Letters to the Editor
Alex Tucker
Published Letters: 144 Editor's Choice: 19
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I need her to be cranky
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't really have the stamina to argue with the people who dislike Ms. Havrilesky's dyspeptic articles. In fact, I'd likely agree with them that in reality she's probably a rather unpleasant person to be around. Speaking only for myself, I need her to release all that bile. I get angry as well, but I'm not nearly as sharp or witty as she is. Like many good writers, she acts as a sieve for my spleen. If you find yourself getting upset by what she writes, and moreso wondering what kind of person can write that kind of stuff, then she's already won. She's captured your attention and imagination, even just for a moment. Good writers do that.
Surely Salon never hired her to win Ms. Congeniality awards (if they did surely they would've wised up by now). She's paid to do what she does best: write snarky, snotty asides that make us laugh. And she's been doing it quite well, since her days of doing "Filler" for the the late suck.com. Why, in terms of the Internet, she's practically an institution, ala Dorothy Parker at The New Yorker. (No word as to whether Ms. Havrilesky misses her deadlines going on drinking binges, of course.) The old adage still applies, kiddies. If you don't want to read her, you don't have to. Don't pick up the rattlesnake if you don't want to get bitten.
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"You bet your boots!"
[Read the article: Will you miss "The West Wing"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I remember the precise moment TWW lost me forever. It was the episode "The Stackhouse Filibuster", and the lightning rod was in the form of a diminutive intern named Winnifred Hooper. Bypassing the fact that Mr. Sorkin thinks Winnifred is a keen name (for a Preston Sturges vehicle, at any rate), this one scene is essentially a microcosm of everything I'd come to dislike about the show.
For those who don't remember, or are unfamiliar, it sets up like this: Sam and some staffers are going through stacks of files and reports, trying to see which government programs can be cut from the government largesse. All are in agreement, except for one intern who expresses her displeasure by sighing loudly. Sam holds her back after the meeting, asks her name, and when he asks, "Should I call you Winnie?" her reasoned response - to a senior staffer, no less - is, "Not unless you want me to spit at you."
Charming. Ms. Hooper then goes on to explain municipal solid waste in Sorkin's patented wonky detail/rapid-fire delivery ("The numbers would be even higher today?" "You bet your boots they would!"). When Sam offers her a job after she graduates college, she snottily replies, "When I get out of school, you should come see ME for a job." This one moment made me realize I wasn't watching one character verbally assault another. It was Sorkin dressing me down, his Loyal Audience, for being so... dumb.
And that was that. Now, I've been always eager to learn something new everyday, and when TWW worked best I was constantly amazed that the show did just that. I felt like I'd been in a classroom session with a fussy schoolmarm who was eager to teach but short on patience.
I don't enjoy preachiness, even if there's righteous anger feuling it. The Indigo Girls lost me when they finally told every white person in America "Shame On You." Maybe you're reading this and saying I overreacted, but I've been around long enough to know what condescencion sounds like. I always expect right-wingers to be jerkwads, but liberals I hold to a much higher standard. In the end, I could no longer give Mr. Sorkin unrequited love.
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So Funny!
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Easily one of the funniest articles Ms. Havrilesky's posted in a while. I'm a tad surprised she didn't add Ian McShane ("Gruff. Not fond of bathing. Uses 'cocksucker' as both a verb and a noun.") but that hardly takes away from the piece. Ms. H's comedic ability is still in fine form. Seems only logivcal that she should follow up with an essay on TV's female archetypes next.
And to anyone who thinks she's just doing a male-bashing dance, get a grip. That's Rebecca Traister's job.
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Nice graphic, as well
[Read the article: The campus crusade for guys]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Extra kudos to the designer who's image of the scale accompanied the article. I mean, a finger of academia tilting in favor of one guy over three women-- and the guy's wearing a dunce cap to boot!? Niiiiice. I realize it's just a device to pique interest in the article (which by the way isn't as much biased as it is ham-fisted in getting its point across), but come ON Salon! Keep up the culture of male-bashing and eventually the site'll be renamed Broadsheet.com.
Or was that goal all along?
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Hipsters Ahoy!
[Read the article: Comic failure]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Mr. Wolk, I salute you for your insightful review. This is exactly the kind of psedo-art that gets gobbled up in Borders or B&N by young, urban, quasi-intellectual hipster kids who won't really understand what the cartoonists were trying to accomplish, but will spill lavish praise for the book in order to keep their street cred. Meanwhile the line will ever be blurred between solid storytellers who use a more rough-hewn art style, and those who tell couldn't tell a coherent story with a GPS and a spotlight.
There'll be the inevitable rebuttals of, "Hey, a coherent story doesn't *have* to linear, you know." That's very true, but just because Los Bros. Hernadez and Alan Moore can pull it off doesn't make one the Next Great Comics Genius after a few readings. Slapping random images in a disconnected pastiche is just an exercise in pretention, and it's okay to say so.
Dan Clowes once mocked art schools as overpriced daycare centers; oh, how I wish that weren't so accurate.