for 14 February 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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Addled Brains Ms Martins, Great article on Adler! You are as funny and much more incisive than the other Suck writers I've read. But it seems you are just as cynical. If not The New Yorker, what is your candidate for best literary magazine? And do you really think the Tina Brown years brought The New Yorker back to its roots of a wide middle-class audience? It would be nice to have Suck sometimes show an ounce of respect toward a person or an institution. Or maybe that's just too against type. If so, what do you recommend as balance for the destructive, wonderful wit of Suck? Thanks for the piece, Jacob Klein <jacob_klein@yahoo.com> Thanks for your kind words. I wouldn't exactly say Tina Brown did the old eminence grise a world of good, since her contributions tended distinctly toward the faux-titillating middlebrow (e.g., Susan Faludi's excursis on the porn industry, Richard Avedon's Weimar-knockoff photo spreads of semi-clad models cavorting with skeletons) and the flat-out celebrity-addled (e.g., her own personal interview with President Butthead and her reminiscence of the doe-eyed vessel of purity that was Princess Di). If anything, such efforts probably only made the magazine's dwindling general readership embarrassed on her behalf, sort of like when your mom gets a little inebriated and tries to flirt and dance the way the kids do. On the other hand, something had to shake the thing out of its rapidly advancing dotage, and the early evidence suggests the Remnick years are not proving to be any heroic palliative, what with the uninterrupted reign of Gopnik, the oddly inert reviews, the profiles of F. A. Hayek and Jerry Lewis. My general advice, though, is to resist the urge to fetishize any culture organ as a bearer of literary last words, on the simple grounds that it is the very thing that every such magazine most wants you to do. And as the sobering example of La Renata attests, all the toy-soldier intrigue that comes hard upon such a designation is often the quickest path to surrendering your own judgment in such matters, to say nothing of your sanity. And speaking of which, my recommendations regarding balance to the destructive, wonderful wit of Suck are simple: Turn off the computer, exit your apartment, lie down in sun-dappled meadow, and think of all the things in this life you should be grateful for. Then call up Tina Brown and score some crack. And one last thing: That's Mr. Martins to you. Holly Martins  Did Adler suspect that the Liddy children had, at one point, been clones? That all children begin life as replicants? Or, for that matter, that I, perhaps, might be one? Adler is merely saying that the kids are individuals, as opposed to most cookie-cutter, whiny, loser towheads you see in the world. She's not talking about genetics but rather personality. This kind of drunken gunfighting isn't what I've come to expect from Suck. Shape up. Elijah Meeks <ElijahM@ AdicomWireless.com> I applaud your fire-breathing empiricism. This, however, falls under the category of a new accessory we've added at Suck, the writing device known as the "joke." One of the situations in which you might expect to see the joke applied is when a maladroit use of an image or metaphor is literalized, and its interpretation is heightened to an absurd degree for comic effect. In this instance, the random deployment of an inapposite genetic metaphor to restate a point already made in the first place — that the kids are indeed individuals — sends the mind reeling for the simple reason that the hapless reader of Gone never knows what Adler is going to say next or why she might be saying it. So to review: The literal reading of "clones" is no less preposterous than many of the other fussy and loony byways one stumbles into over the course of Gone. And the fact that it concerns convicted Watergate creep Gordon Liddy adds an undertone of witty espionage to the execution of the joke. It does occur to me, however, that perhaps some other genetic experiment gone terribly awry has resulted in the terrifying specter you describe: A vast cohort of children loose in the world, with toes in the place where their heads should be. If this means what I think it might, we're going to need all the drunken gunfighting we can muster. Holly Martins While I certainly cannot find fault in Martins' criticism of Renata Adler, I think the whole piece is simply rendered inert by that ridiculous last line. Yes, it is very amusing to dissect the now vestigial culture that The New Yorker was once the voice for. However, it is just bad writing to clumsily attempt to invalidate the whole publication because there were too few ideas banging around in the attic on how to end a piece. Since the American literary culture (or is that semi-literate) has long since rotted away and The New Yorker