A little hungover today from the lethal fruity drinks I had last night at the after-party.
I don't know if it's the heat this week, or having PMS or feeling left out because I'm missing the conference, but everything has been getting my knickers in a twist lately.
The latest was feeling compelled to defend mass-market fiction to a film critic. I was reading Jeff Well's column over at Hollywood Elsewhere. Scroll down the page until you get to the photos. Mr. Wells wanted to know why all the women he saw on the train platforms were reading mass-market fiction instead of say, Faulkner or Gore Vidal.
This was Mr. Wells response to my email: "I don't like mass-market popular fiction, as a rule. It's basically junk-food stuff. There is a world out there...an amazing wonderful world of knowledge and exotic places and fresh atttitude and beliefs and sensuality and illumination...all of which is barely paid attention to by mass-market fiction writers. Don't try and justify lazy, degraded literary appetites. So you read this crap yourself, right? That's what your letter was about? You feeling vaguely guilty about putting junk-food fiction into your brain and your soul, and wanting to rationalize the anti-intellectual, impulse-minded, short-attention-span tendences of women of your generation? Something along these lines?"
Wow! Can you see why I'm ticked off? At least he called me young!
So then I picked up a copy of the new issue of Vogue. Normally, I don't buy Vogue because there's no way I can afford the clothes, so what's the point, but Madonna was on the cover, so I bought it. The article is basically about how Madonna, aka Madge, aka Esther, aka The Kaballah Queen (as I like to call her) has reinvented herself once again. The pictures are gorgeous, and I love the fact that she and Guy bought Cecil Beaton's estate.
So what ticked me off? Well the fact that this was Vogue's age issue. Anna Wintour patting herself on the back for featuring articles about women of all ages instead of the usual under-fed models and celebrities that Vogue usually features.
This was on the heels of hearing that NEXT, the new Harlequin series that was supposed to be about women in the next stages of their lives is publishing a book featuring a thirty year old heroine. Oy!
Yesterday, I spent 4 hours watching the new TV pilots for First Quarter 06 for the channel that I work for. I can't discuss what I saw yet, but it cheered me up immensely.
But then I read today that Barb Ferrer, President of the Chick-Lit chapter, just sold her first book in a two book deal with MTV Books/Pocket. Congratulations Barb!
So panties officially untwisted.
5 comments:
Madonna looks super young on that cover.
In fact, I thought it was Kate Hudson at first (after a quick glance, and before reading your entry).
Grr and argh on the snotty response to your letter, Elizabeth!! What a butthead.
30 year old heroine, huh? Wow, THAT'S pushing the boundaries.
Not.
I can't get over Madonna on that cover either, and she's at least 5 years older than I am.
Madonna really does look great..
As for Wells, he just simply needs to have sex with something other than his pet hamster...
Oh, don't listen to anyone with hair like his! Or someone who writes "try AND justify" instead of "try TO justify." He probably got dumped by a commercial fiction writer is trying to get his own back.
Maybe if he read some chick-lit, he'd be happier. Gotta tell you, I see women getting onto the métro reading Voltaire and Zola, and they look miserable. So there you go.
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