Terry Gross Responds
Terry Gross, recently referenced in this story involving a Jonathan Franzen interview that had been cut for broadcast, has been kind enough to respond to my questions. She informs me that “there has been no self-censorship or deals cut to suppress the Franzen interview.” Gross tells me that the audio for the original October 15, 2001 broadcast should have been available on the Fresh Air website and that she was surprised to learn that this wasn’t the case. Fresh Air has asked NPR to restore the original Franzen interview on the website, and I will follow up next week to see if it’s there.
Gross’s email was also forthright in describing Fresh Air’s policy concerning repeat interviews. She informed me that when an interview is rebroadcast, “we almost always shorten it.” In the case of the elided Franzen remark, the decision was made to curtail the Oprah section because it was “dated.” As to Fresh Air editing policies, Gross pointed out that all of her interviews were pre-recorded and that they are all edited before they are broadcast. She does not record anything live. “Editing is not censorship,” wrote Gross, “Editing is not unethical. Editing is part of what journalists do.”
While I agree with Gross that a certain degree of audio cleanup is necessary to ensure a professional broadcast, I still remain mystified why additional broadcasts are edited further. I also wonder why such concerns as “dated” material should even matter. After all, if the listener knows that she’s listening to an interview that aired before, why then should such a distinction matter?
I have sent Gross a followup email, pointing out that abridgment is not indicated on the broadcast and that the main page for the Franzen repeat does not read, “This is an excerpt from an October 15, 2001 interview,” but reads, “This interview first aired October 15, 2001.” Thus, the listener might insinuate that what she is hearing is the same interview that aired before. This specification would certainly put Gross in a more ethically sound position.
Nevertheless, this offers some insight into how Gross and Fresh Air operates. And I am glad that she has at least taken steps to restore the original interview. I only hope that Gross will be more forthright about how future rebroadcast interviews are edited, if only to escape an ombudsman’s wrath.
Did Jonathan Franzen Cut a Censorship Deal with Terry Gross?
On October 26, 2001, Dennis Loy Johnson reported on the Franzen fiasco:
Three days later in an interview on National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” he told host Terry Gross that he was still conflicted about Oprah because — well, “So much of reading is sustained in this country, I think, by the fact that women read while men are off golfing or watching football on TV or playing with their flight simulator or whatever. I worry — I’m sorry that it’s, uh — I had some hope of actually reaching a male audience and I’ve heard more than one reader in signing lines now at bookstores say ‘If I hadn’t heard you, I would have been put off by the fact that it is an Oprah pick. I figure those books are for women. I would never touch it.’ Those are male readers speaking.”
…
Thus does class meet boorish elitism. Franzen, through his publisher, issued an immediate sort–of apology: “I try to explore complicated emotions and circumstances as honestly and fully as I can. This approach can be productive on the page, but clearly hasn’t been helpful in talking to the media, many members of which used the occasion of my book tour to raise questions about Oprah’s Book Club and the supposed divisions among American readers. The conflict is preexisting in the culture, and it landed in my lap because of my good fortune. I’m sorry if, because of my inexperience, I expressed myself poorly or unwisely.”
So, as it turns out, it was Terry Gross’ fault; even though she started off the interview by gushing, “I read your book and I loved it!” and did not press him in the least or follow up on his blatantly chauvanistic take of Oprah’s audience, she was, apparently, out to get Jonathan Franzen . . . a poor, “inexperienced” lad with only two previous books and hundreds of previous interviews and public appearances under his belt.
And here is the quote reported by the Chicago Tribune and the Boston Review.
I remember hearing Franzen’s remarks. But if you go through the Fresh Air archive, you’ll find no trace of the full record, much less any indication that the broadcast was modified. There is, of course, this repeat of the October 15, 2001 interview in question, broadcast on September 6, 2002. But listen to the RealMedia file for this show and you’ll find only this excerpt at the 3:34 mark:
I mean, so much of reading is sustained, I think, by the fact that women read while men are off golfing or watching football on TV. Or, um, you know, playing with their flight simulator or whatever.
