Smoke 'Em If You've Got 'Em

I'd never IM'd with John Carney before today; the first topic was the investigation of a joke I couldn't remember. The joke involved an Indian, His Horse, and Said Horse's Large Dick. I still don't know what it is, but Andrew offered up a decent alternative. We spoke of our experiences Googling the joke, and how they were, at best, sordid. "Whatever you do, don't image search it," he warned. Sage advice, if I've ever heard any.

The second topic of conversation was Thomas Fleming, a guy who - according to Wikipedia - was noted by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a key intellectual of the "Neo-Confederate" movement. He's the editor of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, and is the ideological crack baby of Barry Goldwater and Ted Nugent. Naturally, this is somewhat in line with Carney's sensibilities, and John Boy wrote an article for them back in the day, which you can download as a YM exclusive here.

Now, if you're too lazy to download the PDF, the January 2004 article is about John's foray into becoming a smoker - as a libertarian and general asshole, it's his job to take up The Habit proceeding the Great Smoking Ban at the lung-ripened age of 30.

That's funny, because I'm an asshole, and I occasionally read Esquire. And I distinctly remember Esquire fiction editor and writer-at-large Tom Chiarella writing the exact same article, entitled, of course, Learning to Smoke. Three years later. And I imagine he got paid, handsomely, for it.

Now, I'm not saying that Chiarella plagurized Carney, or that he even stole the idea from Carney. But, from Carney's article:

On my way home that evening, I lit my first cigarette. It took four matches. I learned not to try to light the cigarette in the sulfur but to wait until the flames caught the cardboard match stem, and I learned to cup my hands just so against the wind. My lungs felt as if they were being pulled apart. My eyes watered. I kept spilling ash on my lapels and had trou- ble not burning my jacket. I experimented with a few different grips, settling on a cupped-in-the-hand style that not only kept the flame away from my clothes but made me feel like Steve McQueen. Best of all, I didn’t cough.

And from Chiarella's article:

My first: walking home the four long blocks from the school where I teach. I didn't know how to hold it. My fingers, clamped on the little cigarette, looked porcine, oversized, poorly positioned. The smoke, ashy and light, filled my mouth, made my eyes water. I coughed on every drag, even though I barely inhaled. I covered all this up by walking fast, figuring I'd just look like a man with places to go, a busy man, smoking his daily fact of life, not a poser considering the small elements of style that obsessed me: Was the cigarette well lit? How deeply should I breathe? Somehow, I cared, like some dumbass kid in ninth grade.

Conclusion? An uncanny resemblance in certain areas. Questioning Carney - who'd never seen Chiarella's article, delivered a near-perfect review: "He's much more boring than I am. This goes on for far too long."

Chiarella's writing once came up in conversation, and my friend started telling me about his latest human-gerbil piece. As it turns out, he'd sat at a poker table with Chiarella towards the end of his experiment. "Yeah, he's a fat fuckin' slob, and he took up smoking for Esquire, for a month. He's not doing it any more. He got rolled at the table that night." Also, for the record, John Carney still smokes. Attaboy.

In the end, Advantage: Carney (again, you can read his article by downloading it here). Rule to remember? If it's in a magazine, someone somewhere else has probably discussed it previously, in a much more entertaining matter, and in some cases, less words.

Me? I started smoking when I was 15: Kamel Red Lights. I've since smoked Marlboro Lights, Camel Lights, Parliament Lights, and in an attempt to quit smoking, Pall Mall's. In high school, people were immensely turned-off by the habit, but by senior year, they were all smoking, and by college, they were doing fucking roll-o's of Drum. I could quit now if I wanted - famous words, right? - but I kind of just do it to do it, now. It's a good excuse to get out of a bad conversation, and it gives you something to do when you're bored, pissed, or not in the mood to think of actual remedies to the issue driving you to smoke (or, inversely, it's something to do while you think of a remedy to the issue driving you to smoke). The real thrill was getting away with it when you were under the legal age, and also, doing it when nobody else was. Also, driving. Driving and smoking and especially smoking while driving a manual transmission - now that's great.

