April 2006 Archives
I seem to be having some issues with the comments. If you try to comment and you're getting a "pending approval message" I'm never actually receiving those comments to approve them. I'm not NOT approving you! As far as I can tell those comments are being sent into cyberspace, never to be seen again. I'm waiting to hear from the powers that be, but hopefully this will be cleared up shortly. In the meantime, if your comment isn't going through, feel free to email it to me at lizworking [at] gmail [dot] com and I'll post it for you. From the inside it will all be coming from my ip address so it will look like I have no readers and am making up comments for my blog, but I would really be the only one seeing that part. Though making up friends is always funny.
Remember Cringe? Well, I went sifting through all those journals my parents sent my way and found a few gems I'll be sharing next Wednesday, if you care to attend. I'd love some friendly faces in the audience since I can't remember the last time I had to read anything in front of a group and I think it would be nice to have someone tell me it wasn't so bad when I puked from nervousness up there on stage. I don't want to ruin the whole thing in case some of you actually come, but here's the teaser: I wrote a will in 7th grade bequeathing all my treasured possessions. Including Luke Perry posters.
The book industry is tuned in very closely to the Kaavya Viswanathan story, the high school student who got a $500,000 advance from a big publisher to write two novels, the first of which is being accused of containing plagiarized language. The book, "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life," has several passages and themes in common with two books by Megan McCafferty, "Sloppy Firsts" and "Second Helpings." McCafferty and her publisher, Random House, are, of course, angry and Viswanathan and her publisher, Little, Brown, are, of course, mortified and apologetic. Viswanathan, now a 19-year old Harvard sophomore, acknowledged reading McCafferty's books and says they were a big influence but she hadn't realized how much she "may have internalized [her] words." She's revising the passages in question.
I know the right emotion to have for this is outrage. Obviously, there is little here that is excusable, and there are copyrights and contracts and lawsuits and reputations at stake for all the players involved. And there is a part of me that shakes my head at the whole thing because there is nothing worse or more juvenile than flat out plagiarism. But what never gets discussed in these cases is the possibility that the plagiarism was a genuine mistake. Legally, I know it doesn't matter if the copying is intentional or not, but for the sake of one's character, especially for a writer as young as Viswanathan, I think that distinction means the world.
The thing is, I've done this before. Especially in college writing courses where you are reading book after book of short stories and poems, passages from obscure novels, other students' writing, not to mention the heft of reading you have from unrelated courses, you have a lot that gets jammed in your head. Some of it was very distinctive, and other things melted away from my immediate memory only to resurface in unexpected places. I'd write a (bad) short story that involved an angry man in a trailer shouting things at a car behind him, only to realize, months later, that this was the general subject of another short story we'd read for class; I'd come up with a distinctive character trait (she smelled like chlorine) and someone would point out something similar in a book we'd just read.
Luckily for me, I could just be vaguely embarrassed and toss the story or start over. Luckily, my writing was never good enough to garner any serious attention, and the little things I may have "internalized" were forgotten. To be fair, some of the passages in question in Viswanathan's book are striking in similarity. Here's the example the New York Times used:
At one point in "Sloppy Firsts," Ms. McCafferty's heroine unexpectedly encounters her love interest. Ms. McCafferty writes:"Though I used to see him sometimes at Hope's house, Marcus and I had never, ever acknowledged each other's existence before. So I froze, not knowing whether
I should (a) laugh, (b) say something, or (c) ignore him and keep on walking. I chose a brilliant combo of (a) and (b).
" 'Uh, yeah. Ha. Ha. Ha.'
"I turned around and saw that Marcus was smiling at me."
Similarly, Ms. Viswanathan's heroine, Opal, bumps into her love interest, and the two of them spy on one of the school's popular girls.
Ms. Viswanathan writes: "Though I had been to school with him for the last three years, Sean Whalen and I had never acknowledged each other's existence before. I froze, unsure of (a) what he was talking about, or (b) what I was supposed to do about it. I stared at him.
" 'Flatirons,' he said. 'At least seven flatirons for that hair.'
