Some Came Running

Department of perhaps-inadvertent excessive self-revelation

"Atlas Shrugged, a mega-fable that is to capitalists roughly what To Kill a Mockingbird is to liberals[...]"—Kyle Smith, "Rand Old Time For Ayn Adherents," New York Post, April 15, 2011

On a related note, Roy Edroso's consideration of the film in question is really the only one you need read, unless at some point Tom Carson decides to torture himself and then weigh in. As for myself, I'm curious to see the thing, but a little jammed up, schedule-wise, this weekend. I do eagerly await the box office numbers, and Glenn Reynolds' subsequent excuses for them.

Media notes, or, watch what you say, or think, or do

Let it be noted that the current (11/15/2010) issue of The New Yorker contains a lengthy profile of the indie writer/director/actor Lena Dunham, an "Onward And Upwards With The Arts" piece by Rebecca Mead entitled "Downtown's Daughter" that, at the moment, is available in full only to subscribers or on newsstands.It is so noted here because your humble servant is quoted therein. When I was apprised of this fact, via Twitter, by a common friend of myself and Ms. Dunham, I was filled with something akin to terror, but I can't say I can complain about the way I was treated in the piece, which puts me in the position of an admirer-with-qualifications of Dunham's work, which I am. What's really interesting to me is that, while Mead states that my writing on this blog about Dunham's Tiny Furniture was "thoughtful," she doesn't quote from there; rather, she cites a later remark from my Twitter feed. This is interesting, to me, and gives me pause (or, as I sometimes like to put it, "paws"), as I've largely conceived my Twitter persona/feed as a repository for the cranky stuff many of this blog's readers would rather not see here, and that many if not most of my tweets consist of dyspeptic grumblings largely engineered to annoy/stir shit up. And sometimes they work, too! And now I see that these ravings are noted by New Yorker writers! What the hell? Is there nowhere on the internet where I can just be an asshole? I suppose not. (This begs the larger question of why I need a place on the internet where I can just be an asshole in the first place, but maybe that's one best posed to my therapist.) (And for some reason, Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well" is going through my head as I type this.)

This is citation does not represent my first interaction with the talented Rebecca Mead, incidentally. In the early part of the decade, a one-time Premiere intern named Marshall Heyman got a gig at the New Yorker as Susan Morrison's assistant, I believe, and one day for some reason or other he had occasion to tell staff writer Mead about the peculiar obsession certain Premiere people (e.g., me) had with an obscure documentary video Spring Break Uncensored. Intrigued, as well she should have been, because this thing is a wonder, Mead contacted me and I in turn put her in touch with a publicist who got her the video. The piece that resulted from Mead's inquiries, "Endless Spring," IS on The New Yorker's digital platform, and can be read here.