Step two: stick it into this blog. It’s done.
Still hungry? Go here
Stayed up til 4:30a last night and late tonight as well cooking it up for you.
And now, send your thanks and appreciation for no longer subjecting my Friendsters to automated emails each and every time my brain poops.
x
During one of my July cord-cutting days, a young man came to say hello and kindly gave me a happy yellow flower. It was such a nice and pure gesture, without demand, that I agreed to share my email address so that he could write more about his poetry.
Unfortunately, I am a busy bee with 586 unread Gmails. But I know this young man will achieve contentedness in his life — not the manic sort of OH MY GOD I AM SO HAPPY!!!!!!!!!! crumdum, but the kind of full-belly life-is-good relax-the-shoulders contentedness. And I know this because he’s sincere and kind, and I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot lately as I consider past versions of ANP and the surprising personal transformation
(MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE, TRANSFORMERS –)
that I’ve made over the past two years.
Mattress in Prenzlauer Berg (see: Grass aint’ so green blog post referenced below)
Here’s an email that I’ve just read from him, and I share it with you because I want you to meet him too:
Hi ANP,how are you doing?As for me,I am doing pretty good.I want to talk about what you wrote in your blog called “This grass ain’t so green after all”.I think what you said is right on point.Sometimes men can be such assholes.I got to admit that it was funny when that french dude chase you,but he should not do that.Once they see a beautiful woman,they automatically think that she is their property somehow which is ridiculous.Also they shouldn’t judge you unless they know you on a personally level.I read where people make assumptions due to you being from Tawian like eating rice,etc.I hate it when people are judgemental.I’m glad that you are an individual and that you are here on this earth.You are a beautiful and spiritual woman.It is good that you know who you are.I know exactly who I am.It’s always better to be the type of person that you was put on this earth to be than to be somebody that you are not or what people think that you should be.Well that’s all for now.I love your blog.Take care of yourself and have a great labor day.
Simple? Maybe. Rambly? Possibly. Genuine and pure of heart? Definitely.
And sometimes, my dears, it’s refreshing to remember that there’s another way of looking at the world, and it doesn’t always involve complicated grammar, multisyllabic words, or our mothers.
–
I’m sorry I don’t have the time to be a friend to you, E—-, but I wish you the best on your journey and am glad to have met you on that summer day. Continue to be good to you.
When did insincere jerkiness become such a favorite pastime among educated middle to upper-middle class white people?
Their droll snarkicisms are like mice in my apartment: scratching all around me, not deadly but can cause stomachaches, and impossible to eliminate. They’re also easy to spot. Pick anything appreciated by a good chunk of society – Target, public libraries, The New York Times – and you’re bound to find someone willing to scathingly critique it in a brutally obvious attempt to pass as an independent thinker.
“God, the Times’ op-ed is so predictable, the entire thing is unreadable.”
“Target, Target, everyone likes Target. Whatever happened to the good old days of shopping at pricey boutiques subsidized and run by trust fund kids?”
“Public libraries? Hello!! The word ‘public’? Just not interested.”
Alright, I’ve had my moments. More than a few. If you’ve known me at any point within the last five or six years, you’ve heard me say, “Mass transportation? Bah! It’s for the masses,” while patting myself on the back at my wit and originality.
Puke. Maybe it’s my new status as a thirty-something, maybe Jedediah Purdy’s book just makes more sense to me the closer I get to putting these child-bearing hips to good use, but these days I’ll take sincere over clever any day of the week.
Which isn’t to say that I don’t want original thought in my life. Far from it. Rather, I’m simply fatigued by the watery facsimile of original thinking bandied about by these college-educated honkeys. It’s as if they’ve taken a page from Walter Lippman’s Drift & Mastery, played Dada-poetry-night with it, and assumed that by saying things at odds with the status quo, suddenly that makes ‘em a free thinker. Different. Unique.
Newsflash: Sincerity and originality are not diametrically opposed. Sure, sincerity usually gets bundled with wearers-of-popcorn-sweaters and bearers-of-casserole. But I’m hard-pressed to think of anything original coming from those obsessed with mockery. And how could there be? If you’re constantly tossing out statements about the benign institutions that exist outside of you, isn’t your self-definition simply a function of the Other?
In other words, if you’re so busy pointing out the failures of the world around you, doesn’t this other-centric worldview make it a little bit difficult to figure out what you believe in? What your passions are? How you sincerely feel?
You = Negation (outside world)
Not
You = You
It’s a lot easier to stand back from the fray and give the play-by-play of the world around you rather than actually engage and give a shit. Participating in life isn’t easy: you gotta show up, you gotta take off the mask, you gotta be willing to say what you really care about and risk getting laughed at (or, worse, realize that you’re mediocre). Mere existence demands little; authentic living requires a willingness to be vulnerable.
