by James McAuley

In the most-recent New York Times Book Review came an attack on the memoir. Well, technically it was an attack on the memoir written by anyone outside the circle of the “memoir-eligible.” It goes: “There was a time when you had to earn the right to draft a memoir,” and then proceeds to savage three recent memoirs. The author, Neil Genzlinger, yearned for a now-distant day, when “unremarkable lives went unremarked upon, the way God intended.”

“Who does he think he is?” said Natalie Goldberg, memoirist and author of the Writing Down the Bones and the recent Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir, calling Genzlinger’s view “small-minded.”

“He should catch up with the times,” she said. “People are writing blogs now. Writing is alive now. Writing is not for a special few, and that’s wonderful. Writing is a basic human right, just like the pursuit of happiness, justice, and equality.”

Anne Fadiman, a Yale professor whose creative nonfiction has won the National Book Critics Circle Award, wrote in an e-mail that while she agrees that plenty of bad memoirs are being written, she doesn’t agree that “one need have led an unusually interesting life, though it helps.”

“What matters most,” she wrote, “is that one is an interesting writer and an interesting person. Have you read Virginia Woolf’s short personal essay ‘The Death of the Moth?’ The action takes place over the course of five or ten minutes. Here’s the plot: Woolf notices a moth in her study. It flies around a little and then dies. End of story. Where’s the action? Where’s the drama? Inside Woolf’s head, of course. She makes us interested in this apparent non-event because of what she brings to the table. The same goes for book-length memoirs.”

We also wrote to Tobias Wolff, who’s won the PEN/Faulkner Award, for his take on the matter.

“Sorry, but I haven’t the interest or time for this,” he wrote.

James McAuley is a student in Cambridge, Mass.

I am a little averse to putting up what is, in essence, a snuff film, but you can go here to see horrifying footage from Egypt “that seems to show a police truck racing through a crowded street and running over protesters.” [Via]

by Jeff Johnson and David Roth

Jeff: For the longest time, _________ was regarded as:

The Emmy Rossum of Practice Squad Linebackers
The Ross Verba of Offensive Linemen of the ‘10s
Nico Noga 2.0
The Barbara Corcoran of Challenge Flag throwers
The Professor Griff of Tight Ends
The Bob Barker of Onside Kicks
The Josef Mengele of Quarterback Coaches
The Hans Blix of Referees
The Dale Carnegie of Strength Coaches Who Trip
The Jeremy Shockey of Punters
The Anthony Kiedis of Fullbacks
The Freddie Mercury of Owners
The Gordon Jump of Defensive Line Coaches
The Gordon Lish of Offensive Coordinators
The Antonino Gaudi of Wide Receivers
The Robert Redford of Punters
The Steve Kroft of Play-by-Play Men
The Steve Garvey of White, Entitled Safeties
The Jennifer Aniston of Quarterbacks
The Glenn Beck of Head Coaches
The Donna Shalala of Defensive Coordinators

David: This is way harder than I thought it would be. I’ve got Mike Tice for numbers four and 13. Beyond that I’m more or less at a loss. Also, I think Nico Noga was Nico Noga 2.0. He was so far in the future, he’d already seen The Lawnmower Man in like 1990. He was telling everyone in the locker room, “It’s not that good, but Jeff Fahey does his best.”

Jeff: Oh these are just possibilities. It’s time to dream, David. My goal is to be the Brian Billick of 5–10 employee upholstery businesses in the Finger Lakes area. One day. Not now. But very soon.

David: This is the season to dream. Do you think that, back when he was just an uncured pig butt back in Ohio, that Ben Roethlisberger could dream of everything that awaited him? The dry-aging, the Super Bowl glory, the litigation?

David: So, is there anything about the actual Super Bowl you’re especially looking forward to?

Jeff: Not really. There were no social networks when the Packers last won it, unless you count that hyperbaric chamber known as AOL, which no one I know camped out on discussing football feelings. I just drove from house party to house party on Game Day and it wasn’t even that fun. Now, though, Facebook has killed it for me. I know everyone’s level of excitement, how much they’re invested in it, and if they spell Packers “Packer’s.”

David: You mean like Billy Packer’s Lounge and Grill, in Winston-Salem, NC? All day specials on hot wings and shots of room-temperature gall?

Jeff: Too many people I know do that. It’s such a sad cliche, to go after someone for that, especially when my own grammar sucks, but come on. Packer’s? Gotta beat the Steeler’s?? There’s so much chatter about the Super Bowl, that the game will, as usual, seem so anti-climatic. People are already letting the cat out of the bag about what kinds of dip they’ll be serving! Those are big fucking surprises, man. Really sad the level of transparency being applied here.

