you can listen to portishead's dummy any time you want

This is the funniest thing I've seen today, possibly ever

I think so (personnel changes). Right around what felt like the big shift they took Beckie S off the teaching beat and the main Advice editor was transferred out of that section. I'm guessing there were upstream changes in management around that same time? But don't know.

Noppppe

Yeah I've been hearing this all over. I've been too distracted to try anything myself, but heard this from like a dozen folks. Not just more left-leaning but also more center-folks and HUGE names (not that that should matter, just striking), ghosted. And all the HE-hate. I don't even read mostly.

Omigod, this is the most heartwarming story possible! Backpack (bear 89) is the son of the 2019 winner of Fat Bear Week, Holly (bear 435). In 2007, he injured his foot & a practice of riding on momma's Holly's back had a new meaning: he was mobility-restricted while it healed. So Holly moved him.

Yeah I've seen better photos of you for sure. It doesn't convey your snarky fun.

nothing quite like that feeling when your favorite people get the recognition they deserve 👏👏👏 Congrats Jessamyn!

Such a great event! The lunch after was buzzing with ideas.

I didn't mean that his work was solipsistic - I admitted the skill and gripping reading. The characters were fully drawn and all so different from each other. But in a way that complexity made the contempt worse - he fully saw them, and still found them contemptible.

I did wonder if Corrections was an extreme in this case... one of the best (and most encouraging) things about writing is that we do tend to improve over time. And as much as he still comes across as obnoxious in this interview, you can tell he has also done a lot of self-reflection over the years.

Seems neither would I: "Cheuse of NPR found the novel "[brilliant]" but not enjoyable..."every line, every insight, seems covered with a light film of disdain. Franzen seems never to have met a normal, decent, struggling human being whom he didn't want to make us feel ever so slightly superior to."

He likes to edit his speech as he goes along: “strike that word!” he orders at one point, and “this needs to be underlined”. When he loses his thread he announces, grandly, “you can redirect." Grandly, lol. You can tell the interviewer found him insufferable as well.

but felt that every sentence dripped with contempt for his characters, the same contempt he projects to <gestures to tv, social media, "chick lit," the whole universe that isn't him and his direct concerns>. Not my cuppa tea.

Sure. But for me his insufferability affects his writing too, though I must admit I only read (and loathed) The Corrections. I found it a gripping read and could appreciate his skill as a writer...