Elizabeth Wurtzel: Dud or DUD?

a lot has been made of her 'hyperintelligent' style of writing: she is intelligent and yes, she has a flair for writing but nothing she says ever makes sense beacuse there is never any real logic behind it. i mean, what the hell is Bitch? it starts off as an essay on the reclamation of the Bitch archetype into a type of feminism and ends up with her wittering on about buying heroin at 3 in the morning and fucking tattooists on parlour floors.

occassionally it seems that her 'amazing ability' to flit from one topic to another is nothing more than a particularly exaggerated form of obsessive compulsive disorder.

i've always thought it'd be interesting to see her have a go at writing a film, was she involved in adapting Prozac Nation?

man, how irritating is that film going to be..

prozac nation whips the shit outta bell jar any day of the week...

and fuck anyone who thinks it isn't cool to listen to patti smith when yr 11

(PN sucked, BTW.)

We all have moments of selfishness, but she takes it to a level that's beyond description. After reading the New York Post article, I thank God I've never spent a penny on this woman.

Not read anything else of hers by the way but now I am so NOT inspired.

Liz is the new Peggy Lee! "Is that all there is? Is that all there is to the collapse of two skyscrapers and the murder of 3,000 people a few blocks from where I live? Then let's keep daaaaancing." I don't know, those quotes were so fabulously idiotic, they're the best thing I've ever read by her.

[Judge]: (*sentences EW to a lifetime of dispensing free meals at soup kitchens, thus prospect of noticing others less fortunate causing her to throw herself from 12th story window. Spontaneous celebrations erupt in the streets. Day is declared an international holiday and exceeds all others in popularity. People buy each other EW Day ties and Salad Shooters, which are then immediately returned...*)

Out of curiosity, how many of your friends still talk to you?

So, does this work? I've never been seriously depressed or addicted to anything but cigarettes. I tried reading Prozac Nation once and couldn't stand it. So the theory holds up so far. Mind you, I never got anything out of The Bell Jar either.

Hmm.... I do this. But I still thought I was happy! Maybe I'm just deluding myself.

(Do not feel obliged to respond.)

Nuttin special.

Well I think the rest of this thread answers your question, Sarah.

Yeah, I do. Perhaps it's because I was in the hospital from 7 MAR 2002 to 13 MAR 2000 for major depression that was ultimately diagnosed as bipolar II.

Perhaps it's because my ex-girlfriend who broke up with me right after valentine's day weekend had recommended "Prozac Nation" to me long ago. I didn't have any interest in reading it... which is to say I was scared of reading it. The night she and her boyfriend took me to the hospital (and you must remember I was not in the best of states) I asked her to bring me the book to read. Once I was in a state to read, the book did not leave my hands and the nurses kept having to make me put the book down every time they wanted to have a group. It's the only book I've ever read that's ever touched me, except that might change because I'm reading "More, Now, Again" right now and it seems like its geting at what "Prozac Nation" only hinted about her.

Perhaps it's because when I read her books I feel like I'm closer to someone who understands and can express what I can not. Which is truly a talent and truly brave.

And perhaps it's because I think if I actually had a conversation with her she might say many things but I don't think she'd say "Gottcha."

So yes, I like her.

And btw, you should remember one thing. Both Elizabeth Wurtzel and I are sick. Or am I the only person who still thinks mental illness IS an illness?

And no depressed person I've ever known would've made those idiotic comments about the WTC. I think that reveals a huge flaw in her personality that goes way beyond the sort of clinical depression that others experience.

One of the probs of depression is surely that, absent a major life tragedy as, well, "hook", its proximate reasons in any given person can actually SEEM (ie to them) trivial, hence the (possibly) damaging stiff-upper-lip/keeping-it-in syndrome... and then it gets (medically) worse not better. I think one thing I got from PN was that telling myself that my reasons for depression were trivial rubbish (so snap out of it, you idiot) actually meant i hadn't yet grasped the nature of depression (which is that the reasons you give are rarely the actual reasons).

It's been so long since I've read PN I don't think I could give a coherent critique of it. I hadn't even noticed her in years, until she started flapping her lips about how beautiful the WTC's collapse was, so I think I'm just feeling some residual frustration that someone who's so often painted as a spokesperson for people my age should be such an idiot.

