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Archive for the ‘Jonathan Franzen’ Category

Jonathan Franzen–“Two’s Company” (New Yorker, May 23, 2005)

Posted in Books about writers, Cee-Lo Green, Funny (ha ha), Gnarls Barkley, Jonathan Franzen, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Romance, Short Story on December 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CEE-LO GREEN-“Fuck You” (2010).

Like the entire world, I am in love with this song.  I have long postulated that songs with cursing in the chorus are almost by definition catchier than songs that have none.   And this song is one of the most catchy fucking songs ever.   (I of course admit that the censored radio version “Forget You” is equally as catchy but we can’t forget that the curse version came first).

I have listened to this song dozens of times now and I simply haven’t grown tired of it.  It has a simple construction with an interesting descending musical motif and a killer killer hook.  But of course the key is Cee-Lo’s voice.  I first heard him with Gnarls Barkley and I considered getting some of his solo stuff based on the amazingness of his voice.  (I never got a round to it).  And now this song has pretty well solidified him in my esteem.(Actually his appearance on The Colbert Report where he sang Fox News in the chorus was the real solidification for me.

This song transcends genre (it’s played all the time on an alt rock station by me).  And I think that’s why it is so appealing and such a big hit.  And now I’m going to be whistling the chorus for the rest of the day.

[READ: November 20, 2010] “Two’s Company”

This story follows Franzens “Breakup Stories” rather nicely because it too is about a breakup.  This time, though, the story itself is much longer than the others (4 whole pages!).

The story is about Pam and Paul, a couple who married young and were immediately successful as TV scriptwriters.  They worked together, created memorable sitcoms and owned a company whose logo shows their names with a heart between them.

But as they settle into greater success they begin to look for something slightly different to occupy them.  I love that they said Paul stopped appearing in public because he had trouble “remembering whether the ‘O’ in ‘Michael Ovitz was long or short.”  And their public persona, just like their logo, shows them to be perfectly content and in love.  Of course, as seems inevitable, some cracks begin to surface in their perfect facade.

They are to cowrite a movie.  He has always be the more highbrow of the two (and usually gets the bigger laughs), but it is her common, even cliched, sensibility that makes all the money.   And Pam more or less takes the reins of the screenplay, writing about a couple who is perfectly happy together (the husband doesn’t even glance at the hot women that his friends are constantly ogling).  Paul feels that the story is supposed to be about them, and he starts to resent her.  He thinks her script idea is crap (a bland comedy for older ladies) and he begins to think that Pam is less attractive than she used to be.  The speed with which their partnership disintegrates is rather astonishing.

I enjoyed the story–Franzen has a great way with character.  Although I admit I was a little sad that the story went this way.  It would have been nice (like her purposed movie script) to see a couple who could work together, be successful and remain happy (I guess I’m a bland old lady).  But, as Paul seems to think, that’s just a fantasy.

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Jonathan Franzen–“Breakup Stories” (New Yorker, November 8, 2004)

Posted in Accept, Eurovision, Flash Fiction, Funny (ha ha), Gwar, Jonathan Franzen, Lordi, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Short Story on November 30, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: LORDI-“Hard Rock Hallelujah” (2006).

When browsing the Wikipedia entry on Gwar, I learned that the Finnish band Lordi (of whom I’d never heard) won the 2006 Eurovision song contest with what is essentially a Gwar-lite stage show.

Unlike Gwar, this Lordi song is extremely catchy and easy to digest (as all Eurovision songs tend to be).  But like Gwar it is fairly heavy and the band are in outrageous costumes (think glam period Kiss with crazy death-monster masks on–how does he sing with all that crap on his face?).

The singer has quite the voice (he sing/speaks in a cookie monster style (but audible–a sort of radio-friendly version of cookie monster) but he also hits very high notes).  The song is an anthemic sing-along like many metal songs from the early 80s (although it’s also pretty heavy).  And, if you listen closely to the bridge it’s sounds a bit like Abba’s “Gimme Gimme Gimme”.  It’s pretty cheesy and that’s clearly why it won Eurovision, and yet I find that after listening to it twice, I was humming it all day.

It’s fun to hear the comments after the song (I wish the recording was longer), but even more amazing is that they won with 292 points (the highest victory ever).  I’m so delighted for them (and for Eurovision that this preposterousness won).

