Well, hey there.

[constance]

I spent so much time reading up on the James Frey scandal* this morning that I left myself with half an hour to take the dog out, feed everyone, clean out the litterbox, bathe, and get dressed; and I was in such a rush drying off after my bath (and let's not forget, here, my self-proclaimed status as The Clumsiest Person in the World) that I hit a shelf holding a votive candle, the thing came down into the cast-iron tub and smashed into a hundred pieces, one largish of which I stepped on while trying to regain my balance, and after slapping some suture tape, a couple of band-aids, and a gauze pad on the cuts on my foot, I just went on with my attempt not to be late to work and made it in somehow.

Except man, my foot hurts. Also I am afraid to remove the band-aids because there's blood everywhere and have I mentioned I am a big baby?

__________
* I just heard about it this morning, but don't worry, people-you-know-who-you-are, I'm not going to philosophize. After mulling it over for most of the day, this is what I've decided: I had a middlingly low opinion of Frey's thoroughly unappealing-to-me writing before I heard about this, and my opinion hasn't really changed now that I know that A Million Little Pieces is a work of fiction.

And that, said John, is that.

Comments

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

Philosophize away if you want--so long as you don't pretend it's OMG SHOCKING! or completely unprecedented. :-) I never heard of James Frey at all before any of this, I must be in a bubble of some sort.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, I'm all done! :D I've never been one of those people who thinks a story's more valuable if it's true, anyway, so it seems hypocritical of me to care too much about any of this.

I only know about Frey because it's impossible not to know all about any book mentioned on Oprah, if you work in a bookstore.

[sister-liz.livejournal.com]

oh god, yes. James Frey, Phil McGraw and the people who wrote that appalling book, He's just not that into you are the unholy trinity that haunt my days and nights.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

You know who I really consider to be unholy? The people who have no curosity about books, who come in and buy something just because they know that some TV star thought they ought to read it. I don't even so much mind the people who call and say, okay, Oprah talked about this book and it sounds really interesting, so can I get a copy? Because even if there are tons of things in the store that would probably suit them just as well (if not better), they do at least think the book sounded like something they could read. It's the people who walk into the store and want to see one of Oprah's books, any of them will do, really, who make me crazy. I mean, WTF. Who are they trying to kid? Those randomly-chosen books that have nothing to do with their interests are never going to get read, and they're missing out on the books that might actually engage them just because they lack the intelligence or imagination or whatever you want to call it that would encourage them to branch out and try something on their own.

I may not especially like McGraw and Frey and Perricone and Behrendt or whatever his name is, but I save my real contempt for these people.

Er, okay, sorry for ranting, will shut up now. :D