Category / Tanenhaus, Sam

by Edward Champion

Oral About Okrent

In my career as a litblogger, I was never persuaded that an ombudsman was a good idea. This isn’t because I have any particular beef against ombudsmen. It is simply because litbloggers can’t afford to hire them.

But my own history with ombudsmen aside, it is safe to say that there is clearly no man more deserving of a blowjob than Daniel Okrent. Not only would I invite Okrent to fornicate with any member of my family (including those under eighteen), but, if nobody was available to wrap lips around his cock, then I would willingly step in and do the job myself.

Because this is the kind of industry Okrent inspires. Okrent isn’t just any ombudsman. He’s the ombudsman for the New York Times. Which means that, in all book review circumstances, he must be given the reverential bukkake treatment. No constructive criticism. No hint of a flaw in his chiseled sentences. No in-review notation of an ethical conundrum. Like the obverse but no less sleazier conundrum of John Dean reviewing Mark Felt’s memoir, with Okrent, it’s all the ooze that’s fit to squint. Never mind that there’s a stupendous conflict of interest or that Okrent’s gushing flow might just blind.

The point is that Okrent is there, waiting for you or any reviewer, either literally or metaphorically, to unzip his fly and work some magic. Unfortunately, in this case, it looks like Harold Evans and Sam Tanenhaus got to Okrent’s phallus before I did. So my mouth remains dry and unsullied. But I suppose there’s always the Wall Street Journal‘s ombudsman to consider. Assuming, of course, that the Journal will print my in-house rodomontade as easily as the Times ran Evans’.

by Edward Champion

Dave Itzkoff: Well, Crash Courses Are Better Than Glossing Over White Males

It took a little more than three months for Dave Itzkoff to write his second science fiction column (or perhaps the more accurate answer here is that it took that long for Sam Tanenhaus to figure out that the field was a little more substantial than geeks writing stories). This column is slightly better, if only for its mention of the underrated writer Ellen Klages, whose work is often published in the underrated The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (where I first encountered her). But I must inform Mr. Itzkoff of the following realities:

1. Sorry, Dave, but Christopher Rowe is already taken. The marriage, as I understand it, is a healthy one. But what a way to suck up! You even quoted Matt Cheney! So hipster points and a crash course bonus for you! Now if only we can get you lusting after someone who isn’t attached or, better yet, convince you to engage in a dialogue with those who do know something about the subject but who don’t need to flaunt their knowledge like a smug Department of Defense official in the Johnson administration who thinks he knows more about Vietnam than those who are actually there. Who knows, Davie boy? Your column might be worth something more than a man declaring how much he cares about the reactions.

2. Dave, baby, you’re going to have to think outside the pop cultural box. These “intimations of juvenilia” that you think speculative fiction is all about are among the major reasons why we criticized you in the first place. Not only has the genre moved well beyond “juvenilia,” but a “cookie monster” isn’t always what it seems.

3. “Rosenbaum’s imagery will surely embed itself in the invisible architecture of your own memory banks for days after you’ve read it. But when you approach it for the first time, just try to forget that you’ve already been told how it ends.” So this is how Tanenhaus wants you to cover speculative fiction, Dave? Look, I’m nowhere nearly as schooled as my peers, but even I know something about the subject and wouldn’t dare to propose the silly and dismissive phrase “invisible architecture of your own memory banks.” Why, I’d be remiss and downright philistine if I actually declared myself a cultural arbiter on such flimsy pretext. So you read a Nebula anthology and you’re an expert now? Well golly! I mean, can I pin a boutinaire to your lapel, declare myself as your godfather, and send you a gift certificate to Tony Roma’s? There’s some good eatings there, I do declare!

4. Lastly, what can we do to get you and Ron Hogan to kiss and make up? Or does this “I write for the NYTBR now” schtick mean that you won’t talk with the plebs?

by Edward Champion

Sam Tanenhaus: Man Enough or Just Plain Spent?

nytbr.jpgWell, I thought I was done with Sam Tanenhaus. But it appears that I’m not. This is simply too good to pass up. The image to the right is the cover that the NYTBR is issuing for its June 3, 2006 issue, which is designated as its “Summer Reading” issue. And what does that mean? Reviews of books from Martha McPhee, Plum Sykes, Scott Anderson and Sara Gruen. Yup. Real heavy-duty fiction.

But what of literary fiction? Or fiction in translation? Sorry, folks, the Times simply doesn’t do that anymore. And chances are they won’t be doing it anymore. It simply doesn’t fit within the Wagnerian temperament.

Why can’t Tanenhaus be honest and confess that the NYTBR has willfully abdicated its status as a cultural arbiter? Must Tanenhaus hide behind a comic book escutcheon and a cod piece instead of welcoming conversation (such as editors like the LATBR‘s David Ulin, an antipodean palliative to Tanenhaus if ever there were one; you can listen to his approach to editing on The Bat Segundo Show #43)? Or does it really boil down to a humorless dictatorial swagger?

Incidentally, on a lark, I emailed the agency that issued the press release, as Sam Tanenhaus was declared “available for interview on the best books for any summer reading list.” Of course, I’ve made my interview requests before, and they have been declined. But if anything turns up, I will let you know.

But it really boils down to this: Is Tanenhaus man enough to respond to the charges leveled at him? I think not. He may be “under no obligation to acknowledge the brownie,” but a real man wouldn’t sulk like a veteran Quaker and cling to a dying homestead amid anni mirabiles.

So once again, I offer Mr. Tanenhaus the opportunity to engage in a conversation, to present his points and square off on this issues raised here (and many other places).

If he’s man enough, that is.

(Thank you, DT.)

[UPDATE: Sam Tanenhaus has again declined an interview request with me. But I may be talking with Dwight Garner, the NYTBR senior editor. Perhaps Tanenhaus’s underlings are more man than Sam?]

by Edward Champion

Tanenhaus’s Rejects

Over at Critical Mass, there’s a roundup of some of the one-vote nominees that weren’t listed in any of the Gray Lady’s coverage. Among some of the developments: John Irving voted for himself (correctly believing that nobody else would vote for him), Geoffrey O’Brien voted for Gilbert Sorrentino’s Aberration of Starlight, and someone (wisely remaining anonymous) threw in her lot with Franzen. The Critical Mass post promises to be the first in a series of installments on the subject, but I certainly hope that in the course of all this, aside from Laura Miller’s explanation, the NBCC might dig up a few reasons why the 75 judges (mostly women) said no to Tanenhaus.