A recent interview sounds like they have gotten heavier than this in recent years (“Bite It Like a Bulldog” kind of sounds like Accept).

Good on ya Finland.

[READ: November 8, 2010] “Breakup Stories”

I’ve been reading a lot of Franzen’s non-fiction in the New Yorker, so it’s nice to get back to some of his fiction.  Because even though the non-fiction is great, the fiction shows how creative Franzen can be.

This piece is, as the title suggets, a series of breakup stories.  It’s really five vignettes about how various couples broke up.  There’s “our friend Danni” and “Danni’s college friend Stephen” and “Ron” and “Stephen’s cousin Peter” and “Peter’s friend Antonia.”  The “stories” come across mostly as character studies in bad behavior.

Danni’s husband can’t admit that he doesn’t want children (and he takes the cowardly way out, what a cad).  Stephen’s fiancée hates that he devotes so much of his time to helping nuns (that’ a funny story).  Ron is a serial monogamist.  He hits it big with an inheritance and tries to settle down, but when he finds out that he can’t, he loses more than the woman he stayed with for six whole months.  Peter cheats on his wife and tries to make the three of them have a “French-style family relationship.” (more…)

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Jonathan Franzen–”The Listener” (New Yorker, October 6, 2003)

Posted in Essays, fIREHOSE, Jonathan Franzen, New Yorker, Political Humor, R.E.M. on November 23, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: fIREHOSE-“Sometimes” (1988).

This single for the fantastic fIREHOSE song “Sometimes” is an okay EP worth tracking down if you’re a fIREHOSE fan or even if you’re not too familiar with them.

“Sometimes” is a great mix of loud guitars in the verse and soft guitar picking in the chorus.  It’s wonderfully catchy and has a sort of southwestern vibe to it.  It’s one of my favorite songs on the SST label.

“For the Singer of REM” is a song that’s also on if’n.  I never quite knew why it was called that.  There’s a lengthy story online (about twenty questions down) about how the song came about (in a nutshell, REM asked fIREHOSE to play with them and Stipe asked Watt if he wanted to record a song or two together.  And so, Watt wrote this.  Nothing ever came  of the collaboration though). And the song is uncannily like an REM song.  The verses and the cool staccato bass bridge are right on target.  Although there’s a very un-.RE.M. part that separates the chorus from the bridge with heavy drums and very discordant guitars).  It’s pretty neat.

The final song features what Watt calls “spielin'”  This track is mostly nonsensical ranting.  But there’s so many different musical sections that it’s hard to keep track.  There’s a bunch of guitar jangling and then odd little bass and guitar bits.  And there’s some funk and all manner of things.  It’s not exactly a throwaway track because it really lets them air out their stuff.  But it’s definitely a weird little piece of music.

[READ: October 27, 2010] “The Listener”

Although at this point I’m no longer “testing” to see whether I liked Jonathan Franzen’s work (I’m very much a fan of his writing style and his ability to wrangle interesting stories out of thin air), this piece certainly qualifies as a test.

This article is a profile of (then) House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Now I personally don’t give a, well, anything, about Hastert.  I have no interest in the man at all (especially since he is no longer even Speaker of the House) but I had probably less when he WAS Speaker, so can Franzen not only get me to care about him, but to actually want to read a fourteen page article about him?

The answer is yes. (more…)

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Jonathan Franzen–”Caught” (New Yorker, June 16 & 23, 2003)

Posted in Adventure, Books about writers, Essays, fIREHOSE, Funny (ha ha), Jonathan Franzen, Meat Puppets, Moody Blues, New Yorker, Pranks, Set at School on November 20, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: fIREHOSE-“fROMOHIO” (1989).

After the punk of The Minutemen, you wouldn’t expect the sound of fROMOHIO to come from Mike Watt and friends.  The opening song, “Riddle of the Eighties” is quite poppy, but with a countryish flair.  In fact, much of the beginning of the disc sounds not unlike the Meat Puppets–southwestern punk.  Track two, “In My Mind,” has a wonderful latin/Mexican feel to it (singer Ed Crawford has that whole southwestern vibe down quite well, even if they are from Pedro).

The disc also has what I’ve learned is that peculiar SST Records sound–almost nonexistent bass, despite what Watt is accomplishing.  Actually the bass is there, and it’s mixed fine but it’s much lower than you might expect for what they’re playing.

