Literary Clusterfucks 2013

I guess what I'm trying to figure out is how someone could take an uniquely horrifying story as emblematic, and I don't think Erdely misunderstands the meaning of the word "emblematic." I think there's a weird ideological thing going on.

i mean if it were true that there was formally institutionalized group sexual assaults at a fraternity then that wld be very emblematic of rape culture but to get to the point where you believe that you have to not understand how rape culture really functions, or at least be lead astray by yr desire for a good story

The people who want to talk horrific single examples are most often the opposite of people who want to talk about broader, everyday issues. Like, take the Walter Scott situation. What is going on there? Is that an example of a single horrific racist who straight up murdered an innocent black man? Or is it the logical outgrowth of municipal policing focusing on punishing broken taillights and back child-pay to get money for small cities without raising taxes? I think a lot of the people who will begin painting the officer as a horrific unique monster are reactionary people trying to avoid North Charleston gets exposed by the DOJ the way Ferguson was.

In the same way, the RS story was always confused. But it doesn't seem to me to be an outgrowth of the ideology surrounding 'rape culture', more like the opposite. More like old fashioned conservative mass scares, complete with the ritualized aspect.

But it's kinda interesting how the two issues can intersect, the left-oriented struggle to shine a light on damaging structural issues, with the right-wing outrage media machine.

It's weird that the emblematic case had to be sought solely at 'elite schools', too.

I agree that mass hysteria is often associated w the right but no one thinks RS published this to be reactionary. They obv thought it was a public service.

their motivations seem pretty muddled

More like old fashioned conservative mass scares, complete with the ritualized aspect.

― Frederik B, Wednesday, April 8, 2015 10:48 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya def thought of the imaginary 80s satan worship cults

well this is much much less of a leap than the satanic panic, c'mon

ppl were crazy 4 the satanic panic!

When Renda told her about Jackie in that first conversation, Erdely found what she was looking for, and she made the decision not to pursue other, less dramatic cases that she learned about. Renda later told the Times that a more ambiguous incident might have seemed “not real enough to stand for rape culture. And that is part of the problem.” Her remark could be applied to narrative journalism as well: extreme, lurid cases are inherently tempting subjects, but they are not the most likely to lead to complex or profound or abidingly true work.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/rolling-stone-and-the-temptations-of-narrative-journalism

this seems like the right thread for this:
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/232432/the-new-normal

At the end of March I participated in a panel discussion at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan—a lively conversation on up-to-date themes with Leon Wieseltier and Bernard-Henri Lévy, moderated by Alana Newhouse, the Tablet editor. The discussion made for an agreeable evening, reasonably stimulating and entirely friendly and civilized—except for one problem. At the conclusion of the event, a well-known professor at one of the New York colleges, who is also a columnist at a liberal magazine, came up to me and announced that he was blackmailing me.

The professor’s posture and behavior attracted the attention of the security guards, who escorted him from the building. But he had sufficient time to explain to me what he wanted. He wanted me to publish a denunciation of myself in Tablet. He told me that, if I did not do what he demanded, he was going to humiliate me. He explained that somehow he had gotten hold of an erotic correspondence between me and someone else, and he intended to publish it. “Are you threatening me?” I said.

The security guards insisted on accompanying the members of the panel to our next appointment, which was at a bar, where they left us to drink in peace. I put the incident out of my mind. A couple of days later, however, the professor sent an email:

“Dear Paul Berman,

“Like you, I enjoyed our conversation of the other night but I thought it ended uncompleted.” He explained that I should write a self-denunciation in the style of Augustine or Alexander Hamilton.

“Since you already have a column in Tablet, that would be a great place for it to appear.

“It would also be a good career move. Right now, you are best known to the world for having pimped for George Bush’s disastrous war.”

But this sin was going to seem as nothing, compared to the erotic correspondence.

wish he had named the professor

You left out the "best" part:

I hope that, if he does publish something and attaches my name to it, the correspondence is well-written. Some of my erotic correspondence is quite well-written, I like to think. I am an admirer of Georges Bataille, and an even greater admirer of Juan García Ponce, the Mexican writer, who is unknown in the United States but deserves to be known: a great erotic writer. (I should devote an essay to him. A crazy priapic imagination!) I dedicated myself not so long ago to a study of the artfully obscene poetry of Pierre Louÿs, André Gide’s friend, in the hope of impressing a particular someone. Perhaps there is an amorous tone in some of my more Louÿs-like efforts that belongs more to me than to him, not that I foreswear the vulgar. And Louÿs is a wicked man, and I am not. In any case, if my erotica were ever to appear in print, I would prefer that it did so under my own control. Some of it doubtless needs editing and revision.

simon critchley teaches at the new school and had a column in the ny times, haha. (It was obviously not SC!)

Also this incident repeats a plot point from
The Young Pope.

maybe it was SC? who are some other possibilities

eric alterman has a column at the nation...

http://www.deborahcopakenkogan.com/wp-content/gallery/portraits-individual/eric_alterman__author.jpg

and lookee here: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/general/news/2011/09/08/10303/think-again-its-not-what-bill-keller-believed-about-iraq-its-who/

In it, Keller recalls his charter membership in what he calls “the I-Can’t-Believe-I’m-a-Hawk Club,” made up of liberals for whom 9/11 stirred a fresh willingness to employ American might. It was a large and estimable group of writers and affiliations, including, among others, Thomas Friedman of The New York Times; Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek; George Packer and Jeffrey Goldberg of The New Yorker; Richard Cohen of The Washington Post; the blogger Andrew Sullivan; Paul Berman of Dissent; Christopher Hitchens of just about everywhere; and Kenneth Pollack, the former CIA analyst whose book The Threatening Storm became the liberal manual on the Iraqi threat.

