Like the Rake, I’m mystified why no one in Denver has put this smug bastard in his place. Perhaps the concept of “When in Denver, do as the Denverites do” only applies if you get less press than Tom and Katie. But then I like omelets and I also realize that 99% of Jeep drivers aren’t thinking about Nick at Nite every minute they drive. I think it’s safe to say that now there is no way in hell that I’m reading this memoir, even if the book is placed squarely into my hands.
Another Ego Who Makes Generalizations About the Locals, Another Ungrateful and Overhyped Author
– June 22, 2005Posted in: Uncategorized
Magic Hours by Tom Bissell: This marvelous collection of essays chronicles everything from film shoots to novelists rescued from oblivion. (The essay on the Underground Literary Alliance, with its portrait of raucous factions, unexpectedly reveals how soft today's literary world has become.) But if you peer between the cracks of these smart pieces, you may very well see how cultural lives are formed from the most unexpected life choices. And as we follow Bissell's development as a writer over the years, that goes for Bissell as well. (
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway: Harkaway's latest novel greatly improves on his previous book, The Gone-Away World, which I'm already on record as praising. Angelmaker adopts genre elements without ever feeling like a genre book, and it leads me to believe that Harkaway is well on his way to a narrative grace close to China Miéville's. Yet inexplicably this very fun book, which includes an eightysomething badass named Edie Banister, a mysterious mechanical object that may destroy the world, farcical scenarios involving lawyers and the police, and some unexpectedly moving moments about fatherhood, doesn't appear to be getting much attention in American newspapers. Nothing from the snobs at The New York Times Book Review, nothing from The Washington Post. And since I can't get Harkaway on Bat Segundo, I hope this Jump Up and Down mention gets you hopping as well.
The Age of Insight by Eric Kandel: Unless you're really pressed for time, forget Jonah Lehrer. If you want to understand creativity and its relationship to neuroscience, then the bowtie-wearing Nobel laureate is your man. In addition to being a physically beautiful book (you will drool over many of the paintings), there are helpful overviews on optical illusions, science, biographical backgrounds, and many vital figures from the Vienna Secession. Kandel's enthusiasm (and his call for greater unity between the humanities and science) is contagious.
Have we lost the ability to see a clearly made tongue in cheek statement for what it is?
Nope. It’s at McS’s, so obviously it’s meant to be cutesy, ain’t-I-clever, tongue-in-cheek. It is also, I say, dumb and worthy of a jokey riposte.
My question for you: Have we lost the ability to see when a uppity rich kid needs a cockpunch?
Hey, I don’t know an uppity rich guy from a cockpunch, but I do know when someone is making fun of their own ignorance. I don’t know how that could be more obvious, McSweeney’s guilt by association or no.
So let’s see: Wilsey writes a book that goes out of its way to defame the San Francisco affluents (all in the name of solipsistic salvation) and we’re supposed to keep smiling and nodding as the subconscious “look at the little people” crap pervades this guy’s banal comedic swagger? I say a solid ass-kicking is in order. A tongue-in-cheek ass-kicking, of course.
Don’t know the book, don’t know the guy. I do know that he’s gotten some press and for some reason this bothers you. Kick his ass tongue in cheek or otherwise if you want, but you’re reading something into that passage from that dispatch that isn’t there, chief.
And how do you know his book “goes out of its way to defame the San Francisco affluents” right after declaring “there is no way in hell that I’m reading this memoir, even if the book is placed squarely into my hands.”
I found you through that Pollack post below where you’re also obviously wrong, as pointed out by other posters. Do you often speak so authoritatively on subjects you know so little about?
May: Wilsey’s memoir was excerpted in the New Yorker, which I subscribe to like many a magazine junkie. So the opinion here is not entirely uninformed. I also happen to live in San Francisco, where our local press has been barraged with continuing reports and page citations of various people who have been maligned.
As for being wrong, that’s a matter of opinion. But I’m quite happy to be wrong on a daily basis. But I find it’s better to be wrong than to be so clearly in the right at every moment, as you seem to be.
Jeez. Why bother defending this clown when “threatening” a boot in the junk is so much more fun? Wilsey already has wealth, a good job, and a little fame/notoriety…the last thing he needs is sycophants.
In case you haven’t noticed, this faux-naive crap is McS’s stock-in-trade–see also Pollack’s Wait I’m Giving Up My Persona Or Am I Just Give Me A Few More Articles And Memoirs To Work It Out gambit. It’s tired, and even more tiresome to think about how much money they’re still making selling it.
attacking mcsweeney’s is the dumbest thing i’ve ever heard, it’s worse than attacking iraq
Wasn’t the point of Pollack’s essay that he’s broke, artistically and financially? If the faux-naive crap is raking in the dough, it sure didn’t trickle down to him.
And I’m wrong about many things, daily, just not this particular thing. I’m neither here nor there on Wilsey’s book, but that doesn’t seem to be the point.
But I understand that everyone needs their punching bags and look, you got attention! It works!
Sorry, May, my tongue is now so far embedded in Wilsey’s cheek (it doesn’t move!) that I’m incapable of ratiocination and speaking with authority, much less a sense of humor.
Of course, you still remain very right. Right even when you’ve utterly failed to study Pollack’s career and history (which began with McSweeney’s publishing his first book — indeed, the first official McS book — and the early relationship between Eggers and Pollack). Right because you’ve demonstrated again and again, Ms. Barber, that you’re SO good at interpreting subtlety and ferreting out the back story.
Now who’s for a little touch football near the Basra derricks? Rake? Reader of Depressing Books?
Reader: Riiiiight.
May: If you really buy any of that broke-ass, mea culpa stuff, you ain’t been paying attention.
Ed: Go long!