has been so shitty and irrelevant for so long, I am sure that it is hard to see how The New Yorker could have once had a place in anything intellectually interesting. But, sadly, it did. Let us give all those decrepit, senile, Park Avenue invalids that at least. G <unhot@hotmail.com> If you'll look over the offending final sentence closely, you'll notice that the "it" you have associated with the magazine at large actually refers to the social contract inhering in Adler's brain, the tight association of culture and clubbiness. I would never say that The New Yorker of old had no reason for being — and I am straining mightily not to insert the obvious punchline here regarding a key symptom of the culture's swoon into semi-literacy being the inability to assign pronouns to their proper antecedents. Holly Martins oops, my mistake. excuse portion of the show: a) i get up at 4 a.m. here in SF because of the market and respond to emails and webzine articles when half asleep b) there's not a good latte to be found near the transamerica building c) i'm an idiot in general d) all of the above i hope i do not turn into one of those people who writes the president asking to stop the CIA from controlling the weather. G <unhot@hotmail.com> Man on the Floor Huckster, Poor Chris Farley. He's been dead over a year now, and he still can't escape vicious, nasty, callow, nihilistic, amoral, and worst of all, mind-numbingly obvious screeds like today's Suck. I was never a big fan of his, but gradually, since his death (which I still believe was pathetic beyond belief), I've come to feel almost protective of the guy's memory, and I never even met him. Suck can do better than this ... or can it? Robert Anderson <roba@cadence.com> I am definitely trying to be as mind-numbingly obvious as possible. But I wonder if I've gotten there yet, since my intention was to satirize Jim Carrey's pretensions and the news media's genuflections in the face of those pretensions, rather than Chris Farley's. Best, Huck Laughed out loud at the brilliance of "Smeli Forskin"! I laugh even as I write it! Thanks for the big chuckle. Lots of funny stuff in today's piece, but you've certainly got a flair for names! And I liked the "terribly, terribly; rare, rare; much, much" bit. Thanks, Sara L. Manewith <saraman@uic.edu> If you ever have a pet or baby or really anything that needs naming, let me know, and I will be happy to provide you with something snappy and funny. Huck are you run by the government? or is your company linked to a large multinational corporation? the stuff just isn't funny. you remind of the guy on the late late show — i suppose i would laugh if i were a brainwashed automaton. keep up the fine work, robot boy. i definitely wouldn't buy a ticket to see Jim Carrey portray you. lots of love, Dan Brennan I would definitely buy a ticket to see jim carrey portray you, even if all you do is write email. You know why? Because you are completely hilarious! That bit about are we "run by the government"? Sidesplitting! The "large multinational" jibe? Subtle, but still, really, really effective. True, I've heard the "brainwashed automaton" bit before, but the way you phrase it, you just make it totally your own. And totally funny! I was wondering how you were going to top that — and I was somewhat smugly assuming you wouldn't be able to do it, I have to confess — and then you hit me with "robot boy." What the fuck? Is there a team of you generating such corrosive wit, or are you a one-man operation? Seething with jealousy, Huck Blowing Smoke Read the 31 January 2000 Suck with much amusement on many levels. The link discussing Clever Canadians shows them taking credit for some dubious inventions: the V-chip, five-pin bowling (won't go near that joke), the game of Trivial Pursuit (from the country of same), and finally, Plablum ("baby food"), not to be confused with pablum ("baby food pronounced without swilling a lot of beer"). The cleverness in their inventions abounds in their Web page editing. I never knew that Canada is also home to Gordon Lightfood (no relation to Plablum). It sounds like your hitch in Georgia (Snow? The fuck you say! It NEVER snows there!) is going about like I figured mine in the Navy would, which is why I ditched after one year in ROTC and exposure to a stunning lack of intelligence in my unit. I have since found that there are a lot of intelligent people in the services at both the enlisted and officer ranks. Unfortunately, they learn early on (as it appears you have) that the only way to survive is to hide any trace of intelligence or evidence of exposure to (gasp) liberal arts. Don't worry, you'll be through it and living off base soon enough. Cheers, Colin <fdisk@mpinet.net> It didn't snow. It was supposed to snow like a (expletive deleted), as we say in the Army, and we shut down the post and hunkered down for a massive blizzard (I stocked up on booze and those really good