And that joke? Still don't know it. But cigarettes are made with organic horseshit. That's funny. Close enough, I guess.

UPDATE: The compiled smoking histories of YM!

99: Smoked for two weeks when I was twelve. Bought the pack from the vending machine in the police station. No shit.

Smoked Commanders my last quarter in college when I was dating an annoying smoker. I talked about non-smokers rights all the time. It infuriated her. She would exclaim: "But you smoke!". I would explain to her I was a smoking non smoker. She had great tits; give me some slack.

I smoke Dunhills when I do. Sherman's on occasion. Love their 'mint'.

Krucoff: Except for the handful of times I've smoked a butt or two in a state of total intoxication, I've never been a tool of big tobacco's death industry. Smoking cigs never made sense because it seemed like the biggest sucker draw in "will this make me look cool" teen accessory. And yeah, I was punk rock about things like that. On the other hand, drinking and drugs I understood. That shit fucked you up.

Crazy Like A Very Old Fox

Here's how John McCain (maybe) just won the election. What are his weaknesses?

1. He's old.

She's 44. (And kinda hot.)

2. He's a rich bastard.

Her husband is somehow a fisherman, an oil man, and a steelworker all at the same. Fuck you, Amtrak.

3. He's not Hillary Clinton.

She's a mom, who shoots guns.

4. Iraq.

Listen closely, because this is the important part. Any and all conversations about Iraq, from now and until forever, begin and end with one statement from his running mate. "I'm a worried mother, and my eldest boy, my baby, is fighting in Iraq right now so that you can sit on your ass and eat salads." End of discussion. Not even the "we want to bring him home now" defense is useless against the boy's own mother. You can't argue with a mom. You just can't.

And (dear god forbid, no one wants this, so hopefully just suggesting it is a jinx, because lord knows, no one on the tv dares whisper it) if something should happen to her son while he's overseas (anything bad at all; i don't need to remind you of the possibilities) ... they win. It's over. Could anyone anywhere deny a grieving mother?

Even if nothing happens (and I truly hope he comes back safe), it's a brilliant pick. I really think he's going to win.


(P.S. Which brings up a legitimate non-partisan question: Should the son of a potential vice-president really being serving in a war zone? In the infantry no less? Especially if they win; wouldn't he have to come home?)

FYMTQ: Zach Linder

Meet Tumblr Zach Linder. Zach Linder writes a blog. It is called The Jew York Times. Zach Linder does improv/sketch comedy at UCB, but he does not look like this. Zach Linder is not going to take my shit any more. Zach Linder and I talked recently on the phone about The New Yorker and I tried to explain to him that the idea of writing while trying to actively get rid of your audience is a freeing thing. Zach Linder still didn't get it, and neither do I. Uncool fathers beware - America: meet Zach Linder.

What's your background?
I was booted out of Hebrew School right before my Bar-Mitzvah, was told by my high school teachers they couldn't wait to see my graduate and leave, was once banned from performing with my college improv group, and have been blacklisted by what was my dream job. It's been a rough go of it for this Great Neck-raised Semite with a penchant for internet crushes.

Why are you following us?
Back in April, Following YM criticized me for liking Kurt Vonnegut, two months later you dissed on me for my Woody Allen obsession and standing up for The Homeland. Come on, how can I not love you?

What era, day or event in blogging history would you like to re-live?
Three years ago two famous comedians, one of whom you've declared as overrated, set me up on a blind date in public as a gimmick for their comedy show. I blogged about it afterwards, girl called me out on it, one of the matchmakers called me a dick, and I was guilt-tripped into apologizing. Oh, it was a great old time. Last I checked, the girl works for Pitchfork, so I'll give her a 6.2.

