Author / DrMabuse

by DrMabuse

Remember This Philosophy If You Dare to Bite Into a Big Mac

In 1958, Ray Kroc said the following to the McDonald brothers:

“We have found out, as you have, that we cannot trust some people who are nonconformists. We will make conformists out of them in a hurry. Even personal friends who we know have the best intentions may not conform. They have a difference of opinion as to various processing and certain qualities of product….You cannot give them an inch. The organization cannot trust the individual; the individual must trust the organization [or] he shouldn’t go into this kind of business.”

And that’s just what Kroc that of his franchise operators. His customers (meaning you) are another story.

Found in John Love’s McDonald’s: Behind the Arches, New York: Bantam, 1986.

by DrMabuse

“Unreadable” is a Code Word for Lazy

David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas has been called “even better than the best sex that you could possibly have” by Time Out, “a novel that will take over your life and prepare you to stalk Mitchell” by the Times Literary Supplement, and “tastier than all the food I ate during my formative years” by the Spectator. But it won’t be getting coverage from the Telegraph. Harry Mount, a critic who has actually been paid to review every Dick & Jane book ever published and the author of a 800-page piece of literary criticism entitled The Deep, Deep World of Paddington Bear, has declared Cloud Atlas “unreadable.”

Mount’s impatience recalls Jack Green’s polemic, Fire the Bastards!, which took umbrage over similar boasts made by critics who dealt with William Gaddis’s The Recognitions in 1955. Needless to say, if newspapers can find the time to cover Rising Up and Rising Down, then they should provide the same circumspect coverage to “difficult” books. To cop out with the “unreadable” excuse is a bit like damning The Passion of the Christ without having seen it. And besides, some books take a little longer to read. The real question here is whether Mount’s ever heard about this nifty concept called note taking. (via Literary Saloon)

by DrMabuse

A Special Message from Bill Keller

keller.jpg3/10/04 12:24:06 PM

Comrades,

I’m excited to report that we’ve managed to fool everybody all the time. Not only was Sam Tanenhaus selected four months ago, but we deliberately allowed people to believe that there was actually a major race here. Some folks actually thought that their votes and their sentiments counted. Well, I assure you that nothing could be further from the truth.

Not only was Chip McGrath quietly ushered out of the building months ago, collecting his box with all the terrible grace of a mall Santa heading to a dive, but Sam’s been the man editing the NYTBR all along. This grand announcement is yet another stone that we should add to Chip’s cairn. And what a grand display it is. But what was the poor bastard thinking leaving us like that?

Well, I’ll tell you exactly what he was thinking. Profit and attention. Now every book freak has a Tiger Beat spread of Chip cater-cornered to their Proust set. He is, as we all secretly knew and planned all along, hotter than Justin Timberlake. Now that Chip’s left, his approval rating in the polls is now, for the first time ever, higher than both Randy Cohen and Maureen Dowd combined! Yes, we here at the Gray Lady watch these demographics like a hawk. And the fact that these foolish journalists and bloggers got all excited about the Book Review (including those silly Book Babes), well, let’s just say that I’m getting some special service tonight.

The time has come for endless boasting and complete subservience. I don’t just want you to love me. I want you to pledge your firstborn. I want to see your children here at the Times as indentured servants.

Rest assured, you will love Sam. Just as you loved Chip. I will see to it that you will not stop submitting to the Gray Lady.

Your beautiful overlord,

Bill