I just finished More, Now, Again.

I do like EW. I think people look at that statement with a preconcieved notion in their mind. I think people approach her writing with a preconceived idea in mind. All of this is fine so far as it goes.

I think the point is that we approach everything with our own set of bias. If you've never gone through what EW has gone through I don't think you're in a position to say anything about her life. More to the point, if you don't have a fairly similar make up mentally to her then I don't think it's possible for you to have any real sympathy and especially no understanding of her.

It seems to me that from Prozac Nation to More, Now, Again, which are the two books specifically dealing with her life, EW goes from one level of reaching for valadation (Prozac Nation) to an entirely different level in M, N, A.

Both of her autobiographical books are pleas. It's not until she gets to the level of honesty (damn near total, if not total) that she does in M, N, A that she finally displays her real plea.

More, Now, Again reads like one big love letter. It is EW at her most honest and totally exposed, asking for someone to love her despite all the ugliness.

To me that's damn brave.

And not something that's going to appeal to most folks.

What exactly is it you're disagreeing with?

As it happens a lot of people here have gone through experiences of addiction and mental illness - some choose to write about it, others don't. Some like EW, others don't. The mistake you're making is to think that because you've found a book you can empathise with and learn from - which is fantastic - anyone who can't empathise with it has no right to criticise it. That's not true - they have no right to criticise your liking of it, which is different surely.

Selle, "misguided" is putting it a bit mildly, wouldn't you say? And, is it fueled from her *depression*...or fueled from her ignorance? I worked on a depression study for 4 years, and assessed probably somewhere in the ballpark of 150-175 people with depression over that time. Similar to what Xwerxes indicated, I would be willing to bet that a good 98-99% of them would have shown a complete abhorrence towards Wurtzel's comments.

I am of the opinion that EW probably has more stuff going on that is not explained simply by virtue of depression--again, as suggested previously, I think something more characterlogically- or personality- based, of which depression is probably a by-product.

Yeah, they keep playing it on Encore (It's on right now, but I've missed the beginning yet again). She's incredibly irritating in this film, but I guess that's the point. The real EW must just be a hoot.

I just want to say that Adam's cleric spell posts make this entire thread worthwhile

OTM.

i have a whole love/hate thing going on with ew. i dont think shes a bad writer at all. really, i could read 'more, now, again' a hundred times and i still wouldnt be tired of it.

I'll have to keep an eye on Encore, I never noticed PN.

wow, this is unexpected
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=2972554&page=1

this woman is to blame for so much unreadable bad shit on the bookshelves. she's this generation's tom wolfe or something.

Hey, I graduate law school in 2008 and am about the same age. Maybe I'll have the chance to litigate against her someday. God, can you imagine Elizabeth Wurzel as your legal counsel? I'd buy tickets to court to see how she handles objections, cross-examination and closing arguments.

i still love 'more, now, again'.

Well... sense you ask.
Yeah, I do. Perhaps it's because I was in the hospital from 7 MAR 2002 to 13 MAR 2000 for major depression that was ultimately diagnosed as bipolar II.

That's some depression that can reverse the space-time continuum...

And there is no Santa Claus.

NED QUIT YR BLASPHEMING, RUDOLPH SEZ RECANT.

August 9, 2008

OPINION
The Internet Is Ruining America's Movies and Music

By ELIZABETH LEE WURTZEL
August 9, 2008; Page A11

Pete Yorn is a Los-Angeles based rock and roller with a gold-record career and Jesus of Nazareth good looks. His songs have appeared in "Spiderman" and "Me, Myself and Irene," and his album's have reached No. 18 on the Billboard charts.

If this were 1978, Mr. Yorn would be a multiplatinum artist living in a Malibu mansion with mountains of cocaine on every horizontal surface, lithe, hippie-ish blonde groupies with names like Veruschka and Christie lining the hallways, and ridiculous Larry Rivers paintings on the bathroom walls. But as it is, he has a cultishly loyal following, solid sales, a long-term recording contract, and a pretty darn good life -- as good as it gets in today's music industry.

