Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
That makes some mutated sense to me Reva; and I"m sorry that I
misquoted <silly>---but Heeeeeey, how could I forget the Christmas
bombings, what better time to bomb than at Christmas. Do you think
they'll have Christmas bombings this year in Serbia? I know that's
kinda of black, but we're getting into the season of "peace is war" and
"truth is lies" and everything else is foma---

and while I'm being oblique here, I think that there's nothing wrong
at all with people who read Salon and think it's the bees knees. I am
amused how the writers have been able to parlay that into writing for
the NY Times, but that's something I'd expect the Times to be hip to. I
mean forget about the LA Times as far as literary politics are
concerned, the NY Times Sunday Literary Section followed up shortly by
the weekly Arts section takes the cake (and the knish too!). I kow it's
getting very heady in the editorial deaprtment when their writers are
being blurbed by the publishers just like the movie critic from Rolling
Stone. [you know when you get a blurb from Rolling Stone, it's very
srious business indeed, almost the good householdkeeping seal of
approval but without the small fish for desert)---

I've been following the accounts of the "Chinese mistake": everyone
blames it on the CIA and there's no reason why they shouldn't! using
old maps, how low canyou go, and next they'll be in DC asking for more
money.
  

    
In <251>, I wrote:

   | What kind of country club is The WELL?  For hacker nerds and
   | fat girls who get straight As?

In <311>, I wrote:

   | Okay, I apologize for my reference to weight-challenged young
   | women.  Strike it from the record.  Allow me to rephrase,
   | please.  Is the WELL a country club for hip San Francisco
   | cyberjournalists?

These questions don't pertain to Salon unless you believe that the
WELL and Salon are the same entity.  Do you think that the WELL's on
the bad end of a merger?

This new corporate entity could be called SWELLON.
  

    
I don't think that the Well and Salon are the same entity---for some
they might be though. Anyway, I'm still trying to figure out what a
cyber journalist is? Is it the same as the old freelance journalist
used to be? copyslaves to unscrupulous editors who want their copy
yesterday but will pay you tomorrow? I think it takes a certain kind of
guts to want to be a freelance journalist, or a freelance anything for
that matter. I did that for a while with varrying degrees of success.

I don't know the people in The Well. I used to like the Bay Area, but
that's going back too many years for me to say out loud. I like the Bay
area better that LA (but what's the big deal about that?). If I hadn't
gotten a job offer at Columbia Records back in the late Seventies, I'd
have been there now I suppose. But look <silly> I'm not going to
censure you for calling fat people "weight-challenged", but if you're
going to make such a statement it should be based on evidence don't you
think. Anyway,  when did this country become of weight-ist? and
brain-ist?
  

    
As for  the question of whether the Well is on the bad end of the
stick with the Salon merger. I guess you'd have to ask Gail Williams
about it, and she thinks it's pretty good. The real quesiton is how
much money exchanged cyberhands? was there a lot of cybermoney doled
out?
  

    
Opinions are us at The WELL.  Mine's only one, and right now it's time for
me to be Quiet anyway.

See the IPO link off the Salon.com page for a ton of details about the
sale and the innovative Open IPO thingie.

And the topics in the WELL Media/News confs for assorted astute and
imaginative pundits.
  

    
always depend on Gail for common sense. BTW, Gail did you see the
piece in the NY Times Sunday business section on the down side of the
acquisition?
  

    
Since this is a writer's conference, has anyone out there seen the
article about Joyce Maynard selling her letters from JD Salinger? Talk
about scraping rthe bottom of the barrel. She wrote a book last year
about her affair and I don't think that did very well, but maybe JD
Salinger doesn't float anyone's boat anymore---people just don't read
for pleasure anymore books like "Catcher in the Rye" or "Franny and
Zoey".

I mean when are we ever going to get out of confessional writing and
back into the real deal. Joyce has been milking her life for years,
literally eating herself. It's sad and somehow predictable don't you
think?
  

    
Yes, she has always written about herself, pretty much (though wasn't To Die
For based on one of her novels?).  I don't know that I'd call that 'milking
her life' unless there's any number of other writers to whom you also want
to apply that term.

As someone who's read her stuff since she was eighteen, I was interested in
the Salinger stuff but didn't buy the book.  If I run across it in the
library or a used bookstore, I'd pick it up.
  

    
She specifically said she was selling the letters just for the money.
An education fund for her kids was more important than what the critics
are saying about her. 

What about her own conscience? 
  

    
Uh, are you saying she should put critics' opinions over the welfare of her
kids?

There's a zillion people who've made money out of "I Slept With So-and-So"
books.  What makes what she did any worse than any of them?
  

