Apparently, Stephen Beachy has time on his hands:

I hate to respond to this because it's so absurd, but I've been asked about it more than once, so here goes:

In order for JT to be a hoax, he would have had to fool Vanity Fair (the U.S. and British versions), the New York Times, BlackBook, Interview, Paper, Index, I-D, Spin, 7 X 7, Viking Press, Bloomsbury Press, Last Gasp Books, Zoetrope, Dave Eggers, Vendela Vida, Bono, Zadie Smith, Madonna, Tom Waits, Lou Reed, Arthur Bradford, Mary Karr, Carrie Fisher, Yoko Ono, Jerry Harrison and, oh yeah, my mom and me, among others. (Maybe you can fool Madonna, but you can't fool my mom.)

Also, he would have to had raise several thousand dollars over the years for Dr. Terrence Owens' Mc Auley Institute at St. Mary's Hospital, *spontaneously and for no apparent reason.*

And anyone who knows JT well knows he could never pull off a hoax. He's erudite and silly and probably a genius, but I once spent five minutes on the phone with him while he looked for stamps. He could never perpetuate fraud--not only because he's totally moral--but because he's too unorganized:

Who is JT LeRoy? The True Identity of a Great Literary Hustler

A tiny green man gave me a blintz one time:

My friend's story, "The Day the Aliens Brought Pancakes", was selected as a "Notable Story of 2004" in the new "Best American Nonrequired Reading 2005". All hail, Mr. Spitznagel:

monkeybicycle.net

Yay, Jay Tay!

My friend, the finest writer and most sartorially adept individual to come out of West Virginia, has another essay in the New York Times:

By JT LeRoy
Published: September 25, 2005

"Cheese! It's hailing cheese!" We cover our heads. Our 8-year-old, Thor, cowers beneath us - his parents, Astor and Speedie, and me, a surrogate brother, sister, wannabe parent - as we form a shield between him and the miniature cubes pounding down on us. This is France, so it was only a matter of time till the cheese blasted us; we didn't expect it at the Tour de France, though.

We arrived two days before the tour's end. It was all anyone talked about as soon as we opened our mouths and revealed our furtive identities as Americans, noticeably scarce in Paris right then. A man in the lobby of our hotel, the Monna Lisa - situated two blocks from the Champs-Elysï¿1⁄2es, where the tour would wind up - informed me as I was struggling with a map that I was there for the tour: "Ah, you are here to see your Lance win!"

"Well, we came to go to Euro Disney."

His face crumpled, he folded his paper and, in an unyielding tone, rectified my faux pas: "You mean to say, 'Disneyland Paris!'"

By the threat in his tone, I instantly capitulated. "Yes, uh, Eur - Paris of Disney. What you said." After this happened a bazillion other times, I finally got the drift that the antipathy toward outfitting Disney with the "Euro" prefix could have something to do with its being the equivalent of "Dollar Disney." I started pronouncing it "Disneyland Paris" and received no more looks of vile disgust. Well, at least not for that.

More:
Uncle Walt, Parlez-Vous Fran?ais? - New York Times

We field a hell of a rugby team, too:

Among the Believers - New York Times

Nada Surfin':

I've been listening to the promo ceaselessly since I received it in June. If Nada Surf's "The Weight is a Gift" doesn't become one of your favorite discs of 2005, well, I don't want to know you:

The Weight is a Gift by Nada Surf - New York Fall Music Preview 2005

The best summation I've read so far:

From today's New York Times:

Macabre Reminder: The Corpse on Union Street - New York Times

Macabre Reminder: The Corpse on Union Street

By DAN BARRY
Published: September 8, 2005

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 7 - In the downtown business district here, on a dry stretch of Union Street, past the Omni Bank automated teller machine, across from a parking garage offering "early bird" rates: a corpse. Its feet jut from a damp blue tarp. Its knees rise in rigor mortis.

The sight of corpses has become almost common on the mostly abandoned streets of New Orleans, as rescue and evacuation operations have taken priority over removing the dead.

Six National Guardsmen walked up to it on Tuesday afternoon and two blessed themselves with the sign of the cross. One soldier took a parting snapshot like some visiting conventioneer, and they walked away. New Orleans, September 2005.

Hours passed, the dusk of curfew crept, the body remained. A Louisiana state trooper around the corner knew all about it: murder victim, bludgeoned, one of several in that area. The police marked it with traffic cones maybe four days ago, he said, and then he joked that if you wanted to kill someone here, this was a good time.

Night came, then this morning, then noon, and another sun beat down on a dead son of the Crescent City.

That a corpse lies on Union Street may not shock; in the wake of last week's hurricane, there are surely hundreds, probably thousands. What is remarkable is that on a downtown street in a major American city, a corpse can decompose for days, like carrion, and that is acceptable.

Welcome to New Orleans in the post-apocalypse, half baked and half deluged: pestilent, eerie, unnaturally quiet.

Scraggly residents emerge from waterlogged wood to say strange things, and then return into the rot. Cars drive the wrong way on the Interstate and no one cares. Fires burn, dogs scavenge, and old signs from les bons temps have been replaced with hand-scrawled threats that looters will be shot dead.

The incomprehensible has become so routine here that it tends to lull you into acceptance. On Sunday, for example, several soldiers on Jefferson Highway had guns aimed at the heads of several prostrate men suspected of breaking into an electronics store.

A car pulled right up to this tense scene and the driver leaned out his window to ask a soldier a question: "Hey, how do you get to the interstate?"

Maybe the slow acquiescence to the ghastly here - not in Baghdad, not in Rwanda, here - is rooted in the intensive news coverage of the hurricane's aftermath: floating bodies and obliterated towns equal old news. Maybe the concerns of the living far outweigh the dignity of a corpse on Union Street. Or maybe the nation is numb with post-traumatic shock.

Wandering New Orleans this week, away from news conferences and search-and-rescue squads, has granted haunting glimpses of the past, present and future, with the rare comfort found in, say, the white sheet that flaps, not in surrender but as a vow, at the corner of Poydras Street and St. Charles Avenue.

"We Shall Survive," it says, as though wishing past the battalions of bulldozers that will one day come to knock down water-corrupted neighborhoods and rearrange the Louisiana mud for the infrastructure of an altogether different New Orleans.

Here, then, the New Orleans of today, where open fire hydrants gush the last thing needed on these streets; where one of the many gag-inducing smells - that of rancid meat - is better than MapQuest in pinpointing the presence of a market; and where images of irony beg to be noticed.

The Mardi Gras beads imbedded in mud by a soldier's boot print. The "take-away" signs outside restaurants taken away. The corner kiosk shouting the Aug. 28 headline of New Orleans's Times-Picayune: "Katrina Takes Aim."

Rush hour in downtown now means pickups carrying gun-carrying men in sunglasses, S.U.V.'s loaded with out-of-town reporters hungry for action, and the occasional tank. About the only ones commuting by bus are dull-eyed suspects shuffling two-by-two from the bus-and-train terminal, which is now a makeshift jail.

Maybe some of them had helped to kick in the portal to the Williams Super Market in the once-desirable Garden District. And who could blame them if all they wanted was food in those first desperate days? The interlopers took the water, beer, cigarettes and snack food. They did not take the wine or the New Orleans postcards.

On the other side of downtown across Canal Street in the French Quarter, the most raucous and most unreal of American avenues is now little more than an empty alley with balconies.

The absence of sweetly blown jazz, of someone cooing "ma chère," of men sporting convention nametags and emitting forced guffaws - the absence of us - assaults the senses more than any smell.

Past the famous Cafe du Monde, where a slight breeze twirls the overhead fans for no one, past the statue of Joan of Arc gleaming gold, a man emerges from nothing on Royal Street. He is asked, "Where's St. Bernard Avenue?"

"Where's the ice?" he asks in return, eyes narrowed in menace. "Where's the ice? St. Bernard's is that way, but where's the ice?"

In Bywater and the surrounding neighborhoods, the severely damaged streets bear the names of saints who could not protect them. Whatever nature spared, human nature stepped up to provide a kind of democracy in destruction.

At the Whitney National Bank on St. Claude Avenue, diamond-like bits of glass spill from the crushed door, offering a view of the complementary coffee table. A large woman named Phoebe Au - "Pronounced 'Awe,' " she says - materializes to report that men had smashed it in with a truck. She fades into the neighborhood's broken brick, and a thin woman named Toni Miller materializes to correct the record.

"They used sledgehammers," she said.

Farther down St. Claude Avenue, where tanks rumble past a smoldering building, the roads are cluttered with vandalized city buses. The city parked them on the riverbank for the hurricane, after which some hoods took them for fare-free joy rides through lawless streets, and then discarded them.

On Clouet Street, where a days-old fire continues to burn where a warehouse once stood, a man on a bicycle wheels up through the smoke to introduce himself as Strangebone. The nights without power or water have been tough, especially since the police took away the gun he was carrying - "They beat me and threatened to kill me," he says - but there are benefits to this new world.

"You're able to see the stars," he says. "It's wonderful."

Today, law enforcement troops began lending muscle to Mayor C. Ray Nagin's vow to evacuate by force any residents too attached to their pieces of the toxic metropolis. They searched the streets for the likes of Strangebone, and that woman whose name sounds like Awe.

Meanwhile, back downtown, the shadows of another evening crept like spilled black water over someone's corpse.

The best part is that it's well-deserved:

Nothing Is Certain but Death and Taxis - New York Times

Nothing Is Certain but Death and Taxis

By KELEFA SANNEH
Published: August 28, 2005

BEN GIBBARD, the lead singer and main songwriter for Death Cab for Cutie, has had a wildly eventful few years. His band's sweet, melancholy songs have helped a generation of listeners rediscover the joys of heartfelt balladry. And along the way, Mr. Gibbard has gone from semi-obscure singer to unlikely heartthrob. Who could have predicted that someone like him would wind up dominating the gossip columns? And who could have foreseen the sold-out stadium concerts, the punch-up with a paparazzo, the fruitful marriage to Gwyneth Paltrow?

