<![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever - Gawker Comments]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever - Gawker Comments]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> The man really could and should afford ghost writers if he insists upon telling his story.

mikaloyd

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> (You can catch the latter on CUNY TV every Thursday in French without subtitles.)

Seeräuber Jenny

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @shesaidwhat:
Oh, I think they're more than caricatures, and most people don't get to highbrow from lowbrow without passing through middlebrow first.

It's not like most of his readers will say: "Oh, my God, that Donne, so trite." He should have quoted instead "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning."

And the shows hosted by Bernard Pivot that he pays homage to, Apostrophes and Bouillon de Culture, are truly intellectual talking-head shows in which the guests are authors discussing serious books. (You can the latter on CUNY TV every Thursday in French without subtitles.) An American equivalent is unthinkable. Americans only want actors.

Come to think of it, Anthony Hopkins is on Monday; I've set my recorder.


Seeräuber Jenny

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> I used to work in a bookstore and there was a very odd book called An Exaltation of Larks and the whole thing was the proper-yet-made-up-sounding names for different groups of animals and things. The oddly entertaining book was by one Mr. James Lipton, years before he graced our A&E airwaves. His pomposity was PERFECT for that book, I think he may have even created a few new group headings...hey, as Mr. Gershwin so aptly put it - "Nice work if you can get it..."

John5th

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @Seeräuber Jenny: People like James Lipton (and Tim Gunn as well, while I'm at it) are popular images of "highbrow" and "professorly" because they are really just caricatures: intellectual-manques full of hackneyed, middlebrow commonplaces. They aren't going to challenge anyone's preconceived ideas or make anyone feel uncomfortable... unless you are put off by pomposity.

shesaidwhat

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> I really, really need to remember not to be drinking anything when I click on these jump links.

Twatwaffles, Teen Witch, and Labyrinth references - Oh MY!

jennaddenda

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @Catfish_Jones: I'm thinking it should be someone with Boris Karloff's voice as in the Grinch.

Queen of the Passive Aggressives

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @GeorgeBabbitt: I thought we already did.

RollsRoycehead-on

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @TheBigDoggy: I nominate Leonard Cohen.
On Xanax.


Products Will Save Me

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @I DON'T GET IT: Yes, but what does this have to do with Kevin Bacon?

ginger rant

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> I propose that we enlist Robin Williams' Alladin character to do the reading on the AudioBook.

TheBigDoggy

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @etconsumimurigni: Funny; I was just thinking how great Jackie Harvey's review of this would be.

queensissy

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> You know what, though? I think he knows that he's perceived as a pompous asshole, and plays to that. In any case, in certain extreme instances of pomposity, the unbearable nature of a person rolls back around and they become totally great. I think he's entertaining by this reasoning. It's the Chuck Norris/Flava Flav Effect. They actually become cool by virtue of how awful they are. Although, they have both ruined their new cool by overcapitalizing on it. So, there's that.

zachmuhn

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> i had this fantasy once about being on that damn show. when asked what my favorite word was, i would reply 'spanghew: to cause a frog or toad to go flying through the air'. he would then freak out, saying things like 'that ain't no word', 'bitch, this is MY show. don't come on MY show making shit up.' it ended in the bloody and complete destruction of The New School and parts of NYU.

redscorpse

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> Yup. He's finally gone & killed all his AD-derived good will.

DorothyMantooth

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @joshuadavidstein1: @concerned citizen:

Thanks--but, once Concerned Citizen explained it to me, it all made sense.

atipofthehat

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> As tempted am I to quote the vicious bitchery that is Capote's "That's not writing, that's typing", I realized Lipton probably cannot type so I will amend it to "That's not writing".

Little Mintz Sunshine

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @tammyfey:

He's no Stranger to French; he speaks it quite well, from what I understand. The French gave him a medal.

I've always liked his support of the French journalist Bernard Pivot, whom he always credits for the use of the adapted Proust Questionnaire at the end.

So he's an insipid incipit collector? I can't help it, I like the guy for some reason, although admittedly the excerpts from his book are not inspiring.

