Miss Edith is known in certain circles for not giving a holy fuck about art or museums in general; that is to say, she thinks they’re all well and good, and noble, etc. etc.; just don’t take her to one unless you don’t mind her spending all her time in the gift shop.
So Edie isn’t real likely to actually give a hoot about whether a painting is a Caravaggio or not.
However, she notices a certain fortuitous timing for young art theft expert Noah Charney, who’s been profiled in the New York Times Magazine and who Edith actually had the pleasure of hearing speak a couple of years ago. Mr. Charney is particularly knowledgeable about Caravaggio, it seems, and is happy to stand around being handsome and charming while telling you a million things you never really cared to know about the dead painter. Mr. Charney is a guy who will doubtless go far. He’s got everything going for him. If Miss Edith was willing to sit and listen to him talk about art, then all things are possible.
One of the many things he’s got going for him is that he’s got a novel coming out this fall, The Art Thief, from Simon and Schuster. But books like this can have all the publicity in the world and fail. (Witness: The Interpretation of Murder.)
What Mr. Charney’s got, too, is the recent headline announcing that an art restorer claims to’ve stumbled on an unfinished Caravaggio painting.
If this story can be kept alive for just a few weeks, a few precious weeks, to meet the release date of Mr. Charney’s novel… Does anyone wonder if perhaps this merging of news stories is merely a coincidence? Or is Miss Edith being overly cynical?
I wouldn’t say that the possibilities are endless. And I haven’t looked into this, but I will assume that a film deal is in the works…
Pollyannas need not post comments here.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
When One Searches the Want Ads on Craigslist...
Miss Edith realizes that anything is possible. This morning I was going to maybe post one of my usual discussions of something or other to do with the printed word, but I have been pleasantly distracted by the following, found on Craigslist:
office assistant
Reply to: uscasting@yahoo.com
Date: 2007-07-12, 11:52PM EDT
A top shoe company is looking for a female executive assistant ASAP. This person will do administrative work as well model shoes to department store buyers. Will model shoes so must have nice feet. Send Resume and foot pics. Need pictures of feet in top side back and arch view. Please send in headshot as well as pictures in and out of 6 pairs of open toe shoes. Send phone# asap.
* Location: new haven
* Compensation: 76,000
* Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
* Please, no phone calls about this job!
* Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.
PostingID: 372707119
Anyone who sees this ad and think it's a legitimate, non-fetish-related job, should be preserved in amber.
I hope someone else finds this as chucklesome an ad as I did...
office assistant
Reply to: uscasting@yahoo.com
Date: 2007-07-12, 11:52PM EDT
A top shoe company is looking for a female executive assistant ASAP. This person will do administrative work as well model shoes to department store buyers. Will model shoes so must have nice feet. Send Resume and foot pics. Need pictures of feet in top side back and arch view. Please send in headshot as well as pictures in and out of 6 pairs of open toe shoes. Send phone# asap.
* Location: new haven
* Compensation: 76,000
* Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
* Please, no phone calls about this job!
* Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.
PostingID: 372707119
Anyone who sees this ad and think it's a legitimate, non-fetish-related job, should be preserved in amber.
I hope someone else finds this as chucklesome an ad as I did...
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Miss Edith Reads Fiction for Cranky Girls -- so, what else is new?
Lest you think that all I did when I was in Vermont was read books I hated and watch movies I hated, I’d like to assure you this was not the case.
I also enjoyed a few things while I was up there.
While the chickens clucked in their little house a few yards from the porch where I perched, I re-read Alice and Martin Provensen’s classic childrens’ book, Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm. This is a book I discovered, thanks to co-workers at a bookstore, only a couple of years ago, but it is so utterly charming that I bought a copy for myself, and I actually read it on a surprisingly regular basis. Whether you are a city child or a country child, this book should be required reading for all little ones. It’s just a delightful book with the greatest illustrations and totally honest descriptions of life with animals.
I also read the one Jennifer Weiner novel that I had not yet read, a book I’d really forgotten about entirely though surely I’ve sold many copies of it over the years – Little Earthquakes.
