get going with the deed. While this may happen, we think in the main it's one of those wonderful theories psychiatrists love that is in fact not true. On Prozac, for the first time, we entered into a walloping depression the likes of which we've never experienced -- within a week. While we are a fat old lady who has no intention of killing herself whatever terrifying and debilating feelings arise, we can't imagine the effect of this on a child, particularly one whose parents/doctors are not watching out for exactly the opposite of the predicted outcome. Which is to say, the black box is a good thing, but it's not limited to the adolescent brain.
DROP YOUR SOCKS AND GRAB YOUR KEYBOARDS
One soldier, a woman, drove me around Ft. Drum. She was a sergeant. She had served in Irag AND Afghanistan. Her husband was at that moment gearing up for deployment in Iraq. She was six months pregnant with their first child. I asked her why she joined the military, and she told me she had always wanted to serve. She had a degree from NC State and had done all the coursework for a PHD. We had a kindly chat about literature, and also about having first children; and after she dropped me off, the young Captain who took over for her said he was with her in Northern Iraq; that she had delivered an Iraqi woman's baby there one cold morning; that an imbedded journalist was with them and saw the whole thing. That later, they passed out about two thousand pairs of shoes. And that night they opened a weapons cache, and found no weapons, and that is what the journalist reported.
If any part of the real story can get through, then that is a good thing. I do not believe that these individual stories follow any line, any political agenda other than to say what one sees, and to try to make sense out of it as a thinking person. That is every writer's responsibility, and the place where it happens is finally unimportant in the face of that responsibility.
Author Richard Bausch and Aleksandar Hemon are duking it out over Operation Homeland -- still in print, mind you, pace Stanley Crouch -- in Slate's fray.
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If any part of the real story can get through, then that is a good thing. I do not believe that these individual stories follow any line, any political agenda other than to say what one sees, and to try to make sense out of it as a thinking person. That is every writer's responsibility, and the place where it happens is finally unimportant in the face of that responsibility.
Author Richard Bausch and Aleksandar Hemon are duking it out over Operation Homeland -- still in print, mind you, pace Stanley Crouch -- in Slate's fray.
Sunday, October 17, 2004
GOOD MORNING, ALEKSANDER HEMON!
Aleksandar Hemon responds to some posts questioning his questioning of the NEA's new writing program for soldiers, Operation Homecoming:
All of them miss the point. The point is not that the soldiers should not be
given voice. The point is that if they are given voice under the auspices of
Wolfowitz, the Defense Department, and Boeing--unless you were asleep for the
past four years, it is reasonable to question the sound of the voice produced
by the Government. For every time you heard the Government's voice, the voice
was lying.
And another point is that if the soldiers' voice is the only one, then that
voice cannot possibly tell the true story. Both sides are not always needed,
but they are needed in a situation when almost everything reported about this
war is distorted by propagandistinc pressures, and then there are so many things
we do not even know, coming from the realm of the unimaginable. The program
insists on telling the stories of the soldiers who are participating in the
so-called war on terror--it pertains to archive the testimonies, to serve as
history. When some years from now someone wants to deal with the history of the
war on terrorism, they'll go to that archive. And in the archive they'll find
the stories of soldiers suffering, with the rest of it missing. Look at the
perception of the Vietnam War, look at all the movies in which the Vietnamese are
absent. What can you know now of how it was like being Vietnamese in those
days? Where can you find those testimonies? Is there an NEA anthology that
collected them? Does anybody give a fuck? And now you have a situation in which
John Kerry--who had served and then objected to the war is treated as a traitor
by many and may lose the election because of that. Don't you find the fact that
Seymor Hersh at the age of 70 or so, the man who wrote about My Lai writes
about Abu Ghraib as well? Where are the young ones? Hersh recognized Abu Ghraib
for what it was, because he had seen My Lai. Once you leave My Lai out of the
story of the Vietnam War and the American Military, then it is much easier to
present Abu Ghraib as an exception--you know, some bad apples did it. If the
NEA anthology comes out and it includes stories of massacres in, say, Fallujah,
the stories of Abu Ghraib, then I will admit my mistake and apologize.
Another thing is the fact that the military elite is hiding behind the quaint
faces of regular, lower-class soldiers. Apparently, the Army does not include
generals--say, General Boykin, the nutcase who is under the impression he is
fighting Satan himself in Iraq (he would not settle for "Islamofascism") and
is very involved in Rumsfeld's murderous special projects. How about the
military intelligence boys who run secret detention camps into which "Islamofascist"
often disappear never to come out. I would like to hear the voices of those
boys, for I bet they have stories to tell. But they're covered up by the
poignant stories of Americans helping women giving birth, after they shot their
husbands.
Another thing is the fact that the military elite is hiding behind the quaint
faces of regular, lower-class soldiers. Apparently, the Army does not include
generals--say, General Boykin, the nutcase who is under the impression he is
fighting Satan himself in Iraq (he would not settle for "Islamofascism") and
is very involved in Rumsfeld's murderous special projects. How about the
military intelligence boys who run secret detention camps into which "Islamofascist"
often disappear never
I was giving a reading recently and in the audience, I found out later, was a
woman, whose son--a lifetime Republican and someone who always wanted to be a
soldier--was so disgusted by what he had seen in Iraq that he committed
suicide. So he was not there to talk about his experiences, and she didn't talk
either, for she couldn't. How about putting them into an NEA anthology--an
anthology of horrible silence? And I don't even want to begin to discuss the
nutcases who cannot tell the difference between Saddam and Osama--for them,
obviously, all Arabs and Muslims are the same, and worthy disposing of. Islamofascism
is a word so reminiscent of the Serbian racist rhetoric that lead to the
genocide and war crimes against Bosnian Muslims that it makes me want to vomit.
How did the people in this country become so unconscious? Even the kind
people are so in love with the myth that Americans are inherently good people, that
they are simply not capable of committing crimes--so when they do, they are
in fact victims, for something made them do those things, and if we are just
nicer to them, if we accept them back into the warm, unimpeachable moral bosom
of Americanness, they'll be okay, and we'll be okay, and everything will be
okay. They served their country, and they meant well, they had good intentions,
because this country always, always has good intentions --you know, freedom and
stuff--so the crimes are really accidents, they have nothing to do with the
structure and the orders and the generals, let alone with Rumsfeld or Dubya.
With little therapy, with throwing away the few bad apples, and, more than
anything else, with our unconditional support, our men and women in uniform will
recover and never kill again, unless they really have to. Lest
people get to question how Abu Ghraib took place and where the secret
detention camps are, and why in the world that is not the BIGGEST fucking issue of
the elections--lest they start unpatriotically wondering why it happens so
often, they are kept busy with the suffering of common soldiers, particularly those
who came back alive. The stories of soldiers' suffering and the stories of
American crimes are OBVIOUSLY not mutually exclusive--unless, and don't tell me
this is paranoid, unless the story-telling is sponsored by Wolfowitz, the
Department of Defense and a Government agency, all underwritten by Boeing.
So far the responses to my piece have mainly included insults, one fine
patriot suggesting deportation--it's the foreigners, you see, who infect the moral
fiber of America, and we need to watch them, as, by the way, we do. I would
not be surprised by someone somewhere physically attacking me. But I am an
American citizen and can say whatever the fuck I want, whenever I want. There. Nice
talking to you.
1) First of all, we're fine with the whole freedom-of-speech thing (?????????). Ditto its handy pal, disagreement.
2) We found this writer's exchange program on Vietnam and its consequences with five minutes of Googling. We're sure in an hour, we could find plenty more -- though we're equally convinced we'd miss the thousands in Vietnamese.
3) We apologize, but logic compels us to remark that Hemon is published by Random House, which is owned by Bertelsmann, a company with acknowledged past Nazi ties. Does this compromise his writing? Of course not. So unless Boeing is standing over the soldiers and whacking them with a ruler every time they write "George Bush wuz wrong," we'll reserve our judgments for the published results.
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All of them miss the point. The point is not that the soldiers should not be
given voice. The point is that if they are given voice under the auspices of
Wolfowitz, the Defense Department, and Boeing--unless you were asleep for the
past four years, it is reasonable to question the sound of the voice produced
by the Government. For every time you heard the Government's voice, the voice
was lying.
And another point is that if the soldiers' voice is the only one, then that
voice cannot possibly tell the true story. Both sides are not always needed,
but they are needed in a situation when almost everything reported about this
war is distorted by propagandistinc pressures, and then there are so many things
we do not even know, coming from the realm of the unimaginable. The program
insists on telling the stories of the soldiers who are participating in the
so-called war on terror--it pertains to archive the testimonies, to serve as
history. When some years from now someone wants to deal with the history of the
war on terrorism, they'll go to that archive. And in the archive they'll find
the stories of soldiers suffering, with the rest of it missing. Look at the
perception of the Vietnam War, look at all the movies in which the Vietnamese are
absent. What can you know now of how it was like being Vietnamese in those
days? Where can you find those testimonies? Is there an NEA anthology that
collected them? Does anybody give a fuck? And now you have a situation in which
John Kerry--who had served and then objected to the war is treated as a traitor
by many and may lose the election because of that. Don't you find the fact that
Seymor Hersh at the age of 70 or so, the man who wrote about My Lai writes
about Abu Ghraib as well? Where are the young ones? Hersh recognized Abu Ghraib
for what it was, because he had seen My Lai. Once you leave My Lai out of the
story of the Vietnam War and the American Military, then it is much easier to
present Abu Ghraib as an exception--you know, some bad apples did it. If the
NEA anthology comes out and it includes stories of massacres in, say, Fallujah,
the stories of Abu Ghraib, then I will admit my mistake and apologize.
Another thing is the fact that the military elite is hiding behind the quaint
faces of regular, lower-class soldiers. Apparently, the Army does not include
generals--say, General Boykin, the nutcase who is under the impression he is
fighting Satan himself in Iraq (he would not settle for "Islamofascism") and
is very involved in Rumsfeld's murderous special projects. How about the
military intelligence boys who run secret detention camps into which "Islamofascist"
often disappear never to come out. I would like to hear the voices of those
boys, for I bet they have stories to tell. But they're covered up by the
poignant stories of Americans helping women giving birth, after they shot their
husbands.
Another thing is the fact that the military elite is hiding behind the quaint
faces of regular, lower-class soldiers. Apparently, the Army does not include
generals--say, General Boykin, the nutcase who is under the impression he is
fighting Satan himself in Iraq (he would not settle for "Islamofascism") and
is very involved in Rumsfeld's murderous special projects. How about the
military intelligence boys who run secret detention camps into which "Islamofascist"
often disappear never
I was giving a reading recently and in the audience, I found out later, was a
woman, whose son--a lifetime Republican and someone who always wanted to be a
soldier--was so disgusted by what he had seen in Iraq that he committed
suicide. So he was not there to talk about his experiences, and she didn't talk
either, for she couldn't. How about putting them into an NEA anthology--an
anthology of horrible silence? And I don't even want to begin to discuss the
nutcases who cannot tell the difference between Saddam and Osama--for them,
obviously, all Arabs and Muslims are the same, and worthy disposing of. Islamofascism
is a word so reminiscent of the Serbian racist rhetoric that lead to the
genocide and war crimes against Bosnian Muslims that it makes me want to vomit.
How did the people in this country become so unconscious? Even the kind
people are so in love with the myth that Americans are inherently good people, that
they are simply not capable of committing crimes--so when they do, they are
in fact victims, for something made them do those things, and if we are just
nicer to them, if we accept them back into the warm, unimpeachable moral bosom
of Americanness, they'll be okay, and we'll be okay, and everything will be
okay. They served their country, and they meant well, they had good intentions,
because this country always, always has good intentions --you know, freedom and
stuff--so the crimes are really accidents, they have nothing to do with the
structure and the orders and the generals, let alone with Rumsfeld or Dubya.
With little therapy, with throwing away the few bad apples, and, more than
anything else, with our unconditional support, our men and women in uniform will
recover and never kill again, unless they really have to. Lest
people get to question how Abu Ghraib took place and where the secret
detention camps are, and why in the world that is not the BIGGEST fucking issue of
the elections--lest they start unpatriotically wondering why it happens so
often, they are kept busy with the suffering of common soldiers, particularly those
who came back alive. The stories of soldiers' suffering and the stories of
American crimes are OBVIOUSLY not mutually exclusive--unless, and don't tell me
this is paranoid, unless the story-telling is sponsored by Wolfowitz, the
Department of Defense and a Government agency, all underwritten by Boeing.
So far the responses to my piece have mainly included insults, one fine
patriot suggesting deportation--it's the foreigners, you see, who infect the moral
fiber of America, and we need to watch them, as, by the way, we do. I would
not be surprised by someone somewhere physically attacking me. But I am an
American citizen and can say whatever the fuck I want, whenever I want. There. Nice
talking to you.
1) First of all, we're fine with the whole freedom-of-speech thing (?????????). Ditto its handy pal, disagreement.
2) We found this writer's exchange program on Vietnam and its consequences with five minutes of Googling. We're sure in an hour, we could find plenty more -- though we're equally convinced we'd miss the thousands in Vietnamese.
3) We apologize, but logic compels us to remark that Hemon is published by Random House, which is owned by Bertelsmann, a company with acknowledged past Nazi ties. Does this compromise his writing? Of course not. So unless Boeing is standing over the soldiers and whacking them with a ruler every time they write "George Bush wuz wrong," we'll reserve our judgments for the published results.
Friday, October 15, 2004
BTW, WE THOUGHT JANE WAS GREAT IN "LEONARD PART 6"
Hey, this anti-Bush liberal has no problem in principle with both sides getting skewered. But when Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, and Janeane Garofolo moronically align themselves with Kim Jong-il and start wielding automatic weapons against Team America, well … Leftist actors learned from Vietnam not to cozy up to dictators: Jane Fonda, one of the best actresses of her generation, hasn't worked in more than a decade. And it's the left at the moment using Kim Jong-il to hammer Bush about making pre-emptive strikes only against countries with oil fields—as opposed to those that actually have weapons of mass destruction and are run by people nutty enough to use them. And Michael Moore wouldn't be a suicide bomber because he thinks too highly of his indispensability. Sorry, boys: This just isn't very incisive left-bashing.
Sorry, boy, this just isn't very compelling film criticism--it's much more like kvetching about marionettes. These are the South Park dudes, for God's sake, not the NYRB.
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Sorry, boy, this just isn't very compelling film criticism--it's much more like kvetching about marionettes. These are the South Park dudes, for God's sake, not the NYRB.
MAUD MUST HAVE BLOGGED THIS YEARS AGO, BUT THERE'S ALWAYS ROOM FOR AN UNNECESSARY UPDATE
The only books that change my life now--not necessarily for the better, and not at all in the way my old friend meant--are my own. They change my life the way moving houses changes your life, or a health regimen. But a good book, one that I love--a list I seem to add to with less frequency now than in former days--can still change, if not my life, then at least my way of seeing the world, and my place in it, for a day, or a week.
I don't have one favorite. If I did, I don't think I would be able to keep writing, because when I'm working on a novel, the main thing I'm trying to do, with all my heart, is to write my favorite book. Every novel, in prospect, is the best book ever written, just as every war is always going to be over by Christmas.
At any rate, here is a collection of books that, I thought, changed my life when I read them, or changed what I thought was my life. Some of them, additionally, devastated me. Revolutionary Road and The Age of Innocence fit into this category.
Did you know Michael Chabon had a site? We didn't. It's filled with hours of browsing we have no time to do, but here's a brief link. There's also a big head. [via Beautiful Atrocities, with whose view of the war we also don't exactly agree, but whose views on Roald Dahl and Royal Extra Stout are unimpugnable]
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I don't have one favorite. If I did, I don't think I would be able to keep writing, because when I'm working on a novel, the main thing I'm trying to do, with all my heart, is to write my favorite book. Every novel, in prospect, is the best book ever written, just as every war is always going to be over by Christmas.
At any rate, here is a collection of books that, I thought, changed my life when I read them, or changed what I thought was my life. Some of them, additionally, devastated me. Revolutionary Road and The Age of Innocence fit into this category.
Did you know Michael Chabon had a site? We didn't. It's filled with hours of browsing we have no time to do, but here's a brief link. There's also a big head. [via Beautiful Atrocities, with whose view of the war we also don't exactly agree, but whose views on Roald Dahl and Royal Extra Stout are unimpugnable]
Thursday, October 14, 2004
HOW CAN WE LEAVE THIS BEHIND?
A lot of this writing, with its billowing waves, its dark abysses and searing flames burning the soul to tinder, is nonsense, of course, but it's sometimes splendid nonsense, and every now and then, when she's not talking about crotchless panties or how she collected her lover's used condoms, Ms. Bentley hits the grand rhapsodic note, as when she writes, "I became an archetype, a myth, a Joseph Campbell goddess spreading my legs for the benefit of all mankind for all time."
Had we known, Toni, we would've dropped by. And yes, dear reader, we are well aware that this book has been blogged about out the, uh, wazoo. To paraphrase Woody Allen, you could call us a sadistic sodomistic necrophile, but that'd be beating a dead horse. Anyway, at least now we know why Tina Brown's show is called "Topic A."
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Had we known, Toni, we would've dropped by. And yes, dear reader, we are well aware that this book has been blogged about out the, uh, wazoo. To paraphrase Woody Allen, you could call us a sadistic sodomistic necrophile, but that'd be beating a dead horse. Anyway, at least now we know why Tina Brown's show is called "Topic A."
WE GOTTA GET THESE KIDS TO EDIT OUR QUERY LETTERS
Chris, sixteen, from Lansing, Kansas, notes. “You can’t write it on a third-grade level, because the New York Times isn’t a third-grade-level paper. It’s for a more sophisticated kind of person—at least, that’s what I believe.”
Oh, Chris, you're a peach--we're truly heartened by the lack of cynicism in Lansing, Kansas. Just beware the Style section.
But here's something even more amazing from Daniel Radosh's hilarious New Yorker expose of tricksy high school kids getting their letters published in the New York Times:
It is because of this subterfuge that Thomas Feyer, who edits the Times letters page, cannot bring himself to be happy for the students’ accomplishment. “We’re not pleased with people who are dishonest with us,” he said over the telephone last week. “If somebody has a legitimate letter published, fine. And if they send in another letter two weeks later under a different name, and it’s a good letter, in effect they’re depriving someone else of a chance to get into the paper.”
Wow. Is this the socialist ethos in practice or just an elaborate ruse to keep Jane Smiley from getting in there every fucking day? On the other hand, one might argue that it takes some major-league chutzpah for the New Fucking Yorker, which summarily presumes all reader mail to be tainted with anthrax, to diss anyone for not publishing letters to the editor.
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Oh, Chris, you're a peach--we're truly heartened by the lack of cynicism in Lansing, Kansas. Just beware the Style section.
But here's something even more amazing from Daniel Radosh's hilarious New Yorker expose of tricksy high school kids getting their letters published in the New York Times:
It is because of this subterfuge that Thomas Feyer, who edits the Times letters page, cannot bring himself to be happy for the students’ accomplishment. “We’re not pleased with people who are dishonest with us,” he said over the telephone last week. “If somebody has a legitimate letter published, fine. And if they send in another letter two weeks later under a different name, and it’s a good letter, in effect they’re depriving someone else of a chance to get into the paper.”
Wow. Is this the socialist ethos in practice or just an elaborate ruse to keep Jane Smiley from getting in there every fucking day? On the other hand, one might argue that it takes some major-league chutzpah for the New Fucking Yorker, which summarily presumes all reader mail to be tainted with anthrax, to diss anyone for not publishing letters to the editor.
HAPPY YEAR ONE
We guess this makes the whole "How old are you now?" part irrelevant, right?
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TMFTML, NO LONGER ON THE DL
Dear Internet,' blogger The Minor Fall, The Major Lift wrote last month, ' … [I]n all likelihood, this is goodbye.' A friend, the posting explained, had taken the blogger aside and 'gently informed us that we should quit blogging, since our heart seemed no longer to be in it and it was 'painful to watch.'
This coming Sunday, after years of pseudonymously mocking the major media, the writer formerly known as TMFTML makes his New York Times debut under his own name. The new byline is Alex Balk. The piece is a guest spot in the Arts & Leisure section’s 'Playlist' column, following such previous celebrity contributors as Dave Grohl, Stephin Merritt and Danger Mouse.
'I asked him to do it and he did it,' said Ariel Kaminer, the editor at Arts & Leisure responsible for Mr. Balk’s crossover.
We're sort of irritated at the Svengali-esque hold Kaminer apparently has on our favorite blogger, but since will finally enable him to leave his day job table-dancing and pouring shots at Hogs 'n' Heifers, we really can't object.
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This coming Sunday, after years of pseudonymously mocking the major media, the writer formerly known as TMFTML makes his New York Times debut under his own name. The new byline is Alex Balk. The piece is a guest spot in the Arts & Leisure section’s 'Playlist' column, following such previous celebrity contributors as Dave Grohl, Stephin Merritt and Danger Mouse.
'I asked him to do it and he did it,' said Ariel Kaminer, the editor at Arts & Leisure responsible for Mr. Balk’s crossover.
We're sort of irritated at the Svengali-esque hold Kaminer apparently has on our favorite blogger, but since will finally enable him to leave his day job table-dancing and pouring shots at Hogs 'n' Heifers, we really can't object.
LETTING-THE-"FUNNY INTERN"-TRY-OUT-A-FEW TOWN: POPULATION 2
The sound bites both men brought were awful. Bush's snort about Kerry being on the 'far left bank' was dumb; Kerry's analogy of Bush to Tony Soprano was dumber.
Look at it this way: At least "Doesn't Bush kind of sound like 'tush'?" and "Kerry...not so very!" didn't make the cut.
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Look at it this way: At least "Doesn't Bush kind of sound like 'tush'?" and "Kerry...not so very!" didn't make the cut.
NEXT UP: NEW BLOGS NOTING HALF-FINISHED SANDWICHES AND JOKES THAT HAVE FALLEN FLAT AT OFFICE MEETINGS
A new blog charts the errors of major news outlets.
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WEIRDEST JOB SWITCH OF THE WEEK
The lovely Elizabeth Spiers has been hired as EIC of mediabistro:
Spiers will step down from her post at New York magazine and start at mediabistro.com full-time on November 1st. She fills the vacancy created by the departure of Jesse Oxfeld last month.
'Given recent screaming headlines about forged memos, presidential debate coverage, and subpoenaed journalists, I think this is a great time to re-evaluate the way the media industry covers itself,' says Spiers. 'As we expand the breadth and depth of coverage and analysis on mediabistro.com, we’re well-positioned to be on the cutting edge of that. I’m very excited about the opportunity to build the site into something that’s truly useful, entertaining and, ultimately, indispensable.'
On the other hand, if the pay rate for pieces is going to rise anywhere near to New York's (or, for that matter, above zero), we'd be THRILLED, [cough], of course, to return to writing for them.
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Spiers will step down from her post at New York magazine and start at mediabistro.com full-time on November 1st. She fills the vacancy created by the departure of Jesse Oxfeld last month.
'Given recent screaming headlines about forged memos, presidential debate coverage, and subpoenaed journalists, I think this is a great time to re-evaluate the way the media industry covers itself,' says Spiers. 'As we expand the breadth and depth of coverage and analysis on mediabistro.com, we’re well-positioned to be on the cutting edge of that. I’m very excited about the opportunity to build the site into something that’s truly useful, entertaining and, ultimately, indispensable.'
On the other hand, if the pay rate for pieces is going to rise anywhere near to New York's (or, for that matter, above zero), we'd be THRILLED, [cough], of course, to return to writing for them.
DEAD MAN WRITING
Writing in Slate, Aleksandar Hemon excoriates Operation Homeland, the NEA's new writing program for soldiers:
Operation Homecoming wants its participants to write the story of the war that produces almost as many casualties as lies. 'And these often harrowing tales are best told by the men and women who lived them,' writes Gioia poetically. As a matter of fact, the story would be much better told by those who died in Iraq, but they do not get to tell any stories, to participate in workshops, or to come home—except in the coffins that under a Pentagon policy prohibiting media coverage of human remains are not to be seen on television or in newspapers.
We're not sure we agree with Hemon's contention that any program that doesn't include the Iraqi experience is a "lie" (won't that experience also come out? and couldn't you apply that all-sides test to anything, after all?) but we must admit our main support of the program (also covered here and here in the Times) stems from the fact that even if the Commander in Chief can't read and write, our soldiers can.
UPDATE: Carrie at Tingle Alley gives us this soldier's perspective site to check out.
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Operation Homecoming wants its participants to write the story of the war that produces almost as many casualties as lies. 'And these often harrowing tales are best told by the men and women who lived them,' writes Gioia poetically. As a matter of fact, the story would be much better told by those who died in Iraq, but they do not get to tell any stories, to participate in workshops, or to come home—except in the coffins that under a Pentagon policy prohibiting media coverage of human remains are not to be seen on television or in newspapers.
We're not sure we agree with Hemon's contention that any program that doesn't include the Iraqi experience is a "lie" (won't that experience also come out? and couldn't you apply that all-sides test to anything, after all?) but we must admit our main support of the program (also covered here and here in the Times) stems from the fact that even if the Commander in Chief can't read and write, our soldiers can.
