Five great recent bits of journalism/criticism:
(5) The Times piece on Ellen DeGeneres. Delightful. ED has some concerns about joke theft--but she does not acknowledge that her new idea, mocking the concept of "relatability," has been fertile ground, already, for Chelsea Peretti and Louis CK. (At the least. Interesting.)
I love the analysis of ED at work--how she is relaxed and charismatic, at this point, and also not particularly "stretched." (You might sense some boredom.) I also love how the piece shows ED editing herself; at times, she has had a joke she has opted to suppress, so that she doesn't stomp on the sunny aura of the show. And then: To have ED wander onstage and say, "Fuck." Brilliant--because, as Tig Notaro observes, it's a joke that has been building on itself for at least fifteen years. Sometimes, you can pack a great deal into one word. I look forward to this special.
(4) Emily Nussbaum, rounding up the year's best in TV, in the New Yorker. Good criticism should have "the whiff of the concession stand," and Nussbaum has this in spades. You sense she actually enjoys what she is doing.
I love that Nussbaum is willing to slaughter various darlings; "Homecoming" is "soul-dead," and "Mrs. Maisel" is "cloying." I also love Nussbaum's championing of shows that acknowledge that women exist in the world, whether the show in question is "Younger," "Glow," "Jane the Virgin," or "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend." Nussbaum's criticism is actually inspiring; there's "nourishment" in seeing someone do her job with such pleasure and skill.
(3) "How to Tell if You Are in an Alice Munro Story." This is an old essay that made me laugh out loud: http://the-toast.net/2014/12/08/tell-alice-munro-story/
(2) "How to Stop Yourself from Crying." A sensible essay on tear suppression, and on the politics of tear suppression. The typically overwrought reader responses are also delectable. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/14/well/mind/how-to-stop-yourself-from-crying.html
(1) The Times's profile of Sigrid Nunez. Nice to see this literary vet in the spotlight. Nunez has few pressing relationships and no children, and so she is financially capable of maintaining a small Union Square apartment (on a writer's salary). Nunez believes, with Edna O'Brien, that writing should be a vocation, like the priesthood; there should be a kind of priestly asceticism. So it's with a sense of mockery that the narrator in "The Friend" refers to a group of writers who have posed for a "nude calendar."
Writers, says Nunez, are self-loathing. Joan Didion: "A writer is a stealth bully." Janet Malcolm: "All journalism is morally indefensible." Milosz: "When a writer is born into the family, that family is finished." It's unusual to see a writer of fiction describing, in depth, the corruption of the writing life: the MFAs who wander around, jobless, uninspired; the meanness and competitiveness; the sense of lack-of-utility; the half-assed-ness of some careers.
Writers have embraced "The Friend," I guess because Nunez is saying things others haven't said--or at least saying old things in a new way. There's a contrarian spirit. That spirit is always welcome and always invigorating.
(5) The Times piece on Ellen DeGeneres. Delightful. ED has some concerns about joke theft--but she does not acknowledge that her new idea, mocking the concept of "relatability," has been fertile ground, already, for Chelsea Peretti and Louis CK. (At the least. Interesting.)
I love the analysis of ED at work--how she is relaxed and charismatic, at this point, and also not particularly "stretched." (You might sense some boredom.) I also love how the piece shows ED editing herself; at times, she has had a joke she has opted to suppress, so that she doesn't stomp on the sunny aura of the show. And then: To have ED wander onstage and say, "Fuck." Brilliant--because, as Tig Notaro observes, it's a joke that has been building on itself for at least fifteen years. Sometimes, you can pack a great deal into one word. I look forward to this special.
(4) Emily Nussbaum, rounding up the year's best in TV, in the New Yorker. Good criticism should have "the whiff of the concession stand," and Nussbaum has this in spades. You sense she actually enjoys what she is doing.
I love that Nussbaum is willing to slaughter various darlings; "Homecoming" is "soul-dead," and "Mrs. Maisel" is "cloying." I also love Nussbaum's championing of shows that acknowledge that women exist in the world, whether the show in question is "Younger," "Glow," "Jane the Virgin," or "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend." Nussbaum's criticism is actually inspiring; there's "nourishment" in seeing someone do her job with such pleasure and skill.
(3) "How to Tell if You Are in an Alice Munro Story." This is an old essay that made me laugh out loud: http://the-toast.net/2014/12/08/tell-alice-munro-story/
(2) "How to Stop Yourself from Crying." A sensible essay on tear suppression, and on the politics of tear suppression. The typically overwrought reader responses are also delectable. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/14/well/mind/how-to-stop-yourself-from-crying.html
(1) The Times's profile of Sigrid Nunez. Nice to see this literary vet in the spotlight. Nunez has few pressing relationships and no children, and so she is financially capable of maintaining a small Union Square apartment (on a writer's salary). Nunez believes, with Edna O'Brien, that writing should be a vocation, like the priesthood; there should be a kind of priestly asceticism. So it's with a sense of mockery that the narrator in "The Friend" refers to a group of writers who have posed for a "nude calendar."
Writers, says Nunez, are self-loathing. Joan Didion: "A writer is a stealth bully." Janet Malcolm: "All journalism is morally indefensible." Milosz: "When a writer is born into the family, that family is finished." It's unusual to see a writer of fiction describing, in depth, the corruption of the writing life: the MFAs who wander around, jobless, uninspired; the meanness and competitiveness; the sense of lack-of-utility; the half-assed-ness of some careers.
Writers have embraced "The Friend," I guess because Nunez is saying things others haven't said--or at least saying old things in a new way. There's a contrarian spirit. That spirit is always welcome and always invigorating.
Comments
Post a Comment