Secrets of the City

Boooooring!

You know, at one time I would have agreed with Online Suicide — initially, I never got the appeal of Diablo (beyond the obvious). But as I’ve read more and more of her stuff, I’ve really started to dig her. Beyond a brief introduction (by Rex, actually) at First Avenue, I don’t know her personally, but she’s a great interviewee and always comes off with just the right amount of charm (and snark). I’m going to have to pick up that book and read it.

Anyway, my big question from this latest interview: What happened to that one stripper chick who claimed she was retiring? Eh?

(Also, Rex, technically the PiPress piece you linked is a feature, not a review.)

This is the internet — everything’s opinion, everything’s a review!

My conclusion is, if you enjoy browsing Pussy Ranch, you will enjoy the book. Surprisingly, she maintains the same off-the-cuff banter style as on her blog, and it stays entertaining all the way to the last page. It is an extremely fast read, I really recommend it for its entertainment value, and the way it slips in literary merit under the radar is an added bonus.

Wake me when her 15 minutes are up.

Who gives a crap where she took her clothes off? Where the hell did she learn to write? (Hint: she didn’t!) Ms Cody is a vulture. Wake up, grow up and pay homage to all the bitches who’ve been doing this gig a lot longer than you have. Really. Grow a life and then start thinking a little and then, when you’re over yourself and how unique you think you are, well, maybe then we’ll give a pussy hair what you think. Every generation thinks they invented sex and every city has a dilettante like this. File under: prerequisite female writer alternative press feature story about stripping and feminism.

Your medication is ready, Ms. Yawnson.

Make it a double.

I’m sorry, I was unable to tell by your eloquent response whether you had, in fact, read the book. Does anyone want to have a real conversation about Candy Girl or is this too much controversy for people?

I’m trying not to talk about it because I don’t think all the attention she receives is warranted. It’s just an okay book (I’d like to here your opinon otherwise, here or on your blog). But I do hope people buy her book and that any success she has rubs off on other TC writers.

I’ll post a review on my blog later today, good idea.

I’ll buy it today. I have a coupon at Borders.

Well, my goodness, if I don’t like it the test drive, why would I buy the car?

The blog is enough evidence for me that she can’t write and has nothing to say. She dabbled in a little naughty business and quick ran back to market herself (and her tattoo of herself and her yapping about herself and her gossip about herself) to dorks who want the next Sex And The City or Friends. The people who pay her to write should be ashamed of themselves. Having chicks with tattoos around is what interns are for!

Just kidding, don’t get all bunched up.

She would be much too tasteful to point this all out, but Emily Carter has been writing about her truly frightening life with a feral eloquence for years and years and the effort shows.

Now get away from me. I need a nap.

Is it just me, or do this and the “Food Slut” thread seem to share, shall we say, a common thread?

Excellent point about a wonderful writer, Fanny. (Her observation about there being nothing so useless as a rich girl without money is at the very, very top of my “Damn, I wish I’d written that” list.) But where is Emily Carter these days? Her book came out five years ago.

Oh, you’ve read another memoir involving sex? No way. A lot of people write about their lives. You either find DC’s journalism and/or her book superfunny or you don’t. But come on, her writing is superfunny. Admit it. And she can describe the shit out of anything, she’s a master of self-indulgent slang, and she’s even wise enough to work some philosophy in there once in awhile and make it interesting. So how can y’all say she “can’t write”? Gimme some examples. Gimme some real criticism. Break it down for me Amis style or something. Get in that prose and take her down. Otherwise, why all the haters? There must be a lot of frustrated journalists/authors/screenwriters on this blogosphere deal, huh? Don’t worry so much, everybody. There’s plenty of Hollywood money there for the taking if you’re any good. Fuck, you don’t even have to be that good. Point is, they’re not running out.

Anyway, somebody have an actual case against candy? I’m not saying I’m so up in her ranch that I wouldn’t read it.

“The blog is enough evidence for me that she can’t write and has nothing to say.”

At least one book publisher disagreed. A movie company, too.

Book publishers and movie companies also greenlighted those horrible Dan Brown novels. Artistic merit is not the same thing as either popular success or marketability.

“There must be a lot of frustrated journalists/authors/screenwriters on this blogosphere deal, huh?”

I’m sensing a few measures of jealousy, here, too.

This woman had whatever it took to think that she could succeed and now she’s sniffed at by ankle-biters.

Remember the old Sondheim song: The art of making art, is PUTTING IT TOGETHER. Doing the deal and thinking you can.

I gotta say I’m a bit surprised at such condescension coming from a guy like Steve. I haven’t been the most vocal critic on here of DC, but I don’t think she’s bound for any great glorious career. As soon as someone, anyone, can come up with a better defense of why she IS a great writer (besides that she’s “superfunny”), I’ll bother to actually criticize why I don’t think she is. I am entitled to my opinion, right? Like I said, except for one or two comments on earlier threads, I’ve kept that opinion to myself, like a good Minnesotan. I only say anything know because Mr. Marsh thinks he can presume why DC’s critics are so critical.

And no, I don’t think she’s “superfunny.” Mildly amusing sometimes, but so is my cat, and he at least doesn’t mind if I watch him bathe.

Admit it, the reason everyone enjoys reading Diablo’s stuff is because it makes you feel like you’re talking dirty with a hot chick. Admit it.