O.K., strike that last bit: I think I'm getting Mr. Gibbard mixed up with that guy from Coldplay. But it's a surprisingly easy mistake to make. Both of them know their way around grand, sighing love songs. And while Mr. Gibbard isn't quite a mainstream rock star yet, he's surprisingly close. The last Death Cab for Cutie album, "Transatlanticism" (Barsuk), has sold more than 300,000 copies since its release in 2003. And with an electronic side project called the Postal Service, Mr. Gibbard released another 2003 album, "Give Up" (Sub Pop); it was a surprise indie smash, selling more than 600,000 copies.

On Tuesday, Death Cab for Cutie is to release "Plans" (Atlantic), its first major-label album, which is all but assured to be its best-selling one so far. In an earlier era, indie-rock fans might have worried about the new record deal and the newfound popularity, but Death Cab's evolution into a pop-chart-ready band has been steady and relatively uncontroversial. Whereas older indie-rock groups sometimes struggled furiously against the current of listener demand, this one has found a graceful way to swim with it.

"Plans" also represents a challenge for the mainstream music industry. Modest Mouse proved that indie-rock bands (you don't necessarily outgrow the genre when you outgrow your record label) could earn a platinum plaque, and Bright Eyes proved that an indie-rock act could make its debut in the Top 10. Now the executives at Atlantic Records have a chance to raise the bar again, although no one knows how high. Could Death Cab be the first of these bands to break into the Top 5? The first to go double-platinum? The first to score a remix from Kanye West? (A Gibbard can dream, can't he?)

Ever since Death Cab's 1999 debut album, "Something About Airplanes," this Bellingham, Wash., band has been finding ways to record music that is pretty but not fussy. The members first perfected their approach on "We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes" (Barsuk), an astonishing CD full of hard songs that sounded soft. Mr. Gibbard sang,
When your apologies fail to ring true
So slick with that sarcastic slew
Of phrases like, 'I thought you knew'
While keeping me in hot pursuit

but the words came out not as angry accusations but as one long, gentle sigh.

After "The Photo Album" (Barsuk), from 2001, the band outdid itself with "Transatlanticism," which showed off Mr. Gibbard's crystalline voice and also the crystalline production of the guitarist, Chris Walla. He stripped away almost all the noise and fuzz, letting listeners concentrate on intoxicating little details, like the owlish hoots hidden in the background of a song called "Lightness."

With "Translatlanticism," Mr. Gibbard also found a simpler and more suspenseful way to write songs. Sometimes he began with a scientific observation ("And when I see you, I really see you upside down/ But my brain knows better, it picks you up and turns you around") and worked his way toward an unadorned confession ("I know it's too late/ And I should have given you a reason to stay"). Songs from the album found their way to soundtracks, including that the of TV show "The OC." The sugary songs of the Postal Service became sleeper hits, too, and Mr. Gibbard found himself the figurehead of an unexpected indie-rock boom.

Whatever the cause, it wasn't Mr. Gibbard's rock-star swagger. If anything, his success seems like a byproduct of his humility. A prouder band might find defiant ways to alienate newcomers, and to keep longtime fans at arm's length. But Death Cab excels at giving listeners what they want: wistful, neatly written indie-rock ballads. Instead of insisting that we humor them (like noisier, pricklier indie bands of a decade ago), Death Cab has agreed to humor us, instead; like the Shins and Rilo Kiley, Death Cab has figured out that there's nothing wrong with being eager to please.

Now comes "Plans," which is fuller than "Transatlanticism" but otherwise quite similar. There are delicious (and, still, melancholy) songs that unfold like the last batch. "What Sarah Said" begins with some rolling keyboard chords (come to think of it, they don't sound wholly unlike something Ms. Paltrow's husband might play), and some opening remarks: "And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time." (It's the closest Mr. Gibbard comes to singing the title.) By song's end, the lyrics have grown shiveringly direct: "I'm thinking of what Sarah said/ That love is watching someone die/ So who's gonna watch you die?" These are cruel words, but Mr. Gibbard sings them as if he really wants to know.

This album feels a bit more premeditated, a bit more familiar, than "Transatlanticism." (In fact, the new album ends with a throwback: "Stable Song" is a rearrangement of "Stability," which was released on an EP in 2002..) But it's a triumph all the same, with semisweet refrains that glide into your brain and refuse to leave; millions of Coldplay fans should give this CD a chance. In "I Will Follow You Into the Dark," which seems destined to become one of the album's most beloved songs, there is only an acoustic guitar to accompany Mr. Gibbard's memorable promise of endless love: "If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks/ Then I'll follow you into the dark." On this album, couples don't just part, they dearly depart.

Mr. Gibbard's lyrics have changed subtly over the years. The early albums were full of odes sung by lovers left behind. In one old song, "Company Calls Epilogue," Mr. Gibbard evoked an ex's wedding: "You were the one/ But I can't spit it out when the date's been set." Now he's as likely to be the leaver as the left. "Someday You Will Be Loved" offers cold comfort to an ex: "The memories of me will seem more like bad dreams/ Just a series of blurs like I never occurred."

On the album's first single, "Soul Meets Body," Mr. Gibbard delivers a soothing pick-up line. "You're the only song I want to hear," he sings, "A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere."

That phrase sums up what Death Cab for Cutie promises its listeners. Most bands, of course, promise far more. But it's worth remembering, too, that almost all of them wind up delivering far less.

No, not because we're friends:

A smart, funny essay from one of my favorite writers:

June 5, 2002 | CANOGA PARK, Calif. -- Canoga Park is a rarely visited graveyard where celebrity pool cleaners go to die. It's less a suburban oasis than an apocalyptic dustbowl, an unfathomably ugly San Fernando Valley sprawl of strip malls, factories and cul-de-sacs that can only boast affordable housing and a lower crime rate than Los Angeles. During the summer, the valley is always at least 10 degrees hotter, and exponentially more humid, than anywhere else in Southern California. From the moment you cross the border, it feels like you've ventured inside the mouth of a dog.

More:

Salon.com Sex | Fast forward

Or perhaps, make out with you:

If you speak German and translate the following article for me, I'll be your best friend:

BANDS Magazine - V.A. - Future Soundtrack Of America (Barsuk/RecRec)

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Trend-bucking Paste now trendy magazine":

Trend-bucking Paste now trendy magazine | AccessAtlanta

Trend-bucking Paste now trendy magazine

By SONIA MURRAY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/14/2005

Back in college, the founders of Paste magazine surely couldn't have imagined 9-to-5 ever being this much fun.

Sipping free liquor before noon, brought in by a 3 Vodka representative who wants to discuss advertising and potential sponsorships.

What differentiates Paste from the No. 1 magazine on the Tribune's list, music magazine Blender, as well as mainstays such as Rolling Stone and Spin, is that you can pretty much bet that no matter how much pop superstar Britney Spears agrees to bare, she will never be on its cover.

Opening boxes of complimentary CDs every day.

Gorging on chips, queso and a seemingly endless supply of fish tacos during two-hour lunches.

But don't be misled — these are working lunches.

Today, in a six-room Decatur office that, with its walls lined with shelves of CDs and music posters, feels a little like a dorm room, eight music and movie lovers are eating and holding energetic talks about the best ways to share their favorite new finds with the world.

Editor Josh Jackson points out that there hasn't been a woman on the cover in a while.

Some names are tossed out: India Arie. Lizz Wright. Fiona Apple.

"Yeaah," says assistant editor Steve LaBate. "With [Apple's] album that's not coming out floating around, that would be unexpected."

"And with her being out of the spotlight," Jackson adds, "and most of all, good ."

These are men who take their roles as tastemakers seriously.

Think of Paste magazine as a dream come true for that high school classmate who used to make mixtapes for his friends. In fact, partners Jackson, Nick Purdy and Joe Kirk were those guys, spreading mixtapes around their high schools in Dunwoody, Norcross and Naples, Fla. Their fourth partner, Tim Porter, says he was more of a tape and CD loaner at his high school in Jackson.

Seven years ago, Purdy, Jackson and a friend created pastemusic.com, an online retailer of indie music. In July 2002, Jackson, Purdy and Porter, a classmate of Jackson's at UGA, launched Paste magazine as a quarterly with 600 subscribers, most of them Web site customers. (Kirk, who had been mastering the magazine's free CD samplers, was brought in as a partner shortly afterward.) By October 2003, Paste had grown so much that it became a bimonthly.

And with the release of its August/September issue, Paste got even bigger, more than doubling its print run to 225,000 thanks to a recent buyout of the rock music magazine Tracks.

But its founders' influence extends beyond its subscription base. Every Tuesday at 1:54 p.m., either Jackson or Purdy — the two main faces of the magazine and friends since they met at a Presbyterian church youth group 18 years ago — share their interests with the hundreds of thousands tuned in to "CNN Headline News."

And 37 independent record stores in 24 states feature Paste Recommends listening stations programmed by the magazine's 19-member staff.

Those listening stations present certain challenges, though, which have the staff at the lunch meeting concerned.

"So what are we going to do when our reviewer gives one-and-a-half stars to something on the Paste Recommends station, or the sampler?" LaBate asks.

(The CDs for the stations and the songs for the samplers are chosen before staff and freelance critics review albums.)

"Everything is not always going to line up," Purdy answers. "What we have to do with the sampler is fill it with the 22 songs we love. And if there are one or two things in editorial that conflict with that, hey, we can still stand by the fact that the 22 songs on the sampler we love!"

Their passion is getting them noticed.

