Category / Tanenhaus, Sam

by Edward Champion

Tanenhaus: Just Say No to Podcasting

While I have given up the Tanenhaus Brownie Watch, did you know that Sam Tanenhaus is in the podcasting business? Every Friday, NYTBR editor Sam Tanenhaus releases a new installment through the New York Times website. And while you can’t access the podcast without iTunes and there doesn’t appear to be an archive of Tanenhaus’s past podcasts, you can, of course, listen to the latest installment.

I tried out the 7/22/06 podcast and, believe it or not, I actually felt a bit sad for Sammy Boy. He clearly doesn’t want to do this. He’s forcing himself to have fun. I can only imagine the initial meeting with Bill Keller.

“Sam, we need to be competitive. So we’re going to need you to do a podcast! It’s the latest thing with the kids.”

“Doesn’t my work for the Review stand on its own?”

“Oh absolutely, Sam! Keep those Leon Wieseltier hit pieces coming.”

“But why me?”

“Because you’re the Book Review editor! Who else would we approach?”

“Can’t Liesl do this instead? She’s down with this more than I am.”

“No, Sam. We need you! You’re the editor! You’re our voice. Do you need me to get the legal team on your ass?”

“Okay, fine. I’ll do it.”

Perhaps it’s a telling indicator of how he feels about being NYTBR editor. He’s getting by the best he can, but he really wants to go home and write a biography.

For those who don’t want to go to the trouble of listening to it, here’s a description:

A 1970s punk band, or perhaps, more accurately, a 1994 approximation of “alternative rock,” some local New York band that can be hired for a pittance, opens up the show, singing (I think; it’s hard to make out with all the poor man’s distortion) “I’m reading for the New York Times Book Review.” (No, I am not making this up.) Sammy Boy then introduces himself, thanking his audience for the letters, postcards and mail he’s received, only to attempt a gag in a dour tone, “Oops. My producer’s waving frantically.” He then remarks that the letters were to Dwight and, sounding as if he’s reading off of a script (written by somebody else?), he says, “But I told my mother-in-law to address those to me.”

Sammy T then introduces David Margolick, who wrote this week’s front page review. Then we get the NYTBR boosterism in evidence at the infamous BEA panel. “David, as soon as your review came in, it felt like a cover essay because of its narrative and emotional power. In fact, you begin with a rather chilling anecdote.” Now imagine these two sentences spoken in an opaque Brooklyn dialect, without any warmth or humor, without even the hint of a man letting down his guard. And you begin to see the sad scenario here. Bad enough that the podcast is devoted to propping up the Gray Lady’s dubious stature with questions and answers that feel scripted and possibly rehearsed, but Sammy Boy is so uptight (at least on air) that he’s incapable of maintaining even the illusion that he’s enjoying this.

Margolick, who is either terrifyingly articulate (in a troubling executive conference room kind of way) or reading from a script, responds to the questions in a banal flatline tone with such introductory phrases as “But I hadn’t thought about that, Sam..” and “I think the evidence is incontrovertible….” In short, Sammy Boy and the Times crew are terrified of the very human uhs and ahs that populate human conversation (have they edited these out?), the flawed tics that cause vernacular to take on that joie de vivre that causes others to give a damn about books. But why should they reveal their limitations? After all, this is the Times! The crown’s jewels! Not a single person can screw up here!

The human feel, however, does find a certain inroads with William Rhoden, who talks about his book Forty Million Dollar Slaves with some vigor and genuine interest. But I suspect it has more to do with the fact that Sammy Boy is away from the mike and gives most of the conversation to Rhoden. I suspect, in fact, that most of Sammy T’s segues and questions have been edited out, because Rhoden says, “You mention Joe Louis” midway through the conversation when Tanenhaus hasn’t even mentioned Louis. I listened to the Rhoden-Tanenhaus interview hoping that Tanenhaus would let down his guard, if only to bring a coherence to the conversational thread. But if Sammy T did, it’s certainly not presented on audio. And if Sammy Boy can’t reveal his faults, if he’s incapable of showing any warts or even a soupçon of humility or ignorance, what on earth is he doing podcasting?

Then Rachel Donadio talks about the bestsellers list and sounds suspiciously like a novice voiceover student doing her best to ape a FM radio news correspondent (I know this because I took a few voiceover classes in the late ’90s and recalled my own clumsy efforts, and I wondered if Times expenses were being siphoned Donadio’s way), clearly reading her words from a script and trying to offer a spontaneous inflection. And as if to impute that the Times podcast crew is having fun, some forced off-mike laughter is left in. I suspect that the crew was likely laughing over how absurd it was that journalists are now reduced to being radio or podcasting people.

Maybe it’s the fun-loving Californian in me, but I listened to this and wondered if Sammy Boy and his staff were trying to approximate fun, rather than approach any genuine threshold of excitement. Why couldn’t they let loose? Or is this how Manhattan faux intellectuals talk? Had I been the producer, I would have demanded that all the on air talent have a good glass of wine. Or perhaps I’d pass around a bong. After all, when you’re dealing with sticks wedged up orifices, desperate times call for desperate measures.

The lack of archival podcasts and the elaborate efforts one must take to listen to the sole podcast available (i.e., one must install iTunes) reveals just how ephemeral Sammy T’s crew hopes this podcasting fad will be. They’re humoring top brass for now, thinking that nobody will notice.

I wonder if he’d be so rigid if someone hugged him before each installment. If someone simply told Sammy T that letting one’s hair down is a peachy keen thing, then maybe the NYTBR podcast might be worth something.