David: The spinach-artichoke game is to be sold, not to be told. Totally agreed.

Jeff: So I’ve been watching a lot of stuff like this:

Jeff: And reading Badasses, a book about the 1970s Raiders that someone mentioned in a comments section here, I think, after something you wrote. I was hoping it would be more like The Dirt, the Neil Strauss Motley Crue book, but it feels a bit softer than that.

David: Spoiler: Kenny Stabler does not die/get-revived multiple times during the book. Drag.

Jeff: The anecdotes all end in: “and you can guess what happened next.” It is simply not ribald enough for me. I don’t doubt the Raiders were crazy, however.

David: I’m hoping Jon Kitna bought 30 seconds of airtime during the broadcast in which to make a confused argument against gay marriage. I imagine him in a crucifix hat, sitting dazedly in front of a curtain, his tiny ball-bearing eyes alight with Divine Truth. “When you think about it, there’s really nothing gay about it, at least if you use the traditional definition of what ‘gay’ means, which is happy and joyous.” — NFL Quarterback Jon Kitna

Jeff: I am sure Roethlisberger will be made to proffer his opinion by week’s end.

Reporter: What do you think about Jon Kitna’s feelings on same sex marriages, Ben?

Ben: That’s maybe something to get into, next week… After this giant obstacle has passed, and just before I ride my motorcycle to meet a Craigslist Casual Encounter.

Jeff: Ben’s pained fake smile on Day One in Dallas had me gleefully rubbing my hackles or something, but then it turns out he had another “real” press conference on Tuesday??? And then a meeting with Terry Bradshaw? Don’t make me start feeling sorry for this sonofabitch! He’s never going to say how magical it is, or how sorry he is, or how grateful he is. I feel like I am on downers right now. Sorry.

David: He’s irredeemable because he doesn’t really want — or think he needs — redemption. Which would maybe be fuck-you and cool if he did not obviously need it. But he’s going to be unavoidable. I’m expecting a lot of shots of Roethlisberger looking winded and rapey on the sidelines.

David: Also a lot people getting shtoinked in the nuts in Bud Light commercials, a little brand-loyalty-through-gay-panic from the good folks at Miller Lite, and a dead-eyed, phonetical Danica Patrick sleepwalking through some slutty-sad GoDaddy ad.

Jeff: I’d actually like to see Danica Patrick play a bartender insulting one of those castrated Miller Lite guys for not having the balls to drink and drive.

David: Oh… and a lot of Hines Ward looking furious. Wouldn’t be a Steelers game without that. He’s convinced he heard someone say something disapproving about his eye-black. He’s incensed about something Atari Bigby said about him in a tavern back in 1998, which just recently got back to him. Hines doesn’t like that Clay Matthews has a middle name, because he thinks that’s pretentious. Hines heard that Charles Woodson didn’t like Eat Pray Love, and Ward loves that book, like loves it to the point that it changed his whole perspective. Or who knows. Whatever it is that makes Hines Ward try to jump through dudes’ facemasks whenever they’re looking the other way.

Jeff: As much as I loathe Hines, I was glad to see him give Plaxico Burress a nod this week, saying he should come back to the Steelers. The guy has been locked up for a LONG time. What he did was stupid, but, I think he’s done his time. Beyond that, all I know is that whatever hotel Hines is staying in really should not expect him to eat Cheerios in THAT kind of a bowl. That’s just pathetic!

David: I guess I’m looking forward to it, but I’m really just hoping to make it through the day without having to watch Roethlisberger breathe through his mouth too much. If I wanted to watch a half-tumid honey ham looking distraught, I would take mescaline and go to the fucking deli. Keep the helmet on, please.

David: Also, I wanted to get your thoughts on the whole Packers long-haired linebackers thing. I know the whole WWF/Viking thing is not new. Kevin Greene was basically The Ultimate Warrior without the hard-right politics and with moderately less severe neurological damage. And I’m generally willing to allow it, but I’d really prefer to see AJ Hawk interviewed with his helmet on, as well, while we’re making requests. Without it, dude just looks like he wandered off Celtic Frost’s tour bus.

David: “The band would like to know where they can get a mop, and also more Southern Comfort. STAT, dude.”

Jeff: What’s been lost is that for the longest time, AJ Hawk WAS Clay Matthews. And he was good enough! And now Clay Matthews has come along and out Clay Matthews-ed him. What does he have to do at this point? Ride a snow-chopper through Wisconsin Dells after they win? Rip an elk in half? Drink Lake Michigan? With some kind of tribal, throwback-y straw? One thing is for certain, I will be watching all of it from the comfort of my own home.