I think she has a really fresh approach to writing, in that she doesn’t try to fit her work into some predetermined ideal for what a book should be. She is extremely up front and frank about that, too, which is entertaining. Yeah, it’s not sprawling, overly descriptive (boring) prose, yeah, it’s controversial because she talks about sex, but in the end, it’s really about her personal journey and her coming of age, and that fact that she didn’t really feel like she was putting herself out there in the world and doing something significant until she was literally naked on a stage. I think you could actually read the book as one big metaphor, actually, for someone finding themselves. Just my opinion.

I agree with Marsh, let’s hear some real criticism by someone who has read the book.

That may explain why some men like her, but the fact that she was a stripper who talks openly about it may explain why a lot of women are seething at her. She addresses that in Chapter 1 or 2, which I suspect most commenters haven’t actually read yet.

Actually, superfunny is one of the most difficult things to be. High praise, indeed. I doubt that gerg is superfunny.

I most certainly am not. Quite superunfunny, actually. Which is no small accomplishment.

But, let’s face it, more importantly I’m neither an attractive woman nor do I regularly post photos of myself to my blog and write about masturbation.

Have I mentioned that all this is just my humble little opinion? It’s not like I’m personally insulting anybody on this board or their writing.

The problem is that you’re dismissing her for the same reasons that you think other people like her.

True true. I’m done dismissing or dissing or whatevering her. I don’t really care what floats anyone’s boat, much less why it does. Just please don’t dismiss me because I have my own reasons for not liking what you do like. Deal?

I’ve said it before, which is more than I can say of the others criticizing her, but I’d like it to be my final words on the subject: I’m sincerely happy that she’s making a buck or two with this gig.

I’m usually not one for visceral criticism, but the memoir is a fuzzy game, so in that sense, I’m on your side gerg. Memoirists, documentarians, bloggers, and reality tv stars are the toughest game in town, because they can always be accused of being first-person megalomaniacs or careerists of one kind or another.

I’m still wondering what happened to that stripper chick who claimed she was retiring? (Diablo talks about her in the Suicide Girls interview.)

Perhaps this woman is addressed in the book?

Anyway, I am now on the list to read “Candy Girl” once my coworker finishes it.

That stripper chick is not addressed in the book. I have no idea. Sorry!

Rex: Amen. From this narcissistic, megalomaniac blogger, thanks for providing a forum to hash this sort of stuff out. I think we all like memoirs of people that we like, respect, etc. We are usually repelled by memoirs of people we don’t like. That makes it kind of difficult to objectively judge their work.

Here you go Andrea. Insomnia is killing me softly.

I have my doubts that the author of that positive so-called “review” linked above bothered to read very closely beyond the first chapter of what I only begrudgingly label as Diablo’s book. Let’s call it what it is and what Ms. Cody even admits: it’s a pamphlet. Just as so many dissertations today are simply articles glued together in a binding to form a semblance of a whole, Candy Girl is in great part a bunch of inane, bloggy musings pasted together posing as a memoir. If readers choose to call that refreshing change of format that’s their choice. Amateur publishing is about as good as amateur porn. It’s hot until someone starts to take it too seriously.

Every time I saw one of those “* * *” line seperators chewing up space (like every two pages most of the time) in print I reflexively tapped on the book’s page to post a comment on the blog or the top ten lists included at the end of some chapters. I seriously hope this isn’t a trend as a weak American publishing industry starts to farm the blogosphere for potential NBT’s.

The reviewer seems to hint that the book covers Cody’s “rebellion” against her female friends’ and, we can assume I guess, her own latent feminist leanings in order to peel in public. The reviewer takes a quote from the book which is actually sourced from a hypothetical anonymous “friend” about slushy silicone as suggestive. On the contrary, the book covers little if any territory in what could have been its most interesting aspect: how did she think, feel and react to the responses of people that actually knew her and the rending, if any, in her social fabric that resulted in her “choice” to strip. How did the women in her life respond after she quit hiding it? What did her mother and father think? Rather than get some interesting perspectives we get blather about how vapid suburbanite bachelorettes in Sex World make fun of the pseudo-whores and how girls on the street think strippers are sluts even as they covet the telltale boa making its escape from its backpack hiding place on the wings of a Minnesota gust of wind. *yawn*

In fact, reading this book one could wonder whether or not Ms. Cody had any friends or family at all during this episode. The only people she recounts that come into contact with her new lifestyle are a couple of anonymous sterotypical, geeky IT male co-workers who never speak to her again and apparently tell no one else at work (sure, I believe that), and a ghost of a boyfriend character that can only be characterized as an abstraction of a supporting sterotype, not an account of a real person (loving, single dad wanna-be rockstar, I’m sure with a goatee or soul patch and a shaved head who gets off on her exposure). If you post or read here Diablo can you at least tell us if you ever asked him if he would support his beloved daughter stripping or doing pay-for-play as much as he apparently encouraged you? I’m genuinely curious anyway.

Her last chapter in which she attempts to provide some critical “analysis” doesn’t fit at all with the rest of the book and I’d wager was either mandated by an editor hoping to secure some women’s studies shelf space or simply written after too much time had passed from producing the semi-entertaining ones about the actual stripping. It attempts to paint her immediate family in broad simple strokes (again empty vessel abstractions) and doesn’t speak at all to how they reacted to her rejection of her upbringing. It’s like she wrote a book about briefly being gay without talking at all about coming out. Talk about missing the money shot.