After this, we hear Terry Gross ask her next question. The other part of the quote, as reported by Johnson, “I worry — I’m sorry that it’s, uh — I had some hope of actually reaching a male audience and I’ve heard more than one reader in signing lines now at bookstores say ‘If I hadn’t heard you, I would have been put off by the fact that it is an Oprah pick. I figure those books are for women. I would never touch it.’ Those are male readers speaking,” is missing.
If Terry Gross is a journalist, then she has the responsibility to maintain the full record of this conversation, or at least apprise her listeners that the interview was modified. I do not yet know Ms. Gross’s motivations, but if she is willfully allowing her program to be pressured by authors and/or publishers, then it seems to me that the Literarian Award, which purports to “recogniz[e] the important contribution she has made to the world of books — and to our understanding of literature and the writing process — through her probing and intelligent interviews with authors” does not appear to recognize an interviewer who thoroughly probes her subjects. Indeed, the National Book Foundation has honored an ostensible “journalist” who has failed to preserve the historical record.
At the very least, Gross should have observed — both on the September 6, 2002 repeat broadcast and on the NPR page representing the broadcast — that the interview was edited or tampered with.
I have sent an email to Terry Gross asking for clarification on this matter. I will update this story if I learn any additional details.
[UPDATE: It would appear that Gross has a history of pulling punches. An interview with Village Voice reporter Robert I. Friedman was recorded on January 27, 1993, but Fresh Air never aired the interview, because they were looking for a "moderate" voice.]
[UPDATE 2: Terry Gross has responded to my questions.]
Just Imagine If He Had Read Updike’s Last Novel
Independent: “Mr Chalk was reading The Unknown Terrorist, the latest novel by the Australian author, Richard Flanagan….Mr Chalk, a teacher who was in town for an education conference, had not even ordered a drink when a security officer asked him to leave. ‘He said several customers had complained about the literature I was reading and I’d have to move on,’ Mr Chalk told the Cairns Post.”
What’s hilarious is that Flanagan responded by saying, “Far from being far-fetched, my novel correctly predicted the future of Australia.” It seems these days that no matter how crazy or outlandish a comic novel, there is some ridiculous truth that comes to fruition. (via Quill & Quire)
Anne Lamott Censored by Creighton
From Publishers Lunch:
Fans of Anne Lamott in Omaha have rallied to secure an appearance by the author in the wake of an abrupt cancellation by local Jesuit institution Creighton University. The school had invited Lamott long ago for a paid appearance on September 19 as part of their annual Women and Health Lecture Series, and an overflow crowd of 1,200 had already signed up to attend.
But a group of local Catholics “deluged” the Omaha Archdiocese with phone calls and e-mails earlier this month in protest over Lamott’s personal views on assisted suicide and abortion. Creighton officials had already asked Lamott if she would “stay on topic” with the theme of lecture series, according to her lecture agent Steven Barclay, and she had reassured them that she “didn’t need to be a spokesperson on [the controversial] topics.” (Lamott indicated the same directly to the Omaha World-Record.)
Nonetheless, Creighton decided to cancel the engagement–after first asking if Lamott would back out, but Barclay indicated that she never cancels a booking. Lamott also declined to keep the lecture fee that was owed to her. Creighton spokesperson Kathryn Clark told the local newspaper, “We have decided that the key points she makes are in opposition to Catholic teaching. That makes her an inappropriate choice.”
Despite whatever local pressure was brought to bear on Creighton, there was equal if not greater support for having Lamott appear. As Barclay notes, “She’s a real galvanizing force in the progressive Christian movement. Those people were outraged and I think rightfully so.” Rev. Nancy Brink of Omaha’s North Side Christian Church quickly organized a coalition of six local churches, which has secured a larger 2,000-seat venue where Lamott will now speak on the same day.
The article that Michael Cader references doesn’t appear to be on the Omaha World-Record’s site. So I did some digging on my own.
I was particularly baffled by this quote from Kathryn Clark: “We have decided that the key points she makes are in opposition to Catholic teaching. That makes her an inappropriate choice.”
Curious about this, I contacted Creighton directly. I was unable to get Kathryn Clark on the phone, but I was able to cajole the kind student who answered into giving me Creighton Public Relations Director Deb Daley’s cell phone.