In June, the Chicago Tribune named Paste one of the 50 best magazines, placing it at No. 21 — six places ahead of the British music magazine Mojo, which Paste aspires to emulate.

What differentiates Paste from the No. 1 magazine on the Tribune's list, music magazine Blender, as well as mainstays such as Rolling Stone and Spin, is that you can pretty much bet that no matter how much pop superstar Britney Spears agrees to bare, she will never be on its cover.

"We live and die by our tagline — 'Signs of Life in Music, Film and Culture,' " explains Purdy, far and away the most matter-of-fact of the generally easygoing foursome.

The staff added "film" to the tagline when its December/January 2004 issue hit stands with director Wes Anderson ("Rushmore," "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou") on the cover.

"Film has always been a component of the magazine," Purdy says. "We've increased our emphasis on it in the last year. But in the future the magazine, ultimately, will be seen as an entertainment magazine."

It is Paste's mission, says Kirk, to help people find art that has value and to help encourage its development.

"Paste finds the edgy, really provocative, forward-thinking, progressive musicians," says Lindsey Pearl of Press Here Publicity, whose clients (danceable rock band Franz Ferdinand, beloved indie wordsmith Bright Eyes) have been given major feature treatment in Paste. "I think as music diversifies more and more, it's important to have publications that really do honor the music itself and are not paying attention to politics, fashion and culture."

Dave Siff, a bassist in a couple of local bands and the "Headline News" executive producer who brought the Paste guys to CNN, says the look and content of the magazine caught his eye.

"I was told by somebody, like, 'Hey, check out this local music magazine.' And I'm thinking to myself, Stomp and Stammer. Not that there's anything wrong with Stomp and Stammer. But I just thought, like [Stomp], it was gonna be paper, thin, that kind of thing. And the first time I got my hands on Paste I was literally blown away. Mouth agape."

Porter came up with the name Paste when some of the partners were sitting around one day trying to come up with a good metaphor for connection.

"We really feel music is not inert," Purdy says. "It has emotional, spiritual, inspiring-type power over people. It's not something that's just food that goes in your body and out. It affects you. So that's why we're toying around with the idea of a connection. Paste is a metaphor for connection."

With that kind of purpose and focus from its start, it's no wonder they're taking some abuse from their readers for giving the ever-writhing pop star Shakira a positive, full-page review. Or — gasp! — actually liking mainstream favorite Coldplay's latest CD, "X & Y."

After all, the Tribune deemed Paste "hip without sacrificing credibility on the altar of corporately deemed 'cool.' "

Pardon Kirk as he snickers a bit.

"We're often seen as having a bias toward artists nobody ever heard of before, but that's mostly because other people aren't paying attention to artists nobody's heard of," he says with a laugh. "And yeah, we probably are more likely to help people discover the next little thing, but we kind of really don't care. If it's good, it's good. You can't please everybody."

If there has been one consistent knock against Paste, it's that it hasn't seemed to have found many "signs of life" in the work blacks, Latinos and other people of color are creating.

Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, of the hip-hop band the Roots, is the only black person to have a Paste cover. "And I can see where that could be perceived as a plus and a minus," Thompson says.

Purdy doesn't dodge the issue.

"Absolutely we could and should be stronger there," he says. "And slowly and surely, we are putting our money where our mouth is. We're working on a big feature on [black Atlanta singer-songwriter] India Arie. The whole neo-soul thing seems to be a place where folks in our audience — who, let's just say, don't listen to a lot of music made by black people — can start."

The Paste guys know tastes can be changed.

After all, Purdy admits that the mixtapes they made back in high school included songs like DeBarge's "Rhythm of the Night."

Little chance of such dopey pop seeing daylight on a future Paste sampler.

Next week? That I'm actually a guy:

Last week, a message boarder said that I was Jewish. This week, I'm listed as a poet. (See below.) Anyhow, if you're in the Bay Area on Thursday, drop by Pegasus Books in Berkeley for Cranky's first out-of-state reading:

Events

Oh, *that* guy again:

My Paste Magazine profile on the LWs' JR is online now:

Paste Magazine :: Feature :: The Long Winters :: Seasons Changing (Page 1)

From today's New York Times: "Sometimes Snarkiness is Preferable to Sincerity"

Sometimes Snarkiness Is Preferable to Sincerity - New York Times

I'm glad the Dorothy Parker bit got singled out because it's one of my favorite parts. Mr. Sanneh quotes me accurately, though--in context--it's obvious that I'm not the posterchild for tender-hearted emo sincerity. Whatever. My first piece for The Believer is referenced in the New York Times and JR gets well-deserved props, too. Nice.

June 23, 2005
Sometimes Snarkiness Is Preferable to Sincerity
By KELEFA SANNEH

One of the funniest and meanest music-criticism blogs publishes no original music criticism at all. It's called The Shins Will Change Your Life, online at indierock4eva.blogspot.com, and it compiles excerpts from breathless or fawning articles about indie-rock albums and musicians.
One writer in the site's crosshairs promises that after hearing the new album by the singer-songwriter Maria Taylor, "you'll soon be wondering how you've lived so long without having these songs in your life." Another declares that the new Art Brut album is "as clear as crystal a piece of untainted genius." And a third notes that "No Wow," by the Kills, is "a brutal record that changes you the same way prison changes a man." No extra commentary is provided, and none is necessary; the site's scathing sarcasm goes entirely unstated.

The Shins Will Change Your Life reads like a delayed reaction to the great snark debate of 2003, begun in the pages of the literary magazine The Believer and continued, for a few months, in the Snarkwatch section of the magazine's Web site, believermag.com. Heidi Julavits, an editor of The Believer, used the term snark to refer to the "hostile, knowing, bitter tone of contempt" that she often noticed in book reviews, including some that have been published in The New York Times Book Review. (The essay is online at believermag.com/issues/march_2003/julavits.php.) And the Snarkwatch site did the opposite of what the Shins site does now: instead of snarkily mocking music critics for their overwritten encomiums, it took book critics to task for "needlessly unpleasant" or unfair reviews.
It makes a certain sort of sense, then, that the editors of The Believer have just given the anonymous Shins blogger a big, fat new target. The magazine's new issue is its annual music issue, featuring 88 pages of articles ("Incl. non-music essay on George Plimpton," as the cover promises, or perhaps warns) and one CD full of musicians covering songs by their peers; almost all of these cover versions are previously unreleased.

The Believer prides itself on being omnivorous, and usually for good reason. The editors love to give the essays long subtitles followed by even longer lists of the subjects discussed. In the next issue, due out later this summer, the magazine sort of promises ("Not all contents are guaranteed; replacements will be satisfying") to print an article entitled "Ignatius Donnelly, Prince of Cranks: How a nineteenth-century Minnesotan's catastrophic imagination predicted the Internet, chemical warfare and demon airships." This is a magazine that aims to show readers a bigger, weirder world.

That's why it's so puzzling to find, for the second year, that The Believer's music issue contains almost nothing outside the alt-rock world. The five musicians interviewed offer five different flavors of alternative: the post-punk singer Karen O, from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs; the puckish singer Beck; the sisters, ages 11 and 13, who make up Smoosh; the singer-songwriter Aimee Mann; and the indie-rock singer John Roderick of the Long Winters.

The interviews are long and appealingly casual, and the best are full of unexpected little anecdotes and asides, as when Mr. Roderick's interviewer compares some Long Winters lyrics to Dorothy Parker's writing. The response is a half-serious warning: "Be careful not to compliment me too much, because I'm apt to say, 'Don't you think my last quip was rather like Dorothy Parker?' " But the relentless focus on alternative rock is not only strange but also slightly depressing. What fun is it to explore a musical world that seems so small?

The CD is similarly frustrating, not least because there's much to recommend it. Many music issues come with freebie sampler CD's that are little more than record-company-sponsored promotional tools. But this one has new recordings, some of them great (like Spoon's version of "Decora" by Yo La Tengo) and some not so great (like Devendra Banhart's rather graceless reading of "Fistful of Love" by Antony and the Johnsons).

Again, the problem is the limited focus. The CD is accompanied by an essay that begins, puckishly, with an ultra-condensed history of songwriting: "The oldest recorded song that we know of was etched on clay tablets in western Syria 3,400 years ago." The essay leaves readers free to imagine that the CD is a wide-ranging collection of contemporary songs, even though it's mainly devoted to the work of a small cohort of indie-rockers.

Maybe it's unfair to judge a magazine by its music issue. The style magazine Nylon just published its annual music issue, too, and it's full of stylishly disheveled bands so similar-looking that they could probably trade members without anyone's noticing. This is a small world that's small on purpose; the little details (like the hilarious and quite lovely Will Sanders photograph of the teenage Nashville punk band Be Your Own Pet, half-hidden behind a blossoming tree) more than make up for the lack of range.

If The Believer's music issue is more problematic, that's because it's also more neutral. In an effort to stamp out snark, the editors also seem to have stamped out skepticism, and so the magazine takes it for granted that indie-rockers are the most important musicians on the planet: the harpist and songwriter Joanna Newsom, for example, taps into "a deep, universal pain." (Might those words appear on a certain blog sometime soon?)

There is scarcely any mention of the kind of music left out. Mainstream pop music is mainly off-limits, although Rick Moody makes a grudging confession: "I like pop songs, too, of course, in reasonable doses." (Later, he takes a swipe at "the bland affirmations of the contemporary 'country' radio format.") And black and Latin music is almost entirely absent. At one point, Mr. Roderick claims that "indie-rock culture is the real ghetto of people who have convinced themselves that they're too sensitive to be yelled at or to yell." The interviewer responds with what might be The Believer's unofficial credo: "When it's genuine, though, it's different."