Who do you consider to be the greatest blogger of all-time?
Six little words: "Dear Journal, Hi, it's me Doug."

What's your blogging motto? If you reblog it, they well come.
Three rules for life:
1. Tip well.
2. Never run for the bus.
3. Don't take any shit from anybody.

Describe that low moment when you thought you just might have to leave blogging for good.
Aforementioned blacklisting. It's a long story. Find me at the next Media Meshing to hear to the gorey details.


What was the last thing you read on Gothamist? Anything by the great Billy Hot Chocolate, the hottest new blogger on the 'ist circuit. Pencil that in.

If you could get rid of every baby and/or stroller tugging family in Park Slope at the expense of losing your beloved Union Hall, would you? Union Hall is the best bar in New York City (Dude, those are fighting words - now would be a good time to note that YM is not responsible for the opinions or views expressed by FYMTQ contestants. - Ed.), but let's get serious here for a second. First off, I'm in Cobble Hill. That's like a 20-minute commuting difference, so get your F-train nabes straight. Now, I know I'm in the minority (Fucking Jews aside) about this, but I am not amongst the hordes of twenty-somethings in the Slope bitching and moaning about the stroller mafia. My rushed dreams of domesticity and goal to be the "cool dad" prevent me from having any legit cynicism towards babies. That, and there's are some hot MILFs all up in that hood.

If you could change one thing about blogging, what would it be?
Fewer meetups.

What was your best or most expensive medication experience just after midnight on a summer Saturday?
18-year Highland Park, aged Gouda, Seinfeld DVDs

The mustache. Explain the origin and the death of it. The Truth: Beard wasn't right for the office, so it was shaved off leaving just the mustache in between the service and reception of my first cousin's Bar-Mitzvah in Feburary. Aunt Robin was not a fan. "It's uneven." It remained for four months, and I was looking for an excuse to shave it. We figured it would be a great stipulation for my bad-guy character to lose it in a match at my comedy wrestling show at the UCB, and then have it shaved live onstage. I changed my outdated avatar two months later.

Defend and/or explain Ira Glass in three sentences.
I've seen him walking his dog in Chelsea. He has a Wii, and was a fan of The OC. Married, but let's face it: probably in the closet.

Curt called improv an activity that merits the mass participation of "retards." What say you? (Improvise!) The best improv is done with as little irony or cynicism as possible. What improv does merit is a willingness to be positive, creative, sincere, a good listener, and to take your pants off in January on the 6-train with hundreds of other people. If that's retarded, then guilty as charged. Curt needs to get his tongue out of his cheek.

To Hell and Back Reliability

So: last Sunday, a Jew, a German, and an Italian walk into a shooting range.

Actually, it was an Italian, a Jew, and a German, in that order. When I arrive at the West Side Pistol Range, strangely - or not - located in the Flatiron District, 99 is already sitting at a plastic table in the lobby, accompanied by a tall, plastic cup of iced coffee. He's staring into the distance, five feet away, into a wall. The normal niceties we greet each other with aren't present. It's 11 AM. I'm sitting at the table, mumbling some shit about getting work done, and sipping away at my paper cup of coffee - emblazoned with The New York Times* logo - and we sheepishly make excuses for The German, who has yet to arrive. 99 is an on-time kind of person: this is somehow contradictory, I find, to the idea of being self-employed.

Me, I'm a disheveled, ugly mess. I stayed up late watching Michael Clayton for the first time, and woke up thinking that everyone could be out to fuck me; a great mentality to take with you to the gun range. I arrive two minutes to 11, which is exceptionally early for me. I was told via Curt - our organizer - that the "people at the gun range are really strict about being on time," and if there's anybody you don't want to be late for, it's some grizzled Heston fan who works at a gun range in New York City.

Someone fires off a few rounds in the range behind us, and I nearly piss myself and/or fall over, coffee cup and all. The first gunshot you hear in the morning is a loud one (but not nearly as loud as the guy later firing off a fucking hand cannon two stalls down from us - we don't know what gun he was using, and like we were going to ask). Trying to have a "catching up" conversation while someone is gatting a piece of paper five feet behind you is relatively jarring.