I asked Daley what specific key points were in opposition to Catholic teaching. Instead of directly answering the question, Daley insisted, “We at Creighton University actually recognize that many different points of view exist.”
Well, then why not a different point of view like Lamott’s?
“We were concerned that by sponsoring a lecture, people would misconstrue that we were endorsing her.”
Apparently, Creighton got cold feet because Lamott had written about helping a friend commit suicide, people would somehow believe that Creighton was directly supporting this idea. I asked why these circumstances mattered so much in relation to Lamott. Daley said that it was the “sponsored lecture” categorization of the event that Creighton had difficulty with.
But what made a sponsored lecture any different from anything else delivered in front of an audience — like, say, a professor talking about a particular topic or point of view in front of his students?
“We provide a forum for opposite points of view,” said Daley again, clinging to this sentence like a piece of driftwood in river rapids.
I explained to Daley that a “forum for opposite points of view” simply wasn’t the case at all if she was preventing Lamott from speaking. I asked, if Lamott’s alleged pro-suicide position was indeed the issue, why Creighton didn’t just have someone appear who was against suicide appear alongside Lamott. That way, all points of view would be preserved and there would be no confusion over which particular point of view Creighton allegedly “supported.”
But before I could get an answer to this question or ask Daley why she had banned Lamott’s appearance when Lamott had agreed to stick to talking points, Daley then told me that everything that needed to be said was in the papers and ended the call.
So here we have an alleged “university” championing “all points of view,” but who is terribly afraid of a speaker associated with a point of view, even though the speaker had promised not to dwell on the point of view in question.
Sounds like censorship to me.
Henry Miller Still Raising a Needless Ruckus
One would think that more than four decades after it was declared “not obscene” by the Supreme Court, Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer would be on more or less solid ground in our enlightened 21st century. Not so. A 17-year-old Dallas student checked out the book out from the Hulsey Public Library, told her parents that she felt it was “inappropriate,” and has caused Miller’s name to be removed from a Terrell High School list of “approved authors.” It is unknown whether the student or the student’s parents actually read the book, but it’s worth noting that the city’s library director had “received no prior complaints about the novel.” You know, most reasonable people simply don’t read authors they aren’t interested in and let those who are interested in studying them do so without rancor. Henry Miller meant a good deal to me when I read him as a teenager. I’d hate to have had this reading experience uprooted by someone who found him “inappropriate.” (via Bookshelves of Doom)
Wardrobe Malfunctions Halt Lives!
Hollywood Reporter: “Phillips and Pooler said that the commission’s new ruling has no studies attached to it proving that children are adversely affected when they hear accidental curse words. Pooler questioned why the FCC wasn’t taking as strict an approach to violence on television, which she said has been proven to adversely affect children.”
And Here I Was Thinking They Were Quite Sex-Obsessed North of the 49th Parallel
Lost Girls is facing censorship trouble, but not where you think.
(Incidentally, I intend to write a lengthy post about Lost Girls quite soon.)
American Readers Are Made of Stern Stuff, Thank You Very Much
Globe & Mail: “A French-language novel by Calgary-born Nancy Huston that was awarded France’s prestigious Prix Femina this week was expected to be published in English first — but the novelist’s Canadian publisher and New York agent held off doing that this year because they wanted Huston to change portions of her text to avoid offending U.S. readers.”
Bechdel/Thompson Update
According to Tom Spurgeon, the library trustees voted against keeping the books on shelves (at least for the time being). More in the thread over at Alison Bechdel’s blog:
At the meeting tonight of the Marshall Public Library Board of Trustees, the Board President proposed that the board appoint a committee to revise the library’s materials selection policy. That proposal passed, but with at least one “no” vote. I was sitting in the back and could not see all the hands, so I don’t know how many voted against the proposal.
Here’s the problem, as far as I am concerned: While the committee works on a new materials selection policy, the two books (”Blankets” and “Fun Home”) will be removed from circulation. They will be unavailable. There was no mention of how long the process will take.
When the Board President asked which of the Board members wanted to serve on the committee, apparently most of the hands went up, because we heard her say, “Well, I guess the whole Board could be on the committee.”
