haha wow this is so otm
qhow on earth Glenn Howerton — a man who has effectively been playing Bundy on It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia for the best part of 15 years — was passed over for the role is beyond me. Perhaps he was afraid of being typecast
― legislative fanboy halfwit (Οὖτις), Tuesday, 5 February 2019 21:52 (five years ago) link
besides the howerton line that outline article is... pretty bad :/ sorry
― Mordy, Tuesday, 5 February 2019 21:53 (five years ago) link
sure its not your politics
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 5 February 2019 21:55 (five years ago) link
no the outline hosts a lot of bad writing
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Tuesday, 5 February 2019 22:00 (five years ago) link
as does The New Yorker
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 5 February 2019 22:02 (five years ago) link
agree that that article has nothing particularly noteworthy to recommend it
xp
― legislative fanboy halfwit (Οὖτις), Tuesday, 5 February 2019 22:04 (five years ago) link
i'd be surprised if the outline has ever run anything a tenth as good as the best article in any random issue of the new yorker.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 5 February 2019 22:09 (five years ago) link
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, February 5, 2019 3:02 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
bad writing?!?!?! in the new yorker!??!?! you don't say
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Tuesday, 5 February 2019 22:10 (five years ago) link
lol calm down
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 5 February 2019 22:12 (five years ago) link
I am not comparing The Outline to the fucking New Yorker like you all are, just pairing Mallory to Bundy as portrayed in a couple of pieces that were published in a 24 hour period.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 5 February 2019 22:13 (five years ago) link
o_Ö
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 5 February 2019 22:46 (five years ago) link
i think it's weird to compare a weird publishing grifter to ted bundy
― Trϵϵship, Tuesday, 5 February 2019 22:59 (five years ago) link
or to see ted bundy as a story of white male privilege. just seems off.
― Trϵϵship, Tuesday, 5 February 2019 23:00 (five years ago) link
I don't think the point about Bundy's white male privilege is wrong, I just think the observation is kind of banal and the piece doesn't have much to say beyond it's initial thesis cuz duh yes of course someone who looked and talked like Bundy did got a pass/did not look "suspicious" to a lot of people
― legislative fanboy halfwit (Οὖτις), Tuesday, 5 February 2019 23:03 (five years ago) link
for sure and he used it to his advantage
― Trϵϵship, Tuesday, 5 February 2019 23:05 (five years ago) link
The police have never been able to confirm how many instances of manspreading he was responsible for
― FernandoHierro, Tuesday, 5 February 2019 23:10 (five years ago) link
i think it's weird to compare a weird publishing grifter to ted bundy― Trϵϵship, Tuesday, 5 February 2019 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Trϵϵship, Tuesday, 5 February 2019 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Don't be too weirded out now Treeship.
The observation is more commonly made around all sorts of figures and everyday in certain corner of the web, but you still have remarks made about Bundy being this good looking guy...like Mallory here, and then some ppl are just waving these fucked up lies as if he is a grifter, that its entertaining, or perhaps not a big deal, like he didn't kill anyone (true, in this case) when the piece itself uses Highsmith and Ripley quite a bit...just a few bits to frame.
But sure The New Yorker is a lot better and more distinguished than The Outline.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 5 February 2019 23:25 (five years ago) link
not all dangerous psychopaths are murderers of people, some find other things to murder!
― calzino, Tuesday, 5 February 2019 23:28 (five years ago) link
Wild but ultimately unsurprising story - seems like a garden variety compulsive liar to me. They just tend to be written about more often when they're in publishing/media because it's easier to find a peer who wants to write about them or finds them fascinating in some way.
The Agatha Christie writer is a real trip - she totally recognised him for who he was early on but instead of shutting him out, chose to massage his ego for her own gain instead.
― Roz, Wednesday, 6 February 2019 01:55 (five years ago) link
The bit where he pretended to be his own brother writing to everyone to say he was sick made me think of that time Luna pretended to be some friend of hers saying she'd collapsed and was in hospital, lol.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Wednesday, 6 February 2019 03:17 (five years ago) link
The excerpts of his "charming" and "self-deprecating" emails made him sound like a huge pain in the hole.
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Wednesday, 6 February 2019 04:41 (five years ago) link
I enjoye this as a HOT LIT GOSSIP story and an OMG CHECK THIS JERK story, but ultimately it made me feel really uncomfortable for the guy's family, like his crimes seemed too small potatoes and too wrapped up in sad mental health issues for this to be worth the full New Yorker exposé treatment. The implication at the end - "oh no, he still lies to his dad, his dad is such a rube" - was pretty distasteful and unsympathetic, as for all we know the dad could be wholly aware of everything but was just being unswaveringly loyal to his son to the journalist because, er, he's his son?
I ended up feeling like the most interesting aspect of the story - the systematic failure of people in the book industry to deal with the problem, and the piratical, privileged nature of publishing - was glossed over too much, although you can understand why the New Yorker might not want to have gone there.
― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, 6 February 2019 04:47 (five years ago) link
I feel like if Andrew Cunanan didn’t murder anyone he would have gone into publishing
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 6 February 2019 04:49 (five years ago) link
Ha yes I got the Cunanan vibe also.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Wednesday, 6 February 2019 05:01 (five years ago) link
Chuck: its a bit tasteless that hes telling various people his mums dead, his brother's dead, he had cancer he didnt have. Esp in public, and for the benefit of his own career. I mean this isnt criminal, sure, but still.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Wednesday, 6 February 2019 05:03 (five years ago) link
Oh yeah, no doubt. But I don't think his story is consequential enough to justify this sort of (admittedly super juicy) feature focus. And the glossing over of his mental health issues to create a pantomime villain is pretty awful.
― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, 6 February 2019 05:10 (five years ago) link
Also holy hell the ending of the book sounds bad.
― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, 6 February 2019 05:16 (five years ago) link
the book is stupid but i think it’s like a requirement now for bestselling “crime-mystery” novels to be stupid.
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 6 February 2019 05:53 (five years ago) link
I definitely agree there is not quite enough there to justify a huge feature. Reading the story (and seeing the illustration at the top) imagined I was on the road to one big event which was the culmination of all the lies. It never really came, though there's sort of hints that he was more generally sinister in his day to day dealings with people.
I feel like I've prob met people who were like this - maybe in music or whatever. One guy I worked with in a record store who became quite successful in techno - we used to call him "the grifter" - he stole from the till every day to buy his lunch, even after his label was succeeding, he would ask you to cover him for a gig and say the pay was 100 and the promoter would give you the money and it would turn out it was 300 and he'd expected to be given it later.
A year or two later he did some big event at Sonar and I knew one of the acts and if came up casually that he had ripped everyone off.
This is more than a decade ago and he lives in LA now and someone sent me a photo of him standing beside his Lamborghini.
So in a way I can understand the motivation behind publishing this piece even if blow by blow it all feels sort of small. Maybe industries should start exposing their grifters. I mean presumably this will lead to lots of stuff the writer couldn't find out or verify coming out.
― FernandoHierro, Wednesday, 6 February 2019 08:04 (five years ago) link
(sorry written on my phone)
― Chuck_Tatum
i agree that the systemic failure is the big story here and it's certainly possible, though i'm not in any position to judge, that the guy may not be in full control of the crazy shit he says. mentally ill or no, he is still _responsible_ for his actions, and it is neither cruel or unfair to report the pertinent facts regarding his past words and actions. the behavior can't be addressed without combating our tendency to overlook or excuse it (which is _particularly prevalent_ when it's a well-heeled white guy doing it, i've found).
― The Elvis of Nationalism and Amoral Patriotism (rushomancy), Wednesday, 6 February 2019 14:54 (five years ago) link
i was entertained but it's funny that all this guy's ridiculous machinations got him to the point where he could be....a successful derivative thriller writer? seems like he was aiming much higher for a while.
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 6 February 2019 15:33 (five years ago) link
Million bucks for writing a shit book, plus who knows how much dosh for film rights? More than many con-artists manage.
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Wednesday, 6 February 2019 20:41 (five years ago) link
yeah he and his publisher seem to have done pretty well and (I’m guessing) unlike the last clusterfuck to make this thread (the weird YA twitter thing) there’s probably little overlap between those enjoying the NYer schadenfreude and those who would actually buy the book or see the movie
― sciatica, Wednesday, 6 February 2019 20:49 (five years ago) link
Turns out that Mallory article was indirectly responsible for this further cluster:
So apparently some famous writer was disgraced this week and a venerable literary organization asked me to fill in for him at a dinner to raise money for imperiled writers around the world.You won’t believe what ensued.— Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) February 6, 2019
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 6 February 2019 21:53 (five years ago) link
possibly dont read and boost stuff based on the authors biography idk
― ɪmˈpəʊzɪŋ (darraghmac), Wednesday, 6 February 2019 21:56 (five years ago) link
is he actually "famous" for any reason except just being disgraced? i assumed the anand thread was abt someone else *actually* famous (and also disgraced)
― mark s, Wednesday, 6 February 2019 22:07 (five years ago) link
he has a #1 bestselling novel
― Mordy, Wednesday, 6 February 2019 22:08 (five years ago) link
he's the author of a #1 New York Times Bestseller which has been adapted into a Hollywood film so that's fairly famous?
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 6 February 2019 22:09 (five years ago) link
ok fair enough, stand down mark s
(i still feel like "some famous writer" ought to mean ppl who don't read books might have heard of him but probably i shd take this to the "annoy the shit out of you" where it can be the only sensible post)
― mark s, Wednesday, 6 February 2019 22:13 (five years ago) link
omg that tweetthread is even better than the Mallory story
― imago, Wednesday, 6 February 2019 22:20 (five years ago) link
So, Jill Abramson.
― Plinka Trinka Banga Tink (Eliza D.), Thursday, 7 February 2019 17:04 (five years ago) link
On top of everything else, Jody Rosen noticed this this morning:
Update. (Thanks @danreilly11.) NB: Abramson credits her assistant “with helping her with...writing.” What? pic.twitter.com/blmC43dcon— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) February 7, 2019
Further update: “He drafted portions of this book.” I turn to the Acknowledgements whenever I read a nonfiction book. This isn’t a sentence one generally encounters. This fact should have appeared in every review. Staggering on its own, plagiarism aside. pic.twitter.com/UuTfpa93xI— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) February 7, 2019
What was Jill Abramson’s “brilliant young friend and assistant” paid for co-writing her book? Again, Simon & Schuster paid a million bucks for this thing.— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) February 7, 2019
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 7 February 2019 17:07 (five years ago) link
So I guess she is bad now too
― Trϵϵship, Thursday, 7 February 2019 17:26 (five years ago) link
Yes.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 7 February 2019 17:27 (five years ago) link
I’m a little disturbed at how scandals have become the new American pasttime. It seems like there is more going on than just holding people accoutable—people seem to truly live for this shit.
― Trϵϵship, Thursday, 7 February 2019 17:28 (five years ago) link
Gawker died and then the world became Gawker
― Trϵϵship, Thursday, 7 February 2019 17:29 (five years ago) link
trenchant
― mookieproof, Thursday, 7 February 2019 17:29 (five years ago) link
Treesh have you considered writing opeds
― Norm’s Superego (silby), Thursday, 7 February 2019 17:30 (five years ago) link
We talk about disgraced people on ilx all day long
― Trϵϵship, Thursday, 7 February 2019 17:30 (five years ago) link