Susan Orlean Needs A Room Of Her Own! Or A Wife! Or A Bodyguard!
Ruh roh. I think New Yorker writer Susan Orlean's Twitter just exploded with lady hate-mail. Oh no, soon probably Rebecca Traister is going to be mean to her over at The Cat Box!
Ruh roh. I think New Yorker writer Susan Orlean's Twitter just exploded with lady hate-mail. Oh no, soon probably Rebecca Traister is going to be mean to her over at The Cat Box!
(Averted Gaze)
What's a "literary non-fiction writer?"
I think it has something to do with THE NEW YORKER.
I think it's the difference between having Meryl Streep play you in the film version versus Scarlett Johansson.
So, it's the difference between being a youthful bombshell and the female Al Pacino?
I usually lock the kids in the liquor cabinet when I write.
Good idea. Think I'll move mine from the dryer.
Just like me – I lock the kids in the writing desk when I drink.
The number of "men don't remember to pick up the milk" stories from this Twitter thread alone will spawn a gazillion stories (both fiction and non-fiction) in which men don't remember to pick up the milk.
…and at least one comedy about a scatter-brained redhead who finds new ways to waste time before her big deadline and ends up burning dinner and having to be rescued by a grouchy neighbor because she wants to get into show business and Bob Hope is going to be in the audience tonight at the Copacabana!
Now THAT I'd watch.
Howdy, Tippy.
Funnily enough, married lady, kid-haver and authoress Kristin Hersh doesn't have these problems!
http://twitter.com/kristinhersh/status/2105884985
Someone get this woman a nanny and personal assistant and tell her to shut the fuck up.
Aww, she's lovely, I can't help but love her. BUT I WISH SHE WOULD GO WRITE AND STOP TWITTERING. (Although that irony is enjoyable too!)
Stupid bitch.
Hey, if all the authors out there only focused on Twittering, there wouldn't be any more books. Or short stories. Or The New Yorker. The mind reels.
I was trying to write a reply but my two kids were screaming for their mom. Fuck, I wish I could just block them out like Father Orlean.
The subtext here, as near as I can tell, is that men don't care if they (and their children, if they somehow are solely in charge of them without lady-help) live in filth and eat nothing but Doritos and cigarettes and wear ratty white t-shirts while intently pecking out 15,000-word "think piece" on their Dorito-cheese-encrusted keyboards, whereas ladies … feel differently?
There was some thing on Salon (maybe on Broadsheet) where people were wondering about whether married life kills male genius, because they have to worry about "paying the bills and taking out the garbage" rather than just thinking deep thoughs, which made think "damn it, I could have not paid the bills or taken out the garbage while I was single? WHY WASN'T I INFORMED."
My wife says she never gets any time to herself during the day. I say, C'mon, I know the babies sleep sometimes. And she says, Yeah, but that's when I clean. And I say, Well, there's your problem.
That's verbatim.
I am beginning to think a day at top secret The Awl HQ goes something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Doz5w2W-jAY
maybe more like (NSF Work, Singing in the shower) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjo5qhDpUSY
Doesn't it seem like Ms. Orleans is using the patented Michael Wolff trick for generating views/buzz for herself? First she picks a fight with whats-his-name writing about getting fired at the NYer and now this. Meryl Streep doesn't play attention-whores, dear.