There are those who are content to stand on the sidelines of life, spectating with their arms crossed as snark drips from their mask-covered lips. And there are those who fling their arms and their hearts open, ready to embrace all of life’s messy joys, sorrows, and complications, with sincerity, vulnerability, and hope.
And what can I say. I never was much a fan of spectator sports.
***
Congratulations to the beautiful Dr. Love, who successfully defended her PhD this past Tuesday.
I’m reminded of an incident, Halloween, junior year. We were both in costume in the Jonathan Edwards common room: her hair dyed black as a vampiress; I was sporting fake fur as Pocahontas. (I wish I could find the picture.)
“God, look at all these happy freshman,” I snarled, adding freshman to my growing list of hates, which included curled hair, frat boys, sorority girls, Hollywood films, Vans, tight jeans, smiling people, the color blonde, classes before 1 p.m., pop music, laughing, etc.
“Oh, ANP, get over yourself.” It was the first time I ever heard her voice take a firm line with me, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard it since.
God, how I loved her in that moment, calling me out in my infinite darkness, a beacon of light in the 06520 when I was content to wallow in simply hating the outside world rather than busy myself with the challenge of honestly and sincerely confronting – and loving – the inner one.
***
Let’s go, people. Take off the armor. Stop being afraid to give a shit.
Show up. Live. Love.
Sincerely.
xoxoANP
So I read* a YDN op-ed piece suggesting that the film Borat was anti-Semitic. Whether or not the author is simply trying to be contrarian, which is so 1997, or sincerely feels that way is outside the scope of this post. However, I decided I needed to kick the tires myself and see that thar film with my own two Lasikked peepers.
Question: Is it me, or is Borat speaking perfect Hebrew in the film?
I’m no tribe member so I must rely on you people for confirmation here.
* = skimmed **
** = only read the headline of
So I was up in the ‘Have this weekend for the annual Association of Yale Alumni Assembly, which I attend in my official capacity as Secretary for the Class of 1999.
Harkness as seen from Jonathan Edwards College
Over dinner in Commons one night, I had a great discussion with an architect, M. Arch. ‘77, who has designed public housing in the past and lead the renovations of the Brooklyn Public Library in Bensonhurst (opening ceremony on Tuesday). She’s friends with Andy Borowitz, a man I’ve seen during his official duties as a host of The Moth.
We were talking about comedy, and I admitted that over time, I’ve become less acid. And with that, probably less funny. I used to pack some real doozies in my day — you know, the kind of biting powerfully funny shit that was a thin veil for a deep current of anger, sadness, and pain. You know this kind of humor when you see it — Lewis Black, anything involving the word “cunt” or “fuck” or “gook”. “Colostomy bag” was one of my personal favorites, and I wove it effortlessly into conversations. Clever and dark, funny yet sad, I was a master of the hot-poker comeback, a font of outrageously confrontational black humor, oftentimes inappropriately deployed.
“So what do you do?” the pearls-wearing WASP asks me at a birthday party on CPW.
“I help old men get hard ons,” was my smirky reply. I figured it was toned-down enough to play well on this old money audience, and I wasn’t being given much material to work with, what with no openings such as talk of suicide, welfare, or brown people.
“Excuse me?” She leans in, brow furrowed, wondering how my job might related to hers on the staff of the Junior League.
“Umm, I market pharmaceutical drugs, including Cialis, a drug approved for the erectile dysfunction indication.” A man in his late forties hovering within earshot raises his eyebrows ever-so-slightly.
I’m reminded of a blog post from February of this year, a snippet of which is as follows:
And maybe the reason I would crave an experience like that, or why I wonder how I would survive in a day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, or how I find the idea of solitary confinement in a maximum security prison highly intoxicating …
You cannot fuck with me.
There is nothing that I cannot handle.
You think you are going to break me?
You think I’m going to flinch at that bullshit?
You can’t touch me.
My walls are impenetrable.
I am a machine.
You want a rock?
You want an island?
You have no idea who you’re dealing with.
I feel nothing.
You do not impact me.
I’ll show you what I can do.
I don’t need you.
I don’t need anyone
You will.
Not break me.
That was the old me. I’m doing so much work to lay down my arms, to break down my walls, to soften my stance, to feel.
I have to remember to feel.
I have to remember that it’s okay to feel.
I am not that little girl anymore. I’m a grown woman, dependent on no one.