UPDATE: Carrie at Tingle Alley gives us this soldier's perspective site to check out.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
THAT IS, IF THE BOOG CAN FIGURE OUT WORD PRESS. ANY HELP ON THAT IS, YOU KNOW, APPRECIATED, SINCE WE'RE TOTALLY NOT GOING TO DO IT
SOOOOOOO BUSY reorging target-based content that life is almost over. Apologies are in order, but look for this site to look (if not be) better in the veeeeeery near future.
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Tuesday, October 12, 2004
THAT WAS REALLY TOO EASY
We've been so drunk, we failed to notice that Slate has started a new feature, Books Blitz. One of the first entries is Vendela Vida on the lack of smell in current novels:
After reading the above passage, and several other odor-infused scenes in the novel—including a three-page description of the stench of a thousand maggot-ridden rats—I scoured my shelves for other examples of scent in literature. I turned immediately to German writer Patrick Süskind's Perfume, and I came across long and textured descriptions of sublime fragrances and rancid stenches in Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Emile Zola, and George Orwell. But a casual survey of writings produced by American writers in the past decade suggested that collectively, like Gogol's Major Kovalev, we've lost our noses.
Oh, we don't know...And Now You Can Go definitely stunk.
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After reading the above passage, and several other odor-infused scenes in the novel—including a three-page description of the stench of a thousand maggot-ridden rats—I scoured my shelves for other examples of scent in literature. I turned immediately to German writer Patrick Süskind's Perfume, and I came across long and textured descriptions of sublime fragrances and rancid stenches in Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Emile Zola, and George Orwell. But a casual survey of writings produced by American writers in the past decade suggested that collectively, like Gogol's Major Kovalev, we've lost our noses.
Oh, we don't know...And Now You Can Go definitely stunk.
TODAY'S LIMNERICK: THE DARLING BY RUSSELL BANKS
Affliction set my heart a-twitter
Loved Continental Drift and Cloudsplitter
So it's all the more regrettable
The main character's not credible
Making this book destined for the shitter
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Loved Continental Drift and Cloudsplitter
So it's all the more regrettable
The main character's not credible
Making this book destined for the shitter
DEPARTMENT OF RHETORICAL QUESTIONS
Sure, sick employees keep the computer warm. But research shows that people sick with the common cold are not very productive. In fact, their lost productivity accounts for up to 60% of employer health costs -- more than if they'd taken a sick day.
So you wake up with a common cold or some other ailment that's getting you down. What should you do?
Duh. Of course, we're not very productive under any circumstances.
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So you wake up with a common cold or some other ailment that's getting you down. What should you do?
Duh. Of course, we're not very productive under any circumstances.
WHICH IS TO SAY, WHO THE HELL IS "ORSON SCOTT CARD"?
I'm a Democrat voting for Bush, even though on economic issues, from taxes to government regulation, I'm not happy with the Republican positions. But we're at war, and electing a president who is committed to losing it seems to be the most foolish thing we could do. Personal honesty is also important to me, and Kerry is obviously not in the running on that point, given that he can't keep track of the facts in his own autobiography.
Slate asks prominent novelists who they're voting for. We so pity the poor editorial assistant who had to track down the two actually voting for Bush.
UPDATE: I know, I know, I blogged the same thing as Jimmy. Sue me.
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Slate asks prominent novelists who they're voting for. We so pity the poor editorial assistant who had to track down the two actually voting for Bush.
UPDATE: I know, I know, I blogged the same thing as Jimmy. Sue me.
THANKS, SLATE, BUT WHO ARE PROMINENT TAXIDERMISTS VOTING FOR?
Slate asked a variety of prominent American novelists for a frank response to the following question: Which presidential candidate are you voting for, and why? Thirty-one novelists participated, with four for Bush, 24 for Kerry, and three in a category of their own.
Amy Tan: I'm voting for Kerry, because I have a brain and so does he. And because I use Botox and so does he.
Rick Moody: John Kerry. I actually voted for Nader in 2000 because blah blah blah rationalization blah blah blah to be a citizen of the West is to be a murderer and I thought Nader was a better murderer.
Joyce Carol Oates: Like virtually everyone I know, I'm voting for Kerry. And probably for exactly the same reasons. To enumerate these reasons, to repeat yet another time the fundamental litany of liberal principles that need to be reclaimed and revitalized, seems to be redundant and unnecessary, unlike my 528 books, each one of which is absolutely dundant and necessary.
Orson Scott Card: I'm a Democrat voting for Bush, even though on economic issues, from taxes to government regulation, I'm not happy with the Republican positions. But we're at war, and electing a president who is committed to losing it seems to be the most foolish thing we could do. Better to reelect a functional retard and his evil henchmen. I mean, things have gone great up til now, right?
Diane Johnson: I'm voting for Kerry. [Bush is about] guns, the auto, torture, and war. And you know, it's really the auto that's the worst. I know that Kerry will put the kibosh on the auto right away, before this whole horseless carriage thing gets way out of hand.
Jonathan Franzen: Kerry, of course. I trust him not to pour additional gasoline on the fires that Bush has set overseas. I trust him to exercise a modicum of fiscal sanity and to show a little compassion for the unlucky. Also, his wife is hot hot hot. Whereas I wouldn't fuck Laura Bush with your dick.
Jane Smiley: I consider a vote for Bush a vote for tyranny. And if I find out you voted for Bush, I will either run you over in my limousine or beat you to death with remaindered copies of Moo and the collected volume of my scintillating letters to the editor.
Lorrie Moore: Are there really any novelists voting for Bush? What's a novel anyway?
Russell Banks: I'll vote for John Kerry. It's the only way we can avoid the necessity down the road of a Second American Revolution—a thing I'd dearly love to see, but I clearly won't live that long. At this point, I'm just hoping I have time to kick Richard Ford's ass once or twice before I'm gone.
Daniel Handler: Anyone who reads my work knows that I favor de-escalation rather than inflammation of violence, the discouragement rather than the display of avarice and careful contemplation over rash action. And anyone who doesn't read my work: fuck you.
A.M. Homes: Richard Nixon, because I found him so fascinating the first time around I'd be curious to see what he could do from the beyond…Thanks a lot, folks, I'm here all week--tip your waitress and drive safe.
Thomas Mallon: I'll be voting for President Bush. His response to the 9/11 attacks has been both strong and measured, and he has extended a once-unimaginable degree of freedom to Afghanistan and Iraq. What do you mean my nose is growing? Anyway, after we hijack this fucker--again--Helprin and I are gonna be the Official Novelists of America and the NEA is gonna be our bitch in perpetuity. I can't wait to nationalize Esquire.
Gary Shteyngart: I don't really know what's going on, as I've been living in Italy for the past year, banging Ashkenazi-looking Italian chicks and eating all the tiramisu one man can put down.
Vendela Vida: If Kerry doesn't win, I'll have to be Canadian for the next four years. And you all will miss me. You know you will. And Dave, too. Dave will have to write a book about how he extravagantly gives all of his money away to Canadian peasants and teaches them how to write in a self-consciously self-referential occasionally funny ironic way that betrays their deep inner sadness.
Nicole Krauss: I really think it's not alarmist to say that if Bush is reelected to another four years, it may be the end of life as we know it. Certainly it will be the end of life for many species, including huge numbers of the species Homo sapiens. My only hope is that MFA students will be the first to die.
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Amy Tan: I'm voting for Kerry, because I have a brain and so does he. And because I use Botox and so does he.
Rick Moody: John Kerry. I actually voted for Nader in 2000 because blah blah blah rationalization blah blah blah to be a citizen of the West is to be a murderer and I thought Nader was a better murderer.
Joyce Carol Oates: Like virtually everyone I know, I'm voting for Kerry. And probably for exactly the same reasons. To enumerate these reasons, to repeat yet another time the fundamental litany of liberal principles that need to be reclaimed and revitalized, seems to be redundant and unnecessary, unlike my 528 books, each one of which is absolutely dundant and necessary.
Orson Scott Card: I'm a Democrat voting for Bush, even though on economic issues, from taxes to government regulation, I'm not happy with the Republican positions. But we're at war, and electing a president who is committed to losing it seems to be the most foolish thing we could do. Better to reelect a functional retard and his evil henchmen. I mean, things have gone great up til now, right?
Diane Johnson: I'm voting for Kerry. [Bush is about] guns, the auto, torture, and war. And you know, it's really the auto that's the worst. I know that Kerry will put the kibosh on the auto right away, before this whole horseless carriage thing gets way out of hand.
Jonathan Franzen: Kerry, of course. I trust him not to pour additional gasoline on the fires that Bush has set overseas. I trust him to exercise a modicum of fiscal sanity and to show a little compassion for the unlucky. Also, his wife is hot hot hot. Whereas I wouldn't fuck Laura Bush with your dick.
Jane Smiley: I consider a vote for Bush a vote for tyranny. And if I find out you voted for Bush, I will either run you over in my limousine or beat you to death with remaindered copies of Moo and the collected volume of my scintillating letters to the editor.
Lorrie Moore: Are there really any novelists voting for Bush? What's a novel anyway?
Russell Banks: I'll vote for John Kerry. It's the only way we can avoid the necessity down the road of a Second American Revolution—a thing I'd dearly love to see, but I clearly won't live that long. At this point, I'm just hoping I have time to kick Richard Ford's ass once or twice before I'm gone.
Daniel Handler: Anyone who reads my work knows that I favor de-escalation rather than inflammation of violence, the discouragement rather than the display of avarice and careful contemplation over rash action. And anyone who doesn't read my work: fuck you.
A.M. Homes: Richard Nixon, because I found him so fascinating the first time around I'd be curious to see what he could do from the beyond…Thanks a lot, folks, I'm here all week--tip your waitress and drive safe.
Thomas Mallon: I'll be voting for President Bush. His response to the 9/11 attacks has been both strong and measured, and he has extended a once-unimaginable degree of freedom to Afghanistan and Iraq. What do you mean my nose is growing? Anyway, after we hijack this fucker--again--Helprin and I are gonna be the Official Novelists of America and the NEA is gonna be our bitch in perpetuity. I can't wait to nationalize Esquire.
Gary Shteyngart: I don't really know what's going on, as I've been living in Italy for the past year, banging Ashkenazi-looking Italian chicks and eating all the tiramisu one man can put down.
Vendela Vida: If Kerry doesn't win, I'll have to be Canadian for the next four years. And you all will miss me. You know you will. And Dave, too. Dave will have to write a book about how he extravagantly gives all of his money away to Canadian peasants and teaches them how to write in a self-consciously self-referential occasionally funny ironic way that betrays their deep inner sadness.
Nicole Krauss: I really think it's not alarmist to say that if Bush is reelected to another four years, it may be the end of life as we know it. Certainly it will be the end of life for many species, including huge numbers of the species Homo sapiens. My only hope is that MFA students will be the first to die.
FORECAST: SNOW
"Blubbering toad"/overexcitable Canuck Dick Gordon interviews our favorite Turk, Orhan Pamuk, in today's second hour of The Connection.
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Friday, October 08, 2004
BIB OVERALLS, AND A DEAD MULE
Here are a few more traits that seem to run through Southern literature:
A tendency to celebrate eccentricity.
A preoccupation with Civil War history.
A thread of defiantness running through the characters and plot.
A slow and indirect style of prose.
John Cottle, blogging at MoorishGirl, is talking about the common traits of Southern literature. He forgot two things.
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A tendency to celebrate eccentricity.
A preoccupation with Civil War history.
A thread of defiantness running through the characters and plot.
A slow and indirect style of prose.
John Cottle, blogging at MoorishGirl, is talking about the common traits of Southern literature. He forgot two things.
ALONG WITH THE LOCATION OF EASTERN EUROPE
An attempt to diagram a sentence by James Joyce, or one by Henry James (whose style H. G. Wells described so memorably by as that of “a magnificent but painful hippopotamus resolved at any cost upon picking up a pea”), will quickly demonstrate the limitations of Sister Bernadette’s neatly bundled sentences. Diagramming may have taught us to write more correctly – maybe even to think more logically – but I don’t think anyone would claim that it taught us to write well. Soon after I got to college, one of my English professors spent an hour kindly explaining how I could make my writing less stiff and pompous – an hour that I can honestly say changed my life – and the years have shown me that Virginia Woolf’s comment on the subject is the simple truth: “Style is a very simple matter: all rhythm. Once you get that you can’t use the wrong words.
An ode to diagramming sentences, which, as a child of the seventies, we somehow missed.
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An ode to diagramming sentences, which, as a child of the seventies, we somehow missed.
EVERY WORD HE SAYS IS A LIE, INCLUDING "HARD" AND "WORK"
During an interview, Mary McCarthy once said about Lillian Hellman, 'Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the.'
That line came back to us this week as we listened to Cheney during the VP debate. But then, in response to a question from moderator Gwen Ifill about the epidemic of AIDS among African-American women, the Vice-President said this:
'Here in the United States we've made significant progress. I had not heard those numbers with respect to African-American women. I was not aware that it was that severe an epidemic there...'
Even pathological liars may sometimes speak the truth. Cheney most likely has not bothered to familiarize himself with such a, you know, marginal epidemic. Look closely at his words: 'I was not aware that it was that severe an epidemic there.'
MUG is on a roll today.
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That line came back to us this week as we listened to Cheney during the VP debate. But then, in response to a question from moderator Gwen Ifill about the epidemic of AIDS among African-American women, the Vice-President said this:
'Here in the United States we've made significant progress. I had not heard those numbers with respect to African-American women. I was not aware that it was that severe an epidemic there...'
Even pathological liars may sometimes speak the truth. Cheney most likely has not bothered to familiarize himself with such a, you know, marginal epidemic. Look closely at his words: 'I was not aware that it was that severe an epidemic there.'
MUG is on a roll today.
Thursday, October 07, 2004
NOTES FROM THE MINIVAN
The laughter of children greeted me as I entered, and my little monks ran to greet me, each hugging one of my legs. I scooped them up, had them wave goodbye to their teachers, and strapped them into their carseats. They offered up no resistance, they were even helpful as they moved their arms so I could buckle the belts. I can't stress how unusual this is. Normally, they are two squealing, greased piglets who squirm and bleat and block my every move with a counter-move that is so intuitive, I suspect that we have unwittingly enrolled them in a facility run by Shaolin Monks who train toddlers to become kung fu masters. I test this theory daily by having them attempt to snatch a pebble from my hand. So far, they are unable to do so. This comforts me.
Sac gives us a vivid taste of life in Suburbistan. Like Sac, we too find ourselves sexually attracted to Noggin superstar Laurie Berkner and fantasize about her doing unspeakable things to us while wearing that firefighter's hat. UPDATE: Forget it, she just had a baby--she's not gonna want us for weeks.
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Sac gives us a vivid taste of life in Suburbistan. Like Sac, we too find ourselves sexually attracted to Noggin superstar Laurie Berkner and fantasize about her doing unspeakable things to us while wearing that firefighter's hat. UPDATE: Forget it, she just had a baby--she's not gonna want us for weeks.
SHAFER IS EITHER A ZZ OR A ROGET FAN
As if suffering from echolalia, Blitzer shoots Greenfield's 'analysis' right back at him: 'I think it is clear that if you're a Bush/Cheney supporter, you certainly thought Cheney won. If you're a Kerry/Edwards supporter, you thought Edwards won.'
Next up to share his opinion is CNN political analyst Carlos Watson, who instantly contracts Blitzer's echolalia: 'I think that if you're a Cheney supporter, you were happy; if you're an Edwards supporter, you were happy.'
The last time we saw this many uses of the word "echolalia" was in ZZ Packer's excellent short story Brownies.
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Next up to share his opinion is CNN political analyst Carlos Watson, who instantly contracts Blitzer's echolalia: 'I think that if you're a Cheney supporter, you were happy; if you're an Edwards supporter, you were happy.'
The last time we saw this many uses of the word "echolalia" was in ZZ Packer's excellent short story Brownies.
IS THERE ROOM ON THAT BRIDGE FOR US?
The nine-day novelist*
Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 “in nine days on typewriters rented at 10 cents a half-hour.” For a teleconference held to promote literacy last night, Bradbury recalled an incident with the police that ultimately inspired the novel.
* Repeat until urge to fling self from bridge subsides: “Donna Tartt spent ten years on The Secret History. Tartt spent ten years on The Secret History.”
And the same again on The Little Friend, no? We feel Maud's pain. In fact, we confess that we've been contemplating taking this class or something like it, if only to give ourselves a deadline and $600 worth of guilt, i.e., the ultimate Jewish motivator. Anne Lamott, shitty twelfth drafts and all that, right? Feel free to talk us out of it. The short story is a more noble art form anyway, right?
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Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 “in nine days on typewriters rented at 10 cents a half-hour.” For a teleconference held to promote literacy last night, Bradbury recalled an incident with the police that ultimately inspired the novel.
* Repeat until urge to fling self from bridge subsides: “Donna Tartt spent ten years on The Secret History. Tartt spent ten years on The Secret History.”
And the same again on The Little Friend, no? We feel Maud's pain. In fact, we confess that we've been contemplating taking this class or something like it, if only to give ourselves a deadline and $600 worth of guilt, i.e., the ultimate Jewish motivator. Anne Lamott, shitty twelfth drafts and all that, right? Feel free to talk us out of it. The short story is a more noble art form anyway, right?
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
FYI, KIDS, THAT "JUSTIN CORRUPTIN'" THING IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT
TA gets class arrested, is summarily fired:
Gifford provided the two-page e-mail to The Cavalier Daily. The letter, written casually and in lower-case letters, included comments like, 'so far, they [the University Foundation] have refused to drop the charges, which is pissing off everyone at uva, because who in the hell ever heard of a university prosecuting its own students for trespassing?' and was signed 'justin 'corrupting the youth' gifford.'
Gifford also assured his students in the e-mail that he was doing everything he could to keep the charges off their permanent records, saying, 'i care about you all a great deal.' He added, 'we cannot change what happened, but we can change what it means to us. if this class is about anything, it is about a confrontation with the law and ghosts and feelings of dread and horror…we can organize these feelings into stories that are funny and tragic and scary, that make sense of it in a way that it makes it exclusively ours.
And when you learn over to do the cough-and-spit, just remember, it's all material. [via TEV]
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Gifford provided the two-page e-mail to The Cavalier Daily. The letter, written casually and in lower-case letters, included comments like, 'so far, they [the University Foundation] have refused to drop the charges, which is pissing off everyone at uva, because who in the hell ever heard of a university prosecuting its own students for trespassing?' and was signed 'justin 'corrupting the youth' gifford.'
Gifford also assured his students in the e-mail that he was doing everything he could to keep the charges off their permanent records, saying, 'i care about you all a great deal.' He added, 'we cannot change what happened, but we can change what it means to us. if this class is about anything, it is about a confrontation with the law and ghosts and feelings of dread and horror…we can organize these feelings into stories that are funny and tragic and scary, that make sense of it in a way that it makes it exclusively ours.
And when you learn over to do the cough-and-spit, just remember, it's all material. [via TEV]
"DRAW," MY PATOOTIE
My favorite moment came when Cheney impugned Edwards' voting record. Edwards replied that Cheney had voted against Head Start, Meals on Wheels, the Department of Education, and the Martin Luther King holiday. It was such a devastating flurry of kidney punches, so blandly and shamelessly delivered, that my wife and I burst into sobs of weeping laughter. At the skill or the gall, I'm not sure which.
Agreed. Also, how cute was it that he broke the rules of mentioning "John Kerry" TWICE, then laughed off Gwen Ifill's 20-second snafu? How cool would it be to have anyone in Washington you could call "cute"?
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Agreed. Also, how cute was it that he broke the rules of mentioning "John Kerry" TWICE, then laughed off Gwen Ifill's 20-second snafu? How cool would it be to have anyone in Washington you could call "cute"?
CUPCAKES: PROOF THAT GOD EXISTS
Let me be concise. I think cupcakes are perfect. They are for the individual. You never share a cupcake. They are so darn cute and because it's just for you, it makes you feel special. You can't overdo it with a cupcake either. A cupcake doesn't make you feel sick. Have you ever seen anyone pick out a cupcake? It takes a bunch of time. They have to pick the one that speaks to them. Cookies and donuts don't speak to you.
In fact, the only thing cuter than a cupcake is you, Clare Crespo! But what if we need to eat, say, seven cupcakes?
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In fact, the only thing cuter than a cupcake is you, Clare Crespo! But what if we need to eat, say, seven cupcakes?
FACE IT, HE'LL NEVER SURPASS "FUCK YOU (AN ODE TO NO ONE)"
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan (news) will hit the road next week on a two-week tour to promote his debut book of poetry, "Blinking With Fists," which was published recently by Faber & Faber.
If it's Wednesday, that means it's time for another volume of Rock Star Poetry. Elsewhere, Toni Bentley has confirmed that the follow-up to her current paean to pickle smuggling will chronicle a recent dalliance with another rock band and will be called Fisting With Blink (ReganBooks, snatch).
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If it's Wednesday, that means it's time for another volume of Rock Star Poetry. Elsewhere, Toni Bentley has confirmed that the follow-up to her current paean to pickle smuggling will chronicle a recent dalliance with another rock band and will be called Fisting With Blink (ReganBooks, snatch).
NOT JUST FOR PIMPLE-FACED KIDS ANYMORE?!
Being a fan of comic books is not just about reading the latest adventures of Batman or Spider-Man. Comics, now an art form in its own right, can cover everything from crime noir to global espionage.
Come on now, NYT, that's crazy talk!
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Come on now, NYT, that's crazy talk!
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU...AND NEITHER ARE WE
The chatty but edgy tone comes as no surprise. Behrendt, a stand-up comic, was a consultant for Sex and the City; Tuccillo was a writer on the show. The title comes from a now-famous episode when Carrie's boyfriend explains to Miranda why a guy declined to go back to her apartment after their first date. The response to that story line got Behrendt and Tuccillo thinking there was some public service to be done in print form.
"I was completely convinced when we were writing this, 'Oh, this is going to change the world,' " says Tuccillo, who is single.
Oh, yeah, no question. Gonna change the world the way fire did, or the wheel, or the printing press, or maybe crotchless panties. And talk about public service! Seems to us that writing a 175-page Sex and the City book and selling copies for 20 bucks a pop is about as altruistic as one can get. Fuckin' a--it's like working at a soup kitchen in a leper colony.
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"I was completely convinced when we were writing this, 'Oh, this is going to change the world,' " says Tuccillo, who is single.
Oh, yeah, no question. Gonna change the world the way fire did, or the wheel, or the printing press, or maybe crotchless panties. And talk about public service! Seems to us that writing a 175-page Sex and the City book and selling copies for 20 bucks a pop is about as altruistic as one can get. Fuckin' a--it's like working at a soup kitchen in a leper colony.
DEEP, DEEP AND PATHOLOGICAL: POPULATION US
Sometimes I link as part of source attribution. (I was raised southern, after all. I believe it’s only polite to thank somebody if you take something from him or her.)
Sometimes I pick up a quote from another weblog and place it in a list of publishing news, treating that blogger’s perspective as the equivalent of a critic’s argument in a newspaper or magazine article. And this, I suspect, is what upsets some print media types. After all, who are the bloggers to pontificate about literary and cultural matters? They lack credentials. Some went to sub-par southern schools. Some didn’t even graduate from college.
Here’s the thing: I tend to evaluate the reliability and intelligence of sources for myself. Having determined that a site is trustworthy, entertaining, or interesting – and preferably all three – I will refer to it accordingly, regardless of whether I take my quote from an article in The New York Times, or a post on a blog. And so of course I was disappointed to see so many of my favorite sources for literary news and commentary omitted from the article (even as some other excellent ones were included). It’s a lesser version of the reaction I’d have if someone purported to list the 50 best novelists of the 20th Century and left Graham Greene out.
Maud defends her TOTALLY out-of-control linking. Utter Wonder's link-manifesto has had far less therapy. Do all these back-and-forths on linking remind anyone of the debate between people who love one-night stands and those who think they're evidence of a deep, deep pathology?
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Sometimes I pick up a quote from another weblog and place it in a list of publishing news, treating that blogger’s perspective as the equivalent of a critic’s argument in a newspaper or magazine article. And this, I suspect, is what upsets some print media types. After all, who are the bloggers to pontificate about literary and cultural matters? They lack credentials. Some went to sub-par southern schools. Some didn’t even graduate from college.
Here’s the thing: I tend to evaluate the reliability and intelligence of sources for myself. Having determined that a site is trustworthy, entertaining, or interesting – and preferably all three – I will refer to it accordingly, regardless of whether I take my quote from an article in The New York Times, or a post on a blog. And so of course I was disappointed to see so many of my favorite sources for literary news and commentary omitted from the article (even as some other excellent ones were included). It’s a lesser version of the reaction I’d have if someone purported to list the 50 best novelists of the 20th Century and left Graham Greene out.