Jennifer Weiner: when I was first hired as the buyer at that wacky joint downtown, I remember, I gave myself a little assignment, which was to figure out this chick lit thing. I asked the staff to make a pile of books for me to read; clearly this was a big trend, and spending a decade in rare books was all well and good but it didn’t give me a good background in selling cutely designed pink paperbacks to girls who were old enough to drink legally.
Jennifer Weiner’s Good in Bed was in that first pile of books assigned to me. It was, if I recall, one of about six titles I read one after the other, very fast – so fast that now I can’t remember any of the other titles I read, though I know I read a book by Marian Keyes. The Jennifer Weiner book was shocking to me, quite frankly, after reading all those candy-colored tomes, because it was just so much better than any of the other books. It was just head and shoulders better. It was still chick lit, don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying it was like reading Edith Wharton – but it was a different kind of chick lit. I quickly read In Her Shoes and enjoyed it thoroughly, and made a mental note: this Jennifer Weiner – she’s worth hanging onto. Jennifer Weiner knows how to put together a respectable sentence; she's good good comic timing; and she's actually...smart. More importantly, perhaps, her characters are allowed to be smart, and reflective, in ways that you seldom see in this genre, which I'll actually call "women's fiction" even though that's really no better than saying Chick Lit. I loved the Bridget Jones books, and nothing came close to them, as far as I was concerned, until Jennifer Weiner -- though they're such different types of chick lit that it's not a truly fair comparison. Bridget is meant to be a lark. Weiner's characters, her books, are clearly intended to have a little more weight to them than Bridget Jones ever could. Bridget is a comic conceit. Weiner's characters are characters in a larger sense. And Weiner writes them without the crutches that are littered about the Bridget Jones books like cigarette butts on a the floor of a nightclub.
I read her Goodnight Nobody when it came out, and was simultaneously pleased and frustrated by it, because it was such a carbon copy/tribute to Susan Isaacs – and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I think I’d hoped for something a little less derivative. Initially I was peeved by the similarity, but once I realized that this was a deliberate process on Weiner’s part, I thought, “Well, ok, babe. Go for it.” And I heartily recommended the book to Weiner’s fans, saying, “You’ll also want to read Susan Isaacs’ Compromising Positions” – which I promptly ordered for the store – and rang up sales with a clear conscience.
Little Earthquakes, though, somehow got past me. So when I noticed it on the shelf in Vermont, I thought, Oh, cool. Beach reading.
For those who want to dip their toes in something light and bright and intelligent; for those who could use a break from all that aggressively literary fiction that is pressed on us all the time; for those girls who look like McSweeney’s fans but are secretly annoyed as fuck by all the gimmickry, and just want to read something FUN, for fuck’s sake – for those girls, in particular the ones who are pregnant or new mommies (Miss Edith is not among your count, but trust her anyway), Little Earthquakes is an entirely enjoyable read. Fast. Sparkly. You won’t remember a thing about it when you’re done, in all likelihood, but that’s a nice thing – that means you’ll be able to revisit it in a year or two and you’ll enjoy it completely, all over again.
Miss Edith read a book just today that would appeal to the same kind of person who likes Jennifer Weiner, too – and maybe some straight boys, as well. It’s a young adult novel entitled Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. This bugger came out as I was leaving my job as buyer, if memory serves, and I remember being interested in it but didn’t actually lay hands on a copy until today. (Why the local public libraries haven’t ordered this title is simply beyond me; I had to get it through interlibrary loan! Mr. Armstrong! What gives!) This book is the kind of YA novel I would have died for when I was about 14, 15 years old. It’s smart, it’s funny (in a low-key way), and it absolutely captures the total insanity of young attraction. I don’t want to say young love – it’s not that. It’s about how one night can be forever – this holds true regardless of how old you are, but when you’re in high school…. Oh, forever is a very long time when you’re in high school.
