Re: A Proposal

1

Ackerman seems a touch insane

It's part of his charm.


Posted by: Matt F | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 5:32 PM
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I agree, but it might not be the kind of charm you want in a business partner.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 6:00 PM
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I'm in ur metropolitan area, readin ur threads! red-eye was dealable. I raked in the killer jewelry from my family; sister and mom gave me a hugechacedony and diamond ring they bought on the ponte vecchio in florence. you can all see it at unfoggeDCon.

on the downside, everybody in my family/close friends circle who didn't just get busted is apparently all strung out on prescription downs/poppy pod elixers they mix up themselves with dried poppy pods bought on ebay. what the fuck? and why don't I know anyone normal? well, I guess I sort of know Labs.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 6:11 PM
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Well, I'm not normal, but I don't do any controlled substances. If you're ever up in Boston, I can be, if not normal, square. Plus shopping!


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 6:45 PM
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I agree, but it might not be the kind of charm you want in a business partner.

If your business is news, it might be. There's focused crazy and then there's unfocused crazy and Spencer does focused crazy very well. Focused crazy is what gets you stories other people are too lazy/chickenshit/unresourceful to get and what can set you apart.


Posted by: Becks | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 6:48 PM
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6

Yeah sure, all you flophouse people stick together.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 7:03 PM
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Maybe if you were a little bit crazier we could monetize our venture.

Maybe we could send someone from Unfogged to report from Iraq.


Posted by: Becks | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 7:25 PM
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8

Not it.


Posted by: Becks | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 7:25 PM
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9

B-Wo would be good over there. Bring a unique insight into the events I think.


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 7:26 PM
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I don't know Ackerman from Adam. He might be a little unhinged, I sure as hell am in no position to judge, but he's got the stuff, and when did hinges matter anyway?

Reading him gives me a sense of deja vu -- not the content, the personality. The focused rage. I went to school with a bunch of people just like that. Most of them survived. Two Pulitzers so far.


Posted by: Halfway Done | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 7:36 PM
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With all due respect, I recommend against a joint venture. Both are too prolific for a group blog, which I think ideally has 1-2 pieces per day per writer. And if each is trying to establish an identity that extends past the blogosphere, the casual visitor would get frustrated and confused.

Example: This blog, and others, gave ObsWi an reputation that had little to do with hilzoy.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 7:37 PM
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Ackerman is crazy? I think that word does not mean what you think it means.

I was just about to suggest myself as a counterbalance to Yglesias and Ackerman's egregious moderation.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 7:44 PM
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12--

right...for real balance, pair up emerson w/ ackerman, and put yglesias with mcmanus.

balancing the manic with the depressive.

as to your main proposal, ogged--i have no objections to their sharing a mast-head, but i also don't see much synergy in it, either.


Posted by: kid bitzer | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 7:53 PM
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Chalcedony is cool, but diamonds are overrated.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 7:54 PM
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15

a kiss on the hand may be quite continental.


Posted by: kid bitzer | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 7:55 PM
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16

Wherever three or more crazy old men are gathered, there the advice to young bucks will be lame.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 7:56 PM
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16--
believe me, ogged, i know--but young bucks like you and me just seem to *attract* the old crazies.


Posted by: kid bitzer | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 8:04 PM
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'd be different if you guys weren't always hanging around the mineshaft in those tight-fitting jeans...


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 8:06 PM
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I authorize them to use the name "Egregious Moderation" for their webzine, since I have no use for it.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 8:18 PM
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13:I spent a while today googling Gore Vidal. He still thinks it was a mistake for America to have entered WWII. Mainly, I was fondly remembering his early book Messiah, which I read in early high school and I consider one of my formative experiences. Now at Amazon they consider Messiah trenchant and prescient satire, but since Vidal rewrote it as Kalki twenty years later, I am not so certain that he did not consider his worldwide successful suicide cult accurately descriptive of the post-war Zeitgeist, if not quite prescriptive. I know it afforded this alienated youth a Nietschean comfort, and an insight into the human condition not shared again until Pete Hammill's Lemmings.

Did I pass the audition?


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 8:21 PM
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I read Messiah in HS too, Bob. I guess that was where we went bad. I was not aware that Vidal was or would become important; I thought it was pulp fiction.

He also scripted one of the world's most overwritten and overacted movies, "Suddenly Last Summer". He was working from Tennessee Williams' play, so he can't really be blamed.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 8:35 PM
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ogged, I have to say I'm charmed. First Kotsko's love life, now Sausagely's career. Sniff. The care.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 12-27-06 8:41 PM
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23

9: "Attacks against the media in Iraq have increased this week as I blasted a 40-minute long bagpipe solo from the roof of the Palestine Hotel, prompting live-fire responses from insurgents and Iraqi Police alike..."


Posted by: Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 12-28-06 8:02 AM
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23 -- Yes!


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 12-28-06 8:09 AM
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After I realized that we were on constant troll patrol at Crooked Timber, I wanted to start a group blog with Jon E and Bob M, to better advance our anti-troll agenda. But then I realized that John was already at Seeing the Forest, which is a much better crowd than I could ever be a part of, so another dream died...


Posted by: Walt | Link to this comment | 12-28-06 5:08 PM
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26

STF could use some new energy. Something to think about.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12-28-06 7:01 PM
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27

I'm in.


Posted by: Walt | Link to this comment | 12-29-06 9:03 PM
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28

Walt, email me .


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01- 3-07 8:37 PM
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