Gawker
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memoirs
George W. Bush's Sad Book Deal
There's now a rumored-price tag on George W. Bush's forthcoming memoirs, "Decision Points:" a $7 million advance from publisher Crown. How does that stack up to other Deciders? More »
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By Ryan TateComment by cohenj88: Given how introspective he is, do you think Crown got a guarantee that he'll hand in a manuscript that was... 9 Responses | Other threads
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kathy griffin
Any Old Wacko Now Eligible For $2 Million Book Deal
The publishing industry is led by experienced professionals with deep knowledge of literary appeal. So if they say Kathy Griffin deserves a $2 million book deal, who are you, the public, to argue? More » -
books
When is the Steve Jobs Autobiography Coming Out?
"Steve Jobs has started writing a book," a plugged-in tipster tells me. It's the barest of rumors, but the book industry is already eagerly anticipating the Apple CEO's autobiography. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Ken Elwell: Stop. This is the same Steve Jobs that said people don't read anymore. Who is the audience for this, then? Why... 1 Responses | Other threads
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books
Laura Bush's Memoir Worth a Paltry Sum
First Ladybot Laura Bush sold her memoirs yesterday, and the speculation was that she'd get more than Hillary Clinton's $8 million advance, because of...inflation? But apparently she got way less. More »
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Comment by scroll_lock: She will reveal that during Hurricane Katrina, she and President Bush were ignoring millions in peril because "the 700 Club... 10 Responses | Other threads
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books
What To Expect From Laura Bush's Memoir
Made-of-wood First Lady Laura Bush has finally sold her memoirs! Scribner bought them for an undisclosed sum—probably close to $10 million. What will we see in this thrilling volume of history in action? More »
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Comment by Rumpelstilskin: Dear Diary, The Decider wanted some "sugar" last night. Thankfully, it was over in 90 seconds. Got through more of the... 11 Responses | Other threads
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books
Relapses Will Not Stall Your Redemptive Memoir
A drunk-driving "thing" will not stall former Full House child star/meth addict Jodi Sweetin's six-figure redemptive memoir with Simon & Schuster. Good to know. More » -
books
Nobody Wants Bush's Memoirs
You know what's next for any lame duck president: the inevitable post-presidency memoir. Only problem, other than the fact that he struggles with basic grammar and syntax: Bush is a hugely unpopular outgoing president, and most of the country hates him. Publishers are wondering what the market for a potential Bush memoir would be, and the consensus is: um, awkward! No publisher is clamoring to give him $15 million like they did Clinton; certainly "the foreign rights interest will be considerably less," says the SF Chronicle. How have other unpopular presidents handled their memoirs? More » -
celebrity autobiographies
Do We Really Need Another Celebrity Memoir?
It's been announced that Kelly Osbourne is going to write a memoir. Not just any memoir, but an inspirational autobiography, which "will draw upon her own extraordinary experiences to help other young women as they negotiate the minefield that is growing up." Oh, so it's part life story, part self-help? Well, Kelly had better add some extra stuff into her book: She's only 23. A few months ago, it was reported that Miley Cyrus, fifteen, is writing a memoir. Writes the Guardian's Oliver Marre, "As autobiographers get younger (a trend you may have noticed), so the need to explain that their books are more than just straightforward memoirs becomes greater." Books are just another branch on the product tree, right next to fragrance and fashion line. But filling up chapters isn't as easy as filling perfume bottles. What about content? [Jezebel] -
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books
NYT Won't Get Burned Again by New Memoirs
The Times vetted the hell out of Kate Brennan, who's written In His Sights, "one of the first full-length memoirs of a stalking victim." In the wake of fake memoirists—JT Leroy, James Frey, and Margaret Selzter (whose book they reviewed favorably before the jig was up)—one just can't be too careful these days! Because Kate's stalker is bug-fucking-crazy and has been stalking her for ten years, she lives and gives interviews under assumed names. She also gives her stalker "Paul" a different name in her book. However, the Times needed to check all of this out for reals in her profile: More »
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By SheilaComment by whatnottowear: i know of this margaret seltzer personally. and no one asked anyone anything about her past, even the most basic... more » | Other threads
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david carr
Times Reporter: "I Was A Fat Thug Who Beat Up Women And Sold Bad Coke"
How does David Carr pull this off? The Times media critic writes in his forthcoming memoir of drug addiction that he kidnapped his children, smacked around his girlfriends and left two babies in a near-freezing car on the street for hours while he got high. This in addition to dealing drugs and fathering crack babies, which we already knew about. It's all in his book excerpt from next Sunday's Times Magazine. And yet, after reading the account, it's remarkably hard to detest the guy.