There’s nothing yet at the Marshall Democrat-News, but if I find anything specific that we can substantiate, I will report on it.
[UPDATE: A reader from Marshall notes that the books are "temporarily removed" as a materials collection policy is being drafted and that the case is at a standstill. The Marshall Democrat-News is an afternoon paper and I will update this post as more qualifying coverage comes in.]
Bechdel & Thompson on Trial
Comics are on trial in Missouri. The Marshall Public Library Board of Trustees conducted a hearing to discuss the removal of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Craig Thompson’s Blankets from the local library. Apparently, a few citizens of Marshall, MO found certain drawings within these two graphic novels objectionable. One resident, Louise Miles, of Marshall, spoke before the Board, “We may as well purchase the porn shop down at the junction and move it to Eastwood. Some day this library will be drawing the same clientele.”
Indeed. Let us consider the definition of pornography, as defined by my trusty Webster’s Unabridged:
“obscene literature, art, or photography, esp. that having little or no artistic merit”
Okay, so some of the people of Marshall (and it’s important to note, not all; a brave man named Dave Riley spoke in favor of the two graphic novels) consider illustrations of naked people lying in a postcoital position — a form of illustration, mind you, that goes back to the Paleolithic era and the Moche of Peru, something relatively tame compared against a distinguished history going back centuries before Ms. Miles’ birth — “obscene.” Personally, I found both Bechdel and Thompson’s respective illustrations quite beautiful. But that’s just me.
The real question is whether Louise Mills of Marshall (pictured right) is qualified to determine whether Fun Home or Blankets has “little or no artistic merit.” Is Mills an arts major? What are her credentials exactly? By what stretch of the imagination is she an expert on Bechdel and Thompson’s “artistic merit?” An ability to froth at the mouth and cringe in fear? Good golly, make that woman Chairman of the Board!
If this is a situation in which Louise Mills’ tender sentiments were upset by naked people or the implication of sex, then perhaps Ms. Mills might wish to consider how out of step she is with the 21st century. Premarital sex is something that more than 70% of the nation seems to be enjoying these days. I believe this puts Mills in the minority.
Disagreement is the New Assault?
Rocky Mountain News: “Howards and his son walked to about two-to-three feet from where Cheney was standing, and said to the vice president, ‘I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible,’ or words to that effect, then walked on. Ten minutes later, according to Howards’ lawsuit, he and his son were walking back through the same area, when they were approached by Secret Service agent Virgil D. ‘Gus’ Reichle Jr., who asked Howards if he had ‘assaulted’ the vice president. Howards denied doing so, but was nonetheless placed in handcuffs and taken to the Eagle County Jail.”
This Week in Alarmist Cultural Revisioning
BBC: “Children’s TV channel Boomerang are to edit scenes from Tom and Jerry cartoons where characters are shown smoking. The move follows an investigation by media watchdog Ofcom into a viewer’s complaint that the vintage animations were not appropriate for young viewers.”
Is JetBlue Racist?
I fly JetBlue all the time, but this terrible story from Raed Jarrar, who was asked to remove his T-shirt because it contained Arabic script that “offended passengers” (never mind that nobody could read the shirt), has me rethinking the airline. Calls will be made tomorrow. (via Maud)
[UPDATE: It's worth noting that, last October, Lorrie Heasley was ejected from a Southwest flight for wearing a Meet the Fockers parody T-shirt. Heasley vowed to file a civil rights lawsuit, but I can find no trace of it. But in a New York Times article, two law professors remarked that the Heasley case doesn't apply to the First Amendment because only the government can violate the Constitution. Writing in Salon, Andrew Salon remarked upon this troubling predicament.]
Josh Wolf Benefits
To follow up on the Josh Wolf incarceration, Laughing Squid points to two benefit events designed to raise money for Josh’s legal defense fund.
Event #1: Cafe La Boheme, Saturday August 19, 2006, 5:00 PM-7:00 PM.
Event #2: House of Shields, Thursday, August 24, 2006, 7:00 PM.