" 'Ha, yeah. Uh, ha. Ha.' I looked at the floor and managed a pathetic combination of laughter and monosyllables, then remembered that the object of our mockery was his former best friend.
"I looked up and saw that Sean was grinning."
I don't know Viswanathan or if she'd be the type of person to open up a book she liked and copy-almost verbatim-a passage and slap her name on it. I know I'm not that type of person, but I also know how things get stuck in my head without me realizing it. I can empathize with reading and loving something (the style, the working, the particular image or feeling it evoked) and then going to write something of my own where it turned out the "inspiration" was really a sad trick of memory. This has happened to me, and I think to others. And maybe it's just the fact that she was so young when this happened, but I think this may be the case here.
There are others at fault: the packagers, the editors. And in the end, like I said, there's nothing to be done about the result. Being guilty of plagiarism is just that; no soft lines. But maybe there's some room for an acknowledgement of a human weakness different than dishonesty: naïveté.
UPDATE:
Little, Brown is recalling the book and the movie deal got dropped like a hot potato. Apparently the 40 or so passages in question were just too much.
Hey, now we’re getting somewhere with this whole design thing, right? I was up til the wee hours of the night (10:30) gmail chatting with Kedar and slapping up different colors and sizes and backgrounds and such. This is all pretty new to me, but I’m learning. We used this fantastic program, which opens up a sidebar on your website that contains all the style codes. You can edit and the changes you make will appear as you edit them so you can see if you like what’s going on. Once you’re all set, you simply copy the sidebar code and paste it in your blog’s template. Nothing actually gets changed until that point, so you really have the freedom to mess around.
Does everyone already know about this? It’s amazing! You put plain bread—any kind of bread at all, it doesn’t matter—right in there and it TOASTS IT! On BOTH sides! And it even dings when the “toast” is done.
If I could talk to my college self I would say, “College self: you don’t know what you want. Why not take a couple computer science classes and at least a beginning business course while you’re at it? I’m sure you can squeeze it in somewhere between advanced poetry and scuba diving. Your later self will completely appreciate the gesture, I promise. Also, while I have your attention, why not pluck your eyebrows a bit and lay off the glittery shirts?” Not that my college self would have listened. She would have written a bad short story about it and gone off to environmental science class to make fun of the visiting professor.
This weekend Tom, Jennie, Josh and I are headed to the crab cake eating competition in Baltimore to cover it all for Digest (Krista will be in China). There is talk of a party afterwards at a nearby university and while my initial reaction was one of excitement, this was quickly followed by one of gripping panic at possibly attending a college party while no longer in college. Remember those people?? I mean, it’s not a “Oh I heard you kids were having a party and I decided to stop by,” situation, but I think I’ll have to steel myself anyway. Luckily, these situations tend to involve Solo cups of beer, which have a way of helping.
Turns out I didn't get around to all the blog fixing up I had planned to do over the weekend. So, we're still a bit...pink over here. Yup. Pink and more pink and some orange in that banner. If you're thinking of abandoning me because of the assault on your eyes, please rest assured I have my crack team of design specialists who are going to help me get this down to non-retina burning levels by the end of the week or so. I'm actually having a hard time posting because the little perfectionist in me wants all the little aesthetics fixed before settling in.
Things I might post about if I were a tad less neurotic right now:
Allie's giant egg-shaped head. J and I spent a good while trying to decide if it is her hair that makes her appear egg-shaped or if she's just got a completely elongated head. I'm going with oblong head.
Ivanka Trump looks exactly like Paris Hilton and Lisa Kudrow's gawky blond offspring. With sort of a Trump voice.
That little X that is stitched across the back flap of spring coats? That's not a fashion thing, that's a packaging and display thing. One hint they give you is that it is literally two light stitches, not, say, a whole embroidered decoration. CUT THE X.
My love/hate relationship with grape tomatoes. On one hand: yummy. On the other: it's like putting a tiny landmine right in your mouth. What if instead of deliciousness, out spurts rotty pulp? The fear of getting a bad grape tomato makes me abandon almost all of them in a given salad.