Curt rolls in ten minutes later - our voices had been low; tired. He yells from across the lobby: "Guys! Good morning! What's up?" What's up? Keep your fucking voice down, man. These guys have GUNS. Fucking GUNS. I guess it's worth noting that Andrew made some excuse for not coming, but we know he's a pussy and can't really handle a gun anyway, so, you know, that's cool.

We file into a makeshift classroom and sit at desks, filling out paperwork that releases the West Side Shooting Range of any liability in case they have to take me out for loading the gun inside out and putting a hole anywhere but down the range - an entirely likely outcome.

ENFORCEMENT AGENCY?, one of the questions asks. I lean over to Nic: "Is this where I fill in 'YoungManhattanite.com'?"

"Look at the back," he wearily notes. "I think we might be in trouble." There was a list of, "If you are's" as in, IF YOU ARE A USER OF OR HAVE EVER BEEN UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF MARIJUANA OR ANY OTHER DRUG, YOU MAY NOT SHOOT HERE. IF YOU ARE ON TRIAL FOR OR HAVE EVER BEEN CONVICTED OF A MISDEMEANOR CRIME, YOU MAY NOT SHOOT HERE. Etcetera. We met at least three of the criteria for not being able to shoot there between us, but Curt tells us that it's fine. "Just be cool." It was, and we were.

The room was mostly women, one of which was a young Asian lady, there by herself, with an abundance of lipstick on. I was worried about her - 99 might ask for her number, which I'd have to stop. People who go to a gun range by themselves, for the first time: worrisome. Small women who go to a gun range by themselves, for the first time, on a Sunday morning, in an abundance of makeup: stay the fuck away.

Our instructor was a nice, well-to-do type - he didn't sound like a New Yorker, which was good: I felt I was in the hands of a professional with limited psychopathic reach. He even helped me tape up a pair of safety goggles, because I'm a right-handed, left-eye-dominant, which means I'm too much of an invalid to be able to close my left eye. Whatever. After twenty minutes of a class that was mostly DO NOT SHOOT ANYBODY WHO WORKS HERE WITH A GUN, we stepped out of the classroom. We sat at a table. We loaded our magazines. We stepped into the stalls. We started to fire. And then, with our Ruger 1022 semi-automatic rifles, some of us aimed.

The most thrilling thing about shooting a gun this morning wasn't hitting the target, which I ceremoniously - and much to everyone's surprise - actually did. No. It's firing a semi-automatic weapon. "Most guns are semi-automatic, dickhead," my roommate later reminds me. This is true, but the last real gun I shot was a single-action lock-and-load at a summer camp^; before that, an air-pistol BB Gun on a camping trip. So I guess this was my first semi-automatic weapon, which I was about to compare to eating my first Eggs Benedict**, but it's different than that. But you know both are dangerous as fuck and probably not good for you. Except one you eat, and the other one can put a bloody fucking hole in someone. So, you know, different, but the same.

Anyway, the thrilling thing about firing a semi-automatic weapon for me was pulling the trigger a bunch of times and hearing the loud BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG, and then clicking the cartridge release, letting it drop to the floor below my stall, and slamming another five-bullet cartridge back in. I felt like Dirty Fucking Harry. In the stalls next to me, Curt and Nic were taking their time; I heard about five or six seconds between each shot. They probably heard about three between every five, for me.

Anyway. I did okay. I hit the center of my target a few times and after the thrill of hitting the target was gone, I just went for the loud noises. I am a luddite with no regard for precision, talent, or skill. Just loud noises^^.

We finished 100 rounds. We sat at the table, rolling up our shot-out targets. Curt did far better than I did - that wasn't hard - but even he admitted to the thrill of popping off rounds with little regard for aim.