Even track three “Whisperin’ While Hollerin'” which is all about the bass (with cool blasts of guitar over the top) doesn’t have a lot of low end in it.  The bass sounds crisp and clear (which is good), just not very deep.  “Mas Cojones” is a weird one.  Funk bass with disco guitars over the top and some odd spoken word from Watt.

The highlight is “What Gets Heard,” a great funky fast bassline with angular guitars and vocals by Watt.  Near the end of the disc, “Some Things” is another solid song, really typical of this period: great bass, great guitar work and yet still a lot of punk.  And “Liberty for Our Friend” is a great folk singalong, and I dare you not to singalong by the end.

There’s also some fun, unexpected bits.  There’s a pretty acoustic guitar solo called, “Vastopol” and two (!) drum solos “Let the Drummer Have Some,” and the wonderfully titled, “‘Nuf That Shit, George.”

And its all packaged as really short songs (most around 2 minutes, with late songs running longer).  It’s a fun disc and a worthy addition to the SST catalog.

[READ: October 25, 2010] “Caught”

After the seriousness of “My Father’s Brain,” this true story about Franzen’s wicked days in high school was tremendously enjoyable, possibly one of my favorite pieces that I’ve read by him.

The piece opens with the incredibly tempting story about students successfully pranked their high school by managing to get a tire over the top of a 34-foot flagpole.  This sets in motion Franzen and friends’ attempts to do the same to their school’s 40 foot flagpole (there’s even a diagram or three!).  The story is exciting and filled with secretive plotting as they try so many different ways to get that tire over the top of the flagpole.

There’s a great bit of self-deprecation from Franzen.  He admits that although one of his friends was far more architecturally-minded, he himself was far more persuasive.  Ultimately, their gang put his “Devices” to work, which are universally decried as pieces of shit.

Although I assumed that the tale would focus only on their attempts at flag pole ringing, in fact the group undertook many pranks.  At first they called themselves U.N.C.L.E., but then they changed their name to the far more amusing (with an incredibly involved explanation) DIOTI.  DIOTI undertake several delicious pranks including removing the clappers from all of the bells in the school (and leaving a series of poems as  clues for where they are) and piling all of the classroom desks into one room.  (The “centrally located” comment and its resultant embrace by the school is simply wonderful). (more…)

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Jonathan Franzen–”My Father’s Brain” (New Yorker, September 10, 2001)

Posted in Death, Depression, fIREHOSE, Jonathan Franzen, Marriage Trouble, Memoirs, Minutemen, New Yorker on November 16, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: fIREHOSE-“fROMOHIO” (1989).

After the punk of The Minutemen, you wouldn’t expect the sound of fROMOHIO to come from Mike Watt and friends.  This is fIREHOSE’s second album and the opening song, “Riddle of the Eighties” is quite poppy, but with a countryish flair.  In fact, much of the beginning of the disc sounds like Meat Puppets-inspired-southwestern punk.  Track two, “In My Mind,” has a wonderful latin/Mexican feel to it (singer Ed Crawford has that whole southwestern vibe down quite well, even if they are from Pedro).

The disc also has what I’ve learned is that peculiar SST Records sound–almost nonexistent bass, despite what Watt is accomplishing.  Actually the bass is there, and it’s mixed fine but it’s lower than you might expect for what the kind of punk they’re playing.

Even track three “Whisperin’ While Hollerin'” which is all about the bass (with funk bass and cool blasts of guitar over the top) doesn’t have a lot of low end in it.  The bass sounds crisp and clear (which is good), just not very deep.  “Mas Cojones” is a weird one.  Funk bass with disco guitars over the top and some odd spoken word from Watt.

The highlight is “What Gets Heard,” a great funky fast bassline with angular guitars and vocals by Watt.  Near the end of the disc, “Some Things” is another solid song, really typical of this period: great bass, great guitar work and yet still a lot of punk.  There’s also some fun, unexpected bits.  There’s a pretty acoustic guitar solo called, “Vastopol” and two (!) drum solos: “Let the Drummer Have Some,” and the wonderfully titled, “‘Nuf That Shit, George.”  Finally, “Liberty for Our Friend” is a great folk singalong, and I dare you not to singalong by the end.

Its all packaged in really short songs (most around 2 minutes, with later songs running longer).  fIREHOSE was a successful SST band that burnt out rather quickly.