I've come to the conclusion that of all women who put mascara on while riding the subway, 100% of them will apply it with a dry mascara brush and will commence with putting on approximately 300 coats (or 10 minutes worth, whichever comes first) of whatever is on their dry mascara wand. If such a woman is sitting across or next to me, I have to get up and move, as this has come to really annoy the shit out of me.
Hi! Welcome! The bar is over there by the archives and there's some chips and dip by the recent posts. I'm so glad you could make it. Obviously, I'm still doing some work on the place: repainting, definitely rearranging, and I haven't even started to unpack all my links yet or get over to the banner store. Anyway, changes to come, but meanwhile I hope you'll reset your browser links and settle in over here.
So onto the important question of the hour: I've felt like I've had something stuck in my throat for like a week; am I going to die? No seriously, what's up with that? Is it really food stuck in my throat? Is it a scratch? Is it an allergic reaction to something? I've tried the requisite coughing, throat clearing, and water chugging with little effect. Sometimes it goes away for awhile, but then comes back. Can someone go completely crazy from having the sensation of something stuck in their throat for days on end? Let's test it out!
I actually have another important question: if you had about four days to take a vacation leaving from New York, where would you go? My mom is coming up next month from Denver and we're looking to do a little traveling. The obvious choice would be to rent a car and head up or down the coast, maybe hitting Philadelphia or possibly going the other way into New England. We could do something as close by as Saratoga Springs, or we could take advantage of flight deals and hop a cheap plane to the Bahamas. (While quizzing my mom on these options I learned she has a slight aversion the Bahamas because the class disparity there bothers her quite a bit. BUT, I also learned that's where I was conceived. Who knew! Apparently being bothered by class disparity doesn't hinder your general overall...enthusiasm.)
I'm feeling pretty flexible, though there is a small part of me that is screaming for a tropical beach vacation. Beaches! Sun! Tropical drinks served in halved coconuts! I've never actually had a tropical drink served in a halved coconut, but I imagine some day I will and it will be on a beach and even though a part of me will feel like I'm on a "Saved by the Bell: Hawaiian Vacation" episode, another more tanned and drunk part of me will say: I have arrived.
When spring rolls around, I start to remember how small New York really is. All of a sudden the distance between Union Square and work seems like a travesty to travel by subway, meeting up in an obscure location isn't a problem, and I actually look forward to the prospect of a long walk somewhere. This time in New York is more coveted by locals than any other time; it’s the most rare and the most pleasurable.
I’m worried that, like last year, this spring will only linger a few weeks before being catapulted into 85-degree days and the subsequent misery that is New York in the heat. Then it’s back to planning out the quickest travel route, stirring change around to see if an air-conditioned taxi is worth the money, and generally picking back up the gripe that you carried around through a cold winter.
Yesterday, being the Platonic ideal of a spring day, was perfect for such a walk. Krista, J, and I met up with Crazy Legs and some of his friends to celebrate him winning the first hot dog qualifier and running the marathon, and ended up taking the most meandering, pleasant walk across the city.
We started at Corner Bistro, which—known for their tasty burgers and mugs of McSorley’s—turned out to be the worst possible place in existence for a non-drinking vegetarian (sorry, J!). We ordered some French fries, but I only needed a bite to realize they’d been fried in some hot hot bacon fat. Which I’m sure is making most of you salivate right now, but was fairly disappointing for a French fry-needing Liz at the time. But all was okay, as it turned out one of our travel buddies was an Expert on Where To Get Pizza and led us there on our way to the East Village.
We didn’t end up staying long once we got to the other bar, but I really think the walk was the best part. There’s something really comforting about strolling leisurely through a city, with a stop here and there for pizza or Italian cookies, and talking about anything that pops up.
