A Real Writer's Imagined Reaction To Her Well-Reviewed Collection Of Stories
All the magazines of importance love it. You can see that in their bites under the flap of the front cover, and on the back, and the face of the first page. They all mention my sentences. My tightness. My brevity.
The sentences are short, because Hemingway's were. The stories don't go anywhere, but that's ok, because they're short, too. By the time you realize you haven't been brought to any emotional depth, they're over.
Another writer of short fiction, himself the owner of praise, has written my forward; he also likes my sentences.
Look at the picture of me on the cover; I'm standing on the beach. I'm pretty, but not too made-up. And here is my dog; he is pretty, too. The wind is blowing our hair, and I'm wearing a denim shirt, because I may live in a New York City high-rise, but my soul is earthy.
Anyway, the dog isn't really mine. My building wouldn't allow that.
The Truth Shall Set You Free
A facebook message I received today from a gent with a dissenting opinion:
"the sarcasm is not funny,retard.im right,you're wrong,those are facts.you're as much of a dumbass fag as that other fag.(besides you will never understand,you're just a basement dwelling,virgin nerd that will never get laid,thats a fact.)"
While his harsh truths were difficult to hear, I now have no excuse to not take a good, long, self-evaluating look at myself. Thank you, kind sir!
"the sarcasm is not funny,retard.im right,you're wrong,those are facts.you're as much of a dumbass fag as that other fag.(besides you will never understand,you're just a basement dwelling,virgin nerd that will never get laid,thats a fact.)"
While his harsh truths were difficult to hear, I now have no excuse to not take a good, long, self-evaluating look at myself. Thank you, kind sir!
I Know Where the Aussie Rednecks Roam -OR- Thora Birch and the Outback of Ignorance
Let me start this off with a couple of disclaimers:
What will most likely be the first question is, "Is this really Thora Birch's Facebook page?". To the extent of my knowledge, and various other sources, -including a previous piece on the VICE site- (www.viceland.com) it is.
Next, you'll notice part-way through this conversation, that the subjects of this piece (barring Ms. Birch) are Australian. Now, this is in no way an attack/commentary on/political statement about- the Aussie peoples.
Any Australians I've known, either personally or through just being a fan, have seemed like good-natured, hard-drinking people. In all honesty, until I checked further, I just assumed the illiterate rednecks herein were American.
With that out of the way, let me give a brief background into what transpired.
Several months ago I became Facebook "friends" with one Ms. Thora Birch, of "American Beauty" and "Ghost World" fame. I've since visited her profile less-than rarely.
The other night a post from her page happened to pop into my feed. In it I saw a horrible trainwreck of the English language. Blocks of letters without vowels, plus symbols and odd spaces, trying to form what I can only assume were words. The culprit was a gentlemen we will henceforth refer to as "Dipshit #1".
Now curious, I scrolled down the page and saw that "Dipshit#1" had been leaving quite a few of these internet chicken-scratch comments. Once determining they were not, in fact, some sophisticated form of code, I decided to post a reply to his latest one.
What began as me exercising my rakish charm, evolved into the outing of a group of mouth-breathing, illiterate, Australian racist-rednecks, who had formed some sort of coven on Thora Birch's page. I felt it my duty to intervene, as they were obviously evolving a sinister plan. A plan to use Ms. Birch to lure her fans to their lair, where they could roast and eat them. Below is the complete comment thread of what followed (I have blocked the names and images of participants who are not myself. Which is really a shame, as you are missing Dipshit#1's sweet shades) I should also mention I have dubbed one of our protagonists "Racist Ogre Dipshit" because of her keen resemblance to Shrek. :
And we come to the end. As of my last checking, the individuals continue to post, Ms. Birch continues to be indifferent, and I continue to be pissed off. It has been pointed out that my original comments may have come across as a bit... snarky, and be that as it may, it quickly became beside the point. The point is something possibly worse than the roasting and eating of Thora's fans; the xenophobia and ignorance that went completely unchallenged by anyone else. Somehow, through 1)my initial snarkyness, and 2)my sincere outrage at the intolerance on display, I became the bad guy. Me! And there were (alleged) flesh-eating racist Aussie ogres involved! And I don't think I'm over-reacting.
You can say it's only Facebook, and it is her private page. So, in essence, Ms. Birch has no responsibility to behave in any particular way. Yet to me it's still quite telling, and I suppose I'll have a bit of a bad taste in my mouth should I ever see "Ghost World" again.
But I'm not too worried about the three "Dipshits". Sooner or later, all ogres get turned to stone by passing Hobbits, anyway.
(Update- Soon after this, Thora Birch posted saying she wasn't sure how much longer she might have her facebook page. See? I was right in the first place!)
What will most likely be the first question is, "Is this really Thora Birch's Facebook page?". To the extent of my knowledge, and various other sources, -including a previous piece on the VICE site- (www.viceland.com) it is.
Next, you'll notice part-way through this conversation, that the subjects of this piece (barring Ms. Birch) are Australian. Now, this is in no way an attack/commentary on/political statement about- the Aussie peoples.
Any Australians I've known, either personally or through just being a fan, have seemed like good-natured, hard-drinking people. In all honesty, until I checked further, I just assumed the illiterate rednecks herein were American.
With that out of the way, let me give a brief background into what transpired.
Several months ago I became Facebook "friends" with one Ms. Thora Birch, of "American Beauty" and "Ghost World" fame. I've since visited her profile less-than rarely.
The other night a post from her page happened to pop into my feed. In it I saw a horrible trainwreck of the English language. Blocks of letters without vowels, plus symbols and odd spaces, trying to form what I can only assume were words. The culprit was a gentlemen we will henceforth refer to as "Dipshit #1".
Now curious, I scrolled down the page and saw that "Dipshit#1" had been leaving quite a few of these internet chicken-scratch comments. Once determining they were not, in fact, some sophisticated form of code, I decided to post a reply to his latest one.
What began as me exercising my rakish charm, evolved into the outing of a group of mouth-breathing, illiterate, Australian racist-rednecks, who had formed some sort of coven on Thora Birch's page. I felt it my duty to intervene, as they were obviously evolving a sinister plan. A plan to use Ms. Birch to lure her fans to their lair, where they could roast and eat them. Below is the complete comment thread of what followed (I have blocked the names and images of participants who are not myself. Which is really a shame, as you are missing Dipshit#1's sweet shades) I should also mention I have dubbed one of our protagonists "Racist Ogre Dipshit" because of her keen resemblance to Shrek. :
You can say it's only Facebook, and it is her private page. So, in essence, Ms. Birch has no responsibility to behave in any particular way. Yet to me it's still quite telling, and I suppose I'll have a bit of a bad taste in my mouth should I ever see "Ghost World" again.
But I'm not too worried about the three "Dipshits". Sooner or later, all ogres get turned to stone by passing Hobbits, anyway.
(Update- Soon after this, Thora Birch posted saying she wasn't sure how much longer she might have her facebook page. See? I was right in the first place!)
REVIEW: Paranormal Activity
Wow. "Paranormal Activity" may have been one of the most insipid, lamebrained things I have ever seen. And I have seen some horrible shit. The fact that it set records in the box office speaks volumes about our culture's capacity for stupid.
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