Steely Dan takes on Wes Anderson. My money’s on Steely Dan. (via Waxy)
Month / August 2006
75 Books
I’m up to Book 89, but the summaries await, even though the books are logged in draft. In the meantime, check out Dan Wickett and Carolyn Kellogg’s lists.
The Literary Hipster’s Handbook — 2006 Q3 Edition
“ALK”: An unexpected career move by a literary person in a non-literary endeavor. (Ex. I saw Frank cutting the rug in a ballroom last night, man, but it turns out he was teaching a dancing class! Talk about an ALK!) (Apparent Origin of Term: A.L. Kennedy.)
“Booker nod”: A literary event with tiresome results, often producing soporific qualities in the participant. Named after the predictable nature of the 2006 Booker Award longlist, but recently expanded to include bookstore events, boardroom meetings, and drab cocktail parties. A legitimate Booker nod must involve someone falling asleep, thus signaling to other hipsters that the event should be avoided at all costs.
“to Liesl”: To heckle a writer or litblogger without identifying who they are. Literary hipsters have adopted this cowardly behavioral technique instead of resorting to snark. Liesling involves a hipster sneering down at an opponent, but often running away from the room when the target of his insults arrives. Also referred to as Freemaning (rare usage). (Or. Liesl Schillinger.)
“Otto Penzler”: A bitter person with nothing positive or rational to say; often a has-been. Otto Penzlers are frowned upon in current literary society and are secretly ridiculed, often in mixed company, when they cannot overhear the conversation.
“pass the Günter”: To reveal a past sin unexpectedly, often near the end of one’s life. Originated by Günter Grass’s unexpected revelations that he was a member of the SS. (Ex. I always thought Grandma was a kind and generous soul, but when she told the family that she gave head to a Cocker spaniel in her college days, I suspected that she had passed the Günter.”)
“Sittenfeld”: A rancorous outburst that causes unrelated parties to fight in a silly and protracted squabble. The first known Sittenfeld was initiated on June 5, 2005, which spawned a series of online battles pitting literary fiction writers against chick lit writers. The person who initiates the Sittenfeld often absolves herself of responsibility, waiting for karma to kick her in the ass one day.
It Seems That Girls Are Living Two Sim Lives Instead of One
Telegraph: “Except it’s not quite so simple. Caroline Pelletier, a project manager at London University’s Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media, says: ‘The Sims inspires quite a patronising attitude – that it’s OK for girls to play with computers so long as it’s in a domestic space, controlling characters in a maternal way, caring for them and attending to their needs.’ Yet when Pelletier’s team observed girl players, they discovered a different reality. ‘Girls usually use The Sims to explore subversive behaviour. They get rich and try out a wealthy lifestyle, then see who can lose the most money. They drown their babies and call in social services – they deliberately play against the game’s conventions.'” (via Rebecca’s Pocket)
Tom Wolfe, Your Services Are No Longer Required
In a series of essays on what American life would have been had 9/11 not happened, Tom Wolfe writes, “A local music genre called hip-hop, created by black homeboys in the South Bronx, would have swept the country, topping the charts and creating a hip-hop look featuring baggy jeans with the crotch hanging down to the knees that would have spread far and wide among white teenagers—awed, stunned, as they were, by the hip-hop musicians’ new form of competition: assassinating each other periodically. How cool would that have been?”
Mr. Wolfe seems to be under the impression that this didn’t happen before 2001. Baggy jeans hanging down to the knees have been part and parcel of American culture since the mid-1990s among all manner of teenagers. (In fact, I remember my old roommate and me sitting on the N Judah one drunken evening in 1997. We asked one young man why his trousers went down to his knees and he responded simply, “O.G., man.”)
I hereby ask Tom Wolfe to recuse himself from any further cultural commentary in any and all publications found on the newsstand. He is worn out, spent, and about as perspicacious as a pigeon sputtering about Central Park for scraps of bread. If I Am Charlotte Simmons didn’t establish how embarassingly out-of-touch he was with current culture, his offering in New York magazine is the smoking gun.