On the surface, it would seem that Maud is a nice gal, a talented writer, an able chronicler of the literary world, and, to my continued astonishment, a remarkably thorough correspondent. However, now that I've encountered Fraud Newton (defunct after mere days of wasted productivity by some cowardly anonymous employee at The Foundation Center), I have at last seen the light. Fraud Newton reports that beneath the seemingly benign sheen lies a heart of anthracite. This blog has revealed to me that Maud is a cold and calculated manipulator of the first order. I now realize that her friendly emails are part of a grand plot to overthrow the meat and potatoes of Western civilization. Would you believe that Maud has the temerity to lie about her birthday? Who needs the Iraq situation to get angry about when this minx is offering such jocose fibs? Thanks to Fraud Newton, I will avoid visiting New York altogether and I will stop sending her my boxer shorts by post.
No doubt the Old Hag will be the next grand hypocrite to be unmasked in the litblogging conspiracy. (She's from Baltimore! Enough said.)
Posted by DrMabuse at May 20, 2004 08:05 AMAs soon as I saw the "Fraud" site yesterday, I took a moment to write to the Communications Director of the Foundation Center to advise them that their URL was being used to launch mean-spirited personal attacks. I can't claim to take the credit for its removal but I hope I nudged it along.
I was surprised to read that this person is a friend of Maud's! I think it's time to reassess that friendship. Now we just need to get Maud to stop believing her bad press - she's got one of the best sites around.
Posted by: Axel Vander at May 20, 2004 09:58 AMAxel: People make mistakes or fail to communicate properly. And more than anything, this parody looks like a case of day job shenanigans. I don't think it was nearly as pernicious as everyone's made it out to be.
Posted by: Ed at May 20, 2004 10:33 AMWell, as parody, it was pretty hamfisted. As opposed to mimicing and exaggerating the target's traits, it was written as more of a running criticism by a 3rd party in a sort of, "Dork dork dorky dork! Look at the dork!" voice.
I like to think that I know my friends pretty well and know what sort of jokes they're willing to be the butt of. I didn't get angry at YPR's Neal Pollack roast, for example, because I was pretty sure that he could take that kind of ribbing (not that I've met the man or anything).
But, as you say, people do make mistakes. That seemed especially likely in this case, considering that Maud seemed to take the joke pretty hard but posted the link to it as requested by its creator, instead of telling him that it hurt her feelings.
As far as the percieved perniciousness -- well, if there had been even a hint at some sort of "good-natured ribbing" in the text, maybe people would have shrugged it off. Maybe that hint was there, and I didn't see it. I'm willing to admit that my reading comprehension is as bad as the joker's writing.
But, my knee-jerk reaction in these sorts of situations is to rally around when someone I like gets (in my rapid estimation) attacked. I blame my hot Portugese blood.
Posted by: rasputin at May 20, 2004 01:35 PM