«
»

Readers Write: “Jennifer Weiner… Smells”

jw

…in every sense of the word. In her latest blog posting, February 25, our favorite chick lit author sadly notes that “Last week, my neighborhood coffee shop closed.” Why is this so particularly disruptive for her and her fans? Well,

“The coffee shop was where I worked, five days a week, usually from one in the afternoon until five. I’ve been going there for years. I’d wait until the lunch rush was ending, then take a table by the window, convenient to a power outlet, and plug in my laptop, and sit with my salad, or my gigante cup of lemon tea, and write. Over the years, I’ve gotten to know all of the baristas, and most of the homeless people, who I could eventually identify by smell alone. It was my office…my home away from home.”

That’s right, multi-millionaire Jennifer Weiner likes to make the funny about how homeless people smell. Weirdly, the olfactory fixation doesn’t stop there:

“Why not just write at home? Technically, I could – there’s an office here and everything. But the office is where my assistant works…. the truth is, if I’m home the kids can smell me….[describing unsuitable nearby substitutes] There was the place that’s always too crowded. The place that’s mysteriously empty. And that’s not even getting into Coffee Shop with Weird Smell.”

Weiner winds up with some comforting words for her fans: she has found a new place to write in the meantime.

Her closet (Photo helpfully included).

“The closet came complete with a lighted mirror and a little vanity where I think I’m meant to comb my hair and put on my face cream at night. But now I’m writing here.”

No word yet on whether the face cream smells.

Thanks for the nose news, neighbor! Mostly, though, we’re just kind of cracking up that this lovely “neighborhood coffee shop” that Weiner so lovingly describes was, in fact, a fucking Cosi. Sigh.
A Moment Of Jen: X’s And O’s
Previously: Everybody Shut Up! Mindy Cohn Jennifer Weiner Has Something To Say About The Future Of Newspapers!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 1:27 pm.

  • Allan Smithee

    HaHa!

    Cosi, a place I never go cause…

    They All Have A Terrible Stink About ‘Em!

    Um, seriously.

  • ride1076

    Are you sure that isn’t actually a photo of Mindy Cohn this time? I’m serious.

  • t-train

    http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MODERN/GENEAL.HTM#NT3SRC

    The revolt of the slave in morals begins in the very principle of ressentiment becoming creative and giving birth to values —- a ressentiment experienced by creatures who, deprived as they are of the proper outlet of action are forced to find their compensation in an imaginary revenge. While every aristocratic morality springs from a triumphant affirmation of its own demands, the slave morality says “no” from the very outset to what is “outside itself,” “different from itself,” and “not itself”; and this “no” is its creative deed.

  • http://bostodelphia.blogspot.com C. The Impaler

    Hard to tell whether t-train is seriously trying 1.) to equate either Weiner or the homeless to the Nietzschean
    “ressentiment” (btw memo from your comp lit prof: “haters” is not an appropriate final paper topic for the seminar, see me in office) 2.) claiming “ressentiment” is applicable to some zeitgeist component of the blogosphere’s evolution or 3.) is bonging it up early, camped outside Riverview waiting for the midnight premier of Watchmen later this week.

  • t-train

    Oh no, not targetting Weiner at all.

    Just trying to say that the tone of Philebrity’s vendetta against her doesn’t reflect well upon the site.

    My fault for the ambiguity.

    Funny about the reference to Watchmen, it was Alan Moore’s Miracleman that first lured me to Nietzsche.
    http://www.popmatters.com/comics/miracleman-book1.shtml

    “Behold! I teach you the Superman: he is this lightning; he is this madness! Pass the motherf*cking bong!”

    http://au.encarta.msn.com/sidebar_781540081/thus_spoke_zarathustra_by_friedrich_nietzsche.html

  • Allan Smithee

    Fiction:

    Wiggle Room by David Foster Wallace (excerpt from a chunk of the novel he left unfinished when he died)

    http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/03/09/090309fi_fiction_wallace?currentPage=all

  • http://bostodelphia.blogspot.com C. The Impaler

    @t-train, gotcha, though I think you’re elevating philebrity’s hating on weiner a bit much with the genealogy of morals. IIRC, ressentiment can be a pretty dangerous cultural force, the “weiner beat” on Philebrity is a bit petty. I for one, wouldn’t even know this woman existed had it not been for Philebs. I think it’s schoolyard, not Nietzschean, logic that tells you whinging about your target in this sort of fashion does little but further legitimize the target.

    See you in the parking lot once your smoke clears.

  • tips

    @ t-train and CTI: Respectfully, gentlemen, I think you’re both wrong. The Hating On Jennifer Weiner Beat was something in existence long before Philebrity was even in existence. We merely picked it up and ran with it. And, not to toot our own horn, but I think we’ve done some of the best work in the field. But I must take issue with CTI’s charge: Our coverage of Weiner could not “legitimize” Weiner’s work — trust us, nothing could — but rather elevates her as a totem of stuff lots and lots of people hate: The suburbification of the city, the culture of lowered expectations that defines chick lit, and so on. If neither of you were familiar with this meme before we started writing about it, well, that is your own good luck, and nothing more.

    And t-train, please don’t bogart. It’s a snow day.

  • lord_whimsy

    The more you guys post about how this Weiner person and how she says all the wrong things, writes all the wrong words, and frequents all the wrong places, the more I want to collaborate on a book with her. Penning shameless confectionery with the likes of Weiner would probably be a lot more fun than plinking out priggish grad school treacle with one of those smug arbiters of “correct” taste at McSweeney’s.

  • t-train

    Dudes: “All of life is a dispute over taste and tasting.”

    http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/perm.php?c=36&q=10

  • Allan Smithee

    re: Penning shameless confectionery with the likes of Weiner would probably be a lot more fun than plinking out priggish grad school treacle with one of those smug arbiters of “correct” taste at McSweeney’s.

    Yeah, except we know that the coffee won’t be as good.