The novel, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, is set up so that our heroes, Nick and Norah, trade turns narrating each chapter. Nick, newly broken hearted, is in a band playing a nightclub in lower Manhattan. Norah, also brokenhearted, and fairly cranky to boot, is there, and through a short series of coincidences finds herself sort of swept off her feet by Nick, and they spent a night going from club to club and going on emotional roller coaster rides in the process. The characters are seniors in high school, but the book’s readership shouldn’t be limited to that age. A young teen would love this. It’s cool in a way that might date it pretty quickly, but it’s also cool in ways that will, I hope, allow it to transcend that problem. Teens obsessed with punk, or adults who were teens obsessed with punk, should read this. It made Miss Edith – even Miss Edith – a little misty for her own wretched teen years.
Ah, youth. Miss Edith raises a glass and drinks a toast to the days when she had purple hair and wore black and white striped tights. Odd, but those days didn’t end so long ago, did they?…
I also enjoyed a few things while I was up there.
While the chickens clucked in their little house a few yards from the porch where I perched, I re-read Alice and Martin Provensen’s classic childrens’ book, Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm. This is a book I discovered, thanks to co-workers at a bookstore, only a couple of years ago, but it is so utterly charming that I bought a copy for myself, and I actually read it on a surprisingly regular basis. Whether you are a city child or a country child, this book should be required reading for all little ones. It’s just a delightful book with the greatest illustrations and totally honest descriptions of life with animals.
I also read the one Jennifer Weiner novel that I had not yet read, a book I’d really forgotten about entirely though surely I’ve sold many copies of it over the years – Little Earthquakes.
Jennifer Weiner: when I was first hired as the buyer at that wacky joint downtown, I remember, I gave myself a little assignment, which was to figure out this chick lit thing. I asked the staff to make a pile of books for me to read; clearly this was a big trend, and spending a decade in rare books was all well and good but it didn’t give me a good background in selling cutely designed pink paperbacks to girls who were old enough to drink legally.
Jennifer Weiner’s Good in Bed was in that first pile of books assigned to me. It was, if I recall, one of about six titles I read one after the other, very fast – so fast that now I can’t remember any of the other titles I read, though I know I read a book by Marian Keyes. The Jennifer Weiner book was shocking to me, quite frankly, after reading all those candy-colored tomes, because it was just so much better than any of the other books. It was just head and shoulders better. It was still chick lit, don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying it was like reading Edith Wharton – but it was a different kind of chick lit. I quickly read In Her Shoes and enjoyed it thoroughly, and made a mental note: this Jennifer Weiner – she’s worth hanging onto. Jennifer Weiner knows how to put together a respectable sentence; she's good good comic timing; and she's actually...smart. More importantly, perhaps, her characters are allowed to be smart, and reflective, in ways that you seldom see in this genre, which I'll actually call "women's fiction" even though that's really no better than saying Chick Lit. I loved the Bridget Jones books, and nothing came close to them, as far as I was concerned, until Jennifer Weiner -- though they're such different types of chick lit that it's not a truly fair comparison. Bridget is meant to be a lark. Weiner's characters, her books, are clearly intended to have a little more weight to them than Bridget Jones ever could. Bridget is a comic conceit. Weiner's characters are characters in a larger sense. And Weiner writes them without the crutches that are littered about the Bridget Jones books like cigarette butts on a the floor of a nightclub.
I read her Goodnight Nobody when it came out, and was simultaneously pleased and frustrated by it, because it was such a carbon copy/tribute to Susan Isaacs – and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I think I’d hoped for something a little less derivative. Initially I was peeved by the similarity, but once I realized that this was a deliberate process on Weiner’s part, I thought, “Well, ok, babe. Go for it.” And I heartily recommended the book to Weiner’s fans, saying, “You’ll also want to read Susan Isaacs’ Compromising Positions” – which I promptly ordered for the store – and rang up sales with a clear conscience.
Little Earthquakes, though, somehow got past me. So when I noticed it on the shelf in Vermont, I thought, Oh, cool. Beach reading.
For those who want to dip their toes in something light and bright and intelligent; for those who could use a break from all that aggressively literary fiction that is pressed on us all the time; for those girls who look like McSweeney’s fans but are secretly annoyed as fuck by all the gimmickry, and just want to read something FUN, for fuck’s sake – for those girls, in particular the ones who are pregnant or new mommies (Miss Edith is not among your count, but trust her anyway), Little Earthquakes is an entirely enjoyable read. Fast. Sparkly. You won’t remember a thing about it when you’re done, in all likelihood, but that’s a nice thing – that means you’ll be able to revisit it in a year or two and you’ll enjoy it completely, all over again.
