Letters to the Editor
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To all those sneering people in the literary "Know"
Salon has a international readership, though I imagine thats slipping, but regardless - most of us (and we do read ...) could give a rats ass about the dribblings of self-appointed elites in San Francisco.
My god, what an amazing waste of ... well everything.
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Those WERE confrontational words, rr
Gaping and trumpeted, I mean, but I really didn't expected anyone to get all het up over ignorant,. After going through page after page of Letters to the Editor, I was astonished to see that so many people were wearing their igno--err, their lack of knowledge--like a badge. I mean, anti-intellectualism is fine when you sit down to watch Most Extreme Challenge, but why was there so damned much of it on a site that has employed some pretty fine writers (of about Chabon's middling stature) over the years?
But you are right that my last post has some disingenuousness in it. I was trying to be clever and I was dishonest about the context of ignorant as a result. And I'm sorry about that that lapse into rhetorical stupidity.
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The best editing Salon could do
is to get rid of the Letters section.
A real letter to the editor involves some thought and reflection. These letters serve nothing other than to reflect the writers' absolute lack of sophistication... (for those "knownothings" whining about JT Leroy, check out the NY Times, which ran a day or so before, and went into much detail.
I guess that would involve some work on your part, though... maybe the assumption was that we had a literate audience here.
If I were a "better" writer than Ayelet, with the lowbrow quality of these "Letters," the last thing I would want is my work subjected to such kneejerk reactions.
To the editors: get rid of the "Letters" section, and put it back in Tabletalk, where it belongs. It serves no purpose whatsoever.
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To jds, "No name given" et al
My god people - there's a whole *world* outside of New York and San Francisco, do I expect you to be familiar with well known authors in Wellington ? do you even know where Wellington is ?
This is a appalling display of cultural snobbery and blindness, people like you are the ones that keep the "Ugly American" mem alive.
Guess I'm just ignorant despite my knowledge of Australian & Kiwi literatature, probably my copy of the New Yorker failed to make my desk here in Brisbane AU.
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Blackpaw?
I'm not sure what I did to make you think that I am not interested in Wellington or you or anybody outside San Francisco and New York, especially since I live, and have always lived, in a part of America that regularly gets the societal shaft. So I'd be shooting myself in the foot if I were siding with those who know ONLY the doings of the coastal cities.
About Wellington I am about as ignorant as I am of modern dance. You're right about that. I do have the feeling that you're probably just waking up at about the same time that I'm just getting ready for shutting down for the night, but I may be wrong about that.
Best anyway.
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What I'm getting at
Is the sneering directed at people who are unaware of and/or uninterested in JT Leroy. Those doing the sneering seem to be under the impression that everyone knows or cares what go's on in their little circle in SF when in realitly there is a very wide literary world out there where Leroy and Chabon are of no interest.
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cosmicmojo's boycott??
... awesome job on that there boycott cosmic... you were able to stay quiet for several hours there! i was really impressed!! small steps, i'm sure... keep practicing!!
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Ooze me a river, of ooze
I can not begin to tell you how repulsively your article simply oozes the giggling sensation of being able to jump on the I TOO WAS TRICKED BY JT LEROY crazy party train. There is a new phenomenon, and it's not fake writing, it's wanting to be conned by fake writers. Wanting to be a part of the big hoax (as though bigger and better hoaxes aren't perpetrated daily) even if it means being the one that's hoaxed. There is a definite radiant glee about your text that feels like an unattractive girl retelling being used and discarded by a popular pretty boy in a way where she's actually annotating that it was HIM that did it, not some pushover paperboy, but HIM while the possible grief of the experience takes a secondary role to the use of justifying and providing the opportunity to talk about being used by HIM. It's ghastly, it's repulsive, it's formulaic, it's no different in nature than what the hoaxter did, and most importantly, it's as nourishing an experience as reading random livejournal entries employing anime-style smilies.
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Clever
I get it: Salon creates a fictional writer whose self-absorption lampoons her generation’s. Readers respond indignantly. Letters pour in. It’s a gold mine! In a wink to the knowing, “she” writes about another self-absorbed concoction of the media culture. Gradually, the conceit that the world is interesting only insofar as it affects her leads to ever more parodic articles. With the publication of “My Belly Button Lint: Why Aren't Other People as Intrigued by It As Me?” the New York Times breaks news of the hoax. The byline gives it away. Ayelet Waldman: I yell it, walled man? Could there be a more obvious name for a fictional solipsist? Very funny, Salon.
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Cosmicmojo, Keep On Posting!
"cosmicmojo's boycott?? ... awesome job on that there boycott cosmic... you were able to stay quiet for several hours there! i was really impressed!! small steps, i'm sure... keep practicing!!-- No Name Given"
In reference to the above, I know you won't be deterred by snide comments from those who are too gutless or unimaginative to even supply a fake name. Just wanted to let you know, though, that they certainly don't speak for everyone. While I don't agree with 100 percent of what you post in these letters, I do find most of your postings insightful and I enjoy reading them. You sound like a person I'd like in "real life."
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if someone has trouble with reading retention
""You don't have to have read Chabon, Leroy, or anybody else to have heard of the Pulitzer Prize."
Anyone could read my post and see that I never said I've never heard of the Pulitzer Prize, oh please.
I happen to focus on the Bookers more.
And I hardly think watching CNN on tV is any indication of intelligence or education. Why this need to insult people who don't know and read and think the exact same things you do?
(yes, I'm weak, I read this post even I suggested staying away. I'm tapering, OK?) LOL