I Love Ninkasi. And the New Yorker. But Not Fake Memoirs.
Oh, lord. I wrote a whole blog. And then I hit preview. And then I forgot to post. I'm too tired. In short:
1. Ninkasi now comes in bottles! And the Mercury blogged it first. Good for them. I thoroughly enjoyed drinking some Believer while watching the Ducks squeak past OSU on Sunday. And I wondered aloud whether they might be among the first breweries to include their MySpace page on their labels...
2. Last week, Suzi sent me a link to a story in The New York Times about a memoir by a writer who lives in Eugene. This was interesting, but annoying, because while I'd gotten the book, neither the book flap nor the press materials had mentioned this fact. Well, as it turns out, it was sort of irrelevant, because "none of it is true":
Margaret B. Jones is a pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer, who is all white and grew up in the well-to-do Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley, with her biological family. She graduated from the Campbell Hall School, a private Episcopal day school in the North Hollywood neighborhood. She has never lived with a foster family, nor did she run drugs for any gang members. Nor did she graduate from the University of Oregon, as she had claimed.
All I can do here is sigh.
3. Someone will doubtless think I'm gloating, but I seriously think it's awesome that my counterpart (and friend) over at the R-G wound up in the New Yorker's Correction of the Week. I love it even more because when I read the press release in question, I saw it the same way. As Randy Stapilus notes in his quote from the magazine,
< blockquote >An item about a Thursday event at Diablo’s featuring four women DJs on Page 8 of Friday’s edition incorrectly identified DJ KaatScratch as transgendered. She describes herself musically as ‘transgenred.’”
Three cheers to the most entertaining misreads being noticed by the whole world out there.
Now? Sleep.
Oddly enough I was talking about James Frey last night and the spectrum of writing from pure fiction through autobiography. So where does this put today's big liar? And does it make her story less interesting because it is fiction?
But big handclaps to Ninkasi. Now they just need to distribute to the midwest.
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Submitted by Jef (not verified) on Tue, 03/04/2008 - 08:38.somebody just has to get this local scoop! she is obviously interested in publicity, "maybe its an ego thing," and in her times interview she is still in the delusion that she is "giving voice to the unheard." this is just the kind of self decepted individual that makes the most compelling interview. besides the fact the soon to be memoir about her faking a memoir is going to be even better than the fake memoir.
sweet
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Submitted by damian (not verified) on Tue, 03/04/2008 - 13:22.I like fake memoirs. Only I wish they'd call them something other than "fake memoirs." Perhaps my suggestion, Faux-Shit, will catch on.
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Submitted by Chuck Adams on Sun, 05/18/2008 - 14:33.Ninkasi is the ancient Sumerian matron goddess of beer.
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Submitted by Ryan (not verified) on Sun, 05/25/2008 - 04:19.Post new comment