That “reviewer” seems to believe the book succesfully forms a narrative and one that is full of witty, sardonic references. I found not alot to back that up. The only plot or narrative arc is maybe the descent from the semi-sexy and interesting world of club stripping to the borderline illegal and disgusting job of masturbating with dildos and loud vibrators and the joys of watching men allegdly licking the cum of strangers off the floor in Sex World.

The fictionalized dialogue in the book is unnatural, terse and strained. Gonna have to agree with taylor’s posts in prior threads. Her so-called “Gen-X” witticisms and periods of “ironic clarity” displayed on the web are the same played, tired prose in print and comes off as pretty standard “look@me”. It’s like reading Janeane Garofalo stumble through an act from five years ago. Painful but at the same time somewhat entertaining because you can both snicker and be secure that you too could write this kind of stuff one day if you only took the time.

I’m not even sure how she can subtitle the book “a memoir.” If taken basically at face value it is a semi-fictional account of a college-educated white woman losing hope and sinking out of the middle class on the verge of middle age because she lacks the conviction to hold down a job with any responsibility. She decides to escape nascent opportunity of motherhood by earning “bank” first stripping, then traverses down the food chain of the safe-sex industry in the direction of jobs that unsurprisingly require less and less actual physical and mental work. After the physical exertion of stripping proves too much, she turns to sitting behind glass for an hourly wage with more downtime than performance, to finally pretending to be an airhead teenager reading scripts on a phone sex line at home in her living room. And then surprise, surprise she burns out on her return to stripping because she thinks she deserves better.

All in the course of what, about a year? She complains incessantly about anyone in authority, the pay system not giving her enough but of course never actually does anything about it, the quality of other people’s work and even their bodies, unsurprisingly even bitching about the quality of the copy she has to read to get a job as sex chat operator: “I wondered why I hadn’t gotten a job as an internal copywriter with the company instead. I could have written far superior orientation materials.” Hadn’t gotten? Jesus.

At this point I kind of said “Fuck you” and closed the book and went and reread some of her blogs. It actually is alot better online.

The eventual payoff to the reader is to learn that Diablo thinks that stripping is about men seeking the power to reject attractive women. *yawn* Her powerful metaphor? Yeah, a buffet. Pretty mind-blowing stuff.

There should be a rule. Only genuinely famous or important people should be allowed to publish memoirs that cover just a year. And it should be a really important year.

On the positive side, the book may provide interesting reading material about the workings of a strip joint to people who have never spent much time in one. Tips include what types of athletic pants to wear to get maximum friction. Not exactly wank or romantic material though and there are more accurate and interesting documentaries by women who devoted more of their energy and life to the peel trade than a few months. Her description of the Russian, Ukranian and Belarussian stripper crews are spot on, I’ll give her that much. Minnesota men are such suckers for those blonde Slavics for some reaons and they can actually be pretty mean bitches to the other girls especially those of African-American heritage. Unsurprisingly, she also doesn’t dwell very long if at all on the rampant drug use I’ve seen among Minneapolis strippers. As I recall, she only describes one of her passing acquaintences as having any addiction. That’s not even close to reality. But I could be wrong, maybe she did talk about it. Her book is pretty fast casual reading.

The real question for me is, did Ms. Cody turn to stripping out of boredom and the chance to “terrify” herself before she got too old to care as she wants to rationalize, or, because she was lazy and simply couldn’t hack what seems like even the smallest amount of responsibility presented by a real job that she feels is beneath her. She admits to quitting stripping not because of being degraded but because she doesn’t like having to smile and swallow her contempt for the men and women paying, and more importantly those rejecting, her. She only barely conceals her contempt for her boss at the ad agency (who ruined her “career” by wrongfully promoting her; apparently she had no say in the matter) from copyist to an assistant. A job we are told with the barest managerial or oversight responsibility (which we are led to believe gives her an ulcer, lol). She also notes that she reenters the real world job market dishonestly with a fabricated resume so her respect for people who actually work for a living seems not to have greatly increased by her short stint on the pole.

I’m usually not so harsh on a first book because writers deserve a chance to develop and grow. And I did get the sense of the abject loneliness she hints at. But that “review” linked above is pretty much just advertising as tacky as as the pancake makeup Diablo wore and about as critical as Rex’s tongue-wagging. I sincerely wish you luck on your future career as a tv writer, Ms Cody. I hope you can hold the people with power in that biz with less disdain long enough to get some syndication residuals to get you by. The one thing I liked about your writing and online presence was your lack of ego and pretense, so I hope you don’t inherit those traits now.

Christ, I really hope the lit wannabes don’t try and turn this playful tripe even briefly into a symbol of Minneapolis culture. The few cheeky references to winter and our local haunts won’t be worth it. The literati on the coasts will tear it to pieces. Besides, she’s really from Chicago and calls Minnesota the most unglamorous state in the country, so it’s not like you’re backing a local girl anyway. I mean, hello has she ever been to Wisconsin? Talk about your unglamorous.

