At last night’s book launch party for Kate Christensen’s The Great Man, I observed a bald man — much shorter than I had expected — resembling a certain journalist working for Time Magazine. It was none other than Lev Grossman, my proud nemesis. Lev had been wiser than me in maintaining his bald form. I had allowed my hair to grow back, complete with its ridiculously receding hairline, after a brief experimental phase in which I had forgotten to acquire a drug habit or transform into some consciously ironic Williamsburg hipster, but that mostly involved seeing if I could effect some bald badass corporeal form with ridiculously cherubic cheeks. The experiment, alas, had mixed results, particularly since I had laryngitis during most of my hairless stint and because Daniel Mendelsohn had confused my lack of voice with a diffident stance. And I remain convinced that I could beat Mr. Mendelsohn in an aggressive game of ping-pong or Connect Four. But no matter. This is unnecessary bravado, but it must be set down for the record. I know I can win. I do plan to revisit this hairless approach later, perhaps when I am feeling more masculine or I have just eaten twenty pounds of raw ground chunk and jogged six times around Prospect Park and I have shouted Hemingway passages at the top of my lungs.

Anyway, Lev was there. And I introduced myself as his nemesis. It took three attempts before he figured out who I was.

“Ed?” he said, unaware that I had moved to New York.

It turns out that he lives not far from me, that he genuinely likes William Gibson (I quizzed him on Count Zero), and that he is a more or less friendly person. Kate Christensen, who was somehow cognizant of last year’s skirmish, remarked, “But you’re both such nice guys!” I assured Ms. Christensen that she was wrong. Lev and I enjoyed a Moriarty-Holmes relationship. We were both gentlemen and we didn’t wish to unleash our fury upon an unsuspecting crowd.

Is this the end of the Lev-Ed loggerjam? Well, who is to say? Mr. Grossman appears on the surface to be quietly charming and perhaps just a tad misunderstood. But I still believe him to be made of sturdier stuff and indeed pressed him on this pedantic character quality over twenty minutes of conversation. He took it well.

I slipped away so that Lev would think himself safe. But, of course, I concoct silly and meticulously contrived plans that will be unleashed at a time of my choosing.

In a sleazy and remarkably embarrassing post, Publishers Weekly‘s Karen Holt reveals that she not only composes author profiles with preconceived boilerplate language, but that she has no problems with influence peddling:

There was the time at BEA when I wanted to ask Margaret Atwood a few questions so she took my arm and steered me toward some chairs in the corner (“Margaret Atwood is touching me!”). There was my trip to Maine last summer to interview Richard Ford when he and his wife put me up for the night in their guest cottage (“I’m staying in Richard Ford’s guest house!”). There was the night I capped off an interview with Gay Talese by joining him for dinner at Elaine’s (A double shot of literary New York icons). (Emphasis added.)

To respond to such a stunning statement without raising my blood pressure too much, let me consider Holt’s perspective first. I understand Holt’s need to gush. Enthusiasm is often a commodity among jaded hack journalists. There have been many times when I’ve interviewed an author and I’ve silently pinched myself in disbelief that I’m having a conversation with someone whose work I admire. And I’ve also become acquaintances and friends with a few of the authors I’ve talked with.

Nevertheless, when a journalist conducts an author interview or writes a profile, a journalist has the duty to maintain some sense of independent authority, which will permit her to ask hard-hitting, challenging and thought-provoking questions. One must ask questions that nobody else asks. One must practice journalism. One must not be afraid to ask contrarian questions. To cling to predictable, pre-packaged terms like “bard of the working class,” as Holt does, is not journalism. Such a practice is not altogether different from recycling items from the press release. A journalist must enter a situation without any sense that one has been purchased and report back what was uncovered during that experience. And that means having your outlet pay for your car rental and your motel room during an overnight visit (or doing this on your own dime, if necessary; it’s tax deductible).

Each journalist, of course, has a different form of practice. For example, I never conduct any author interviews at a publisher’s office. I feel that any journalist who does this is ethically suspect, because this involves some kind of quid pro quo that goes well beyond the reasonable request of a review copy. There is also the sense with this set-up that the ground is not third party enough for journalist or publisher alike. (And besides, who needs soulless conference rooms when you talk in New York’s many cafes, bars, and restaurants?)

But there is an ethical ceiling that all good journalists are aware of. And I think it goes without saying that staying at the guest cottage of your subject’s house is highly suspect and deeply unethical.

Karen Holt has, with one simple sentence, revealed that Publishers Weekly has little concern for journalistic ethics. Her stay at Ford’s home is not unlike some of the egregious influence peddling that studios use to buy the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s votes for the Golden Globes. (In fact, the situation was so bad that the HFPA had to institute a tchotchke cap.)

This is certainly not something you’d do if you were expected to write an honest and ethically foolproof profile of your subject. Maybe it’s something you’d do if you wanted to write an uncritical puff piece describing Richard Russo’s jeans and warm smile. But it’s not something you do if you are a journalist.

