The Telling Room by Michael Paterniti

BUY THE BOOK OR YOU'RE SO FUCKING UNCOOL!

http://www.amazon.com/The-Telling-Room-Betrayal-Greatest/dp/0385337000

OMG! YOU HAVE TO BUY THIS BOOK BECAUSE JANET MASLIN'S REVIEW IS SO FUCKING GODAWFUL AND IF YOU DON'T BUY IT TO PROVE HOW BIG OF AN IDIOT SHE IS THAN YOU'RE JUST AS BIG OF AN IDIOT AS SHE IS!

Jesus H. Christ.

 

I spent most of the afternoon reading Wright Thompson's tweets about the review. Better than this, of course.

 

It was a cabal of tweeters. And no, they were not better. Add 'em all up and that's what you got.

 

Ever consider unfollowing this cabal?

 

Cheap entertainment.

I get their point but harping on it for 12 hours was a bit overkill and but a bit I mean STFU already. Stop pimping a book that even a SECOND Times reviewer wrote is too puffed up for its own good.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/books/review/michael-paternitis-telling-room.html?pagewanted=all

Didn't exactly see the cabal raging against him. They did, however, help to artificially inflate the book on Amazon from 235 at the start of yesterday (I believe one of them wrote) to 85 or so -- so Paterniti has that going for him.

 

You could always take it up with these assholes on Twitter instead starting another whiny thread here.

 

Like the Mencken of yore, I comment on the social scene here.

 

Join in on the tweetfest. Maybe you will get invited to the next roundtable.

 

So you're upset that people can use Twitter in a more influential way than the New York Times can use a book review?

 

Influence through petulance.

 

Funny .. I just finished reading this piece by Paterniti.

http://deadspin.com/thurman-munson-in-sun-and-shade-1001467402

 

A what a courageous mission it seems to be.

These threads might have more impact if they weren't a weekly adventure into the crippling insecurities of half the Longform Backlash Truth Telling Brigade.

So a bunch of Story Bros gets smarmy on Twitter about a twat like Janet Maslin. She is still an awful reviewer in the same way that Dowd, reportedly one of her BFFs, is awful at columns. But aside from that, barely a day goes by when I don't see someone doing something smug on Twitter and backing their own "crew" of nerds. The Deadspin/Gawker cadre has become a complete hive mind when it comes to their little world and the work they produce. Same with the whiny guys from The Classical like Roth, Rios and Marcham. Rios might be the biggest loud mouth bully whiner writing about sports today, and yet does he get a weekly thread here? How about Doyel or Whitlock or Stephen Roderick, who never go a week without talking shit somewhere? The Yahoo guys saddle up and go nuts when one of their own is attacked. The only guys who seem to be above it all are the Sports Illustrated guys, which is refreshing frankly.

There is a whole cafeteria of douches on Twitter, drawing lines, lobbing grenades, puffing up chests, writing look-at-me bullshit, but here at SportsJournalists.com, it's the same old song, sung about the same old Mean Girls, and how they need to be told STFU. Maybe we should just have running "What are Chris Jones and Wright Thompson (and their minions) doing that's pissing me off or making me envious today?" thread. It would save time.

By the way, if any writer derserves defending against the rising tide of snark in our culture, it's Peterniti, who has authored some of the richest pieces of nonfiction in the last 20 years, and seems to have no interest in being famous or wealthy or widely praised for his work. Driving Mr. Albert is a fricken masterpiece, one that I insist my students read, and if he happens to sell 25 more books because someone was annoyed by another careless reading by Maslin and decided to do something about it, it's a net win for all of us.