    
NO, I think it's more the matter of how blatant she is (was). I
remember her coming out in NY Times many years ago---very precious
stuff. I mean she's a Frankenstein figure of boomer writing ( if I may
be so bold). I don't know who's more the victim Salinger or her.
Anyway, I don't think her confessional book "burned up the charts",
though it did provide grist for the Timespeople who created her to
write her about her some more. She never appealed to me, even as a
confessional writer because I thought her slice of reality was rather
thin. Actually what's so funny is the low evluation that the auction
house placed upon the letters. I mean sheesh! letters of JD
Salinger---it just goes to show you or shows to go you how devalued JD
Salinger is in today's market. I mean he's just too Greta Garbo for me,
protests too much. YOu know of course that the writer that James Earl
Jones played in "Field of Dreams" was opriginally supposed to be
Salinger but our JD sicched the lawyers on the writer.

And all of this gets back to the question that writers like to ask
themselves about fame, how important is it, whether postumous fame is
better. In the cae of Salinger, he's as much a victim as anyone. And
it's really too bad, because writers ought to be able to fail, that's
one of the problems with making it as a young writer by young I mean
under thirty under 25. Look at what happened to Jay MaCennery's Bright
Lights Big City" or Brett Ellis Easton's "Less than Zero", or 
Tama Janowitz (sorry about the spelling Jay). Jay wrote his big book,
and They called his the new Fitzgeralde and has been desperately trying
to repeat it ever since; unfortunately he's taken them rather
literally and has been drugging himself to death living the fast life
and protesting too much about it--- I mean the critics won't give this
beemish boy a break, and he to please them keeps trying to hit the same
note instead of try another scale if you get my meaning here. Is
really all about the fact that writing is a developing art. We all know
that what we write today can always be better tomorrow. And when you
doh't think that's true, then you truly become a victim of consumerism.
Which is what is really going on in our commodified world, isn't it
Sharon?
  

    
I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with Joyce trying to hock
those letters. I just wish she'd get some real money instead of the
chump change the auction hose is thihking it will get. There's got to
be still left out there some Salinger groupie who will pay for these
letters. Anyway, if she still wants them she could always make
photocopies, and only the technician would know for sure whether they
were originals or not.

If she had a conscience, she would have gotten over Salinger years ago
instead of trying to milk it. But then again, that's her style, I just
don't happen to appreciate it. But then again, that's me and there are
others out there who applaud her courageous action :-))). I personally
think she's jsut getting too old to play the ingenue, but then again
everyone's got to earn a living and the ltierary world is funny like
that. I mean look at Norman Mailer---
  

    
It sounds like you just don't like her, and so you don't like anything she
does, and it still isn't clear to me why you have particular issues with her
rather than with any of the other jillion people who mainly write about
themselves.
  

    
It's not writing about themselves, it's what they choose to write
about themselves, how they write about themselves. It's not the act,
it's HOW the act is done which is the basis for criticism, for likes
and dislikes. That's how it works with writing and writers: either you
like what they talk about, how they talk about it, and what they say or
you don't. Very simple. That's what makes horseracing, that's what
makes literary politics. I was observing that the literary politics in
NYC are thus they she has her reputation, and for what is that: that
she had an affair with Salinger, that it was over a long time ago, that
it seems to be of interest to other people not herself, that,
possibly, it's a way to capitalize on an affair which can be monetized.
Which is just fine.

I don't like how she writes, never thought it was special when she
came on the scene in terms of unique insightful observations, even
using herself as a mirror. At the time, I thought that way too much was
made of her when there were far more insightful people out there (her
age at the time too). In some ways its a case of peeaking too early and
that's why I talked about Jay and Tama and Brett. But that's literary
politics and those who make them have a tendency to keep them spinning
if they're still in the game themselves. Maybe she's just part of that
great literary critics band, and that's fine too.

In the above post, I raised certain questions because you like to talk
and think and write and I'm responding to that. You picked the least
interesting or important part to comment on---which is your right, but
you've been the one who's wanted to elevate this discussion more. GA
  

    
It seems to boil down to "I don't like how she writes."  Do you have
anything more specific than that?

In the above post, you didn't really address anything I brought up other
than to criticize what I was I brought up -- which is your right, but you
were the one who was complaining that people weren't posting here any more.
  

    
Here we go again, round and around. You said:

"It sounds like you just don't like her, and so you don't like
anything she does, and it still isn't clear to me why you have
particular issues with her rather than with any of the other jillion
people who mainly write about themselves."

