Letters to the Editor
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CLUELESS
If Sloane Crosley had really wanted a one night stand, she could easily have found one any night of the week, any day of the year, on any College Campus on the Planet.
Personally, I would have gladly hit it like it owed me money, hard, all night long, and never called or so much as said boo to her again............That is what she wanted, no??
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salon has become middle of the road boring.
this is the suburbanization of liberal culture. whereas liberals once stood in opposition to bland, middle of the road, privileged and entitled writers, now it seems we're encouraging it.
there is no insight in this story that makes it worth putting at the lead story of today.
and for all of you saying that people are only complaining because she's pretty, i would ask that you look at her picture. she looks as bland as boring and unsexy as her writing.
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You call that a story?
Fine.
I'll write MY story and send it in to Salon. It'll beat this one flat. Sweet, bittersweet, and horrific by turns. Men will shake their heads. Women will cry. Poets will wonder. The blind will see. Unicorns will shyly wander up and lay their heads in your lap.
And it won't be fiction.
She was a wild child. Chemistry was involved, as was skiing, parental disapproval, travel to almost-legendary places, and a near-death experience.
I'll probably need to be sedated two days in. And I should probably get my analyst's approval in advance.
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First get a life, develop your talent, then consider writing!
This sort of stuff really belongs to a blog. I'm surprised it was published. The writer is a competent enough writer, but being a competent-enough writer isn't really grounds for writing a memoir-type book, unless you've lived an unusual life, or are a very unusual person. I found this to be kind of trite and twee, a very 'so-what?' sort of read. Why bother to waste trees when you've nothing worth saying?
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Come on you guys
it wasn't that bad. I for one enjoyed it, it may not be your cup of tea but jebus...
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what a bore!
There's a whole subgenre of articles involving a journalist who tries something "wacky" (like riding a bike to work every day, eating food grown within a 50-mile radius of home, etc.), makes self-deprecating remarks about his or her failures to achieve the goal, then with a happy sigh returns to the previous lifestyle.
This story fits the pattern exactly--yawn. Most of my own acquaintances are more interesting than Sloane Crosley, who I can only assume has a family contact in the publishing industry.
Also, Salon made the unusual choice of posting the writer's photograph alongside this story. I have no idea what the regular Salon writers look like (beyond their caricatures), but as soon as a New England girl in pearls writes a sex story--bam! There she is. Really classy way to attract ad revenue, Salon!
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This is where I wonder if it's worth voting at all in 2008
People so mean, so aggressively intolerant and judgmental --
how could anyone be optimistic about the world after reading this?
If there's no point in being optimistic about the world, then there's no point in voting either.
Look who will taking over -- mean people, either way.
Mean intolerant people will never make the world a better place.
Never going to happen. Never, ever, ever.
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Oh, now, it wasn't all that bad.
I'm not sure what has sparked so much animosity, but I don't think it was THAT bad. Perhaps not up to the standards we think Salon should stand for, but why the anger?
If Sloane was in my writing group, back when I was doing the writing group thing, we would probably all agree that this was amusing but not ready. We would talk about finding that extra little layer of resonance, and how it could easily be cut by a third, and things like that.
I think the key to understanding this piece is to look at the book jacket blurbs: comparisons to David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell. Sloane's essay is written to be read aloud. Very soon, cute little Sloane will be traveling around as Sedaris and Vowell do, reading her work, and having the recordings played on "All Things Droll" on NPR. And so it goes.
As a writer myself, I can understand some of the frustration expressed here. I've written many an essay that's certainly no worse than this, and very likely much better. I've marketed them until I got a Special Award of Meritorious Achievement from the US Postal Service, yet between Sloane and I, one of us has a book deal and a career path, and one of us has a giant box full of rejection letters. And that, as a friend of mine used to say, is how the cow ate the cabbage.
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Tideswimmer
. . . yet between Sloane and I, one of us has a book deal and a career path, and one of us has a giant box full of rejection letters. And that, as a friend of mine used to say, is how the cow ate the cabbage.
Success in writing usually requires losing the cornball metaphors. Hopefully the cow didn't eat the cabbage on account of them.
I can only remember when writing was effortless. My talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings. At one time I understood it no more than the butterfly did and did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later I became conscious of my damaged wings and of their construction and learned to think, and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone.
But I have a story, so I will try. Through a glass, darkly, perhaps, but I will try.
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And how old is she?
This all might be cute and interesting if the author was 15 or 16. This girl seriously needs to grow up. It reminds me of the phrase "being in love with love" only it's sex. She's excited by the the idea of sex, not by sex itself.
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It wasn't horrible
But I wouldn't call it all that good either. To me it read like a story that went I wanted X to happen and then this happened, then this happened, then this happened and what I wanted to happen never happened, isn't it funny! I didn't want to keep reading, it reminds me too much of a sitcom instead of a piece of written material. I'm just a person who reads everything I start all the way to the end no matter how bad, just like bad movies too. I'm just not a quitter, even if it's bad I just need to know the ending!
I have no problem with navel gazing articles or "things that I did or happened to me". What I didn't like about this essay and most of the chick lit genre is that I didn't see introspection. How about discussing her inner self, about where she got this idea that one night stands were expected of her, even when she didn't really know what sex was since she thought it was jumping up and down and hugging for a while. Not this aren't I so cute and clever and don't I end up being such a good classy gal because I never end up really having sex with a stranger and some dude friend of mine tells me that's okay.
Though I did like the line about going home with a guy after she decided he's not a rapist. That made me giggle.
I don't have a problem with Salon printing it, I don't think all essays need to be minor masterpieces of the english language, but I do think all of us here have a right to say what we did or didn't like about the essay and no, I would not be buying or borrowing her book.
I suspect the reason in including her picture was to stave off the comments like of course you couldn't get a one night stand, you're probably a fat ugly troll!
No, the picture serves to let us know that she is indeed attractive enough to get a man, if there is any point to this essay at all, it's that just because you think a one night stand might be nifty and fun, there is the part of you inside that knows it's just not right for you and so you defeat yourself to hold onto the innocent feel good fantasy.