Actually, I think the author's response at the end is about as mature and diplomatic as anyone could be under those circumstances.
I think she could have answered the questions - just don't take yourself so seriously. Either make a light joke playing off the interviewers joke, and then ferret out the legitimate question, or make a joke of the whole thing. Or answer honestly.
It was a reasonable response, though I think the interview questions were fair too. Shocking memoirs annoy me the same way RP fic does - seems to be relying on other people following social norms that the author is breaking.
The interviewer is an ass (based on past performance), so I don't have any more goodwill for him than I do for AS. I thought this was obnoxious akin to Clint Eastwood at the RNC.
I would have liked haev seen an example of a sext she sent.
I don't have much memory for the interviewer, but super-disliked the author. Which made this pleasing.
I followed the link to the interview Gothamist did when Sohn published her first book, and wow, no wonder she suggested doing that again. The interviewer asked her softball questions that allowed her tell self-satisfied little stories. Puke.
Shocking memoirs annoy me the same way RP fic does
Received Pronunciation? Downton Abbey, that sort of thing?
Real People fanfic. Disturbing, squared.
I don't think it can be libel if it's explicitly identified as fiction, but it does make me queasy. Fanfic makes sense to me -- I don't read it because sorting through for the occasional bit that's competent enough to enjoy is too much work, but I get it -- but RP fanfic seems like some nasty kind of harassment.
neither side could agree on a topic for a post
is a weird construction. Agreement requires two parties- of course "neither side" could agree. "The two sides could not agree on a topic for a post", it should say.
(I don't actually have anything to say about the content and I'm about to go teach a class.)
I also thought "received pronunciation". Come on, no one talks like that!
Do I want to know what "real people fanfic" is? Is this like me writing a short story about my dry cleaner's sex life?
The guy behind the Comics Curmudgeon has started a presidential slash site. Maybe that's it.
I once read some of a website devoted to Clay Aiken fanfic. It was women writing about their beautiful romance with and ultimate marriage to super-straight-totally-into-laydeez Clay Aiken. There was lots of waiting til marriage.
Someone linked once to a piece of fanfic about Jon Stewart. It wasn't particularly graphic or anything, but man, if people were writing things like that about me I'd never get a good night's sleep again.
the RPfic I've read that wasn't historical fiction made me feel Puritanical; I disapproved of the pleasure it seemed to give the author as much as of the libels committed against the bears.
Answering, e.g., the Problem of Susan, is wonderful; pastiche juvenilia seems like necessary practice; fanfic supports both of these; but there's a lot of dross around it.
There's a Wikipedia article with far too much information.
now putting double-sided tape on my ";" key. perhaps that will help me use it less.
"As you know, I was raised by radical Stalinists in Park Slope in the 1980s."
I think I sprained something by rolling my eyes too hard.
re: 23
I assumed that quote was a joke, or at least a deliberate piece of knowing wankery.
24: Both interpretations are eyeroll-tastic.
I dunno, interviewer is probably an asshole, but the previously linked piece was one of the more absurdly banal things I've ever read. You put shit like that out on the interwebs, you've got to expect that someone's going to call your bluff.
Real People fanfic
So, like, The Social Network?
The Social Network was pretty clearly defamatory. But was also a pretty good movie.
et tu, Unfogged? There's no shortage of media outlets for misbehaving New Yorkers and the snark they inspire. Who cares?
Don't know any of Jake Dobkin's work, but Amy Sohn's original piece was vile, and this is exactly the kind of savage head-kicking it deserves. And in the earlier interview she displays self-absorption that probably merits institutionalization. If you're gonna boast about your 'beege prowess', you should expect blowback.
30: We've obsessively analyzed Amy Sohn before.
There's lots of forums for lots of stuff.
I've never thought of "beege" spelled that way, but it's really good. Today I found myself saying "heyjay" for handjob and it seemed to communicate what I intended it to.
35: Kind of dying to know the social context in which 'handjob' would be forbidden but 'heyjay' would be a-ok. Good word, but I doubt if I could pull it off without laughing. (Or without an involuntary alien-hand-syndrome-like motion.)
Easier to yell from a car window?
"Now, does anyone have any questions for the Vice President?"
"Heyjeyhey": the catchphrase of the erotic Fat Albert cosplay enthusiast.
I'm choosing to assume 40's referent is singular because there can be only one, but of course I know I'm wrong.
The context was having lunch with two colleagues at the student dining hall, surrounded by our students, and trying to figure out whether the distinction between and second and third base is determined by above/below the belt, as according to Colleague 1, or whether manual/oral, as according to Colleague 2.
In other news, the job I am most qualified to apply for in every way this year (of shockingly few) is currently held by the last person I tried to date (four years ago, and it was bad enough I haven't tried again), the person he was cheating on with me (without my knowledge), and another person who despised me in school for some reason I never figured out, unrelated to the ex and his gf. Should I apply, or is it a rat's nest? Taken individually, none of these would be so bad, but it sort of feels like tossing a bomb on myself.
I can't really imagine a lunch with my colleagues going in that direction.
45: You need to get some better colleagues.
Seriously. Lunch on Monday with a different colleague at the student dining hall was way weirder, and almost ended in tears. We do LUNCH here.
44: No, sorry -- ex is in the position, and the others are probably on the committee in that same department.
ex is in the position, and the others are probably on the committee in that same department.
So they do all hold it, but in different senses.
I guess I did call a colleague a pervert at dinner tonight, but in context that was about physics, not sex.
Perhaps you should apply. You may never have another chance to write a cover letter like this.
50: That was my Monday's lunch!
51: I hadn't considered attacking the problem head-on. Hm.
attacking the problem head-on.
SO HAT SIE GESAGT!!!
It doesn't really work as well in German, does it?
But at first I was reading it as "that's what you said".
But at first I was reading it as "that's what you said".
That would have been "So haben Sie gesagt". Sure, in all caps you can't distinguish the "sie" from the "Sie", but the verb, man! The verb!
Right, that whole grammar thing. I should probably limit my complaining to languages I actually understand. But then where would we be?
When I went on Birthright some of the people in our group made "Zeh mah shehi amra!" into a running joke. The Israelis who had provided the initial translation were admirably patient with the whole thing.
You know, I didn't actually see any obvious hits for "so hat sie gesagt" on the German-language youtube. And some poking around suggests that it's used, if at all, as an Anglicism rather than auf deutsch--and I see, looking at Amazon.de, that only the first season of the American version of The Office has been released on DVD, and only last year, so that may explain it. The Office is what popularized it here in the last few years, no? (Though the internet tells me that it featured in one of the Wayne's World movies, too.)
I don't really associate the phrase with any particular pop-culture inspiration, though I'm sure that's how it was originally popularized. And yeah, I think it's definitely still almost exclusively an Anglophone thing. The aforementioned Israelis were totally mystified by it.
Has the New Yorker piece on ev psych already been discussed? It's like the article was ripped from the front page of an eclectic web magazine.
Not AFAIK, but I haven't been reading very many of the threads lately.
69: that's what I thought. Well, someone should blog it. The essay really does read like it was jointly written by Beefo Meaty, ttaM, LB, and a few other folks around here.
Huh. Is it online, or do they keep it paywalled?