Maud defends her TOTALLY out-of-control linking. Utter Wonder's link-manifesto has had far less therapy. Do all these back-and-forths on linking remind anyone of the debate between people who love one-night stands and those who think they're evidence of a deep, deep pathology?
WE'RE HOPING FOR A BRUCE BABBITT CAMEO
Like the original, this one blurs reality and drama in a way that leaves you wondering what's spontaneous and what's staged. Jack Tanner wanders around the real-life convention chatting with failed Democratic candidates Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean, shaking hands with delegates who pretend to recognize him. In one great scene, Alex Tanner winds up in a skybox with Alexandra Kerry, who's also making a film. Both interview Ron Reagan, and Kerry gets increasingly annoyed as Tanner asks him vague and intrusive touchy-feely questions.
Post-Six Feet Under, we're canceling HBO and getting the Sundance channel--at least for now--so we can get our Robert Altman fix. {Thanks to Edward Arlington Champion for the link}
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Post-Six Feet Under, we're canceling HBO and getting the Sundance channel--at least for now--so we can get our Robert Altman fix. {Thanks to Edward Arlington Champion for the link}
PARTICULARLY WITH THE INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLAND, WHERE SHE CANNOT GAZE CONTEMPTUOUSLY AT THE LONE SCRAP AND TOSS IT ASIDE (AT LEAST NOT IN OUR SIGHTLINE)
|YOU'D KNOW WHAT A DRAG IT IS TO READ YOU
He inhaled a wealth of knowledge and who knows what else; this is not a book to offer chapter and verse about the author's wild side. But this period of discovery is thrillingly recalled, and the author's literary opinions are riveting. He had no use for "Ulysses," found Balzac hilarious and says he once derived an album from Chekhov's short stories. What he called typically quacky critical interpretation greeted these Dylan songs as autobiographical.
That's like some, uh, riveting shit, Janet. Don't bogart that joint.
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That's like some, uh, riveting shit, Janet. Don't bogart that joint.
Monday, October 04, 2004
Have we figured out how to load pix?
A "LIMNERICK" BY MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Just read Cheat and Charmer by Frank
And Jesus H. Christ it stank
Don't call it lit
The steaming pile of shit
Its author I'd like to spank
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And Jesus H. Christ it stank
Don't call it lit
The steaming pile of shit
Its author I'd like to spank
GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY DAY!
For not particular reason at all, we've lucked into a free copy of Francine Pascal's new novel, The Ruling Class. We'd like to offer it to the first reader who can CORRECTLY answer the following three questions.*
1. In what Pascal novel do we find a chow-mein sandwich?
2. What skinny-assed actress appeared on the cover of one of the first books in the Sweet Valley High series?
3. When O.H. writes for Pascal's Sweet Valley, what pseudonym is she under?
* Or we'll just give it to Sarah, who's obsessed with Pascal's progeny, GOSSIP GIRLS.
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1. In what Pascal novel do we find a chow-mein sandwich?
2. What skinny-assed actress appeared on the cover of one of the first books in the Sweet Valley High series?
3. When O.H. writes for Pascal's Sweet Valley, what pseudonym is she under?
* Or we'll just give it to Sarah, who's obsessed with Pascal's progeny, GOSSIP GIRLS.
SPECIAL K
Today, the company is introducing Kotaku, a computer gaming site; Screenhead, an entertainment site that uses flash animation and Photoshop to amuse in frat-boy ways; and Jalopnik, a souped-up car site. These male-oriented sites will feel at home at Gawker, which also publishes a porn site called Fleshbot and a tech-toy site called Gizmodo.
Are we the only ones who think Nick Denton has a REAL problem with the letter K?
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Are we the only ones who think Nick Denton has a REAL problem with the letter K?
UNSURPRISINGLY, THEY BOTH INVOLVE ALCOHOL
Which is worse -- having just finished your novel or dining with Very Important Media Personages who ask you about your mother on your multi-city book tour?* Laura Lippman and Jennifer Weiner go head-to-head.
* Who cares? We bummed cigarettes off cast members of The Wire!
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* Who cares? We bummed cigarettes off cast members of The Wire!
Sunday, October 03, 2004
IT DOESN'T TOUCH ON "IS THE COVER PRETTY?" QUESTION, BUT WE'RE TRYING TO GET OVER THAT
And that opens on to what I think of as the other main virtue of astringent criticism: It’s about readers. Much of Julavits’s discussion of reviewing was pitched at writers, and demonized many reviewers in the most tired and ridiculous way – insisting essentially that they are frustrated artists themselves, keen to make a spectacle of themselves, to draw attention to their self-dramatizing pirouettes and snarky outbursts purely for their own sake. But that is to my mind precisely backwards; good reviews are about the act of reading, not about the personality of either the reviewer or the writer. Critics should be in the business of asking how a work under review works as a reading experience – how it presents a fictional world, an argument, a series of characterizations, etc. – to people drawn into its orbit. And while I certainly don’t endorse the sort of hypercondensed EW style thumbs up, thumbs down form of reviewing, I think reviewers often overlook that readers have a pretty direct time investment (and a money one) in the judgments that critics tender. After all, reviewers always get galleys and review copies for free, and are compensated (albeit just barely) for the time they spend reviewing – and can easily lose sight of this. So in my rounds as a regular reviewer, I tried to keep near the front of my mind the sort of readers I used to recommend books to when I worked in bookstores: people with day jobs who are fighting all sorts of demands on their time to carve out enough of a margin of leisure to read on their own. If I tell them a book is worth 30 or so bucks and a far bigger chunk of time – the commodity you can never accrue more of – I had better in good conscience believe I’m right.
Maud Newton interviews Mr. Wonkette, critic and New York editor Chris Lehman. He's cogently and intelligently laid out what should be a reviewer's top question: Is this worth your $27.99?
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Maud Newton interviews Mr. Wonkette, critic and New York editor Chris Lehman. He's cogently and intelligently laid out what should be a reviewer's top question: Is this worth your $27.99?
ALSO....GROSS
THERE ARE LOTS of ways to tidy up your computer keyboard: a spurt or two of Windex, a blast from one of those high-tech cans of compressed air, or the old-fashioned flip-and-shake. But none of these are nearly as satisfying as excavating the crevices with a folded-up Post-It note. Depending on how long you hold off between cleanings, the results can be gloriously stomach-turning: wads of fuzz, mysterious multicolored flecks, petrified crumbs, disturbing white flakes.
This article on filthophilia (best new word of 2004, hands-down) strikes close to our grimy little heart, since we've been tossing and clearing for weeks in anticipation of our new landlord's immediately tossing us out in the street the minute she...um...makes contact with us. Cleaning is terrifying; so much better to be in a clean house, so horrible to be the one who has to clean it. So we're going to offer a prize to make it less terrible. One free copy of Alias' third season on DVD PLUS a French edition of the stunning "The Pursuit" to the first person who can correctly answer either of these questions:
1) Who offered the (correct) stock tip?
Buy something people use once, then throw away.
2) Who offered up (more or less) this philosophical truth?
Leaving a dirty house, for a man, just means the house is dirty. For a woman, it's like her underwear is dirty.*
*This really is more or less -- don't be thrown off by the underwear thing.
Happy playing! With Google, it should be REALLY hard. At least we'll see if anyone still watches Alias.
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This article on filthophilia (best new word of 2004, hands-down) strikes close to our grimy little heart, since we've been tossing and clearing for weeks in anticipation of our new landlord's immediately tossing us out in the street the minute she...um...makes contact with us. Cleaning is terrifying; so much better to be in a clean house, so horrible to be the one who has to clean it. So we're going to offer a prize to make it less terrible. One free copy of Alias' third season on DVD PLUS a French edition of the stunning "The Pursuit" to the first person who can correctly answer either of these questions:
1) Who offered the (correct) stock tip?
Buy something people use once, then throw away.
2) Who offered up (more or less) this philosophical truth?
Leaving a dirty house, for a man, just means the house is dirty. For a woman, it's like her underwear is dirty.*
*This really is more or less -- don't be thrown off by the underwear thing.
Happy playing! With Google, it should be REALLY hard. At least we'll see if anyone still watches Alias.
INTERESTINGLY ENOUGH, "STUPIDO" DERIVES FROM THE PORTUGUESE PHRASE MEANING "STAINED BLUE DRESS FROM THE GAP"
Jan Freeman is talking about some of the less-than-savory sources for today's slang terms:
IN A NEW YORKER profile a couple of weeks ago, Teresa Heinz Kerry got some grief for her grasp of English idiom after she called her detractors 'scumbags.' 'I doubt that she knows the literal meaning of `scumbag,' wrote the reporter, Judith Thurman, 'but perhaps, after forty years in America, nearly thirty of them as a political wife . . . she should have learned it.
We commiz, but why would the wife know that? It seems more like your average lowly mail clerk's department.
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IN A NEW YORKER profile a couple of weeks ago, Teresa Heinz Kerry got some grief for her grasp of English idiom after she called her detractors 'scumbags.' 'I doubt that she knows the literal meaning of `scumbag,' wrote the reporter, Judith Thurman, 'but perhaps, after forty years in America, nearly thirty of them as a political wife . . . she should have learned it.
We commiz, but why would the wife know that? It seems more like your average lowly mail clerk's department.
Saturday, October 02, 2004
TAKE THAT, WONKETTE AND TMFTML
The Old Gray Lady really REALLY really likes blogs. Congratulations to everyone finally embraced by the ink-smudged arms of the NYTBR. We only wish they had found space for Mark's Pacific Coastal Elegant Variation, but New York still doesn't know LA exists.
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Friday, October 01, 2004
FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK
So much awful news: volcanos erupting, photographers dying, along with all of the usual daily detritus.
But there are also reasons to celebrate, no?
We therefore grab our crotch, blow you a kiss, and with heartfelt sincerity say, "Good night, everybody! We love you!"
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But there are also reasons to celebrate, no?
We therefore grab our crotch, blow you a kiss, and with heartfelt sincerity say, "Good night, everybody! We love you!"
LIKE BEING PRESIDENT, IT'S "HARD WORK"
The real problem confronting both Diane Famiglietti from Trading Spouses and Lynn Bradley is that as designated "good moms" each recklessly reshapes her new family's lives and boundaries, certain these kids need nothing more than a perfect replication of what she has created for her own family. That's the makeover part of the shows. The bad moms often seem to do better, because they have observed and then attempted to synthesize their old values with the culture of the new family. Diane, the good mom on Trading Spouses, embarks on a frantic Mary-Poppins-on-Crack spree of picnics, water-fights, and doughnut-eating competitions with the stupefied Thibodeaux family. Similarly, when given the chance to set her own rules, Lynn Bradley fires the entire Spolansky staff of nannies, cleaners, and drivers and then demands that her rental husband join his kids for dinner every night. She also installs a flowered plastic tablecloth and a fuzzy Welcome Home mat that must have been murder to track down on the Upper East Side.
Dahlia Lithwick analyzes Trading Spouses and Wife Swap--two train wrecks we'll probably have to watch.
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Dahlia Lithwick analyzes Trading Spouses and Wife Swap--two train wrecks we'll probably have to watch.
AND DON'T WORRY -- IT'S DEDUCTIBLE
Just yesterday, we mailed off about 27 manuscripts of our horrible, only partly published book of poetry to all the best contests for about $20 a pop. (This isn't even counting the Kinko copy costs we accrued, having forgotten that we possess the codes to some far more functional copiers at the University nearby. Goodbye, $130.) Anyway, many many rejection letters will come of it, but pray for us. We don't know if Jimmy will pop in, but, as usual, we will be absent without leave. Have good weekends, people.
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Thursday, September 30, 2004
YEAH WHEN YOU CALL MY NAME, I SALIVATE LIKE A PAVLOV DOG
And this brings me to another point. PhD programs in the United States are decidedly not subversive, though they claim to be. This is why the Bitch herself decided not to continue in academia. In order to get tenure, you have to be published, but in order to be published, you have to talk about something that seems Very Important, but rarely connects to anything of consequence in the modern world.
Behold: Bitch Novelist has arrived! Between her and Fiction Bitch, we're sure a whole lotta narrative shit is gonna get straightened out toot sweet. Ever the beta male, we hope to be at least one of these bitches' bitch someday. [link via Galley Cat--meow, baby]
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Behold: Bitch Novelist has arrived! Between her and Fiction Bitch, we're sure a whole lotta narrative shit is gonna get straightened out toot sweet. Ever the beta male, we hope to be at least one of these bitches' bitch someday. [link via Galley Cat--meow, baby]
DAVID MITCHELL ALERT
We've never heard of this guy, but apparently someone named David Mitchell will be on The Connection today at 11 AM Eastern (note link was down early this morning).
UPDATE: Caution--NPR pledge drive. Arrrgh....
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UPDATE: Caution--NPR pledge drive. Arrrgh....
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
I NEVER DANCED FOR MY SPHINCTER
Parsing the NYO on Toni Bentley's new book:
Toni Bentley: "I’m not trying to get everyone to do this act—in fact, I think most people shouldn’t do it...But I also feel that I can’t be entirely alone."
Translation: "'Fess up, assfuckers! You think your shit don't stink?"
NY Observer: Forced to retire early because of a hip injury, Ms. Bentley had found not only a way to have power over the alpha females of this world, but a less ephemeral career.
Translation: Butt fucking takes a toll on the hips.
NYO: Her outfit today was circa 1978, in a tres chic way: smocked aqua cotton sundress, large denim platform sandals on her size-six feet (spending any amount of time on point is akin to Chinese foot-binding), lots of costume jewelry, pearls dangling from her ears and around her neck, silver bracelets circling both wrists, rhinestones at her décolletage and toes.
Translation: You couldn't blame me if I strapped one on and explored her Hershey highway myself.
NYO: Both [women] reserve the honor of anal sex for the special men in their lives.
Translation: Oral and plain old fucking are available to just about anyone else.
TB: "But then, of course, most sex writing is awful."
Translation: "Because it ain't about ass-fucking!"
TB: "It all kind of happened at the same time, and I thought, ‘Oh, it’s the Year of the Ass.’"
Translation: "Ass ass ass!"
TB: "I had an outright terror of balls of any size heading in my direction."
Translation: "Balls bad, ass good."
TB: "I mean, equal pay, that’s such a given—but going beyond that? Sexually? Even-steven in the bedroom? That’s not really interesting."
Translation: "I catch. I don't pitch."
NYO: Alas, it is not particularly more interesting to learn that Ms. Bentley has saved the detritus of her anal lovemaking...
Translation: She saved it?! Is that unfuckingbelievable?!
Leon Wieseltier: "I think it might be a small masterpiece of erotic writing."
Translation: "It takes a lot to put lead in the old pencil--Toni's book gave me legitimate wood."
LW: "I miss the days when pornography used to be published austerely."
Translation: "That's my dick talking. I have no idea what it's saying."
LW: "It’s not pornographic at all."
Translation: "I jazzed all over my ARC. Now I'm gonna have to actually buy a copy."
TB: "And it makes me laugh that I’m doing all of this in my own way..."
Translation: "Gelsey Kirkland, kiss my well-fucked ass."
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Toni Bentley: "I’m not trying to get everyone to do this act—in fact, I think most people shouldn’t do it...But I also feel that I can’t be entirely alone."
Translation: "'Fess up, assfuckers! You think your shit don't stink?"
NY Observer: Forced to retire early because of a hip injury, Ms. Bentley had found not only a way to have power over the alpha females of this world, but a less ephemeral career.
Translation: Butt fucking takes a toll on the hips.
NYO: Her outfit today was circa 1978, in a tres chic way: smocked aqua cotton sundress, large denim platform sandals on her size-six feet (spending any amount of time on point is akin to Chinese foot-binding), lots of costume jewelry, pearls dangling from her ears and around her neck, silver bracelets circling both wrists, rhinestones at her décolletage and toes.
Translation: You couldn't blame me if I strapped one on and explored her Hershey highway myself.
NYO: Both [women] reserve the honor of anal sex for the special men in their lives.
Translation: Oral and plain old fucking are available to just about anyone else.
TB: "But then, of course, most sex writing is awful."
Translation: "Because it ain't about ass-fucking!"
TB: "It all kind of happened at the same time, and I thought, ‘Oh, it’s the Year of the Ass.’"
Translation: "Ass ass ass!"
TB: "I had an outright terror of balls of any size heading in my direction."
Translation: "Balls bad, ass good."
TB: "I mean, equal pay, that’s such a given—but going beyond that? Sexually? Even-steven in the bedroom? That’s not really interesting."
Translation: "I catch. I don't pitch."
NYO: Alas, it is not particularly more interesting to learn that Ms. Bentley has saved the detritus of her anal lovemaking...
Translation: She saved it?! Is that unfuckingbelievable?!
Leon Wieseltier: "I think it might be a small masterpiece of erotic writing."
Translation: "It takes a lot to put lead in the old pencil--Toni's book gave me legitimate wood."
LW: "I miss the days when pornography used to be published austerely."
Translation: "That's my dick talking. I have no idea what it's saying."
LW: "It’s not pornographic at all."
Translation: "I jazzed all over my ARC. Now I'm gonna have to actually buy a copy."
TB: "And it makes me laugh that I’m doing all of this in my own way..."
Translation: "Gelsey Kirkland, kiss my well-fucked ass."
QUESTIONS FOR THE SECRET AGENT
Maud graciously informs us that she is now accepting questions to be directed to a Manhattan literary agent. We have so many we don't know where to begin--query queries alone could consume hours...Anyway, here are a few off the top of our heads:
1) Could you kick Andrew Wylie's ass in a fight?
2) How will history view the enormous contribution Gerard Jones has made to the heretofore-opaque world of author-agent communication?
3) Binky Urban or Lobster Newberg?
4) What's the easiest 15% you ever made?
5) Steve Almond says I don't need an agent. Isn't he always right about everything?
6) Easier sell: Snow to an Eskimo or a Martin Amis book to anyone?
7) Biggest asshole in publishing?
8) Author with the worst grooming?
9) Which house has the best drugs?
10) Author who has jumped the shark farthest and highest?
Okay, so maybe we're channeling Howard Stern...
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1) Could you kick Andrew Wylie's ass in a fight?
2) How will history view the enormous contribution Gerard Jones has made to the heretofore-opaque world of author-agent communication?
3) Binky Urban or Lobster Newberg?
4) What's the easiest 15% you ever made?
5) Steve Almond says I don't need an agent. Isn't he always right about everything?
6) Easier sell: Snow to an Eskimo or a Martin Amis book to anyone?
7) Biggest asshole in publishing?
8) Author with the worst grooming?
9) Which house has the best drugs?
10) Author who has jumped the shark farthest and highest?
Okay, so maybe we're channeling Howard Stern...
AND THAT TRAIN IS CALLED THE NYTBR
Playwright and screenwriter/director of the upcoming
film "Winter Passing" Adam Rapp's THE YEAR OF
ENDLESS SORROWS, set in New York's bohemian East
Village in the 1990s, chronicling a tumultuous year in
the life of a Midwestern transplant as he embarks upon a
career in publishing, begins writing his version of the
Great American Novel, and finds his first great love -
only to lose all three, to Denise Oswald at Farrar, Straus,
by David Halpern at The Robbins Office (NA).
Publishers' Lunch reports the sale of a novel that courts cliche like a wild-eyed girl staring straight into the eye of an oncoming train.
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film "Winter Passing" Adam Rapp's THE YEAR OF
ENDLESS SORROWS, set in New York's bohemian East
Village in the 1990s, chronicling a tumultuous year in
the life of a Midwestern transplant as he embarks upon a
career in publishing, begins writing his version of the
Great American Novel, and finds his first great love -
only to lose all three, to Denise Oswald at Farrar, Straus,
by David Halpern at The Robbins Office (NA).
Publishers' Lunch reports the sale of a novel that courts cliche like a wild-eyed girl staring straight into the eye of an oncoming train.
BEHIND EVERY GREAT POETRY COLLECTOR STANDS AN EVEN GREATER EX-WIFE
Here is a complete collection of titles from Black Sparrow Press, which published elegant and colorful editions of poets like Diane Wakoski and Charles Bukowski. Here is a mammoth collection of counterculture ephemera, journals printed on mimeograph machines, handbills announcing poetry readings in Haight-Ashbury, LP's of poetry readings, psychedelic posters.
To the obvious question about how he financed his obsession, Mr. Danowski is only partly forthcoming.
He spent two years at Fordham University but never graduated, Mr. Danowski said, and started dealing in etchings and lithographs in Woodstock, N.Y., in the 1960's, and also worked as a charity fund-raiser. He traveled around Europe in a van, working in a Paris art gallery; engaging in political activism, especially anti-apartheid work in Britain and South Africa; marrying three times; and fathering six children. The money for the collection, he said, has mostly not been his, but that of two benefactors. The first was his third wife, Mary Moore, the daughter of the sculptor Henry Moore, from whom he has been separated for eight years, though they remain close. (He lives with another woman.)
Richard Danowski, an independent collector, has sold what is considered to be the greatest assemblage of twentieth-century poetry in the world to Emory University. It's still a little unclear where he got the "millions of dollars" over the years to buy it in the first place, but the 1,000 volumes of Auden, including a naughty inscription in an early Stephen Spender volume, make it all worth it.
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To the obvious question about how he financed his obsession, Mr. Danowski is only partly forthcoming.
He spent two years at Fordham University but never graduated, Mr. Danowski said, and started dealing in etchings and lithographs in Woodstock, N.Y., in the 1960's, and also worked as a charity fund-raiser. He traveled around Europe in a van, working in a Paris art gallery; engaging in political activism, especially anti-apartheid work in Britain and South Africa; marrying three times; and fathering six children. The money for the collection, he said, has mostly not been his, but that of two benefactors. The first was his third wife, Mary Moore, the daughter of the sculptor Henry Moore, from whom he has been separated for eight years, though they remain close. (He lives with another woman.)
Richard Danowski, an independent collector, has sold what is considered to be the greatest assemblage of twentieth-century poetry in the world to Emory University. It's still a little unclear where he got the "millions of dollars" over the years to buy it in the first place, but the 1,000 volumes of Auden, including a naughty inscription in an early Stephen Spender volume, make it all worth it.
SIGNS OF THE APOCALYPSE
So Norman Mailer's gonna be on Gilmore Girls. Mark alerts us to the horrifying prospect of a Spaceballs sequel. Now we learn that both Barenaked Ladies and Melissa Etheridge have shows in development. How long before Salinger and assorted celebrity corpses show up on Fear Factor?
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Tuesday, September 28, 2004
THEY SMILE IN YOUR FACE
We know a lot of assistants and interns, and not just in publishing. The music, film and art worlds are filled with toadying little creeps just waiting to stab their superiors, their inferiors—even their best-buddy peers—square in the back as soon as they see their chance for a mention on Gawker. We also know a lot of bosses, and they're monsters with egos the size of Oprah's ass, circa 1985. Just know that the up-and-comers are no saints. They want nothing more than to become the monsters, and with the stink of "book deal" in the bloodied water, the feeding frenzy is likely to get worse.
Watch your backs, managers. Your worst enemy is the smiling ass-kisser sitting across the desk from you. He hates your guts, and he's taking notes.
The NY Press anoints "Assistant Lit" the Best New Annoying Lit Trend. [scroll way the hell down]
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Watch your backs, managers. Your worst enemy is the smiling ass-kisser sitting across the desk from you. He hates your guts, and he's taking notes.
The NY Press anoints "Assistant Lit" the Best New Annoying Lit Trend. [scroll way the hell down]
SPRINGSTEEN FOR PRESIDENT
Did you feel the call of your nation or the call of your community?
I don't know. Personally, I wouldn't view myself as that kind of valuable.
So you feel the call from your heart?
Yeah, I can hear the bells chiming. I've had a long life with my audience. I always tell the story about the guy with "The Rising": "Hey, Bruce, we need you!" he yelled at me through the car window. That's about the size of it: You get a few letters that say, "Hey, man, we need you." You bump into some people at a club and you say, "Hey, man, what's going on?" And they go, "Hey, we need you." Yeah, they don't really need me, but I'm proud if they need what I do. That's what my band is. That's what we were built for.
Seriously. John Kerry should take a few lessons from this guy--it'd be a landfuckingslide.
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I don't know. Personally, I wouldn't view myself as that kind of valuable.
So you feel the call from your heart?
Yeah, I can hear the bells chiming. I've had a long life with my audience. I always tell the story about the guy with "The Rising": "Hey, Bruce, we need you!" he yelled at me through the car window. That's about the size of it: You get a few letters that say, "Hey, man, we need you." You bump into some people at a club and you say, "Hey, man, what's going on?" And they go, "Hey, we need you." Yeah, they don't really need me, but I'm proud if they need what I do. That's what my band is. That's what we were built for.
Seriously. John Kerry should take a few lessons from this guy--it'd be a landfuckingslide.
