Comments on: Readers Write: “Jennifer Weiner… Smells”

By: Allan Smithee

Allan Smithee — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:01:46 +0000

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.

By: t-train

t-train — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:12:19 +0000

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

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

By: lord_whimsy

lord_whimsy — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:03:51 +0000

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.

By: tips

tips — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:03:40 +0000

@ 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.

By: C. The Impaler

C. The Impaler — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:47:00 +0000

@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.

By: Allan Smithee

Allan Smithee — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:09:56 +0000

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

By: t-train

t-train — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:08:38 +0000

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

By: C. The Impaler

C. The Impaler — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:48:50 +0000

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.

By: t-train

t-train — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:27:58 +0000

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.

By: ride1076

ride1076 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:51:23 +0000

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