Archives for February 2004

Courtesy of The Corner, here’s the most interesting chart I’ve seen in ages, a network map that shows the near-complete lack of overlap between the book-buying patterns of people in Red and Blue America (i.e., the states that voted for Bush and Gore in 2000). No matter which side of the great divide you inhabit, you’ll find it worth a look.

When everyone’s buzzing about blogger anonymity, it becomes an anonymous blogger to weigh in (thanks for the shout-out, Old Hag). Anonymity’s detractors make their cases this week at Gothamist, which declares in an impressively thoroughgoing spirit of no-fun,

Gothamist does not approve of anonymous blogging: We believe all bloggers should stand behind their posts with their real names. If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be blogging.

And at Salon, which runs a piece that’s conveniently excerpted here by Lizzie so that you can bypass the premium-access rigmarole:

It takes a certain courage to shoot half-cocked into the media landscape like that. Or does it? [Atrios, TMFTML] and other bloggers have made names for themselves by having no names at all–and by using the safety and security of their secret identities to spread gossip, make accusations and levy the most vicious of insults with impunity.

My impulse is to respond to these charges as a reader first and blogger second. As a reader, my response is much like Maud’s. I like the anonymously written blogs I read, and in many cases the anonymity of the blogger contributes to the effect. I appreciate the sheer variety of voices, styles, and approaches of the blogs I visit every day, and for those bloggers who are anonymous to identify themselves would be a step in the direction of flattening things out–perish the thought.

Many of the commenters at Gothamist rush valiantly to the defense of anonymous bloggers by pointing out the perils of blogging at work and the urgency of keeping oneself employed, in the current economy especially. All true enough. But this seems to me a secondary defense whose mobilization grants the basic premise that anonymous blogging would be wrong under ideal circumstances. As an addicted blog reader with several favorites who choose anonymity, I can’t, won’t, and don’t grant that.

To hear the voice of G.K. Chesterton, go here. (Scroll down as necessary. The clip is available in RealAudio, WAV, and QuickTime files.)

“Anyway, I’ve never run with the pack, composing according to fashion; I’ve always been a lone wolf, composing according to need. The Red Queen said you’ve got to run fast to stay in one place. I stayed in one place. Now it’s clear I’ve run fast.”

Ned Rorem, The Nantucket Diary

Nothing from me today. I’ve got to write my Wall Street Journal drama column in the morning, followed by afternoon appointments and a nightclub after dinner. Maybe I’ll do a little nickle-and-diming, but nothing more. Really. No matter who posts my mugshot. Or speculates about…well, you know.

Take it away, OGIC.

I’m a sucker for stories of Arrival like this one (via Elegant Variation) about novelist Andrew Sean Greer getting the Updike/New Yorker stamp of approval for his new third book, The Confessions of Max Tivoli (the novel is also Antic-Muse-approved [see right column]). They’re already chattering about his juvenilia:

His first novel, written at 16, was a “Wuthering Heights” knockoff that he entered in a young adult novel competition. He lost: “I had never heard of ‘young adult novels,’ which I guess are about teenage gangs and the new boy in town or something.”

My old favorite story of this kind is the one about Jeff Maguire, who wrote the screenplay for the 1993 movie In the Line of Fire. Maguire was on the verge of moving his penniless family from Los Angeles back to New Hampshire when he got word that Clint Eastwood had bought his script. And I do mean penniless–just to be able to afford to go out to dinner and celebrate the sale, he and his wife had to take back to the store a blouse he had recently given her for her birthday.

But oh dear, it seems that Maguire’s sum output since that shining moment consists of a bonus feature for the In the Line of Fire DVD (appearing “as himself”) and the one movie whose trailer provided me with perhaps the most memorable pre-feature hilarity all last year, delivering such textbook Hollywood brain-drain as:

At a remote archaeological site in the French countryside…

“Your father wrote that…but he wrote it six hundred years ago!”

“…fax machine that would actually fax three-dimensional objects…”

“We found my father’s documents and glasses–are you trying to tell me he faxed them back to the fourteenth century?”
“No. Your father is in the fourteenth century.”

Glad that’s cleared up! Textbook, I tell you.

To be fair, screenwriter Maguire had what I’m sure was the indispensable help of a Michael Crichton novel in coming up with this stuff. Still, let’s hope Mr. Greer evades this sort of plunge (I’m not too worried).

Courtesy of artblog.net, a blog whose proprietor is also an excellent painter:

“From the age of six I was in the habit of drawing all kinds of things. Although I had produced numerous designs by my fiftieth year, none of my works done before my seventieth is really worth counting. At the age of seventy-three I have come to understand the true form of animals, insects and fish and the nature of plants and trees. Consequently, by the age of eighty-six I will have made more and more progress, and at ninety I will have got closer to the essence of art. At the age of one hundred I will have reached a magnificent level and at one hundred and ten each dot and each line will be alive. I would like to ask those who outlive me to observe that I have not spoken without reason.”

Hokusai, One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji

It is not possible to be unhappy while listening to Count Basie’s Jive at Five. Or Django Reinhardt’s Swing ’42. Or Fats Waller’s Baby Brown. That’s nine minutes’ worth of joy right there. What are you waiting for?