The world is divided into two groups; the first considers all those references unbearable clichés (which they are); the second has never heard of them and thinks people in the first group are pretentious show-offs.

Like it or not, many of his fans are probably in the second group.

Seeräuber Jenny

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> It calls to mind that character played by Damon Wayans on "In Living Color" back in the day, who would make up for his desire to sound intellectual despite all vocabulary shortcomings by speaking in a five-precenter's deliberate over-enunciation and peppering his points with words like "breastification" and "testicularity".

Chaim Gnadelstein

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @sexbot: Right? I'm pretty sure April may be the cruelest month to Eliot, but to me it's the kindest, with the portents of spring, which is crammed with beginnings is exactly what a creative writing undergrad would distract you with as he tries to hide the fact he's slipping a roofie in the drink he didn't buy you from behind the shield of his tattered (yet surprisingly empty) moleskine.

gwai lo

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @atipofthehat: Stein and fixed!

Joshua Stein

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> "Scrumtrulescent..."

cinema13

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @atipofthehat: Yeat is Lipton's Korean houseboy, whose diary Lipton surreptitiously reads and mines for literary gems.
New Years Ever is the holiday Lipton invented and celebrates alone; he doesn't believe in individual years being rung in by way of trite countdown, but rather the beautiful flowing of one glorious jumble of months into the next.


Products Will Save Me

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @tammyfey: The singular poet.

Joshua Stein

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @Carol Gardens:

Lipton made himself the same promise!

City_Dater

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @Itsjustcatnip: Chaucer: The OG of LOLcat speak?

Clare

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @josh speed: I was wondering if Will Ferrell would be doing the audio book. Because that would be awesome.

sarrible

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> Re: the comment from Pope John Peeps II...

You referred to James Lipton as an actor...

He actually ACTS like and actor!!!!

skateebee

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> I think this was ghostwritten by Mordecai Stein.

dotorg greg

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> The Rat At: Try this one: [www.youtube.com]
"Tell us about 'The Santa Clause 3'."


magneticfields

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> I made myself a promise that I would not begin this book.

Carol Gardens

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> Who is Yeat, and what is New Year's Ever?

Josh or Lipton?

atipofthehat

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @I DON'T GET IT: Like a young Jennifer Connelly, you have solved my Labyrinth.

TheHonJudgeSmails

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> my, my, it appears james lipton is the pikachu of the literary world.

boo is golden

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @TheHonJudgeSmails: Love the video. Seemed a bit out of place in this particular post at first but now I've worked it out ...

Louise is played by Robyn Lively, sister to Blake Lively who appeared in Accepted with Justin Long, who is dating Drew Barrymore, god daughter of Anna Strasburg, 2nd wife of Lee Strasberg, founder of THE ACTOR'S STUDIO of which, Mr. Lipton is inside.

Absolutely brilliant.

I Don't Get It

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @City_Dater: ha!

Dictionary definition: Check.

Greatest hits of first lines (he left out Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice [Freudian repression?]"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.") but other than that: Check.

Irrelevant autobiographical information: Check.

Yes, this may be the most hackneyed introduction that has ever been written.

I think he has taken advice from an undergraduate student on how to fill the page limit without actually saying anything about the topic. Josh: is the font extra large and are the margins really wide?

shesaidwhat

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @fivehole: You just ruined so many childhoods.

TheHonJudgeSmails

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @collegecallgirl: TEASE!

TheHonJudgeSmails

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> I hear it read in the voice of J. Peterman...

whiskeybaby

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @narnio: You are wise.

HookerfaceAnon

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> You know, this intro bespeaks the true value of a good editor. Lipton's original intro read: 'My name is Rhoda Morgenstern. I was born in the Bronx, NY, December 1941. I've always felt responsible for World War II.'

GothamTomato

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @TheHonJudgeSmails: i used to love watching that movie until the cold, stark truth about blondes, jocks, and nerds hit me full in the face when i found out Brad married Randa in the end.

fivehole

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> "And so we begin, here at the beginning, which seems as good as place as any to begin the beginning. So, in our beginning, we begin."