99 starts rolling his targets up, and Curt stops him. "Woah, man. Jesus." He had more or less pumped 17 rounds into the center of his target. "Holy shit."

"Yeah, you know, I just saw what was happening with the first one and re-adjusted my aim here, held the gun this way, until I finally knew where the bullet was going." Spoken like a true by-trade designer. Just, you know, put this thing here, put that thing there. And then SHOOT IT DEAD-FUCKING-CENTER. It was like that moment where R. Lee Ermey discovers Private Pyle is a marksman - not entirely unexpected, totally impressive, and a little scary. Except I'm Private Pyle and I couldn't shoot the broad side of an N-Train.

Leaving the place, I noticed a sign on one of the counter-windows: SIG SAUER - TO HELL AND BACK RELIABILITY. I jam a finger at the sign: "We should have that somewhere near our masthead."

At brunch, we didn't save. We had orange juice with bubby wine in them, and Curt ordered soft-boiled eggs, which I just don't understand - so much work! Nic didn't say anything, but I could tell he was fascinated with watching Curt eat them, with precision. Kind of a European thing, those soft-boiled eggs.

We starting talking about sketch comedy. Curt noted that it's "for retards," and quickly added an "I apologize if you have any mentally deficient people in your family. But it really is." I almost convinced him my sister was retarded, but then told him I didn't have a sister.

The takeaway is this: who's the bigger pussy? The guy who walks out of the West Side Pistol Range with his own gun, or the guy who walks out and has a mimosa?

I'd like to think it's the former, but it probably isn't. Then again, I guess I'd rather be a pussy: I really do enjoy having brunch. It's nice.

Anthrax, Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun (Beastie Boys cover)

*This is worth noting because someone is still stealing my fucking Times subscription, and I couldn't stop thinking about this until I got to the gun range, sans paper, with the only New York Times-issued paraphernalia I had on me this morning being that goddamn coffee cup. Listen, you dickless thief: if you're reading this, and there's any takeway for you, buddy, remember: I am a fucking marksman. Or someone I know, is.

^Not the Jewish summer camp; they would never have rifllery at a Jewish summer camp. Most Jews don't like guns. Figure it out. Also, really, though, it's kind of a Goy thing.

**Definitely a Goy thing (ham and dairy). For the record, so is mayonnaise, or so my grandmother says.

^^ This also describes approximately 30% of the YM Masthead's Writing Style, so at least I'm in good company.

The YM Keith Gessen Q&A

Image originally created by Dana

There's an old saying in media about getting an interview: if at first you don't succeed, auction their book at a charity event and then ask again. (Thanks for the advice, George Wayne!) Presented below is an unedited email Q&A with Keith Gessen, author of All the Sad Young Literary Men and editor-in-chief of n+1. He's reading tonight with Charles Bock (previously interviewed by YM's Foster Kamer for Radar) at the Bowery Poetry Club.

We had planned to attend with groggers (noisemakers, you goys) and rattle, boo and hiss whenever Keith uttered "Harvard" - this is an absolutely hilarious gag that riffs on Purim spiels where audience members do the same at the mention of the evil Haman - but given we "made fools of [o]urselves" in a video that clearly didn't appreciate "satire," we've decided to leave it at this group interview effort. Thanks to 99, Eli Valley, Karion and Katie Bakes.

99: We heard you were thinking of a semi-permanent return to Russia, perhaps for personal reasons. Can you give any details about this? And given the current conflict with Russia, would you see making such a decision as one of greater or lesser symbolic import (not to presume any great responsibility on your part)?

True, sort of. I'm going to Moscow for the academic year to keep an eye on my grandmother while my sister, who usually lives in Moscow, does a fellowship in the States. Symbolically, uh, I wish I were doing it at a time when Russia was not in the process of "reestablishing its sphere of influence" and also it would be nice if the dollar was stronger.

AK: For the benefit of Jakob Lodwick and people like him, could you explain the political situation between Russia and Georgia in three sentences?

