What are your favorite pieces of writing thus far in 2012?

Fiona Apple and Zooey aren't anything alike. I'm not sure how you got that from it. Deschanel is quirky. Apple is many miles beyond quirky. And I went into it not thinking I'd be that interested because I like Ms. Apple's music and had read stuff about her before, and yet it pulled me in and kept me engaged throughout.

 

I hate the word quirky. And I also tend to think that girls who do that are trying too hard and aren't all that weird. But they know it drives interest.

 

I don't see how one could read that article and not see that Apple is legitimately strange, bizarre, and (IMO) interesting. I don't get the sense at all that she's just trying too hard or whatever to drive interest. She hadn't come out with a new album in many years. If she wanted to just drive interest, putting out new music probably would have been better than, mostly, disappearing from the public eye for years at a time.

I really see no parallel between Apple and Deschanel, and I like them both.

 

Jon Lee Anderson
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/02/27/120227fa_fact_anderson
The Implosion - A story about the rebels in Syria. Written in February and gave a clear picture that things would not end well.

The guy is fearless in the places he is willing to go to get a story. As Arab Spring unfolds, Anderson has been there from the beginning of every major story.

I also thought that the Jones story on Robert Caro in conjunction with release of Caro's new LBJ volume was a great read.

 

Yeah, but was the building elegant or drab?

 

Probably depends on your reference point and life experience.

 

From the Hotel Cafe Christmas album, which is my favorite (next to each year's Moddy Mix, of course).

 

Just read the Fiona Apple piece.

I think IJAG was kind.

Fiona Apple reminds me of just about every theater major I knew in college, and the writer's crush was painful.

 

I don't know how I missed that Pioli story.....quite the contrast from what's portrayed in Holley's War Room. Awesome read thanks for sharing.

 

I think the point of the piece was more about Dan Lee's experience meeting Apple than about Apple's quirks or eccentricities or whatever you want to cal them. The essay was very personal, and it showed the writer thrusting himself for a moment into a life and a world he always wanted. That's why even the descriptions of scenes when he's not with Apple are so strange.

 

Whatever you think about Apple -- and it's probably safe to say she'll always be straddling the border between functioning adult and manic depressive -- the piece offers insights into her that I don't think you could get as a reader if Lee left his role out of it. I don't think anything to do with her is an act, where as Zooey Deschanel gets to make a conscious choice about who she is, and how "quirky" she wants to play things. If Zooey is self aware enough to make fun of herself on The New Girl and Saturday Night Live, that suggests completely different level of sanity and self confidence that what Apple's "quirkiness" might be. If you come at it with the perspective of "Bitch be crazy! What's so interesting about that?" or "It's all an act! Whatever!" then of course it's not going to work for you.

I think it's clear Lee was quite fascinated by Apple, but so am I, and I don't even really like her music all that much. I do think she's someone very fragile, very damaged, but very smart in the way that the Sylvia Plaths of the world are damaged and smart. In order to discuss that (without really discussing it), I think it requires a certain amount of trust. For her to trust him, he had to dive into her world.

A ton of celebrity journalism is total shit. This was something much more interesting.