[READ: October 22, 2010] “My Father’s Brain”

This is a story about, yes Franzen’s father’s brain.  But it’s not in any way what I imagined it would be like.  As the piece opens, Franzen receives an autopsy report about his father’s brain from his mother.  It comes in a package with other items, and the occasion of the package is, hilariously enough, Valentine’s Day.  (And the darkly humorous anecdote of his mother sending this on Valentine’s Day is spoken quite often to friends and really anyone who will listen).

We pull back from the incident to look at Franzen’s family in toto and the story becomes a far more personal/familial story than I imagined it would.  We learn about his parents’ unhappy marriage and all of the complaints that his mother had about his father.  Franzen’s mother would regularly send Jonathan letters bemoaning her husband’s lack of concern/empathy/sense of humor.  And then soon enough, the letters started expressing fear that Franzen’s father simply couldn’t be left by himself–for his own safety and the safety of the house.  Frazen’s father was eventually diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

The bulk of the middle of the article is given over to the science of brain study.  Although this article is 10 years old I was surprised that I thought they were just learning about the brain were evidently known back then (for instance, how faulty our memories are).  He also gives an argument that I have felt–not about Alzheimer’s specifically but about the “diagnosing” of people in general–that science or the medical community wants to quickly label people to make it easier for them.   He feels this way several years before his father is diagnosed and is a bit resistance to the initial diagnosis; however, when he finally sees him, he agrees with the assessment. (more…)

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Jonathan Franzen–”The Failure” (New Yorker, July 5, 1999)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Blue Öyster Cult, Books about writers, Butthole Surfers, David Foster Wallace, fIREHOSE, Funny (ha ha), Jonathan Franzen, Language, New Yorker, Public Enemy, Punks, Short Story, Superchunk, Wire on November 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: fIREHOSE-Live Totem Pole EP (1992).

Listening to Superchunk’s “Slack Motherfucker” reminded me that I knew a live version from somewhere else.  And, with a little help from the web, I remembered it was here.

fIREHOSE is Mike Watt’s post-Minutemen band, and they are a lot of fun (and even managed to get a major label deal before breaking up.  This (apparently really hard to find) EP is a great, weird collection of covers: Blue Oyster Cult’s “The Red and the Black”; Public Enemy’s “Sophisticated Bitch” (yes you read that right); The Butthole Surfer’s “Revolution (Part 2)” (with the repeated coda of “Garry Shandling, Garry Shandling”; Superchunk’s “Slack Motherfucker” and Wire’s “Mannequin”.  There’s two Watt-written songs, “What Gets Heard” (from fROMOHIO) and “Makin’ the Freeway” (from if’n).

The covers are universally solid.  The band sounds punky and kind of sloppy and fun (not so terribly virtuosic on the solos), and they bring an amazing vitality to these songs.  The Public Enemy song is probably the biggest surprise as it sounds fantastic in this rocking band set up (although the original rocks pretty hard too, frankly).  And “Slack” is possibly even faster and punkier than the original (it sounds awesome here).  Interestingly to me, “Mannequin” sounds completely like an SST track (which if you know the label will make sense and if you don’t, it won’t) even though it’s a Wire song (and not released on SST).

I’d always known that Watt was a mean bassist, but man, he is wild on this disc.  The runs and fills he puts in all over the disc are great.  “What Gets Heard” has some great slap bass and “Freeway” is one of Watt’s weird and delightful spoken rants with fantastic bass fills.

fIREHOSE may not have always been brilliant, but they had moments of awesomeness.

[READ: October 16, 2010] “The Failure”

This story is part of the 1999 New Yorkers‘ 20 Under 40 collection (it’s the first story that was not included in that issue).  Its also the first story by Franzen that I have read.

It’s tempting, since I’m in a David Foster Wallace mood, to think that DFW was some kind of inspiration for Franzen (they were friends, after all).  The opening of the story talks a bit about cruise ships.  And Wallace’s “Shipping Out” was published in Harper’s just a couple of years before this.  Having said that, aside from the fact that the protagonist’s parents are taking a cruise (and there’s some cruise-mocking), the story doesn’t have much else in common with the piece, so we’ll get past that.

The story was excerpted in the main 20 Under 40 issue (the first few paragraphs), and I was intrigued, although the excerpt didn’t really indicate where the story would go at all.