The old-fashioned rock star has gone the way of the dodo and the dinosaur. Never again will we have another crazy-as-all-getout Axl Rose, another Jim Morrison who mistakes himself for a poet and has the hypnotic ability to convince a substantial audience it is so, or another Bob Dylan who changes the way a generation sees itself and the world.

Today's music industry is either moribund or dead, depending on whom you ask. Downloading has destroyed it, and no one in the business is smart enough to figure out how to fix it.

You may feel that this is no great loss. But these rock stars were fun, larger than life people with real talent -- and bad habits. Now all we've got left are the bad habits. All we've got left is Britney Spears.

In the era of the online music store -- even if you buy from iTunes rather than stealing from LimeWire, the problem is the same -- no one knows how to listen to a complete album anymore. Everything is slanted toward the hit single. This means that the music industry is oriented toward one-hit wonders rather than consummate musicians, and talent development is just not worth the trouble.

The one thing the United States exports with serious success is our popular culture. We have conquered the world not with our weaponry, but with our music and movies. If these industries suffer, so does our economy. We are already in trouble abroad as a producer of raw materials, light and heavy industry, and most manufacturing. But people still clamor for our imaginative inventions, our artistic output. Internationally, American culture outsells our aircraft, chemicals, food and motor vehicles.

In Italy, people still learn English by listening to Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde." Germans still discover our language through the subtitles in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather." In fact, 47% of our gross domestic product involves intellectual property (IP) transactions, and about 6% of our national worth -- $626.6 billion annually -- is from our copyright businesses. These are the segments of our economy that are suffering, or stand to do so, as a result of the Internet. The Internet, glorious as it is, should be thought of as the plague of postmodernity.

Entertainment is such a crucial part of the American way of life -- because of the jobs it generates, the fun it engenders, the goodwill it creates world-wide -- that the potential for its undoing is a national emergency that ought to at least merit a congressional panel or governmental alarm. The U.S. was meant to be a nation of commercial creativity. It is our birthright. It's what we do.

It's not just the music industry that has fallen apart. Hollywood's motion picture factory is also blundering.

We tend to think of Hollywood the way immigrants envision America -- as a place where the streets are paved in gold. Movie stars might continue to trip the life fantastic, and indeed there are plenty of Bentleys lining the parking lanes of Rodeo Drive. But a November 2007 report, published by the data analysis group Global Media Intelligence, informs us that: "Making movies -- as distinct from owning libraries of fully-amortized films that continue to throw off sizeable profits -- has gone from a modestly profitable activity to one that now generates . . . substantial losses over the initial release of films to all worldwide markets, a period of roughly five years."

It's hard to work up a lot of pity for the overpaid film world. But between Internet piracy, the fact that huge markets like China tend to disobey IP protocols, and a foolhardy tendency of studios to make unwise, profit-sharing deals with bankable talent, movies are not making money the way they used to or the way they should. And now that any old anybody with opposable thumbs can operate a digital camera, international markets have found they favor the locally produced fare over yet another sequel to "Rush Hour." Bombay prefers Bollywood to Hollywood.

Hegemony is over. The days when everybody rushed out to Sam Goody to buy the new Beatles album as soon as it came out, the days when lines formed around the block at New York's Ziegfeld Theater because the latest installment of Star Wars had opened -- the days when certain cultural moments captured everybody together as if we'd all been granted a brief furlough from the prison house of reality -- live on only in mild forms. That would be in crazy Harry Potter fans, in those of us who will still preorder a Bruce Springsteen album from Amazon.com1.

Today there is far more excitement at the introduction of a new Apple product -- look at how people flocked to get their iPhones! -- than over anything artistic. The one creative area hardly affected by the encroachments of technology, at least insofar as its market has not caved, are fine arts like painting and sculpture. At a Sotheby's auction in autumn 2007, Jeff Koons's nearly two-ton, nine-foot, hot-pink stainless steel sculpture, "Hanging Heart," fetched $23.6 million, a record for a work by a living artist. In November, Sotheby's and Christie's reported a return of $1.7 billion for that single month, up 24% from the previous November.