Josh’s case represents a scenario that could apply to all journalists, establishing a legal precedent which will affect the way any story is covered. That local story about police corruption involving a reporter gaining the trust of an anonymous source? (Consider Fajitagate, for example.) Well, the case is under investigation and it’s been transferred to a federal court, sidestepping the California shield law, and the journalist has to give up his sources or be thrown in jail. If you are concerned with preserving California’s shield law and the future of investigative journalism, and you happen to be in San Francisco on either of these two days, these two benefits are worth your while.
If not, you can always donate to Josh Wolf’s defense fund.
So Who Will They Shut Out of the Country Next?
AIM Magazine: “London rapper M.I.A. has been denied a visa to visit or work in the USA by immigration officials, AIM magazine has learnt. Sources close to the British Sri-Lankan MC said that her lawyers are frantically trying to resolve the situation. No one from her record company had returned messages to comment at the time of publication.”
Never Underestimate the Power of Wyoming’s Ed’s Stupidity
At Wyoming Valley West High School, students are petitioning the district to have a banned poem reinstated. What was the poem’s topic? Unbridled teenage sexuality? Gang warfare? Some sestina penned in homage to Kathy Acker? Nothing of the sort. The poem merely involved a teacher catching a kid without a hall pass.
[UPDATE: The school is based in Pennsylvania, not Wyoming. Sorry, folks. Between this and the Warhol screwup, I'm definitely slipping -- for reasons I won't go into here.]
Books Subject to Governmental Approval
The Book Standard reports that the House of Representatives have added a clause to the Children’s Safety and Violent Crime Reduction Act of 2005 in which books which offer “any visual depiction of simulated or sexually explicit conduct” or are “produced in whole or in part with materials which have been mailed or shipped in interstate or foreign commerce, or is shipped or transported or is intended for shipment or transportation in interstate or foreign commerce” must, as with pornography, report every performer portrayed in a visual depiction. In other words, if a photograph appears in a book depicting anything considered “sexually explicit” (a term that isn’t even defined by H.R. 4472, which suggests that this could apply to an innocuous image of two men kissing), the government wants to track your participation.
Of course, such a Stalinistic tactic does not, in fact, run directly counter to the First Amendment, but this does raise serious questions about whether certain performers might be audited or “investigated” simply because their work is considered “sexually explicit” by the U.S. government. Consider an author like William T. Vollmann, who regularly features provactive photographs by Ken Miller in his work, in an effort to chronicle the poor and the prostitutes. Will future editions of The Royal Family now have to be eviscerated of these photos?
Note to the Government
I am not afraid, you bastards. Accuse my friends and me of terrorism all you want. But I will not let it sully the sting of my pen. If that means going to jail and being tortured by atavistic goons without due process, all because I called Bush a moron (is that really terrorism?), then so be it.
Annoying Message Week
President Bush has signed into law a bill that would make posting an “annoying” Web message or sending an “annoying” email message without disclosing your identity a federal crime, subject to stiff fines and imprisonment of up to two years.
You know, I find advertising especially annoying. But you don’t see me calling for special forces to axe in the doors to Madison Avenue offices and haul all the copywriters and executives into a gulag.
Beyond the fact that this is in clear violation of the First Amendment, I’m terribly concerned about the implications this will have on free speech. Let’s say that you’re a worker in a sweatshop and you want to expose to other Americans just how grisly the conditions are. Of course, if you use your name, then not only do you potentially get la migra on your ass, but you also get potential retribution from your boss. Because of course, your boss finds the idea of unearthing this reality “annoying.”
This is not the United States I know. And I ask my readers to join me in loudly rejecting this absurd law. Would such magnificent web writers as Miss Snark, OGIC and TMFTML have come to fruition if such a law had been in place, let alone enforced?
For starters, I pronounce this week Annoying Message Week.
I am inviting all Return of the Reluctant readers to send me emails that might be considered “annoying.” If you have an annoying message that you’d like to send to the world, pass it along to ed AT edrants.com with the subject line “Annoying Message Week.” I will preserve your anonymity and post the messages here as they come in.
Part of what makes the Internet the special place that it is are the crazed freaks who post anonymous screeds that most sensible people find “annoying.” So let’s learn to love the points of view that we despise. Let’s learn to accept the fact that all of us here will be annoyed in one way or another, but that nobody has to go to jail for it.