Chip is a midwestern guy who has moved to New York City. He has lost a teaching job (for a very bad reason) and is now trying to survive as a writer.  His parents are in town briefly because they are taking a cruise out of New York.  And as he updates his mother and father on what he’s been up to, the list of minor failures (the ones he admits to and doesn’t) grows and grows.  And it’s clear from his mother’s talk that she’s more than a little disappointed in his reality. (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–eulogies [audio] (2008)

Posted in Big Books, Boredom, David Foster Wallace, Death, Depression, Five Dials, Fun Boy Three, George Saunders, Jonathan Franzen, Language, Madness, Marriage (Happy), NPR/PRI/PBS, Pearl Jam, Smarty Pants, Suicide, Tennis, The Flaming Lips, Zadie Smith on October 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: October 19, 2010] David Foster Wallace Eulogies

There are some really nice eulogies done for when DFW died.  The official (written) memorial service eulogies (from Jonathan Franzen, Zadie Smith, George Saunders and others) are available here (from an outstanding online journal called Five Dials).  They’re all beautiful (I was amused that the second longest one comes from DFW’s editor!).

The audio eulogies are available at The David Foster Wallace Audio Project.  They include two very long full length ceremonies and several news (NPR mostly) reports.  And there’s a lengthy interview with David’s sister, Amy, which is by far the most moving one.

The first of the lengthy pieces is the ceremony from Amherst.  It consists of colleagues, friends and students all telling stories about DFW.  And their collective memories join together to create a great portrait of the man; things that you’d never know about him (except you kind of would) from reading his work.  The thing that really struck me from this memorial was just how many friends he had.  This seems like an insult but it isn’t meant to be; rather, the impression I had was that he was quite a solitary man, holing up with his dogs and his pens.  But the stories and love from his friends during his college years especially are really quite nice to hear, and showcase a side of him that he left out of his work (except, of course, really he didn’t). (more…)

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New Yorker 20 Under 40, 1999

Posted in 20 Under 40, A.M. Homes, Allegra Goodman, Antonya Nelson, Chang-Rae Lee, Chris Ware, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, Donald Antrim, Edwidge Danticat, Ethan Canin, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), George Saunders, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jhumpa Lahiri, Jonathan Franzen, Junot Díaz, Matthew Klam, Michael Chabon, Nathan Englander, New Yorker, Rick Moody, Sex, Sherman Alexie, Tony Earley, William T. Vollmann on October 19, 2010| 3 Comments »

While I was looking around for Jonathan Franzen pieces in the New Yorker, I stumbled upon the first 20 Under 40 collection from 1999.  Since I had received so much enjoyment from the 2010 version, I decided to read all of the 1999 stories as well.  It was interesting to see how many of the authors I knew (and knew well), how many I had heard of but hadn’t read, and how many were completely off my radar.

I initially thought that they had published all 20 authors in this one issue, but there are five stories (including Franzen’s) that were just excerpted rather than published in full.  And I will track down and read those five in their entirety.  But otherwise, that’s a lot of fiction in one magazine (a few of the stories were quite short).  And it features a cover by Chris Ware!

So here’s the list from 1999.

**George Saunders-“I Can Speak™”
**David Foster Wallace-“Asset”
*Sherman Alexie-“The Toughest Indian in the World”
*Rick Moody-“Hawaiian Night”
*A.M. Homes-“Raft in Water, Floating”
Allegra Goodman-“The Local Production of Cinderella”
*William T. Vollmann-“The Saviors”
Antonya Nelson-“Party of One”
Chang-rae Lee-“The Volunteers”
*Michael Chabon-“The Hofzinser Club” [excerpt]
Ethan Canin-“Vins Fins” [excerpt]
*Donald Antrim-“An Actor Prepares”
Tony Earley-“The Wide Sea”
*Jeffrey Eugenides-“The Oracular Vulva”
*Junot Diaz-“Otra Vida, Otra Vez”
*Jonathan Franzen-“The Failure” [excerpt]
***Edwidge Danticat-“The Book of the Dead”
*Jhumpa Lahiri-“The Third and Final Continent”
*Nathan Englander-“Peep Show” [excerpt]
Matthew Klam-“Issues I Dealt with in Therapy” [excerpt] (more…)

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Jonathan Franzen–”FC2″ (New Yorker, March 18, 1996) & “A Reader in Exile” (New Yorker, March 6, 1995) & “First City” (February 19, 1996) & “On the Bus” (February 5, 2001) & “Countdown” (April 18, 2005)

Posted in Books about writers, Cars, Jonathan Franzen, New Yorker, Pavement, Robert Coover, Technology, Unabomber, Wired on October 17, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: PAVEMENT “Stereo” on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (2010).

