In addition to our attempt to situate Beck in the history of internet hissyfits, we also quite liked these musical adaptations:

The vampire metal remix.

The death-metal remix.

And this bluesy little number really captures the natural musicality of Beck's unhinged hatred.

The most vexing thing about of all of this is that Silman's review wasn't a trashing by any standard, other than inside of Hoffman's obviously delusional mind of course, but it certainly wasn't positive either. Here's a sampling of the most critical statements by Silman we found in her review:

"...this new novel lacks the spark of the earlier work. Its vision, characters, and even the prose seem tired."

"This heavily plotted part of the book becomes more predictable, yet also more unconvincing."

"...the author doesn't deliver."

"There may be lots of readers who crave books that have their feet planted both in reality and fairy tale, complete with mysterious passages like those introducing each chapter of this puzzling, and, in the end, unsettling book."

It should be noted that Silman also said some nice things about Hoffman:

"...one of my favorite books is her "Illumination Night,'' which amply displays her gifts of precise prose and the ability to create sympathetic characters. I especially remember its evocation of the awful condition we call agoraphobia, as it was suffered and mostly conquered by Vonny."

"This section is described with real skill and precision, and my heart lifted as I began to feel some empathy for this eldest child who has caused such pain, and then goes missing."

"...there are some wonderful passages as the book winds to a close."

But Silman's sprinkling of praise didn't stop Hoffman from acting like a petulant child on Twitter.

This was the first of 27 tweets that Hoffman fired off in response to Silman's review, where she immediately took the high road and called Silman a "moron" for having the audacity to criticize her writing.

Then the blissfully ignorant Hoffman displayed a staggering level of intellectual laziness by obviously not even bothering to Google Silman's name, where she would have learned that her reviewer is not only not an "idiot," but someone with a rather long and esteemed literary career.

Hoffman then went one step further and trashed the paper itself.

Hoffman published Silman's phone number and and email address and encouraged her fans to contact her to give her a piece of their minds.

Hoffman trashed Boston, her hometown, which is actually kind of funny.

Hoffman then brought out the smoke and mirrors in a pathetic attempt to disguise her behavior as feminism in action.

Then Susan Orlean, always willing to enter the writerly fray on Twitter, provoked Hoffman to betray Boston in the worst way possible.

For all the criticisms that exist about writing on the internet, this situation is a bright, shining example of one of the best things about writing on the internet—After a while it thickens your skin to the point where you're easily able to easily differentiate between valid criticism and hateful venom-spewing. At some point, the hateful venom-spewing fails to even faze you any longer, while the valid criticisms are accepted and processed rationally and learned from. Too bad Alice Hoffman never had a blog to help her overcome her hypersensitive ego. She'd be a better writer because of it.

In fact, she should come intern for Gawker for one day like James Frey did! We'll let her write a couple of posts and let the commenters have some fun with her. On second thought, scratch that—She'd probably go on a killing spree the first time someone called her out for using an improper pronoun or misspelling a word.

Regardless, we hope that Hoffman comes to her senses after a good night of rest, realizes that she acted like a douchebag and apologizes to Silman. Anything less would be downright shameful.

Via the Head Butler and Alice Hoffman's Twitter

Update: Hoffman's Twitter account is no more.

Seriously, it looks as though these rants were composed by a third grader:

"Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us 'time to deliver' on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND."

Are you freaking kidding?! This guy is five term United States Senator who formerly chaired the Senate Finance Committee, and he lacks the intellectual capacity to compose a coherent message using 140 characters or less on Twitter.

We've long believed that one of the best things about Twitter is that it serves to illuminate the intelligence, or lack of intelligence, of the people in the public eye who choose to use it. Say what you want about it, but Twitter does take some base literary competence to convey concise thoughts in 140 characters or less. There really is an art to it, we think.

With that said, Chuck Grassley has proven himself to be an illiterate jackass.

Big thanks to Gawker commenter/liveblogger extraordinaire for tipping us to Grassley's tweets.