We need to decrease our dependence on oil and gas. Seriously. Right away or we're fucked and it will be the Russians who fuck us and we won't like that at all.

99: How would you characterize Solzhenitsyn's later support of Putin in the broader context of his writing and life -- and do you see any relevance to this question in the current climate (also, do you see any parallels with Grass -- well regarded political writer who stumbles in the eye's of his most ardent supporters late in life)?

That's a good question. It's not like Grass admitting to having been a youthful Nazi in the sense that actually Solzh was always like this, and he never concealed it, and in the emigre community his Russian chauvinism, his religiosity, his--well, not anti-Semitism, certainly not on a personal level, but a set of beliefs that were congruent with age-old Russian anti-Semitism--all this has been on the table for almost as long as Solzh has existed as a figure. The old emigre magazines are filled with discussions of "The Solzhenitsyn Problem." In fact you could definitely argue that if he weren't this way, he'd never have become Solzhenitsyn to begin with--his initial publication, the work that made him famous, was One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in the literary magazine Novy Mir in 1962, and it was lobbied for by Alexander Tvardovsky, the editor of Novy Mir, who was a real muzhik, and it was approved finally by Khrushchev, another muzhik. Muzhik means peasant but it also means man. Solzhenitsyn was a math teacher but his patrons were a certain kind of dude--and one suspects that if, say, a Jew had written One Day in the Life, they would have told him to put it away for a hundred years--which is in fact exactly what they said to Vasily Grossman when he showed them Life and Fate, which had material on the camps, and the war, and the KGB, and so on.

That said, the fact that Solzh lived long enough to find himself in a position where he endorsed Putin is amazing--it's the rare case where someone has to follow through, I guess you could say, on the inherent contradictions of their beliefs. It's not that he confessed to some hidden old crime, like Grass; or that he went senile and betrayed himself, which is sort of what it looked like. In fact what happened is the country reached a point where Solzh's two great passions--his desire for a powerful Russia and his hatred of the KGB--came into direct conflict. And he chose Russia. I wish he hadn't, but he did.

Eli Valley would actually like to ask what you think of his comics - http://evcomics.com - but instead, he submits: Should Israel resign itself to the inevitability of a nuclear Iran and an era of mutual assured destruction in the region, or is the suspected irrationality of Iran's leaders, not to mention the possibility of nukes falling into the hands of Hezbollah, too great a risk for Israel to live with?

I just looked at Eli's comics and I like them! I like "The Incredible Hulk" and "The Obama Menace Dress Up Doll." Did he do the Obama New Yorker cover?

In terms of nukes, everyone should have them. How do you think the Iranians feel with Netanyahu always a few votes away from the button? Either everyone or no one. Much better no one. Otherwise everyone.

AK: Keith Gessen the Tumblr is consistently erudite, funny and clever, as was the person behind it that I met. Oddly, I found these characteristics to be lacking from his book, All the Sad Young Literary Men. Perhaps my ADD-addled brain can now only appreciate short-form delivery but do you think there are other explanations for the sliver of the reading public (more than just me I assume) that enjoys your online work but not the book?

Thank you, Andrew, for saying that about my Tumblr. I can offer two explanations:

1. You didn't read my book. Right? There are parts of my book--the first-person parts--that are told pretty straight, but the rest of the book, which is most of the book, is satire. It's got the same exact jokes as the Tumblr, in fact I'm pretty sure I'm plagiarizing jokes from the book all the time. Now, that's not an actual claim for the funniness of the book. Some people don't find my Tumblr very funny at all--see half the comments I get. But it's the same person and the same jokes. I'm not exactly sure where the idea of it being a "serious literary" book came from--from Gawker? From things I said to the Times? I don't know. And I do have serious intentions with the book, don't get me wrong. But the *form* of the book is primarily satirical. So for example that video you guys made, where you read from my book in funny voices? Boy, that was dumb. Because you can say that a satire is unfunny or bad, but you can't say it's not a satire, which is in effect what you guys were saying, which is why you made fools of yourselves, no offense.