Compared with the ostentatious sincerity of The Believer's music issue, a site like Shins probably seems like an exercise in bad faith, a place where writers are pilloried for daring to be enthusiastic. But while Shins provides plenty of cheap laughs, it also hints at the prejudices that usually go unexamined in music writing, assumptions about what smart or genuine or good or life-saving music should sound like, and about who should be making it. Sure, indie-rock fans and musicians have plenty of reasons to be glad that The Believer throws such an entertaining party every year. But they - and others - might also pause to wonder who's not invited, and why.

Because it's all fun and games until someone kills a sibling:

My one-sentence story for Monkey Bicycle is here:

monkeybicycle.net

Relax--you should see what he writes about me.

"Darling, darling, darling/I can't wait to see you/in the flesh..."--Blondie

I read my short story, "A Young Irene Dunne, Maybe", at the Third Place Books in Ravenna on Friday night. Details:

The Seattle Times: Entertainment & the Arts

NWsource: Event details - "Cranky" Contributors Read

Calendar of Events - Ravenna Third Place

Because who *doesn't* like reading about illness?

The CFIDS Association of America asked me to tell part of my story. That's Ms. Posterchild to you, bitches:

CFIDS

Get your ass to a newsstand:

It's here!

The Believer - Interview with John Roderick

Of course, nothing compares to the upcoming June music issue:

The Believer is nominated for a National Magazine Award in the category of General Excellence. Yea!

Winners and Finalists

My family has been in a similar situation and...

...we've debated whether the Schiavo family is well-intentioned but misguided, or selfish and cruel. Andrew Leonard's interview with the Rev. John Paris, Professor of Bioethics at Boston College, offers an insightful look at a complex case. From today's Salon:

Salon.com News | "This has nothing to do with the sanctity of life"

By Andrew Leonard

March 22, 2005 | The decision on whether to allow Terri Schiavo to die has sparked endless controversy over what is legal and ethical when patients are unable to make their own wishes. One observer who brings both legal and moral authority to the debate is the Rev. John Paris, the Walsh Professor of Bioethics at Boston College.

Paris has served as an expert witness on numerous cases involving patients who were being kept alive by artificial means. He is equally capable of discussing the legal details of the Schiavo case and the Catholic Church's view of it. According to Paris, every relevant legal issue has already been decided; the only thing keeping the case alive is the fact that the Christian right has made Schiavo a cause célèbre.

Paris did not serve as an expert witness in the Schiavo case. However, when the case was reviewed by the Florida Supreme Court, he signed an amicus brief on behalf of Michael Schiavo, who wants to take his wife off life support. Salon spoke to Paris by phone on Monday morning. "This case," he says, "is bizarre."

>Why is the case bizarre?

In most cases, the court has a theory, you have an appellate review, and that's the end. But this case, the parents keep coming back with new issues -- every time that they lose, they come in with a new issue. We want to reexamine the case. We believe she's competent. We need new medical tests being done. We think she's been abused. We want child protective services to intervene. Finally, Judge George Greer denied them all. He said. "Look, we have had court-appointed neutral physicians examine this patient. You don't believe the findings of the doctors but the finding of the doctors have been accepted by the court as factual." There have been six reviews by the appellate court.

>What did the appellate court find?

The Florida Court of Appeals found four very interesting things. And it found them by the highest legal standard you can have -- clear and convincing evidence. The appellate court said that Judge Greer found clear and convincing evidence that Schiavo is in a well-diagnosed, persistent vegetative state, that there is no hope of her ever recovering consciousness, and that she had stated she would not ever want to be maintained this way. The court said we have heard the parents saying she didn't [say that], and we heard the husband say she did, and we believe the husband's statement is a correct statement of her position. The court also found that the husband was a caring, loving spouse whose actions were in Terri's best interests. The court said, "Remove the feeding tube," and the family protested. Of course, the family has the radical, antiabortion, right-to-life Christian right, with its apparently unlimited resources and political muscle, behind them.

>So what do you think this case is really about?

The power of the Christian right. This case has nothing to do with the legal issues involving a feeding tube. The feeding tube issue was definitively resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1990 in Cruzan vs. Director. The United States Supreme Court ruled that competent patients have the right to decline any and all unwanted treatment, and unconscious patients have the same right, depending upon the evidentiary standard established by the state. And Florida law says that Terri Schiavo has more than met the standard in this state. So there is no legal issue.

>Are there any extenuating circumstances?

The law is clear, the medicine is clear, the ethics are clear. A presidential commission in 1983, appointed by Ronald Reagan, issued a very famous document called "Deciding to Forgo Life-Sustaining Treatment." It talked about the appropriate treatment for patients who are permanently unconscious. The commission said the only justification for continuing any treatment -- and they specifically talked about feeding tubes -- is either the slight hope that the patient might recover or the family's hope that the patient might recover. Terri Schiavo's legitimate family -- the guardian, the spouse -- has persuaded the court that she wouldn't want [intervention] and therefore it shouldn't happen. Now you have the brother and sister, the mother and father, saying that's all wrong. But they had their day in court, they had their weeks in court, they had their years in court!

>Isn't the underlying social issue here one that says the law doesn't have authority over this kind of life-or-death matter?

Let me give you a test that I've done 100 times to audiences. And I guarantee you can do the same thing. Go and find the first 12 people you meet and say to them, "If you were to suffer a cerebral aneurysm, and we were able to diagnose that with a PET-scan immediately, would you want to be put on a feeding tube, knowing that you can be sustained in this existence?" I have asked that question in medical audiences, legal audiences and audiences of judges. I'll bet I have put that question before several thousand people. How many people do you think have said they wanted to be maintained that way? Zero. Not one person. Now that tells you about where the moral sentiment of our community is.

>Where do you think this case is headed?

It's headed to federal court today. I cannot imagine what the federal question is. Congress said, "All we are doing is asking to have a federal court examine this." I don't know what they thought the courts were doing in the last eight years. They are saying, "We're asking a court to review this, to be certain that due process has not been violated." I don't think there is a case in the history of the United States that has been reviewed six times by an appellate court. Remember, the United States Supreme Court refused to review this.

>As a priest, how do you resolve questions in which the "sanctity of life" is involved?

The sanctity of life? This has nothing to do with the sanctity of life. The Roman Catholic Church has a consistent 400-year-old tradition that I'm sure you are familiar with. It says nobody is obliged to undergo extraordinary means to preserve life.

This is Holy Week, this is when the Catholic community is saying, "We understand that life is not an absolute good and death is not an absolute defeat." The whole story of Easter is about the triumph of eternal life over death. Catholics have never believed that biological life is an end in and of itself. We've been created as a gift from God and are ultimately destined to go back to God. And we've been destined in this life to be involved in relationships. And when the capacity for that life is exhausted, there is no obligation to make officious efforts to sustain it.

This is not new doctrine. Back in 1950, Gerald Kelly, the leading Catholic moral theologian at the time, wrote a marvelous article on the obligation to use artificial means to sustain life. He published it in Theological Studies, the leading Catholic journal. He wrote, "I'm often asked whether you have to use IV feeding to sustain somebody who is in a terminal coma." And he said, "Not only do I believe there is no obligation to do it, I believe that imposing those treatments on that class of patients is wrong. There is no benefit to the patient, there is great expense to the community, and there is enormous tension on the family."

>How do you square that with the pope's comments last year, which seemed to indicate that people in Schiavo's situation should be kept alive?

The bishops of Florida did it very nicely when they said, "There is a presumption to use nutritional fluid, unless the continued use of it would be burdensome to the patient." So it's not an absolute. That statement is a recognition that the Vatican is inhabited by the same cross section of people that inhabit the United States

>What do you mean?

I mean there are some radical right-to-lifers there, and they got that statement out. But it has to be seen in the context of the pope's 1980 declaration on euthanasia, and the pope's encyclical on death and dying, in which he repeats the long-standing tradition that I just gave you. His comment last year wasn't doctrinal statement, it wasn't encyclical, it wasn't a papal pronouncement. It was a speech at a meeting of right-to-lifers.

Again, this issue is not new. Every court, every jurisdiction that has heard it, agrees. So you'd think this issue would have ended. I thought it ended when we took it to the Supreme Court in 1990. But I hadn't anticipated the power of the Christian right. They elected him [George Bush]. And now he dances.

salon.com

Somewhere over the rainbow:

I came down with a massive case of hives on Saturday night. By Sunday morning, my arms and legs were covered in huge raspberry blotches that itched like hell. (Mercifully, my face and chest were spared. I still possess a certain je ne sais quoi, as long as I don't have to take off my coat.)

I explained to my pharmacist and to my doctor that I'm on deadline and that I'd rather be lucid and itch than be hive-free and stoned. I made it clear that I didn't want to ingest anything that would turn me into Judy Garland. Both pointed out, however, that my immune system is not exactly my best friend and that letting said hives go unchecked was a big mistake.

So, now the hives are almost gone but I'm high as a kite and readying a transcript for quote checks whilst trying to remain upright. I'm tempted to crawl into bed and remain there for the next three days, unencumbered by clothes or consciousness.

I won't, though. Here's why:

12/03/04:
KEXP 90.3 FM - where the music matters

10/23/03:
KEXP 90.3 FM - where the music matters

05/10/03:
KEXP 90.3 FM - where the music matters

Stacked Writer Girl in Vintage Clothing Porn:

I suppose this was inevitable: my Black Table piece, "The Leg Fuck", has been linked to a porn site featuring absurdly specific categories. What distinguishes "Black Amateurs" from "Black Porn"? Where's the guy who's about to clutch himself but tucks it away when he realizes, "Hey, these folks are getting paid!"? What, exactly, is the difference between "College Girls Porn" and "Spring Break Porn"? And what the fuck is "Balloon Porn"? Are they just making stuff up now?

Find out for yourself:

Crazy Shit happens Link dump sex movies blog funny news stories > > News > > STRANGEWAYS, HERE THEY COME: GIRLS HAVE SEX IN ODD PLACES.