GorgeousGeorge

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> I'm crying into my MFA student loan bills right now.

SisterStevie

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> and i hope he has an entire chapter dedicated to that BULLSHIT j-lo interview called "no, jennifer, we don't know what you mean"

ellagood

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> it's all written on blue index cards, right?

ellagood

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> Far as I can tell from Amazon there's no audiobook as yet. If there was we'd be talking about worse stuff than seizures. So worse, probably, that if John Edwards got back into torts the day after Obama got Veeped, he'd probably make enough to finance three campaigns. And Sexbot...Lipton in the title role, in the remake of Mr Goodbar. Sounds boffo in a kinda sick way. Problem is, only Chappelle in drag would work in the Diane Keaton part. Oh, all right, maybe Screech.

Catfish_Jones

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @HookerfaceAnon: reality television.

narnio

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> His reflections on the seasons read like the thinking man's Jean Teasdale.

etconsumimurigni

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> "I find that I am most fickle in my selection of favourite seasons, of which I have two, betwixt which I pendulate hither and thither... hither and thither..."

Products Will Save Me

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> I'm confused as why SO MANY people feel the need to write excessively long memoirs. Like anyone gives a fuck how James Lipton feels about Memorial Day v. Labor Day.

Enough with the creative non-fiction/memoir/masabatory ramblings: come up with an original idea and write a novel of reasonable legth. THANK YOU.

HookerfaceAnon

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @joshuadavidstein1: Also, who's Yeat?

tammyfey

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> Trees perished for this kack. Will Ferrell's portrayal of Lipton is more complex and nuanced than Lipton's own self-portrayal. Is he being paid by the word? Or has a 'friend' dared him to see how many tedious old saws and hackneyed cliches he could jam up in there?

josh speed

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @Titania: Thanks. It's fixed. Effectionately, JDS

Joshua Stein

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> Let me give you all the abridged version of this autobiography.

Mother died today. A screaming comes across the sky.I am an invisible man.The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo. They shoot the white girl first.It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. Reader, I married him.

It was easy.

SarahHeartburn

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> One time about ten years ago I saw him at a bodega...buying CRUMPETS.

Johnny_boy

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> Crammed with beginnings indeed.

Products Will Save Me

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> Yes, Frasier without the funny. You can just hear the pretentious droll cadence of his twatwaffle voice when you read this drivel.

Aatom

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> How much colde I cere? Nawt so mch aktully!

Itsjustcatnip

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @TheHonJudgeSmails:

You know, I wish you saw more of me than just brains.

collegecallgirl

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> I feel like this is the type of shit someone says to you at a bar in the hours before they drug and rape you.

sexbot

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @Titania: I didn't want to mention it.

TheHonJudgeSmails

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> Okay, I hate to do it, but the same English major in me that's cringing at his prose is also going a little green at the "effect/affect" mixup.

Titania

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> "I confess to unbridled admiration for the blunt simplicity of 'All the Whos down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot'; the instant dramatic engagement of 'Don't call it a comeback. I been here for years, rockin my peers and puttin suckas in fear'; the stately opening chords of Michael Bolton's 'How Am I Supposed to Live Without You', which greet us not with a full orchestra but with a Casio-esque melange of synthesizer, as if the boat had left the dock without us, and we had no choice but to jump in and swim after it, like a hopeful boat passenger who had been left on the dock with no choice but to swim after the boat...."

Please tell me he at least ends the book with that "What's Your Favorite Swear Word" quiz.

Muzzy van Hossmere

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @collegecallgirl: This [www.youtube.com] makes me very, VERY happy.

TheHonJudgeSmails

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> I've found the only memoirs worth reading are those written by gay, alcoholic ad execs. But then I've never professed to reading great works of literary genius.

mcginstein

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> "James Lipton died today. Or maybe yesterday. I don't know."

tammyfey

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> Can he write? You decide! Turn to page 68 if you like his sentence structure! Turn to page 32 if you think he drops random literary references for no reason (or does he? 72!) Turn to page 11 if you think Stacey should chase the stranger down the alley!

narnio

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> I'd rather read John Fitzgerald Page's memoirs.

