tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470727195820147335.post6207333346399074829..comments2023-06-01T04:39:24.530-07:00Comments on New Yorker Comment: Gopnik gets curbedUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470727195820147335.post-39456025512610904552007-10-25T23:04:00.000-07:002007-10-25T23:04:00.000-07:00DOiipl Hello! Great blog you have! My greetings!DOiipl Hello! Great blog you have! My greetings!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470727195820147335.post-55199917355120790762007-08-05T20:21:00.000-07:002007-08-05T20:21:00.000-07:00Hey guys I offer a free referral service for Mom o...Hey guys I offer a free referral service for Mom or Dad in Los angeles. It is just me so I give very personal assistance. Let me know if I can be of some help.<BR/><BR/>Bobbie Trifon<BR/>310 699 3000<BR/><A HREF="http://www.elderhomefinders.com/living/" REL="nofollow">Jewish Independent senior living facilities</A><BR/><BR/>My Son has a Jewish Singles site:<BR/><A HREF="http://www.jaters.com/" REL="nofollow">Jewish matchmaking</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470727195820147335.post-68659458446049167982007-03-27T18:10:00.000-07:002007-03-27T18:10:00.000-07:00ZP- nice post about gold fish. For the most part t...ZP- nice post about <A HREF="http://www.petsforpeople.net/?p=12" REL="nofollow">gold fish</A>. For the most part this blog is a little above my head. I spend more time with a dictionary than reading.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470727195820147335.post-25415187177910617902007-02-15T06:11:00.000-08:002007-02-15T06:11:00.000-08:00I have no idea what Gopnik is like as a person, bu...I have no idea what Gopnik is like as a person, but this bit o' writing still doesn't work for me. Here's the comparison of a goldfish to a Vietcong soldier; I found it on the internet, not my CNY, so things might be a screwy with the spelling, etc. <BR/><BR/>"To begin with, Bluie, as his name suggests, was not actually a goldfish. He was a betta, a goldfish-size fish that the people in pet stores encourage you to buy in place of the apparently tetchy and sickly true Asian goldfish. The betta is a handsome fish, with long, sweeping fins. It can be red or black or violet or blue, and it is, at least according to the pet-store people, the Vietcong of pet fish, evolved in rugged isolation in the rice-paddy puddles of Indochina and just about impossible to kill off. The only drawback is that male bettas fight with each other, and have to be kept apart. It is not surprising, these days, to see a set of them on a child's dresser in Manhattan, held in separate containers, in a kind of glass-bowl parody of the co-op apartment building that surrounds them, each fish furiously pacing its cubic foot of space and waiting for the other to turn up the stereo."<BR/><BR/>I actually like the political "Talks," the others drive me bananas and the change in tone from the first to the next is often quite disorienting. But then a lot of folks don't care for the political "Talks" . . .zoe p.https://www.blogger.com/profile/02535684589288030978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470727195820147335.post-25911505395618622172007-02-12T14:43:00.000-08:002007-02-12T14:43:00.000-08:00Thanks for coming by, Kia. I like your blog, altho...Thanks for coming by, Kia. I like your blog, although I had to look up 'emetic.' Nice one. <BR/><BR/><B><I>Writing has its own rules and the way it sometimes works to support or subvert an author's imagined self-presentation is complicated and interesting to me.</I></B><BR/><BR/>I misread that as 'self-preservation' the first time but, either way, I agree heartily. <BR/><BR/>I've heard your complaint about the magazine's declining ability to judge higher-order literary virtue in a couple of places now. I don't have a fully formed opinion myself, other than feeling that David Sedaris is the worst offender they regularly publish. <BR/><BR/>Mind if I link to you?JJBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16228313160543032847noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470727195820147335.post-82060010655577332792007-02-12T14:12:00.000-08:002007-02-12T14:12:00.000-08:00Sorry for the long post. Also I'm Gall and Gumptio...Sorry for the long post. Also I'm <A HREF="http://gallandgumption.blogspot.com/2007/02/silliest-man-in-new-york.html" REL="nofollow">Gall and Gumption</A>, FYI.Kiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07652157502257079776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470727195820147335.post-86791925588431351802007-02-12T14:09:00.000-08:002007-02-12T14:09:00.000-08:00I got a lot of unexpected attention for my own con...I got a lot of unexpected attention for my own contribution to the Gopnik pile-on. I never heard of some of these people who joined in until Wolcott linked to my own post -- my blog has a very small readership. I don't know about anybody else, but all I know of Gopnik is his writing. Writing has its own rules and the way it sometimes works to support or subvert an author's imagined self-presentation is complicated and interesting to me. But it's not the writer as a person that's up to scrutiny, it's what he or she has made with the medium. That made thing (book, poem, memoir) goes on to live a life of its own. That makes it fair game for criticism, because the life it lives on its own is, among other things, the life it lives in my reactions to it. If <A HREF="http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/odetohimself.htm" REL="nofollow">Ben Jonson</A> had to learn how to live through criticism and scorn of his work (and he was taking serious and interesting creative risks), so can Gopnik -- it's the writer's lot in life. You just go back to work, that's about it. <BR/><BR/>A couple of people who commented at my place have indicated that it's less Gopnik himself that they object to than that dreadful tone of professional whimsy that you find in the New Yorker ("OOO that smell!" is how one commenter put it). This is a much bigger issue than Gopnik, I believe. I don't remember it always being so cloying and unearthly smug but it has made the "Talk of the Town" pieces almost unreadable to me. It's like they've lost control of <I>tone</I> over there. I imagine the magazine students at Columbia still doing, every couple years or so, a profile on the quirky and daunting copy editor -- "Such rigorous attention to correctness!" -- but I wonder if the New Yorker's ability to judge higher-level literary qualities is what it used to be. I'm not talking about back in the ancient days, I mean over the last maybe 10-15 years. Think of some of the people who have stopped writing for them in that interval.Kiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07652157502257079776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470727195820147335.post-18205136226647041012007-02-12T09:37:00.000-08:002007-02-12T09:37:00.000-08:00Emily makes a fair point: she provides the omelett...Emily makes a fair point: she provides the omelette and eggs for you to eat, without saying whether they are good or bad. <BR/><BR/>ZP, you make me self-conscious: though it's been a while, I remember really liking that fish story. I'm checking in on your Bluie entry right now.JJBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16228313160543032847noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470727195820147335.post-19435754856012485122007-02-12T07:49:00.000-08:002007-02-12T07:49:00.000-08:00My first post ever (I think) was about Gopnik's go...My first post ever (I think) was about Gopnik's goldfish. I do not support that treacly business. <BR/><BR/>Maybe the ensuing linkathon was a bit harsh, but I thought most people were just giving a little sigh of relief.<BR/><BR/>I also think that since the Bluie essay and (I'm guessing) the publication of the work, Gopnik has turned his attention to topics of more general interest.zoe p.https://www.blogger.com/profile/02535684589288030978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470727195820147335.post-3158690740306464592007-02-11T18:07:00.000-08:002007-02-11T18:07:00.000-08:00I've been a little uncomfortable with the assumpti...I've been a little uncomfortable with the assumption that I second every last word of James Wolcott's review by virtue of having linked to it. As you'll see if you poke around Emdashes, I do a lot of quick linking without comment, and that's how I see my "omelette and eggs" intro. I revere Wolcott as a critic and like him tremendously as a person, but my opinions about Gopnik and his writing have, thus far, not been shared on my site. (I'm posting this to I Hate The New Yorker too, in case my comments look a little similar!)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com