Letters to the Editor
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I'm not only Boycotting Ayelet....
... I'm boycotting Michael Chabon, AND I'm gonna let my Salon sub expire w/o renewing, AND I'm gonna let the gift Salon sub I gave to my friend expire w/o renewing.
Is this Sweeps Week on the 'net or something? Yeesh.
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The real question is why Salon publishes Ayelet Waldman, and why Michael Chabon married her???
"The real question is why, even after I became so suspicious of the mythological creature known as JT Leroy, I still talked to him on the phone."
Perhaps because he's JUST LIKE YOU, Ayelet, a third-rate crappy writer, with a HUGE ego, and a diagnosable mental problem, trying to put one over on the reading public?
I don't care if she's married to Michael Chabon. Sleeping and procreating with a half-way decent writer DOTH NOT A GOOD WRITER MAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why oh why won't Ayelet go away, and why does Salon keep punishing loyal subscribers with her DRIVEL??? Is she sleeping with someone at Salon too???
Signed,
Utterly fed up with Ayelet and not going to read another word she writes
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JT Leroy?
One reader suggested we use search engines to fill us in on this story. It's customary for a writer to provide some background before launching into an article that would make most of us say "huh?" I have to agree with another reader who wondered whether it was internet sweeps week--the story was esoteric gossip and certainly didn't merit its front and center position.
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Ayelet Waldman is not interesting
Neurotic, self-absorbed, occasionally outrageous, but never interesting. Please make her go away.
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Waldman not worthy of top-of-page placement
Please spare us any further exposure of this amateur writer's struggling efforts. I count on Salon for critical analysis of news, politics, events, and cultural trends. I could read the SF Examiner if I wanted tripe such as Waldman has produced.
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not what i want to read
please feature andrew leanord instead.
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But who is the UCSF psychologist?
Didn't anyone ever think to check on the psychologist at UCSF who had supposedly been treating JT Leroy? As I recall, Pat Montandon (whose own son has now written a memoir about HER) was the first to claim that she had "discovered" JT and hooked him up with the psychologist. This was back in the days when she had a column in the SF Chronicle! There are a lot of people in San Francisco who have a lot of 'splaining to do.
On a related note, apparently celebrities have a lot of time to talk to psychos on the phone. Remember the fictional "Miranda," the model/medical student who talked to Buck Henry, Richard Perry, Quincy Jones, even Warren Beatty in the '70s? She turned out to be an overweight social work from Baton Rouge, and Q had the class to take her out to dinner in LA anyway.
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no middle ground?
But seriously, how can anyone who has read a book in the last five years NOT have heard of this JT Leroy asshole? At the very least, that New York magazine story was everywhere a few months ago! Or is it that if it hasn't been on Oprah's Book Club, you haven't read it, or what?
Yes, certainly if you don't keep up with the current literary circles and read New York magazine regularly, you must be an uneducated hick who only likes what Oprah tells her to or maybe just can't bother to read anything but People magazine.
There are plenty of us out there who read quite a bit of interesting literature from around the world and who find the 'hip literary scene' tiresome and boring.
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jealousy
is what seems to be fueling this Ayelet Waldman witchhunting lynch mob.
Face it, she has what a lot of these "wannabe" writers procrastinating on Salon want...
a good-looking famous husband, time to spend at home with her kids, a regular high-profile gig, a house. Something most of you will never acquire. She makes the time-wasting loser feel bad about his/her lack of impact and she must be dealt with immediately... the B#$#!
What's wrong with a mother writing about her experiences with her kids? This is what many women do with their lives, and it's nice to have someone intelligent mirroring this experience, even if it is with her own somewhat cracked perspective.
My advice is to stop wasting your time trying to get Ayelet fired... and get your own life in order.
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Why is this taking up valuable pixels?
And even more so, WHY is it the TOP STORY?!
Who the hell is JT Leroy?
I got books coming out my bum (that Oprah has not stamped as Grade A, by the way) and I never heard of him/she/it either.
I'm rethinking my Salon subscription too.
Geez, when I first joined in August 2004, for $35, this seemed a great deal. I raved to all my friends and family how smart and passionate the writing was on here, and now, well, yes, it has slipped. This article is a real case in point.
I'm tempted to think the editors got punchy after reading the letters to her last story, and thought "Ha! We'll show them!"
I'm almost expecting next week, or maybe Friday, they'll have an entire day devoted to Ayelet Waldman.
And speaking as a graphic designer, the new design here = not so hot.
I mean, I love Cary Tennis, but he can't float this whole site.
Another poll idea: if Cary started his own site, leaving Salon, would you still read here?
Maybe all this Ayelet is making me CRANKY!
Grrrrrr, argh!
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Ah, That Explains It
I read the JT Leroy article this morning. Then I had to google JT Leroy and find a real article to explain to me who the hell he was. I spent the rest of the day feeling vaguely frustrated and annoyed, the fragments of the poorly written Salon article bumping around in my brain, trying to re-arrange themselves into something coherent.
So, finally, at nearly 3 a.m., I came back to the site to read the letters and see if anyone else was as confused and annoyed as I was. The first letter I saw mentioned Ayelet Waldman. I frantically paged up to see if she had indeed been the writer of the misbegotten article. Ah, sweet relief! She was! That explains it all. Now I can go to sleep.