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By Ryan TateComment by Mean_Ol_Liberal: Some behavioral flaws make one irredeemable. I'm not interested in your tale of self-inflicted hell that you so generously doled... more » | Other threads
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memoirs
Your Memoir Was Already Written
A list of hundreds of memoirs since 1995 probably already includes your now-redundant life story. [Entertainment Weekly]
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By Nick DouglasComment by Grownup: Uh...a real addiction memoir? Read "Swish: Maria in the Mourning," by Pamela Palmer Mutino, with 29 five-star reviews on Amazon,... more » | Other threads
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books
James Frey on the Picket Line: A Short Scene
Now that James Frey is shilling his new novel, a screenwriter who walked the picket line during last fall's strike wrote in to share his experience with Frey, who "showed up to carry a sign and (I suspect) generally be seen. A female writer saw him and truly didn't recognize him at all. Here was the exchange that happened..." More »
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By SheilaComment by BowlingAlleyLawyer: @gawkimo: Congrats. You just called a literature teacher "semi-literate". That would be me. And that whole three-years-in-law-school-thing... begs to differ as well. But... more » | Other threads
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books
The NYT Loves James Frey's New Book
We haven't read it yet (somebody please send!), but the NYT has totally fallen in love with reformed lying-memoirst James Frey's Bright Shiny Morning, set in Los Angeles. Times critic Janet Maslin writes, "His publisher called it a dazzling tour de force. (Look, somebody had to, if only to create a comeback drama)... But that wasn't so far off the mark..." It's the "captivating urban kaleidoscope that, most recently, Charles Bock's 'Beautiful Children' was supposed to be." And what else? More »
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By SheilaComment by backseat_driver10023: @Awestruck: I loved Liar's Club. I also love personal redemption / getting a 2nd wind. more » | Other threads
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defamer
Barbara Walters' Memoir Packed With Tales Of Former 'Lovahs', Including 'The Blackest Man' She Ever Slept With
The ladies of The View had a lengthy meta-conversation all about the "very beautiful!" and "sexy!" photos of their own Barbara Walters in this month's Vanity Fair. And while they do point out the photo spread's accompanying excerpt from Walters' new memoir Auditions, and Babs does allude to tales of past "lovahs," she fails to mention (until Oprah makes her next week) just how tantalizing some of those pages are. As today's preview in the NY Daily News reveals, Walters was involved in a long-term affair with an African-American senator back in the swingin' 70s. And from the sound of it, the affair was far spicier than all those Adrian Lyne movies about adultery:"When her lover...told the newswoman she was the oldest woman he had ever been with, she wanted to say - but never did - 'Oh yeah? Well you are the blackest man I have ever been with.'"
And the juice doesn't end there. More on Walters' fury over Star Jones' dieting claims and Rosie O'Donnell's Diana Ross complex after the jump. More » -
In Brief
Two New Shows About Call Girls
Secret Diary of a Call Girl will premiere on Showtime this summer, based on the anonymous British memoir with the same name, authored by "Belle du Jour." Not to be outdone, HBO and Sex and the City's Darren Star plans to shoot a pilot for former working girl Tracy Quan's novel, Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl. Everybody gets paid! [Time]
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By SheilaComment by drunkexpatwriter: @ginger rant: I don't think there has ever been a climate where people were not interested in beautiful women, sex... more » | Other threads
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how things work
Times Fails to Verify All 1,000 Prostitutes
Memoirists are so screwed: it's gotten to the point where you can't even sleep with tons of prostitutes without having to present a receipt for verification anymore. We already told you how British debauched dandy Sebastian Horsley, author of Dandy in the Underworld, was barred from entering the States for his very own book party, due to his checkered past. Now the NYT is forced, in the wake of a rash of fake memoirists, to contort itself into a variety of amusing positions in order to verify his story! Details on the memoir: "a debauched life of cocaine, heroin, opium and amphetamine use, writing that he spent more than £100,000 (nearly $200,000) on crack cocaine and £100,000 to consort with more than 1,000 prostitutes."