If you don't like Dave Eggers you can go fuck yourself:

The Onion interviews D.E.:

The Onion A.V. Club | Feature

All you can do is bite down and breathe:

In "The Story of O", O allows herself to be tortured. Each time she's flogged, the pain is excruciating and she vows she'll never subject herself to it again. Afterward, she's peaceful and scalded and believes she's stronger. She allows herself to be tortured again.

In the last two weeks, Cranky accepted one of my short stories, Paste asked me to write reviews, The Believer offered me a lofty sum to interview one of my favorite writers, and the British literary journal, Spoiled Ink, asked me to submit. Two of my favorite authors emailed each other about my work and Cupcake gave me another shout out.

And at this moment, part of me would trade all of it to make the fever and chills and nausea go away. To borrow Dylan's line, I couldn't call it unexpected. I've had CFIDS for almost fourteen years and I know that this is what I incur with each piece that I write, with most physical efforts that I make.

When I'm not in the worst of it, I can be sanguine. No one gets everything they want, I tell myself. I'm lucky to be good at what I love to do. My health is impaired, but I have talent and people who love me. There are far worse illnesses. Overall, I lead a remarkable life.

Right now, though, I would give it all away to wake up without this endless flu, to walk without numbness or pain, to lie down because I want to and not because the beast has pinned me. To find that this monster to which I'm tethered has finally set me free.

I can't not write, though.

I'll allow myself to be tortured again.

They might start by allowing women to "trespass" behind the altar:

Salon.com News | Greek church proposes urgent reforms

"Hello grace/It's been awhile/Your footsteps didn't go unnoticed..."--Ken Stringfellow

To those who stuck around while I was inambulatory and to those who have revelled in my good fortune as is if it were their own, thank you with all I have. I'm grateful beyond measure. Much love, L.

Charles Bukowski's "So You Want to Be a Writer?" from *Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way*:

I don't agree with all of it--particularly the part about rewrites--but it's my favorite piece about writing and I return to it again and again:

so you want to be a writer?

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in
you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

I'm sort of speechless and have never been more flattered:

jt leroy recommends

Aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!! In case you needed another reason to freak the hell out:

From today's New York Times:

"Two of the city's subway lines - the A and the C - have been crippled and may not return to normal capacity for three to five years after a fire Sunday afternoon in a Lower Manhattan transit control room that was started by a homeless person trying to keep warm, officials said yesterday.

The blaze, at the Chambers Street station used by the A and C lines, was described as doing the worst damage to subway infrastructure since the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001. It gutted a locked room that is no larger than a kitchen but that contains some 600 relays, switches and circuits that transmit vital information about train locations."

More:

The New York Times > New York Region > Manhattan Subway Fire Cripples 2 Lines

Get out your hankies:

My Black Table piece, "The Leg Fuck", is here:

STRANGEWAYS, HERE THEY COME: GIRLS HAVE SEX IN ODD PLACES.

Don't worry, I won't start playing hacky-sack:

I'm a city girl and always have been. As Fran Lebowitz wrote, "To put it rather bluntly, I am not the type who wants to go back to the land--I am the type who wants to go back to the hotel." But some days I give into the gravitational pull outside my window. There's something about the bright ice blue of the sky today that just slays me. This last month has been a disaster health-wise, but I can't help but feel grateful for being here, ya know?

In purgatory, you meet Al Gore and Katie Couric:

My McSweeney's list, "The Five People You Meet in Hell", is up--yea! They gave me the front page again, which was a nice surprise. (If I knew how to hyperlink it, I would, but I don't so you're going to have to take my word for it.)

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: The Five People You Meet in Hell.

Crank it up:

I went to hear my friend, the delightfully talented Suzanne Stockman, read tonight at a celebration for the literary journal, Cranky. I knew that I'd enjoy her work and that she'd rock the mike--right on both counts--but I was skeptical when I heard that twenty readers were scheduled. Lit readings are sometimes transcendent, but often they feature the kind of self-important wankery Bukowski so brilliantly skewered in "Scum Grief". (Fave line: "Fuck the salmon!") So, I was pleasantly surprised that the Cranky line-up was so strong, with nary a northwest-let's-all-hug piece to be heard. Issue #4 is on the stands now and it's definitely worth grabbing. More:

Cranky Literary Journal

Unfettered heroism:

"TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi told Iran's hard-line Revolutionary Court on Saturday she won't obey a vague summons on her to appear for questioning, even if it means she will be jailed -- an open challenge to a powerful body that has tried and convicted many pro-reform intellectuals."

More:
CNN.com - Nobel?winner refuses Iranian court - Jan 15, 2005

Just when you thought things couldn't get any more fucked up--ha, ha--they do:

Someone recently told me that ancient Greeks would say, "In the face of stupidity, even the gods rail in vain." I don't know if they really said it--if you're Greek, people tell you these things all the time, as if you're pre-loaded at birth with knowledge of all things Hellenic--but the sentiment expressed is certainly true. Behold, folks are using the tsunami to get laid:

WEEK IN CRAIG: THE ENDLESS CAVALCADE OF BIG BROWN STARS.

The icing:

I keep laughing--in a dark, sardonic way--that my writing goes places that I cannot. So, after another day wherein my legs were numb as fuck, it's a kick to discover that The Slippery Fish has been linked to Cupcake ("the reading series for New York's best women writers") alongside Margaret Cho and Jeanette Winterson and several others whose work I admire. (Scroll down, bottom right):

Cupcake: Because you've had enough chick lit, and it's time for dessert.

Today has been crappy but these made me laugh:

David Ng's "It's a Lucky Thing for Stem-Cell Research that the Following Passages Aren't in the Bible:
It's a Lucky Thing for Stem-Cell Research that the Following Passages Aren't in the Bible

John Moe's "I Was Not Invited Back to That School":
McSweeney's Internet Tendency: I Was Not Invited Back to That School.

Thanks: Part 1, Pete Townshend:

Sporadically throughout 2005, I'm going to write about artists who changed my life. I'll start with Pete Townshend.

In a recent Black Table piece, I described my adolescent self thusly: "...a teenage art-geek. Frizzy haired and studious, I hadn't yet learned to work a prodigious vocabulary and ample rack to my advantage." I had close friends, and for a brief while, a boyfriend, but I felt hopelessly out of place at the uber-prep Catholic high school that my folks insisted I attend.

At various points along the way I was class president and editor of the school paper and one of the leads in the annual musical (performed at The Intiman, natch) and a member of the honor society, but I mostly remember being bored out of my fucking mind. My friends and I were smarter than the teachers and it cast an air of absurdity over the proceedings. I wanted out so badly and I couldn't leave.

Enter Pete.

I was already well-versed in all things Beatles and Stones when said boyfriend gave me a tape of The Who's "Quadrophenia" one day at lunch. When I got home, I popped it in my fake Walkman, wrapped myself in my butterfly quilt and listened to both sides all the way through. I was transfixed. Suddenly, the world was a bit more light.

If I were writing this for publication and not for fun, I'd delve into the mechanics--to the degree that I understand them--of Pete's guitar wizardry, Roger's soaring vocals, John's throbbing bass, and Moonie's frenetic drum assault. But that's not why I'm writing this. What matters to me is that Pete felt like a friend, someone wiser and more scarred who got the joke. Twenty years later, the lyrics to "Cut My Hair" still make me crumble:

Cut My Hair

Why should I care
If I have to cut my hair?
I've got to move with the fashions
Or be outcast.
I know I should fight
But my old man he's really alright,
And I'm still living at home
Even though it won't last.

Zoot suit, white jacket with side vents
Five inches long.
I'm out on the street again
And I'm leaping along.
I'm dressed right for a beach fight,
But I just can't explain
Why that uncertain feeling is still
Here in my brain.

The kids at school
Have parents that seem so cool.
And though I don't want to hurt them
Mine want me their way.
I clean my room and my shoes
But my mother found a box of blues,
And there doesn't seem much hope
They'll let me stay.

Zoot suit, etc.

Why do I have to be different to them?
Just to earn the respect of a dance hall friend,
We have the same old row, again and again.
Why do I have to move with a crowd
Of kids that hardly notice I'm around,
I have to work myself to death just to fit in.

I'm coming down
Got home on the very first train from town.
My dad just left for work
He wasn't talking.
It's all a game,
'Cos inside I'm just the same,
My fried egg makes me sick
First thing in the morning.

More:
Welcome to Petetownshend.com

The Who's Albums & Lyrics

As good a way as any to start the new year:

There's so much that I want to say about the holidays and the tsunami and the fact that my work is going to be heard on NPR later this month, but I'm exhausted and in pain. So, tonight I'll keep it short but no less heartfelt.

Like all of us, I'm praying for peace and an end to famine and disease. On a lighter note, I hope that all of us have an extraordinary year! May 2005 overflow with superb health, artistic and/or professional fulfillment, true love, dirty sex, oodles of cash, a cupboard full of Green and Black chocolate, and a letter from Marc Jacobs asking where to send the free couture. (Wait, that last one is just for me.)

My best to everyone! Good night!

Because animal-named blogs are awesome:

Perhaps hypocritically, I'm not a huge fan of blogs. There are several that I enjoy, but too many are poorly written and banal.

If you're suffering from holiday-induced delirium, though, treat yourself to a jolt of wicked good humor from Darci Ratliff and Heather Havrilesky. You'll laugh so hard you'll shoot egg nog through your nose:

Darci Ratliff's Kittenpants
kittenpants: the site for cats, pants, Keith Gordon

Heather Havrilesky's Rabbit Blog
rabbit blog

JT and Harold:

1) My Poets and Writers interview with my friend, JT LeRoy, is up. We discuss his books, films, past, the subjective nature of fiction and of autobiography, how surviving the streets is akin to war, R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Charles Bukowski, James Ellroy, and JT's "Sophie's Choice" moment between Dave Eggers and Billy Corgan:

Poets&Writers, Inc.

