Literary Clusterfucks 2013

toy with an emotional vampire, don't be shocked if you get bit.

― Roz, Thursday, 7 October 2021 04:34

Otm

But yeah this is probably going to be good for at least one of their careers

Would love if Dorland finished her book and it turned out to be extraordinarily original and accomplished and showered with praise

Just to annoy the grub Street

i think the worst part of this whole thing is that i have had to read the phrase 'Grub Street' many times

the phrase "grub street" mainly reminds me that i beached abt a third of the way into gissing's new grub street and i shd dig it out and finish it >:(

actually both these characters wd kinda fit into new grub street tho kidney donation is maybe a bit avant-garde for the 1880s, it wd be more like best-kid-glove donation

Would love if Dorland finished her book and it turned out to be extraordinarily original and accomplished and showered with praise

― plax (ico), Thursday, October 7, 2021 6:09 AM (one hour ago)

https://www.ourgoldenage.com.au/user/pages/film/the-king-of-comedy/GAC_KingOfComedy3.jpg?page_context&media&caption

Surely Dorland will write a memoir

but none of this would've happened if Larson didn't decide to write a story that - regardless of what she says or how the story turned out later on - not only cribbed from Dorland's life/writing, but was clearly meant to mock her while knowing full well that everyone who ran in the same circles would recognise the character as Dorland. (Dorland was even alerted to the story via a mutual friend!).

See, my take is that none of this would have happened if Dorland hadn't made a worthy but private act of sacrifice into a public spectacle and something that she deserves accolades for, accolades which she went out of her way to solicit and harangue people about when she didn't feel she was getting enough attention.

It boggles my mind that anyone can see this any other way, actually!

how do you feel about dreamers/excellers?

I mean it's basically like--do Truman Capote have the artistic right to write a bunch of gossipy fiction about his famous friends? Sure, he did. Did they have the right to be pissed about it and kick him out of their circles? Sure, they did. The lawsuit is what makes this instance ridiculous.

did Truman

Larson is definitely an asshole, but someone actively PMing people to say "hey don't you have an opinion on the amazing, selfless thing I did" seems like, at best, to be a complete lack of self-awareness, and at worst, a full-fledged emotional vampire.

how do you feel about dreamers/excellers?

― St. Twel'mo, or the Cuneiform Cyclopedist of Chattanooga (President Keyes), Thursday, October 7, 2021 9:15 AM (thirty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't see how this question has anything to do with the frankly unhinged behavior of Dorland.

It boggles my mind that anyone can see this any other way, actually!

It's so hard to pick a side to champion for when both sides are clearly people you'd quickly learn to shun in real life.

the author is being disingenuous af though

but legally? idk that Dornan has any case at all

It boggles my mind that anyone can see this any other way, actually!

― St. Twel'mo, or the Cuneiform Cyclopedist of Chattanooga (President Keyes), Thursday, October 7, 2021 9:58 AM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Still doesn't answer my response to your question— how does Dorland being a needy vampire translate into being a "dreamer" or an "exceller"? Nothing about the way I've characterized her would put her into the camp of "dreamer" or "exceller," but instead into the camp of "socially inept, unhinged, needy weirdo." Sorry, but that isn't the same thing.

But to answer your question, I have no problem with dreamers or excellers, I would even consider myself to be one— but I also don't act like Dorland, and think that it's a disservice to dreamers and excellers to associate them with someone who is so clearly unwell.

I’m talking about how both sides of the Viking debate cannot see how anyone could possibly disagree with them

Dorland's definitely the exceller, Larson the dreamer.

See, my take is that none of this would have happened if Dorland hadn't made a worthy but private act of sacrifice into a public spectacle and something that she deserves accolades for, accolades which she went out of her way to solicit and harangue people about when she didn't feel she was getting enough attention.

― I'm a sovereign jazz citizen (the table is the table), Thursday, 7 October 2021 16:13 (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah i think this really gets to whats going on, where its about larson/grub st very brutally upholding a strongly bourgeois aesthetics (of the self/of writing) which dorling desires but fails at. So there is a correct way to write the short story (show don't tell), a correct way to be a professional writer (MFAs, prestigious workshop programs) and discrete ways of comporting yourself in public/online. There is a real horror I think in the way they all respond to Dorling, that seemingly comes earlier than her targeting them individually. They seem quite literally disgusted by her and fascinated by their disgust and what deeply bores me about the story is how it seems to leave the assumptions about those prescriptive norms very much intact. Everyone in this story buys into quite a rigid, bourgeois ideal of 'success' and are very willing to be judged by it, which is why everyone comes across as equally pathetic.

Agree with tabes here and the dreamers/excellers parallel doesnt rly imo fit

In dreamers/excellers its only one side who are awful and wrong

Lol

The Viking Debate? Please.

Dorland started this whole thing by acting unhinged af, inviting the mockery and scrutiny of those whom she erroneously considered colleagues. The resulting situation sucks for her, and exposes the meanness and pettiness of those supposed colleagues but it also is of her own making.

And I should mention that I agree with plax— these people are all much too much invested in "mainstream" literary success, whatever that means, instead of focusing on their art, which should be the point of all of this anyway.

Well except that 'focusing on their art' does seem one of the most normative ideals that gets trotted out (by Larson)

Whatever, it's the truth, as normative as it might be. Most people who say it don't actually practice what they preach.

Exactly. These kinds of commonplaces have to be arbitrated in more or less fine-grained ways to delineate correct, respectable kinds of conduct.

Totally— here, Larson is using it as shorthand for "don't pay attention to the sources for my work, just focus on the messages that I would like to be inhered in the work."

My point is that many, many artists and writers, myself included on occasion, would do well to ignore gossip and drama and interpersonal BS and just focus on the work that they are making or trying to make.

maybe “the kindest” is more interesting than the gossip behind it.. but i seriously doubt it

Yes exactly! it's the same kind of Protestant acetic ideal of the artist (solitary, unmotivated by material reward or recognition) that informs their discomfort with her kidney story

is dreamer/exceller some malcolm gladwell pop psych shit?

some would say that, but they are wrong

oh dear

It's from a debate about a Simpsons joke. I only brought it up because table's statement that it boggled his mind that someone could see things differently is a sentiment that came up about 1000 times on that thread

Oh boy, the New York Times Magazine! That's where I'm a Bad Art Friend!

Hate to cross the streams but one last time until the next last time

Ppl are alarmed and appalled that the excellers think they might be right

Not that they think can see something different if they squint

how many dreamers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

only one, because that's where they're a viking, and that means they're excellent at changing lightbulbs

everyone invoking that stuuuuuupid viking thread should be fp’d

why did I imagine VG yelling that at the thread out of a car window

Jesus lets not

oh great now I'm going to have to read a thread about vikings, too?

only if you will follow it up by dousing your eyes with acid, which is the only known antidote to that thread

xp Yeah otherwise a lot of the references here will read like norse code

imma douse my eyes with acid after that quip, dmac

humour

Thats where im an eyesting