THE WATER IS WIDE...AND SO AM I
This effort from the author of The Great Santini and The Prince of Tides is a joy on several levels. Conroy might not be the first to disguise a memoir as a collection of foodstuffs, but it's hard to imagine a more entertaining, honest and outlandish effort. In 21 chapters and 100 recipes, he traces his masticating, lusting, family-crazed, traveling life from a dysfunctional childhood in the South (with a tyrannical father and a mother who thought of cooking as "slave labor"), to gourmet adventures in Rome, Paris and the table of Alain Ducasse. The book aches with tales of times when eating is at its most urgent: in the face of love, or death, after an all-nighter with the guys or in the company of other great eaters. It's hard not to admire Conroy's innate ability to spin a yarn. And the food's not bad, either.
We should hope not, what with 12 recipes for treacle, a Gothic Grits souffle and an entire chapter devoted to Recipes Designed To Kill Your Father.
BTW, Amazon, what the fuck did you do with our Gold Box? How are we supposed to get great last-minute deals on mother-of-toilet-seat earrings and ear & nose hair groomers?
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We should hope not, what with 12 recipes for treacle, a Gothic Grits souffle and an entire chapter devoted to Recipes Designed To Kill Your Father.
BTW, Amazon, what the fuck did you do with our Gold Box? How are we supposed to get great last-minute deals on mother-of-toilet-seat earrings and ear & nose hair groomers?
IT'S NOT LIKE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS WERE A BESTSELLER OR ANYTHING
When you Google 'imprint,' 'teen,' and 'demographic,' the only thing that seems to pop up are references to the 'Extreme for Jesus' line of books. How do you feel about your competition?
Oh, we can so easily take him. I love that. But you know, we come up with these ideas in our editorial meetings, and we think, God, that's such a great idea. Someone must have done it already. And then someone does exactly what you did. We go onto bn.com or Bookscan, and lo and behold, there's nothing there on the subject. It's perfect. We're having a blast. I don't think any of us have ever had this much fun before.
Jen Bergstrom of the new Simon & Schuster teen and twentysomthing imprint: not scared of the Son of God. You heard it here first.
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Oh, we can so easily take him. I love that. But you know, we come up with these ideas in our editorial meetings, and we think, God, that's such a great idea. Someone must have done it already. And then someone does exactly what you did. We go onto bn.com or Bookscan, and lo and behold, there's nothing there on the subject. It's perfect. We're having a blast. I don't think any of us have ever had this much fun before.
Jen Bergstrom of the new Simon & Schuster teen and twentysomthing imprint: not scared of the Son of God. You heard it here first.
Monday, September 27, 2004
ALL I DID WAS ANNOY
The wedding party has long cleared out. Gross takes wry note of the lobby spectacle just past. She's asked about her wedding to Davis. "He's Catholic, I'm Jewish, neither of us practice, so we didn't want to have a religious ceremony. So. There's this Rent-a-Justice-of-the-Peace Center in the phone book?" Some of her statements turn into questions thanks to the upturned lilt familiar and beloved by "Fresh Air" listeners everywhere.
Oh, yes? We love that? We can't get enough of that? It's right up there with poet voice? Like that time she spent 20 minutes talking to Bobby McFerrin about Don't Worry, Be Happy? We're waiting for an audio book that will be filled with nothing but Terry making declarative statements that sound like questions?
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Oh, yes? We love that? We can't get enough of that? It's right up there with poet voice? Like that time she spent 20 minutes talking to Bobby McFerrin about Don't Worry, Be Happy? We're waiting for an audio book that will be filled with nothing but Terry making declarative statements that sound like questions?
PRESENCE OF DOG SHIT IS ALWAYS NOTED
Gothamist interviews a professional Scrabble® player:
Most Scrabble® players are good with anagrams. Can you anagram GOTHAMISTDOTCOM into anything interesting?
GOT TO MID-STOMACH is the best I came up with, most of the others were too scatological (note presence of DOG SHIT).
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Most Scrabble® players are good with anagrams. Can you anagram GOTHAMISTDOTCOM into anything interesting?
GOT TO MID-STOMACH is the best I came up with, most of the others were too scatological (note presence of DOG SHIT).
OR KNEW HOW TO OUT-DRINK THEIR MEDICATION; IT AMOUNTS TO THE SAME THING
Around him, everything would collapse - relationships, finances, his apartment - but Yates never stopped writing. That said, his excessive drinking slowed everything down. Yates, like Robert Lowell, was manic-depressive. Lowell would stop taking his drugs so that he could experience the dirty vitality of his manic breakdowns. Yates's method was to drink so much that the drugs were overpowered. At the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in Vermont, in 1962, he ran around naked claiming that he was the Messiah, and he suffered a similar collapse at the University of Iowa, where he taught creative writing in the mid-60s.
For many years he lived on his own, and his students and colleagues were shocked by the mean minimum of his rented rooms: a desk for his typewriter, a fridge with coffee, beer and bourbon, pictures of his daughters on the walls. He spent the last years of his life in Boston, in rented rooms of challenging bleakness: two weak lights, crushed cockroaches everywhere, soiled sheets in cupboards.
It's good to know, in these wussy days of 826 Valencia and book-club visitations, there was a time when writers actually knew how to behave. [via Tingle Alley]
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For many years he lived on his own, and his students and colleagues were shocked by the mean minimum of his rented rooms: a desk for his typewriter, a fridge with coffee, beer and bourbon, pictures of his daughters on the walls. He spent the last years of his life in Boston, in rented rooms of challenging bleakness: two weak lights, crushed cockroaches everywhere, soiled sheets in cupboards.
It's good to know, in these wussy days of 826 Valencia and book-club visitations, there was a time when writers actually knew how to behave. [via Tingle Alley]
AN UNPUBLISHABLE FEAST
LONDON, Sept. 26 - Eighty years after they were written, a previously unknown story and a handwritten letter ascribed to Ernest Hemingway have surfaced to stir a literary and legal dispute between people who want to see them published and people who don't.
At present, the opponents of publication - notably the custodians of the Hemingway estate - are winning, according to several people on both sides of the debate. But that has not detracted from the long, twisty tale of the documents themselves: a two-page letter and a five-page slapstick account of a bullfighting incident written in 1924. Not only do the documents offer an insight into the personality of a young Hemingway, scholars say, but they also illuminate the powerful appeal exerted by even modest discoveries of previously unknown writing by literary giants like Hemingway, who died in 1961.
The story - a thinly fictionalized sketch titled "My Life in the Bull Ring With Donald Ogden Stewart'' - and the letter cannot be published without the permission of the Hemingway estate, which has withheld it.
Hemmy's peeps have had no qualms about cranking out all kinds of posthumous dreck from Papa. So now they say no to a measly short story and letter? WTF?
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At present, the opponents of publication - notably the custodians of the Hemingway estate - are winning, according to several people on both sides of the debate. But that has not detracted from the long, twisty tale of the documents themselves: a two-page letter and a five-page slapstick account of a bullfighting incident written in 1924. Not only do the documents offer an insight into the personality of a young Hemingway, scholars say, but they also illuminate the powerful appeal exerted by even modest discoveries of previously unknown writing by literary giants like Hemingway, who died in 1961.
The story - a thinly fictionalized sketch titled "My Life in the Bull Ring With Donald Ogden Stewart'' - and the letter cannot be published without the permission of the Hemingway estate, which has withheld it.
Hemmy's peeps have had no qualms about cranking out all kinds of posthumous dreck from Papa. So now they say no to a measly short story and letter? WTF?
SEARCH STRING CONFUSION #1245
No, no no. The whole point of whores is that you don't HAVE to pick them up.
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NOT AS SPLENDID AS WRITING "WIGGLE WIGGLE" ANYWAY
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan said he didn't find the process of writing his new memoirs all "that splendid," according to an article in the latest issue of Newsweek magazine.
"I'm used to writing songs," the 63-year-old creator of such '60s hits as "Like A Rolling Stone" told the magazine. "And songs -- I can fill 'em up with symbolism and metaphors. When you write a book like this, you gotta tell the truth, and it can't be misinterpreted."
Zimmy, looking like Dame Edna here, taking time out from 50 years of guitar, harmonica and singing lessons to promote his book. Which we'll probably read because we're suckers.
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"I'm used to writing songs," the 63-year-old creator of such '60s hits as "Like A Rolling Stone" told the magazine. "And songs -- I can fill 'em up with symbolism and metaphors. When you write a book like this, you gotta tell the truth, and it can't be misinterpreted."
Zimmy, looking like Dame Edna here, taking time out from 50 years of guitar, harmonica and singing lessons to promote his book. Which we'll probably read because we're suckers.
Sunday, September 26, 2004
PLEASE UPDATE YOUR BOOKMARKS IMMEDIATELY
We'll leave the deconstruction to people that matter, but here's our take. Remember how normal people always said "The Titanic," but in the movie, they kept only saying "Titanic," as in, "I remember when I first boarded Titanic, as a young and full-lipped girl, before I was a grisly old potter out West somewhere"? Anyway, apparently, it is The Wonkette.* We remember this confusion ourselves, when people used to call us "The Old Hag" instead of just "Old Hag." Of course, The New York Times Magazine was not involved, we think.
*Also, Ana looks pretty. VERY pretty, especially for a really old lady. Which we would have told her in person had our martini-hoisting abilities been up to par.
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*Also, Ana looks pretty. VERY pretty, especially for a really old lady. Which we would have told her in person had our martini-hoisting abilities been up to par.
SHE'S WELCOME TO KICK CRACK VIALS AND WATCH THE RATS SCATTER OVER SHE-CRAB ANY TIME
|WE'LL ASSUME THE NAME "FITZWILLIAM DARCY" WAS THE FIRST TO GO
This is very serious. FORGET WEST SIDE STORY, FORGET CANDY, FORGET BAZ LURHMAN'S ROMEO AND JULIET. Now, from the director of Bend it Like Beckham, the Bollywood Bride & Prejudice*. [via Stephany-at-Maud's]
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OUR SNARKY SENSE IS TINGLING
Still, to its readers' continual delight, the magazine kept afloat. Buford's Granta cannily avoided the road to oblivion travelled by Horizon, Encounter and the New Review, appointing Jack its editor at the moment when fresh energy was required to keep the mix fizzing.
Jack's policy has been 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. Under his editorship, Granta has stayed at the cutting edge, though new fiction has hardly been a priority.
Really? Dude, are we reading the same magazine?
It's appropriate, therefore, that this excellent jubilee issue should contain an unpublished filmscript (Northanger Abbey) by Martin Amis, but nothing by Colm Tóibín, David Mitchell and Alan Hollinghurst. Still less anything from Achmat Dangor, Gerard Woodward and Sarah Hall.
So you're saying that this issue is equally distinguished by its inclusion of an Amis-does-Austin script and exclusion of fresh fiction from some of the UK's brightest young turks? "Whoa! No David Mitchell? I'm all over it!"
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Jack's policy has been 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. Under his editorship, Granta has stayed at the cutting edge, though new fiction has hardly been a priority.
Really? Dude, are we reading the same magazine?
It's appropriate, therefore, that this excellent jubilee issue should contain an unpublished filmscript (Northanger Abbey) by Martin Amis, but nothing by Colm Tóibín, David Mitchell and Alan Hollinghurst. Still less anything from Achmat Dangor, Gerard Woodward and Sarah Hall.
So you're saying that this issue is equally distinguished by its inclusion of an Amis-does-Austin script and exclusion of fresh fiction from some of the UK's brightest young turks? "Whoa! No David Mitchell? I'm all over it!"
Friday, September 24, 2004
SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT EXPIRES AT MIDNIGHT
BRANSON, Mo. (AP) - A Branson man has put a face to the anonymous references people often make to "they" by changing his name to just that: "They."
The former Andrew Wilson, a 43-year-old self-employed inventor, was granted legal permission last week by a circuit judge to change his name.
It's just They, no surname.
He also has changed his driver's license to reflect his new name.
They said he did it for humor to address the common reference to "they." "'They do this,' or 'They're to blame for that.' Who is this 'they' everyone talks about? 'They' accomplish such great things. Somebody had to take responsibility," he said.
Now, his friends are getting used to his new name.
"They call up and say, 'Is They there?'"
Well, okay, but we've got dibs on "Is," "Shan't" and "Heretofore."
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The former Andrew Wilson, a 43-year-old self-employed inventor, was granted legal permission last week by a circuit judge to change his name.
It's just They, no surname.
He also has changed his driver's license to reflect his new name.
They said he did it for humor to address the common reference to "they." "'They do this,' or 'They're to blame for that.' Who is this 'they' everyone talks about? 'They' accomplish such great things. Somebody had to take responsibility," he said.
Now, his friends are getting used to his new name.
"They call up and say, 'Is They there?'"
Well, okay, but we've got dibs on "Is," "Shan't" and "Heretofore."
WE REMEMBER NOW WHY WE USED TO LIKE HUNTER S. THOMPSON
From Gonzo's September 15 column on ESPN.com:
How long, O Lord, how long? The Colts' offense has been the best in the league for so long that few fans remember who played quarterback before Peyton Manning came along, and their pass defense was the fifth-best in the NFL last year. But they still can't beat the Patriots. These failures are making Colts owner Jim Irsay old before his time.
Peyton looked pretty discouraged after another tough loss to the Pats.Irsay called me last week from the ancient and honorable POLO Lounge in Beverly Hills, saying he was terribly nervous about his team's huge season opener in Foxboro -- somewhere on the outskirts of Boston. And he wondered if some of his players were planning to vote for George Bush in the coming November election.
"That's ridiculous," I told him. "Edge and Marvin would never vote for a criminal freak like George Bush. He is a failure in everything he touches."
"Well," he replied. "I don't know about that. Those two little daughters of his are extremely wild and hot. I've been sweet on those girls for a long time; I want them on my side when the deal goes down."
"Be careful, James," I said. "Those cupcakes are crazy as barn-cats, and they will never be on your side. Don't even think about inviting them up to Indianapolis for a game. Old Man Bush will call the cops on you and have you put in prison."
He laughed.
"Don't worry, Hunter," he said. "I know how to handle women. Those girls will be like putty in my hands. They will be worth at least three points in close games -- and I want those three points. I need them."
Personally, nothing gets us het up like crazy barn-cat cupcakes. {link via Page Six, of all places}
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How long, O Lord, how long? The Colts' offense has been the best in the league for so long that few fans remember who played quarterback before Peyton Manning came along, and their pass defense was the fifth-best in the NFL last year. But they still can't beat the Patriots. These failures are making Colts owner Jim Irsay old before his time.
Peyton looked pretty discouraged after another tough loss to the Pats.Irsay called me last week from the ancient and honorable POLO Lounge in Beverly Hills, saying he was terribly nervous about his team's huge season opener in Foxboro -- somewhere on the outskirts of Boston. And he wondered if some of his players were planning to vote for George Bush in the coming November election.
"That's ridiculous," I told him. "Edge and Marvin would never vote for a criminal freak like George Bush. He is a failure in everything he touches."
"Well," he replied. "I don't know about that. Those two little daughters of his are extremely wild and hot. I've been sweet on those girls for a long time; I want them on my side when the deal goes down."
"Be careful, James," I said. "Those cupcakes are crazy as barn-cats, and they will never be on your side. Don't even think about inviting them up to Indianapolis for a game. Old Man Bush will call the cops on you and have you put in prison."
He laughed.
"Don't worry, Hunter," he said. "I know how to handle women. Those girls will be like putty in my hands. They will be worth at least three points in close games -- and I want those three points. I need them."
Personally, nothing gets us het up like crazy barn-cat cupcakes. {link via Page Six, of all places}
Thursday, September 23, 2004
HERE'S WHAT'S HARD: NOW WE HAVE TO RENT TOBEY MAGUIRE FOR ANOTHER TWO HOURS
With Tobey's final confession under the weight of the iron wall (and his general willingness to expose the vulnerable --and foxy! -- boy beneath the arachnoid mask) Peter/Spidey brings these two selves into a tentative state of balance through an act of speaking the truth. Yes, he will hold up the wall, he'll be glad to; somebody has to hold up the wall, and only he can do it. But he would just like to point out that it's really heavy. I'm actually surprised that Spiderman 2 was the huge box-office hit it was, because its message in the end is so delicate and human: you can only do what you need to do by admitting who you actually are. The world would be so much of a better place if all the conflicted wall-shoulderers (examples that come to mind include working mothers, depressed people, and even certain governments I could name) would look at their interlocutors bare-faced and admit, 'This is really heavy.'
An anonymous reader in the comments said it best: Dana Stephens' (or as she prefers, lizpenn's) columns are often SO much better than the work she covers.*
* Don't miss that comments thread, btw. There is the classic writing-is-hard/stop-whinging-about-your-fancy-writing-job dialogue going on there. Here's our two cents, straight from the pre-Cambrian era: Writing is like being that lonely cavemen out gathering roots for the tasteless stew you will prepare for your grunting wife and child, who sit poking at things with sticks on a hard dirt floor in a drafty cave in an attempt to get a mean little fire lit. It is very hard, and you cannot believe how lucky you are as you shove the greedy handfuls into your mouth.**
** Because you are a caveman, and you don't have spoons.
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An anonymous reader in the comments said it best: Dana Stephens' (or as she prefers, lizpenn's) columns are often SO much better than the work she covers.*
* Don't miss that comments thread, btw. There is the classic writing-is-hard/stop-whinging-about-your-fancy-writing-job dialogue going on there. Here's our two cents, straight from the pre-Cambrian era: Writing is like being that lonely cavemen out gathering roots for the tasteless stew you will prepare for your grunting wife and child, who sit poking at things with sticks on a hard dirt floor in a drafty cave in an attempt to get a mean little fire lit. It is very hard, and you cannot believe how lucky you are as you shove the greedy handfuls into your mouth.**
** Because you are a caveman, and you don't have spoons.
THE SIXTH STAGE: FREQUENT SCRUBBING WITH QUELL
It was, if you ask me, not an aberration but a culmination of Kübler-Ross' love affair with death; love affairs with the dead. But by then her growing belief that 'death does not exist' had made her fall prey to a host of spirit mediums and charlatans who claimed they could make contact with the beautiful beings on the Other side.
Enter the spirit medium of Escondido—a guy she had invited to her workshops, who somehow facilitated intercourse between the grieving widows and the 'afterlife entities.' The scandal erupted when several of the widows came down with similar vaginal infections, and one turned on the light during a session with an 'afterlife entity' and discovered the opportunistic spirit medium himself, naked except for a turban.
Nonfiction authors, take not: being a famous author and well-regarded authority on death and dying will not stop you from mistakenly having sex with a man in a turban named Escondido.
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Enter the spirit medium of Escondido—a guy she had invited to her workshops, who somehow facilitated intercourse between the grieving widows and the 'afterlife entities.' The scandal erupted when several of the widows came down with similar vaginal infections, and one turned on the light during a session with an 'afterlife entity' and discovered the opportunistic spirit medium himself, naked except for a turban.
Nonfiction authors, take not: being a famous author and well-regarded authority on death and dying will not stop you from mistakenly having sex with a man in a turban named Escondido.
CONGRATS TO GRAMBO -- THOUGH WE WILL NEVER BELIEVE ANOTHER WORD HE SAYS
The man who calls himself Uncle Grambo doesn't want his real name used in print. That's because he's pretty sure that some of the more buttoned-up types at the automobile company where he works in marketing would be less than thrilled with some of the things he's posting on his gossipy, irreverent and often-profane blog dedicated to chronicling, ridiculing and sometimes celebrating pop and street culture.
He's an Oakland County native, a graduate of Rochester Adams High School and the University of Michigan. 'I work very hard to keep my professional life separate from my private life,' he says. 'I'm afraid that if you used my real name, some may think I do blogging at work, even though I don't.'
Instead, he gets up at 6:30 a.m., scours the Net and follows through on e-mail sent by readers, posting witty and sarcastic items about sports, music and celebrities.
Uhhh, we remember when Jen Gothamist used that 6:30 line -- it ranks somewhere up there with "It's not you, it's me" and "No -- everyone was as drunk as you were."
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He's an Oakland County native, a graduate of Rochester Adams High School and the University of Michigan. 'I work very hard to keep my professional life separate from my private life,' he says. 'I'm afraid that if you used my real name, some may think I do blogging at work, even though I don't.'
Instead, he gets up at 6:30 a.m., scours the Net and follows through on e-mail sent by readers, posting witty and sarcastic items about sports, music and celebrities.
Uhhh, we remember when Jen Gothamist used that 6:30 line -- it ranks somewhere up there with "It's not you, it's me" and "No -- everyone was as drunk as you were."
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
COME ON, PEOPLE, WE'RE STILL TRYING TO GET A MINYAN!
We've been asked to re-post the TMFTML requiem URL. First this, now the NYT--clearly, this speaks to T-muffle's popularity and to the power of quitting as a career move.
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KINDLY GET THE FUCK OFF THE PEACE TRAIN
WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security officials said Yusuf Islam — formerly known as singer Cat Stevens — will be deported Wednesday after being denied entry to the U.S. Stevens had recently been placed on a government "no-fly" list after U.S. authorities received information indicating associations with potential terrorists, a government official said.
"But if you wanna leave, take good care
I hope you make a lot of nice friends out there
But just remember there's a lot of bad and beware..."
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"But if you wanna leave, take good care
I hope you make a lot of nice friends out there
But just remember there's a lot of bad and beware..."
CAP'N CRUNCH: WORTH THE HEMORRHAGING GUMS?
Neal Stephenson occupies a unique place in the pantheon of speculative fiction-writing demigods, because he possesses both unlimited ambition and a colossal capacity for silliness. One needs only to recall the extended treatment of the Captain Crunch-consuming ritual of "Cryptonomicon" protagonist (and Daniel Waterhouse descendent) Randy Waterhouse, to appreciate Stephenson's ability to take an absurd premise and articulate it beyond all sane restraint. I hold no brief for cereal, personally, but the loving, obsessive-compulsive detail with which Stephenson depicts Waterhouse's efforts to combine milk and Crunch nuggets in the most efficient and delicious manner possible is a definitive example of his sui generis stock in trade.
There is a danger in cultivating wacky excess -- self-indulgence on such a grand scale can obscure the greater narrative and runs the risk of coming off as wanking just for wanking's sake. There are occasions in "The Baroque Cycle" where Stephenson bogs down, where so much time is spent drilling down to the last extraneous molecule that the effort of reading becomes tiresome, rather than an exhilarating flight of fancy. (Or as Stephenson spells it, "phant'sy.")
Andrew "I Don't Understand Dad's Reviews Any More Than You Do" Leonard muses on Neal Stephenson's huge, throbbing oeuvre. We confess to being somewhat fearful of these books--their enormity and their capacity to make us feel stupid. Plus, when one of your biggest fans admits that your books can be tiresome, well, it doesn't exactly inspire us to run down to B&N and plunk down our lunch money. Maybe Ridley Scott'll make movies of them and then we can lie and say we've read them.
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There is a danger in cultivating wacky excess -- self-indulgence on such a grand scale can obscure the greater narrative and runs the risk of coming off as wanking just for wanking's sake. There are occasions in "The Baroque Cycle" where Stephenson bogs down, where so much time is spent drilling down to the last extraneous molecule that the effort of reading becomes tiresome, rather than an exhilarating flight of fancy. (Or as Stephenson spells it, "phant'sy.")
Andrew "I Don't Understand Dad's Reviews Any More Than You Do" Leonard muses on Neal Stephenson's huge, throbbing oeuvre. We confess to being somewhat fearful of these books--their enormity and their capacity to make us feel stupid. Plus, when one of your biggest fans admits that your books can be tiresome, well, it doesn't exactly inspire us to run down to B&N and plunk down our lunch money. Maybe Ridley Scott'll make movies of them and then we can lie and say we've read them.
MAYBE TENACIOUS D PERFORMING THE THEME SONG WOULD HELP
"Lost" has been roundly hailed as one of the new season's headline shows. There's no doubt that it's visually arresting and intricately plotted. And for those viewers who, like me, have a fear of flying, it's almost sickeningly exciting, with multiple flashbacks to the crash itself from various characters' points of view. But there's something overanxious, even patronizing, about Abrams' need to stimulate his audience with ever-greater suspense. What's with the monster, and the polar bear, and all the supernatural mumbo jumbo? Why assume that a plane crash and the resulting struggle to survive on a desert freaking island isn't enough to keep viewers interested? Indeed, "Lost" seems curiously uninterested in the minutiae of survival: Who's responsible for dividing up the food, building the fires, burying the bodies? How would strangers thrown into this situation really talk to each other? In one unintentionally funny line, Jack, looking for someone to stitch up a gash in his back, asks the shellshocked Kate: "Excuse me, do you have a minute?" What are they, on a subway platform?
Our favorite TV critic reviews "Lost."
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Our favorite TV critic reviews "Lost."
SH'MA, BLOG TMFTML
DEATH OF A BLOG The acerbic blog of news, culture and media criticism called The Minor Fall, The Major Lift is stopping the virtual presses. The anonymous author, writing as TMFTML, has posted a 'Dear Internet'' version of a Dear John letter, saying, 'Our heart hasn't been in it.'' The author began the blog in May 2003 out of boredom and disgust with poor journalism, sharing ruminations on news items and writing headlines like 'If the East River Was Whiskey (We'd Go to Brooklyn All the Time).'' Now TMFTML feels that 'blogging is over,'' citing attention in more traditional media. In an instant-message exchange yesterday, the author said, 'I'm still disgusted, but I'm too tired to do anything about it.'' A virtual morgue is online at www.popfactor.com/tmftml/.