Diablo’s husband here. Just thought I’d chime in with a little defensiveness re: a couple of items:

>> As soon as someone, anyone, can come up with a better defense of why she IS a great writer

How about this: her screenplay, “Juno,” is magnificent. I know — you haven’t read it, and you won’t get a chance to read it until the movie’s made, and even if someone handed it to you you’d probably just go “pff” and ignore it, and your loss. But I certainly have, and granted I’m biased, but I think its remarkable. Its not “snarky” or any of the other criticisms I see leveled at her around here — its a damn fine, funny, moving character study and I think its going to change a lot of folks’ minds about what exactly — superfunniness? snarkiness? — she’s all about.

Sure, anything can get greenlit in Hollywood, and does. But you don’t get the kind of directorial / acting talent the movie’s getting without a damn fine script and a lot of people believing in it very deeply.

So many assumptions. So little time. Really, you have no idea why she’s had the success she has, as you don’t know her, don’t know the people involved, and don’t really know anything beyond what you’ve managed to make up or assume or sort of infer from reading about her in the paper, but I guarantee you it hasn’t been based on people thinking she’s hot.

Her MARRIAGE, now that one is based on someone thinking she’s hot! Hotcha!

>>> Having chicks with tattoos around is what interns are for!

Nobody’s gonna call this out as being sexist and insulting? Okay, fair enough. I’ll do it. This is sexist and insulting. Read the book, then come back. Or don’t.

Now, onto the long review:

>> Amateur publishing

You….do realize this is on Gotham, right? I don’t get your point, are you talking about the blog, which this isn’t?

>> semi-fictional

It sure as heck isn’t anything like semi-fictional. I lived through it with her. I know. You’re just assuming.

>>> did Ms. Cody turn to stripping out of boredom and the chance to “terrify” herself before she got too old to care as she wants to rationalize, or, because she was lazy and simply couldn’t hack what seems like even the smallest amount of responsibility presented by a real job that she feels is beneath her.

Both. Didn’t you get that from the book? That’s kind of the point. You assume she has this sense of entitlement, but I think the point she was trying to make in that regard was much more self-effacing — she’s basically admitting to character flaws re: her ability to work that kind of office job.

>>> a ghost of a boyfriend character that can only be characterized as an abstraction of a supporting sterotype, not an account of a real person (loving, single dad wanna-be rockstar, I’m sure with a goatee or soul patch and a shaved head who gets off on her exposure).

No goatee, no shaved head, not a wanna-be rock-star. Full head of hair, beardless. But ouch, you sure got me where it hurts. You bet I “get off on her exposure” — do you mean media exposure? Because you bet I’m damn proud! And PS: I *am* that supporting stereotype.

>>> If you post or read here Diablo can you at least tell us if you ever asked him if he would support his beloved daughter stripping or doing pay-for-play as much as he apparently encouraged you? I’m genuinely curious anyway.

My daughter is six years old. If she was stripping at age six, you can bet I’d have something to say about it.

As far as when she’s an adult? I hope I’m as supportive of whatever choices she makes in her life, no matter what they are, as Diablo’s folks have been. Honestly, its none of your beeswax.

>>> how did she think, feel and react to the responses of people that actually knew her and the rending, if any, in her social fabric that resulted in her “choice” to strip. How did the women in her life respond after she quit hiding it? What did her mother and father think?

Y’know, that isn’t the interesting story, not even remotely. The story there is: nobody actually cared. Not me, not her family, not my family, not any of her friends. If there was a story there — if she’d gotten disowned, or dissed, or roundly dismissed, she woulda written about it. But really? Nobody cared as much as you think they would.

And anyway: that’s such the cliche story, the “stripper tragedy.” Talk about “yawn”. There’s ten books like that already. Big sad memoir about the tragic, tragic life of a stripper and how hard it is to live it, boo hoo. The point here was: write a book about stripping where a sense of humor is employed rather than a sense of tragedy, to paint that particular world not in blacks and whites but rather, y’know, multicolored thingies.

>>> it’s not like you’re backing a local girl anyway

Splitting hairs. Hell, I’m originally from Fargo. Do you have to be frickin’ local-born to count anymore? Are we folks who moved here just “mudbloods”? Or what?

We live in the suburbs, we like the Minneapolis, and aren’t planning to move. Isn’t that local enough? Sheesh.

Hi Jonny, I’m glad you took the time to respond to what is essentially an inane attack job. You honestly shouldn’t have to bother with that shit, but it’s nice that you did.

I finished Diablo’s book last night, and I’m down with it. If I get some time, I’ll try to write a full review.

Hey, Rex!

I gotta stick up for the wife, yo. What good are semi-literate husbands with a superfast internet connection if not that?

MNspeak: Fewer inane attack jobs, more inane starfucking!

Rex, make sure you let us know where you post your review.

I am also really glad that Jonny came on to share his thoughts, that was really interesting. I would also like to read Rex’s review, when he finishes it.

I just want to say that I’m a Diablo Cody fan, too, and what I like about her work is that she has a distinctive voice (crucial, that is — lots of people write in that bland, plodding style we see in newspaper articles), and she’s fearless about expressing herself. That, I think, is part of what makes for a good writer. I’d find her interesting if she’d never been a stripper and was writing about her career as a truck driver.

I also think that strong, distinctive writing naturally draws out polarized attitudes, and we’re seeing that here.

if she were writing about her career as a truck driver — strong, distinctive writing or not — we wouldn’t see nearly the same responses as we have here.