2) Read JT's new novella, "Harold's End", when you get a chance: its story wrenches like a meat hook and the language imbeds itself like a great song. Cherry Hood's watercolor illustrations stun and a well-racked smart girl gets thanked on p.95. Mr. Eggers wrote the introduction, too. What more could you want from a literary experience? :)

jt leroy - writing - harold's end

Great moments in diametric opposition:

Last time, I wrote that "An Open Letter to Keith Richards' Immune System" had been linked to a science humor site. Today I discovered it on a Lynyrd Skynyrd message board:

Frynds of Skynyrd - Off Topics

"Analysis and freaky sensitivity/We've got to live on science alone..." --"Scientist", The Dandy Warhols

The editor of the science humor site, The Abhorrent and Secret World of Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid, just emailed me and said that he linked my McSweeney's piece, "An Open Letter to Keith Richards' Immune System", to his publication. (Scroll halfway down and click on "C.F.I.D.S.".)

I read some of their other stuff and I like their smart-geek humor:

Science Humour: The Abhorrent and Secret World of Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid

Brava, L.H!:

Laura Hillenbrand's New Yorker essay on her life with CFIDS, "A Sudden Illness", has been chosen for both the prestigious "Best American Essays 2004" and "Best American Magazine Writing 2004".

"A Sudden Illness" is a masterwork and I'd say that even if I didn't have CFIDS. With eloquence and a slow-burning anger, Hillenbrand lays bare the heartbreak of having one's life--particularly one's youth--upended by incurable illness.

I know someone is going to ask, "If she's so sick how did she write such a long piece?" Answer: It took her two years and she often had to write lying down and/or with her eyes closed to quell the vertigo. Being ill doesn't diminish one's talent: it makes it more difficult to access. If one has the tenacity of a rabid dog, though, great things can happen.

Details:

CFIDS

Amazon.com: Books: The Best American Essays 2004 (Best American Essays)

Amazon.com: Books: The Best American Magazine Writing 2004 (Best American Magazine Writing)

Woo-hoo!:

My new pieces for McSweeney's and for The Black Table both went online today. (Kinda makes up for the fact that I was only able to leave the house for an hour.) Anyway, I'm happy.

"An Open Letter to Keith Richards' Immune System":
McSweeney's Internet Tendency: An Open Letter to Keith Richards' Immune System.

"Who Would I Kill: A Partial List":
DIE! DIE! DIE! MY DARLING... PEOPLE WHO THEY'D LOVE TO KILL.

If the speculation about Ann Coultier turns out to be true, I'll never stop laughing:

One of my favorite authors, Jerry Stahl ("Permanent Midnight", "I, Fatty"), gives a new interview to Salon:

Salon.com Books | "All my heroes were dope fiends"

An excerpt:

"On a more serious note, you have to give Rush [Limbaugh] credit -- he's probably done more to curb the spread of opiate use in this country than anybody. When I was coming up, you had this hipster dope-fiend legacy: Lenny Bruce, Miles Davis, Burroughs, Richards and Nick Cave. Now you've got ... Rush Limbaugh. I mean, who wants to do the same drug as some overfed, unlaid right-wing toady? I can just picture Rush scratching his nose and explaining his anti-immigration policy to the maid he bought his shit from. Buying Dilaudid from your maid -- does it get any more Republican?"

Have yourself a sticky little Christmas:

The Black Table recently ran my piece, "Ivory Christmas", in its monthly "Waxing Off" section. I've posted the link here, as well as the original version, which I prefer. (Two of my favorite lines were cut! Who dares to alter my story of adolescent fake masturbation?)

Anyway, enjoy!

IT'S A FAMILY AFFAIR! THIS ONE GOES OUT TO THE ONES THEY LOVE.

I was a teenage art-geek. Frizzy haired and studious, I hadn't yet learned to work a prodigious vocabulary and ample rack to my advantage. But I had my first real boyfriend, Pete. We discussed Dylan Thomas at lunch and he played King Crimson riffs for me over the phone. I was in love.

My parents, both Greek, both prosecutors, insisted on meeting him. I balked, but relented when my dad threatened to run Pete's license plates. "This house is like a cop show!" I yelled and stormed from the room.

The next day after school, Pete loaded his books into my used Mustang and we drove home. It was two weeks before Christmas and I'd told him my folks wanted to include him in a traditional Greek holiday meal. Once inside, we sat on the living room couch by the Christmas tree. Mom and Dad wouldn't be home for a couple of hours and I thought my brother was at soccer practice.

"You're my other half," Pete said and put his hand on my knee. As we kissed, a moaning sound wafted down the hall. Barely audible at first, it grew louder. I realized it was my brother. "It sounds like someone's jacking off," Pete said, alarmed.

The bathroom door flung open and my brother raced into the room. "Aaaahhhhh!" he yelled and ran toward Pete. His hands were coated in viscous white liquid and he waved them around maniacally. "Pete! I love you, Pete!"

"Is he retarded?" Pete asked frantically, tripping over the hassock in an effort to get away. "I want to give you my baby juice!" my brother continued and chased Pete into the kitchen. I heard my mom's planter knock into a wall.

By now, I knew what was going on. My brother, a smart-ass and more than slightly nuts, was hazing my boyfriend. My boyfriend, however, had no clue.

"Goddamn it, George! Leave him alone!" I called after them. I sprinted into the kitchen, caught George by the shirt and yanked. He stopped and burst out laughing.

"Oh my God! Dude, you should have seen the look on your face!" he told Pete. "Lighten up there, pal. It's just Ivory Liquid. I would have had to crank it eight or nine times to get that much jizz."

"What the hell's wrong with you?" Pete cried, visibly shaken.

Later at dinner, Pete endured my parents' inquisition with aplomb. He made polite conversation with my brother as if nothing had happened. And he left me the next week for a cheerleader.

He said it was because she would blow him. Though perhaps Pete liked his Christmases white, not Ivory.

NYC odds and sods, part 2:

--My first night in town I went to the much-touted Cupcake Reading Series at Lolita on the LES with my friend, Caryn. Martha Witt read from her new novel, "Broken As Things Are" and Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche read from her new novel, "Purple Hibiscus". Katherine Lanpher, co-host of "The Al Franken Show" on Air America, moderated. Witt is undeniably talented, but Adiche blew the room away. After the Q and A, Witt and Adiche went upstairs to sell and sign books. I felt bad that I only purchased Adiche's "Hibiscus"--the authors were seated next to each other--but we're all big girls, and I couldn't see the point of buying a book I knew I wouldn't read. I'm finishing Arthur Bradford's "Dogwalker" now (more on him in a sec) but I can't wait to begin "Hibiscus" when I'm done.

--Purchased some gunmetal silver kitten heels at Bounce in Soho that I like more than most people. At the Punk Silver boutique within Bounce, I did some early Christmas shopping for my cousins, Ellie and Helena. The 25 year old jewelry maker asked me out, and while he wasn't my type, I enjoyed it when he told me, "You have the best smile in the city".

--Met Arthur Bradford at JT's after party at the Tribeca Grand Hotel. I'd heard of him, but hadn't yet read his work. Knew he'd be brilliant, though, after hearing him sing to JT earlier that evening at Deitch: his lyrics were hilarious, warm, and spot-on. (I'll post them here after JT's webmaster gets them online.)

--The squirrels at Tompkins Square Park are quintessential New Yorkers: they literally sit on your lap and get in your face. Split a chocolate croissant with two of them--my friend, Christy, took some fun pics--and C and I enjoyed unwinding on this cold, sunny afternoon, our last day in town.

For further info:

Guardian Unlimited Books | Special Reports | A4 challenge: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Martha Witt > Broken As Things Are

Cupcake

identity theory | the narrative thread - arthur bradford

From Ye Olde Laugh Shoppe:

The Onion | The Onion In History

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Lists: Deflation/Inflation.

NYC odds and sods:

I've been swamped since I returned from New York. I've written about the trip in my journal but I haven't recapped it here. So, a few desultory thoughts before I turn in uncharacteristically early:

--The roasted potatoes at Babbo are quite possibly the world's most perfect food. They're fingerling potatoes split lengthwise and roasted w/ olive oil, rosemary, sea salt, and garlic so tender you can eat the skin. I've read that Elizabeth Taylor used to have tubs of Chasen's chili flown to the set of "Cleopatra" and I always thought this was an incredibly wasteful and indulgent act. However, if I had the resources, I can't guarantee that I wouldn't do the same with Babbo's potatoes.

Runners up: the cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery and the matzoh ball soup at Katz's Deli. At the former, I asked the guys behind the counter if anyone had ever offered sex in exchange for cupcakes. Strangely, they said no. Both of them--one straight, the other gay--thought it was a fantastic idea, though, and said they might post a sign with rates.

--The plastic molded green and orange subway seats remind me of the chairs we used during first grade art hour. On one mid-afternoon ride with my friend, Christy, a man in his sixties--who otherwise appeared stately, like a professor in a '50s movie--got way too into watching me reapply my lipstick. Seriously, I could (should?) have charged him.

--I want to live in the indoor garden at the Frick Museum. I could prop my laptop on one of the stone benches and the bunnies could frolic among the orchids. I'd be happy to live in any of the rooms at the Frick, actually: their beauty is surreal.

--St. Patrick's Cathedral remains my favorite place on earth.

--The showing/reading/performance at Deitch Projects and the afterparty at the Tribeca Grand Hotel were frenetic, phenomenal. If you're interested, check out pages 128-129 in the November 29 issue of New York Magazine for details. I'm so glad my friends, Christy and Caryn, could make it! Much thanks to my lad, JT!

More next time. G'night!