There's no open casket, but ceremonial pints of whiskey and rent URL's are apparently being hoisted all over 46th street.
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There's no open casket, but ceremonial pints of whiskey and rent URL's are apparently being hoisted all over 46th street.
"I HEART HO"
I am a connoisseur of prostitution: I can take its bouquet, taste it, roll it around my mouth, give you the vintage. I have used brothels, saunas, private homes from the internet and ordered girls to my flat prompt as pizza. While we are on the subject, I have also run a brothel. And I have been a male escort. I wish I was more ashamed. But I'm not. I love prostitutes and everything about them. And I care about them so much I don't want them to be made legal.
The great thing about sex with whores is the excitement and variety. If you say you're enjoying sex with the same person after a couple of years you're either a liar or on something. Of all the sexual perversions, monogamy is the most unnatural. Most of our affairs run the usual course. Fever. Boredom. Trapped. This explains much of the friction in our lives - love being the delusion that one woman differs from another. But with brothels there is always the exhilaration of not knowing what you're going to get.
Insert "You mean, like the clap or crabs?" joke here.
We're struck by two things here: 1) If anything like this ever appeared in a US newspaper, the publisher and editor would be stoned to death 2) Dude, maybe the tarts are better in the UK, but the skanks we've seen on HBO are more than enough to quell any "Pretty Woman" fantasies we might have had.
Where have you gone, Belle de Jour?
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The great thing about sex with whores is the excitement and variety. If you say you're enjoying sex with the same person after a couple of years you're either a liar or on something. Of all the sexual perversions, monogamy is the most unnatural. Most of our affairs run the usual course. Fever. Boredom. Trapped. This explains much of the friction in our lives - love being the delusion that one woman differs from another. But with brothels there is always the exhilaration of not knowing what you're going to get.
Insert "You mean, like the clap or crabs?" joke here.
We're struck by two things here: 1) If anything like this ever appeared in a US newspaper, the publisher and editor would be stoned to death 2) Dude, maybe the tarts are better in the UK, but the skanks we've seen on HBO are more than enough to quell any "Pretty Woman" fantasies we might have had.
Where have you gone, Belle de Jour?
THE FOLLOWING IS A HYPERBOLIC COMPILATION AND SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY IN ANY WAY, ESPECIALLY BY PARENTS
Publishers Lunch is reporting an especially interesting deal:
Mary Corbett and Sheila Kihne's THE LIST: Is He Going to
Marry You? Seven Steps to Tell in 30 Days or Less,
claiming that all a woman needs to do is look for the
seven steps a man will take if he is serious about her, to
Danielle Chiotti at Adams Media, by Evelyn M. Fazio and
Pamela K. Brodowsky at International Literary Arts.
We haven't peeked at the book yet, but if it runs anything like the proposals we've received, the telltale factors are:
1. Allows you to you sleep with his best friend
2. Disappears in the middle of the night to seek out fried chicken
3. Drinks a case of wine in two days
4. Submits to watching "Jaws"
5. Agrees "Jaws" is the most perfect film ever
6. Informs you he is already married
7. Has an allergic reaction to peanuts and must be taken to the hospital
Seriously, it's the allergic reaction that really seals the deal. And conveniently, you can recreate it on your wedding day if he starts getting cold feet. Or view "Jaws" again -- it's your call.
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Mary Corbett and Sheila Kihne's THE LIST: Is He Going to
Marry You? Seven Steps to Tell in 30 Days or Less,
claiming that all a woman needs to do is look for the
seven steps a man will take if he is serious about her, to
Danielle Chiotti at Adams Media, by Evelyn M. Fazio and
Pamela K. Brodowsky at International Literary Arts.
We haven't peeked at the book yet, but if it runs anything like the proposals we've received, the telltale factors are:
1. Allows you to you sleep with his best friend
2. Disappears in the middle of the night to seek out fried chicken
3. Drinks a case of wine in two days
4. Submits to watching "Jaws"
5. Agrees "Jaws" is the most perfect film ever
6. Informs you he is already married
7. Has an allergic reaction to peanuts and must be taken to the hospital
Seriously, it's the allergic reaction that really seals the deal. And conveniently, you can recreate it on your wedding day if he starts getting cold feet. Or view "Jaws" again -- it's your call.
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
WOKE UP WITH WOOD
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's media regulator has chastised a presenter on a BBC children's television program for wearing a T-shirt with a sexually suggestive slogan.
Dominic Wood, co-host of the BBC Saturday morning show "Dick and Dom in da bungalow," wore a shirt bearing the phrase "Morning Wood," a slang term for male arousal.
"On one level the slogan could be viewed as harmless, in that it was morning and the presenter's name was Wood," media regulator Ofcom said. "However it was also clear to some that the phrase had a sexual meaning."
A BBC spokesman said the show was having new shirts printed and is currently deciding among "Raging A.M. Hard-On," "Breakfast Boner" and "Irish Toothache at Dawn."
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Dominic Wood, co-host of the BBC Saturday morning show "Dick and Dom in da bungalow," wore a shirt bearing the phrase "Morning Wood," a slang term for male arousal.
"On one level the slogan could be viewed as harmless, in that it was morning and the presenter's name was Wood," media regulator Ofcom said. "However it was also clear to some that the phrase had a sexual meaning."
A BBC spokesman said the show was having new shirts printed and is currently deciding among "Raging A.M. Hard-On," "Breakfast Boner" and "Irish Toothache at Dawn."
CALL US "AMERICAN SUCKER"
Maud calls our attention to Grumpy Old Bookman's thoughtful and funny meditation on getting one's short story into print, especially in a place like The Paris Review:
So, we have the bizarre situation that a very obscure magazine, with an extremely modest circulation, is thought of as being the place to get published. And because of that, the magazine receives somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 unsolicited submissions a year (a number which, please note, is approximately double the number of subscribers to the magazine).
Let us assume that there are 18,000 submissions a year, which is 1,500 a month or about 400 a week, i.e. 75 or 80 a day. That’s 75 big fat envelopes dropping on to someone’s desk, every day of the week. Consider, if you will, the sheer labour of opening these, connecting them up with the enclosed return envelope (if there is one), and then attempting to sort out the amazingly brilliant from the oh-my-god.
Yes, it's ridiculous, we know. In fact, reading this, we've begun to sob uncontrollably. But GOB goes on:
Could you do this job? I couldn’t. I would go nuts. (The Maud Newton interview, by the way, reveals that those who do read them are often mfa students. If that doesn’t put you off, it should. Mfa = Master of Fine Arts = people who are deluded enough to think that a one-year postgraduate course in creative writing will turn them into the next John Updike or whoever. Worse, they are people who actually want to be the next John Updike.)
That would be us. (But we understand that it's too late--we'll never be the hypergraphic WASP with 50 books, 5 wives, a 7 handicap and a knack for bad poetry. So we've set our sights on being the next Kristin Gore.)
GOB goes on to suggest that publishing in book form or on the web are much better ideas than the "trial by lottery" of places like the Paris Review. We don't disagree. However, as GOB certainly knows, publishing a book ain't exactly easy--he set up his own press! He should be commended for that, but for many of us, it's easier to dole out the $3 in postage and hold on to our delusions than to try to become publishers. Second, the Paris Review and the New Yorker are simply two of the more rarefied places of the hundreds that publish fiction. New print mags are springing up all the time and there are several that we dig (a semi-comprehensive list of lit mags can be found here). Clearly, the odds of getting into most of these magazines is better than 1 in 1000.
It may be that publishing online is a more efficient way to getting one's work out and at this stage it may even yield more readers than hard copy publication. But at the risk of sounding like Sven Birkerts, we still favor reading books and magazines printed on nice paper rather than on a screen. Anyway, why do we have to choose one medium over the other?
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So, we have the bizarre situation that a very obscure magazine, with an extremely modest circulation, is thought of as being the place to get published. And because of that, the magazine receives somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 unsolicited submissions a year (a number which, please note, is approximately double the number of subscribers to the magazine).
Let us assume that there are 18,000 submissions a year, which is 1,500 a month or about 400 a week, i.e. 75 or 80 a day. That’s 75 big fat envelopes dropping on to someone’s desk, every day of the week. Consider, if you will, the sheer labour of opening these, connecting them up with the enclosed return envelope (if there is one), and then attempting to sort out the amazingly brilliant from the oh-my-god.
Yes, it's ridiculous, we know. In fact, reading this, we've begun to sob uncontrollably. But GOB goes on:
Could you do this job? I couldn’t. I would go nuts. (The Maud Newton interview, by the way, reveals that those who do read them are often mfa students. If that doesn’t put you off, it should. Mfa = Master of Fine Arts = people who are deluded enough to think that a one-year postgraduate course in creative writing will turn them into the next John Updike or whoever. Worse, they are people who actually want to be the next John Updike.)
That would be us. (But we understand that it's too late--we'll never be the hypergraphic WASP with 50 books, 5 wives, a 7 handicap and a knack for bad poetry. So we've set our sights on being the next Kristin Gore.)
GOB goes on to suggest that publishing in book form or on the web are much better ideas than the "trial by lottery" of places like the Paris Review. We don't disagree. However, as GOB certainly knows, publishing a book ain't exactly easy--he set up his own press! He should be commended for that, but for many of us, it's easier to dole out the $3 in postage and hold on to our delusions than to try to become publishers. Second, the Paris Review and the New Yorker are simply two of the more rarefied places of the hundreds that publish fiction. New print mags are springing up all the time and there are several that we dig (a semi-comprehensive list of lit mags can be found here). Clearly, the odds of getting into most of these magazines is better than 1 in 1000.
It may be that publishing online is a more efficient way to getting one's work out and at this stage it may even yield more readers than hard copy publication. But at the risk of sounding like Sven Birkerts, we still favor reading books and magazines printed on nice paper rather than on a screen. Anyway, why do we have to choose one medium over the other?
T-MUFFLE, WE HARDLY KNEW YE
After we came to and all our wounds had been cauterized, we had to admit to ourselves that our friend had something of a point: This blog has sucked lately, and our heart hasn't been in it. (We've been too busy writing slash fiction about that guy in the red pants from The Apprentice.) As our friend herself admitted, we've had a good run. We are deeply appreciative of all the people we've come into contact with as a result of this blog, even that guy who always posts comments like, "Not funny" or "Don't get it." (Us either, pal.) But we hate to continually disappoint so many of you with substandard service, so we are seriously considering hanging it up. We are, at the very least, taking a looooong hiatus, in hopes that this time our frequent attempts at retirement are somewhat more successful. We'll leave the links up (from what we understand, that's what most of you come here for in the first place), and if something really fascinating occurs (read: Alessandra Stanley/Virginia Heffernan cage match) we'll pop back up, but in all likelihood, this is goodbye. It's been a pleasure, kids. Do a shot for us.
Just because we've linked to this doesn't mean we're not in denial.
UPDATE: Thoughtfully, Sarah has made funeral arrangements.
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Just because we've linked to this doesn't mean we're not in denial.
UPDATE: Thoughtfully, Sarah has made funeral arrangements.
Monday, September 20, 2004
GIVING AWAY THE ENDING IS THE NEW BLACK
Readers looking for a fix of either Irish nostalgia or American redemption will be disappointed by Oh, Play That Thing, and the scale and sweep of the novel sometimes escape Doyle's control. But Doyle's ambitions are clearly bigger.
Last week, for the first time since the potato famine, Ireland officially recorded a population increase. Many of the new immigrants are, in fact, returned emigrants, while others — Barrytown's children — belong to a generation of global commuters who've never heard of one-way tickets or one-act lives.
In The Last Roundup trilogy, Doyle's wrestling with a new mythical history for this air-miles generation, and for sheer energy, bravado and readability, he's among the most interesting novelists writing in English today. I can't imagine what will happen to Henry in volume three. I can't wait to find out.
The Globe and Mail loves on Roddy Doyle, though beware, this review has no shame about telling you how and where the book ends--fuckers.
Having finished Oh Play That Thing , our sense is that this trilogy is akin to Chabon's Kavalier and Clay or Franzen's The Corrections: a balls-out attempt to write The Big Book. Does it succeed? For us, a qualified yes (so far), but then we're totally drunk on the Doyle Kool-Aid. If you're at all curious, try A Star Called Henry first, the Star Wars to this book's Empire Strikes Back. (Link to Globe and Mail via My Rakey Breaky Heart)
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Last week, for the first time since the potato famine, Ireland officially recorded a population increase. Many of the new immigrants are, in fact, returned emigrants, while others — Barrytown's children — belong to a generation of global commuters who've never heard of one-way tickets or one-act lives.
In The Last Roundup trilogy, Doyle's wrestling with a new mythical history for this air-miles generation, and for sheer energy, bravado and readability, he's among the most interesting novelists writing in English today. I can't imagine what will happen to Henry in volume three. I can't wait to find out.
The Globe and Mail loves on Roddy Doyle, though beware, this review has no shame about telling you how and where the book ends--fuckers.
Having finished Oh Play That Thing , our sense is that this trilogy is akin to Chabon's Kavalier and Clay or Franzen's The Corrections: a balls-out attempt to write The Big Book. Does it succeed? For us, a qualified yes (so far), but then we're totally drunk on the Doyle Kool-Aid. If you're at all curious, try A Star Called Henry first, the Star Wars to this book's Empire Strikes Back. (Link to Globe and Mail via My Rakey Breaky Heart)
Sunday, September 19, 2004
HOW TO FAIL IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING
Riskier books rely heavily on reviews and other media coverage to attract readers, but the reviews appear when the books are new. By the time the books show up as affordable paperbacks, the spotlight has moved on. As Gary Fisketjon, a vice president and editor at large at Alfred A. Knopf, who was the editor of two of the best-known paperback-original successes -- ''Bright Lights, Big City,'' by Jay McInerney, and ''The Sportswriter,'' by Richard Ford -- put it in a telephone interview: ''You're giving people the option of postponing their decision. All the attention comes when nobody wants it. I don't see any other business that works that way.''
Oh, Gary, you're so naive. Isn't it Amazon, the availability of cheap used books, and the internet that are killing the publishing biz? It couldn't be that the major conglomerates have their heads up their asses, could it?
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Oh, Gary, you're so naive. Isn't it Amazon, the availability of cheap used books, and the internet that are killing the publishing biz? It couldn't be that the major conglomerates have their heads up their asses, could it?
Friday, September 17, 2004
CONDE NASTY PRESENTS...JOAN ACOCELLA AS..."THE SPOILER"
We're probably late on this--what else is new--but we were jaw-on-the-floor stunned after reading the denouement of Joan Acocella's review of the new Philip Roth in The New Yorker. We're so annoyed we can barely bring ourselves to link to it--and in fact, if you haven't read it, don't--at least not the last few paragraphs.
This is a book we're desperate to read, that people we respect have read and loved, and that Joan A. herself raves over. So why in God's name would she disclose the last two sentences of the book? What's worse, she goes on to tell us the nature of the change the main character has undergone. Just spell it the fuck out and draw us a picture, why dontcha? Oh, never mind--you did. We'd rather read 100 Dale Peck shit parades or Leon Weaselturd polemics than one articulate rave that has the shameless cojones to RUIN THE ENDING.
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This is a book we're desperate to read, that people we respect have read and loved, and that Joan A. herself raves over. So why in God's name would she disclose the last two sentences of the book? What's worse, she goes on to tell us the nature of the change the main character has undergone. Just spell it the fuck out and draw us a picture, why dontcha? Oh, never mind--you did. We'd rather read 100 Dale Peck shit parades or Leon Weaselturd polemics than one articulate rave that has the shameless cojones to RUIN THE ENDING.
THE FLAB TWO: MASLIN IS KAKUTANI---REVEALED!!!
As it turns out, however, "The Inner Circle," Mr. Boyle's new novel about the sexologist, is one of his flatter, flabbier productions.
- "Michiko," NYT, 9.13.04
"Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" has been celebrated as an adult Harry Potter story, but it is more like a flatter and flabbier one.
- "Janet," NYT, 9.17.04
Have they ever been seen in the same place at the same time? Is this hair actually a wig? Or was she actually the one who banged Spielberg, Jon Landau, and now Ben Cheever? We continue to entertain the "They're the same person" hypothesis as well as the idea that one or both is a bot (as has been plausibly postulated about so many in recent days). But if we assume that they are in fact two different people, then one is forced to conclude that, at least in this case, Michiko got limned....
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- "Michiko," NYT, 9.13.04
"Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" has been celebrated as an adult Harry Potter story, but it is more like a flatter and flabbier one.
- "Janet," NYT, 9.17.04
Have they ever been seen in the same place at the same time? Is this hair actually a wig? Or was she actually the one who banged Spielberg, Jon Landau, and now Ben Cheever? We continue to entertain the "They're the same person" hypothesis as well as the idea that one or both is a bot (as has been plausibly postulated about so many in recent days). But if we assume that they are in fact two different people, then one is forced to conclude that, at least in this case, Michiko got limned....
WE'RE CONSITUTIONALLY INCAPABLE OF NOT MAKING THIS JOKE
Each year after, a few inches at a time, the Sixth Borough receded from New York. One year, the long jumper's entire foot got wet, and after a number of years, his shin, and after many, many years - so many years that no one could even remember what it was like to celebrate without anxiety - the jumper had to reach out his arms and grab at the Sixth Borough fully extended, and then, sadly, he couldn't touch it at all. The eight bridges between Manhattan and the Sixth Borough strained and finally crumbled, one at a time, into the water. The tunnels were pulled too thin to hold anything at all.
JSF gets fictive in the NYT. What's the big deal? The Times has been publishing fiction for years!
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JSF gets fictive in the NYT. What's the big deal? The Times has been publishing fiction for years!
Thursday, September 16, 2004
TESTICLES OF RAGE
Harper's popularized so many right-wing economic and environmental ideas that Rob Stein might want to add another slide to his PowerPoint presentation naming Lapham an emeritus member of the conservative message machine.
I joke. But barely. I imagine that what drew Lapham to these writers was his taste for heresy—he's always loved starting fights on the playground and then bringing them back into the classroom. It's difficult to convey how unkosher these writers were in the late '70s, a time when liberal Democrats ruled Washington and the liberal establishment ran the media. Publishing contrary pieces gave Harper's an ecumenical edge because alongside the right-wing shit-stirrers, Lapham ran pieces by the brightest on the left—Richard J. Barnet, Edward Abbey, Andrew Hacker, George McGovern, Alexander Cockburn, Walter Karp, Michael Harrington, and William Shawcross, to name a few.
Lapham II may still tilt against power, but he rarely deviates from the liberal-to-left orthodoxy, stocking his pages with the likes of Mike Davis, Francine Prose, Eric Foner, Gene Lyons, Jonathan Schell, Bill McKibben, Greg Palast, John Berger, Naomi Klein, Tony Kushner, Tom Frank, and E.L. Doctorow. Now, I like these writers as much as the next guy—as long as the next guy isn't a member of the Democratic Socialists of America—but if I want to read The Nation, I would read The Nation.
Jack Shafer vivisects Lewis Lapham and Harper's. Frankly, we're inclined to agree. There are certainly things we like about Harper's: Francine Prose busting people's balls first and foremost; much of the Readings section; and the occasional electric short story.
Please understand, we speak only as a Gore-voting, Kerry-voting reader, not as a right-wing nut. We find Lapham to be, like Bill Buckley, a pompous gas-bag and composer of unreadable, insomnia-curing essays. And the same goes for a lot of his hired guns--10,000+ words of meaningless pomo blabbity-blah and/or predictable screeds against The Corporation, The Powers That Be, Wall Street, The War, etc. Yeah yeah, Lewis. Do we have to wade through your ponderous and lugubrious prose to learn shit we already knew? Yes, The Atlantic is not without its long and boring articles, but at least they don't all use the same template. In the last 20 years, has Harper's spoken to anyone not already in the choir?
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I joke. But barely. I imagine that what drew Lapham to these writers was his taste for heresy—he's always loved starting fights on the playground and then bringing them back into the classroom. It's difficult to convey how unkosher these writers were in the late '70s, a time when liberal Democrats ruled Washington and the liberal establishment ran the media. Publishing contrary pieces gave Harper's an ecumenical edge because alongside the right-wing shit-stirrers, Lapham ran pieces by the brightest on the left—Richard J. Barnet, Edward Abbey, Andrew Hacker, George McGovern, Alexander Cockburn, Walter Karp, Michael Harrington, and William Shawcross, to name a few.
Lapham II may still tilt against power, but he rarely deviates from the liberal-to-left orthodoxy, stocking his pages with the likes of Mike Davis, Francine Prose, Eric Foner, Gene Lyons, Jonathan Schell, Bill McKibben, Greg Palast, John Berger, Naomi Klein, Tony Kushner, Tom Frank, and E.L. Doctorow. Now, I like these writers as much as the next guy—as long as the next guy isn't a member of the Democratic Socialists of America—but if I want to read The Nation, I would read The Nation.
Jack Shafer vivisects Lewis Lapham and Harper's. Frankly, we're inclined to agree. There are certainly things we like about Harper's: Francine Prose busting people's balls first and foremost; much of the Readings section; and the occasional electric short story.
Please understand, we speak only as a Gore-voting, Kerry-voting reader, not as a right-wing nut. We find Lapham to be, like Bill Buckley, a pompous gas-bag and composer of unreadable, insomnia-curing essays. And the same goes for a lot of his hired guns--10,000+ words of meaningless pomo blabbity-blah and/or predictable screeds against The Corporation, The Powers That Be, Wall Street, The War, etc. Yeah yeah, Lewis. Do we have to wade through your ponderous and lugubrious prose to learn shit we already knew? Yes, The Atlantic is not without its long and boring articles, but at least they don't all use the same template. In the last 20 years, has Harper's spoken to anyone not already in the choir?
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
THIS MAUDERN WORLD
Why I can focus my obsessions on a job or blog and not on my writing is anyone’s guess, but I blame my mother. Mom’s been a cat lady, a dog freak and a breeder of birds. In the 1980s, she set up a church and declared herself the pastor. She has, at separate times, been an Avon lady, a Nu Skin representative and a distributor of air purifiers. A few years ago, she crusaded against the family court system in Asheville, North Carolina, appearing on local talk shows in support of a friend whose children were taken away by the state. Now she has a garden so fruitful that she leaves extra produce in the neighbours’ unlocked cars at night so it won’t rot and stink up her yard. Mom’s given to great but short-lived passions. She needs to remain in motion. If blogs had existed when she was young, she’d have started one.
As usual, Maud has hit it on the head. We find we're able to obsess on just about anything other than our job or our writing. Sadly, we now have bloggorrhea--poor Old Hag didn't know what she was in for. [link via CAAFeter]
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As usual, Maud has hit it on the head. We find we're able to obsess on just about anything other than our job or our writing. Sadly, we now have bloggorrhea--poor Old Hag didn't know what she was in for. [link via CAAFeter]
OUTSIDE OF DENTON-LAND, IT'S MORE LIKE "SOMEWHERE BETWEEN NADA AND ZILCH"
Denton hires young writers, for fees Wired magazine reported were as low as $1,500 a month, though Denton disputes the figures without saying what he really pays.
What he offers writers is high visibility and a chance to have fun. His pitch seems to be: Why cut your teeth covering sewer board meetings for a small daily paper when you can spend your formative writing years covering supermodel Naomi Campbell's violent outbursts or trolling the Web for diaries on the sex lives of Washington's congressional clerks?
Former Gawker writer Choire Sicha is a poster boy for that vision. His cutting prose led to assignments from the Times and the New York Observer.
What was he making at Gawker? "I can never say that," Sicha said. "Somewhere between poverty and not terrible."
Some bloggers have started disclosing their blogs' finances, but there usually isn't much to talk about.
We could always make some shit up, though, after we're done with the Dom, caviar and wiping our asses with $100 bills. [Romenesko again]
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What he offers writers is high visibility and a chance to have fun. His pitch seems to be: Why cut your teeth covering sewer board meetings for a small daily paper when you can spend your formative writing years covering supermodel Naomi Campbell's violent outbursts or trolling the Web for diaries on the sex lives of Washington's congressional clerks?
Former Gawker writer Choire Sicha is a poster boy for that vision. His cutting prose led to assignments from the Times and the New York Observer.
What was he making at Gawker? "I can never say that," Sicha said. "Somewhere between poverty and not terrible."
Some bloggers have started disclosing their blogs' finances, but there usually isn't much to talk about.
We could always make some shit up, though, after we're done with the Dom, caviar and wiping our asses with $100 bills. [Romenesko again]
WHAT WE REALLY WANT IS A WASHINGTONIENNE UPDATE
COX: ...If I just make an error, you know, I'll hear from them. And that does not happen very often. Most of the time I get like, "Ha, ha, very funny." Everyone likes to think they have a sense of humor until it's directed at them. But then you have to play along.
ZAHN: Are you an equal opportunity basher here on both campaigns, or do you think you've been tougher on the Bush campaign?