At my hippie high school, we had this class called Spiral Walking. We’d meet on the running track and the instructor would ask us to pick a topic, any topic, and he’d start a mini-lecture on whatever we chose. We walked around the track as he talked, the idea being that the physical activity of walking stimulated both your body and mind, allowing you to absorb the words more effectively. The lecture would lead into a discussion, and as the class wore on, groups of kids would break off and talk about their own things or, y’know, go smoke a cigarette or something. But even though this was probably the hippiest of the hippy classes I took in high school (or was that Archaic Tools…), I look back on it fondly. That somewhere in the curriculum development, this teacher saw the value in people walking and talking and thought that having kids developing an affinity for it was valuable, kinda amazes me now.
There’s a reading tonight that I’m going to for work (well, also pleasure) but I forgot all about it and am wearing my Default Work Outfit which is all business and no play. Well, even “all business” is a stretch; it’s more like “clothes that are more work-appropriate than others” or “clothes I bought specifically to wear to work a long time ago and haven’t really updated because I only work in an office with two other people, one of whom goes barefoot, and I change clothes before going anywhere else anyway.” Sometimes someone will see me in this outfit and say, “What a nice shirt! Is it new?” And oh how I laugh, because: new? So given my druthers I would be wearing something more Cute or Presentable, but given the circumstances I actually have to be seen in public in these clothes, which is almost the equivalent of having to be seen in public in pajama bottoms and a ratty shirt with no bra. Yes: my current outfit is basically work pajamas.
Here’s a mischievous site that tells you the approximate real estate value of homes. Any home with an address! Now I know that the brownstone we’re living in is worth approximately $721,000 and that Krista and Kedar’s is worth $860,000. These are fun facts because we don’t actually own the buildings, nor could we afford to, so looking up their value is more like gawking at shiny things through a glass storefront. Although, I guess in this metaphor, we’re living in the store. Or something. Anyway, I bet you could find more, um, competitive things to do with this site.
Did you catch me just slip “Krista and Kedar” in that previous paragraph? Kedar will be Krista’s new roommate starting next month and we are all quite thrilled with the prospect. Perhaps to mark his move into our Brooklyn circle of friends, he’s started a blog, the first entry of which can be seen here. If his blog can turn out half as great as the stories he tells, you are all in for a treat.
Last night Abby, her friend Jen, and I ventured to Galapagos for Love Ahoy, a nautically-themed live dating game show. I don’t know what I was expecting, but with a hot dog eating contest, a dare bucket, an unforgettable Irish jig, and glittery pasties, I think it was an evening well spent. Did “Lost” have a dare bucket and pasties?? Did it? I didn’t think so. (Although, if it did, don’t tell me because I want to be surprised when we watch it tonight.) (I’m assuming it was only okay since Real Girl’s email to me this morning was all, “So, any thoughts on Lost?” and not “OMG!!! DINOSAURS!” or something.) (The real loss about missing ANTM is having to wait a week to read fourfour’s recap. I honestly get more upset at the thought of missing the recap than the actual show.) (We’re done with parenthetical asides. For now.)
Anyway, the stage at Galapagos was set up to look like The Dating Game, with a (drunk) bachelorette on one side of a partition, and three competing bachelors on the other side. She asked questions and set up challenges and the dudes worked to make her love them. Though, honestly, we weren’t sure this girl was such a hot pick. It may have been the drunken factor, but she seemed a little…low key? Freaked out? Her bio included a fact about making creative cat toys and when the host pressed her for her most MacGyver-esque creation, the best she could do was, “A tinfoil ball? Sometimes ribbon?”
Seeing everyone up doing the challenges and answering questions really made me appreciate how much you need all your senses to make an informed decision about your romantic compatibility with another person. Like, for instance, someone may be a good-looking guy with a sense of humor and a nice personality, but if he is wearing, say, a turtleneck sweater with a giant gold cross over it, chances are we wouldn’t be a match made in heaven. In fact, I will go as far as to say that the existence of a gold cross over a turtleneck is the ONLY thing I would need to know about a potential love interest to disqualify him. I’m sure he’s a good guy. We would just never have dated.
