Doggy Bag: Today's Odds and Ends
Our favorite morsel from the food blogs.
More ghetto than gourmet: Like a hotel guest pressing a minibar glass to the wall to catch the shouting, Eater listens in on a most uncivil exchange regarding Alice Waters' 2007 authorized bio, Alice Waters and Chez Panisse, by Thomas McNamee. Turns out blogger The Gurgling Cod thinks McNamee soft-balled the lady behind the Delicious Revolution, and as a result, gives us "Alice" (the smilingly aloof cipher) rather than Waters herself, warts, alleged excesses, inability to bring her own teensy family around the table (while lecturing all of America to do so), and all. (Well, the book was made with Alice's active participation.) Here's Cod:
Ultimately, the fawning approach of this book does its subject a disservice. It would be hard to name a single restaurant more significant to the history of 20th century American dining, and Water's endurance through a variety of roles and contexts is remarkable. By giving us the icon, rather than an individual, MacNamee [sic] relegates Waters's very real achievements to the realm of mythology.An arguable point -- one that McNamee slaps down like an interstate trucker with a meth-stoked case of road rage: "Let me say it again in case you didn't get it the first time, since you apparently have a hard time understanding English, and I'll put it simply enough for you to understand: You are a fucking idiot." Ahem -- may we submit our own take on McNamee's bio (it's from the East Bay Express, 3/21/07), which is remarkably similar to The Gurgling Cod's?
Um, Thomas? Would you mind adding "sir" to the part where you call us a fucking idiot? Classier that way.
7 comment(s) / Post a Comment
I embrace you, albeit clumsily, due to my fins.
Posted On: Wednesday, Sep. 30 2009 @ 7:07PMWhat is this, some sort of band of morons with pitchforks, none of whom is able to understand that my book is not a suck piece? that in fact, vividly available to the perspicacious reader--a type of whom there have been a great many--I have shown Alice to be as YOU see her, manipulative, self-aggrandizing, media-hungry? How is it that you are unable to understand this in my book? Is the only thing that you would understand something like ALICE WATERS IS A MANIPULATIVE, SELF-AGGRANDIZING BITCH? Is that how you think things get moved forward in the real world? Do you sit up in the top of redwood trees too? Please, whoever you are--I do not know to whom I'm writing this--I do seriously urge you to take some time to reflect on how real change is really effected in this world. My "take" on Alice--which you've apparently continued to miss entirely--is the sort of understanding that does move things forward: She's human, she's famous, she's influential, she's manipulative, she's getting a lot done, you may not like her, I may not like her, but this is how it works, folks, like it or not, this is how it works. It's vulgar, it's oversimplified, it's mediagenic, it's democracy. It's not how Berkeley's tastemaking morality-making oligogracy would wish it to be. It's merely human nature. Alas, at its nearly-best. Yeah, oh, and, sir, or madam, or mademoiselle, fuck you and the Prius you rode in on.
Posted On: Wednesday, Sep. 30 2009 @ 8:48PM"How is it that [they are] unable to understand this in [your] book?" the problem these days is the ease of publishing, via giveaway newspapers and blogs, writing primarily motivated by an unbridled need for ego-expression. The detractors of your book, Tom, read the same way as they write. Their minds are not open; they read with a desire for corroboration -- validation, even --of their own already-formed attitudes. They're the Glen Becks of the book world. We can only ignore these folks, while privately regretting the considerable damage they're capabble of inflicting.
--Prius Charles
Posted On: Thursday, Oct. 1 2009 @ 8:34AMThank you, Mr. Shere. You're perfectly right that the internet allows the publication of the lowest of all denominators. Nevertheless I should apologize to all for the intemperateness of my language last night. I confess: I was a little drunk. Not saying what I said wasn't true. Just maybe I ought to have been a little more polite. I mean, like, cervelle oblige, n'est-ce pas?
Posted On: Thursday, Oct. 1 2009 @ 8:40PMApologies for my misspelling, above, though I must say I'm delighted with the result: "capabble" represents their capable babble…
Posted On: Friday, Oct. 2 2009 @ 4:10PMWell, print allows for the publication of Dan Brown's approximation of dialogue, so I would tread lightly when tarnishing the Internet with talk of "the lowest of all denominators."
Also, another danger in Posting Under the Influence is that you sometimes write things like:
"Please, whoever you are--I do not know to whom I'm writing this--"
...when the name of the post's author, John Birdsall, is right there at the top of the post.
Also, another danger in Posting Under the Influence is that you sometimes try to explain yourself to people you've just accused of being too stupid to understand you.
Lisa: a "suck piece" is a story that performs for its subject something akin to fellatio - the implication being that the author is seeking to pleasure the story's subject by portraying him or her in a flattering light.
Posted On: Monday, Oct. 5 2009 @ 1:39PM
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