Thursday, January 26, 2006

Trying to define "perfidious" without bursting into laughter...

Everyone's agog this afternoon over the Oprah! smackdown of James "My Career's In a Million Little Pieces" Frey. I totally support Oprah's right to admit that she's pissed and to then rescind her endorsement of Frey's memoir. But MY GAWD did she bitchslap this poor newly-rich shmuck in front of the entire nation. I'm watching it now and it makes me so sad that this is the biggest story in publishing over the last number of years (Publisher's Weekly has sent out 2 email "Alerts" just this afternoon). What about all the other legitimate memoir writers out there currently? Has anyone run Dave Eggers through the ringer recently (sorry, Dave - the joke had to be made)? And will someone now finally shakedown Frank McCourt - no one's childhood can be THAT ethnic, can it? But in all seriousness - knock off all this sanctimonious dumpster diving before someone blows an actual gasket. If anyone needs a drink or 37 this evening, it's Frey. Here's hoping he resists the urge just because people are so enjoying knocking the stuffing out of him.

Didn't watch Dubya's presser this morning (no surprises there anyways) because I was holed up in a depressing downtown SF office building, taking my GREs by computer under what felt like the unbalanced eyes of an army of ready-to-blow secretaries with tazers in the side pockets of their Talbot's blazers. I'm considering a trip back to grad school and my old test scores were out of date. So as a penance, I was required to record for posterity how little of my 10-cent-Word of the Day calendar entries I could remember without a caffeine enema. Sheesh. Of course they let me get all cocky to start off with by giving me the chance to pontificate on a few essay questions. And then, BAM! Algebra, reading comprehension, square roots, antonyms and everything horrible except the embarrassment of having to take the test nude, hanging from the ceiling in gravity boots. In other words, I'm officially no longer as smart as I supposedly was 12 years ago. No surprise in that. I'll just blame it on too much Oprah! in the interim.

Much more on the first week of Megan's nannyness tomorrow. Hope your own stories are vetted and appropriately endorsed in the meantime. Rock on.

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