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Things I’m Thankful For

Nov 272009

Guys, seeing as it is the season for expressing gratitude for life’s wondrous bounty, I just wanted to take a moment to note the many things I appreciate about–no, just kidding. I wanted to talk about Twitter! Well, not just Twitter; more like short-form blogging etiquette. Specifically, the practice of linking to something without providing any context. For example, tweeting something like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpA2tMrQ4RU I SIMPLY CANNOT.

Guys, this has to stop. My time is not terribly valuable but in the course of any given day I am bombarded with hundreds of opportunities to click on links. If I clicked on every link I saw on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and email, I would get even less done. So do me a favor and give me a hint about whether I should spend my 20 seconds on your link or on playing Skifree (see how I did that?).

Now, there are two exceptions to this, and as far as I’m concerned you need to satisfy both of these exceptions simultaneously:

If I trust you implicitly to only use this linking method for sites that I am absolutely sure to value; and
If you only omit the context for links in situations where there is dramatic, rhetorical, and/or comedic benefit to my being surprised by the link’s identity.

Note that (1) is a condition you are unlikely to meet with respect to most readers/followers, who may like you but probably wouldn’t even stake their Starbucks money on your abilities as an internet curator. And even if you’re arrogant enough to believe that most people think you’re great^*, you still need to actually be great, or at least adequate, at linking with nuance and wit. This means you’ll have to know how to recognize and wield irony well. If you’re like most of the people in the world, this is not your strong suit. So just go ahead and tell me what you’re linking to, so I don’t have to write a stupid blog post about it while fighting the urge to pepper said blog post with examples of the behavior I am decrying.

^* Note: of course you are arrogant enough to believe that most people think you’re great–we all think that. But, to be honest, you’re probably just okay.

Consider the post-ironic reference made.

Life, Writing 5 Responses »

Sep 142008

I don’t really know what to say, any more than anyone else does, but I think I’ve got to say something.

I was lucky enough to take a couple of classes with David Wallace at Pomona. I had already read Infinite Jest and a bunch of his non-fiction by then, and I fought for a place in his literature and writing classes. I’m glad I did, because he was as thoughtful, diligent, and smart as a teacher as he was as a writer. I learned a lot from him about writing (among other things, I learned that I should probably let other people handle the writing), but I learned at least as much about kindness, honesty, and humility. Writing is hard work, but so is literary criticism–and teaching a litter of undergrads either one is surely harder than both combined. I came out of that lucky year with at least as much admiration for Wallace the man as for Wallace the auteur.

In the wake of his death, I’ve been in touch with a few of my classmates from those courses, and we’re all simply shocked–by the death itself, and by the manner in which it occurred. Wallace seemed like a man whose darkest days were behind him; he had stared down many demons, and we all thought he had come out on top. But I guess he taught us better than to accept the superficial without probing deeper.

It’s a terrible loss for the literary world, of course, but for many people it’s much more than that. Through his writing, through his teaching, and through his character, Dave touched a lot of people in a way that belies his (ill-considered) reputation as an ironist. We’ll miss him very much.

100 best reads of the past 25 years

Writing 6 Responses »

Jul 082008

What I’ve read in bold (the one I hated in bold italics). This is a pretty pathetic showing, but I’ve been busy lately. I hope to get to a number of these soon–or at least see the movie version!

1. The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006)
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)
3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)
4. The Liars’ Club, Mary Karr (1995)
5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997)
6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001)
7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991)
8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996)
9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997)
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)
Continue reading »

On the Internet, Everyone Will Eventually Figure Out That You’re a Dog.

Life, Media, Tech, Writing No Responses »

Jun 052008

I just read a really good piece in Slate: Is This Tantrum on the Record? The ground rules for writing about your kids. Emily Bazelon describes her qualms about writing about her son:

What are the ground rules for writing about your kids, especially on the Internet, with its freewheeling meanness and permanent archive? Will my kids be embarrassed by these pieces at a certain point? Will a bully or (perhaps less plausibly) a college admissions office one day use the foibles I’ve revealed against them? Or will the kids just decide they’d have preferred to speak for themselves? Is there a point at which any good parent should stop?

When I write about my kids, I’m not only thinking as their mother. I’m also thinking as a professional writer. Those two identities don’t always align—they just don’t. I like to think that when there’s tension, I err on the side of protecting my kids’ interests, steering clear of any material that’s too embarrassing or private.

The article/column explores these issues adroitly, and touches on a lot of points worth discussing. Can kids even understand this stuff well enough to make an informed decision? Is it exploitative to use your children’s lives as source material?

But I’m going to digress a bit from the topic of writing about one’s children and talk instead about Facebook and the First Amendment.

Studying is going just fine… why do you ask?