soy-protein bars, the chocolate kind) ... and then it, like, rained for a few minutes. And I won't be living off post, not unless I get married. Which ISN'T GOING TO HAPPEN IN OR AROUND COLUMBUS, GEORGIA. I mean, like, wow — it is not going to happen in or around Columbus, Georgia. So. Yeah. Loaded for Canadians, PFC Beers, serving listlessly You forgot to add that the absurd notion of "60 million advertising impressions per year" having any effect at all on smoking habits overlooks advertising's version of the Inverse Square Law of physics: The quality of the intended impression goes down exponentially as the quantity of exposures increases. The more one sees it, the more one gets used to it; except for the first few exposures, it ceases to have any effect at all and may actually provoke spiteful defiance (rather like a joke retold too many times over). This, of course, assumes advertising has any detectable effect on consumer attitudes in any case. I'm sure there's been some sort of academic psych-lab research corroborating my point; after all, there's been graduate-level research into how many shuffles one needs to randomize a deck of playing cards, so why not this? Christopher Driskell <casaubon@ compuex.com> I'm reasonably certain that I've never bought anything — anything — because of an advertisement. But I may have to pick up one of those diseased lung things, if they start running pictures of 'em where I can see them all the time. They sound pretty cool. The following word will create an advertising impression for my name, Beers Dear Ambrose, Your piece, while highly amusing, contains several egregious errors. Firstly, no Health Canada officials have 2 billion fingers. Even those working on the biotech files. They may have 2 billion digits, but you didn't do your research, so I'm not going to give you the answer. Second, smoking may have gone up 4 percent, but doughnut consumption went DOWN. This is an important stat for some reason, I just can't think of it now. Finally, Ottawa doesn't even tax all that well. On the plus side, the government did consider sponsoring NHL teams to help equalize the exchange rate between our beautiful, multicoloured currency and your bland green stuff. Surely trying to bolster up an unsustainable, bloated professional sports league offsets our wacky antismoking legislation, eh? Yours, Will Murray <murray_29@hotmail.com> Canadian health officials don't have 2 billion fingers? They do when they work together, pal. Clearly what we have here is another I-hate-collectivism type, missing the proto-Canadian point about pulling together. Move south, son. You'll find plenty of people here who understand you in ways your country mates never will. American and alone as hell and, by god, proud of it, Beers Regarding "television everywhere," I've been running into it as a business traveler. The first "captive market" advertising was the dumb "magazines" they put in airline seats, with two shoddy articles and 75 pages of glossy ads, standing primly next to the SkyMall insert as a paragon of journalism. Now, we have two hours of "business oriented programming," which is slices of network news with lots of ads. Guess what? You can't avoid looking at them unless you put on your eye shield or bury yourself in a physical book or laptop. Of course, they pass out the free headphones for that segment of the flight. At least you can avoid the sound by not plugging in the headphones, although eventually they'll figure that out and turn the sound on — nonstop. Next, there's CNN. It's in the Heathrow express train, it's loud, it has many commercials, and the only way to avoid it is to sit in the "quiet zone" trains, where you can't take cell phone calls. For £12, I get the privilege of being forced to watch ads, all as a "service" to myself. The CNN loud boxes are springing up everywhere. Airport lounges are the most popular places. I think the worst was Philadelphia, where the sound was cranked to "unavoidable." I'm sure the airlines will start requiring hour-ahead check-in, just to make sure people sit in front of the boxes. It appears that the greatest benefit of flying business class these days is the business class lounge, where they don't put up with that kind of crap. Will the privilege of the ruling class be the freedom to think its own thoughts? Will people strive for riches just to avoid the chatterbox? If I could change the channel on the TV, or if the channel were something other than CNN with more ads than CNN usually has, it might almost be enjoyable. Or if they were Internet boxes that I could interact with, perhaps with a banner ad. But no. Crappy CNN; crappy ads. If it were only History Channel documentaries of Hitler. Hitler would be a pleasure. Regards, Brian Bulkowski <brianb@liberate.com> Well, given a choice between Hitler and Ted Turner ... Joining Jane at the door, Beers |
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