You cannot, after all, download a painting or a sculpture. The thingness of the thing itself -- all that stuff Heidegger talked about when you read him in college -- cannot be translated, even if an exhibit poster will do for poor college students and poverty-stricken bohemians looking for kitchen decorations. But the rich will still pay for the actual original.

This is antithetical to the American mission. I have nothing against all the great fine artists this country has produced, but they are a carryover from Europe. They are Old World. We'll never overwhelm the planet with brushes and clay and pencils the way we did with celluloid and vinyl and acetate. If our most original painter was Jackson Pollock, he was still no Picasso, and we all know it.

Our movies and music are America. And the day the music dies, the party's over.

Miss Wurtzel, an attorney, is the author of "Prozac Nation" (Houghton Mifflin, 1994).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121824228638426137.html

Wurtzel pinpoints 1995 anxieties shockah

hard hitting challops 4u

http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/still_fresh/liz.jpg
The Internet, glorious as it is, should be thought of as the plague of postmodernity

then again, maybe not

I don't know quite what it makes me feel that the chick in the picture above is also one of my friends on facebook.

because she looks like 100000 other chicks in nyc?

Is that why I don't know quite what it makes me feel? No. I don't live in nyc anyway, so alas don't get to see those 100000 other chicks very often.

I wish I did.

Same here. Meanwhile, the best memoirs of madness I've read are An Unquiet Mind, by Kay Redlfield Jamison, who also co-wrote one of the leading nonfiction manuals, for professionals and laymen, on Manic Depressive Illness (think that's the exact title; been a while since Ive seen it, but very illuminating--she gave up her practice after coming out of the closet re her own manias, but has since written a book about interaction between creativity and mental illness, for instance); also The Eden Express, by Mark Vonnegut, about his schizophrenia; and Girl, Interrupted, by Susannah Kaysen (much better than the movie, but she's looking waaaay back, in comparison to the first two authors: Vonnegot's book came out in '75, but he's talking about the 60s and early 70s. But Kaysen's vignettes are plausibly vivid, it's just that she doesn't convey as much of an overview, of events and relationships before and after the Interruptions, as Jamison and Vonnegut)

Kay *Redfield* Jamison, that is.

how does stuff like that WSJ "essay" even get published? admittedly the standards for writing about popular music are pretty low but still...blargh bollox balls bullshit.

ugh this author

dated self-indulgent garbage

though to be fair my opinion might be colored by an ex-gf's abiding love for wurtzel and her work.

ha even for the wsj editorial page that's pretty bad. i'm trying to think of the tv show i saw recently where one of the characters had a copy of bitch on their bookshelf. i remember cracking up becuz the character was totally the type of character to have a copy of bitch on their bookshelf but i can't remember who or what it was. anyhow wurtzel seems more and more to be very very much the sort of thing it'd be impossible to even begin to explain to someone who wasn't there or even to yrself (how did anyone anyone ANYONE take this stuff seriously or even read more than three pages of it???) and more and more its becoming more and more thankfully apparent having to explain or think about or even read about the writing of wurtzel is something we aren't going to have to worry about.

lol at the weird sync w/ david brooks recent apple has destroyed the arts column though. god if those two ever bred...

guys "more, now, again" was pretty great

Question to which I don't expect to get a serious answer: would EW be as popular as she is if her self-medication had left her fat instead of photogenically thin?

My friend was her freshman year roommate OOH THE STORIES but they're actually less interesting than you would think.

tell us!

make some up if you must

Question to which I don't expect to get a serious answer: would EW be as popular as she is if her self-medication had left her fat instead of photogenically thin?

-- j.lu, Sunday, August 10, 2008 11:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

look this happened to her after prozac nation and after the coke addiction. apparently she gained a whole lot of weight and didnt know why. in one of her books, she goes on in detail about her rigorous exercise regime, her strict diet, how they didnt help her lose a pound, how her friends would tell her how fat she looked after seeing her on tv and how grateful she was to have such great friends that would tell her shes a fattey.

anyway, turns out to be the antidepressant she was on so she switched and dropped like 40 pounds in a month or something ridiculous like that and now she is thin again.

anyway, to answer your question: no.

another answer: No.

Miss Wurtzel, an attorney, is the drummer in Gay Dad.

Hahaha.