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By SheilaComment by wretched_of_the_mirth: Did someone fact-check his crucifixion? Oh, wait... more » | Other threads
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losing battles
Malcolm Gladwell 1, Me 0
When I was at Jossip, I wrote about an anecdote Malcolm Gladwell told at the Moth Gala last November, which was later rebroadcasted on This American Life. In the story, Gladwell boasts about getting absurd phrases like "raises new and troubling questions" and "perverse and often baffling" into the Washington Post. At the time, being self-serious and high-minded &mdash I do after all listen to This American Life &mdash I wondered whether there wasn't something "perverse and often baffling" about one of the most successful journalists of our time making lite deception sound so endearing . Some people agreed with me, or at least wondered how a Canuck like Gladwell ended up on This American Life. Gladwell is back, not to defend himself for the charges of being Canadian, but to explain the story on his own blog: More »
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By rebeccaComment by the_coast_guard: A girl from my high school hooked up with Malcolm Gladwell at a party. She was still in high school,... more » | Other threads
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pinch and judy
Judy Miller's Lawyer Reveals Secret Pinch Party Plans
"Power lawyer" Bob Bennett (not to be confused with his gambling-addict moralizing Conservative pundit brother Bill, as we sometimes do) uses his memoir to pretend to be a half-Indian South-Central Blood who—no, sorry, he just uses it to trash New York Times editor Arthur Sulzberger, for not helping Bennett's defense of former Times star Judith Miller when she was under indictment for refusing to name which member of the Bush administration leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to the journo. You see, Pinch Sulzberger planned a big party for Judy the night she got out of jail! But Judy had to testify the next day, and attending a fancy party would perhaps be considered bad form. A short time later, Pinch and Bill Keller cut Judy loose (a couple years too late to save face for the paper). If that's the worst the anti-Pinch dirt gets, you are advised to skip the book. [NYDN] -
memoirs
Diablo Cody Is About To Diddle Another Doodle
Serious as a sizzler, the strapping stripper is beginning another autobio oh dear lord I can't even keep this up for one sentence. Diablo Cody's writing a second memoir, hopefully to get past the "hey look, the stripper wrote a book" phase of her life, which hadn't disappeared over the years but only became "hey look, the stripper wrote a movie." Good news, really, judging by Juno. I mean think about it: The first act is cloying and fake, but the rest is authentic and artistic. Either way, it should be a lot better than her Entertainment Weekly column.
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By Nick DouglasComment by ofsoundmind: Her movie could have been called "When Daria Got Knocked Up." more » | Other threads
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the written word
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Tori Spelling
Remember Tori Spelling? No, not the dead one! That's her bazillionaire TV mogul papa Aaron. Tori is his deformed daughter. Tori is (was?) an actress who played the virginal Donna Martin (who did, in fact, graduate) on daddy's hot show about cool teens in the hot, cool city Beverly Hills 90210 ("Nine-oh" for in-the-know fags and losers). She also had a glorious career in television movies, most famously in the best-titled movie ever made, Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? Well, that's all over now and she was cut her out of her dad's will, so she needs some cash! And what does that almost always mean for nonentity celebrities like Tori and Lance Bass? MEMOIR!!!! Yerp, Tori has written a tome of doubtless grandiloquence that will be hitting the shelves anon. Some selected passages after the jump. The most pleasing? When she says that "Nine-oh" (see?) costar Luke Perry called her "Camel" because of her long eyelashes. Right. That is why he called her camel. It had nothing to do with her looking exactly, in every way possible, like a camel. Oh, Tori. More »
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Comment by famousauthor: Didn't I see a recent picture of her face after plastic surgery. Doe she use the pseudonym "Wildenstein" ever?... more » | Other threads
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books
Heartland Meth Freaks, Your Drunk Uncle Penning Recovery Memoirs
Tales of misery and abuse abound in memoirs, and it's not over yet: the More »
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By SheilaComment by raincoaster: @rod: No, no, you've got it all wrong. Re-cast it as a "shadow syndrome" and write about the entire question... more » | Other threads
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fabulists
We Had No Idea War Zones Could Mess With The Memoirist's Mind
Tinker, tailor, soldier, fabulist alert! The credibility of A Long Way Gone, the bestselling Farrar, Strauss and Giroux memoir from child soldier Ishmael Beah has been called into question by an Australian couple. It seems Beah may have spent a mere three months—not two years—kidnapped, drugged, running for his life, and watching his friends and entire family be raped and hacked to death. The outrage! Listen here, Ishmael, there will be no getting mixed up, we don't care how much brown-brown they made you take or how heavy your AK-47 was. Our rules about memoirs are very serious. More » -
crazy opinions
Middle-Class Writers Should Just Shut Up!