2. It's possible that if the Viking publicity department went to work on behalf of my Tumblr and you read articles in various respectable venues saying it was the greatest Tumblr in history, and then you went and read it, you'd probably hate the Tumblr, too. And I suppose at some level it would be my fault for promoting my Tumblr, and going on tour with my Tumblr, and giving interviews about my Tumblr, but it would still be the same Tumblr, if you see what I'm saying.

AK: Something I found frustrating in the Jessica Roy Affair was the errant substitution of New York's media and literary scenes as if the two were the same. With a knee deeper in the latter, you have straddled both; so I ask, which side has bigger assholes?

Well, there were a great many errant substitutions in that thing she wrote--for example she said that I have messy hair. But I've since gotten a haircut. Do I still have messy hair? Hm? If you're saying that she's confused about who has power vs. who does not have power, that's true. It's important to keep in mind that this is a person--there are a fair number of people like this--who got much of her information on the world of New York media/publishing/etc. from Gawker. Gawker sort of frames the thing she wrote. And that's really something to think about.

That said, there's a proud tradition of treating literature and publishing as a conspiracy. The most notable contribution to this in recent intellectual history is Richard Kostelantetz's The End of Intelligent Writing (1973). That book actually has like charts of influence, who edits which magazines, who knows who. A more recent contribution was Gary Baum's FoE! Log (2000-2001), an online masterpiece of conspiracy theorizing. The thing is, looking at literature as a conspiracy will answer a lot of questions and clear up a lot of things. What it won't ever be able to clear up is why one book is better than another.

Karion, proxy for Gawker commenters: What was the point of responding to blog posts and criticism online? Was it merely to entice the more passive viewers of the shitstorm to buy the book or was it just pure ego? (AK: I would phrase it, do you plead guilty to being bitten by the Gawker fameball bug?)

I'll answer this honestly and you can take it or leave it. First off, I think we all know that Gawker readers *do not buy books*--or, rather, if they do buy books, they do it in a way that is totally independent of Gawker. I mean, you need look no further than the sales of the Gawker media book, right? But also for example we've been able to track this stuff very closely with n+1, which is a small project so we can tell what works and what doesn't (mostly what doesn't). Remember that long post Emily wrote in which she quit? And in which she praised the piece on Gawker by Carla Blumenkranz and also Wesley Yang's piece on Virginia Tech in issue 6? And because everyone loves Emily--including, incidentally, for the record, me--it got a ton of views, that post? Do you want to know what effect that had on the sales of issue 6 of n+1? None, zero, zip.

So, in short, I wasn't trying to sell books. When I had my big "marketing" meeting with my publisher way back when, months before my book came out, they asked me to start a blog and I said no. But here I am.

It *was* driven by my ego, though I'm not sure in quite the way you mean. I mean, look, by the time I started my Tumblr, which was in early June, my book had been reviewed in a *lot* of places--and it was really up and down. In fact I don't think I ever got two good reviews or two bad reviews in a row--it went good bad good bad and on and on. I got mad at the bad reviews and even at some of the good ones, but that was just part of the process. I actually started a private Tumblr when the first reviews started coming in which I kind of analyzed them one by one, and it was therapeutic--it had one reader, in addition to me, and I made sure no one ever found it. I don't think it's wrong for writers to respond to their critics, but it wasn't something I felt like doing in public.

The Gawker/Observer stuff felt different. I'd like to say it was an utter fabrication, but that's not quite right; it took some true facts and totally misconstrued them. I thought. Like, look at Andrew up above, asking me why my book's not funny. Look at the question below, about the "serious Gessen brand." ONLY a Gawker reader would ask those questions; ONLY someone who hasn't read the book, in fact has read very very little or possibly nothing I've written, would ask that. So it was this weird alternate Keith that was getting spun out. I know you're supposed to just "accept" it, but I didn't feel like accepting it.