Frank Zappa on Crossfire
Next Up: Dr. Seuss’s “The Gender-Neutral Cat in the Hat”
As a kid grew up reading Richard Scarry, I find this PC revisionism offensive and utterly outrageous. (via MeFi)
Okay, Cigarettes Are Evil, But This is Getting Ridiculous
EXHIBIT A: Clement Hurd author photo retouched. “HarperCollins said it made the change to avoid the appearance of encouraging smoking and did so with the permission of the illustrator’s estate. But Mr. Hurd’s son, also a children’s book illustrator and author, said he felt pressured to allow it.” (See also Mr. Beck’s hilarious ode.)
EXHIBIT B: Reuters: “The attorneys general of 32 states are asking Hollywood’s major movie studios to place an anti-smoking announcement on DVDs, videos and other home entertainment products to combat teen tobacco use.”
Why should art and cultural heritage be modified or affixed with warnings to “protect” people? We have no problem accepting Falstaff as a loyal companion who has imbibed too much sack. We have no problem glorifying guns (which frankly I find more evil than cigarettes) in action blockbusters. No warnings there. No digital erasures of the bag of sack or the guns (well, save Spielberg’s “restored” E.T., but at least he was decent enough, unlike Lucas, to provide us with the original version).
So why should cigarettes be any different?
Not only does digital erasure or pre-movie warnings take away from a piece of art, but in some cases it utterly destroys it. Can you imagine, for example, Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party without the cigarettes? At one point, Beverly (played by Alison Steadman) browbeats the nonsmoking couple (Angela and Tony) to light up and it’s a brilliant revelation on how Beverly manipulates the people around her to serve her own ends and how susceptible the couple is when they’re trying, like most British middle-class people, to be polite at the most horrid party imaginable.
So leave the photos and the films alone. Let art go where it needs to go and stop imposing limits on what people can and cannot say. People can make those kind of decisions for themselves. Or is it now de rigueur to assume that most contemporary audiences are intellectually bankrupt?
Next on NPR: George Bush Lecturing About Responsibility
Garrison Keillor: “This summer, a radio station canceled a radio show of mine because I read a poem that used the word ‘breast.’” [Various sanctimonious words.]
This summer, Garrison Keillor cancels a tee because it used the word “ho.”
Pot, kettle, black.
When You’re a Fink, You’re a Fink All the Way
If you have a Yahoo email account and you eventually find yourself writing about something that might be considered inexplicably dangerous (if not now, then perhaps in the not-too-distant future), you may want to ensure that your personal information is fabricated. Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang has confirmed that Yahoo provided journalist Shi To’s private information to Chinese authorities. The journalist was then sentenced to ten years in prison. What was Shi’s crime? He dared to spell out media restrictions in place within China. Former President Bill Clinton also weighed in at an Internet forum, saying, “The internet, no matter what political system a country has, and our political system is different from yours, the internet is having significant political and social consequences and they cannot be erased.” He then went into a panegyric about how none of this had any negative effects on e-commerce.
It’s good to know that in the Clinton and Yang vision of the Internet, business comes first and that political extradition and freedom of speech is as expungable as a spam message.
The Christian Science Monitor: A History of E****** — First Draft
Some scholars have suggested that it all began with a 1749 novel written by John Cleland. The novel’s title was composed of two words: The first being a slightly naughty term for one’s, uh — how shall we put it? That thing you sit on. The second being more acceptable for the Christian ear: namely, “Hill.” However, this hill must be clearly distinguished from the immoral “thrills” one might find on another “Hill” immortalized in rock and roll music. Or perhaps not. It’s clear that the parallels here are inevitable. I must warn you, dear reader, that should you spend at least five minutes contemplating this issue, you may find yourself spending most of the weekend praying to God for forgiveness.
This book, written by Cleland when he was in debtor’s prison, was the first e***** novel. It depicts a certain young woman’s initiation into things we really can’t talk about in this publication. Let’s just say that Ms. Hill, the eponymous character, wasn’t exactly spending all of her spare time cross-stitching.
One might argue whether these unspeakable actions should even be put to pen. The risk of offending so many people clearly outweighs the value of rationally discussing what some have argued to be an everyday and harmless issue.
