Author / Edward Champion

Posts by Edward Champion

Edward Champion is the Managing Editor of Reluctant Habits.
by Edward Champion

Los Angeles Times To Lay Off 150 Editorial Staffers

Radar is reporting that 150 staffers in the newsroom are to be laid off and that the number of pages published each week will be reduced by 15%. I have emails into the good people over at the Book Review to see what, if any, impact this has had upon them. If I learn anything that I can report on the record, I will. This is terrible. More at the LA Times. Nothing yet from LA Observed.

[UPDATE: My sources inside the L.A. Times indicate that there hasn’t yet been a list of names released. Only the number. Layoffs to come later. If I am able to determine any additional information that I can share, then I will keep folks posted.]

by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • I read Sam Tanenhaus’s atrocious article and withheld comment. Conveniently elided it from my memory. It was not the work of a passionate reader. It was the work of a man who believes he has something to say about literature, but who must bang out a piece in five hours while overseeing two sections of a newspaper to prove that he is a “writer” by way of being published in the New York Times. But Jeff is right to call bullshit on this piece. Because Jujitsu for Christ blows A Streetcar Named Desire out of the water with its indelible description of summer heat. (And let’s face the facts. The weather was only a tertiary component to the more explicit issues of lust and frigidity running rampant throughout the play. Then again, as fucked up visceral playwrights go, I’ll take Edward Albee over Williams any day. So perhaps some tendentious sensibilities may be impairing my take here.)
  • Clay Felker has died.
  • “Literary agent” Barbara Bauer, Ph.D. has had enough. She’s now suing 19 bloggers and websites, including Wikipedia and the SFWA site, for writing critical things about her, which she seems to have misconstrued as defamation. And yet Bauer and her attorney couldn’t be bothered to talk to the New Jersey Star-Ledger. And why sue when you can revert changes or initiate a self-serving edit war? Seems cheaper if you ask me. But then I’m not the one with the Ph.D. Assuming, of course, that Bauer actually has a Ph.D. Her official site is strangely mum about which university actually accredited the doctorate to her. In the meantime, plunge into the experiences others have had with Bauer. That is, if you don’t get a crazy email asking for $1 billion because you used of her name. Incidentally, a search at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office turns up no record for “Barbara Bauer.” As such, Bauer is a person whose actions are open to fair criticism. And if she is indeed charging “processing fees” for reading the work of her “clients,” which is behavior that is commonly associated with the actions of a scam agent, then she is most certainly an agent you should not be dealing with. (via Pinky’s Paperhaus) [UPDATE: The judge has dismissed the Wikimedia portion of Bauer’s lawsuit.]
  • “You can’t be a decent martyr on an empty stomach.” These are certainly words to live by. And I intend to offer this maxim to the next suicide bomber I meet in a bar. (via Occasional Superheroine)
  • Is a war with Iran going to happen?
  • Stephen Burt offers a lengthy but critical essay on Philip K. Dick, suggesting that the Library of America should trot out James Tiptree, Jr. as well. Which, come to think of it, isn’t a bad idea.
  • Congratulations to groom-to-be Levi Asher!
  • By the way, does anyone know why old Newsweek articles from decades ago are now coming up as recent items in Google News? Is Newsweek trying to stack the deck and is Google on the case?
  • The Guardian attempts to track the sources of literary works used for spam email, but ignores the copious Lovecraft that seems to be hitting my junk mail.
  • And I agree with Jeff VanderMeer’s assessment on John Twelve Hawks.
by Edward Champion

Why I’ll Never Read Litblogs Again

I first heard about blogs last summer, after the word “Bookslut” caused me to break out in a foul rash. I have sensitive skin. I have sensitive ears. The doctors prescribed the toughest emollient, but it wasn’t enough. So I was forced to start stabbing myself with a plastic fork. It was a surprise to me when I couldn’t draw blood. After all, the words had hurt me. Why couldn’t the disposable cutlery?

“Bookslut,” however, was only the tip of the iceberg. Some man, fancying himself a humorist, ran a site called Black Garterbelt, daring to impugn the moral fabric of books with an unspeakable reference to lingerie. I did not laugh. Instead, I took to wearing a burqa and urging the children in my community to do the same. There was Critical Mass, the blog run by the seemingly respectable National Book Critics Circle, but the name suggesting a mass of something else you might find on the sidewalk. I hesitate to use the four letter words that these literary harlots bandy about with such frequency, but it was a filthy notion. It was as if these book critics, who I thought were made of moral character, had decided to not clean up after their dogs during a walk, if you catch my drift.