And I would be reading her more. At least she would be writing about something.

Her blog is increasingly free of content. A note about Angelina Jolie’s pregnancy? Three days of entries about starting a MySpace acoount? A photoshopped picture of her and three lactating mocie stars aboard a speedboat? There’s just nothing happening there, man.

It’s a blog. It’s “about” what she wants it to be that day. You know, obviously she’s doing something right if she can generate such strong reactions. Even the supposed haters are curious gawkers.

She can post whatever she wants. But, recenty, she’s mostly abandoned the autobiographical writing that made people read her blog in the first place, and has lost my interest as a result.

I think it’s a fair criticism.

Anyway, a blog from a female long-haul trucker would be fascinating.

Totally, Molly, its a blog. Its not meant to be a *constantly impressive vehicle for literary expression*. Nor is it a *place where content must constantly be scintillating and important*. It is, like all blogs, including your own, “hipmn,” a place for her to babble about her life and stupid stuff that interests her and me, and stuff she thinks is funny. She’s not doing it for you, she’s doing it for herself. Its just a nice coincidence that lots of other people seem to like it as well.

Much like life, some weeks there’s a lot happening, and some weeks there isn’t. Depends on what’s going on, innit? Yesterday we talked about her screenplay and drank a glass of wine and watched Degrassi. Fascinating stuff, eh? Scintillating. Sometimes, thank god, life is slow.

Not interesting you? Well, people have predicted the imminent death of the blog ever since she stopped stripping several years ago, and then again when she stopped posting nekkid pitchers, and in defiance of all the naysayers, so far the viewership has gone nowhere but up. Logical conclusion: people must think its funny. Don’t like it? Don’t read it!

She writes about sex, people complain she writes too much about sex. So she stops writing about sex, people complain she doesn’t write about sex enough. She writes about her movie career and people complain she’s bitching, so she writes about her day-to-day life, and people complain its content free. She writes about pop culture, and people say its “too filled with hip references,” and so she writes about step-parenting, and people bitch she has a bad attitude or something. Sheesh. She literally cannot win.

Such is the life of a popular blogger: everybody’s a critic, all the time. I’ve seen similar criticisms lobbed at James Lileks, and he, too, seems to be doing nothing but growing, too. I still read him, even though his politics infuriate me, har har — see what I mean? Good books, too, that one.

(I’m sorry, that photoshop job with the lactating celebrities was kinda god, thanks very much. If you knew what little I had to work and how much source material manipulation there was, you’d be more impressed. It took me far too long to be dismissed, dammit!)

May I safely assume that Molly Priesmeyer is rushing to defend Mr. Lileks?

Lileks has hateful gawkers?

They follow him everywhere, pointing and whispering.

I think she’s a very, very good writer.

I’ve only read one of her stories-the one in The Pages about traveling to LA for movie meetings. Very enjoyable stuff.

Jonny, if it’s any help at all to hear, I think that the more criticism she gets, the better. It means more and more people are reading her, analyzing her, and that she is sparking interesting and somewhat heated debates. I read a little while back on her blog that she is less interested and/or affected by criticism of her work than you are, which I actually find to be really darling. You clearly care very much about her talent and success, like all supportive husbands should. I think you guys both rock.

I’m just amazed that Lilek’s wife doesn’t write an angry letter to me for calling her husband the voice of the bland status quo.

Look, you put your blog out there, it gets a readership, you takes your lumps, as do we all.

I’m really just sore about the dis of my photoshop job!!

It’s an unfair criticism to say that a *diary* blog lacks content. Diablo never professed to be a pundit. Her blog is intended to be about her, random and funny thoughts about celebs and all. And then there are the people who have criticized her blog because it’s too self-inolved and focuses too much on the details of her life as a successful writer, which is like criticizing Lileks or Powerline for being “too political” or P.Z. Meyers for devoting too much space to discussions about science and evolution.

I think, really, what’s at issue here is style preference. But do we really need to debate that anymore? Also: I think it sucks how quick everyone is so quick to attack a local writer. I’m not saying anyone should support something only because it’s local. But it’d be decent not to seek out flaws and pick someone apart just because they are local, too. The end.

1. DC writes about whatever she wants on her blog. And people can read it and like it for what it is. Of course. Photoshops and fingerbanging and DeGrassi, whatever, who cares, it’s a blog.

2. DC’s printed work on the other hand, both in “Candy Girl” and in the City Pages, is different. Published work that gets so much attention — a blub in Entertainment Weekly, for example — is definitely open to criticism.

3. Some of the discussions surrounding DC’s printed work do reflect stylistic preferences. There are readers out there who find absurd similes and irreverent allusions to Boner Stabbone and Chuck Taylors entertaining, and that’s why they appreciate DC’s writing. Also fine. Here we can agree to disagree.

4. What’s really important is deserved credit. Minneapolis has plenty of talented young writers with much more skill than DC (Christi DeSmith at the Rake, Chuck Terhark and Lindsey Thomas at CP) and published authors (so many to name), but since they didn’t strip part-time for a year or constantly talk about coitus, they don’t receive the same exposure.

5. Andrea Hoag’s awful review, for example, says that DC’s “greatest talent lies in her ability to expose the lowest of low-culture leanings in prose that alternates deftly between the raunchy and the intellectual.” This is just plain wrong – there isn’t a single moment of intellectuallism in DC’s book or any of the CP writing that I’ve seen, unless of course you count mentioning Mary Tyler Moore or Fruit Loops as intellectual.

