October 31, 2002
Content Alert

Actual thought-in-writing has been hard to find around these parts of late. Luckily there are one or two other places you might look, if you're interested.


  • Capt. Cardigan directs your attention to Stand Down, where the argument against the Bush Administration's current addiction is going strong.
  • Elizabeth's thoughts on being the possible prime target for the marketing of pop-kulcha-friendly hipster lit resonate perhaps a wee bit too strongly for comfort.
  • Finally, somethjng I'll revist soon at greater length, I hope: Michael Lewis' unintentionally hilarious In Defense of the Boom. Although dotted with some perfectly reasonable bits of analysis (for example, how the current consensus about corporate sneakery is a perfect mirror of the previous consensus about corporate innovation), the article as a whole is so riddled with howlers that it's awe-inspiring. We'll have to itemize some of them at a later date, but suffice it to say that it's a masterful apologia for Lewis's erstwhile cheerleading, which contains almost no information whatsoever. This, ladies and gentlemen, is punditry.

Posted by BT at October 31, 2002 11:58 PM
Comments

There ain't no way in gods plastic universe, just none, absolutley zil chance, un-hunh that John Franzen is the new - oh, say, Kurt Kobain. And if Kurt Anderson is a rock star you can just take a circular saw to the top of my head and eat out my brains with a spork. Maybe, just perhaps, writers are the new TweePop stars but no. Nope. Partially this is because if a writer tells you he's a rock star in the Nietzschian sense, he's just broken the rock star code of youngness, dumbness, and full of comeness.

Points about artsy onanism well-taken, tho.

What's also depressing is that all of those blinking writers on the list were white men, and thank goodness rock just isn't like that anymore.

All that said, wait for the next DoS album, prominently featuring the voice of DFW in a song called "Incandenza USA." Definitely DFW is needs some panties thrown in his general direction, and my husband is just the man for the job.

Where's the quiz, Tipper???

Posted by: bootsy on November 1, 2002 10:14 AM