Crazy Legs was on hand to host the hot dog eating portion of the evening. He flexed his competitive eating skills and downed a Nathan’s dog in about 6 seconds. It was an impressive display, and one that will hopefully cross over to this weekend, where he’ll be competing in the first in the round of qualifiers to determine who sits at the big table on July 4th at Coney Island. But get this: not only is he going to consume a monster amount of hot dogs on Saturday, he’s flying out to Boston to compete in the Boston Marathon on Monday. I mean, holy! It’s like some really twisted biathlon. (In an email, he wrote, “It will be a feat of intestinal and podiatric fortitude. I hope to pull neither an esophagus nor a hamstring.”) Anyway, the bachelors only ate a dog apiece, but had to display style. Crazy Legs manned the grill the rest of the evening, and I felt bad that he was stuck in a corner in the crowded bar over a propane grill. He was sweet enough to toss some free dogs our way.
Our favorite bachelor of the evening was #1, who really impressed us when it came to perform during the talent portion. He came out dressed in American flag garb and it seemed obvious he was going to break dance. But lo:
Maybe it was because the bachelorette couldn’t SEE the dancing or tell from our delighted cheers that this was definitely the guy, but she didn’t end up impressed by #1. In the end, she picked #2 and all of them—she, he, the turtleneck, and the gold cross—won the dinner for two.
I don’t know what I would have done with my life if I hadn’t flipped back in time to see Kelly Pickler singing “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Me: Oh god, what if I’d MISSED seeing this? Also, she is a skinny girl, but those pants aren’t doing her any favors.
J: That’s because they’re Joan Jett’s pants.
Me: But they’re black and should be flattering…but they are so not.
J: I’m telling you, it’s because they are Joan Jett’s pants. Anyone who puts them on immediately has Joan Jett’s proportions.
Elliott continues to creep me the fuck out. We continued with our “just crawled out of a hole to kill people” scenario for him. Especially when they showed the picture of him in his college radio booth.
Me (in Elliott voice): Aargh! The light! The light!
J (in Elliott voice): I like to eat crawlies.
The Queen theme for the evening made a strange set of songs. I joked about “We Are the Champions” coming on, since it seemed like the most unlikely song to be included in the evening’s repertoire given it’s particularly un-American Idolness nature. J mentioned Taylor Hicks singing it and that seemed to me the convergence to the two most unlikely events to happen in the evening.
Me: I will give you $100 if Taylor Hicks sings “We Are the Champions.” One hundred dollars.
Taylor Hicks: I was going to sing “We Are the Champions”
Me: NO!
J: Ha! You owe me $100!
Taylor Hicks: But then I decided to switch to “A Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”
J: Ohhh.
Me: God, that was close.
I wonder if I’d feel like this in another city, if life is always presenting you with frustrations and testing how you cope with them. I picture myself in suburbia, trapped in rush hour traffic with the sun in my eyes and know this has to be at least partially true. And there are lots of times when I’m not angry; most of the time I’m quite happy. I think as long as I keep the punching happening inside my head, and have J to vent to later, I’ll be okay.
Speaking of subways
I believe I wrote about our subway conductor, who we get quite often in the mornings on the R train and who always sounds like he’s saying, “This is the Manhattan bound duran train.” J and I have now had him as the conductor enough times to realize he really is saying “duran train” and not just some mumbled version of “R train.” As if this wasn’t strange enough, he calls D trains “David” trains, and I noticed that when the R hits Manhattan, he switches to calling it an “uptown Orion.” What’s up with that?
Clogged
The only good thing about being sick is that moment when you’re lying on your side in bed and your top sinus suddenly drains and, with a little pop, you can breath clearly through one nostril. The downside to this, of course, is that the bottom sinus immediately becomes clogged. Sometimes I like to turn over just for the novelty of doing it all again and breathing out of a new nostril.
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Much of Friday was spent watching this video of a dog with no front legs who walks upright like a little human and discussing the seemingly limitless way in which we could freak people out if we had such a dog. What if we put a bikini top on her? What if we put her in a little dress? What if we made some sort of costume that involved fake human arms? What then?? What if we could make the fake human arms holding something? Would this work on a cat? Conclusion: Must get front-legless dog.
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Did anyone else watching American Idol last night think, “Oh, somebody knit Mandesia a very nice Mandesia cozy. How sweet.”?