Hoag also rhetorically asks “Can a woman writing under the dubious pseudonym of Diablo Cody actually string together a compelling narrative? There will be a cranky element among literary purists who would like the answer to be no.” DC can write under whatever psuedonym she wants, about whatever she wants. But her narratives aren’t compelling, they’re contrived. So if quality is a requirement of a literary purist, we should all applaud purism.

6. If anything, DC’s success and our subsequent discussion will result in further publications for local authors.

I’d like to flog Molly.

I’d like to back up to this comment from spaceman:

if she were writing about her career as a truck driver — strong, distinctive writing or not — we wouldn’t see nearly the same responses as we have here.

That is, I think, the heart of the issue. But it’s also wrong. Listen, I’m a dude obsessed with blogs, reality tv, and memoirs — I’ve seen more crap passed off as confessional narrative than maybe any human alive. When you’ve consumed that much crap (don’t ask me how many stripper memoirs I’ve read, cuz it’ll scare you), you come to appreciate one thing: style. Is the blogger/memoirist a good storyteller, do they make you smile, are there layers of meaning, etc. These are the questions you ask, and I feel strongly that Diablo could write about, I dunno, African famine, and I’d find myself enjoying it.

(I wonder if there’s an African famine equivalent to the “cumlicker” character in Candy Girl. Fuck, I’m going to hell for typing that.)

So she wrote her first book about stripping? There’s a lot more material to come, and I’m sure you’ll see more diversity with Juno.

Ouch.

Bet you never heard that one before, Molly!

I’ll also add, if for no other reason than to show that I’m not a sycophant, parts of the narrative flow of Candy Girl irk me. I wish several times throughout the story for the voice-over moment to ask “just why the hell am I doing this?” This finally happens in the closing pages of the book, but I don’t necessarily feel satisfied with the answer, which seems a mix of “because I can” and “because strippers are cool!” (She might be trying to get at something like “there doesn’t have to be an answer to that question,” but I’m not sure I’ll let that slide.)

However, what also makes this book interesting is that the conclusion is not really an “event” (most narratives end in tragedy, redemption, etc.), but rather an “idea” — an explanation, a concept, perhaps even a caveat.

Hmm, maybe we should start an MNspeak book club.

Wait…so this site is called “Em-En Speak” and not “MinnSpeak?” I am such a fool.

I hear more people pronounce it “Minn-speak” (including myself).

I’ve never told the story here about how many domain names I went through before coming up with mnspeak.com — hundreds. I’m not kidding. The site launch was delayed a month while I looked for domain names that weren’t taken. You wouldn’t believe the domain names people own.

And I didn’t really like mnspeak, primarily for the reason just mentioned: when you say it, you don’t necessarily know how to type it. That’s bad marketing.

But I went with MNspeak, and it seems to be an okay name now. I tend to pronounce it “MinnSpeak,” but I hate grammarians, so pronounce it however you wish.

I’m just bummed to find out she wasn’t really into me.

I think you should have gone with “Polka Hour.”

I would actually be smitten with the idea of a MNSpeak book club. Finally, one that sounds interesting!

Hey Jon! Nice to hear from you, ya hippy…

Anyhow, I like Diablo Cody’s writing. I used to ignore it, in much the same way I ignore a CD from a good, but not very interesting, local band. However, after actually reading some of the CP missives, I realized I was missing out. Perhaps she is no shakspeare, but her writing is much more interesting the much of what takes place in the CP, fo sho.

Gotta get that book one of these days.

-shogunmoon

I’ve only recently waded into this DC exchange because it just seemed like a “I’m-jealous-of-her-success camp vs. I-know-DC-therefore-I’m-cool-and-she’s-cool camp”.

Rex, she is a good writer and can be enjoyable, and you are right, if she wrote about anything it would probably be a good read. But standing back and watching this loaded topic unfold, I think most that have been critical (even if they say it is the writing that is the problem) object to the using of sex to get attention. Unlike writing about African famines or truck driving, it screams “look at me, look at me!”. We all want attention, but if one uses such an easy way to get it, they should count on some criticism.

Molly P. said in one of the posts that, “If she were a dude, there’d be hardly any backlash here”. Maybe this is true, but if she were a dude, he would have been written off as a perv and ignored from the beginning (like we do with bud now) — no chance for a blacklash.

Lastly, there are many good writers around town — hey Quinton Skinner put out a book a couple months ago. But we don’t hear about these folks nearly as much — there’s no Quinton Skinner Watch on MNspeak — and I think that has played into it too.

Am I the only one who imagines Quinton Skinner dressed in Edwardian garb with long, flowing grey hair, a walking stick, and a walrus moustache? He has an excellent name for a theater critic.

Of course, when I walked the theater beat, I dressed in a tuxedo and a bowler derby.

>>> there’s no Quinton Skinner Watch on MNspeak

There SHOULD be. How come nobody called him out in the list of “underrated writers?” He’s hilarious and cranky and usually right on.

PS: I’m not cool. I can’t even see cool through binoculars.

Jon, you were in a band and you married a stripper/blogger. At this point, announcing “I’m not cool” on another fucking blog comes off as insincere at best, calculating at worst.