COX: I try to be equal opportunity, but I probably have been tougher on Bush. I mean, a lot of the jokes I make about Kerry are actually sort of compliments in disguise, or, you know -- compliments not in disguise, but -- but still jokes.
ZAHN: All right. You're a self-confessed John Kerry supporter. Do you think anything you write will affect the way people vote?
COX: If it does, then John Kerry's in much more trouble than the polls would suggest.
ZAHN: An honest Wonkette. Nice to meet you, Ana Marie Cox. Thank you for your time.
COX: Good to meet you.
We stand in front of the mirror and practice saying, "Nice to meet you, Ana Marie Cox." Paula Zahn is living our dream. [via Romenesko]
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ZAHN: Are you an equal opportunity basher here on both campaigns, or do you think you've been tougher on the Bush campaign?
COX: I try to be equal opportunity, but I probably have been tougher on Bush. I mean, a lot of the jokes I make about Kerry are actually sort of compliments in disguise, or, you know -- compliments not in disguise, but -- but still jokes.
ZAHN: All right. You're a self-confessed John Kerry supporter. Do you think anything you write will affect the way people vote?
COX: If it does, then John Kerry's in much more trouble than the polls would suggest.
ZAHN: An honest Wonkette. Nice to meet you, Ana Marie Cox. Thank you for your time.
COX: Good to meet you.
We stand in front of the mirror and practice saying, "Nice to meet you, Ana Marie Cox." Paula Zahn is living our dream. [via Romenesko]
IS THAT A PLACENTA OR ARE YOU JUST HAPPY TO SEE ME?
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Seven women who had just given birth at a Southern California hospital were molested by a lab technician over the course of two days, police said on Tuesday.
The women complained that a hospital lab technician groped their breasts or vaginas under the pretext of conducting postpartum examinations in their rooms last Thursday and Friday.
"He was pretty smooth about how he did it," a police spokesman in Garden Grove, Orange County, told reporters. One of the victims "said that a lab tech had come in under the guise of coming in to draw blood and basically started talking to her about her medical condition, how she was feeling and that led to a breast examination. In one other case, it led to him doing an actual vaginal examination."
Most guys we know couldn't so much as cop a feel off their own wives for weeks after pregnancy and this dude got seven strangers?! Pretty smooth indeed.
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The women complained that a hospital lab technician groped their breasts or vaginas under the pretext of conducting postpartum examinations in their rooms last Thursday and Friday.
"He was pretty smooth about how he did it," a police spokesman in Garden Grove, Orange County, told reporters. One of the victims "said that a lab tech had come in under the guise of coming in to draw blood and basically started talking to her about her medical condition, how she was feeling and that led to a breast examination. In one other case, it led to him doing an actual vaginal examination."
Most guys we know couldn't so much as cop a feel off their own wives for weeks after pregnancy and this dude got seven strangers?! Pretty smooth indeed.
EUROTRASH AGONISTES!
A few years later, my father ran off with his mistress, and my mother went mad and drank herself to death. By this stage I’d abandoned journalism to become even more miserable as a middle-management master of the universe in the corporate world in London. I was now an uber miserable cunt, if you like. I had a corporate Amex, a jet-set lifestyle and an attitude from the depths of hell.
Then I moved to America, where my misery Richter-scale hit heights never before imagined. I was breaking new ground here. Don’t get me wrong, I love New York, and in some ways it’s been my salvation, but by this stage, genetics, habit and the fact I worked for a right bunch of wankers had conspired to send me almost catatonic with despair. So I started a blog.
Every time we think we might be over Eurotrash, every time we think that it was all just a passing fancy, an infatuation, a fleeting and shallow middle-aged masturbatory fantasy centered around a beautiful, brilliant, British expat with an acid tongue and wood-provoking shoes, we are smitten anew.
UPDATE: The same goes for Maccers, irritable bowels and all.
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Then I moved to America, where my misery Richter-scale hit heights never before imagined. I was breaking new ground here. Don’t get me wrong, I love New York, and in some ways it’s been my salvation, but by this stage, genetics, habit and the fact I worked for a right bunch of wankers had conspired to send me almost catatonic with despair. So I started a blog.
Every time we think we might be over Eurotrash, every time we think that it was all just a passing fancy, an infatuation, a fleeting and shallow middle-aged masturbatory fantasy centered around a beautiful, brilliant, British expat with an acid tongue and wood-provoking shoes, we are smitten anew.
UPDATE: The same goes for Maccers, irritable bowels and all.
STILL HAVEN'T FOUND WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR
PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 14 - Amazon.com, the e-commerce giant, plans to take aim at the Internet search king Google with an advanced technology that the company says will take searches beyond mere retrieval of Web pages to let users more fully manage the information they find.
A9.com, a start-up owned by Amazon, said in a briefing here on Tuesday that it planned to make the new version of its search service, named A9.com, available Tuesday evening. The service will offer users the ability to store and edit bookmarks on an A9.com central server computer, keep track of each link clicked on previous visits to a Web page, and even make personal "diary" notes on those pages for viewing on subsequent visits.
"In a sense, this is a search engine with memory," said Udi Manber, a computer scientist who was a pioneer in online information retrieval and worked at Yahoo before moving to Amazon two years ago.
When asked if the new search engine might be able to locate Amazon's customer service telephone number, Manber laughed. "Next question," he said.
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A9.com, a start-up owned by Amazon, said in a briefing here on Tuesday that it planned to make the new version of its search service, named A9.com, available Tuesday evening. The service will offer users the ability to store and edit bookmarks on an A9.com central server computer, keep track of each link clicked on previous visits to a Web page, and even make personal "diary" notes on those pages for viewing on subsequent visits.
"In a sense, this is a search engine with memory," said Udi Manber, a computer scientist who was a pioneer in online information retrieval and worked at Yahoo before moving to Amazon two years ago.
When asked if the new search engine might be able to locate Amazon's customer service telephone number, Manber laughed. "Next question," he said.
BLODGET DEFICIT
This phenomenon of mistaking investing luck for skill infects every inch of the investment business, from investment banks to mutual funds to financial media to individual investors. It is also probably responsible for more losses and bankruptcies than any other market force since the dawn of time. No matter how carefully or how often the concept is explained, no matter how much evidence is provided to back it up, most people just can't accept that their investing success probably has more to do with luck than skill. Other people's? Maybe. Theirs? No way.
We continue to be amazed at the chutzpah of Henry "Snake Oil's A Buy!" Blodget. Dude appears to be quite willing to lecture us on the vagaries of investing and share his, uh, hard-fought "wisdom," all with a straight face. We can only hope that Slate doesn't go belly up before we have the opportunity to read Jayson Blair/Stephen Glass on journalistic ethics and Ken Lay on corporate governance.
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We continue to be amazed at the chutzpah of Henry "Snake Oil's A Buy!" Blodget. Dude appears to be quite willing to lecture us on the vagaries of investing and share his, uh, hard-fought "wisdom," all with a straight face. We can only hope that Slate doesn't go belly up before we have the opportunity to read Jayson Blair/Stephen Glass on journalistic ethics and Ken Lay on corporate governance.
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
WE'RE STILL HOLDING FAST ON THE ISRAEL THING, THOUGH
It was partly Borat’s casual but relentless anti-Semitism that led Vassilenko to object publicly, in a letter to The Hill, a Washington weekly. (In real life, Cohen is an observant Jew, but the Anti-Defamation League also condemned him, arguing that “the irony may have been lost on some of the audience.”) “He says things that make people think that Kazakhstan really is a backward country,” Vassilenko said last week from his office in Washington. In Borat’s Kazakhstan, Jews attack people with their claws, and “Dirty Jew” is a popular film. But the real Kazakhstan has long embraced its thriving Jewish community, according to the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, and earlier this month the country dedicated the largest synagogue in Central Asia. “The President of the country came down, as well as the chief rabbi of Israel,” Vassilenko said. “There were all kinds of rabbis from around the world, and a New Yorker. He was not a rabbi, but you might be interested to know the name. The name is Ronald Lauder.
Upon recent viewing of the "Throw the Jew down the well" episode, the BOOG vociferously claimed that Sacha Baron Cohen's depictions of virulently anti-semitic Kazakhs were totally bogus. Since he is a scary Cossack, we totally ignored him. Now, Daniel Radosh, a Jew, has stepped forward in The Talk of the Town to prove that the BOOG was right all along.
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Upon recent viewing of the "Throw the Jew down the well" episode, the BOOG vociferously claimed that Sacha Baron Cohen's depictions of virulently anti-semitic Kazakhs were totally bogus. Since he is a scary Cossack, we totally ignored him. Now, Daniel Radosh, a Jew, has stepped forward in The Talk of the Town to prove that the BOOG was right all along.
....AND GRAMBO TAKES A VICTORY LAP AROUND 46TH STREET
Wonkette, making her triumphant NYT debut, mounts (HOW UNSTOPPABLE IS THAT PUN) Sammy's Hill...
The sloppy prose that pervades the book is an unfortunate reminder of its genesis. Its off-the-rack plot, running together B-grade chick-lit with campaign-trail policy talk, is the predictable outcome of a publishing focus group. It's not bad, it's just not any good. God knows, an astringent romantic satire is long overdue in a town where work is foreplay and the vibrating object in a couple's bed could easily be a two-way pager. ''Sammy's Hill,'' however, lacks buzz.
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The sloppy prose that pervades the book is an unfortunate reminder of its genesis. Its off-the-rack plot, running together B-grade chick-lit with campaign-trail policy talk, is the predictable outcome of a publishing focus group. It's not bad, it's just not any good. God knows, an astringent romantic satire is long overdue in a town where work is foreplay and the vibrating object in a couple's bed could easily be a two-way pager. ''Sammy's Hill,'' however, lacks buzz.
RADIO DAYS
We feel extremely sub-mental for missing Laura Lippman discussing the excellent By A Spider's Thread on our local WYPR yesterday. It doesn't quite make up for it, but you can go to the site to hear Marcia Angell discuss Big Pharma at 1:00.
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MARKETING COUP: RANDOM HOUSE FIRST TO INCLUDE BARF BAG WITH BOOK
Mr. Itzkoff's five-story walk-up apartment on the Lower East Side has all the accouterments of a lad in good standing. There is the Harvey Keitel action-figure doll from "Reservoir Dogs," two different video game consoles and preserved backstage passes from various events. But there is also that diploma, a huge shelf of Important Books, alphabetized, of course, and Mr. Itzkoff himself. He is a small, boyish man who could slip unnoticed into any of the better prep schools on the Upper East Side. By no means is Mr. Itzkoff a lad's lad, a fact of life that made his time at the magazine both exhilarating and toxic.
"I don't deny the experiences I had there and that some of it was fun," he said. "I just wanted people to know that there is a price to be paid for it."
...Mr. Kaminsky, who has since become a vice president of special projects at Playboy, said he had no special comment on Mr. Itzkoff's book, beyond saying, "I think it was inevitable that someone would try to capture the lad phenomena." (sic)
For all the pain, Mr. Itzkoff appears glad that someone is him. "This is a pristine record of how I felt and what I suffered," he said. "It is a fair trade, I think, to have that kind of memento 20 years from now."
Oh, the pain! The excruciating pain! Ouch, it hurts! We can't bear it! We want our mommy!
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"I don't deny the experiences I had there and that some of it was fun," he said. "I just wanted people to know that there is a price to be paid for it."
...Mr. Kaminsky, who has since become a vice president of special projects at Playboy, said he had no special comment on Mr. Itzkoff's book, beyond saying, "I think it was inevitable that someone would try to capture the lad phenomena." (sic)
For all the pain, Mr. Itzkoff appears glad that someone is him. "This is a pristine record of how I felt and what I suffered," he said. "It is a fair trade, I think, to have that kind of memento 20 years from now."
Oh, the pain! The excruciating pain! Ouch, it hurts! We can't bear it! We want our mommy!
"WE'RE BIG PHARMA AND WE'RE HERE TO FUCK, ER, HELP YOU"
Q. Was there anything in your life that pushed you to write this book?
A. As a journal editor, I witnessed a disturbing trend in pharmaceutical research. Twenty years ago, most drug trials were conducted at academic medical centers and the pharmaceutical companies tended to stand back during the testing period. However, in recent years, the companies have succeeded in attaching strings to research contracts, often designing the studies themselves, keeping the data in-house and deciding whether or not to publish the results. They also began to contract with private research companies for testing. Moreover, the medical schools and even individual researchers began to enter into entrepreneurial arrangements with the drug companies.
While all this was occurring, I began to see bias creep into medical research. And I saw a lot of it. The most obvious example were studies comparing a new drug to a placebo. That may be enough to get a drug F.D.A. approval, but it should not be enough for The New England Journal of Medicine. Doctors don't want to know whether a drug is better than nothing. They want to know if it's better than what they are already using.
This reminds us of that old Steve Martin routine where he talks about this great new drug he's found called "placebo." Anyway, thank God someone with Marcia Angell's reputation is finally saying that the emperor ain't go no clothes.
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A. As a journal editor, I witnessed a disturbing trend in pharmaceutical research. Twenty years ago, most drug trials were conducted at academic medical centers and the pharmaceutical companies tended to stand back during the testing period. However, in recent years, the companies have succeeded in attaching strings to research contracts, often designing the studies themselves, keeping the data in-house and deciding whether or not to publish the results. They also began to contract with private research companies for testing. Moreover, the medical schools and even individual researchers began to enter into entrepreneurial arrangements with the drug companies.
While all this was occurring, I began to see bias creep into medical research. And I saw a lot of it. The most obvious example were studies comparing a new drug to a placebo. That may be enough to get a drug F.D.A. approval, but it should not be enough for The New England Journal of Medicine. Doctors don't want to know whether a drug is better than nothing. They want to know if it's better than what they are already using.
This reminds us of that old Steve Martin routine where he talks about this great new drug he's found called "placebo." Anyway, thank God someone with Marcia Angell's reputation is finally saying that the emperor ain't go no clothes.
BLOGGER, PLEASE
Hypothetical Reader: Yo, you said you were going to amuse, provoke and annoy. Where are the posts? Send in the posts!
Jimmy B: I'm trying. I wrote an incisive analysis of the Six Feet Under finale yesterday, the NYT's godawful coverage of it, and Blogger ate it. Then I linked to a guy dressed up like Batman scaling Buckingham Palace and the same thing happened, only now I see it appearing below 16 hours later. What am I supposed to do?
HR: These are difficult times for all of us. Suck it up.
Jimmy B: (whimpering quietly) Okay...
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Jimmy B: I'm trying. I wrote an incisive analysis of the Six Feet Under finale yesterday, the NYT's godawful coverage of it, and Blogger ate it. Then I linked to a guy dressed up like Batman scaling Buckingham Palace and the same thing happened, only now I see it appearing below 16 hours later. What am I supposed to do?
HR: These are difficult times for all of us. Suck it up.
Jimmy B: (whimpering quietly) Okay...
Monday, September 13, 2004
DUDE, DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU'RE HELPING THE CAUSE?
LONDON - Holy intruder! A protester dressed in a Batman costume scaled the front wall of Buckingham Palace on Monday and perched for more than five hours on a ledge near the balcony where the royal family appears on ceremonial occasions.
The protester's success in climbing the wall in front of the queen's main residence prompted fresh questions about the much-criticized and recently overhauled royal security operation.
"It's not good enough and we want to know how this happened," Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Two police officers in a cherry-picker crane removed the protester, Jason Hatch, from the ledge at about 7:15 p.m., 5 1/2 hours after he climbed up. His Batman mask removed and a white helmet placed on his head, he waved and clapped as the crane lowered him to the ground.
Hatch, 33, from Gloucester, is a member of the Fathers 4 Justice group, which is campaigning for greater custody rights for divorced or separated fathers and has staged a number of prominent stunts to promote their cause.
Boys will be boys eh? To the Batmobile!
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The protester's success in climbing the wall in front of the queen's main residence prompted fresh questions about the much-criticized and recently overhauled royal security operation.
"It's not good enough and we want to know how this happened," Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Two police officers in a cherry-picker crane removed the protester, Jason Hatch, from the ledge at about 7:15 p.m., 5 1/2 hours after he climbed up. His Batman mask removed and a white helmet placed on his head, he waved and clapped as the crane lowered him to the ground.
Hatch, 33, from Gloucester, is a member of the Fathers 4 Justice group, which is campaigning for greater custody rights for divorced or separated fathers and has staged a number of prominent stunts to promote their cause.
Boys will be boys eh? To the Batmobile!
BUT THE CRUSADES WERE SO MUCH FUN...
Alert readers will have spotted another troubling flaw in Buchanan's worldview. His roster of warmongers is made up exclusively of Jews. But it was Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and the president himself -- good Christians all -- who sent all those armed Americans into Iraq. Aside from Wolfowitz, the Jewish neocons could only cheer them on from their op-ed pages, think tanks and talk shows.
"Alert readers?" Excuse us, Ms. Gray Lady, but Pat Buchanan's been spewing this shit for years. Besides, we thought diaspora Jews were supposed to be pussies. Now, in addition to controlling the IMF, the World Bank and Hollywood, we're supposed to be warmongers? Neither we nor Barbra are buying it.
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"Alert readers?" Excuse us, Ms. Gray Lady, but Pat Buchanan's been spewing this shit for years. Besides, we thought diaspora Jews were supposed to be pussies. Now, in addition to controlling the IMF, the World Bank and Hollywood, we're supposed to be warmongers? Neither we nor Barbra are buying it.
THE POINTILLIST'S KAKUTANI
flatter, flabbier
predictable results
hobbling his savage wit
hamstringing his usual narrative zeal
blunted
great and repetitious length
monochromatic prose
a tiresome chronicle
a pallid combination of research
and perfunctory fictionalizing
tepid historical novel
a novel that makes little use
of the author's bravura gift
What, no "hamhanded" or "flatfooted?"
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predictable results
hobbling his savage wit
hamstringing his usual narrative zeal
blunted
great and repetitious length
monochromatic prose
a tiresome chronicle
a pallid combination of research
and perfunctory fictionalizing
tepid historical novel
a novel that makes little use
of the author's bravura gift
What, no "hamhanded" or "flatfooted?"
COMING SOON: "COPY EDITOR!"
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A film company has prepared a demo for a reality TV series that would take viewers behind the scenes of The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Blue Chip Films, based in Norwalk, Conn., is now trying to find a network to air "Deadline (at) The Philadelphia Inquirer."
"I always loved that movie, 'The Paper,' with Michael Keaton, and it occurred to me, why was that such a great idea as a feature film, but nobody's done anything on TV about it," Blue Chip president Nick Verbitsky said last week.
During the summer, Verbitsky's crew went out with city desk reporters on a day when three bodies were found in the city. He said he anticipates following reporters and photographers covering all types of news and sports events.
But until Blue Chip finds a buyer for the show, any talk of how the show might develop is premature, said Mary Flannery, the Inquirer's senior editor for newsroom initiatives.
"We think this is a really fine idea," Flannery said, "but we're not really sure anybody else is going to think that."
Oh, don't worry, Mary--this is a can't-miss. Like the Phillies.
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Blue Chip Films, based in Norwalk, Conn., is now trying to find a network to air "Deadline (at) The Philadelphia Inquirer."
"I always loved that movie, 'The Paper,' with Michael Keaton, and it occurred to me, why was that such a great idea as a feature film, but nobody's done anything on TV about it," Blue Chip president Nick Verbitsky said last week.
During the summer, Verbitsky's crew went out with city desk reporters on a day when three bodies were found in the city. He said he anticipates following reporters and photographers covering all types of news and sports events.
But until Blue Chip finds a buyer for the show, any talk of how the show might develop is premature, said Mary Flannery, the Inquirer's senior editor for newsroom initiatives.
"We think this is a really fine idea," Flannery said, "but we're not really sure anybody else is going to think that."
Oh, don't worry, Mary--this is a can't-miss. Like the Phillies.
BACK LIKE QUASIMODO
We were away at a wedding. The trip began inauspiciously with a feverish child and a flat tire on the interstate that left us with multiple pulled arm and shoulder muscles. Fortunately, Mrs. Beck worked for a NASCAR pit crew in another life and really knows her lug nuts (she married one, obvs). The wedding itself was quite lovely and made us feel like we were in a John Cheever story, albeit without the hard liquor, unfortunately.
We've also just moved offices and are besieged by total organizational chaos. Having said all that, we will do what we can to amuse, provoke and annoy you.
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We've also just moved offices and are besieged by total organizational chaos. Having said all that, we will do what we can to amuse, provoke and annoy you.
BLOODY BUT UNBLED
We know this is becoming boring, but the Old Hag, returned from a preternaturally stressful vacances, is still having some problems with meds. More from us when the blood levels are up. (For much, much better writing on the subject from someone who's not concerned with keeping things about "literary news" for no good goddamned reason, try here.) Perhaps Jimmy will pop in, but we think he might be away too. We love you all. We're trying not to be so lame, but it's congenital.
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Wednesday, September 08, 2004
YES, BUT WAS IT EXTRA VIRGIN?
STEYR, Austria (AP) - A medical intern at a western Austria hospital mistakenly injected an elderly patient with olive oil instead of antibiotics after mixing up bedside vials, officials said Wednesday.
The patient, a 79-year-old woman in the hospital for an appendectomy, was not in life-threatening condition, hospital director Harald Geck told the Austria Press Agency.
Hospital officials vehemently denied that they were planning to give the woman subsequent injections of garlic, pancetta, onions, diced tomatoes, chopped onions and pericatelli in order to make a large batch of pasta amatriciana out of her for next spring's Feast of the Ascension.
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The patient, a 79-year-old woman in the hospital for an appendectomy, was not in life-threatening condition, hospital director Harald Geck told the Austria Press Agency.
Hospital officials vehemently denied that they were planning to give the woman subsequent injections of garlic, pancetta, onions, diced tomatoes, chopped onions and pericatelli in order to make a large batch of pasta amatriciana out of her for next spring's Feast of the Ascension.
NATION BASHING
When I quit writing my column for The Nation a couple of years ago, I wrote semi-sarcastically that it had become an echo chamber for those who were more afraid of John Ashcroft than Osama Bin Laden. I honestly did not then expect to find it publishing actual endorsements of jihad. But, as Marxism taught me, the logic of history and politics is a pitiless one. The antiwar isolationist "left" started by being merely "status quo": opposing regime change and hinting at moral equivalence between Bush's "terrorism" and the other sort. This conservative position didn't take very long to metastasize into a flat-out reactionary one, with Michael Moore saying that the Iraqi "resistance" was the equivalent of the Revolutionary Minutemen, Tariq Ali calling for solidarity with the "insurgents," and now Ms. Klein, among many others, wanting to bring the war home because any kind of anti-Americanism is better than none at all.
Hitch takes his former employer to task for a column about Najaf.
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Hitch takes his former employer to task for a column about Najaf.
"YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!"
Like most left-leaning intellectuals who attended graduate school in the '90s, I have certainly had my own fling with cynicism about truth. I've played the postmodern; I've sympathized -- at length in my previous work -- with relativism. Disgusted by the right's lust for absolutes, many of us retreated from talk of objective truth and embraced the philosopher Richard Rorty's call for an "ironic" stance toward our own liberal sympathies. We stopped caring about whether we were "right" and thought more about what makes the world go round. That made us feel at once more hip and less naïve.
The events of the last three years have put the lie to that strategy. The fact that our government has deceived us, misled the nation into war, and passed legislation that threatens to infringe upon our basic human rights doesn't call for ironic detachment. It calls for outrage. But it is hard to justify outrage if your basic intellectual commitments suggest that everything is "just text" -- merely a story that could be retold in myriad ways. It is hard to stand up and fight for a political position that refuses to see itself as any better than any other.
Michael Lynch on truth, justice and The American Way.
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The events of the last three years have put the lie to that strategy. The fact that our government has deceived us, misled the nation into war, and passed legislation that threatens to infringe upon our basic human rights doesn't call for ironic detachment. It calls for outrage. But it is hard to justify outrage if your basic intellectual commitments suggest that everything is "just text" -- merely a story that could be retold in myriad ways. It is hard to stand up and fight for a political position that refuses to see itself as any better than any other.
Michael Lynch on truth, justice and The American Way.
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
CINTRA CITY
Scenario: Oprah gives you a call re: Colors Insulting. Do you pull a Franzen?
Hell no. Franzen shat where he ate. I go to the woman on my knees. Oprah is no enemy of culture. She may sit low, but she aims high. I think it was the diamond sutra: “No matter how innumerable beings are, I pledge to enlighten them.” Oprah works on enlightenment basics for the multitudes. I think she’s a saint.
Well, maybe not a saint, Cintra. Would you settle for "lovely gal?" Whatevs--we thoroughly enjoyed this interview in the new Bookslut.
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Hell no. Franzen shat where he ate. I go to the woman on my knees. Oprah is no enemy of culture. She may sit low, but she aims high. I think it was the diamond sutra: “No matter how innumerable beings are, I pledge to enlighten them.” Oprah works on enlightenment basics for the multitudes. I think she’s a saint.
Well, maybe not a saint, Cintra. Would you settle for "lovely gal?" Whatevs--we thoroughly enjoyed this interview in the new Bookslut.
