Friday, July 18, 2008

Morons Mutual Mentally Masturbating... My, My, My.

Some ninny, via/h/t Amber, reveals the seamy underside of the NYC literary/media scene. Some random thoughts:

  1. I refuse to believe that a n+1 party could be that good. I went to a n+1 party in San Francisco. Admittedly, it was a more formal/official/public thing. But still, various of the n+1 people were there. And it was utterly hopeless. (Ben will vouch for me -- he was there too.) Everyone and everything was painfully boring, and it was filled with 20-something aspiring writers. Dorothy Parker would cry in shame if the snarkerati of her time threw any kind of event like that.

  2. But n+1 is a frightfully good magazine nonetheless.

  3. According to the poor disillusioned NYU student
    Everything I had begun to suspect — that n+1 was a place where old guys who never got laid in high school finally have their pick of the fine young crop — felt wholly true in those moments leading up to entering Sebastian's house.

    That's revealing. She doesn't seem to be offended at the idea that women would be forced to trade sexuality for status. Rather, she seems to be offended that it's a different kind of status. There's something almost wrong about the "old guys who never got laid in high school" getting "their pick of the fine young crop," rather than the usual football-player types. Frankly, if we must objectify women to the point that someone is getting his "pick of the fine young crop," then I'd rather it be the intellectuals (or pseudo-intellectuals: she can't seem to decide).

  4. I agree with Amber completely: this kid is a truly horrible writer. That's ok. He's allowed to be a horrible writer. He's 17. But why on earth are publishers knocking on his door? It goes to show that media fame is, as I've said before, essentially random and full of vicious circles. I made that post only half-seriously, but perhaps it should have been 3/4 serious or more.

  5. I must be getting old. Because I'm starting to think things like "of course these people are disasters: look how young they are!" I'm told that the 17-20 age range is the New Hot Time for All The Cool Things, if one is rich and in NYC or LA. What a horrible idea. I spent most of that period in law school, and thank heavens -- otherwise I might have been at some ghastly coke party talking about Gaddis. Oh. Wait. Nope. Not rich. Oh darn.

  6. I can't bear William Gaddis. I got about five pages into A Frolic of His Own before collapsing into despair and utter boredom.

  7. I've also never been invited to a party at which there was cocaine. I no longer feel like I've missed out because of that.



This definitely calls for a cross-post.