19 Comments

1. October 29th, 2010 / 11:05 pm keedee—

   Marksonian! I kept waiting for the cat to scratch at the window.

2. October 29th, 2010 / 11:24 pm Jimmy Chen—

   “Irony’s so stupid it’s not even dead.” who wrote that one? brilliant.

3. October 29th, 2010 / 11:33 pm Blake Butler—

   i think that was me. i think my favorite is gian’s “I heard Franzen writes with a blindfold and earplugs. (That is all.)”

4. October 30th, 2010 / 1:56 am evlav—

   my favorite is “I heard FSG hired Gordon Lish to edit Freedom and he sent back a picture of a snowpea.” i laughed aloud at so many of these.

5. October 30th, 2010 / 2:48 am Bradley Sands—

   Mean Week never ends in Vice’s comments section.

6. October 30th, 2010 / 3:54 am efferny jomes—

   it’s the anonymous playground of hipster bullies

7. October 30th, 2010 / 3:57 am MM—

   i know all you umuhricans care: my national lab has firewalled your franzen rant!

8. October 30th, 2010 / 3:59 am Bradley Sands—

   I went to school with the person who wrote Dear Diary. The second one, I think. From Kindergarten to 12th grade, I think. And then she also went to a nearby college and lived in my ex’s dorm. And I should have spent way less time with my ex after she became my ex. The Editor-in-Chief of the mag also lived in the building. At least I know he used to have the position. Not sure about anymore. Her building had few rooms and shared a kitchen and a couple of bathrooms. It was called a “mod” or something.

9. October 30th, 2010 / 6:13 pm Donald—

   ??????

10. October 30th, 2010 / 6:24 pm Gian—

    God, Blake and Gian are fucking assholes. (God, Blake, and Gian are fucking assholes.)

11. October 30th, 2010 / 7:44 pm Richard Thomas—

    oh man, i laughed my ass off at this, hilarious, here were my favorites:

    “I listened to The Corrections as a book on CD trying to drive to Baltimore. I ended up at a Macy’s down the street from my mom’s.”

    “I didn’t like Freedom and I didn’t like your previous work, The Notebook either.”

    “The film version of Freedom is 300 hours of a repeating loop of a truck backing up to a lake and dumping nothing into it.”

    “Franzen applied to ghostwrite Snooki’s novel but she was afraid it would be too vapid.”

12. October 30th, 2010 / 8:03 pm Bradley Sands—

    Ah. A man who is fond of question marks.

13. October 30th, 2010 / 8:16 pm Donald—

    It’s largely a ruse, but I do love question marks.

    What lay behind those curvaceous characters, in this case, was: I’m not sure I understand how you got from “anonymous playground of hipster bullies” to telling everyone about the people you’ve lived with and describing the nature of their lodgings. It’s nice to know, certainly — a connection of human minds and lives around the globe, or something — but if we ever met in a bar I’d be concerned about asking you any direct questions, having seen your response to what was a fairly closed statement.

    I don’t know, maybe I misread your intent. It read like a really bizarre instance of unwarranted namedropping, which is a thing that leaves me all shivery and consternated.

14. October 30th, 2010 / 8:27 pm Bradley Sands—

    Oh, I was mentioning how I knew someone who wrote for Vice and the editor-in-chief long ago. I didn’t mention them by names and I’m not sure if it’s considering name-dropping if I’m talking about people who I don’t actually care for. But I’ve been known to get off the subject quickly. You seem to get shivery and consternated very easily.

15. October 30th, 2010 / 11:08 pm t rees—

    “Write with your second self’s bloated anus wreath, not your holy limpness.”

16. November 1st, 2010 / 1:39 am Guest713—

    After reading this, I then wasted a few hours reading Butler and DiTripeano. Franzen has more talent in his stool than either of you sophomoric, pretentious gasbags. Road to nothing fucking college boys. I’m swearing off this site before I puke. So long fuckers!

17. November 1st, 2010 / 2:25 am Magick Mike—

    what

18. November 1st, 2010 / 2:26 am Trey—

    come back, we miss your insightful critiques.

19. November 1st, 2010 / 2:27 am Erik Edwards—

    Keep an eye on those fabulouso glasses, Johnny!