Monday, September 06, 2004
"MY FAMILY LIKES TO READ. WORSHIP US."
Relief washes over us as we see the bookshelves to which we belong: my father and brother to history, my mother to science and I to literature. The two impossibly old ex-pats on the green vinyl couches discussing classic sci-fi do not distract us for even a moment. I take the widest, thickest book I can find, the one with the thinnest pages, the most closely set print, "Anna Karenina," and hold it to my chest as if it were more important than my passport. Now my memories of the hazy greens of the cloud forest belong to Levin and his scythe as he finds the best angle to cut the hay.
Sarah Lawrence education: $176,000. First-edition Trotsky in translation: $50. Vacuous, fey, elitist, self-congratulatory 1300-word essay in the New York Times: priceless.
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Sarah Lawrence education: $176,000. First-edition Trotsky in translation: $50. Vacuous, fey, elitist, self-congratulatory 1300-word essay in the New York Times: priceless.
RODDY DOYLE = THE SHITE
Doyle loathes Catholicism. In a country so saturated by it, I wonder if he ever wished he could just "succumb" as he might see it, to belief, for an easier life.
"No. Never. All I ever wanted from the time I could first start thinking about it, was to get the fuck out of it as quickly as possible. If I have a feeling of triumph as far as what has been achieved in this country, it's the idea that I got out of that institution and was still a living, breathing human being. And that's the biggest change in years; that I no longer have to explain why I'm not going to mass or being a Catholic; now Catholics are beginning to have to explain themselves.There'll be no going back. It's still a huge power broker, but its day is done."
In Monday's Guardian, Roddy Doyle unloads, mostly on his poor, blessed mother country and its cosmopolitan capital. FWIW, we loved A Star Called Henry and are currently devouring an ARC of the second part of the The Last Roundup trilogy, Oh, Play That Thing. And frankly, we don't get the snobby "His act is wearing a bit thin" label that some Brits have stuck on him, both in today's article and in a recent, über-snarky Bookmunch. If we could ever muster even a vague facsimile of Sarvasesque ambition, we'd write a glowing review of the new Doyle, the opening section of which can be found here.
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"No. Never. All I ever wanted from the time I could first start thinking about it, was to get the fuck out of it as quickly as possible. If I have a feeling of triumph as far as what has been achieved in this country, it's the idea that I got out of that institution and was still a living, breathing human being. And that's the biggest change in years; that I no longer have to explain why I'm not going to mass or being a Catholic; now Catholics are beginning to have to explain themselves.There'll be no going back. It's still a huge power broker, but its day is done."
In Monday's Guardian, Roddy Doyle unloads, mostly on his poor, blessed mother country and its cosmopolitan capital. FWIW, we loved A Star Called Henry and are currently devouring an ARC of the second part of the The Last Roundup trilogy, Oh, Play That Thing. And frankly, we don't get the snobby "His act is wearing a bit thin" label that some Brits have stuck on him, both in today's article and in a recent, über-snarky Bookmunch. If we could ever muster even a vague facsimile of Sarvasesque ambition, we'd write a glowing review of the new Doyle, the opening section of which can be found here.
Friday, September 03, 2004
RRRROW!
A certain Chica is now blogging on Mediabistro as Galleycat. (Currently, some kind of a Dada thing is happening -- is this an aesthetic challenge to Nick Denton?) Swish your tails over there and don't piss on any of the furniture.
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AND STRANGELY, ALL BECAUSE OF "VANITY FAIR"
|IT'S JOHNSON. STEVENS-JOHNSON.
The Old Hag is going to have to beg off from our pathetic intermittance for a while, since a) we are going sur la plage for a week, and b) recently acquired the rash that indicates a flesh-eating disease may be in the works (though it was probably only a brush with a weird moisurizer) and have to find a new medication. This may make us batshit crazy or catastrophically filled with doom for a while, but let's hope for the best. In any case, enjoy your Labor Day and, if you have a mind to come to NC, join us popping these and these.
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WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA: ICON BREEDING GROUND--REVEALED!
"He'd already met the fickle mistress called Fame," Mr. Kriegel writes in one of the book's occasional unfortunate moments. "Now he was meeting her wicked stepmother, Pain. She, too, would be here for the duration."
As "Namath" repeatedly illustrates, the star was no slouch when it came to pain relief. He could drink all night and show up on the playing field in plausible shape the next day. But those who bet on football games became increasingly interested in the star's health habits. And for all the famous brashness - the accurate Namath guarantee that the Jets would beat the Colts in the 1969 Super Bowl gets all due attention - he had his doubts. In Mr. Kriegel's view, his subject was already a fatalist about his physical deterioration by age 23.
"He's the biggest star here," said Andy Warhol, a good judge of such things, when Mr. Namath presented an Oscar in 1972.
Useless Namath trivia:
Namath was from the aptly named Beaver Falls; Warhol from McKeesport--two towns on either side of Pittsburgh, PA.
Recently, we were in Savannah, GA, where our tour guide pointed out an old Victorian house that Namath once bought in the hopes of turning it into a "gentlemen's club." The town matriarchs didn't go for it, obvs.
We'll always have fond memories of Broadway Joe's appearance on The Brady Bunch, which, BTW, you can catch on TV Land on September 27 at 3:30AM ET. Not to be missed.
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As "Namath" repeatedly illustrates, the star was no slouch when it came to pain relief. He could drink all night and show up on the playing field in plausible shape the next day. But those who bet on football games became increasingly interested in the star's health habits. And for all the famous brashness - the accurate Namath guarantee that the Jets would beat the Colts in the 1969 Super Bowl gets all due attention - he had his doubts. In Mr. Kriegel's view, his subject was already a fatalist about his physical deterioration by age 23.
"He's the biggest star here," said Andy Warhol, a good judge of such things, when Mr. Namath presented an Oscar in 1972.
Useless Namath trivia:
Namath was from the aptly named Beaver Falls; Warhol from McKeesport--two towns on either side of Pittsburgh, PA.
Recently, we were in Savannah, GA, where our tour guide pointed out an old Victorian house that Namath once bought in the hopes of turning it into a "gentlemen's club." The town matriarchs didn't go for it, obvs.
We'll always have fond memories of Broadway Joe's appearance on The Brady Bunch, which, BTW, you can catch on TV Land on September 27 at 3:30AM ET. Not to be missed.
JONESING
How long did it take you to write the book?
I finished it in 1996, and was ready to show it to agents. I edited some more over the years. In 1998, I got a London agent who liked it, but wasn’t able to sell it. In 2002, I think, I got my agent here, Laura Strachan, after thousands of rejections from agents and editors. You name ‘em, they rejected it. I have other books that’ve been rejected, too. So, I’ve been rejected all-told about 15,000 times. That’s gotta be some kind of record. I must be the world’s most rejected author.
Gerard Jones informs us that 1) his book has finally been reviewed 2) "some chick" has written up a nice story and interview with him and 3) despite rumors to the contrary, his website is alive and well and continues to spew bile at the publishing industry et al.
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I finished it in 1996, and was ready to show it to agents. I edited some more over the years. In 1998, I got a London agent who liked it, but wasn’t able to sell it. In 2002, I think, I got my agent here, Laura Strachan, after thousands of rejections from agents and editors. You name ‘em, they rejected it. I have other books that’ve been rejected, too. So, I’ve been rejected all-told about 15,000 times. That’s gotta be some kind of record. I must be the world’s most rejected author.
Gerard Jones informs us that 1) his book has finally been reviewed 2) "some chick" has written up a nice story and interview with him and 3) despite rumors to the contrary, his website is alive and well and continues to spew bile at the publishing industry et al.
Thursday, September 02, 2004
MAYBE IT'S TIME FOR TURKEY TO RETHINK THE WHOLE SECULAR DEMOCRACY THING
|"I HOPE THAT SOMEONE GETS MY MESSAGE IN A SHUTTLE"
LONDON (Reuters) - Writing, rather than phoning, is probably the best way to contact extraterrestrials, American scientists said Wednesday.
They also urged would-be alien pen-pals to "show, don't tell," "read the classics," "avoid simultaneous submissions," and above all, "proofread your query letters, because even on Rigel 7, agents can still spot sloppy, careless writing. And remember: NO email queries and NO phone calls."
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They also urged would-be alien pen-pals to "show, don't tell," "read the classics," "avoid simultaneous submissions," and above all, "proofread your query letters, because even on Rigel 7, agents can still spot sloppy, careless writing. And remember: NO email queries and NO phone calls."
SAMMY'S HILL-NO
It would be far too easy to be mean to 'Sammy's Hill'...
And yet, not really:
which, like D.C. politics, is full of inane, platitudinous and just plain ugly moments. 'We headed downtown to the party and met Jane at the door. Inside, flashbulbs lit up the rooms filled with glamorous and important people.' 'As I closed my eyes and let my brain swirl with the excitement and tequila and kissing of the day, I wished for it all to continue just like these first hours of new, potential-pregnant adventure.' 'Everything attained a faster, more hectic clip and the weeks blurred by in the blink of an overscheduled eye.' 'Though the snow had finally stopped falling, the city lay paralyzed in its copious clutches.' Overscheduled eyes? Copious clutches? Even a joint House-Senate committee could come up with language less tortured than this.*
For more SAMMY'S HILL haterade, try Another Gore in the Lit Game, which goes so far as to BLATANTLY MAKE FUN OF THE BUSH TWINS' BODIES. A certain D-towner's already whippin' out his nunchucks.
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And yet, not really:
which, like D.C. politics, is full of inane, platitudinous and just plain ugly moments. 'We headed downtown to the party and met Jane at the door. Inside, flashbulbs lit up the rooms filled with glamorous and important people.' 'As I closed my eyes and let my brain swirl with the excitement and tequila and kissing of the day, I wished for it all to continue just like these first hours of new, potential-pregnant adventure.' 'Everything attained a faster, more hectic clip and the weeks blurred by in the blink of an overscheduled eye.' 'Though the snow had finally stopped falling, the city lay paralyzed in its copious clutches.' Overscheduled eyes? Copious clutches? Even a joint House-Senate committee could come up with language less tortured than this.*
For more SAMMY'S HILL haterade, try Another Gore in the Lit Game, which goes so far as to BLATANTLY MAKE FUN OF THE BUSH TWINS' BODIES. A certain D-towner's already whippin' out his nunchucks.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
WE ARE THE WORLD, WE ARE THE TRANSEXUALS
With the new category of 'economic girlie men,' everyone who has a problem with the debt, unemployment, or the future of Social Security has now become an effeminate male—a conversion that, for some of us, requires considerable maneuvering. Here I thought I was just a grown woman worrying about how to afford health insurance, but it turns out I'm a sissy man who thinks he's a girl, and who is also amusingly delusional about his/her perceived state of financial precariousness. I guess when I finally get insured, I'll need that doctor's appointment even more than I thought.
If Dana can get "faggy" in Slate, there's new hope for yet more porn at the NYT.
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If Dana can get "faggy" in Slate, there's new hope for yet more porn at the NYT.
STILL MAINTAINING THAT WE ARE COVERING THE "LITERARY" ANGLE
Unlike these Washingtonienne snaps from The Thigh Master, there's little chance Cutler's book will be cracked wide open. [via Huncle Grambones]
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TRIUMPH OF THE MEDS
I feel good about going home. I feel like there is an open road in front of me, a road to joy and happiness. I feel like I have a new perspective on things. That is what this hospital stay has provided me: PERSPECTIVE. It has also provided me an appreciation for my regular toothpaste and deodorant. The first time I brushed my teeth with the hospital toothpaste I gagged and was certain I had grabbed a tube of ointment instead of toothpaste, perhaps an ointment for an open wound or a swollen anus; it couldn’t have been safe for my mouth. And the deodorant! They gave me deodorant that smells like the shavings that line the bottom of a gerbil cage. I SMELL LIKE A GERBIL.
Hey Leta! Your Bob Costas-hating Gerbil-Mom is coming home!
For those of you who haven't been following dooce's dispatches from the loony bin -- do.
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Hey Leta! Your Bob Costas-hating Gerbil-Mom is coming home!
For those of you who haven't been following dooce's dispatches from the loony bin -- do.
WASHINGTONIENNE'S HILL
We're strictly covering the LITERARY angle of the Washingtonienne storm, but Beatrice has all the pervy links for your...well, you know.
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ALSO: [FINGERNAILS GRASPING VIOLENTLY] MAUD, DON'T GO!!!!
The perfectionist in me wants to assure you that not only will there be seventeen posts a day but that each will, unlike the past ones, be smart and funny and contain an unforgettable bit of wisdom that you can write down on a small piece of paper and carry close to your heart for the rest of your life. The truth is, this is not going to happen. If I am ever going to finish any of the writing projects I have in mind, this site will continue to be unpredictable and scattershot, populated with those “Remainders'-style posts, and sometimes little more.
So, there will be links. There will be interviews with authors. There will be occasional reactions to books. There will be guest opinions. And there will be personal posts, which may or may not (despite my desire to hide under the couch) focus explicitly on my writing and the technical struggles I’m facing. If I didn’t have an unrelated office job, things might be different, but since I do it’s too difficult to keep the writing and blog separate, and I really can’t be dedicating more than two or three hours a day to the site.
The only good thing* about Maud taking a slight downgrade from her astonishing productivity is that, briefly (and certainly wrongly), the rest of us will not feel so paralyzingly inferior.**
*And the novel! Bovs.
** We will be scarce today too, but certainly not because we are doing anything useful.
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So, there will be links. There will be interviews with authors. There will be occasional reactions to books. There will be guest opinions. And there will be personal posts, which may or may not (despite my desire to hide under the couch) focus explicitly on my writing and the technical struggles I’m facing. If I didn’t have an unrelated office job, things might be different, but since I do it’s too difficult to keep the writing and blog separate, and I really can’t be dedicating more than two or three hours a day to the site.
The only good thing* about Maud taking a slight downgrade from her astonishing productivity is that, briefly (and certainly wrongly), the rest of us will not feel so paralyzingly inferior.**
*And the novel! Bovs.
** We will be scarce today too, but certainly not because we are doing anything useful.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
ALSO, WAY TO INVOKE NIXON AS YOUR LODESTAR. SOMEWHERE, A SPEECHWRITER IS WEEPING, CHAINED TO A TREE IN A LONELY, WOODED GLEN
I am no lipreader, but did Maria Shriver tell her son "Don't clap for that!" when Ah-nuld said the Democrats' campaign should be called "True Lies"?
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WE KNOW FOR A FACT HITCHENS SNIFFS THE RAGGEDY REMNANT OF THE HEM OF MOTHER THERESA'S HABIT TWICE A DAY
There is, of course, the old-fashioned explanation for why the Buckleys, the Winchesters, and the John Updikes of the world make the rest of us look like clock-watching quill-pushers: hard work. But I have dismissed the possibility that these writers might have studied harder in school, read more books, or spent more hours at the desk than a grasshopper such as I. Or that they are simply more gifted than I am. They must be on something.
Alex Beam wonders what those fucking freaks who actually produce workable manuscripts are on. [via Gawker]
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Alex Beam wonders what those fucking freaks who actually produce workable manuscripts are on. [via Gawker]
WE KNOW FOR A FACT HITCHENS SNIFFS A RAGGEDY PIECE OF THE HEM OF MOTHER THERESA'S HABIT AT LEAST TWICE A DAY
There is, of course, the old-fashioned explanation for why the Buckleys, the Winchesters, and the John Updikes of the world make the rest of us look like clock-watching quill-pushers: hard work. But I have dismissed the possibility that these writers might have studied harder in school, read more books, or spent more hours at the desk than a grasshopper such as I. Or that they are simply more gifted than I am. They must be on something.
Alex Beam wonders what those fucking freaks who actually produce workable manuscripts are on. [via Gawker
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Alex Beam wonders what those fucking freaks who actually produce workable manuscripts are on. [via Gawker
BY THE WAY, ANY SECRET "MOVING" TIPS A LA MORNING NEWS? WE'RE DESPERATE
Omigod. This is going to make our imminent encounter with felt-tip markers, screechy tape and aisles of cardboard so much more bearable.
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MAUD'S NEIGHBORS FOUND IN GERMANY
|OUR NEW FAVORITE WORD: BUDONKADUNK
There's so much tremendous shit in this Gray Lady piece on black men's magazines we don't know where to begin:
In the pages of King, a bimonthly men's magazine for the rims, bling and sneakers set, one thing is prized more than a taut waistline and a pretty face, shapely legs or a perky bosom: a large behind.
"That's what our readers have come to expect from us," said Datwon Thomas, King's editor since it began publishing three years ago. "They want to see the thick girls, the girls with " Mr. Thomas, a 29-year-old married father of two, stammered here, searching for a description that would work in the pages of a family newspaper, "with, you know, a big backside."
...Jayson Rodriguez, a 25-year-old graduate student at New York University, said he skipped over the mainstream lad magazines at newsstands and headed straight for King and Smooth. "I'm not interested in the Anna Kournikovas and Paris Hiltons of the world," Mr. Rodriguez said. But the magazines provide more than an opportunity to ogle women with hour (and a half) glass figures, he was quick to explain. The magazines' "irreverent humor" and unique take on the world at large attract him, too.
"When I read Esquire and GQ, I feel like I'm broke," he said. "When I read King and Smooth, they make me laugh. I can relate. It feels like I'm talking to my boys."
...But not all the women King has put on its cover have been, as Mr. Thomas puts it, thick. While seemingly perfect for the pages of a mainstream women's magazine, the R&B singer Brandy's relatively waiflike frame did not go over well with King readers when she appeared on the cover of the magazine's September issue.
"We've never gotten such a negative response before," Mr. Thomas said, shaking his head. "Our readers were like, 'What's up with the thinnie on the cover?' "
For her part Brandy seemed to understand what King's readers were looking for. "I think my booty could be bigger," she said in the interview that accompanied her photo layout. "Just a little more budonkadunk, and then I would be good."
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In the pages of King, a bimonthly men's magazine for the rims, bling and sneakers set, one thing is prized more than a taut waistline and a pretty face, shapely legs or a perky bosom: a large behind.
"That's what our readers have come to expect from us," said Datwon Thomas, King's editor since it began publishing three years ago. "They want to see the thick girls, the girls with " Mr. Thomas, a 29-year-old married father of two, stammered here, searching for a description that would work in the pages of a family newspaper, "with, you know, a big backside."
...Jayson Rodriguez, a 25-year-old graduate student at New York University, said he skipped over the mainstream lad magazines at newsstands and headed straight for King and Smooth. "I'm not interested in the Anna Kournikovas and Paris Hiltons of the world," Mr. Rodriguez said. But the magazines provide more than an opportunity to ogle women with hour (and a half) glass figures, he was quick to explain. The magazines' "irreverent humor" and unique take on the world at large attract him, too.
"When I read Esquire and GQ, I feel like I'm broke," he said. "When I read King and Smooth, they make me laugh. I can relate. It feels like I'm talking to my boys."
...But not all the women King has put on its cover have been, as Mr. Thomas puts it, thick. While seemingly perfect for the pages of a mainstream women's magazine, the R&B singer Brandy's relatively waiflike frame did not go over well with King readers when she appeared on the cover of the magazine's September issue.
"We've never gotten such a negative response before," Mr. Thomas said, shaking his head. "Our readers were like, 'What's up with the thinnie on the cover?' "
For her part Brandy seemed to understand what King's readers were looking for. "I think my booty could be bigger," she said in the interview that accompanied her photo layout. "Just a little more budonkadunk, and then I would be good."
WE BELIEVE WE HAVE A CAREER OR TWO IN THE LUCRATIVE YA AND THESIS-EDITING MARKETS THAT BEGAN THIS WAY
|MAUD, DON'T WORRY. AFTER "SYLVIA", GWYNETH IS NO LONGER ALLOWED TO PLAY SUICIDE BLONDES
Maud's noting that film rights to Tender is the Night have been sold. Two questions: 1) Will they keep the later-incorporated non-linear progression that made the novel so successful, and 2) since Nicole had "thick, dark gold hair like a chow's", will Kate Beckinsale go the wig route or dye?
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OKAY, BUT WHEN'S THE "AMERICAN PSYCHO" ANNIVERSARY PARTY?
IN 1984, a young writer approached the owners of the Odeon to ask if they would mind if his publisher used an image of their restaurant on the cover of his debut novel. They graciously agreed and Jay McInerney's "Bright Lights, Big City" has been inextricably linked to the Odeon ever since. The iconic cover, seen now through the lens of a transformed TriBeCa, continues to evoke nostalgia for the '80s. The Twin Towers in the background add to the mood. So it's fitting that the Odeon will be the site of the novel's 20th anniversary celebration on Oct. 25, hosted by McInerney's editor, Gary Fisketjon, and attended by their friends who were Odeon patrons at the time — including Bret Easton Ellis, Morgan Entrekin, Debbie Harry, Annie Leibovitz, David Salle, Tama Janowitz, Diane von Furstenberg, Julian Schnabel, Matt Dillon, Janice Dickenson, Eric Goode, Jim Jarmusch and David Byrne.
Sounds like a party (scroll down if you care, but trust us, you don't). Also expected among the guests are 1984 standouts Menudo, David Lee Roth, Donkey Kong, Lee Iacocca and lots of cocaine.
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Sounds like a party (scroll down if you care, but trust us, you don't). Also expected among the guests are 1984 standouts Menudo, David Lee Roth, Donkey Kong, Lee Iacocca and lots of cocaine.
WE'LL HOLD OFF STEALING ALL OUR LINKS FROM MAUD AND PILFER TINGLE ALLEY'S TODAY
Best first lines ever at Opening Hooks. There are 407, but we'll add our slim contribution anyway: The "everyone's fat" blissfulness of VANITY FAIR -- "While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour" and the "your life will be circumscribed soon despite this bright open prairie, don't you worry" depression of MAIN STREET: "On a hill by the Mississippi where Chippewas camped two generations ago, a girl stood in relief against the cornflower blue of Northern sky."
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ALSO, I AM A VERY CHARMING AND AMIABLE HOUSEGUEST
Gore Vidal, WHY MUST YOU ENDLESSLY TORTURE the penniless writers with your Italian villa? [via the marvelous Carrie at Tingle Alley]*
*Apparently, we lied about not blogging today.
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*Apparently, we lied about not blogging today.
STILL, WRITING ABOUT THE FUTURE IS AN IMPROVEMENT OVER WRITING ABOUT THE SAME GODDAMN FAT-CATS COCKTAIL PARTY OVER AND OVER
For example, in the new issue of Harper’s, which came out two weeks ago, Lewis Lapham, the editor, described the Convention as though it were already over: “The speeches in Madison Square Garden affirmed the great truths now routinely preached from the pulpits of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal—government the problem, not the solution; the social contract a dead letter; the free market the answer to every maiden’s prayer—and while listening to the hollow rattle of the rhetorical brass and tin, I remembered the question that Hofstadter didn’t stay to answer. . . .” At least one reader was moved to write the magazine in mock admiration of Lapham’s “ability to travel in time,” while others posted less amiable remarks on assorted blogs, comparing Lapham to Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, and other fabulists. (Lapham responded on the magazine’s Web site, admitting that he’d made a serious mistake—of verb tense and “poetic license”—for which he was sorry.)
Ben McGrath explores the amazing psychic abilities of Lewis Lapham, among other journalists.
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Ben McGrath explores the amazing psychic abilities of Lewis Lapham, among other journalists.
DISCLAIMER #12456
Blogging will probably be singular to nonexistent today; not for the aforementioned health reasons but just for a crippling amount of work. Btw, the BOOG and I are planning to move since our building as become SO creepy and SO empty (and, imminently, likely SO expensive) since our landlord has decided to sell it. Any Baltimore residents (all three of you): good advice on buildings in the Charles Village area? Picks? Pans? Etc.? Or know of any six-month-ish empty houses someone is dying to fill?
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Monday, August 30, 2004
IT'S JUST LUNCH
August 30, 2004 -- The mom who with her Swiss hubby, left their infant son alone in their hotel room in the Waldorf-Astoria — while they went to lunch — insisted yesterday they are good parents who simply made a bad mistake.
"We are nice people and good parents. It's just a matter of a different culture," the woman said in a telephone interview from her hotel room. "We just have to blame it on ourselves, and that's it."
The woman's husband, Michel Regamey, was charged with endangering the welfare of a child after a housekeeper walked into their room to clean it around 1 p.m. Saturday and discovered the baby sleeping alone in his crib.
Our favorite response to this faux pas comes from the Comments over at Gothamist:
Okay, granted, leaving a baby in a stroller outside and unattended is pretty weird and unsafe, no matter the culture, but leaving a baby napping in your hotel room for an hour while you have lunch with your spouse seems perfectly reasonable to me. Sure, the baby could choke and die, but seriously.
No, seriously.
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"We are nice people and good parents. It's just a matter of a different culture," the woman said in a telephone interview from her hotel room. "We just have to blame it on ourselves, and that's it."
The woman's husband, Michel Regamey, was charged with endangering the welfare of a child after a housekeeper walked into their room to clean it around 1 p.m. Saturday and discovered the baby sleeping alone in his crib.