And yet, almost cavalierly, the writers couldn’t refrain from writing. There were volumes penned by Frank Harris in which this ineffable subject was broached. D.H. Lawrence, thought to be innocent enough with his classic story “The Rocking Horse Winner,” demonstrated his true colors and ineluctable perversion with “Lady Chatterley’s L****,” causing at least four septuagenarians to have cardiac arrests before they had finished reading the first chapter. And then there was that Henry Miller guy who wrote about what shall henceforth be referred to in this essay as It, banging out descriptive passage after descriptive passage of It It It with all the gusto of a man who hadn’t discovered the advantages of tight breeches…
[Whoops! Did I just write that? Editor, please strike.]
…with all the gusto of a man who hadn’t discovered the advantages of, uh, abstienence.
Soon, e****** became a cottage industry. Together with its less steamier cousin, the H******** romance, everyday readers became drawn to cheaply produced paperbacks that not only featured vivid descriptions of It, but dared to suggest It with muscular, long-haired hunks [Editor: Is that too much?] rescuing ripe beauties clad in diaphonous clothing [Oh come on, Editor, you asked me to write about it!].
Even Penguins Can’t Placate Their Fear
Berkeley Breathed on Opus strips devoted to reporting: “Yes, and they weren’t appreciated by my clients a year ago. It’s a different time than it was in my prime years, for sure. I can’t even print the word “gay” in my strip without losing clients. To say the least, editors are weirdly on edge right now. I think they’re all worried that they may have to become religious pamphlets in order to survive.”
Always. Be. Listening.
We’re in meetings most of the day, but in the meantime:
To paraphrase Alec Baldwin from Glengarry Glen Ross: “The States are weak?” Fucking States are weak? You’re weak. I’ve been a citizen of this nation for thirty-one years. FUCK YOU, that’s my name!! You know why, Mister? ‘Cause you drove your daddy’s oil money to get here tonight, I drove a car that I purchased with my own cash. THAT’S my name! And your name is “you’re wanting.” And you can’t play in a man’s game. You can’t win this war. And you go home and tell your wife your troubles.
Disagree With a Politician and You’re a “Security Threat” — Even When You’re a Minor
Common Dreams reports on a very disturbing incident that occurred at a Delaware Barnes & Noble (as more specifically reported here). Eighteen year-old Hannah Shaffer saw that Senator Rick Santorum had a book called It Takes a Family and that he would be reading at Barnes & Noble. Shaffer decided to go there with with some friends the idea of telling Santorum that he disagreed with his policies. Noting Santorum’s stance on gay rights, someone suggested that Santorum sign a book by Dan Savage.
Apparently, an advance team working for Santorum overheard this, concluded that Shaffer and her friends were “a security threat” and asked them to leave by a Delaware State Policeman named Mark DiJiacomo. The group was then told by DiJiacommo that anyone who didn’t leave would be sent to prison immediately on a trespassing charge. Most of the people left, with the exception of two brave kids named Stacey Galperin and Miriam Rocek, where more threats apparently ensued.
Even worse: DiJiacomo didn’t consult B&N’s store management and he was on Santorum’s employ.
Pero, Piense en Los Niños!
Our Rocky Mountain pal and colleague has the scoop on the campaign to divest Denver’s libraries of racy fotonovelas. After having removed 6,000 of these “tawdry” books, a full review of the libraries’ 2.5 million circulation is now being considered, leaving some wags to opine that “indecency” might be more of an elastic term than explicitly stated, perhaps used as a euphemism for purging the catalog of, shall we say, less Anglo-friendly titles.
Photographic Protest
So freelance photographer Steve Malik was taking some photos of MUNI Metro. Suddenly, a hodgepodge of fuzz came and tried to arrest him. But get this: there’s no statute in the books to prevent people from taking photos of city property.
Tomorrow afternoon, several photographers will meet at the Embarcadero Center at high noon and take photos out of protest.
I’m going to have to dig up my digital camera, but if you’re in San Francisco, bring your camera to Jackson West’s photographic protest. If I can find my cam, I’ll post the pics.
(via Smoke)