David: My neighborhood is full of terrible bro-bars. Like where bankers go when they want to have “a chill night” and play some beer-pong under a 75-inch television showing the World Series of Poker.

David: And they’re all Steelers bars, it seems like. There was a Browns bar up here, but it closed. I think all the patrons just agreed it was for the best. I remember seeing a dude in a Mohammed Massaquoi jersey smoking a cigarette out front last year, and he had that sad, almost concussed glaze on his eyes, and for the first time I almost kind of understood what it was like to watch a whole Browns game.

Jeff: If someone was smart they should have made Mangini weight loss posters for, um, I’m not sure who exactly? But the idea is if he can do it, you can do it. That kinda thing. Hang it near the urinals. “Hey Fatso, you’re not exactly pissing away the pounds are ya? That’s okay, because Eric’s not exactly winning a shitload of games. Anyway, he’s skinny now. And you’re just going to go back to your barstool and eat something fried.”

David: Anyway, I’m not going to watch the Super Bowl in a bar, because I don’t like doing that and wouldn’t go to these places anyway because I just kind of fundamentally don’t approve of beer pong and places that advertise it. But are there Packers bars in New York City? I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one. Is there a Don Majikowski’s Majik Lounge in Greenpoint or something? A gastropub called Mark By Mark Chmura?

Jeff: In the West Village there’s Kettle of Fish. I don’t watch big events at a bar, either. If it is on national TV, I stay home. (Confession: there is usually a very splendid chili contest I attend on Super Bowl Sunday) If I have to watch a game on a “dish” I generally wind up somewhere that makes me buy $14 pieces of Italian flatbread that come with a gnat filled bottle of olive oil and has one other person in the bar. I will nurse a $7 Pepsi for multiple quarters to see Miami beat the Vikings. Unfortunately.

Jeff: These are my favorite plays of the season. I feel like a 70-year-old right now.

Jeff: I was also unhappy with Maurice Jones-Drew until he got this shot in at Skip Bayless.

Jeff: Maybe we should have some kind of end of season awards next week. I’ll leave it to the commenters to decide what they should be.

David: I agree, although I’d like to nominate everyone who played quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals for Best Ensemble Performance in a Musical/Comedy. Good luck beating out the ladies of Burlesque, you guys!

David Roth co-writes the Wall Street Journal’s Daily Fix, contributes to the sports blog Can’t Stop the Bleeding and has his own little website. And he tweets!

Jeff Johnson tweets here. He is also responsible for doing weird things with old sportscards here and here.

Photo by David Fulmer, from Flickr.

“THE first time the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 12,000, in October 2006, presenters on CNBC, a business channel, almost caught fire with excitement. When it reached that milestone again on February 1st the reaction was more muted, though the recovery from a low of 6,547 less than two years ago is remarkable, and soaring share prices reflect a corporate America that is leaner and stronger than it was back in 2006. The current profit-reporting season is shaping up to be one of the best ever. For non-financial firms in the S&P; 500, earnings per share are now higher than they have been for at least a decade. With over half of the companies in the S&P; 500 having reported, profits in 2010 were up by 17% compared with 2009. (The year-on-year increase is far greater if financial firms are included, since they plunged in 2009 and then rebounded spectacularly.)”

Throughout the month, we’re counting down our most favorite Twitter accounts, ranging from the infamous to the fake to the most horrific and the most hilarious.

Wearing texting gloves in Key West. Present from daughter who must have known how cold it would be this week.Mon Dec 27 20:17:32 via Twitter for iPhone

Judy Blume
judyblume

Once you’ve already followed the magical Margaret Atwood, and yet again searched in vain for a Twitter account from Joy Williams (can you imagine), it is time for you to sign up for the Judy Blume express. I mean, it’s JUDY BLUME. It’s Judy Blume wearing texting gloves. In Key West. Do I really need to tell you any more?

Previously:
Roger Clark
Emma Gilbey Keller

Interested in The Daily but still not sure it’s worth buying an iPad for? Check out The Daily: Indexed and The Daily Daily and the inevitable other bunch of Tumblrs that follow in their wake.

by James McAuley

Given that Andrew Sullivan was out sick all last week (asthma and bronchitis) and that Glenn Greenwald was just released from the hospital after contracting dengue fever, we thought we’d ask around and see how some other prominent bloggers are doing in this age of cyber-disease.

