Congratulations to the new parents, new grandparents, re-grandparents, re-great grandparents, re-great aunts, re-great uncles, re-uncles, re-aunts and re-cousins.
Hunting the Snark
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Posted
7:36 AM
by Rob
I find it fascinating how the culture wars are evolving. Nowadays people seem a good bit less concerned about the hot-button issues of abortion rights, same-sex marriage, abuse of prisoners, or the erosion of civil liberties, and are busy backbiting each other about tone and style in tweets and blogs. The latest flash point is David Denby's new book, Snark, recently released and immediately receiving a flood of one-star bashings on Amazon.
I have read this modest little book from The New Yorker's film critic, and found it to be erudite, insightful, self-effacing, and generally delightful, though I don't necessarily agree with every conclusion he draws. From the reaction in the blogosphere (or whatever it's being called these days), you would think he had called out all of our mothers, by name and with details. The titles of the most dismissive Amazon reviews show the general tone of the discourse: "Laughably uninformed and pointless," "Totally worthless," "A fascinating case study of cluelessness," "craptastic."
Perhaps the most virulent ranting has come from Ana Marie Cox, Wonkette veteran and all-around observer and blogger, who seems to pride herself mainly on her "real time mocking of Presidential briefings [and] Senate Hearings." Ms. Cox, in a series of videos posted to YouTube, rolls her eyes, screws up her face, waves her hands dismissively, and says almost nothing of substance as she ridicules the book. Beyond the often non-sequitur criticism of the ideas, she freely engages in ad hominem vituperation ("This dumbass, Denby") and "nyah-nyah" pre-teen catcalling.
Which I suppose must amuse Cox's many readers (she has more than 75,000 Twitter followers) but it all goes to prove Denby's point. In his most succinct characterization of snark, he writes: "At what point do we write snark out of the book of life -- or at least out of the book of style? When it lacks imagination, freshness, fantasy, verbal invention and adroitness -- all the elements of wit. When it's just mean, low, ragging insult with a little curlicue of knowingness." The elements of true wit certainly won't be found in the sneers that characterize much of Cox's writing.
Denby's cardinal sin, perhaps, was to use the popular Wonkette blog as one of his prime bad examples of the corrosive mockery that has displaced civility in the national multilogue. Hell hath no fury like a Wonkette scorned, it seems. Also, ironically, Denby's employment by The New Yorker seems to be a real point of contention with those who find his viewpoint objectionable. As though working for one of the few bastions of literacy still standing in the "old media" world is somehow in itself a cause for ridicule. God help us all when Twitter replaces The New Yorker as the cultural standard to aspire to.
Posted
3:07 PM
by Pamela
Happy Birthday to the first grandchild. Blogger hates me though and won't let me post a picture of his cute snookie face...
Tonight at the dinner table
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Posted
6:52 PM
by Geoffrey
Lately, we've been trying to reinforce the "please" and "thank you" routine at the dinner table.
So tonight, after listening to Stephen demand "more, more" repeatedly, I asked him "More what?" To which he replied "More water!" Not satisfied with that reply (obviously), I asked him "What's the magic word?"
Stephen: "Hocus pocus."
Literally, a Web Log
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Posted
12:07 PM
by Rob
For grammar and usage Nazis, a blog that tracks abuses of the word "literally."
Posted
5:47 AM
by Rob
I did something this week that's been on my list for a while -- attended a game at Wrigley Field. I think it was meant to be. A seminar I was interested in was being taught in Chicago, and my supervisor at work ordered me to spend some of the office training money. So what's the next logical thing to do? Check the Cubbies' schedule. And 'lo and behold the lowly Braves were scheduled in for three games. Perfect.
I knew Benjamin has occasional business in the Chicago area, so I talked to him about whether he could arrange things to be there, too. And he did have a meeting in the general area, so we scheduled it for Wednesday evening and I bought two tickets at Stubhub. He drove into the city from South Bend, Indiana, returned his rental car and we met up at the venerable old Congress Plaza Hotel, which was a trip in itself. We caught the subway a couple of blocks away and rode in a train full of Cubbies t-shirts and hats (no problem knowing which station to get off at) to the park.
Except for Fenway, Wrigley is the oldest major league ball park in the country, and the best one I've been in to watch a game. Although it holds 41,000 fans, it has a very intimate feel, almost like a minor league field. And there is, of course, the ivy. As Braves fans, Benjamin and I kept a low profile, but the crowd was mellow, probably because the Cubs are leading the NL East. There's a real sense there that this may be their year after the long drought. We had three beers each, talked about a bunch of stuff, and watched the Braves go down in ignominious defeat.
At the end of the game, we decided to savor the park for a while longer, and were surprised that the crowd didn't trip over itself trying to get out like they do here in Atlanta. Instead, they stuck around and broke out singing the Cubbies National Anthem. It was quite moving.
Finally security signalled us to depart, and we headed back to the train.
