This morning, Richard Grayson put up a clearly fabricated ad on Craig’s List, seeking a “hipster intern.” Within hours, Gawker picked it up, asking for reader guesses. What’s more, Grayson posted this poem to provide clues. (Gawker, of course, didn’t observe that the poem was posted on March 8th, the same day as the Craig’s List ad.) But Grayson, being the good sport, revealed himself to be the author of the ad. So here’s the question (and perhaps Mr. Grayson might want to step in and answer): Was this a prank conducted by Grayson to see if he could get onto Gawker (and, concomitantly, this site)? An even bigger question: Are the Gawker writers so hard up (and we’re not just talking for material, but income to supplement the slave wages that Denton pays them) that they’ll troll Craig’s List in a desperate effort to find some inconsequential gossip item? Either way, Gawker got played big time.
Category / Uncategorized
Clumsy Editorial Assistants Now More Dangerous Than eBay Manuscript Poachers
BBC: “n unpublished novel by renowned author Jeanette Winterson has been found at an Underground station in south London….Martha Oster, 27, said she was ‘amazed’ when she found the 134-page manuscript lying on a bench at Balham station on Wednesday night.”
Hands-On Science
The Sun: “Masturbating an elephant in the cause of science isn’t an easy job – just ask wildlife expert Dr Thomas Hildebrandt. Just touching a jumbo penis – they measure more than 1.5metres when aroused – can have painful consequences as German scientist Dr Hildebrandt reveals. He said: ‘One guy I know got a black eye from being hit by an elephant’s penis.'”
Can’t Miss Panel at the L.A. Times Festival of Books
The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is going down the weekend of Coachella. I won’t be there. (And I won’t be at Coachella either.) But if you can make it, Tod Goldberg is moderating a panel about books and blogging featuring none other than Carolyn Kellogg, Ron Hogan, and a gentleman by the name of Andrew Keen, who has written a book called The Cult of the Amateur, which describes “how the democratization of the digital world is assaulting our economy, our culture, and our values.” And here I was thinking that the fault could be leveled at the Bush Administration. But no matter.
This promises some serious fireworks, particularly with one of the Goldbergs at the helm.
As it so happens, I have obtained a pre-pub copy of Mr. Keen’s book and I plan to devote a future post on this subject.