I have to remember this, to remember to leave myself open to the expansive opportunities of the universe, even when the terrain seems hostile. Even when times at The Bank seem dark or my writing frustrates me. I cannot let myself slide on back to that place of disaffection, where every moment is an opportunity for snarky critique, where every life event is simply a canvas for a foul-mouthed hurting ANP to take her paint brush of acerbic wit and paint it black.
–
Tuesday: Highlawn Branch Library opening ceremony at noon. Not quite done yet, but ole’ Marty Marko will be in effect. Tell Louise that ANP sent you.
November 2005: This guy deportes departs
April 2006: HSL bounces
Shortly thereafter: Jia leaves,
Liesl transfers to a different part of The Bank
and TDub says peace-out.
In September, Malcolm takes an elevator ride to the 31st floor for the last time.
Seem like everybody out the door these days.
–
I folded and chucked that pork chop. Which reminds me. I gotta clear some rotting food outta the office fridge.
In my infinite thriftiness, I buy bulk packs of meat from FreshDirect.
Upside: per unit cheapyness!
Downside: cooking meats in bulk (or not being lazy when the meat arrives and freezing them seperately)
I made half a dozen pork chops last week and loved the first one, all coated in roasted apples plucked from Grieg Farm.
I even liked the second one, on night two.
And the third, heated up in the microwave at the Bank.
Number four didn’t suck.
Half of number five is still in the fridge at the Bank.
Okay.
So.
Number six.
I’m out of ramen noodres, so chopping it up and putting it in with some noodz is not in the question.
So what the heck can I do with this thing? I don’t think that large chunks of meat should be tossed into my newest favorite rando soup recipe (read: toss a buncha sauteed stuff into a blender), and I can’t save it for the shrimp n collard greens gumbo.
Any advice, all you culinary experts?
What happens when I’m alone in the kitchen
The Good Fork restaurant and bar in Red Hook, Brooklyn is yummy.
I remember the sweetbread appetizer and vaguely recall the dessert being knock-out smashtabulous.
Sat at the bar and my knees did not experience the usual discomfort from not-enough-legroom. Although maybe I wasn’t wearing heels. I don’t remember.
I do, however, recall getting a bit wasted on the wine.
Also: nice interior design details, and cool bathroom.
Tomorrow night at 7 p.m., you will attend a book reading at the Astor Place Barnes & Noble!
I can’t be there as my class meets at this time, but — BUT — but I know it’s going to be ultra-cool because Isaiah is very good people and mad charmant, comprenez-vous?
So, here is Isaiah:
No, he’s not gay. And, since everyone knows that blogs are the new Reuters, here is the press release:
THE MAN TIME FORGOT: A Tale of Genius, Betrayal, and the Creation of Time Magazine
BY ISAIAH WILNER(HarperCollins; October 2, 2006; $26.95; Hardcover) reveals for the first time a media scandal buried nearly eighty years. In this groundbreaking biography, 28-year-old Isaiah Wilner shows that Briton Hadden, not Henry R. Luce, was the genius behind Time magazine.
It’s the true story behind the first newsmagazine, which laid the foundation for the world’s largest media empire. Hadden and Luce were just 24 years old when they began work on Time at the outset of the Roaring Twenties. Their partnership was explosive and their rivalry ferocious, inspired by envy as well as love. A millionaire at thirty, Hadden died tragically at 31. The same day Luce began to bury the legacy of the giant he had never been able to best.
Drawing upon never-before-published documents from the private archives of Time Inc., personal letters, and interviews, Wilner makes a convincing case that Hadden was the revolutionary mind behind the weekly newsmagazine. He also first dreamed of Life, Sports Illustrated, and the radio quiz show. Luce, long considered the most influential publisher in modern journalism, actively suppressed the evidence of his partner’s importance and claimed for himself the glories of Time’s success.
The story travels from Yale’s famous secret society, Skull and Bones, to high-society Europe and South America, following the friendship of two brilliant and opposite souls who inspired one another to the pinnacle of earthly achievement. The young men emerged from the crucible of the Great War with an idea—Hadden’s idea—that shortly transformed the field of journalism. By making the news accessible and entertaining, Hadden changed the way we think about the world.
It is not often that a writer of history succeeds in bringing the past to life. Isaiah Wilner does so in this stylish, passionate and provocative debut. The Man Time Forgot centers on the ancient themes of friendship and rivalry, triumph and tragedy. It is a story about the youth who shaped our modern era written by a member of a generation that will help shape the decades to come.
***ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Isaiah Wilner grew up in Seattle and graduated from Yale in 2000, after following in Hadden’s footsteps as the editor of the Yale Daily News—where he worked beneath a dusty portrait of the man time forgot. The authority with which he tells this fascinating story marks this young author as one to watch.FROM THE CRITICS:
“Wilner’s debut restores the legacy of Briton Hadden, co-creator of Time magazine, whose partner Henry R. Luce systematically downplayed his contributions after Hadden died…. The author does an excellent job of re-creating the tension, pain and jealousy attending Time’s birth and of showing how the weekly magazine has affected the profession of journalism and the packaging of news. An intriguing and depressing tale, related with great skill and compassion.”
—starred review, Kirkus Reviews“Scintillating biography [of] a Promethean figure … In Wilner’s telling, Hadden himself is a Fitzgerald character: a hard-drinking, perpetually carousing Jazz Age icon, his outward ebullience masking an inward despondency. The result is a perceptive psychological study and cultural history, with a touch of ink-stained romanticism.”
—Publishers Weekly***
THE MAN TIME FORGOT
A Tale of Genius, Betrayal, and the Creation of Time Magazine
by Isaiah Wilner
HarperCollins Publishers
October 2, 2006/ISBN 0-06-050549-4/$26.95
Oh my god, doesn’t it make you want to buy it? Hello, who doesn’t feel like a misunderstood genius whose ideas keep getting stolen by their less-talented hangers-on? Uh, oh, I’m sorry, I was talking about Isaiah.
Okay, and here’s some Q&A with Mr. Dashing Wilner.
Your book reveals for the first time that Henry R. Luce was not the genius behind Time magazine. How did you make this discovery?
The oral history reminiscences stored at the Time Inc. Archives are clear on this point. The genius who created Time and steered the company to prominence was Briton Hadden, not Henry Luce. This was said by the men and women who worked for and built the company—editors, researchers, secretaries, and office boys. The true story was not told for nearly eighty years because Luce stole the credit for Hadden’s ideas, buried the evidence of his formative influence, and published false and misleading information about him. Luce even went so far as to take Hadden’s name off the magazine’s masthead. It was a stunning betrayal and it began the day of Hadden’s death.
What do you think Luce’s burial of Hadden’s legacy says about Luce?
Luce was not the man he claimed to be. for new magazines. Actually, he ran the company and many of the great ideas came from others—though Luce most often took the credit. Furthermore, Luce represented himself as a moral champion. He became a kind of media missionary and he traveled the world to deliver more than three hundred separate speeches on subjects ranging from free enterprise to Christianity. What was the actual moral fiber of this self-proclaimed moral champion? He spent the majority of his life betraying the best friend he ever had.
Your book portrays the friendship and rivalry of Briton Hadden and Henry Luce. How were you able to capture this relationship?
Hadden and Luce were the closest of friends and the fiercest of rivals. Their cutthroat competition always threatened to destroy their friendship, and at times they became estranged—but they always came back. They loved each other. For me this is the story’s greatest attraction. We can never unravel the mystery of human friendship. That’s why I decided early on not to define this relationship. I thought it should emerge naturally from the narrative. And I let the action speak for itself so that the underlying emotion would come through the story.
Why do you think these opposite men, so seemingly different, continued to work together over the years?
Hadden and Luce gravitated toward each other almost from the moment they met. Each recognized that the other was working on a level far above his peers. Hadden made Luce feel alive. Through competing against Hadden, Luce sparked himself to become a more confident and substantial person. Hadden likened their relationship to a race. Luce, he said, was always there, just behind Hadden, pushing him to reach new creative heights. Hadden was more sensitive to social nuance and he recognized in Luce a lifelong partner—someone who could help Hadden achieve his dream of creating the first newsmagazine. Because Hadden encouraged Luce to become a journalist, there would have been no Henry Luce as we know him today without Briton Hadden. And in at least one sense, they’re still together today. After Luce died, the editors of Time decided to place Hadden’s name back on top of the masthead, right beside the name of Luce. But Hadden’s face still hasn’t made the cover of Time.
Hadden’s vision led to the creation of the first newsmagazine. What impact did he have on journalism and the way people learned about the world?
Briton Hadden hoped to eradicate ignorance. He actually moved us quite a ways toward that goal. Hadden was the first editor to give Americans everything they needed to know each week—and nothing more. More importantly, Hadden got all of this information into our minds. He did it by telling a story. Instead of simply printing the facts, Hadden wove the news into a narrative. Time stories were leavened with wit, laced with details, and loaded with interesting characters. It was Time, for example, that brought us the “Man of the Year”—an epic figure, usually a hero, who personified a major story of the previous twelve months. Hadden’s way of writing about the world rapidly spread to rival magazines and newspapers, and within a few years journalists transformed themselves from recorders into storytellers. It was Hadden, more than any single individual, who turned the news into a form of entertainment. This transformation dramatically increased the media’s ability to shape our view of the world.
