The funny thing is this piece cites David Foster Wallace's cruise essay as a piece of great writing the New Sincerity never could've created but DFW helped *start* that movement with his E Unibus Pluram essay about TV ruining culture
Before the stuff came out about the story of the worker with the disfigured hand being fabricated, if you made broader fact based criticisms of his piece you'd absolutely get shat on for smarm ("Actually the Shenzhen suicide rate is lower than the US overall")
-
-
I mean, again, I say this as a big fan of DFW, it's ironic that he brought up his cruise essay because it was fake in exactly the same way Mike Daisey's monologue was fake and he openly admitted it but nobody cared in that instance because cruise companies are cringe anyway
-
Daisey's defense that "Look in the world I come from of literary essays and dramatizations no one really cares if the stories you use as illustrations actually happened" is one of those awkward "It's true but he shouldn't say it" things
- Show replies
New conversation -
-
-
yeah I guess that's a good point, I'll have to think on this a bit more but notably it doesn't make me like David Sedaris' writing even one iota more so I still think there's something there
-
I mean he's "smarmy" in the sense that Scocca really seems to get exercised about, which is that he's sentimental and emotive without being particularly political Which is the main thing that separates him from DFW, the other 90s literary David
- Show replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.