GeorgeBabbitt

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @TheHonJudgeSmails:

I think I just fell in love with you. I used to pretend to be sick when Teen Witch was going to be on just so I could stay home from school and watch it.

collegecallgirl

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> James Lipton has not read beyond the first line of any book published.

Which is only fair, since no one is going to read his book at all.

City_Dater

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> James Lipton just showed up to teche Gawker that Chaucer is actually in Middle English. Then he proceeded to pass around naked snapshots of his hot-ass wife.

naboo

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> October makes me melancholy as the fear of ghosts and goblins appearing at my door, begging for candy like welfare recipients begging for government cheese, means that winter is slithering in on it's cold, bloodless stomach.

And my favorite curse is, "May the fleas of a thousand camels eat your manly bits."

gonzosmom

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> i'd rather read the phone book.

far-far

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> This is the only moment of James Lipton's life which I'd like to remember:

[www.youtube.com]

the rat

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> If it's a great actor - it's a good show. If it's a favor for a PR rep it's worse than a root canal without novacaine.

Queen of the Passive Aggressives

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @Koala325:
Ack, loser. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary


koala325

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @PandoraSpocks: Louise Miller from the epic 1989 drama "Teen Witch," however, could Top That.

TheHonJudgeSmails

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> WHAT! He fucking stole the paper I wrote freshman year at Oberlin for a course titled Dramatic Post-Non-Representational Reinterpretations of Chaucer, Tom Wolfe, Frank Zappa and Rent, which I wrote while holed up under my loft bed while on Quaaludes and acid after not having done any of the reading!

far-far

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> That's not really part of the book ... is it?

Tippy and Bad Girl

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> Be well, Josh. You're a brave man for tackling this tome, which Merrimam-Webster's Collegiate Dictinary defines as a "cutting instrument." Oh yeah, and "book."

koala325

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> @TheHonJudgeSmails: I can't top that.

PandoraSpocks

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> Holy hell..did we just discover who NTJ really is?

BalknChain

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> I'm gonna come right out and say it: Lipton is an arrogant sack of shit and he's not even a little bit funny!

Memoirs suck! (Except yours, David! xo)

Rossini

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> These passages seriously sounds like a LiveJournal entry, which is something I recommend for him.

The thing about personal blogging, which is what this feels like, is that you are able to vomit out each and every thought, mind ramble and inane personal cough with little to no personal censor and with no editor. It's your thoughts, your words... voila!

But this is supposed to be a book. Something for public consumption, not for your fellow Harry Potter fanatics. You are SUPPOSED to have an editor. Someone to rein you in. Just reading this little bit, I now fully understand what people say about wanting to stab yourself in the eye with a spork. I so get it now.

The Real JR

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> ...as if the boat had left the dock without us, and we had no choice but to jump in and swim after it.... I never realized that this Lipton was affiliated with the Boston Tea Party. How enlightening!

ascot-revival

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> How fabulous! This is the perfect holiday gift for people I dislike but am obligated to add to my gift list. It surely must induce seizures.

NYM

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> I'd rather have my fingernails pulled out by Maoists guerrillas than read more if this.

NinaHagen

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> When is he gonna kiss the manny already?

collegecallgirl

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> Is that forealz? Sounds like a bad Frasier Crane impression.

tammyfey

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> "what are two places James Lipton has never been with a woman?"

stew

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> How trenchant. Not to be confused with trench mouth, which perfectly sums up his prose.

miss_msry

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> But enough about me. What do you think of my book?

KarenUhOh

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> It always amuses me how actors think they can write. I swear to God, the Fringe Festival in my city is a non-stop humour factory for me.

Pope John Peeps II

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> Can books induce seizures?

nonce

]]> <![CDATA[James Lipton's Memoir May Be The Worst Thing Ever]]> And gladly wolde he suck and gladly douche.

TheHonJudgeSmails

]]>