In case you're unfamiliar with the "upfronts," they're an annual television industry event held in New York where all of the bigshots and stars from all the networks present their show lineups for the upcoming season to advertisers in the hopes of removing them from their money. Usually, these events are one enormous act of autofellatio, an endless stream of workers sucking the cocks of the companies they work for in order to hold on to their jobs and continue to cash ridiculously large paychecks, and really, who can blame them? Apart from the time in 1991 when Johnny Carson announced out of the blue that he was retiring during an NBC upfront presentation, these things are usually painfully benign, and are rarely, if ever, truly newsworthy. Typically it's an endless parade of people like Charlie Sheen stepping up to a podium to tell the fine folks at Procter and Gamble and General Motors how if they thought last year's season of Two and Half Men was funny, well, they haven't seen anything yet, because this upcoming season is going to be a fucking riot, and then they politely ask them for $1.5 million for a thirty second spot and the advertisers usually pay it and everyone goes home fat and happy. The end.

Now, with all of that established, back to Kimmel, who completely shattered this usual sort of monotony with his performance yesterday. Here's a sampling of what he said as advertising executives just sat there squirming in their seats, laughing nervously, exchanging "WTF?!" glances, not quite sure of what to make of what what happening in front of them as he fired rhetorical scuds at ABC, its competitors, and the advertising industry in general.

"Let's get real here. Let's get Dr. Phil-real here. These new fall shows? We're going to cancel about 90 percent of them. Maybe more."

"Every year we lie to you and every year you come back for more. You don't need an upfront. You need therapy. We completely lie to you, and then you pass those lies onto your clients."

"Next year on ‘Grey's Anatomy,' your product could kill Dr. Izzie. It just depends on how much you want to pay."

"I think all our shows are going to work this year. I really do. I don't, really."

"The important thing to remember is: who cares, it's not your money."

Kimmel also took a shot at NBC and Jay Leno, whom ABC once courted to possibly replace him when his contract with NBC expired, saying that they're "giving Jay's viewers exactly what they want. An early-bird special."

It's hard not to love and respect Jimmy Kimmel more than ever after all of this, but one can't help suspecting that ABC will soon be announcing his show's cancellation so that it can extend Nightline back to a full hour.

Jimmy Kimmel Demolishes ABC's Upfronts [New York Times]

I mean can you believe the nerve of this fuckin' guy, coming on CNBC and saying amateurs should follow a proven successful passive investment strategy and shouldn't try to time the market according to the rantings of a man whose stock picks have a losing record? The nerve of this fuckin' guy. Shove your "index funds" up your tight ass!

Cramer's rant here is only 5% less shouty than that.
[Clusterstock]

She called up a Gawker Media employee, who shall go unnamed, to complain about unspecified errors in Owen Thomas' recent coverage. But not from anger (or an overdose of Blueprint Cleanse) but out of love. See, Gawker's going downhill, she claims, and she'll buy a "round of drinks" if her will is done. Thankfully, I'm not taking orders from Rambin.

Owen's cranky streak is one of the reasons we love him. (Other reasons: he's a talented writer who knows the tech beat inside and out.) Around here, unsolicited and unhinged rants are worn as a badge of honor. The only reason, as far as we can tell, that she thinks Gawker is falling apart is that we're not covering her every move. Such is the double-edged nature of fameballing. And, Mary, if you have a problem with one of my writers, rather than calling the ad staff, you should get in touch with me directly.

HEAR about the latest top-secret bar in Manhattan, the one tucked away inside an unassuming downtown restaurant, accessed by a secret compartment outfitted with a white phone, a hidden camera and a steel door? The one that also invited nearly every food writer in Manhattan to its preview, and—just one month later—has been featured in a half-dozen newspapers, and on Thrillist, UrbanDaddy and Citysearch? The one that also has its own Web site, with the phone number listed on its home page?

In the unlikely event that the answer is no, this new spot is called, without wit or irony, Please Don't Tell. It's at 113 St. Marks Place, located in Crif's hot dog stand, and its deadly mix of coy furtiveness and crass, commercial transparency has effectively demolished the faux speakeasy as a New York night life concept.

"So many people have been like, 'What kind of speakeasy is in the press? Or publishes their phone number?'" admits PDT's Jim Meehan, who designed the cocktail menu. "We're not a speakeasy. A speakeasy is a Prohibition-era bar," he adds helpfully. "We are evocative of a speakeasy. It is not Milk and Honey."

The only place she has somewhat kind words for is nearby Angel Share, that old standby on Ninth Street. "Angel Share, it should be noted, has never pretended to be a speakeasy, which is why it is so enjoyable," she writes.

That the secret bar trend is on its last legs was never in doubt. But what happened to Maureen Callahan that night at PDT, among the cocktails and banquets of her secret place?