Author: Dish Staff

The Joy Of Difficult Books

by Dish Staff

Rebecca Mead dislikes how “literary works, especially those not written last year, are placed at the opposite pole to fun”:

It’s a common and easy enough distinction, this separation of books into those we read because we want to and those we read because we have to, and it serves as a useful marketing trope for publishers, especially when they are trying to get readers to take this book rather than that one to the beach. But it’s a flawed and pernicious division. This linking of pleasure and guilt is intended as an enticement, not as an admonition: reading for guilty pleasure is like letting one’s diet slide for a day—naughty but relatively harmless. The distinction partakes of a debased cultural Puritanism, which insists that the only fun to be had with a book is the frivolous kind, or that it’s necessarily a pleasure to read something accessible and easy. Associating pleasure and guilt in this way presumes an anterior, scolding authority—one which insists that reading must be work.

But there are pleasures to be had from books beyond being lightly entertained. There is the pleasure of being challenged; the pleasure of feeling one’s range and capacities expanding; the pleasure of entering into an unfamiliar world, and being led into empathy with a consciousness very different from one’s own; the pleasure of knowing what others have already thought it worth knowing, and entering a larger conversation.

Face Of The Day

by Dish Staff

Ryan_TO The Wind

Gannon Burgett highlights a rockin’ photo series:

Musicians go hard. And while every artist and band puts it all out on stage for the world to see, the Vans Warped Tour in particular often features a lineup of bands whose members truly give it their all, for as long as three months, day after day. In an effort to document just how exhausting just one of these performances can be, live performance photographer, Brandon Andersen, decided to do something a little different than usual and capture a collection of before-and-after performance images of musicians whose bands were in this year’s [lineup].

Above is Ryan Murphy of the hardcore band To The Wind. The rest of the series is here. You can also follow Andersen’s work on Twitter and Instagram.

The Economics Of Creative Writing

by Dish Staff

Nick Ripatrazone urges more pragmatism in creative-writing education:

Creative writing should be taught as an art, and as a business. A creative writing program that only includes the former can unwittingly reinforce romantic stereotypes of writing. A young student might major in creative writing. She could become a wonderful poet, and a well-read critic. But she needs to know that poetry doesn’t pay the bills. This is the inside joke of creative writing programs in America. We know creative writing doesn’t make money, and yet we continue to graduate talented writers with no business acumen. At best, it is misguided. At worst, it is fraudulent.

He thinks it “reasonable to expect that graduates of a discipline understand the economic realities of that discipline”:

[I]f we don’t talk about the business of creative writing, we perpetuate the myth that money always stains art. Does it often? Of course. Yet pretensions toward artistic purity hurt students. Writing can become a perpetual unpaid internship. Doing something “for the love of it” has made countless people–not the least of whom are teachers–see their generosity and good nature be rewarded with mediocre pay and respect. I owe it to my students to get them ready for the professional world of writing. If they ignore my advice, that is their problem. We should talk about money with creative writing students because, even though we wish it were different, money equals value in our culture. If you doubt that, try buying your next dinner with a well-recited poem.

MFA-holder Erika Dreifus reflects on her own unrealistic expectations going into her graduate program:

[I]f you had asked me back then how I dreamed I might be introduced a decade and a half later—maybe as a speaker at a big writers conference such as the one I attended recently in Boston—I might have come up with the following. Let’s call it my “aspirational” biography. Or, perhaps, a fantasy:

Erika Dreifus is the author of the novel The Haguenauer Line [published by Little Brown, Random House, or any other “big” publisher]. The same year The Haguenauer Line was published, Erika was honored as one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” and one of the New Yorker’s “Best Young Novelists.” She is a tenured professor of creative writing in the Boston area [although New York or Washington would also be acceptable locations] who spends her summers alternating between residencies at the MacDowell and Yaddo colonies. She is currently completing revisions on her second novel, which will be released in the fall, and for which she will embark on a multi-city tour while she is on paid sabbatical.

Now the reality:

Erika Dreifus is the author of an unpublished novel manuscript, The Haguenauer Line, which, though agented, never sold. 

The View From Your Window Contest

by Dish Staff

VFYWC-219

You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts.  Be sure to email entries to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book or two free gift subscriptions to the Dish. Have at it!

Previous contests here.

A Perfect Gentleman

by Dish Staff

Paul Ford sings the praises of politeness:

Here’s a polite person’s trick, one that has never failed me. I will share it with you because I like and respect you, and it is clear to me that you’ll know how to apply it wisely: When you are at a party and are thrust into conversation with someone, see how long you can hold off before talking about what they do for a living. And when that painful lull arrives, be the master of it. I have come to revel in that agonizing first pause, because I know that I can push a conversation through. Just ask the other person what they do, and right after they tell you, say: “Wow. That sounds hard.”

This politeness, according to Ford, can come naturally, even when socially compelled to discuss Jessica Simpson’s jewelry selection:

There is one other aspect of my politeness that I am reluctant to mention. But I will. I am often consumed with a sense of overwhelming love and empathy. I look at the other person and am overwhelmed with joy. For all of my irony I really do want to know about the process of hanging jewelry from celebrities. What does the jewelry feel like in your hand? What do the celebrities feel like in your hand? Which one is more smooth?

Olga Khazan responds, noting the connection between politeness and empathy:

There are multiple ideas of what it means to be polite. The oldest, coined by the British philosopher Lord Shaftesbury in the early 1700s, holds that “‘politeness’ may be defined a dext’rous management of our words and actions, whereby we make other people have better opinion of us and themselves.” That is, we behave politely so as to boost our own social standing among our peers.

But I prefer the definition offered by Brendan Fraser’s Cold-War-era Prepper character in the 1999 feature film Blast from the Past: “Manners are a way of showing other people we care about them.” Signaling that you understand how hard someone else’s situation is certainly makes you better at cocktail parties. But empathy—or “politeness,” or “manners”—isn’t just there at the start of interpersonal relationships; it also holds them together.