As you describe in the book, Hadden was a visionary. What do you think he would have accomplished if he had lived longer?
In the age before television, the writing style Hadden developed helped people see far-off events in their mind’s eye. By 1928, Hadden was dreaming of taking the next step: giving people the pictures themselves in a magazine that he hoped to call Life. Luce was a print man, but Hadden’s style of thought was well suited toward the visual and electronic media. He thought in headlines. He was captivated by personalities. He liked action and he had a lively sense of humor. If Hadden had survived, I think he would have delved into radio, photography, film, and even television projects, and Time Inc. would have developed into a multimedia conglomerate sooner. Who knows, maybe Hadden would have bought the Brooklyn Dodgers. He always said he would own a ball team someday.
What effect did Time have on America in the 1920s?
The twenties was the age of aspiration. It was a moment when people were encouraged to dream—to fly across the Atlantic, to create modern art and literature, to break the norms of Victorian culture. The country was young and vigorous and just beginning to spread its wings. Ideas and fashions were spreading quickly through advertising, the cinema, and the radio. It was a dizzying time and Time championed the new era; the magazine soon became the voice of modern America. But Time was never too far ahead. In an age when people needed to be more informed than ever, Time helped the average person make sense of a rapidly changing world. Hadden and Luce liked to joke that even an ignorant debutante could appear smart at a cocktail party after reading Time for half an hour.
How were you able to bring this moment so vividly to life?
What I try to do in my writing is break beneath the surface of our own times into the consciousness of a prior era. The challenge is to bring a whole world back into being—to excavate it all without allowing the pieces to crumble and fracture. The twenties was a time when the American consciousness shifted and our contemporary culture was born. I tried to illuminate this period through one of its leading lights, Briton Hadden, and the people who surrounded him, and the ideas that moved him. It’s a kind of “close encounter”—the conversation the present has with the past. All of a sudden we come face to face with our ancestors, and with ourselves.
Did being a young writer help you depict Hadden and Luce in their twenties?
I started this book at 23—about the same age as Hadden and Luce when they started work on Time. Having followed in their footsteps at the Yale Daily News, I was sensitive to the intense school competition that bonded the young rivals so closely. As a young writer, I had a grasp for the generational split Hadden and Luce faced as they went out to raise the money for Time. They were armed with a brilliant new idea about the way news should be told—but the older generation couldn’t see it. The newsstands were crowded already, after all, and who wanted week-old news?
What do you hope readers will learn from The Man Time Forgot?
America is a society of storytellers. That’s how we view and interpret the world. We’re immersed in words and images these days, and much of it is wildly entertaining. At times we feel like we’re drowning in a sea of ceaseless chatter. But the media we love to hate is also America’s greatest cultural product. And the media wouldn’t be the powerful force it is today, shaping the way we view the world, without the influence of Briton Hadden.
Oh god, this means it’s going to take much longer to write my book than I had hoped. * Gulp *
I remember hearing from Millsy that Isaiah was writing a book, and it seemed like a such an obscure and dusty person I thought, “There must be some benefactor subsidizing the writing of this book. No way in hell could Isaiah actually be interested in this shit.”
Okay, so, I was more cynical then. But then I read the beginning of the acknowledgments:
THIS BOOK BEGAN at 202 York Street in New Haven, Connecticut, in the Briton Hadden Memorial Building. I spent much of my time there as a junior at Yale when I edited the Yale Daily News. On the top floor, Hadden’s dusty portrait looms over the wood-paneled boardroom. Hadden sits in his shirtsleeves and a green eyeshade, armed with a giant Time pencil. Gazing at Hadden’s portrait, I became interested in his expression—a sideways smile that gave his face an air of mystery.
Late at night, after putting the paper to bed, I would sit near Hadden’s portrait and leaf through the bound volumes. Flipping through his editorials, I was captivated by Hadden’s writing style. Rhythmic, compact, Hadden’s sentences practically jumped off the page—much like the impish voice of the early Time. If it were true that Hadden’s “genius created a new form of journalism,” as the plaque in the building’s foyer states, I wondered why so few people had heard of him….
Dammit, I so wish I could go to this. I added the book to my Amazon.com wish list (which, for the record, is The Official Sponsor of ANP = 10×3) the moment I heard about it, and I know it’s gonna be great.
Ah, well, gotta go to my writing class so that I can write my own book.
So very excited and proud for/of you, Isaiah. Big hugs.