Miss Edith read a book just today that would appeal to the same kind of person who likes Jennifer Weiner, too – and maybe some straight boys, as well. It’s a young adult novel entitled Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. This bugger came out as I was leaving my job as buyer, if memory serves, and I remember being interested in it but didn’t actually lay hands on a copy until today. (Why the local public libraries haven’t ordered this title is simply beyond me; I had to get it through interlibrary loan! Mr. Armstrong! What gives!) This book is the kind of YA novel I would have died for when I was about 14, 15 years old. It’s smart, it’s funny (in a low-key way), and it absolutely captures the total insanity of young attraction. I don’t want to say young love – it’s not that. It’s about how one night can be forever – this holds true regardless of how old you are, but when you’re in high school…. Oh, forever is a very long time when you’re in high school.
The novel, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, is set up so that our heroes, Nick and Norah, trade turns narrating each chapter. Nick, newly broken hearted, is in a band playing a nightclub in lower Manhattan. Norah, also brokenhearted, and fairly cranky to boot, is there, and through a short series of coincidences finds herself sort of swept off her feet by Nick, and they spent a night going from club to club and going on emotional roller coaster rides in the process. The characters are seniors in high school, but the book’s readership shouldn’t be limited to that age. A young teen would love this. It’s cool in a way that might date it pretty quickly, but it’s also cool in ways that will, I hope, allow it to transcend that problem. Teens obsessed with punk, or adults who were teens obsessed with punk, should read this. It made Miss Edith – even Miss Edith – a little misty for her own wretched teen years.
Ah, youth. Miss Edith raises a glass and drinks a toast to the days when she had purple hair and wore black and white striped tights. Odd, but those days didn’t end so long ago, did they?…
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Get the Hell Out of Town! -- with Miss Edith
Miss Edith and Notarius decided to get away from it all this weekend. Notarius felt a need to be manly and climb large mountains. I felt no such need, but was happy to sit in the car and head northward with him; the game plan was that I would spend the time when the menfolk were off being manly on some mountain or other at the home of some dear friends who live near mountains. Since this was all planned sort of at the last minute, I didn't have the time to make potentially interesting social plans -- meeting old friends for coffee, for example --; people have lives, after all, and you can't ask them to drop everything on six hours' notice... So I devised my own idea of a getaway.
Accordingly, I packed carefully. I brought DVDs, a number of books, a pair of jeans (it’s sweltering here, but up North, you know, even in the summer it can get sort of chilly), a sweater. I brought things, basically, to keep me comfortable and entertained in a situation where I might otherwise be bored shitless. Miss Edith has no interest in rambling strolls down country lanes; birdwatching holds no charm for me. I admit to enjoying looking at houses and noticing that this one’s gotten a new roof since we were last up – steel to replace cracked slate – and that that house over there has been repainted, finally; it’s now a bed and breakfast. But this is the same kind of strolling I would do in my hometown. Basically, Miss Edith in the country is a bad idea, and the only way for me to be happy in the middle of nowhere is for me to buffet myself with creature comforts and not leave the house at all.
Having had the presence of mind to bring my computer with me – even though there’s no internet connection at the house – I was able to spend happy hours sitting on the porch of the house, drinking coffee and watching DVDs. When I reached the end of a movie, I read for a while. And then I had lunch, and put in another DVD.
So it was really quite a full day, and by the time the mens came back to the house, I could honestly say I’d been pretty busy while they were gone, and everyone was happy.
While on the porch I viewed, in its entirety, a movie entitled “Someone Like You” which stars Ashley Judd, Hugh Jackman, and Greg Kinnear. This movie was highly recommended to me by a dear friend not because it’s a good movie but because it stars Hugh Jackman. Why is Hugh Jackman so ill-served by his movie roles? It’s really criminal. Well, we shan’t dwell on this.
