I’ve met Howard Junker — the man was silly enough to drink a barely drinkable pint of Pabst Blue Ribbon with me — and I also email him from time to time. He’s a quietly intelligent and friendly gentleman. I also know that he’s outspoken about what he likes and what he doesn’t like. He does this not to be spiteful, but because he cares tremendously about literature. Like any good literary enthusiast, he demands the best out of people. And if that means telling people point-blank that their work isn’t up to snuff, then that’s simply the way that Howard operates.

But for Stephen Elliott, a writer who purports to chronicle misfits and the misunderstood, a remark Junker made at a competitive reading contest was enough to send him over the edge.

Elliott misheard a remark that Junker made concerning Elliott’s “literary merit.” Elliott didn’t come up to Junker or ask for an apology or express his anger or initiate any attempt to clear things up. (As Howard wryly notes, Elliott didn’t even ask to settle things in the alley.) Instead, he threw beer onto Howard Junker, as well as the new owners of the Booksmith — who are also both very kind people. There was no explanation. No effort on Elliott’s part to talk things out.

Junker immediately left the room without causing any additional fuss. What was Elliott’s response? “I don’t understand why Junker left that night. I had a shirt in my bag he could have borrowed.”

I realize that Elliott has had a tough life. But this does not justify acting like a boor in the present. Particularly when the target is as understanding a man as Howard Junker. Things did not have to escalate to this level.

As Junker noted, “‘Literary merit’ is not a term I use on my own, and it is certainly not among the criteria I use to judge a man as a man. A man, I feel, should be able to hold his beer. Should be able to take his lumps. Should exhibit courage in the face of adversity. And so on.”

The very least that Elliott owes Junker is an apology. Real men own up to their mistakes.

What Elliott did is far from taking his lumps, far from exhibiting courage, and far from being a gentleman.

Horrible news.

[UPDATE: Pardon my laconic post. The news of these two deaths (Duncan and her boyfriend, Jeremy Blake) hit me as I was about to embark on a restful weekend. My immediate reaction was to beat myself up relentlessly on Friday night for not doing more or for not communicating enough to her that her zaniness was peachy keen. Theresa and I had exchanged quite a few emails after the two of us duked it out last December in an Elegant Variation thread, where I encouraged her to maintain her hearty enthusiasm for reporting breakfast. She responded that she was planning to extend her ebullience to lunch and dinner. Whatever her problems, what I do know is this: I observed in Theresa another giddy and idiosyncratic soul — someone who was good for the artistic community by way of her cockeyed perspective. And I’m very sorry that I never got the chance to meet her. If this horrible conclusion says anything, it is this: We must embrace those who are different.]

[For additional reading, see Kay Redfield Jamison’s Touched with Fire. And on the film front, watch Janet Frame and Jane Campion’s An Angel at My Table.]

I wrote a lengthy feature on confessional writing that appears in this Sunday’s Los Angeles Times. Many thanks to the writers who talked with me for the piece and who put up with my laryngitis. I did try to include everyone, but alas, I ended up talking to far more people than I probably should have. So I’m sorry if you didn’t make it in.

[UPDATE: Ms. Bussel and I talked for close to 90 minutes for this piece and she’s offered some additional perspective on her blog: “Me, I’m much more PG than I am NSFW, and yet by dint of what I do for a living, most of what you’ll stumble across on line is about matters sexual. But talk to me at a party and I’ll quiz you about your babies or your workout routine or your creative endeavors. I’ll ask you about your bad dates and favorite cupcakes. Sure, Martha and I probably horrified some of the Etsy folks with our sex talk, but I don’t think that’s a me thing, it’s a comfort with the topic, amongst friends.”]

BBC: “A Canadian team has created a computer program that can win or draw any game, no matter who the opponent is. It took an average of 50 computers nearly two decades to sift through the 500 billion billion possible draughts positions to come up with the solution.

Ladies and gentlemen, Phil Spector’s hair.