You mean: self-effacing at best, neurotically-self-conscious at worst.

stevemarsh-

Hey, I can vouch for Jon. He is entirely uncool. I know, because to this day, people walk up to me and think I am Jon. The reverse happens to him. We apperently bear more then a passing resemblence.

For the record, virtually every resident of our fair twin cities has been in some band or another.

Like me, he is fat, old, clueless, and a hopeless sci fi fanatic. Utterly uncool.

Do what you will with that information.

Zing!

Marsh. Too Funny.

No I don’t.

Just playing, bro.

Oh…I get it. Being cool is over. I knew that. Totally. Think I didn’t?

I’m not cool either, you guys. Not even, as they (and by that I mean uncool people like me) say.

Geek is the new chic. Finally, my day has come!

Andrea, may I recommend…

A little birdy with access to Nielsen Bookscan just sent me some numbers. Number of copies sold in the first three weeks of 2006:

Diablo Cody’s Candy Girl: 628

For a comparison, the Nicole Lea Helget memoir (discussed here) has sold 7,200 so far.

I thought that was going to be “Revenge of the Nerds.”

We will not be free until nerd persecution ends.

Don’t worry, Rex. Wait till D.Cody admits she made half of it up on Larry King.

Ms. Cody posted a somewhat defense rundown today of the “fact vs. fiction” elements of her book. Pretty typical stuff, changed names and stage names to protect the identities of girls who are still in the industry.

Well, shit. Now I’m starting to wonder if her name really even is “Diablo Cody.”

Its been out for THIRTEEN DAYS — first three weeks of 2006? We’re only in the 2nd week!!

Sorry, I was just copying what the email said, without really doing the math in my head.

I’m super excited that Jon is posting.

And I’m super excited that being uncool is cool. Sweet!

Did someone actually say: “I’ve seen similar criticisms lobbed at James Lileks, and he, too, seems to be doing nothing but growing, too.”?

Good lord. Someone pass me a shovel.

Prediction: Next Year’s City Pages Artist of the Year is…

Yep. You guess it. I bet they even have her pictures all ready. Pen quill in one hand, pole betwixt her legs, eyes agape in faux orgasmic delight.

City Pages should be renamed Cody’s Pages.

>>> Good lord. Someone pass me a shovel.

That was me that said that. And people have been predicting *his* iminent (imminent?) internet demise for years, as well, and yet people keep reading the stinkin’ Bleat, his column went to daily, and he has three (THREE) nice coffee-table sized books that sell pretty well. This despite being the bland voice for the status quo, a description I pretty much agree with. I feel compelled to point out that I disagree vehemently with his politics, but I feel equally compelled to defend him, because I read and enjoy him. Well, his non-”we’re-at-war” stuff.

>>> City Pages should be renamed Cody’s Pages.

She’s a TV writer there. Nothing more.

>>> I’m super excited that Jon is posting

That’s because you wanna know how it is that I’m a college edumicated adult who can string a sentence together, and yet somehow I still think hip pop-culture references to Def Leppard, Chuck Taylors and Boner Stabbone are funny!! The hip pop-culture references are why I married her, actually. She’s the only person I’ve ever met who can meet me “Golden Girl” to “Golden Girl.”

That line about Leppard you called out — come ON, man. That’s funny, in context, and in non-context, it *is* tough to be a fan of a band where a reclusive freak in Switzerland *so obviously* wrote all their good songs. “I like Def Leppard” is tantamount to saying “I like Shania Twain,” because it really means “Mutt Rules.” He also did “Magic” by the Cars, which could easily be a Lep song as well. I don’t think discussing Def Leppard is tantamount to, y’know,

(whoops, my last sentence got cut off) , feeble-mindedness or something!

I read the book. I don’t know how I finished it, but somehow I gritted my teeth and plowed through it. I feel like I deserve some sort of literary Purple Heart for doing this.

This book was crap. It was an object lesson in the difficulty of translating across media. A vacuous blog is entertaining, possibly (though that’s open to dispute in this case.) Just as an aging stripper can be made to look good with basic tricks of lighting and foundation, Cody looked all right in the low light of the blogosphere.

A book, however, exposes this girl’s painful flaws as a writer in a glaring spotlight – and no amount of fog or makeup can cover up these ass pimples.

The criticism is really, really simple. It isn’t a narrative. It’s two or three stylistic tricks picked up on bulletin boards. Those tricks, repeated over the length of three hundred pages, get old REALLY fast. Try ten pages fast.

Books are supposed to do something that computers can’t do. Diablo Cody could easily be replicated by an enterprising AI. It’s the same sentence structure over and over – the same joke structure. Just periodically update the pop culture database, and your Brook generator is good to go.

Here’s my lowbrow culture culling: I couldn’t stop thinking of Night at the Roxbury. Take a moderately unfunny joke and extend it over five minutes. Take an idiot producer and extend the same thing over THREE HOURS. Each lengthening is progressively more painful than the last.

I don’t really care about her tits anymore. This isn’t about sides of a gender divide or a snob divide. Cody’s been dece at playing that marketing game – annoy both sides of a dichotomy and claim to transcend. Well and good – but, bottom line, she just never learned to write. The criticisms of her writing, or lack thereof, would apply equally to truck drivers. When you’re writing for other people, you have some obligation to give them a story, and there really isn’t anything compelling here other than a nightmare of self-indulgence. It is admittedly a little frustrating that a big ass can propel someone to a six-figure advance – but that’s not really the point at all.