The movie is based on a book entitled Animal Husbandry, a piece of early-ish chick lit by someone named Laura Zigman. I remember reading it some years ago, when I was at the library and frustrated because there was nothing I felt like reading. Animal Husbandry seemed like it might be a decent Laurie Colwin substitute. It was not. I was sorely disappointed. You know something? The experience of reading the book is almost identical to watching the movie. You hope it’ll be very enjoyable – perhaps even genuinely clever, something to admire on its own terms. But it just… isn’t. It’s not that it’s a bad movie… but it isn’t good enough. I’m sorry. Good actors trying sort of hard…you want to be sympathetic. But this is a case where the script could not be overcome. What ought to’ve been a really charming romantic comedy just lacks zing. Sparkle. Actual wit. And Hugh Jackman’s really nice to look at, but that is not sufficient.
I also read, yesterday, a book that about eighty-six people have told me I must read, and never have until now: Augusten Burroughs’s Running With Scissors. This is, as I’m sure Edith’s readers know, a memoir by a young man who had a fairly wretched childhood. Ya know, I’m awfully sorry if this story is true, but I’m more sorry about three things:
1. that people think this is funny; there was really remarkably little comic material in here, and the stuff that’s intended to be comic just… isn’t;
2. that the book is so fundamentally incredible, and I mean that literally; and
3. that the book is so badly written.
I admit that I only find David Sedaris amusing in tiny slices, and that humor is very, very subjective – so a book that’s recommended by David Sedaris is, of course, not likely to impress me (though I did fall for Jincy Willett, another writer who’s been hyped by Sedaris), but really, folks. Who is it exactly that finds these descriptions of boys being raped by older men funny? Who can possibly read this book without thinking, “Um, if this is even remotely trye, how is it that no one ever called social services, or the police, to find out what the fuck was going on in the nuthouse down the street?” This story is supposed to take place in Amherst and Northampton, MA, and in my experience, these are places where there are plenty of do-gooders (you could even say Nosy Parkers) who’d love nothing more than to handle social problems like those in this memoir – and I mean people with social problems, not “social problems” as a larger concept – and try to take care of them. Basically, I find this book just unbelievable. Had the story taken place in an area that was really isolated, in a culture where people really are more “live and let live” – northern New Hampshire, say – then I might say, “Ok, so, these people were fucked up fruitcakes. Oh, well.” As it is, I don’t buy it. And if Mr. Burroughs and his editor can’t be bothered to spell things correctly – not even things that are trademarks, like Brylcreem – then Miss Edith shan’t be bothered to really worry about the well-being of these utterly fucked sounding people.
Would you want to read a novel that talked about Kleenex but spelled it “Cleeneks”?
No, you wouldn’t.
The only reason I don’t feel more annoyed by Running with Scissors is that it took me precisely 2 1/2 hours to read, a short enough time that, you know, I can make it up without worry. But I will not waste time with further work by Burroughs.
A P.S. of sorts:
After posting this, I was moved to go online and discovered a considerable amount of material documenting that the family portrayed in this book have contested the author's veracity, etc. etc., which basically confirms my feelings about this thing. Those who read Augusten Burroughs and think this stuff is awesome basically deserve James Frey, whose "memoir" I tried to read a few years ago but gave up on after a few pages because I was so fucking bored. Readers, readers: try having some critical thinking skills, ok?
Accordingly, I packed carefully. I brought DVDs, a number of books, a pair of jeans (it’s sweltering here, but up North, you know, even in the summer it can get sort of chilly), a sweater. I brought things, basically, to keep me comfortable and entertained in a situation where I might otherwise be bored shitless. Miss Edith has no interest in rambling strolls down country lanes; birdwatching holds no charm for me. I admit to enjoying looking at houses and noticing that this one’s gotten a new roof since we were last up – steel to replace cracked slate – and that that house over there has been repainted, finally; it’s now a bed and breakfast. But this is the same kind of strolling I would do in my hometown. Basically, Miss Edith in the country is a bad idea, and the only way for me to be happy in the middle of nowhere is for me to buffet myself with creature comforts and not leave the house at all.
