Wednesday

On Death Row Without Rich Parents - The Norfolk Four

I heard about this case from a detective in Brooklyn:

In the early morning hours of July 8, 1997, Omar Ballard raped and murdered eighteen-year-old Michelle Bosko in her apartment in Norfolk, Virginia. Ballard has admitted, and continues to confirm, that he committed this horrific crime alone ...

http://www.norfolkfour.com/

This appears to be another Nifong type of prosecution, i.e., relentless and calculated to punish innocents. The only problem is, they are not wealthy, and the press ignores them. They clearly didn't do the killing and have had all kinds of experts on their side. I've seen this many times.

Is this evidence of a man-hating culture or just sociopathic bs?

Where is my suspended animation chamber?

The Jewish "Sweet Spot"?

An agent who was trying to pick me up at the Santa Barbara Writer's Conference told me (after a few whiskey sours) that everyone in his business was trying to please what he called, "the Jewish sweet spot." I looked at him cross-eyed and he told me he was referring to the 35-55 year old group of Jewish women who buy most of the new novels. He said they determine the market, for the most part.

I thought to myself, "Wow, but I'm Jewish and I can't stand 3/4 of the poop on the shelves!" What gives? But he was very serious and I believed him.

Does this mean that novels by the goyim get tossed aside and their authors ignored? Is this a New York thing? I sense a strange feedback loop goying on here. Maybe this explains why Cormac McCarthy was ignored by the NY establishment for so long and why a writer as awful as Claire Messud is called a wonderful writer?

What the F!

Tuesday

Picking Up Where Writers Block Left Off

From this post on Writers Block ( http://www.the-writers-block.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2006 )

Today, I got an e-mail from Grub Street - Claire Messud has won a Massachusetts Book Award for Emperor's Children, which I can promise you doesn't speak for all Massachusetts readers. Out of curiosity, I read some of it, and couldn't believe it -- some of the worst-written sentences I'd ever seen.

What really makes me mad is the fact that Amazon deleted every single customer review about the book, and the majority were one stars. The thread was loaded with readers complaining about every facet of it, from the horrible prose to the moronic characters to the pathetic "plot" ....

In the past, I've relied on Amazon to post customer reviews that told the truth. It appears they've been compromised. Search and search in google, try to find one single reviewer telling the truth about Emperor's Children. From Slate to NYT to Salon to SF Chronicle--they are in lock step. The Messud novel is praised to the point of absurdity.

It's so depressing!