Bookshelves of Doom appeared to pilfer its name from the Holy Book of Revelations. It was bad enough that Marvel Comics had named one of their supervillains “Dr. Doom,” thus popularizing a noun of great import. A word not to be used lightly. But now these morally reprehensible blogs were encoding secret messages about the second coming in their titles. But of course, I knew that Christ would strike them down if they could not be saved! As far as I know, Anton Chekhov was a moral man. But, lo and behold, some sinner had conjured up Chekhov’s Mistress! I also understand from a friend that The Elegant Variation refers to the unholy act of premarital sex, and that Mark Sarvas’s blog is a place for unmarried pagans to hook up and commit foul and carnal acts. Enter the Octopus? Dear Lord, this is disgusting. I must also conclude that the writer Ed Park, in naming his blog The Dizzies, is addicted to the evils of alcohol. I do not know what Thumb Drives and Oven Clocks are, but I do not care to find out. And if The Publishing Spot is a coy reference to a woman’s nether regions, well then, Jason Boog is due for a public stoning. Assuming that this is his real name.

But I must stop. These words have been difficult to write. And I have my private doctor taking my blood pressure as I type these words. It had not occurred to me that those who champion literature in these online venues could be possessed of such perfidy and callous disregard for moral purity. The doctor now tells me I must confine myself to bed. Unlike the litbloggers, he chooses his words carefully.

[UPDATE: Apparently, Jessa doesn’t get satire, which includes material that, in fact, champions her site. Incidentally, Eric Rosenfield and I are pals, but we do indeed have independent minds and frequently disagree. It remains a mystery to me why the two of us having penises might lead any reasonable person to think that we were connected to some Y-chromosome hive mind. No different really from some ridiculous gender-based generalization about women that one would expect from a bigot. But there you go.]

by Edward Champion

The Bat Segundo Show: Steven Greenhouse

Steven Greenhouse appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #213. He is the New York Times labor reporter and the author of The Big Squeeze. My review of the book can be found here.

Condition of the Show: Reporting upon the darker truths of America.

Author: Steven Greenhouse

Subjects Discussed: Whether economic factors of the 1970s or Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous maxim caused the current strife between corporations and workers, the social contract that came from 20th century labor negotiations, why workers settle for less, temps exploited by HP, being treated like dirt, mock memos circulated to cope with downsizing, The Office, why workers aren’t revolting, Bowling Alone, The Pursuit of Loneliness, how what we do for fun has transformed in the past few decades, the worker-friendly company policies of Patagonia, prodigious cafeteria options for workers, the shocking disparity of parental leave policies in different nations, tracking the lunch hours of workers, computers vs. martinet managers, call center workers, workers who slack off vs. a robust economy, Cooperative Home Care Associates and the benefits of workers on the board of directors, independent contractors, job security, the New York Times hiring freeze, Neutron Jack Welch, The Disposable American, companies who display “too much loyalty” to workers, workers who “get used to” hard and immoral company tactics, climbing the Wal-Mart ladder, the workplace as a cult, unrealistic American dreams, billable hours, the allure of promotion, Greenhouse’s proposed solutions, and a living minimum wage.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Correspondent: Look at Jennifer Miller, who is this woman who worked at HP for ten years. She didn’t have to work as a temp for that long. She could have easily cut out. She could have gone and demanded more from the HP managers. So I would argue that the workers who have allowed themselves to be placed in these particular conditions are perhaps just as responsible as these businesses and these corporations that are trying to squeeze out more profits and also trying to combat the influx of low-cost imports.

Greenhouse: Again, Ed, you ask a good question, and it’s hard to say. Jennifer Miller was a worker at HP. High school graduate. Very little college. She started as a McDonald’s worker. She became a McDonald’s manager. She got tired of that. Then she got a permanent job at HP. That job was sent overseas. So she was kind of bought out. Then a few months later, she was approached. “How would you like to return to HP as a temp?” She thought it was going to be a two-month gig. And as I explained in the book, she was there for ten years as a temp. She said that the job was good. It used a lot of advanced skills. She was often treated with respect, but she said the bad thing was she was a temp and didn’t get the same benefits as HP workers. She didn’t quite get the respect. So you ask why didn’t she quit?

Correspondent: And I should point out that she was even barred from the company parties. I mean, this is a key indicator. In my view, I would say, “Well to hell with this. I’m going to find someone who I can be on staff with.”

Greenhouse: It wasn’t just she. But all temps were barred from the company — you know, they might create a wonderful new piece of software, created a wonderful printer, and all the regular permanent employees could go to the party and celebrate and go for the two-day ski holiday to celebrate. But the temps who work alongside the regular workers in a crazy situation, they weren’t invited to the parties. So yeah, for someone like Jennifer, there was some eating humble pie there. So the question is why didn’t she quit? She said, “For me, Jennifer Miller, a mere high-school graduate living in Idaho, that was a terrific job. I was making $30 an hour. I was really using my brain. I was often working alongside terrific people. Sort of semi, somewhat treated as an equal. But on the other hand, no.” And she said, considering what else was out there, going back to McDonald’s working as a manager, which isn’t such a bad job, but she said working at HP as a temp was better. Her argument was HP was good in many ways, but there was this one big negative. That she was treated as a temp.

Listen: Play in new window | Download