Tech, Television, Writing No Responses »

May 282008

Good news, TWoP put RSS feeds back for individual shows! I guess I’ll start reading their recaps again!

and now I want to reread Adams’s entire oeuvre.

Internet Hi-Jinx, Links, Media, Tech, Writing No Responses »

Apr 182008

So, a guy on the internet got his hands on an old cache of files from the company (now defunct) that released a bunch of great text-based computer games, including the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a huge hit game (based on Douglas Adams’s masterpiece) that made a lot of money. They also worked on a sequel, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but the project and company self-destructed. The story is fascinating. Especially in the comments, where a guy who comes off looking bad in the history chimes in to make himself look even worse. He complains that the material Biao uses paints an unbalanced picture, and that Baio made no effort to contact him in advance of publishing it, and generally that it’s bad journalism.

The irony is that I think he’s probably right–this isn’t very good journalism. Baio should have tried to get in touch with the relevant persons (just about all of whom seem to be quite available) before publishing. No question, it’s a thorny issue–the material he’s citing was company property, so he doesn’t need permission from the employees to post it–and who knows what happened behind the scenes.

At any rate, there’s a lot to enjoy here, if you’re patient enough to wade through it all.

I’m pretty sure I know where she stands on gay rights, too.

Media, Writing No Responses »

Mar 052008

From an online chat with Charlotte Allen (remember her?):

Washington: “They Scream, They Swoon. How Dumb Can Blacks Get?” “They Scream, They Swoon. How Dumb Can Men Get?” “They Scream, They Swoon. How Dumb Can Latinos Get?” Ha ha! Very funny. I’m laughing my head off. Inside. Get a clue.

Charlotte Allen: Is this a compliment or an insult?

…

New York: Do you think women are aware of the hypocrisy with their anger toward this column? Specifically I refer to the whole litany of TV programs, magazines (like Marie Claire) and society and popular culture as a whole that makes humor at the expense of men everyday. Do you feel the angry responses validated your article?

Charlotte Allen: Very much so. I’ve heard from women with Ivy League degrees complaining that they’re oppressed, female graduates of top law schools complaining that they’re oppressed. C’mon!

Is it possible that this woman seriously doesn’t understand the difference between perpetuating harmful stereotypes about a group that has been historically (and is presently) oppressed, and making fun of those in a position of power?

I mean, I guess it is possible, but I find it much more likely that this is a shameless and disingenuous effort to get Ms. Allen a little more notoriety. I mean, these distinctions are fundamental and obvious ones. People who have actually struggled with injustice, rather than leverage it for a book deal, already understand why going after the powerful is very different from going after the politically- and socially-oppressed.

Sounds like somebody wants a job at Fox News.

Media, Writing No Responses »

Mar 022008

In a Washington Post Op-Ed, Charlotte Allen seems to think that women are morons:

I swear no man watches “Grey’s Anatomy” unless his girlfriend forces him to. No man bakes cookies for his dog. No man feels blue and takes off work to spend the day in bed with a copy of “The Friday Night Knitting Club.” No man contracts nebulous diseases whose existence is disputed by many if not all doctors, such as Morgellons (where you feel bugs crawling around under your skin). At least no man I know. Of course, not all women do these things, either — although enough do to make one wonder whether there isn’t some genetic aspect of the female brain, something evolutionarily connected to the fact that we live longer than men or go through childbirth, that turns the pre-frontal cortex into Cream of Wheat.

That’s one of the more reasonable paragraphs, incidentally. Now let’s jump to the thrilling conclusion:

So I don’t understand why more women don’t relax, enjoy the innate abilities most of us possess (as well as the ones fewer of us possess) and revel in the things most important to life at which nearly all of us excel: tenderness toward children and men and the weak and the ability to make a house a home. (Even I, who inherited my interior-decorating skills from my Bronx Irish paternal grandmother, whose idea of upgrading the living-room sofa was to throw a blanket over it, can make a house a home.) Then we could shriek and swoon and gossip and read chick lit to our hearts’ content and not mind the fact that way down deep, we are . . . kind of dim.

I’m not even going to bother critiquing the details of this… insightful look into the female mind. Suffice it to say that it says much more about its author in particular than it does about her gender generally.

I can only assume that this woman wants to be the next Ann Coulter, and needs something truly ridiculous to jump-start her career as a contrarian anti-feminist pundit. Regardless, I find it somewhat astonishing that the Washington Post would see fit to publish such an antediluvian polemic. Is this really such a vital viewpoint that it needs to be articulated (to use that term generously) in a national newspaper? What’s next, a defense of eugenics written by a self-hating gypsy? I really think that publishing this is a mistake. Not because it sets feminism back by a century (although it’s not exactly progressive), but because it’s unfair, it’s prurient, and (to my eyes) it’s a deeply cynical appeal to prejudices we’d be better off without.

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