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Either Pigeons Are Brilliant or Art Critics Are Idiots
Alice Hoffman's Non-Apology Apology for Her Bout of Twitter Rage
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Greasy Thumb Guzik
09/01/09

In reply to Either Pigeons Are Brilliant or Art Critics Are Idiots
Dogs are also excellent art critics.
Whenever I see someone walking their dog past the godawful sculpture collection at the southwest corner of Grant Park in Chicago called "Agora" by some Polish fraud claiming to be an artist, the dogs always give the best opinions of this alleged work of art: They piss on it!
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Smitros
09/01/09

@Greasy Thumb Guzik:
I hope their co-dogs are likewise adorning the Dubuffets that litter downtown.
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Smitros
09/01/09

In reply to Either Pigeons Are Brilliant or Art Critics Are Idiots
As for the headline, can't both be true?

[www.nytimes.com]
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maevemealone
09/01/09

In reply to Either Pigeons Are Brilliant or Art Critics Are Idiots
[4.bp.blogspot.com]
How odd... I spent today making pigeon art....and pigeons were off making critiques of art... up is down etc and what not
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Edited by maevemealone at 09/01/09 10:49 PM maevemealone was starred maevemealone was unstarred

Smitros
09/01/09

@maevemealone:
You can also make critiques of pigeons, like the ones that won't get out of your way on the sidewalk.
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nathanst
09/01/09

In reply to Either Pigeons Are Brilliant or Art Critics Are Idiots
These results don't overly surprise me. My cat signals distaste with a flex of her ears when I misfinger a guitar chord.

Okay, the color composition aspect surprised me a little.
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Edited by nathanst at 09/01/09 7:10 PM nathanst was starred nathanst was unstarred

FriendlyFloyd
09/01/09

In reply to Either Pigeons Are Brilliant or Art Critics Are Idiots
Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?
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Mount_Prion
09/01/09

@FriendlyFloyd: Pigeons are fans because they create with a similar splash pattern.
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Perhaps Not
06/30/09

In reply to Alice Hoffman's Non-Apology Apology for Her Bout of Twitter Rage
Honestly, Hoffman dug her own grave with the phone number post. No writer of more than modest gifts would resort to that kind of silly-ass, fourth-grade bitchiness if she could string together a few sentences' worth of decent invective.
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johnny_carsick
06/30/09

In reply to Alice Hoffman's Non-Apology Apology for Her Bout of Twitter Rage
ah, poor alice, yearning to be loved by the most discerning. just like my good friend william joel.
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Dürer's Rhino
06/30/09

In reply to Alice Hoffman's Non-Apology Apology for Her Bout of Twitter Rage
I now feel completely justified in believing her writing is total crap and I can tell my friends who recommend her books without hesitation that they are morons.
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Lazy Susan
06/30/09

In reply to Alice Hoffman's Non-Apology Apology for Her Bout of Twitter Rage
"I heartily apologize for how badly written both my insult and apology was. Sorry. It's difficult to include irony and nuance in 140 charact
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snugbug
06/30/09

In reply to Alice Hoffman's Non-Apology Apology for Her Bout of Twitter Rage
"..in the heat of the moment.."

Oh, so THAT's your excuse? Brilliant! It's as if you're arguing here that this was a crime of passion, and that you should be tried in the court of public opinion on a charge of manslaughter, in lieu homicide.

Sorry, toots. You're an adult. Unless you were drunky-high at the keyboard, there is no excuse for blasting 25+ tweets into the ether berating a reviewer. Thankfully, the current media news cycle has the attention span of a gnat, so you can rejoice in the fact that SOMEONE will ef up shortly, and you'll be left alone.

Cheerios!

PS: You know what else? Can you imagine someone like Rimbaud giving the proverbial two sh*ts or a f*ck about what his CRITICS said? Man, I miss those balls-out, full-on literary freaks who just did their thing, period.
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skahammer
06/30/09

@snugbug: But some of us can easily imagine how this is analogous to a crime of passion, snugbug.

It often takes a while to construct a statement or analysis that one really means to stand behind. With that in mind, I figure everyone gets a 24-hour grace period for first-draft thoughts, which can be discarded or disowned at whim. Such an approach would work wonders in bringing sanity to this situation, wouldn't it?

I mean, they're just tweets.
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BookishLookish
06/30/09

@snugbug: OK, let me be a bitch and say "the heat of the moment" is code for "hot flash."

Ch-ch-ch-changes...
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PromQueen
06/29/09

In reply to Alice Hoffman's Non-Apology Apology for Her Bout of Twitter Rage
Did anyone read the Entertainment Weekly post which referred to a Richard Ford interview where he admitted to having shot, with a gun, a bad reviewer's work? (Either the review of his book or reviewer's original work--unclear, when skimming at work.) The reviewer was Hoffman.

Ford then said, Now I don't read my reviews. Smart man.

Also much, much better writer.
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PromQueen
06/29/09

@PromQueen: Sorry, I am packing and tired--to be clearer, the work of someone who wrote a negative review about Ford's work.
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ninety_nine
06/30/09

@PromQueen: He shot her book (as did his wife) and sent the book to her (they were published by the same house at the time) -- I found it here (after searching based on your comment)
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iplaudius
06/29/09

In reply to Alice Hoffman's Non-Apology Apology for Her Bout of Twitter Rage
I’m pretty sure Barthes wrote "The Death of the Author" to avoid having to process crap like this and to encourage others to do the same.
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BookishLookish
06/30/09

@iplaudius: We really need a Barthes revival. Can you make that happen, iplaud?
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MisterHippity
06/29/09

In reply to Alice Hoffman's Non-Apology Apology for Her Bout of Twitter Rage
Well, Silman really learned her lesson, huh? I'm sure she'll be extra-careful to give Hoffman a good review next time.
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Agador Spartacus
06/29/09

In reply to Alice Hoffman's Non-Apology Apology for Her Bout of Twitter Rage
When you fuck up:

1. Give yourself a nice kick in the ass

2. Realize that everyone fucks up and laugh at yourself

3. Apologize simply and directly to the person(s) affected by your fuck-up-ery

4. Mean it

5. Apologize more broadly/publicly if necessary

6. Mean it

7. Laugh at yourself again.

People will see that you aren't a professional asshole, just someone who fucked up. Why is this so hard?
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skahammer
06/30/09

@are friends electric?: But "meaning it" can take time, while the social pressure to apologize is more or less immediate.

So in the meantime (heh), non-apology apologies are probably enough to stop the runaway train, at least.
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BookishLookish
06/30/09

@are friends electric?: I always say, "I'm sorry, I put myself before you and I also hurt your feelings and that was wrong of me," then I give them something delicious. The delicious part is pretty key--it seals the forgiveness.
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mina324
06/29/09

In reply to Alice Hoffman's Non-Apology Apology for Her Bout of Twitter Rage
I guess I'm just un-cultured, but I'd never heard of Hoffman before these last two posts and now I don't want to read her work. She called for her fans to help her, but she probably lost potential fans, too.
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Jasper Lamar Crabb
06/30/09

@mina324: Me too. I'd never heard of her before this. It's a good lesson to aspiring writers about how crap like this will overshadow their work if they're not careful.
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Tremonius
06/30/09

@Jasper Lamar Crabb: Readers, wherevery they be found, are better than unfound, and I'll bet Hoffman has seen more of them from her Twit feed than her novels. I think I remember her from a signing at Walmart. Over there, home furnishings, over there, sitting alone and forlorn at a card table behind a stack of books, Alyce Hufferman.
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