the bitchiest wieseltier takedown of all time (not that it's wrong)

http://www.weeklystandard.com/leon-wieseltier-is-a-creep.-hes-also-an-intellectual-fraud./article/2010308#!

i've always thought he was an overrated hack

That dude being a predator was the first I'd ever heard of him so good legacy he's got there

he was an editor + writer for new republic and the atlantic for many years so he's not exactly unknown

15 years ago he frequented a bookstore i worked in; didn't do anything unreasonable, but he was somewhat creepy

i know nothing about writer or writee but that was a joy to read

cosign - not to be slept on imo

I met him once, he seemed like a random old guy and made no impression on me as being either intellectual or creepy

Epstein's finale:

In his middle sixties, now that he has been publicly shamed and self-confessed as a creep, the Leon Wieseltier Show would seem to be over. No comeback for its star, surely, is possible, or so one might think. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

In today's market, I am sure someone somewhere would be willing to pay for a bit of intellectual "tuchus-lecking."

Leon’s reputed cocaine habit, which caused him to load up his Honda with the review copies of books sent by publishers to the magazine and sell them to support his expensive drug habit.

idk how you could afford any coke on that

hagiography

When you win the Nobel Prize but nothing can fill the gaping abyss of your insecurity: https://t.co/LiGPQpeZbR pic.twitter.com/dFY5mBWU4c

— Angela Chen (@chengela) September 10, 2018

https://twitter.com/search?q=ailey%20o%27toole&src=tyah

https://www.vulture.com/2018/12/plagiarism-drama-surrounds-pushcart-nominated-poet.html

hope someone somewhere out there is available to stay on suicide watch for this unfortunate case

Plagiarism is the dumbest shit

Plagiarism is the dumbest shit

she picked the wrong poet to plagiarize. rachel mckibben is not being philosophical about it.

"...In paraphrasing you, I had hoped to put our poems into conversation with each other and go on to explore new terrain opened up for me by your work. I am deeply ashamed of the mistake I made and hope you can accept my sincerest apologies." Bitch, I DON'T.

— Rachel McKibbens (@RachelMcKibbens) December 1, 2018

I need to come back to this, because that tattoo of hers is more than just a line. I was the youngest patient in the US to get braces back in the 80s. My orthodontist was stunned that I'd lost all my baby teeth. I was seven.

— Rachel McKibbens (@RachelMcKibbens) December 1, 2018

My dad helped me lose those teeth, Ailey. Here's a line I never put in a poem: the tooth fairy doesn't come for teeth knocked down your throat.

You can have that one.

— Rachel McKibbens (@RachelMcKibbens) December 1, 2018

jesus christ

Rachel McKibbens has a point. Did Ailey O'Toole ever contact her and ask her permission to "put our poems into conversation with each other and go on to explore new terrain opened up for me by your work"? Given Rachel's response, I'd say the chances are nil.

Plagiarism is the dumbest shit.

yeah, i am not saying mckibbens is wrong to be angry. i am just saying, whoa, she is angry.

Excusing a white person's criminal behavior because you assume they have mental illness IS PART OF WHITE SUPREMACY. Check yourselves. #AileyOToole #RachelMcKibbens #PushcartPrize #Poetry

— Voight-Kampff Test (@enjen99) December 2, 2018

can't help but feel a bit worried for a (seemingly very young person) getting the brunt of these kinds of twitter broadsides. again, not saying the analysis is wrong, just... eesh

I myself have had my style co-opted by other students in workshops. This is not flattery — this is theft. Not nearly as egregious as spitting back words of another poet. Plagiarisers are not welcome in the writing community. #AileyOToole

— Rachael Walker (@rwalkerwrites) December 3, 2018

this take however is pretty fucking dumb

ppl can't tell if you embed tweets here can they

This is not flattery — this is theft.

urrggh. She thinks she can claim all property rights to a style?! Uh, nope. No one ever did before.

yeah. i think this kind of mistake is inevitable given the strident anti-plagiarism stance people were taking on twitter, in which true poetry was an expression of the poet's authentic voice and anything short of that is stealing. i agree that people shouldn't lift lines from other poets, but i also think all art emerges from a tradition and it's naive to imagine that any poet arrived at their voice all alone, rather than via dialogue with other poets. we live in a society and all that

I think there's a lot of space between that and biting poems from a book published in 2017

exactly

The idea that a real poet finds some kind of perfectly individual voice is one of those myths that both critics and artists love to fetishize. The greatest poets are always derivative to some degree and most achieve their individual distinction mostly upon stylistic nuances and personal themes and imagery. Non-greatest poets do exactly the same, except not as successfully.

yeah, you have to fight to be original. not everyone gets there.

We at @GhostCityPress will not tolerate plagiarism. It’s like removing the flesh & bones from an artist. It’s stealing their voice. It’s evil. In light of recent events, we have taken down Ailey O'Toole’s work.

Someone’s voice is to be celebrated, not taken away from them.

— Justin Karcher (@justin_karcher) December 1, 2018

should be asleep but i am reading more tweets about this. what does ilx think of this kind of reaction? i think it's over the top and so much response has been in this vein. again--plagiariam is bad and certainly a kind of violation--but is evil really a good word to use for someone who isn't donald trump?

the poetry world is exceedingly small and difficult to become established within, so that the idea of anyone occupying some unmerited sliver of publishing space in that crowded and miniscule world utterly infuriates the coterie of poets who've managed to carve out a tiny bit of standing room in that micro-universe.

perhaps the fact that these people are involved in 'the lit world' does not necessarily mean that they have good judgment in other, or perhaps any, respects

yeah i guess. i just think the absolutism is idiotic.