I read the words "Pete Yorn" and thought "Well, I can ignore this."

[no one knows how to listen to a complete album anymore. Everything is slanted toward the hit single]

how silly. it's not that difficult to listen to a record. even I can do it. it is too easy to be a loseable skill.

LizzieWurtzel Elizabeth Wurtzel
Great people work in finance, HATE it--& could've retired long ago on Marks and Francs. The time is NOW: quit and protest! #OccupyWallStreet
3 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply

wow! just wow. kinda belongs on the quiddities thread, but man oh man...

http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/01/elizabeth-wurtzel-on-self-help.html

i'll be honest with you guys, i kinda like the way she writes. i like the breathless stream thing. i've written that way myself. i mean its effective. and compelling. the way she does it. WHAT she writes is another kettle of fish.

Meanwhile, most people who think they are practicing law are actually making binders, and my guess is that most people who think they are doing whatever important thing they are doing are making binders. The binders from law firms go to a locker in a warehouse in a parking lot in an office park off an exit of a turnpike off a highway off an interstate in New Jersey, never to be looked at again. No one ever read them in the first place. But some client was billed for the hourly work.

word tho

thought this piece was great

i loved the warehouse/parking lot/etc thing.

I have never liked E Wurzel much but I liked this piece.

There's some good stuff in there, but it's drowning in her privileged adolescence. At least Bukowski, another adolescent writer with strikingly shallow views on the human condition, wasn't writing about his Birkin bag and getting bailed out by David Boies.

yeah i mean the hell of a basement apartment in chelsea is why i thought of the quiddities thread...

also, it goes without saying, being a fucked up loser doesn't usually include a yale law degree when you are 40.

I am a free spirit. I do not know any other way to be. No one else seems to live as I do. In a world gone wrong, a pure heart is dangerous.

Lost sympathy for her at:

I would call 911, but the police are not equipped to manage crazy women and could not understand why someone who was neither a rejected lover nor a cast-out roommate was behaving this way. They always sent pairs of very fat female cops. As soon as I opened the door, I knew it was hopeless.

here is all the amazing stuff i have done. also, i cry a lot.

(i mean the whole thing is kinda bloggy but like i said there is style there writing-wise and stuff that is totally worth stealing. a little editing might have helped. do they still make editors?)

Tablet Magazine’s pop music critic!

http://www.tabletmag.com/author/ewurtzel

obliviousness being the hallmark of the quiddity thing. the cornerstone if you will.

also love the genius legal advice: you should move.

tbf if i lived in a basement apartment anywhere i too would be miserable

but c'mon the line where she says "i, too, am in storage" or whatever was a brilliant kicker

laverne & shirley were totally happy!

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_rLAup9Rwp6Y/TUwlnXKuHYI/AAAAAAAAADk/LG0iTJLJFQs/s1600/tumblr_kxifg55z3G1qzbqvao1_500_large.png

A parlor floor is not a basement, btw, it's the nicest level of a brownstone and it's at least half a story above street level.

Oh nm just got to end of article. That was a lot of words for the number of ideas in them.

Has she been introduced to our friend Momus?

I made it maybe halfway through that NY Mag thing.

Possibly the two most infuriating things I've read by her:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/16/elizabeth-wurtzel-antisemitism-israel-gaza
http://www.harpersbazaar.com/beauty/health-wellness-articles/looking-better-at-45-than-25#slide-1

Actually, the latter is more surreal than anything.

I made it maybe halfway through that NY Mag thing.

Me too, then I skimmed to the bottom in the hope that there might be some kind of pay-off. Nope. What a self-regarding pile of self-regard. (Also thought the backhand at David Remnick was odd, but probably he's turned down a lot of pitches from her.)

I mean, who even writes like this?

I am a free spirit. I do not know any other way to be. No one else seems to live as I do. In a world gone wrong, a pure heart is dangerous.

in fairness, there's nothing wrong with the WAY that is written; it's the sentiment that is off-putting

I want everyone to try as hard as I do to please be gorgeous, because it's not that hard, girls. Looking great is a matter of feminism. No liberated woman would misrepresent the cause by appearing less than hale and happy.