From today's New York Times:

If inclined, please read and forward:

The New York Times > Washington > Negotiators Add Abortion Clause to Spending Bill

Excerpt: "The abortion language would bar federal, state and local agencies from withholding taxpayer money from health care providers that refuse to provide or pay for abortions or refuse to offer abortion counseling or referrals. Current federal law, aimed at protecting Roman Catholic doctors, provides such "conscience protection'' to doctors who do not want to undergo abortion training. The new language would expand that protection to all health care providers, including hospitals, doctors, clinics and insurers."

"I'm going back to New York City/I do believe I've had enough..."--Bob Dylan

I leave for New York in twenty-two hours and not a moment too soon. This past week has been surreal for everyone, though it contained some bright spots, too. A number of my friends and I are even more committed to change and are focusing on the 2006 mid-term elections. I've donated time, money, and/or letter writing skills to progressive causes since I was sixteen and it would be pathetic to succumb to defeatism now. Also, I found out yesterday that McSweeney's has accepted another one of my pieces and that it will run in December. I don't understand why that cocksucker, Karl Rove, should detract from a moment of my joy.

To those who have lost their hearts and heads, I offer the immortal words of Dorothy Parker:

"Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
and drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live."

More when I return.

This makes more sense than anything I've read today:

Stand and Fight

To which I add: *We have to fight.* If we quit, we hasten what we're trying to prevent. If we quit, we say that a paltry 51% majority can scare us into inaction. If we quit, we're as guilty as the far right in destroying our country. If we quit, we deserve what we get.

*We have to fight.*

A scintilla of good news (via Drudge):

HoustonChronicle.com - Specter warns Bush on high court nominations

None of us are going to sleep tonight:

As I write this, CNN is projecting 112 electoral votes for John Kerry and 176 for George W. Bush. Election officials in Florida's Miami-Dade County have announced that they won't have their vote total until Thursday afternoon--inept cocksuckers--and Senate Minority Leader, Tom Daschle, might be unseated.

Fuck: Arkansas and Missouri have just been called for Bush, bumping his total to 193.

Best news so far: Barack Obama is the new senator from Illinois. Halle-fucking-lujah.

Thirty-three and a half hours and counting:

I get irked when I hear someone say that she or he will leave the U.S. if Bush wins a second term: it's candy-ass. You can be damned sure Republicans wouldn't talk about abdicating--even as a joke--if the situation were reversed and it's ludicrous when progressives do it. My dad grew up under Nazi occupation and survived the Greek civil war, so I'm confident that I can endure four more years of a president whose policies I loathe. Also, if you love your country, you fight for it. You don't turn tail and run.

All of us agree, though, that the thought of another recount is gut-rupturing. I sometimes think the 2000 election was more heartbreaking than the September 11 attacks--though, obviously, it wasn't--because we did it to ourselves. History's most accomplished democracy imploded and in two days we'll know whether the damage was permanent. Two sequential contested elections would render this country forever altered, something not America. And none of us wants that.

I don't believe that God or divine forces alter elections. But I'm hoping with each synapse that when I open my eyes Wednesday morning, I'll know who the president is. Even if it's Bush.

My friend, Caryn Rose...

...writes the frenetic and essential music blog, Jukebox Graduate. Here she posts the Supersucker's Eddie Spaghetti's analogy wherein he compares the Republicans to Van Halen:

jukeboxgraduate.com: eddie spaghetti on the election

You, too, Mary Beth Cahill:

As everyone knows, John Kerry and George W. Bush are locked in a dead heat. Both parties are flipping out.

My friend and I are particularly concerned. The last thing we said to each other when we got off the phone at midnight on election night 2000 was something like, "Hey! In the morning we'll have a new president." Then, on September 10, 2001, also around midnight, we wrapped up an otherwise ordinary phone conversation by making plans to get together so that I could retrieve a photo that I wanted to use for my MovieMaker bio.

Neither phone call has anything in common with the other except that *both of them inadvertantly triggered disaster.* Neither of us is superstitous, but we're not taking chances, either. Next Monday, November 1, we've agreed to a phone block with regards to the other. Just in case, I won't hit my favorite coffee house--located in his neighborhood--and he won't take his usual route past my place on the way to the gym.

You won't get prescient strategy like this from the DNC. Terry McAuliffe, *call me.*

Hard to say who would be more pissed off, George W. Bush or Al Gore:

The Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, is reporting--via UPI--that Bill Clinton wants to be the next Secretary General of the United Nations:

Haaretz - Israel News

You can email the author, Rebecca Skloot, with suggestions and/or support at rskloot@yahoo.com:

I'm horrified that our country's most sophisticated city, New York, permits wild dogs to attack pets and their owners, but allows the victims no legal recourse. I know that all of us are caught up in the election, but this story is so egregious, so fucking *wrong*, and yet solvable through legal channels (letter writing campaigns, press conferences) or extra-legal ones (poisoned meat). I've emailed Ms. Skloot to let her know that if she's starting an online petition, to count me in and that I'll forward it accordingly. In the meantime, if you love animals, please read her incisive and heartbreaking New York Magazine piece, "When Pets Attack":

When Pets Attack

Of course, nothing compares to the hymm we sang at St. John's Elementary...

..."Peace is Flowing Like a River", wherein we changed "peace" to "piss" and giggled uncontrollably because we were *so* clever:

In Bill Clinton's autobiography, "My Life", he writes that one of his favorite hymns intones, "the darker the night, the sweeter the victory".
That's how I feel about the past six months: I would have enjoyed them anyway, but they've been particularly sweet in light of the excruciating three years that proceeded them. It's with joy, not arrogance, that I post my good news here. The latest:

1) I found out earlier this week that the print and online versions of Kitchen Sink's Issue 10 will run my piece, "50 Questions for God". I wrote it fourteen months ago and I think it fits well with Kitchen Sink's ethos. Said piece hits stands in December. In the meantime, peruse the current issue:

kitchen sink magazine - for people who think too much

2) Yesterday I discovered that my Black Table and Bookslut interviews with Augusten Burroughs have been linked to his official site. Burroughs boasts one of the most comprehensive and best designed author sites around and it's worth checking out if you're a writer or a fan of his work:

# 1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Wait 'till you get to the "loofah mitt" on p. 16:

O'Reilly Hit With Sex Harass Suit - October 13, 2004

Merry Christmas, Al Franken!

America's newspaper and sodomy:

My writing continues to advance while my health continues to, well, *not* advance. At this rate, by the time I make the New York Times bestseller list, my lymph nodes will be the size of hubcaps.

Found out today that USA Today's "Hip Clicks" column featured my Paper Magazine profile on Augusten Burroughs and that Salon ran my letter re--god help us all--anal sex memoirist, Toni Bentley.

Enjoy!

USATODAY.com - Beer for club kids; Sarah McLachlan's cheap video

Salon.com Life | Letters

I've always liked John Kerry--I'm a bit of a policy geek--but this sums it up for a lot of folks I know:

JohnKerryIsADoucheBagButImVotingForHimAnyway.com

Good night and God bless:

The New York Times > Arts > Christopher Reeve, 'Superman' Star, Dies at 52

"I refuse to allow a disability to determine how I live my life. I don't mean to be reckless, but setting a goal that seems a bit daunting actually is very helpful toward recovery." --Christopher Reeve, 1952-2004

Stay tuned for more--yea!:

My Black Table essay, "Seizure Sex":
THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO OOOF.

My Paper Magazine profile on Augusten Burroughs:
PAPERMAG PAPERDAILY

My Skirt Magazine essay, "The Not So Great Cookie Offering" (aka "Baking and Fucking"):
Skirt

My Poets and Writers interview with Augusten Burroughs:
Poets&Writers, Inc.

Don't let the title fool you:

My friend, Jade Walker, writes The Blog of Death. Her obituaries for the celebrated, infamous, and everyday folk are eloquent and sharp. What I love most, though, is that in acknowledging death, she celebrates life:

The Blog of Death

Though D-Day was good, too:

Today (now yesterday) my first piece for BlackBook Magazine hit the stands. It's short, but they didn't alter a word. Eight months after I first pitched them, it's fun to hold the tangible results. (I'm reviewing The Long Winters' upcoming disc for BB's Dec/Jan issue, too. Yea!) Also, the new issue contains the winners of their "Hemingway Challenge Contest", wherein readers were asked to submit six-word stories inspired by Hemingway's renowned, "For sale: baby shoes, never used." I didn't know until this evening that I had made the cut ("We removed the wrong eye. Braille?") as did two members of my beloved and freakishly talented writing group. Bono graces the cover--literally--and Tony Bennett's version of "New York State of Mind" piped over the speakers as I paid at the newsstand.

This is, quite possibly, the best day of all time.

Damn it, I'll go over your head if I have to:

How cool would it be if "E.R." had some kind of internal power struggle that manifested itself in the operating room? Then someone could yell something like, "You just exposed this entire hospital to a lawsuit in there!" Then two staff members could have joyless sex . Really, they should look into that.

Of course, I would be The Godmother:

My parents and I went to lunch today at Niko's in Seattle's Magnolia Village. I had a mouth full of souvlaki when a woman approached our table and asked me, "Excuse me, but were you on a blind date about six weeks ago at The Still Life in Fremont? You and a guy were sitting at a table outside?"

"Um, yes. That was me," I replied, a bit startled.

"My friend and I were sitting at the table next to you and I want you to know we felt awful for you. That guy was a jerk. We talked about it after you left. You were all dressed up and funny and asking him questions and he was boring and rude and *then he didn't even pay.* We were mad on your behalf," she explained, genuinely fired up.

"Thanks," I replied. "It's nice to have it coroborated. He was an asshole and I can't understand why he kept emailing me saying he wanted to meet me, because when I got there he made no effort."

"I know," she continued. "He complained about *everything*. Like how his company sent him to London and he hated it? Who hates London?"