But if Sam Tanenhaus didn’t feel up to the task, he could have easily said no. He didn’t have to go through with something so clearly odious to his sensibilities. The man clearly despises this part of the job, which makes me wonder how much he secretly hates turning out the Review on a weekly basis.

by Edward Champion

Pitches for the NYTBR

Since the NYTBR seems content to keep literary coverage firmly in the toilet, I thought I’d do Sammy Boy a favor and give him some story ideas for future issues.

1. What books can you best jerk off to? Do certain books work as a surrogate stroke mag? And, if not, do they need more pictures? Consider Austerlitz as exemplar.

2. What books are better used as toilet paper? We’re not just talking the content here, but the specific form of acid free paper that strikes best against the bum.

3. What author photos turn you on? (Reference the Jonathan Franzen photo.)

4. What books cause the reader to fart? Is there a correllation between flatulence and turgid pretentious prose? (Use science vs. empricism angle and, once you have conclusions, determine which authors fart the most frequently.)

5. Which books are best used as coasters? Are certain novellas ideal for an ice cold beverage?

6. Which books do NYTBR contributors read right after a wild evening of sex? Has any particular title replaced cuddling or the cigarette? Can reading certain passages solve the dilemma of premature ejaculation? Can some of the gooey substance found on the covers of new trade paperbacks be extracted for a homegrown KY lubricant?

by Edward Champion

In Praise of David Orr

While the Tanenhaus Brownie Watch may be discontinued, Levi Asher has picked up the slack with his “Reviewing the Review” blog posts. This week, Mr. Asher made the claim that “The Book Review continues to prove that it has no capability at all to review poetry.” While I can certainly agree that its poetry coverage leaves little to be desired, in large part because of the self-described “vulgarian” whims of its editor, I felt the need to leave a comment noting that there has been one critic during Tanenhaus’s run that has done a competent job at reviewing poetry: David Orr.

While I’ve had my quibbles with Mr. Orr in the past, Mr. Asher challenged me to limn just what it was about Orr that made him “very good.” It’s a fair enough question, seeing as how Asher has called Orr “hopelessly square.”

First off, if the NYTBR‘s purpose is to profile smart and well-informed reviews that straddle the fence somewhere between layperson and elitist New York Review of Books subscriber, then any decent poetry critic must divagate within this territory. And I feel that Orr has done this quite well, daring to challenge icons, introducing poetry to a readership without making it dull, and shifting the focus away from a poet’s public perception to the words that the poet has written with a deft and playful touch. Take, for example, this recent review of an Elizabeth Bishop collection. It introduces Bishop to the uninformed and subtly guides the reader into contact with her poetry instead of Bishop’s reputation, establishing and comparing such qualifiers as “difficulty” and “subtlety,” and using these terms to segue into the text of “Vague Poem.” He playfully suggests that more people know the lyrics to “Total Eclipse of the Heart” than Bishop’s poetry, which suggests someone attuned to pop culture (certainly a lot more than a closet fetishist like Leon Wieseltier or Dave Itzkoff, who has only recently discovered that chicks write speculative fiction too).

Then there is this review from November 2004, which challenges the qualifiers behind The Best American Poetry series, clearly outlining the history of these compilations, while suggesting that the bar may be set too low and imputing that “poetry isn’t really an open system; it’s a combination of odd institutions, personal networks, hoary traditions, talent and blind luck” to the NYTBR‘s democratic reading base.

Hopelessly square? Even Mr. Asher had to applaud Mr. Orr when he took Jorie Graham to task. What we have is a poetry critic with a mischevious streak that is far from Pat Boone. I’m under no obligation to acknowledge the positive, but Orr’s poetic review of Billy Collins’ The Trouble with Poetry was one of the few interesting reviews under Sammy Boy’s tenure. One does not expect such exuberance from a lawyer, much less from a publication whose editor cannot appreciate a brownie or an intelligent woman. But, alas, there it is.

I have no idea what’s made Orr’s work sparse in the NYTBR these days. Perhaps it’s Sammy T’s tone-deaf editorialship. But Orr was a welcome presence within a hopelessly corrupt publication. And I contend that if there was one thing Sammy Baby did do right, it was hiring David Orr.

by Edward Champion

Save the New York Times Book Review

tanenrun.jpgThe time has come to take a stand.

The New York Times Book Review is no longer a book review section that matters. It is beyond repair, save through one extraordinary gesture.

Editor Sam Tanenhaus is unfit to guide this dinghy into the 21st century and is hopelessly out of touch with today’s literary climate. What was once a review section that attracted major authors and featured thoughtful essays has devolved into a congeries of gossipy items, essays that fawn over John Updike, Leon Wieseltier masturbatory exercises, lackluster literary coverage, a sexist approach to review assignment — in short, a thoughtless tundra that could be so much more.

I’ve harbored some small hope that Tanenhaus would rectify this, but my hopes are gone. Accordingly, I’ve canceled my New York Times Sunday subscription.

But I’ve created this petition with another hope: that Bill Keller will understand that Tanenhaus is bad for the NYTBR, bad for the literary climate, and bad for the publishing industry. (He is, however, very good at biography. Perhaps this is his true calling.) I also hope that Keller will understand that a thoughtful literary section translates into thoughtful subscribers (and thus more niche advertisers).

Here is a weekly newspaper section that has the capacity to matter, to introduce its readers to innovative and literary titles, and to provide fresh perspective. And yet it doesn’t. Because today’s authors and critics are too afraid to rock the boat, lest they lose a potential freelancing check from a NYTBR assignment. And that doesn’t just mean speaking no ill of Tanenhaus or his Hindenburg-like experiments such as the recent Contemporary Fiction contretemps. It also translates into criticism that plays it too safe, frequently devoid of insight or personality, all of fitting like a glove into the Tanenhaus template.

The time has come for Tanenhaus’s tenure to end.

Sign the Petition!