Author / Edward Champion

Posts by Edward Champion

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

“Miss USA”

New York Times: “Ms. Conner and Mr. Trump refused to answer any questions from reporters about reports alleging drug use or drug testing. Mr. Trump said that he went into a meeting with Ms. Conner this morning expecting to terminate her reign as Miss USA. But he said the meeting showed him someone with ‘a good heart’ who had ‘left a small town in Kentucky,’ only to be caught up in a ‘whirlwind’ in New York.”

Here’s a key to understanding the euphemisms, all helpfully contained in quotes (thank you, Ms. Hauser!), within this article:

“a good heart”: Team player.
“behavior and personal issues”: The tendency to have fun in a manner considered unwholesome to folks knocked out by a single shot of bourbon.
“left a small town in Kentucky”: She’s wholesome and American! Really! And she’s from Kentucky!*
“pushing”: Smearing a person’s character on silly charges.
“terrible”: Wouldn’t put out for Donald Trump.
“very, very bad”: Unacceptable to humorless prigs who haven’t had a night of fun in decades.
“whirlwind”: vigorous partying involving alcohol, some pot and coke, as enjoyed by thousands of other New York clubbers requiring a weekend divorce from reality.

* — Just like that Jim Varney guy you loved so much in the Ernest movies.

by Edward Champion

Roundup on the Rebound

  • Conflicts of interest? Reviewing a friend’s book? That’s small-time reviewing ethics compared to Kristian Lundberg, who fabricated a review for a book that was never completed. (via TEV)
  • Bookstores may be dancing a precarious waltz in New York and San Francisco, but at least there’s sign of a bookstore comeback in Kashmir.
  • “In every case, the expectations by faculty of what they believe college freshmen should have read in high school exceeds the reality of what they’ve actually read.” So college freshmen aren’t reading. On the plus side, they’re more likely to eat and drink your ass under the table and fuck each other like rabbits (some 80% of them). I propose a nationally subsidized “Books for Sex” program, whereby the number of books read correllates with the number of sexual partners a college freshman is permitted. After all, if we’re so busy tracking who buys Sudafed (and when), the least we can do is track their sex and reading habits too. Consider this a more benign form of Orwell. Orwell had his Vestal Virgins. 21st century America has CRIS (Carnal Reading Incentive Squad)!
  • Pottery containing literary messages have been found in northwest Iran. One of the shards, all dating around 3,000 BC, contained the following message: “Our homeland’s going to be royally fucked in about 5,000 years.” There was also a shard containing a list of clothes to be picked up at Great Zab Cleaners, a river-side launderer. (It turns out that the first dry cleaner was Iranian.)
  • Michael Gartner writes, “There is no better American essayist than E.B. White. Period. Some writers can write well but not think clearly. Some writers can think clearly but not write well. Some can do neither. White did both.” Meanwhile, some book critics aren’t nearly as succinct as they think they are. Couldn’t Gartner have simply written “E.B. WHITE IS THE SHIT, MOTHERFUCKERS!” or are such declarations of this ilk, which cut to the chase in one sentence iinstead of five, not permitted in newspapers?
  • The Yemen Times is under the silly illusion that dictatorial op-ed pieces are the way to get people reading and understanding. Ever hear of free will?
  • The current literary Jonathans cabal shouldn’t get too comfortable. Another Jonathan has been honored by the French.
  • Murakami believes that The Great Gasby is “the most important novel in my life.”
  • Carolyn Kellogg lists the top ten things she misses about L.A.
  • Ursula K. Le Guin on the importance of fantasy.
  • Jeff on Barbera’s death.
  • Jeffrey Trachtenberg on the new $0 advance. (via Maud)