Having had the presence of mind to bring my computer with me – even though there’s no internet connection at the house – I was able to spend happy hours sitting on the porch of the house, drinking coffee and watching DVDs. When I reached the end of a movie, I read for a while. And then I had lunch, and put in another DVD.
So it was really quite a full day, and by the time the mens came back to the house, I could honestly say I’d been pretty busy while they were gone, and everyone was happy.
While on the porch I viewed, in its entirety, a movie entitled “Someone Like You” which stars Ashley Judd, Hugh Jackman, and Greg Kinnear. This movie was highly recommended to me by a dear friend not because it’s a good movie but because it stars Hugh Jackman. Why is Hugh Jackman so ill-served by his movie roles? It’s really criminal. Well, we shan’t dwell on this.
The movie is based on a book entitled Animal Husbandry, a piece of early-ish chick lit by someone named Laura Zigman. I remember reading it some years ago, when I was at the library and frustrated because there was nothing I felt like reading. Animal Husbandry seemed like it might be a decent Laurie Colwin substitute. It was not. I was sorely disappointed. You know something? The experience of reading the book is almost identical to watching the movie. You hope it’ll be very enjoyable – perhaps even genuinely clever, something to admire on its own terms. But it just… isn’t. It’s not that it’s a bad movie… but it isn’t good enough. I’m sorry. Good actors trying sort of hard…you want to be sympathetic. But this is a case where the script could not be overcome. What ought to’ve been a really charming romantic comedy just lacks zing. Sparkle. Actual wit. And Hugh Jackman’s really nice to look at, but that is not sufficient.
I also read, yesterday, a book that about eighty-six people have told me I must read, and never have until now: Augusten Burroughs’s Running With Scissors. This is, as I’m sure Edith’s readers know, a memoir by a young man who had a fairly wretched childhood. Ya know, I’m awfully sorry if this story is true, but I’m more sorry about three things:
1. that people think this is funny; there was really remarkably little comic material in here, and the stuff that’s intended to be comic just… isn’t;
2. that the book is so fundamentally incredible, and I mean that literally; and
3. that the book is so badly written.
I admit that I only find David Sedaris amusing in tiny slices, and that humor is very, very subjective – so a book that’s recommended by David Sedaris is, of course, not likely to impress me (though I did fall for Jincy Willett, another writer who’s been hyped by Sedaris), but really, folks. Who is it exactly that finds these descriptions of boys being raped by older men funny? Who can possibly read this book without thinking, “Um, if this is even remotely trye, how is it that no one ever called social services, or the police, to find out what the fuck was going on in the nuthouse down the street?” This story is supposed to take place in Amherst and Northampton, MA, and in my experience, these are places where there are plenty of do-gooders (you could even say Nosy Parkers) who’d love nothing more than to handle social problems like those in this memoir – and I mean people with social problems, not “social problems” as a larger concept – and try to take care of them. Basically, I find this book just unbelievable. Had the story taken place in an area that was really isolated, in a culture where people really are more “live and let live” – northern New Hampshire, say – then I might say, “Ok, so, these people were fucked up fruitcakes. Oh, well.” As it is, I don’t buy it. And if Mr. Burroughs and his editor can’t be bothered to spell things correctly – not even things that are trademarks, like Brylcreem – then Miss Edith shan’t be bothered to really worry about the well-being of these utterly fucked sounding people.
Would you want to read a novel that talked about Kleenex but spelled it “Cleeneks”?
No, you wouldn’t.
The only reason I don’t feel more annoyed by Running with Scissors is that it took me precisely 2 1/2 hours to read, a short enough time that, you know, I can make it up without worry. But I will not waste time with further work by Burroughs.
A P.S. of sorts:
After posting this, I was moved to go online and discovered a considerable amount of material documenting that the family portrayed in this book have contested the author's veracity, etc. etc., which basically confirms my feelings about this thing. Those who read Augusten Burroughs and think this stuff is awesome basically deserve James Frey, whose "memoir" I tried to read a few years ago but gave up on after a few pages because I was so fucking bored. Readers, readers: try having some critical thinking skills, ok?
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