LOLWUT

OTOH that first sentence Nicole just quoted is constructed terribly

I mean, who even writes like this?

I am a free spirit. I do not know any other way to be. No one else seems to live as I do. In a world gone wrong, a pure heart is dangerous.

teenage girls in the 70s is the correct answer

in fairness, there's nothing wrong with the WAY that is written; it's the sentiment that is off-putting

True. What I really mean is, who even thinks like this?

xp m coleman otm

http://d188rgcu4zozwl.cloudfront.net/content/B00A7IOVDC/images/1570583990.jpg

I am a free spirit. I do not know any other way to be. No one else seems to live as I do. In a world gone wrong, a pure heart is dangerous.

--bob marley

In a world gone wrong ... a pure heart is dangerous!

This spring, Anna Paquin IS Elizabeth Wurtzel

in

FREE SPIRIT

In a world gone wrong ... a pure heart is dangerous!

This spring, Anna Paquin IS Elizabeth Wurtzel

in

FREE SPIRIT I CRY A LOT

I should probably track down a copy of Prozac Nation just to satisfy my circa-2002 curiosity/Ricci-crush.

I mean, who even writes like this?

I am a free spirit. I do not know any other way to be. No one else seems to live as I do. In a world gone wrong, a pure heart is dangerous.

teenage girls in the 70s is the correct answer

haha the correct answer is that jean-jacques rousseau is a teenage girl in the 1770s

huh learn something every day. is j-j r responsible for this chesnut too

http://winterlyrics.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/not-meant-to-be.png

^^on every late 1970s female college dorm room wall ever

I lost lots of helium balloons that way...

its funny how she gets all up on finance for ruining new york and then shes... a lawyer

i mean she did the thing every ambitious directionless person does and went to law school and somehow tries to paint it as an act of pure fuck up love, lady youre not lost youre doin the same shit as everyone else

lol i just read this

it was pretty good

had to just scan the last third, it kinda dragged

"If you need somebody, call my name
If you want someone, you can do the same
If you want to keep something precious
You got to lock it up and throw away the key
If you want to hold onto your possession
Don't even think about me
If you love somebody, set them free"

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

wurtzel's prutzels

i always think wurtzel is the author of the popular wurtzel-bat series.

" I like Mumford & Sons a lot, but I don’t own any complete albums. But maybe that just proves I am more of the times than I care to admit"

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/music/128313/in-bed-with-bob-dylan

http://theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/04/i-refuse-to-be-a-grown-up/274918/

I used to do cocaine and go running; now I just go running.
I used to do cocaine and go running; now I just go running.
I used to do cocaine and go running; now I just go running.

how to not grow up: stop doing drugs, go to law school, exercise

how to not be self involved: submit yr inner monologue for publication

Nothing is more bracing than not being concerned about what other people think. I have no idea why anyone cares. Trust me: No one is looking. I know: I am looking. People are self-involved. They are all waiting for you to ask about how gifted their kids are. I wish people were judging each other a great deal more, and more carefully, but they are not. Knowing this, I have no trouble being myself. It works well. I will die screaming.

dear EW, can you hear me rolling my eyes?

I like how she doesnt care about what people think about her being obsessed about what other people think. It's an intriguing paradox thats at the center of all her recent work.

'intriguing'

I just think it's like, an aporia in the logic of her texts that give them a certain tension, or vulnerability, that is mildly compelling, which is why she manages to be both very readable and insanely self-centered.

I fully expect to be the only person who thinks this.

But my answer to the thread title is dud, i guess, but i read her pieces when i stumble across them and think she has a distinctive voice.

more like elizabutt squirtzel

dude, that pun is the worstzel

From Led Zeppelin to Breaking Bad: The Lamest Generation
by Elizabeth Wurtzel
Kids used to take big changes, but the crazy energy of youth seems to have subsided. Elizabeth Wurtzel on why today's youth need to take a page from Led Zeppelin.

she suuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks so haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrd

a page from led zeppelin

yeah I read that article it's such fucking terrible shit garbage that it's not even worth engaging individual "points"

@LizzieWurtzel 20m
I am terrified by the cardboard signs beggars now have, like we don't know, and of course we do not. They say too much or not nearly enough.