Pavement were making the rounds of lat night TV around the time of t their Central Park reunion concert.  They showed up on Jimmy Fallon.  I don’t really like his show, but he has consistently great musical guests.

Pavement played “Stereo” which is a song I’ve always liked (the Geddy Lee part makes me smile), even though I never bought the album that it’s on.  This is one of their weirder songs (which is saying a lot).  The opening is all kinds of crazy noises (feedback and keyboard nonsense).  When the verse starts it’s all bass and drums, but when the song kicks in it rocks heavily and crazily.

The live version features a crazy cal and response from the keyboardist (which I enjoyed a lot) and some really great guitar work.  The video also has the winner of Fallon’s “Play Guitar with Pavement” contest, although I can’t tell how much he adds/subtracts from the performance.

[READ: September 24 & 25] “FC2” & “Books”

These three pieces were short, so I’ve decided to lump them together.

“FC2” is a Shouts & Murmurs piece.  I thought that the Shouts & Murmurs were all comic pieces. This one is funny but it’s not as “ha ha” as many of the other pieces I’ve read.  It even seems to be autobiographical.

Franzen says he had just recently written a section of “The Fifth Column” for the Village Voice.  And on this particular day he received a very suspicious package whose return address was FC2.   He speculates that the content of his section of the story may have triggered a psychopath to come after him.  (The Unabomber used to use the letters FC as his code, so perhaps FC2 is his protegé).

Obviously it didn’t blow up or anything, and the revelation is anticlimactic, but it’s still a mildly amusing tale. (more…)

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Jonathan Franzen–“Imperial Bedroom” (New Yorker, October 12, 1998)

Posted in Consumerism, Funny (ha ha), Jonathan Franzen, Neurotics, New Yorker, Privacy, Rheostatics, Sex, The Violet Archers, tagged on October 15, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: THE VIOLET ARCHERS-Victoria, BC, October 2005 (2005).

This live bootleg comes from the Rheostatics Live website.  If The Violet Archers were to become a huge internationally famous band (which, let’s face it, they’re not), this would be an awesome bootleg to have.  It’s from a show before their first album was released, and, if the stage banter is to be believed, before they’d even thought of a name for the band.  (There’s a joke that they wanted to call themselves The Gay Apparel, which is awesome).

Indeed, I assume that this show was recorded in 2004, not 2005 as listed online.

So, this show seems like it’s recorded in front of about 20 people.  The recording quality isn’t ideal (the drums sound pretty dreadful) but it conveys the spirit of the show very well.

The first two songs are just Tim and his acoustic guitar (“Simple” sounds great in this context although “All the Good” works better as a band number).  Then the band comes on.  Ida Nilsen is not with them yet, but the band sounds great together and the songs are fully formed (the album is said to be coming out in the next spring).

It’s a great show and Tim Vesely sounds a lot more like he did with the Rheostatics than he does on the regular album.  I guess the live setting brings out the old voice from Tim.  And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the guitarist with the great name: Yawd Sylvester.  Outstanding!

[READ: September 28, 2010] “Imperial Bedroom”

This piece is about privacy. It was written 12 years ago, when the fear of the loss of privacy was in its infancy.  And Franzen makes a very convincing case that we were (and I assume still are) overreacting in a big way to fears of privacy loss.

He opens by noting that the panic about privacy is all the rage, excepted that the public doesn’t seem to be genuinely alarmed.   He sets his argument on the backdrop of the Clinton/Lewisnky Starr Report. And what he bemoans is that this most private of information is coming out of the most public of offices (and the most imperial of bedrooms).  [With the valid corollary–who is ever going to run for office if this kind of shit is going to be made public on such a grand scale?]

He gives us a basic history if the “right to privacy” which he says legally is a tough concept.  Because whatever you call the various forms of invasion of privacy, legally they often fall into other areas–trespass, defamation or theft.  What’s left is emotional distress, which is always a nebulous concept. (more…)

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