Our favorite response to this faux pas comes from the Comments over at Gothamist:
Okay, granted, leaving a baby in a stroller outside and unattended is pretty weird and unsafe, no matter the culture, but leaving a baby napping in your hotel room for an hour while you have lunch with your spouse seems perfectly reasonable to me. Sure, the baby could choke and die, but seriously.
No, seriously.
SINCE WE'RE BASHING MFA'S ...
|LIQUOR. LIQUOR, AND A LOT OF LUBRICATION
But isn’t it especially important that the flaws and failings of serious novels are highlighted? Julavits is vaguely preoccupied with “value systems” and “higher ideals” as if invoking a largely unspecified code inhibiting reviewers’ nasty comments will serve some hazy moral purpose. But the only purpose relevant in the debate is: how can better books be published and succeed in the marketplace?
The fantastic Emma Garman is questioning the debasement of Snark and the lit-world's capacity to reap successful results in the main. We think we have the answer, though.
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The fantastic Emma Garman is questioning the debasement of Snark and the lit-world's capacity to reap successful results in the main. We think we have the answer, though.
DOOCE UPDATE
Friday morning I finally saw my official doctor, a kick-ass psychiatrist who has been treating people like me for longer than I have been alive. He had read my chart — imagine that! He had done some research! on me! his patient! and within the first five minutes of talking to me he determined why and how the meds I’m taking aren’t working. He had such a direct approach, almost like a bulldozer with a Ph.D. and I wanted to smother him with Internet love. I could tell that he wanted to see me get better and knowing that he cared, even just a little bit, made me feel SO MUCH BETTER.
Yes; so funny how it makes a difference WHEN THE FREAKING DOCTOR GIVES A SHITE. But thankfully things are improving with Dooce, who has amazingly been able to write through all this.
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Yes; so funny how it makes a difference WHEN THE FREAKING DOCTOR GIVES A SHITE. But thankfully things are improving with Dooce, who has amazingly been able to write through all this.
LETTER FROM MOROCCO
Yesterday I watched a pick up game of soccer while we were at the beach, just outside the capital of Rabat. A group of eight shirtless teenagers were playing, a few of them barefoot on the cement basketball court. There were three or four of these courts by the beach, but no soccer field, even in this soccer-mad town. So the kids had just used one of the basketball courts for their game. They'd divided up the teams by having four of them play with their shoes on and the other four with their shoes off. The kids in shoes were winning.
Like that game of soccer, Morocco is divided between the haves and the have nots; the mansions with their marble arches, and the shacks with their corrugated tin roofs held down by rocks, only a mile away; the westernized to the point of mimicry and the traditional to the point of extremism; the 9-to-5 workers and the jobless who sit in cafes, watching them come and go; the bikini-clad girls and those who flaunt their scarves instead of their breasts. As I was getting ready to leave, the barefoot kids scored. I jumped up to cheer them, but they were too overjoyed to notice.
Moorish Girl is sending dispatches from her trip; let's hope she continues.
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Like that game of soccer, Morocco is divided between the haves and the have nots; the mansions with their marble arches, and the shacks with their corrugated tin roofs held down by rocks, only a mile away; the westernized to the point of mimicry and the traditional to the point of extremism; the 9-to-5 workers and the jobless who sit in cafes, watching them come and go; the bikini-clad girls and those who flaunt their scarves instead of their breasts. As I was getting ready to leave, the barefoot kids scored. I jumped up to cheer them, but they were too overjoyed to notice.
Moorish Girl is sending dispatches from her trip; let's hope she continues.
GEORGE BUSH POINTING PEOPLE TOWARDS INCREASINGLY DESPERATE ACTS, EXHIBIT #3,456,980
A BLOKE WHO tried to raise some much needed extra cash by flogging his vote in the presidential election found that not only did Ebay shut down his auction but he ended up arrested.
James Pengov, 36, of Elyria, found himself a little short of cash for some medical bills so he decided to sell his vote on the auction site.
Had George Bush only given a rat's ass about health care, he MAY WELL HAVE RETAINED THIS VOTE. Well, at least it wasn't a kidney.
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James Pengov, 36, of Elyria, found himself a little short of cash for some medical bills so he decided to sell his vote on the auction site.
Had George Bush only given a rat's ass about health care, he MAY WELL HAVE RETAINED THIS VOTE. Well, at least it wasn't a kidney.
NOW ALL THAT REMAINS IS TO SEE HOW THEY HANDLE THE LAWYERS AND GUNS
Like Scarlett's, Becky's is a story about how the need for money changes everything. She overreaches when she borrows from the Marquess of Steyne — here he's Gabriel Byrne, not the homunculus Thackeray described — who later demands to be paid back with her favors and ruins her reputation. And in another departure from the novel, Steyne delivers the film's most clear-sighted, cynical assessment of society, paving Becky's way into an elevated world while explicitly warning that she may be disappointed when she gets inside those doors. Like Thackeray himself, he sees through the sham of social propriety.
Yet, true to Thackeray's vision, he uses his power callously. When he tries to call in his loan — orchestrating a night alone with Becky — we see the difference between him and his not-so-blameless victim.
The new Vanity Fair movie IS -- properly -- obsessed with money.
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Yet, true to Thackeray's vision, he uses his power callously. When he tries to call in his loan — orchestrating a night alone with Becky — we see the difference between him and his not-so-blameless victim.
The new Vanity Fair movie IS -- properly -- obsessed with money.
VOX NOT SO POPULUS?
NEW YORK - Yes, there are limits to what George Bush (news - web sites) haters will read. "Checkpoint," the controversial Nicholson Baker novel about a man who wants to kill the president, has sold fewer than 6,500 copies since coming out two weeks ago, the book's publisher said Friday.
"Not every book you publish becomes a best seller," said Paul Bogaards, executive director of publicity for Alfred A. Knopf. Bogaards said sales for the book, which had a first printing of 60,000, had only reached the low 6000s, far behind the pace of such anti-Bush best sellers as Paul Krugman's "The Great Unraveling" and Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies."
Okay, we're confused. This piece says the book's a bust and cites Friday's 1,250 ranking on Amazon as proof (as of Monday 9:45AM, it was #853). On August 11, we linked to Franz & Franz's review over at OPTR's place and the book was then #9 (with a bullet--heh) on the Amazon list. So are we to understand that a top-ten Amazon ranking, if it's fleeting enough, translates into no more than a few hundred copies moved? And that even in the wake of all this attention, Baker will be lucky to earn out his advance? Or is Knopf yanking our chain and if so, why?
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"Not every book you publish becomes a best seller," said Paul Bogaards, executive director of publicity for Alfred A. Knopf. Bogaards said sales for the book, which had a first printing of 60,000, had only reached the low 6000s, far behind the pace of such anti-Bush best sellers as Paul Krugman's "The Great Unraveling" and Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies."
Okay, we're confused. This piece says the book's a bust and cites Friday's 1,250 ranking on Amazon as proof (as of Monday 9:45AM, it was #853). On August 11, we linked to Franz & Franz's review over at OPTR's place and the book was then #9 (with a bullet--heh) on the Amazon list. So are we to understand that a top-ten Amazon ranking, if it's fleeting enough, translates into no more than a few hundred copies moved? And that even in the wake of all this attention, Baker will be lucky to earn out his advance? Or is Knopf yanking our chain and if so, why?
Friday, August 27, 2004
MOON OUT OF SATURN. REPEAT, MOON OUT OF SATURN
Four months ago, our long, slow decline was marked by the reception of a SWAT TEAM DESCENDING on us one evening simply because we'd dragged a g&t onto, God forbid, the sidewalk. That ticket took eighteen letters and forty-eight phone calls to resolve. Yesterday, we received a bill for a ticket from September 2003, once $23, now $181 and fast approaching $230. We called up the Baltimore City Goverment proper and 1) GOT THROUGH to a living person in under ten minutes 2) somehow managed to land a human who a) wanted to speak to her supervisor and b) got him/her to remove the ticket entirely.
God, tell us -- where do we send the check?
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God, tell us -- where do we send the check?
KILL YOU? THEN WHERE WOULD WE GET OUR, UH, IN AND OUT?
"Burt [Reynolds] and his producer girlfriend, Kate Edelman Johnson (widow of Warner Communications president, Deane F. Johnson), are moving into a new $5.9 million Hollywood love nest -- that she's paying for."It's an 8,000-square-foot neoclassical villa atop Mulholland Drive that was once owned by singer Paul Anka."
Please kill me. It's August, a very slow news month all told, [but] I did not mean to just boldface Paul Anka. I will never do it again. I don't want this blog to give off the aura of Dairy Queens and K-Tel Infomercials. I want it to be fresh, crisp and sparkling, so please forgive the venture into 50s Americana.
There's nothing to forgive, Corsair--you remain as fresh, crisp and sparkling as cool water from a mountain spring. Incidentally, you can blame Canada and Lebanon for Anka.
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Please kill me. It's August, a very slow news month all told, [but] I did not mean to just boldface Paul Anka. I will never do it again. I don't want this blog to give off the aura of Dairy Queens and K-Tel Infomercials. I want it to be fresh, crisp and sparkling, so please forgive the venture into 50s Americana.
There's nothing to forgive, Corsair--you remain as fresh, crisp and sparkling as cool water from a mountain spring. Incidentally, you can blame Canada and Lebanon for Anka.
NOW CONFIRMED: WE WOULD HAVE LASTED 7 AND 1/2 MINUTES IN THAT PH.D PROGRAM
Ask and you shall receive...but not usually so EXCELLENTLY. Jenny Davidson, who teaches in the department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia and is the author of a novel, Heredity, and the academic work Hypocrisy and the Politics of Politeness, has responded to our query below about how the rich -- or seemingly rich -- were able to live off the far-more-poor:
By the time Thackeray wrote this, the critique of upper-class people who never paid their bills (wages to servants, money to the tradesmen who supplied them with groceries & luxury items etc.) was over a hundred years old. Eighteenth-century Britain was a credit economy--and folks whose incomes often came from farming as well as other kinds of property were frequently cash-poor and avoided handing anything over except when absolutely necessary. Servants had their own kind of power over masters; they needed "characters" or letters of reference if they want to move on to a new job, but they also were able to spread vicious gossip about employers who did not treat them well. So it cuts both ways.
For more about this, see the indispensable book by J. Jean Hecht, The Domestic Servant Class in Eighteenth-Century England; and Bruce Robbins' critical book The Servant's Hand. For literary works that illuminate aspects of this dynamic, see Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent (subversive servant narrates overthrow of masters) and Belinda (critique of wealthy members of the nobility who bankrupt ordinary tradesmen by not paying bills); Jonathan Swift's satirical Directions to Servants, which instructs servants how to produce mayhem in the household; and Thomas Hardy's underrated novel The Hand of Ethelberta, in which an upwardly mobile woman hires her family to impersonate a household of servants, with predictably disastrous consequences.
Please hereafter refer to us as "Ethelberta."
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By the time Thackeray wrote this, the critique of upper-class people who never paid their bills (wages to servants, money to the tradesmen who supplied them with groceries & luxury items etc.) was over a hundred years old. Eighteenth-century Britain was a credit economy--and folks whose incomes often came from farming as well as other kinds of property were frequently cash-poor and avoided handing anything over except when absolutely necessary. Servants had their own kind of power over masters; they needed "characters" or letters of reference if they want to move on to a new job, but they also were able to spread vicious gossip about employers who did not treat them well. So it cuts both ways.
For more about this, see the indispensable book by J. Jean Hecht, The Domestic Servant Class in Eighteenth-Century England; and Bruce Robbins' critical book The Servant's Hand. For literary works that illuminate aspects of this dynamic, see Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent (subversive servant narrates overthrow of masters) and Belinda (critique of wealthy members of the nobility who bankrupt ordinary tradesmen by not paying bills); Jonathan Swift's satirical Directions to Servants, which instructs servants how to produce mayhem in the household; and Thomas Hardy's underrated novel The Hand of Ethelberta, in which an upwardly mobile woman hires her family to impersonate a household of servants, with predictably disastrous consequences.
Please hereafter refer to us as "Ethelberta."
WE DON'T WANT TO EVEN THINK ABOUT WHAT "MY SWEET AUDRINA" COULD HAVE WROUGHT
During a collegiate expedition to an Outer Banks bookstore one summer, we foisted upon our then-best and skeptical friend a shining new copy of Flowers in the Attic. She did not speak to us for the rest of the trip -- not because she was irritated, but because she WOULD NOT TAKE HER HEAD OUT OF THE BOOK. Nerve's Emily Mead reports on the enduring power of incest, sprinkly poison and switch-wielding grandmothers:
With its peculiar, tantalizing mix of prudish naiveté and breathless carnality, Flowers was deeply dirty without being intimidating. Chris and Cathy were so guileless and kind that even after 200 pages of lingering looks, unnameable urges and sadistic whippings with a willow switch, they were still straddling the divide between childhood and adulthood, just like I was.
The sex parts, rare and oblique as they were, felt familiar to me, too — my first little horny urges also felt dirty and wrong and confusing. When Cathy, letting Chris treat her wounds after being beaten by their grandmother, says 'it felt odd to be kissed while lying naked in his arms . . . and not right,' I could certainly relate to the sentiment, if not the circumstances. And I wasn't alone.
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With its peculiar, tantalizing mix of prudish naiveté and breathless carnality, Flowers was deeply dirty without being intimidating. Chris and Cathy were so guileless and kind that even after 200 pages of lingering looks, unnameable urges and sadistic whippings with a willow switch, they were still straddling the divide between childhood and adulthood, just like I was.
The sex parts, rare and oblique as they were, felt familiar to me, too — my first little horny urges also felt dirty and wrong and confusing. When Cathy, letting Chris treat her wounds after being beaten by their grandmother, says 'it felt odd to be kissed while lying naked in his arms . . . and not right,' I could certainly relate to the sentiment, if not the circumstances. And I wasn't alone.
"SISTERS" ARE DOIN' IT FOR THEMSELVES
Cheney, who holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, is a prolific author of polemical tracts, children's history books and fiction, including a 1981 novel "Sisters," about a 19th century feminist. (Perhaps because of the novel's sympathetic treatment of lesbianism, Cheney has dropped mention of the inconvenient "Sisters" from her résumé, even though her daughter, Mary, is gay. She has also suppressed the book so that it is no longer in print.)
This article on the Second Lady in Salon is as long as it is damning, which is to say, really fucking long. Mrs. C. comes off like a cross between Meryl Streep in The Manchurian Candidate and Ursula the Sea Witch from The Little Mermaid (what, you expected a Lady Macbeth reference?).
Meanwhile, we found not a single copy of Sisters on addall.com and just one on e-bay, a signed 1st ed. that's currently bid at $255. Here's the seller:
Because of the very large number of watchers, 52, (only I can view this data from "My eBay") of this auction, today I decided to do more research on this book. When searching the web for information on this book I was amazed at the information and controversy about it. You may want to do your own search and SEE FOR YOURSELF what is out there. According to a writer for a large LA newspaper, there are only 11 copies of this book in US library system with four being here in Wyoming. According to other credible sources, the 2004 re-issue was stopped by Cheney's attorney. Go figure! I also found a well known web site with one copy for sale for $2,999.00 and it was not even signed. You must be the judge of this information. If you think there is value in owning this book then PLEASE BID NOW. DON'T WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE ONLY TO BE OUTBID. I MAY DECIDE TO KEEP THIS BOOK IF THE BIDS DON'T GO HIGH ENOUGH BEFORE THE AUCTION CLOSE. SO PLEASE BID NOW. Thanks a lot, Roger.
No, Roger: thank YOU.
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This article on the Second Lady in Salon is as long as it is damning, which is to say, really fucking long. Mrs. C. comes off like a cross between Meryl Streep in The Manchurian Candidate and Ursula the Sea Witch from The Little Mermaid (what, you expected a Lady Macbeth reference?).
Meanwhile, we found not a single copy of Sisters on addall.com and just one on e-bay, a signed 1st ed. that's currently bid at $255. Here's the seller:
Because of the very large number of watchers, 52, (only I can view this data from "My eBay") of this auction, today I decided to do more research on this book. When searching the web for information on this book I was amazed at the information and controversy about it. You may want to do your own search and SEE FOR YOURSELF what is out there. According to a writer for a large LA newspaper, there are only 11 copies of this book in US library system with four being here in Wyoming. According to other credible sources, the 2004 re-issue was stopped by Cheney's attorney. Go figure! I also found a well known web site with one copy for sale for $2,999.00 and it was not even signed. You must be the judge of this information. If you think there is value in owning this book then PLEASE BID NOW. DON'T WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE ONLY TO BE OUTBID. I MAY DECIDE TO KEEP THIS BOOK IF THE BIDS DON'T GO HIGH ENOUGH BEFORE THE AUCTION CLOSE. SO PLEASE BID NOW. Thanks a lot, Roger.
No, Roger: thank YOU.
AND MICHAEL MOORE, IF YOU'RE AROUND
As luck would have it, Raggles’ house in Curzon Street was to let when Rawdon and his wife returned to London. The Colonel knew it and its owner quite well; the latter’s connection with the Crawley family had been kept up constantly, for Raggles helped Mr. Bowls whenever Miss Crawley received friends. And the old man not only let his house to the Colonel but officiated as his butler whenever he had company; Mrs. Raggles operating in the kitchen below and sending up dinners of which old Miss Crawley herself might have approved. This was the way, then, Crawley got his house for nothing; for though Raggles had to pay taxes and rates, and the interest of the mortgage to the brother butler; and the insurance of his life; and the charges for his children at school; and the value of the meat and drink which his own family—and for a time that of Colonel Crawley too—consumed; and though the poor wretch was utterly ruined by the transaction, his children being flung on the streets, and himself driven into the Fleet Prison: yet somebody must pay even for gentlemen who live for nothing a year—and so it was this unlucky Raggles was made the representative of Colonel Crawley’s defective capital.
I wonder how many families are driven to roguery and to ruin by great practitioners in Crawlers way?—how many great noblemen rob their petty tradesmen, condescend to swindle their poor retainers out of wretched little sums and cheat for a few shillings? When we read that a noble nobleman has left for the Continent, or that another noble nobleman has an execution in his house —and that one or other owes six or seven millions, the defeat seems glorious even, and we respect the victim in the vastness of his ruin. But who pities a poor barber who can’t get his money for powdering the footmen’s heads; or a poor carpenter who has ruined himself by fixing up ornaments and pavilions for my lady’s dejeûner; or the poor devil of a tailor whom the steward patronizes, and who has pledged all he is worth, and more, to get the liveries ready, which my lord has done him the honour to bespeak? When the great house tumbles down, these miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed: as they say in the old legends, before a man goes to the devil himself, he sends plenty of other souls thither.
Rawdon and his wife generously gave their patronage to all such of Miss Crawley’s tradesmen and purveyors as chose to serve them. Some were willing,enough, especially the poor ones. It was wonderful to see the pertinacity with which the washerwoman from Tooting brought the cart every Saturday, and her bills week after week. Mr. Raggles himself had to supply the greengroceries. The bill for servants’ porter at the Fortune of War public house is a curiosity in the chronicles of beer. Every servant also was owed the greater part of his wages, and thus kept up perforce an interest in the house. Nobody in fact was paid. Not the blacksmith who opened the lock; nor the glazier who mended the pane; nor the jobber who let the carriage; nor the groom who drove it; nor the butcher who provided the leg of mutton; nor the coals which roasted it; nor the cook who basted it; nor the servants who ate it: and this I am given to understand is not unfrequently the way in which people live elegantly on nothing a year.
It's not that we're not interested in the new movie version of Vanity Fair or its attendant brouhaha, but we're much more intrigued by a question we doubt the movie will answer: apparently, in the mid-nineteenth century, it was possible to live off your servants, tradesmen and underlingsfor months if not years. Is it true? And can anyone explain the economics? Come forth, grad students and English ABD's.
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I wonder how many families are driven to roguery and to ruin by great practitioners in Crawlers way?—how many great noblemen rob their petty tradesmen, condescend to swindle their poor retainers out of wretched little sums and cheat for a few shillings? When we read that a noble nobleman has left for the Continent, or that another noble nobleman has an execution in his house —and that one or other owes six or seven millions, the defeat seems glorious even, and we respect the victim in the vastness of his ruin. But who pities a poor barber who can’t get his money for powdering the footmen’s heads; or a poor carpenter who has ruined himself by fixing up ornaments and pavilions for my lady’s dejeûner; or the poor devil of a tailor whom the steward patronizes, and who has pledged all he is worth, and more, to get the liveries ready, which my lord has done him the honour to bespeak? When the great house tumbles down, these miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed: as they say in the old legends, before a man goes to the devil himself, he sends plenty of other souls thither.
Rawdon and his wife generously gave their patronage to all such of Miss Crawley’s tradesmen and purveyors as chose to serve them. Some were willing,enough, especially the poor ones. It was wonderful to see the pertinacity with which the washerwoman from Tooting brought the cart every Saturday, and her bills week after week. Mr. Raggles himself had to supply the greengroceries. The bill for servants’ porter at the Fortune of War public house is a curiosity in the chronicles of beer. Every servant also was owed the greater part of his wages, and thus kept up perforce an interest in the house. Nobody in fact was paid. Not the blacksmith who opened the lock; nor the glazier who mended the pane; nor the jobber who let the carriage; nor the groom who drove it; nor the butcher who provided the leg of mutton; nor the coals which roasted it; nor the cook who basted it; nor the servants who ate it: and this I am given to understand is not unfrequently the way in which people live elegantly on nothing a year.
It's not that we're not interested in the new movie version of Vanity Fair or its attendant brouhaha, but we're much more intrigued by a question we doubt the movie will answer: apparently, in the mid-nineteenth century, it was possible to live off your servants, tradesmen and underlingsfor months if not years. Is it true? And can anyone explain the economics? Come forth, grad students and English ABD's.
MCGRATH AT TOP SPEED
I have old-fashioned taste. I like conventional short stories. The short stories in this anthology are too unusual and too show-offy for me. Can I go play golf now?
Stephany digests Chip McGrath's review of The Anchor Book of New Short Stories.
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Stephany digests Chip McGrath's review of The Anchor Book of New Short Stories.
GEORGESAUNDERLAND IN BAD DECLINE?
During Phase IV, just after lunch, we were able to avoid bulldozing a single home. Furthermore, we set, on roads in every city, in every nation in the world, a total of zero (0) roadside bombs which, not being there, did not subsequently explode, killing/maiming a total of nobody. No bombs were dropped, during the lazy afternoon hours, on crowded civilian neighborhoods, from which, it was observed, no post-bomb momentary silences were then heard. These silences were, in all cases, followed by no unimaginable, grief-stricken bellows of rage, and/or frantic imprecations to a deity. No sleeping baby was awakened from an afternoon nap by the sudden collapse and/or bursting into flame of his/her domicile during Phase IV.
We are very fond of George Saunders in the main, but his Slate Manifesto and recent NY'er storyseem a little stilted and opaque. Are we simply, as ever, dumb?
UPDATE: Maud and Stephany are both over the moon about the piece. Now we're not only dumb, but easily swayed.
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We are very fond of George Saunders in the main, but his Slate Manifesto and recent NY'er storyseem a little stilted and opaque. Are we simply, as ever, dumb?
UPDATE: Maud and Stephany are both over the moon about the piece. Now we're not only dumb, but easily swayed.
OR AT LEAST REQUESTED THE SERVICES OF A STYLIST IMMEDIATELY
|AS IF YOU NEEDED ANOTHER REASON TO VOTE FOR KERRY
The 2004 Economic Report of the President told us what George Bush's economists think, though we're unlikely to hear anything as blunt at next week's convention. According to the report, health costs are too high because people have too much insurance and purchase too much medical care. What we need, then, are policies, like tax-advantaged health savings accounts tied to plans with high deductibles, that induce people to pay more of their medical expenses out of pocket. (Cynics would say that this is just a rationale for yet another tax shelter for the wealthy, but the economists who wrote the report are probably sincere.)
John Kerry's economic advisers have a very different analysis: they believe that health costs are too high because private insurance companies have excessive overhead, mainly because they are trying to avoid covering high-risk patients. What we need, according to this view, is for the government to assume more of the risk, for example by picking up catastrophic health costs, thereby reducing the incentive for socially wasteful spending, and making employment-based insurance easier to get.
Artful dodge of the week: Healthcare costs are high not because people are sick, but because they have TOO MUCH INSURANCE. Is this like how gas prices are high because people have TOO MANY SUVs?
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John Kerry's economic advisers have a very different analysis: they believe that health costs are too high because private insurance companies have excessive overhead, mainly because they are trying to avoid covering high-risk patients. What we need, according to this view, is for the government to assume more of the risk, for example by picking up catastrophic health costs, thereby reducing the incentive for socially wasteful spending, and making employment-based insurance easier to get.
Artful dodge of the week: Healthcare costs are high not because people are sick, but because they have TOO MUCH INSURANCE. Is this like how gas prices are high because people have TOO MANY SUVs?