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I have to acknowledge that I’m a bit biased here. Nerz’s style and approach to writing about the sport closely resembles what Krista and I try to do with our coverage in terms of breadth. The book is divided by chapters dedicated to different eaters and competitions, broken up by chapters that delve into some tougher questions, including the validity of competitive eating as a sport, ethical and health concerns, and the usage (or non-usage) of eating-enhancement supplements (i.e. anti-nausea pills, esophagus relaxers, diuretics, vitamins, etc.), among others. One of my critiques of Horseman of the Esophagus by Jason Fagone (Crown; out at the end of the month), was that he only really focused extensively on two eaters, both of whom reside on the fringe of mainstream eating competitions. Nerz was able to cast a much wider net and get detailed profiles of the LeFevres, Crazy Legs, Don Lerman, Dale Boone, Booker, Hardy, Ed Krachie, and Cookie Jarvis.
I can’t really say what kind of reception Eat This Book will meet outside the established fan base, but I think fans and eaters will really enjoy reading it. Early reviews from the publishing trade magazines were favorable, though Booklist called it “basically a book-length infomercial for the organization and its most famous ‘athletes,’” an accusation which holds some water (though I don’t know too many infomercials that talk frankly about puke and toilet habits, two issues the IFOCE clearly doesn’t want associated with their sponsors). After reading both this book and Horseman of the Esophagus, it’s clear that Fagone’s book is the grittier of the two, the one less likely to cast an entertaining gauze over the events and people he writes about.
But of course, there’s a reason for that. Nerz had access that Fagone was denied, and that access opened Eat This Book to include a wide range of eaters’ perspectives. I mentioned that Fagone didn’t seem like he had a very good time while writing his book, and it’s clear the opposite was true for Nerz. There’s an excitement and joy in his writing that’s palpable and entirely relatable to a big fan. Additionally, you could tell the eaters felt comfortable enough around him to really talk to him. There’s more personal stories about Sonya in there than anywhere else I’ve read, and he managed to talk to Kobayashi about vitamins, training, and his post-competition bathroom rituals. There are several incidents, like Coondog O’Karma trying to sneak into a wing qualifier in a chicken costume, that you get from both perspectives, which is great.
In the end, I’m glad I had both books to read. You need Fagone’s to get a more critical perspective on the day-to-day of competitive eating and its participants, the workings of the IFOCE, and opinions of IFOCE defectors and opponents. You need Nerz’s to understand the range of competitive eaters, the joy the eaters and fans bring to the sport, and the spirit behind why they do what they do.
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Unfortunately, by the time we’d gathered, the whole alley was taken over by kids and their birthday parties for several hours. This turned out to be a godsend, as we then ended up going back to our apartment and basking in the backyard as the afternoon settled in. Later that evening, we headed back and played a couple games. Kelly and I took bowling for school credit in college, but it turns out I only retained the academic portion of this, and not so much the physical. By that I mean I was handily able to give people lots of advice while consistently throwing the ball into the left corner and ultimately bowling a 75.
Fun things at the ghetto bowling alley:
Someone had thrown away a poopy diaper in the bar trashcan, thus making the bar area smell like poopy diaper.
Abby’s grandmother used to be an avid bowler and gave Abby her bowling shoes, which she brings with her on bowling excursions. Bowling shoe fashion does not seem to have changed. At all. In fact, Abby’s were by far the nicest pair.
Abby’s approach to the lane is very model-cat-walky. Hot!
Kedar’s attempt at the little leg slide at the end of a throw, made all of us shout “Ole!” If he bowled a strike or spare, this was amended to, “Ole, motherfucker!”
Jason, we discovered, is completely freaked out by Renaissance people, or “rennies,” as he calls them. It turns out there are endless ways in which to screw with someone if they admit that to you.
The bartender that afternoon was really doing several things at once, so would sometimes run into the bar to serve you coming from a different activity. As we were walking out Kedar said, “Y’know, when the bartender was serving us, I thought he was just being really clean by wearing gloves…” [Pan to bartender emptying trashcans outside wearing same gloves.]
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