"Exactly! And what about when he said he hates New York?"

"That's when I knew he was sunk. Why would you go out with a writer and then say you hate New York? What's wrong with him? I hope you don't think we were eavesdropping, but the tables are so close at The Still Life that we heard everything. By the way, my name is Renee."

"Hey, Renee. I'm Litsa." We shook hands.

"She told me she thought the women at the next table caught on and were sympathetic," Mom said. "Remember, honey? The biotech researcher I told you about who made her pay for her own coffee?" she asked my dad.

"I said it then and I'll say it now: she should have poured it in his lap," Dad added matter-of-factly.

"Guys like that are the worst," the woman at the next table chimed in.

"I know," Renee and I responded simultaneously.

Renee had to get going, but I thanked her for her input and for objectively verifying my take on a crappy evening. The woman at the next table smiled at both of us and returned to her book.

Lately, I've been thinking that there needs to be a Girl Mafia. We wouldn't kill anyone--or even permanently injure them--but, when called, we would burst in and kick dickwad guys in the shins. So they learned a lesson. Behavior modification, as it were.

Of course, the world is full of bitches, too. I love my guy friends and I've seen some of them get their hearts stomped, but it's not funny to joke about kicking women because it happens all the time in real life. However, I've long maintained that a guy can use the "c word" if the object of his affection has crushed him, as long as two other women sign off on it. (Once, my friend, Tony, took a woman to Canlis and the Seattle Opera on a Saturday night. On the way home, she told him, "I hope you don't think this was *a date*. I would never go on *a date* with you." My friend, Eva, and I signed off immediately.)

Anyway, if you see a biotech engineer with an office in Belltown and a hideous dad-man golf shirt wearing shin guards, you can smile, knowing he's a changed man.

Postscript: I know the above examples only apply to breeders. I'm working on solutions to my gay friends' dating snags, too.

Sick and tired of being sick and tired. Ha, ha, ha:

For those keeping track at home, my mom's surgery on Tuesday went quite well--much better than expected--and she's recovering rapidly. Thanks, all, for thoughts and prayers. I relayed messages to her and she was touched.

But here's what gets me: it's so fucked up that she needed surgery in the first place. The nerve damage from the fibromyalgia began loosening her teeth two years ago and they had been falling out since then. On Tuesday, she had to have all of them pulled and dentures inserted.

Mom has been in unremitting pain for over a decade and it breaks my heart. She hides it well and I'm amazed by how many folks haven't grasped the obvious: they only see her when she's able to leave the house, which, on average, is twice a week. She's wearing a cute ensemble and she's got her cane and she's lively and funny and makes self-deprecating jokes about how slowly she moves.

They don't see the hours that went into getting ready: showering from the night before and getting dressed in increments. Put on bra and underwear; lie down. Put on pantyhose and jewelry; lie down. Same for hair, makeup, shirt, pants and shoes. And this is someone who logged the second number of trial hours for several years running at the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

She's already outlived her own mom, who also had acute fibromyalgia--though no one was sure what to make of it then--and who succumbed to a heart attack at forty-eight after a two year stroke-induced coma.

The Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health have thus far concluded that: 1) one is probably born with a genetic predisposition to fibromyalgia and/or CFIDS; 2) the symptoms from both illnesses significantly overlap and are probably related; and 3) both illnesses tend to run in families. I, of course, developed CFIDS at twenty-four and my second cousin became severely ill with fibromyalgia in his early twenties, so the evidence is definitely born out in our family.

Last week I told Mom that I have a sort of survivor's guilt: I was struck younger than she and her mom, but I will probably benefit more from current research because I will be younger than her when a treatment or cure is discovered. Ampligen is in FDA test phases and, if approved, will be the first drug developed specifically for the treatment of CFIDS and fibromyalgia. If it works, Mom and I could have new lives.

Which isn't to say we don't love the lives we have. Like I said, Mom's spirits are good--we both have a deeply ingrained "never say die" mentality--and I have sold or placed fourteen articles since May. I love my family and my friends--here I'm truly blessed--and I'm going to New York again, halle-fucking-lujah.

But the toll has been high: I've been much less ambulatory and in much more pain since mid-July. I have daily intestinal cramps and a fever as often as not. I walk with a cane several days a week. I've made it out of the house less than ten hours all week and on Thursday, the chills were so bad, I almost cried in public. (If you know me, you know it takes a lot--like a fucking anvil on my head--to induce public tears.)

More so than anything, I feel isolated. I once wrote, "I don't want to live with my nose pressed against the glass" and I don't. Which is why I remain hopeful: the alternative is unthinkable.

For more on the new Centers for Disease Control study that concludes the U.S. loses $9.1 billion annually due to CFIDS:

CFIDS -- Legislative Alerts and Updates

Preaching to the choir, loudly:

One of President Bush's Harvard Business School professors is publicly decrying his former student as a boorish, hypocritical ideologue. I wish both Democrats and Republicans would stick to the pertinent issues--jobs, health care, terrorism, Iraq, AIDS, the enivironment, the deficit, poverty, education--and stop debating who did what thirty years ago.

On the other hand, I got a kick out of this. It won't change anyone's mind--Democrats know Bush is intellectually deficient and Republicans don't care--but it underscores a point I've long maintained: If Bush had been born into Clinton's circumstances (or Reagan's, for that matter), he would be a gas-pumping dropout. He's accomplished nothing without his family's help. (Obviously, Gore and McCain benefited from their senator and admiral forebearers, respectively. However, both men proceeded to work their asses off. Therein lies the difference.)

Enjoy, fellow choir members:

Salon.com News | The dunce

Best campaign '04 quote so far:

"Politicians are doing what politicians do. I liken it to when you go to the zoo, and the monkeys are sitting in there jerking off and throwing their shit. And you just gotta go, 'Well, they're monkeys.' But you can yell at the media and go, 'You know, your job is to tell them when they're being bad monkeys.'"--Jon Stewart, Entertainment Weekly, September 17, 2004 issue

These little town blues are melting away:

I'm going to New York again in November and I'm literally counting the days. My friend, JT LeRoy, will have a new book out in December and I've been invited to the launch party. Also, I just found out I'm going to interview him again--this time for The Black Table--and I'm psyched. (I'm still sending out queries. Hopefully, I'll interview him for additional publications.) His upcoming novella, "Harold's End", is like a fish hook: it punctures you, gets under your skin and stays there. I can't wait to discuss it in print.

Near the topic, if not quite on it, at tonight's writing group Jade suggested a freewrite about "a city that we hate". She and Margaret thought that I should post my results here:

I can't be objective about this. I love my family and friends--adore them, really--but when I think about Seattle, I think of that Bob Dylan line from "Don't Fall Apart on Me Tonight": "It's like I'm stuck inside a painting/ that's hanging in the Lourve/ My throat starts to tickle/ and my nose itches/ but I know that I can't move".

As anyone who's known me longer than ten minutes discovers, I love New York truly, madly, deeply. I feel at home there in a way I never do here. And as everyone who knows me finds out soon enough, I've been sick for the past thirteen years. I haven't had enough health and cash simultaneously to make the leap.

I'm optimistic, though. No one has heard me say I'm staying in Seattle nor will they ever. And like I said, I can't be objective about this because I feel like I'm being held against my will. I've lived here my entire life and what bothers me most about Seattle is the pervasive anemia, the toxic mellowness that hangs over it like a mushroom cloud. Obviously, there are notable exceptions--we've got some amazing writers and musicians, for starters--but ambition is a dirty word here and I don't get it. I return to this again and again in my work and in my life: this is finite and we're going to be dead one day. I can't see the point in *not* running toward the highest bar.

In the August 9, 2004 issue of New York Magazine, John Buffalo Mailer...

...interviewed his father, Norman Mailer. The elder Mailer makes the most salient point I've read re the RNC convention:

"Do the activists really know what they're going into? That's my concern. Or do they assume that expressing their rage is equal to getting Kerry elected? It could have exactly the opposite effect. The better mode may be to frustrate the Republicans by coming up with orderly demonstrations. Now, when I was young, the suggestion to be moderate was like a stink bomb to me. An orderly demonstration? What were we, cattle? You have to speak out with your rage. Well, I'm trying to say, we would do well to realize that on this occassion, there are more important things than a good outburst. I wish we could remind everyone who goes out to march of the old Italian saying, 'Revenge is a dish that people of taste eat cold.' Instead of expressing yourself at the end of August, think of how nicely you will be able to keep expressing yourself over the four years to come if we win. Just keep thinking how much the Republicans want anarchy on the street. I say, don't march right into their trap."

Norman Mailer and John Buffalo Mailer Discuss Protests at the Republican National Convention

Happy stuff:

My Black Table interview with Augusten Burroughs is here! This is the second time I've interviewed Burroughs and each time he was unfailingly polite, refreshingly grounded, and instinctively hilarious. We spoke last month on the phone:

AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS' MAGICAL WAY OF THINKING.

Come back to the five and dime, Fran Lebowitz, Fran Lebowitz:

I'm on deadline now--more on that once everything is turned in and published and/or posted--so instead of concocting my own Slippery Fish bon mots this afternoon, I thought I'd share my two fave quotes from "The Fran Lebowitz Reader", which I recently finished reading. (For the uninitiated: before she was a judge on "Law and Order"--a role she got by calling the producers and asking--Lebowitz was one of the country's premiere essayists.)

"To put it rather bluntly, I am not the type who wants to go back to the land--I am the type who wants to go back to the hotel."

"A great many people in Los Angeles are on special diets that restrict their intake of synthetic foods. The reason for this appears to be a widely held belief that organically grown fruits and vegetables make the cocaine work faster."

Now, if anyone wants to bring me dinner--say, phad thai with barbequed pork, two stars--that'd be supercool. Back to work.