Guardian writer Julie Burchill wants all middle-class writers to cease writing about their mildly disconcerting childhoods. "Another month, another sob-story; the embellished memories of some poor ickle depressed or alcoholic oofums...who feels a bit miserable and doesn't see any damn reason why the rest of us shouldn't suffer too....I'm referring to the endless stream of books regarding what I call Toytown Traumas; that is, sorrow which is either self-inflicted - drink, drugs, divorce - or which happens to so many of us as not to actually count as anything special: death of a loved one, loss of a job, divorce." She does have a point that it gets tiring reading of the problems of the privileged and reasonably privileged in precious memoir form. On the other hand, there goes Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu, Aciman's Out of Egypt and my forthcoming memoir, Growing Up In Suburbia Was Pretty Nice But Sometimes I Got Grounded. [Guardian]
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By Joshua SteinComment by raincoaster: @youreabigjessie: We are as one mind in this. I loathe her on a personal level, but damn if she can't... more » | Other threads
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no more wire hangers
Susanna Sonnenberg's Mom Sounds Cool, Scary
Susanna Sonnenberg is not only the daughter of Ben Sonnenberg, the editor of the now defunct literary journal Grand Street but also the granddaughter of Ben Sonnenberg, a poor boy from Russia who came to New York and hit it big in the PR business. She follows her family's tradition of writing memoirs that revel in the craziness that was life in the House of the Sonnenbergs. Her father published Lost Property: Memoirs & Confessions of a Bad Boy in 1991. Now Baby Sonnenberg published her own Glory Of it Allian memoir, Her Last Death, about her mother. She says she changed names "to emphasize that this story could only be mine" which doesn't make any sense. More »
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By Joshua SteinComment by Tweezergal: Susanna Sonnenberg has written a very absorbing memoir. And for those who are interested, Daphne, the mother in the book,... more » | Other threads
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cattiness
Oh noes! The gays are giving Lance Bass' memoir "Out of Synch" a bad review! Apparently the book is full of "ego-stroking and cattiness" and THEY DON'T LIKE THAT, the gays. (Um?) [After Elton] -
tragicomedies
Inside The Befuddled Mind Of Kristian Laliberte
It's only a matter of time before socialgay Kristian Laliberte writes his memoir, Give Me Laliberte or Give Me Girth. Until then, we'll have to make do with what scraps of Lalibertian reverie we can find. Now, someone at Guestofaguest took it upon themselves to talk to Laliberte for entirely too long. He does say some fascinating things; still, the ratio of things he says to the words he uses to say them is seriously off. So we've abridged! More »
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By Joshua SteinComment by josh speed: He totally didn't even answer that third question.Also: it's been far too long since he mentioned that Frederick Law Olmstead... more » | Other threads
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gawker book club
James Lipton's 'Inside Inside': A Reconsideration
We're halfway through our journey into "Inside the Actor's Studio" host James Lipton's new book, Inside Inside. Mostly so far we found ourselves cringing at the beginning of each chapter. Each started with an epigraph of such epic pretension! We could write a poem about it:
More »
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By Joshua SteinComment by PleasantVoice: James Lipton is a good story teller and at age 80 he has some good stories to tell. His classical... more » | Other threads
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publishing
Book Fair Abuzz About Dual Sucky Anony-Books
Hey, you're probably wondering right now about what's going on at the London Book Fair! Psych. But there is a hot topic over at that trade show: Namely, who are the anonymous agent and "internationally bestselling" author behind a pair of romans a clef entitled Ego and Greed that agent Ali Gunn, who's repping them, says are to the media world "what Primary Colors was to Capitol Hill." She also called Ego "Heart to Heart meets The Devil Wears Prada." Make it stop! But least one editor who's read the 30,000 word submission, which Gunn says she's guarding closely and only showing to a "select group of hand-picked editors," has way less glowing things to say about the book. More »
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By Emily GouldComment by iloveneville: i can't bear to think how boring an expose about the media world will be. agents don't really read submissions!... more » | Other threads
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memoirs
A Note To Memoirists About Time
Notable in the Times obit today: "The defining moment of Mr. Vonnegut's life was the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, by Allied forces in 1945.... His experience in Dresden was the basis of 'Slaughterhouse-Five,' which was published in 1969...." More »
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By ChoireComment by coffeeandtv: I believe he got his statistics from a history book he had access to at the time of the novel's... more » | Other threads
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memoirs
The Michael Hastings Memoir: Book Proposals Kill
On Friday at a little after 5 p.m., the New York Observer posted up a 131-page book proposal by Michael Hastings, a Newsweek Baghdad correspondent. The memoir is about his time overseas and the death of his fiance. The Observer post promptly disappeared. Besides the obvious copyright issues with making the whole shebang available, there was another reason mega-lit agent (and poet!) Andrew Wylie wanted the proposal disappeared from the internet: it was going to get people killed in Iraq. More » -