And, I think I've said this before but it bears repeating, the book I wrote, and the work I do in general, it's meant for a large audience. This doesn't mean it's achieving that goal, or that I'm going about it the right way--but that's the idea. In terms of the book, I know the kind of superficial characteristics of the guys in there are highly specific and even sort of recondite--there's a guy who spends all his time thinking about the Mensheviks, I mean really he thinks about them a lot, and obviously this is not a recipe for a best-selling work of fiction--but at the same time I thought the situations the guys were in, the relationships, the conversations within those relationships, the strange new power dynamics, were things that everyone our age would recognize--and they were things I had not seen depicted in fiction. Again, I don't know if any of this worked, but that was the idea. Which is why I've been so puzzled and annoyed by some of the Harvard stuff that's come up, as if the book brags about Harvard all the time. All the book does is say, Here's where I'm coming from. Here is my experience. It's a very specific experience and I am not going to hide the specificity of that experience--but I think if I tell you about my experience, granted mostly in a satirical form, you'll recognize your own experience in it too.

I still think that.

And so given all that, given that my target audience was *everyone under 40*, when a site like Gawker--which, let's not exaggerate the size of Gawker, those 16 million pageviews are largely generated by about 100 people clicking on the comments over and over and over again--but still, when a large enough group of people says over and over, with a bit of justification but also with huge great leaps in logic, "You're an asshole," I just felt eventually like it was worth responding. Because I know exactly what kind of asshole I am, and it's a different kind of asshole from the one depicted on Gawker, etc.

I admit it hasn't worked very well, though this interview is fun.

Katie Bakes: Why didn't you mention me on your list of Distinguished Commenters?

Did Katie really ask this? [Ed. Yes, she did.] Katie it was an oversight. My bad. I was trying so hard to make it alphabetical... mistakes were made.

AK: On that note, do you ever regret your foray into blogging? Has the experience cheapened the once-serious Keith Gessen brand or have you bolstered the medium's legitimacy? In other words, what would have Fitzgerald done?

I regret it all the time! But, you know, I've learned a lot. A reasonable person would have made certain reasonable assumptions about the sorts of people who anonymously disparage other people in the comments sections of blogs; I'm not a reasonable person and I had to see for myself. Now I've seen for myself. In terms of the internet, I'm certain I haven't bolstered the internet's legitimacy, and the internet doesn't need me to--we're all in it, man. The internet will never die. As for the Gessen brand, I'm sure if anyone ever thought I was a paragon of virtue, humility, or sanity, they no longer think that. But then those people didn't know me very well.

E.V.E. Project Update

The E.V.E. (Earthly View of Eden) Project is a work-in-progress art work by Nate Hill. It will be a life size female human being sewn together from animal parts. Estimated completion date October 2008.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: July 2008

Number of Statistics in this month's stats post: 1. This one. Know why?

Because July fucking sucked. Want to know what happened? Some dead beast washed up in Montauk, nobody knows what the fuck it was. I got dumped, because I'm an asshole. 99 went to the Midwest because he hates us. Dana left because she hates us. Curt left because he hates us. I made some money from Radar posting an article there I was going to post here, because I hate us, and Andrew's ready to give up the entire thing but he knows I need someone to look after me like a lost child in a mall, so even though he hates us, he's not leaving yet, he's just waiting for the mall security to show up. The Dramaspora continues, Day One Hundred and Whatever. We have no idea who's blogging on the Columblr anymore: it's something like three Jews, a Goy, and possibly a Bahai. This place is a wasteland. Some of us were in a video. Something about Keith Gessen. Something about charity. Something about Keith Gessen and charity and recycling ostensible altruism that's really just self-indulgent jackassery. What else? I don't know. Some shit about Rex. Whatever. I'm just glad July is over.

Previously - Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: June 2008.