Had enough yet?

Just thought that I’d point that out. The Campaign to Needlessly Smear Bloggers continues at the National Book Critics Circle blog. One of the organizers of the Atlanta book review protest had this to say:

Seriously, though, blogs are kind of like parasitic microorganisms which feed off of a primary host. For the sake of this discussion, the host is clearly print media. Some are the good bacteria and some are transient and viral. Or maybe I can upgrade blogs to the status of some sort of interstitial or synovial fluid, buffering the vital organs of the media (newspaper, television, radio, the Internet)? But, c’mon, if newspapers are dying, then blogs are the maggots come to feast upon their corpses.

Wow. That’s offensive. The “seriously though” would lead you to believe that what preceded it was a joke or tongue-in-cheek – sure doesn’t seem like it. The post’s main point, if I can paraphrase, is that most blogs do not produce anything original or interesting. Ugh.

A post by novelist Lee Smith says:

I would take issue with the notion that blogs will somehow replace newspaper book reviews. During a recent visit with a local book club, a group of 16 well-read, highly intelligent women, I asked how many of them had recently read a book review on a blog. The answer was, nobody! Then I asked if any of them had EVER gone to a blog to read book reviews. Again, nobody. The average reader—the average person—just doesn’t do this yet. Maybe we read reviews on Amazon, but that’s it. Readers read book reviews because they happen upon them in the newspaper.

There you go. Just by visiting this blog and others like it, you are separating yourself from the average reader, nay, the average person. I’ve yet to hear anyone say that lit blogs will replace book reviews generated by the mainstream media. Why must this be a death match in which only one form of commentary emerges to rule victorious?
Things have gotten so ridiculous over at the NBCC blog that the webmistress had to post a note that says that the views expressed on the blog are not hers nor do they represent the NBCC. And then another post at the NBCC points to data that show, like it not, that newspaper readers are migrating to the online editions in record numbers. People are getting information from their electronic interweb page viewing machines.

ANYWAY…

There has been a lot of bemoaning of the death of the Atlanta literary scene, and the truth of the matter is that it has never seemed more vibrant than it does right now. Maybe I’m just paying better attention these days. In the last month or so we’ve seen some top notch authors coming to town. As I’ve mentioned, we just had Irvine Walsh in the hood (read about it here and here); Walter Isaacson read recently from his Einstein bioghraphy; and Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng were also here, just to name a few.

Here are some upcoming events in the next eight days that you may want to mark on your calendar and come out to support:

I promise not to post for at least a week on the topic of being outraged by the latest ill-informed commentary deriding lit blogs. Unless it is really offensive.

categories Books, Happenings | Tim | datetime May 21, 2007 7:00 am

  • By Herman Glimscher, May 21, 2007 @ 7:50 am

    DJ, they are just afraid, afraid of the future and the way it will be different from yesterday. The forward-thinking MSM reviewer would be starting a blog, not deriding them. I say all this, and, in my circles, I’m known as being a Luddite.

    Now, let me get back to my manual typewriter.

  • By Russ, May 21, 2007 @ 9:05 am

    I feel the NBCC should recall exactly *how* the protest gained steam…and it’s funny, isn’t it, the slag on blogging occurs…natch…in a blog.

    I really need to stay out of this, because the foot-and-a-half firmly planted in the old era of media is what, in some regards, makes the book industry so lovely (otherwise we’d be seeing an “official” myspace page for Harry Potter, on which he’d list his interests as “freaky bitches”), but if published critics feel their positions will suddenly be nullified by “blogs”, um…if that was going to happen? it’d have occurred, oh, about four years ago.

  • By Herman Glimscher, May 21, 2007 @ 1:16 pm

    The question for Lee Smith is this: How old, on average, were these “16 well-read, highly intelligent women”? If they were all over 80, for example, we could take it for granted that they wouldn’t be up on the latest technological advances. Also, how in the world did she ever get the idea that being well-read and highly intelligent translates into being an average American? Has she met an average Americans lately? Further, just as a matter of statistics, how can her sample of 16 women be extrapolated into discern the habits of “the average person,” who, it would seem to me, would have almost a 50% chance of not being a woman?

    Maybe it’s these hifalutin’ authors who all live in a basement in Indiana. They certainly seem to have no experience interacting with life as it’s lived here in America.

  • By DJ Cayenne, May 21, 2007 @ 2:39 pm

    I have taken a vow against further posts on this topic for at least one week. However, I think there is a loophole that allows me to link to something that is hilarious and on topic if need be. Check this out.

  • By DJ Cayenne, May 21, 2007 @ 2:56 pm

    Also, please note the savaging that the first post (as quoted above)took in its comments section.

  • By Dr J, May 21, 2007 @ 10:57 pm

    Why is writing about books in a newspaper the height of morally superior behavior, but writing about books on a blog the equivalent of living in a basement in Terre Haute? I’m genuinely curious about this.

    I happen to have met Lee Smith and like her, but this is cray-zee. Her husband, for the record, writes about books in an alternative (free) newspaper, the Raleigh Independent. Perhaps Lee or Hal could explain to us how writing for a newspaper that’s handed out gratis in burrito restaurants is different from writing for a publicly accessible blog.

  • By DJ Cayenne, May 22, 2007 @ 12:25 am

    To be fair, Dr J, it was really the first post that decided that bloggers were maggots. Lee Smith, on the other hand, merely doesn’t believe that the average American reads blogs. Then again, the average American has his doubts about evolution, so I’m not sure her point carries much weight.

    In other news, the Atlanta press club handed out its awards recently, and the best print journalist in Atlanta – as decided by her peers – works for the free paper handed out in burrito joints. Not sure what that means.

  • By Collin Kelley, May 23, 2007 @ 5:38 pm

    And might I also add that Atlanta’s poetry scene is thriving as well. Natasha Trethewey just won a Pulitzer and the Java Monkey Speaks Anthology Vol.2 (which I co-edited with Kodac Harrison ) has received a mention in the next Pushcart Prize anthology as well as produced a winning poem by Patricia Smith.

    I hear a lot of people bemoaning the literary and poetry scene in Atlanta on a regular basis. It’s mainly because they aren’t paying any attention. Blogs like Baby Got Books are essential these days for us who are savvy enough to get online to find out what’s going on in the community.

  • By DJ Cayenne, May 23, 2007 @ 10:34 pm

    Thanks for the nice words, Collin. I’ll admit that I’m just becoming aware of some of the poetry goings-on around town.

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