The point is that this has been massively hyped by people who didn’t read it. The people who did bother reading it were either ideologically or sexually committed to liking it, or were just bored. If you write a sex book and it’s boring, you’re in some deep deep shit.

The sales stats kind of reaffirm my point.

As a side note, she isn’t even from Chicago. She’s from fucking Naperville.

It’s a little bit disconcerting to face an angry husband in this format; it’s up close and personal. I don’t really want to make anyone cry or get their geeky unhipness in a bunch. At the same time, there is such a thing as literary merit. People spend a limited number of entertainment dollars, and there are other places they could be spending them.

I find it telling that, faced with one failed project, you’re already jumping onto bulletin boards to tell us that the *next* one will really be a whizbang artistic job. Come on. She didn’t have much to say, she posted some naked pictures of herself, she took the money and ran. On a personal level, I say bully for her – she pulled a pretty good scam. Tip of the hat. If you really want to defend the book though, avoid the following distraction tactics:

1. “I’m really really offended.” Puh-leeze. You put a book out there, it’s open to criticism. You’re right – it wasn’t self-published and circulated among dear friends. It was seriously hyped, so a few real critics really read it. So get over it.

2. “The project you can’t see will be really good.” Um…we’ll discuss that if anyone’s still paying attention by then; I think she’d have to get back to grinding dick to recapture attention by then, but we’ll wait and see.

3. She can say what she wants! Yes, we understand and support that. We also have the right to say that it blows.

A few defenses of Not2Sure’s honest and detailed review:

“Really, you have no idea why she’s had the success she has,”

Well, no shit. That’s his point. He read the book – and still had no idea.

“but I guarantee you it hasn’t been based on people thinking she’s hot.”

You’ve got to be kidding me. Would you honestly maintain that previous blogs from the same author would have succeeded without the stripping angle?

If so…why didn’t they? Was there some remarkable convergence between polishing her craft and slathering on some cocoa butter? That’s a convenient coincidence.

“But you don’t get the kind of directorial / acting talent the movie’s getting without a damn fine script and a lot of people believing in it very deeply.”

That’s touching, except that it’s not. If you think that an assemblage of talent necessarily means that it isn’t a crap script, you haven’t read your wife’s pop culture criticism very closely.

Hell, at the end of the day, Cody Diablo should be willing to take it for one simple reason: she’s been ripping writers and actors apart for *years.* What’s wrong with just desserts?

As a note of advice, if she ever had an edge, she’s lost it – and that’s precisely because she will now consistently refuse to be nasty to pop culture as she once was. Mark my words.

“As far as when she’s an adult? I hope I’m as supportive of whatever choices she makes in her life, no matter what they are, as Diablo’s folks have been. Honestly, its none of your beeswax.”

Hello? She wrote a book. The book was about her life, as you stridently insist. The book damn well is his beeswax. He paid for it.

If you don’t want people discussing and possibly condemning your wife’s choices, here’s a possible option you might have considered:

Don’t write and sell a book about it.

“The story there is: nobody actually cared.”

Exactly.

“The point here was: write a book about stripping where a sense of humor is employed rather than a sense of tragedy, to paint that particular world not in blacks and whites but rather, y’know, multicolored thingies.”

Well, if the point is humor, then it’s subject to same standards as all comedic writing.

It needs to be consistently funny without falling into drudgery.

Next time you are at your local bookstore, I strongly recommend that you take a gander at some other pieces of comedic writing. You’ll notice that they have a certain sort of brevity about them. Even funny people aren’t funny for 300 pages.

Dude, you have been going from board to board posting essentially the same review. That’s a lotta effort expended on something you supposedly “hate.” Not to mention the fact that you sure know a lot — real name, hometown, past blogs! — about someone you claim to loathe with a passion.

Be honest. Jilted boyfriend? Someone from the past with a grudge? Or just someone with a lot of time on their hands?

I feel weird about talking when there’s an in-your-face husband on an astroturfing mission.

Quick corrections:

I’m not a dude if dude means penis-haver.

Posted the review twice. I’ve said it to some friends locally. If my jokes recycle, sorry.

I live in Minneapolis and I like books. Lots of people know a lot. That’s because the thread subject wrote a memoir and posts a blog that reveals every detail of her life, including her crotch?

Grindable axes? I have two. First, I hate bad writing that I’m supposed to like to be down with the local scene. Second, actually, is my not-dudeness. I am a feminist – I describe myself as pro-sex but anti-bimbo. Alt bimbos are still bimbos.

Regardless, I reviewed the book and read it. If you want to defend it, step up. If you don’t, don’t. Don’t get all huffy at reviewers; I don’t sell my bio, so it’s not really relevant.

Ah, nothing like a “feminist” to throw out the word “bimbo” when describing a woman she’s never met.

Yeah yeah yeah. If someone knows too much about her, they’re a jilted lover. If they don’t know enough, they’re ig’nant. Ad hom/fem’s a distraction.

I just think it’s a bad book. Ideally, people can post reviews without getting flamed by (r)aging hipster husbands or Scene Mafia types. If you write a memoir, people are going to say stuff about it. If you think the book is sweet, go for it.

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