publicity
Sandwich Pitchman Joins Ranks of Rousseau, Didion, Other Classic Memoirists
We got an e-mail from a publicist the other day asking if we'd be interested in spending some time with Jared Fogle, better known as "the Subway guy," in advance of his Rockefeller Center promotion for his new book. (You'd be surprised at what kind of crap publicists think we're interested in; surprised and depressed.) We passed, being pretty much busy whatever day it was happening, but WNYC's Leonard Lopate had fewer reservations. Turns out his instincts were right; Jared makes some shocking revelations. Of course, we could have figured that out had we just taken a look at the cover. More » -
advertising
Adman Makes Fearless And Searching Moral Inventory Of Tequiza Campaign
AdRants points us to the blog of Dieste Harmel & Partners' Creative Director Mack Simpson, who has made a horrifying discovery about himself: He's responsible for Koren Zailckas' alcoholism. Turns out Mack was responsible for the campaign behind Tequiza, a beer/tequila product that inexplicably still exists. A friend of his showed him this passage from Zailckas' best-selling memoir Pretty Girl Drank a Lot: More »
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By abalk2Comment by doom brunch: Coren should've pulled a James Frey with Smashed, then maybe I would've finished it. more » | Other threads
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gossip
Bad News for Jared Paul Stern
So just how well are those gossip-biz inspired memoirs and novels selling? For the most part, things look bleak — save for MSNBC quasi-gossip Jeanette Walls. The lesson learned: if you're willing to sell out your parents as dumpster divers, you're golden. More »
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By JessicaComment by raincoaster: Yeah, Jeannette's great. I love how she disinvited her parents to her wedding because they "wouldn't fit in." Kicky! Fun! more » | Other threads
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top
Exclusive: Jared Paul Stern's Book Proposal, Ghostwritten by Sammy "the Bull" Gravano
Because the world simply cannot have enough gossip industry-inspired novels and memoirs and no one in their right mind could ever tire of a man who dresses like the seersuckered incarnation of Mr. Peanut, we happily present the proposal for former Page Sixer and accused extortionist Jared Paul Stern's memoir. Luckily, we've snorted enough adderall today to happily transcribe most of the godforsaken hard copy, just so that we might share its hilarity with the world. The working title is Stern Measures (of COURSE), and if Mickey Spillane hadn't died, surely this would've killed him:
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clips
When Writers Turn to Self-Promotion, Nobody Wins
Memoirist Toby Young, eager to capitalize on that whole viral video thing, seems to have posted a "book signing gone wrong" video on YouTube to promote his second title, The Sound of No Hands Clapping. We're not poo-pooing the man's attempt to self-promote online; we're just a little disappointed that he wrote a fucking sketch (of the predictable "everyone hates me" theme, no less) and put it out there as if it were a video of an actual incident. And we're disappointed in ourselves for picking it up and sharing it. More »
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By JessicaComment by grandenchilada: This is why I do all my selfpromotion through the comments section at this here site. more » | Other threads
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real estate
Remainders: Lachlan Sells 11 Spring Street
• Lachlan Murdoch sells 11 Spring Street for an undisclosed sum. That's it. He's gone. And so the dream of carrying his baby in our waiting womb dies. [The Real Estate] More » -
models
But Can a Homeless Model Sell iPods?
We simply can't look away from tragiumphant Isobella Jade, the bewitching ragamuffin who has been living out of a suitcase and working herself as a succesful 5'2" model. FishbowlNY first discovered Isobella's genius when she pitched her memoir in an email written completely in the third person; her story focuses on her rise to vagrancy and was written entirely while in the Soho Apple Store, the office of choice for many an itinerant genius. More »
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By JessicaComment by Louie Freeman: Agree with you pseudopsych, she looks like Amanda LePore in embryonic form more » | Other threads
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apple
More Wisdom From the Tragically Short Model
FishbowlNY introduced us yesterday to "perhaps the most successful model in nyc under the height of 5'4," Isobella Jadeco, a successful-yet-homeless young woman pitching her life story, in the third person, as entirely composed in the Soho Apple Store. They've followed up with a brief interview, in which we learn that Isobella was actually a successful nude model (there's the catch). Also, she admits that she may have misrepresented herself: More » -
models
Homeless Model Overcomes Her Woefully Inadequate Stature
The sexy/hungry young lady at right is Isobella Jadeco, a homeless jane-of-all-trades who, despite her vertically challenged lot in life, has become "perhaps the most successful model in nyc under the height of 5'4." But for all of her petite success, Jadeco is living out of a suitcase and trying to pitch her memoir, composed entirely in the Soho Apple Store. She pitches FishbowlNY in the third person: More »
memoirs
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