Uh oh! New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is taking the day off today from his blog “The Conscience of a Liberal”! But worry not — he’s just preparing for the new semester of teaching. And he’s going nowhere. Krugman wrote in an email to us that he plans to continue blogging “as long as I think I’m having an impact and/or having fun.” Krugman, who called himself a “proto-blogger,” who formerly used his MIT web page to publish shorter pieces on late-1990s things like the Asian financial crisis, said that he’ll stop blogging “when the amount of stuff I have to say falls below some critical mass.” He’s fine. But not everyone is!

Greg Mankiw, author of a popular blog that includes info for gung-ho college econ kids and fellow Lady Gaga admirers alike, reports that he has no plans to stop, even though he keeps “an open mind.” He’s had his blog for about five years now, and he confesses he’s “slowed down of late.” Uh oh.

Boing Boinger Xeni Jardin reports that she’s “feeling awesome.” Her secret? “I drink Mark Frauenfelder’s homemade kombucha, I do yoga every day, and hug puppies CONSTANTLY. Life is good!” Maybe Glenn Greenwald should be hugging more puppies?

Joshua Green, of The Atlantic and also of the Boston Globe, sounds like he’s on a dangerous downslide. “It is nice of you to check in,” he wrote. “The dungeon masters here at the Atlantic rarely do, and I *have* been feeling a bit run down lately. Sort of ‘gout-y.’ I have been blogging for almost a year. Since starting I have slept worse, become sedentary, stopped doing triathalons, lost muscle tone, developed migraines, and become very jumpy. I would happily stop blogging at the drop of the hat.”

Make him a blog-free offer, someone!

Finally, some breaking news. Politico’s Ben Smith reported to us a minor injury, but nothing that will prevent him from winning the morning. “I think I have a torn rotator cuff,” he wrote, “thanks for asking.”

James McAuley is a student in Cambridge, Mass.

Men have suddenly realized that women — who will be making all the money soon — are on to them, so now they’re pretending that they want to fall in love and have babies and sit on blankets in the park under the stars with a bottle of champagne and some strawberries and whatever, according to important research done by Match.com. Women, naturally, are having none of it.

“When you have that many people over, the garbage container seems to fill up to the point of over flowing every 10 minutes. Taking the garbage outside in the dead of winter requires me to get my coat, skully hat and boots because of all the snow we have been getting. There will be a minimum of seven trips to the garbage cans outside. A garbage run during a commercial time out in the 4th quarter turns into a longer than expected mission as the bottom of the bag breaks on the way to the can. I spend the next 15 minutes getting latex gloves and picking up all the disgusting chili-covered trash scattered in my driveway.”
 — Juice Crew rap great and passionate football fan Masta Ace moved out to “the proverbial suburbs of New Jersey” five years ago, and has since hosted a number of Super Bowl parties in his basement. He blogs about the pros and cons of hosting another one this year — including his predictions for the game at — at egotripland.

As you know if you have been near the Internet, everyone is discussing The Daily, the Rupert Murdoch iPad publication that launched yesterday. You can meet the man who runs it, much-beloved of the Murdochs! The reviews are… all over the place. There is love! There is hate! I have not yet truly indulged but I have been reading some of their web-published stories, such as this very unusual feature: “AMISH SMUGGLERS’ SHADY MILK RUN”! It’s very bizarre stylistically. It has the short paragraphs and quirks of the Post — it opens with an “intriguing” and cloudy scene: a mysterious man delivers “contraband” to Manhattan! Oh gosh! But “he wasn’t selling them anything they planned to smoke, snort or inject.” No it’s just raw milk. Then come the government stats about this public health menace, and then a rather stilted scene back in Amish country with a “leading raw milk advocate.”

And then, at the end, our intrepid correspondent says that he will try some of the raw milk, despite his “very serious reservations.” And then he doesn’t tell us how it was!

Very rude.

This is a very weird thing, this whole story: it’s both pleasurable and simple, straightforward and without much opinion, and expected but teasing.

This seems true across the board: the fashion department says “When in doubt, pick stripes.” The piece on “doggie discos” covers the “late-night haven for hard-partying pooches and their owners.” You can learn about “why sequined shirts, bone china spoons and vegetable-dyed desert boots are on our radar.” This may become the most-read and most-successful publication of our time, is the thing! And I mean that seriously. It also may not.

The “New York Post goes to college

“ line is something that Peter Kaplan, now the editorial director at Fairchild’s fashion group, used to say frequently about the New York Observer’s transition to the tabloid form a few years back. It was sort of true. But The Daily’s work so far rather feels like the New York Post after its gone off to a really good community college. Maybe I’ll feel more comfortable with it after it gets its associate’s degree. In Internet time, that’ll probably take place in the next two weeks.