Tricia Sullivan, the author of the fascinating and underrated novel Maul (which I read a year and a half ago in its UK edition and which Night Shade Books, bless its heart, picked up for American release), has a LiveJournal.
Month / September 2006
The Literary Hipster’s Handbook, 2006 Q4 Edition
“bad beef”: A literary prize ostensibly designed to assist struggling writers that goes instead to writers who don’t need the cash or the praise. Recent examples of bad beef include Haruki Murakami winning the O’Connor Short Story Award and John Updike winning the Rea Award. The phrase “bad beef” has begun to shift to writers who have secured a considerable windfall and who feel the need to remind more impoverished writers of their affluence. (Ex. He got him the Park Slope digs, the nubile wife, and he can write any novel he wants. And he don’t talk of nothing else. He keep up this bad beef and I’ll kick his bitchy little vegetarian ass.)
“Discomfort Zone”: An area in a bar or cafe populated by whiny middle-aged dilletantes to be avoided at all costs. Discomfort Zones are sometimes cordoned off with a red velvet rope, suggesting to the dilletante that he is a VIP. However, the real intent of the rope is to protect a happening establishment from “novelists” too stiff, gushing, and self-absorbed to join the more friendly and fun-loving clientele. (Or.: Jonathan Franzen.)
“Doubting Thomas”: A literary hipster who wishes to cast doubt on a forthcoming autumn title, particularly those with a sizable page count and those written by a white male in good standing. The term was inspired shortly after news broke on Thomas Pynchon’s forthcoming novel, Against the Day, and several literary hipsters began to cast serious doubts amidst the hype, demanding that the hype be shifted to experimental novels that only a handful of people will actually read. Other titles that Doubting Thomases have publicly questioned: Norman Mailer’s The Castle in the Forest, Richard Powers’ The Echo Maker, and Richard Ford’s The Lay of the Land.
“This is/This is not…”: A rather curious conversational form has emerged among literary hipsters that is somewhere between a shit-flinging contest and a Socratic debate. Inspired by the two chicklit anthologies edited by Elizabeth Merrick and Lauren Baratz-Logsted, literary hipsters have begun to contradict each other, particularly in discussions involving misunderstood genres. The following conversation, for example, was overheard at a Greenwich Village pub:
HIPSTER 1: This is a novel.
HIPSTER 2: This is not a novel. It is a piece of shit.
HIPSTER 1: David Markson? This is wrong, cat. And I’ll kick your ass if you sully my man Markson’s name any further.
HIPSTER 2: This is not wrong. You haven’t read Hemingway, have you?
HIPSTER 1: This is a lie. (pause, hits HIPSTER 2 over the head with a beer bottle) How does that feel?
HIPSTER 2: This is not a lie. I am bleeding. Please take me to a hospital.
HIPSTER 1: This is your problem.
HIPSTER 2: This is not my problem. You hit me with the beer bottle. I expect you to pay my doctor’s bill.
HIPSTER 1: This is unreasonable. You’re the one contradicting me.
HIPSTER 2: This is not unreasonable. Will somebody call 911?
And so on.
As can be observed, this recent conversational trend can often end in horrible violence, leaving literary hipsters to pursue this vernacular as a last resort. Unfortunately, recent friction between the print media and the online media has resulted in more unnecessary head bashing and at least one stabbing, when two literary hipsters attempted to recreate the Lev Grossman/Edward Champion contretemps. (Fortunately, the stabbing hipster followed up by sending a fruit basket.)
It is advised by this lexicographer to avoid any conversations that play out along these lines.
“to Max out”: To use one’s questionable blogging abilities to secure a lucrative book deal, only to write a book so bad that not even a vaguely erudite leper will touch it. This euphemism came from the short-lived turn of phrase “to Cox out.” But since literary hipsters have no desire to remember or reference Ana Marie Cox’s dreadful novel, Dog Days in any way, and since, more importantly, Tucker Max is a douchebag, the term was changed to fit the ever-changing literary climate.
“to Wallace”: To write a generalization-laden essay over and over again, often employing a once fresh but now tired stylistic device such as footnotes. (Or.: “Federer as Religious Experience”)
A Special Message from Albert Yonklas, Respected Author
Damn readers! Damn them all to hell! They want me to sign their books and throw my wrist out of alignment. They expect me to add an extra horizontal whoosh when I cross my T. They want to compare the signature that I offer in one book to that of another. Well, don’t they know that I apply my creative acumen to my work? It’s there in my National Book Award-winning novel, Butterflies in Toledo. The groupies may have been smelly, but they were just competent in bed. Even so, don’t they realize that I’m not entitled to give these atavistic rodents anything? That they have B.O. and bad breath?
Well, the time has come for conformity, dammit! And this is why I must thank Margaret Atwood for taking a stand. Forget Iraq. Forget poverty. Forget AIDS. No! The single most important issue facing the world today is placating authors. And I, Albert Yonklas, will not rest until I am thoroughly pampered and fellated to the high heavens. That goes for readers. That goes for publishers. And that goes even for other published authors. They can all suck my capacious penis, if you catch my drift.
Very few authors are willing to confess the truth: that readers are soulless cretins who should just buy our damn books and shut the hell up. But the time has come to teach these troglodytes a lesson. You want me to sign your book? Without a complimentary blowjob? Take a number, amigo.
You actually want me to sign your book with a pen? And add a personal message? Or perhaps a funny little diagram? Who the hell do you think you are? I’m not a cartoonist. I’m a novelist! You’re not! And you are entitled to a signature as soulless and indistinct as your foolish questions. Where do I get my ideas? I’ll tell you where. By glimpsing up your stinking piehole!
I’ll never tour again thanks to the LongPen. You want a piece of me? Catch it on video. Video is more intimate, you slimebags! The fans prefer it! We have no basis for this, but everyone know it’s true. And before all you leftist scum start bitching about the environment, the LongPen is environmentally sound! I’m not getting the Al Gore crowd on my ass.
I have to hand it to Peggy Atwood. What a great scam to get some pocket money from the publishing industry. And what a great way to remove audiences from the equation. Why, even poets are duped!
Albert Yonklas is the bestselling author of Butterflies in Toledo, It Happened in December and Harold’s Nightmare. He is currently seeing a heart specialist about his high blood pressure, which he blames on his readers.
Roundup
- Lydia Millet questions Alice Munro’s status among contemporary readers. More from Dan Green.
- Tod Goldberg on Banned Books Week. What I’d like to know is why nobody has started a Banned Blogs Week. Given my regular assaults on fundy fruitloops, it remains my fervent hope that those who are offended will print off copies of my posts (and those of others) and throw them into a large conflagration, perhaps belting out an uplifting ballad in praise of National Socialism.
- Rebecca Skloot is curious if any writers or critics have been mis-blurbed. Do let her know if a publisher has ever transformed your words from “a sexy novel” to “a novel more stunning than sex itself!”
- Happy birthday, Mr. Sarvas. If I had more time, I’d fly down to Los Angeles and deliver my Marilyn Monroe routine in person. Oh well. I suppose there’s next year.
- Congratulations, Sarah! And take care of yourself!
- John Scalzi on blogger book deals.
- Jess Walter on John Updike and golf.
- Poor JeffVanderMeer is addicted to BSG.
- Ah, to hell with this roundup. Go over to Matt’s and check out his grand collection of links.
The Stepford Jonathans
Well, if this is the kind of goodness that inspires people, then I’m supremely honored and astonished to be your muse, Patricia. (Thanks for the tip, Lauren!)