I reply: I don't like her period. It's a judgement I can't put my
finger entirely on. I just don't like her. Do I have to? Do I get
thrown out of the writer's club? am I supposed to check my opinions at
the door. It's a feeling I get when I read her stuff, it just doesn't
work for me, whatever she's trying to do. From my perspective, she's
not a particularly trenchent observer, though I"m sure she thinks so
and there are people who buy her stuff who think so too. And lord love
a duck, that's good for her. Still, Iit's my right NOT to read her if
I have no desire. So, no I don't have anything more specific. Why do
you like her? maybe yhou can entice me into picking up her latest. What
does she do for you? Obviously there's some sort of resonance, tell me
about it.
  

    
>Here we go again, round and round.

Fine.  Have it your way.
  

    
Maybe it's as simple as there is a whole country full of people who
tought that Seinfeld was the bee's-knees, and I always thought it was
stupid, nvvertheless that I thought it was stupid didn't change the
minds of people who thought that Seinfeld was brilliant and
well-observed. I lived in Manhattan for twenty years, lived on the
Lower East Side in the Sixties and the Upper Westside in the mid
seventies and early eighties (with some time off for bad behavior, my
exile period in LA from 1974-1977).

Thanks for letting me have it my way. BTW, what kinds of things to you
write?
  

    <scribbled by silly Sat 7 Jul 12 16:34>
  

    
Duck's Breath Theater, I've heard of them, thank god that there are
still heads around who produce material like that. And thank you for
saving me from another "he said, she thought he said" dialogue. I'm
glad you were lurking in the background. Funny, I"m always getting in
trouble saying what other people want to say but don't. I take the heat
and everyone else snickers to themselvbes while being politically
correct.
  

    
For all the writers out there in cyberland, take comfort; for all
those who've been tur4ned down by Salon.com because they weren't hip
and cutting edge enough


        Fame and the Artist

by David G. Walley

        Once upon a time in a city far away there lived a struggling artist,
a genius painter. His early friends were impressed, and so was he when
he went to their openings and saw how his ideas had been adapted for
commercial use. He didn't mind though since he was sure that some day
his own time would come.
        One afternoon, a gallery owner, a friend of his friends, came by the
studio and told him he should be rich and famous and offered to help
him for next to nothing (%65). The artist considered the offer and
decided to give it a whirl since it would be nice to make a living wage
as an artist instead of a short-order cook at the local beanery.
        Within a matter of weeks, the artist was seeing his name in all the
right places. He started spending less and less time in the studio and
more going to openings and schmoozing the customers, a practice he had
formerly loathed passionately. The few times he was actually in the
studio, the phone rang off the hook with invitations which made work or
sleep impossible. This must be the way it happens he thought when he
had time.
        The artist adapted to the new regime and unloaded his back inventory,
but although he had quite a stock from his leaner days, inevitably he
ran out. Now the demand for new work outstripped his ability to produce
it and feeling pressed he was starting to suspect that his gift would
lead to his eventual destruction.
        While he was regarding the blank canvas and the silent phone with
equal dread late one morning, he came to an illumination that  fame was
killing him for real and he was living in a nightmare from which he
could not awake. It was bad enough he no longer had time to paint and
spent most of his waking hours schmoozing the fast set, but worst of
all, the attractive and cultured women of his fantasies were in reality
social-climbing yentas looking to add his scalp to their collections.
Museum trustees were only less honorable, and what was the use of that?
        Abruptly the artist withdraw from the fandango of fame and even
stopped showing up at the openings of his new gallery. At first it was
charitably said that he was Sick or Out of Town on A Commission.
Eventually, his agent took him to lunch to inquire anxiously whether
he'd done anything to offend? A week after that he was deleted from the
"A" list. When Art News and Art in America ran a few speculative
sidebar articles about what happened to him, his stock plunged in the
unofficial Art Futures market. By then Fame no longer interested him. 
        Leaving town, the Artist purchased a nice little farmhouse upstate
with the profits from his fatter days and continued The Work. If you
needed him, you wrote or called the General Store, they'd fetch him.
His temperament and creativity improved, and his good patrons still
sought him out, eager to see his work, even if it wasn't in the public
eye anymore. When things got slow it still tickled him that some of his
early work were in good museum collections. Although he never made as
much money, whatever he made was all his.
        MORAL: Sometimes a little fame is all you really need.
  

    

"it is glorious, but I have a dread foreboding that some time the
same doom will be pronounced upon my own country" - Scipio Africanus
the Younger, surveying Rome's destruction of Carthage, 146 BC

Source: Encylopedia Britannica 1999 CD-ROM for Mac.
  

    <scribbled by silly Sat 7 Jul 12 16:32>
  

    

What was being said about Reginald Denny?
  

    <scribbled by silly Sat 7 Jul 12 16:33>