Then again, consider Holt’s bio:

Karen Holt was a newspaper reporter for years before discovering the lunches were better in book publishing. In between lunches and cocktail parties, she works as a Deputy Editor for Publishers Weekly and Editorial Director of Publishersweekly.com

If Karen Holt is really more concerned with the “lunches and cocktail parties” function of her job, then perhaps she’d be the first to tell us that she’s neither a reporter nor a journalist, but rather an easily malleable mouthpiece concerned with lapping up any and all gifts or overnight stays that come with the job. That might give her a great fangirl rush, but it’s a great disgrace to the rest of us out here who do our damnedest to stay as honest as possible

(via Sarah)

In 1960, seven years into Eisenhower and seven years after the Korean War, the United States populace was still contending over whether they “liked Ike.” There was a question in the air of whether Americans liked Eisenhower at all. They put their faith in a bald ex-general leading them down the rabbit hole of mutually assured destruction. But it was a man named Theodore Geisel, an uncredentialed ad hoc doctor of juvenile letters who had drawn up a series of illustrations during the previous war and who remained paralyzed by the considerable deaths at The Battle of Pork Chop Hill. Ham was the natural choice for a project.

The political atmosphere had gone green. Adlai Stevenson, the egghead offered by the Democrats, had failed twice. He had merely been a governor. What remained for the left was the distant memory of such compassionate folly as the Ham and Eggs program in Southern California — a cry for economic redistribution that was a much a cri de coeur for a mostly tenebrous form of social action.

Enter Dr. Seuss with Sam and his unnamed friend. Green eggs and ham was on the table, and Sam would not sup.

I was in the children’s section of a Barnes & Noble in Stanford, Calif., shaking down the dregs from my flask and firing up a cigarette for fortitude when I was kicked out by the employees. They told me that I could not smoke or drink and that I was an evil man for practicing my habits in an apparently sacrosanct section of the store. They didn’t know I was a writer of some note, that I was the Hitch and I could write them all under the table. Literally and figuratively. I then proceeded to berate the idiot behind the counter because it amused me. He could not identify Khruschev, even when I tapped the sad sod repeatedly on the head with my heavy shoe to help him get the hint. He called the police. An arrest and a court appearance later, and I was on the phone with Sam Tanenhaus, seeing if I could write a piece that would pay my bail. He told me that I should write about Green Eggs and Ham. I could write it completely drunk if I liked. I wouldn’t be edited.

So here we are. I’ve downed the rest of my flask and the words on my screen are starting to blur. An assignment that even I can’t even begin to understand. I’m wondering if George Orwell had to operate under such circumstances so that he could publish such seminal essays as “My Country Right or Left.”

I would give a lot to understand the Dr. Seuss phenomenon. Part of it must have to do with the fact that the Cat in the Hat was clearly a yin-yang of Caucasian and African-American. A mulatto if you like, representing the approaching racial tension. This on its own would not explain the cat’s hideous barbershop hat and his continued hold on American culture. Even my youngest daughter, whose eyes seem to light up whenever I place the bright green Tanqueray bottle in my study (best imbibed on bright cold days in April), didn’t know any better. I had spent months of my life trying to get her to read Orwell and offering tips on how to avoid the ongoing religious indoctrination that remains all the rage. But she would not listen to dear old dad.

Seuss then — as malevolent a figure as Mother Theresa — deserves to be forgotten. He is concerned too much with phrases like “I would not like them” or “I do not like them” — perhaps because he is a narcissist in the grand American tradition. “Sam-I-am” is a rather overwrought form of address to the reader. One wonders whether Sam, representative of a complacent postwar nation, would have eaten the entree had it been the only option through war rations. Much like many a spoiled American now, he demands it now, leaving one to ponder Alexis de Tocqueville’s sharp foresight. Green eggs and ham — the only apparent option on the menu — is denied again and again by Sam, who becomes something of a tedious little tot you want to slap. This is the great icon of children’s literature?

Finally, Sam learns to love his dish and learns to love his mediocrity, setting a great precedent for the banal decades to come. Is this the end of Sam? One hopes so, but perhaps there will be other authors hoping to find additional silt in the muddy Mississippi that inspired Twain but appalled Dickens. The distinctly slushy close of the story may seem to hold out the faint promise of a sequel, but I honestly think and sincerely hope that this will not occur. Green Eggs and Ham reveals its narrative hand pages before the great revelation. It’s achievement enough that Sam-I-am proceeds to thank his unnamed conversationalist, and thus the reader. As for me, I’m happy enough to collect my bail money and I’m pleased that Sam (the editor, not the eggs and ham meditative figure) is now truly off his fucking rocker for giving me the strangest review assignment of my long career.

My desktop is out of commission right now. I hope to check in later.

UPDATE: I am now CHKDSKing, which should take some time. If you emailed me on the main edrants account in the past two days and it’s urgent, try me on the Yahoo account.

UPDATE 2: Thank you, Microsoft! It’s time for a goddam clean install. By the way, if your registry hive ever gets corrupted, this is a great resource.

Updating will be mostly nonexistent while I spend my time reinstalling Windows and all my damn programs.

UPDATE 3: I’m now writing this from the desktop, now denuded of its former glory. Thankfully, I didn’t have to slipstream to get Windows to recognize the new 500 GB SATA drive. (For those who encounter the 137 GB limitation problem on either XP or 2000, this will solve your problem.) I now have a fresh install and, after I finish formatting the logical partition, I hope to transfer the data from the old drive over. I have three podcasts almost ready to go, but alas, the hard work of reinstalling all the programs will begin once this current nonsense is done. I’m hoping to get everything tweaked over the weekend. Bear with me.

Minesweeper: The Movie.