Gawker
In a tiny, cluttered, and yes, pizza-smelling office on Chrystie Street on Friday night, a group of sweaty thirtysomething men and heavily eyelinered young women gathered to celebrate the publication of a "pamphlet." The work in question resembles a foreshortened Zagat guide filtered through a Brooklyn-ey design sensibility; it contains two transcribed discussions that some very wise people had about what they wish they'd done differently in college. "I wish there were something else I was good at, just a little bit," the author Rebecca Curtis says in one of these discussions. "And not for the money, but just to be able to dip into something else, just to re-engage with the... the other world, the one that's not the literary world. Almost to perceive it better." But this party was not the place to find that other world, or even to acknowledge its existence.
n+1 editor Keith Gessen held court behind a makeshift bar strewn with beer bottles and pizza boxes, tufts of black chest hair peeking from the unbuttoned collar of his American Apparel polo, making sure the undergraduate-looking girls got as many beers as they needed. He was also quick to point guests to the box of copies of "What We Should Have Known," which is being distributed free to college freshmen and 18-year-olds with proof of ID.
In this pamplet, Keith himself expresses regret that he ever attended college, a sentiment later echoed by Siddharta Deb, Rebecca Curtis, and Ben Kunkel. Ben also dismissively calls college "summer camp." These people's other regrets include having read Paul de Man before Wordsworth and Deleuze before Proust and having read Frederic Jameson instead of Perry Anderson. The pamphlet is 126 pages long. However, it only takes 5 minutes and 52 seconds to listen to the song "Common People" by Pulp in its entirety.
"So you're the bartender?" I asked Keith. I wanted a beer. "So you're a yoga teacher?" he countered. This neg immediately attracted me to Keith. Mystery knows what he's talking about with that shit. For a moment, I was charmed by Keith's big, wide-eyed face, his lips perpetually curled in a smirk of what is either amusement or disdain. But then he tried to explain to me why "Indecision," his pal Kunkel's debut novel, is a good book—apparently, I had missed the point and failed to see that Ben was satirizing 28-year-old navel-gazing boys who've read too much literary theory.
It is always so helpful when friends of authors whose books you didn't like explain why said books are good!
In a corner, debut novelist Porochista Khakpour huddled with novelist Alexander Chee, whose second book is nearly finished. They were talking about how some of their students are so dumb it's sad (they both teach writing). An Observer intern wandered around, asking people, "Will you give me a quote?"
Who is that pale woman who keeps giving me the hairy eyeball? I wondered aloud to a friend. It turned out to be Carla Blumenkranz, the n+1 editorial assistant who's best known for her in-depth takedown of American Book Publishing, based on her experience as an intern at Plume. At that commercial publisher, she discovered a stunning truth: Editors try to find marketable authors, because they would like to publish books that people will actually purchase! For shame.
She has just completed an essay about this website for n+1's next issue, so I suppose it isn't surprising that she didn't want to talk to me. Sometimes it's so much easier to perceive things from a distance.
*Keith Gessen, 'What We Should Have Known: Two Discussions,' 2007, n+1 Research. p. 118.
Comments
Oh, man, poor Carla Blumenkranz! She got scooped by Vanessa Grigoriadis!
Everything I need to know I learned from "Common People."
This is a very impressive post.
smails is back. box of cookies?
apparently, I had missed the point and failed to see that Ben was satirizing 28-year-old navel-gazing boys who've read too much literary theory.
I wish Mystery used that for a neg.
"You see, I'm boldly satirizing a lecherous and deceptive manchild. These aren't even my real goggles."
Also, if this EA's article on Gawker reads anything like the hard-hitting expose you link to above, then... we can expect a cliche lede and a hastily-arrived-upon-but-neatly-packaged "message".
Can't wait! It'll be just like reading my high school newspaper!
I've always been angry that I was exposed to Derrida before America's Next Top Model.
Every time I see that "Shut up, College" tag I can't help but feel personally affronted.
Blumenkranz is my new favorite name for when i'm pretending to be Jewish.
I regret ever having read Wordsworth. Bore snore.
Right, this is the pamplet about which their esteemed website pitches,
"Pamphlet #2, 'What We Should Have Known,' is finally here! But it now!"
which sounds way o way too pistomological for moi. Plus I bet they say it "SWAY-do."
In a perfect world marketers could include an essay by a real intellectual with every OJ/trump/o'donnell book sold. Problem fixed.
Before the n + 1 staffand contributors get too caught up in whinging about the limitations of academia, a thought: most temp agencies doesn't care if you read Deleuze before or after Proust, as long as you can type at least 65 wpm.
There are WAY more important things I should have known: for instance, don't fuck a guy who lives across the courtyard in your dorm or you'll awkwardly bump into him by the mailboxes approximately 6,000 times a day.
I'd have liked to have gone to that, for basically the same reason I read Indecision: It didn't take much time, and I wanted to validate my preconceived sense of enormous irritation.
Being good at being an intellectual (pseudo or otherwise) is precisely the same thing as being good at masturbating: You are the sole person who gives a fuck.
@collegecallgirl: Exactly. Or don't make out with two guys who are roommates. And the cute boy you have a crush on, who has a Kevin Bacon obsession and loves Madonna? In all likelihood, gay as a French horn.
@BeRightBack: I, on the other hand, am really glad I studied Kuhn before discovering America's Most Smartest Model.
Is it fun that all the pseudo-intellectual boys totally know you're on to them?
Is there any way that we can goad these N+1 assholes into commenting? Like they did with James Wood
Some friends of mine and I tape recorded a series of discussions we had over the weekend while watching America's Psychic Challenge. Look for our pamphlet, "Psychically, I Totally Knew You Were Going To Say That!," coming soon. To be distributed by our volunteers free to residents of Co-op City who own two or more cats.
@lalalina: Yes.
@DorothyMantooth: I used to think that Kant was a good primer for The Biggest Loser, but n+1 has shown me that the opposite is actually true.
These people's other regrets include having read Paul de Man before Wordsworth and Deleuze before Proust and having read Frederic Jameson instead of Perry Anderson.
There is no way they could regret this far more than we do.
@BeRightBack: Indeed! I now know to rely solely on Nicomachus when parsing each epi.
I'm all for assisted pseudicide in these cases.
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