Either carelessness or animus toward Charles
― treeship., Friday, 9 July 2021 16:24 (three years ago) link
I assume the former xp
I am totally assuming simple laziness followed by self-preservation impulses kicking in, not outright malice. happens all the time.
― intern at pelican brief consulting (Simon H.), Friday, 9 July 2021 16:33 (three years ago) link
“Careless” doesn’t seem the right word for choosing to keep every personal detail in tact. And curious what the New Yorker process of editing fiction is, whether she had to sign any agreement that would keep the magazine from being legally culpable here.
― too cool for zen talk (Eazy), Friday, 9 July 2021 16:35 (three years ago) link
The story used her exact hometown, her workplace, the circumstances of their first date, his physical description, etc
― treeship., Friday, July 9, 2021 12:13 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
i know fact-checking isnt the right term for fiction but did the new yorker not inquire abt this stuff ?
xp
― johnny crunch, Friday, 9 July 2021 16:38 (three years ago) link
Maybe the editor also had it in for charles
― treeship., Friday, 9 July 2021 16:43 (three years ago) link
I mean, if Olivia Rodrigo wrote a song from the perspective of her current boyfriend’s ex and called it “Deja Vu,” that’s an act of imagination. But if the song then mentioned his ex’s specific hometown, job, and so on…
― too cool for zen talk (Eazy), Friday, 9 July 2021 16:49 (three years ago) link
And curious what the New Yorker process of editing fiction is
not sure how they could possibly vet this
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Friday, 9 July 2021 16:51 (three years ago) link
more than anything else, boy I sure do hate the web of underlying social and economic conditions that led to this clusterfuck, just throwing that out there
― intern at pelican brief consulting (Simon H.), Friday, 9 July 2021 16:51 (three years ago) link
i'm smashing the rt button on that post simon
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Friday, 9 July 2021 16:52 (three years ago) link
I would think the New Yorker would have some kind of legal form so that one of Updike’s neighbors couldn’t sue them if the names and addresses in a story matched.
― too cool for zen talk (Eazy), Friday, 9 July 2021 16:54 (three years ago) link
This poem is called My Ex’s Medical Records
― treeship., Friday, 9 July 2021 16:55 (three years ago) link
― too cool for zen talk (Eazy), Friday, July 9, 2021 9:54 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink
who would they send this to if they didn't know updike was writing about one of his neighbors
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Friday, 9 July 2021 16:55 (three years ago) link
unless you mean some kind of language like "any resemblance to person's living or dead is wholly coincidental"
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Friday, 9 July 2021 16:57 (three years ago) link
Yeah maybe this is the dark side of the rise of auto-fiction. Maybe they need to start doing anti-fact checking, making sure that fiction actually isn't identifiably based on real (non-consenting) people?
― change display name (Jordan), Friday, 9 July 2021 16:57 (three years ago) link
i just really have no idea how you would do that unless you personally knew the person who's biography was being absorbed into the text
really using apostrophes incorrectly this afternoon
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Friday, 9 July 2021 16:58 (three years ago) link
Yeah, exactly. If Updike has a story about fucking his neighbor and describes her house and location and job exactly, no one is going to suburban Boston to check this out, but a legal form would keep them from getting sued by that neighbor,
― too cool for zen talk (Eazy), Friday, 9 July 2021 17:01 (three years ago) link
honestly not sure what the new yorker or anyone could do about it either. I guess if there are a lot of potentially personally identifying specifics to the story it doesn't hurt to ask "hey does this identify any real actual person" but if they say "no" you're basically just taking them at their word I guess
― intern at pelican brief consulting (Simon H.), Friday, 9 July 2021 17:04 (three years ago) link
Suicide is the only way one can die suddenly?
not sure if you're really asking here, but just in case: i might be wrong but i understand "died suddenly" to be a commonly used journalistic euphemism for death by suicide. this is done because explicit/specific references to suicide in the press result in more suicides ("the werther effect").
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, 9 July 2021 17:31 (three years ago) link
Cat Person got no reasonCat Person got no reasonCat Person got no reason to live
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 9 July 2021 17:34 (three years ago) link
Need poll for who is the bigger jerk: writer of story or writer of essay about the story.I vote the latter. Legit curious what others would vote.
― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Friday, 9 July 2021 17:59 (three years ago) link
The one thing we don't need is that poll
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 9 July 2021 18:02 (three years ago) link
my vote is for the reader of the essay
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, 9 July 2021 18:05 (three years ago) link
What would be the rationale for the latter? Is it that it somehow exposes Charles to people who knew of him or that it smears the original crappy story?xp
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Friday, 9 July 2021 18:07 (three years ago) link
What do you think Nowicki should have done?
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Friday, 9 July 2021 18:09 (three years ago) link
Not aired her grievances publicly. It just strikes me as attention-seeking and I found the whole thing off-putting. Indulgent and insensitive.
― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Friday, 9 July 2021 18:17 (three years ago) link
I think she has an absolute right to try to reclaim her story, which many people recognized as her story, and clarify what Charles was like with her.
― treeship., Friday, 9 July 2021 18:18 (three years ago) link
Insensitive to whom?
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Friday, 9 July 2021 18:20 (three years ago) link
Sure she has the right, I’m not suggesting otherwise! I just think it is a shitty thing to do! It wasn’t HER story! She didn’t write HER story and get it published in the NYer!
― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Friday, 9 July 2021 18:21 (three years ago) link
Insensitive to people who cared about Charles, to keep pouring fuel onto a fire that he found distressing!
― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Friday, 9 July 2021 18:23 (three years ago) link
maybe it will disincline other writers from not changing details like that
― intern at pelican brief consulting (Simon H.), Friday, 9 July 2021 18:28 (three years ago) link
"don't do that" would be a fine norm to encourage
― intern at pelican brief consulting (Simon H.), Friday, 9 July 2021 18:29 (three years ago) link
She didn’t write HER story and get it published in the NYer!
Agree that publishing a short story about a terrible short story writer with a bunch of identifying details would have been more of a baller move.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Friday, 9 July 2021 18:30 (three years ago) link
No idea about the current process for fact-checking New Yorker fiction, but this suggests that fact-checkers were once required to check for these sorts of things:
An excerpt from Jay McInerney's 1984 novel 'Bright Lights, Big City,' which drew on his experience as a New Yorker fact-checker pic.twitter.com/XbbzDScLQN— John M. Cunningham (@jmcunning) July 9, 2021
― jaymc, Friday, 9 July 2021 18:38 (three years ago) link
good catch!
― intern at pelican brief consulting (Simon H.), Friday, 9 July 2021 18:39 (three years ago) link
Tbf, though, she did write her story and get it published in Slate. xps
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Friday, 9 July 2021 18:39 (three years ago) link
Without hearing from them, I don't think we can safely assume that they would prefer the alternative.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Friday, 9 July 2021 19:39 (three years ago) link
bean person
― The 💨 that shook the barlow (wins), Friday, 9 July 2021 19:42 (three years ago) link
lmao
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Friday, 9 July 2021 19:47 (three years ago) link
wait....was someone eating beans at this movie theater?
― intern at pelican brief consulting (Simon H.), Friday, 9 July 2021 19:59 (three years ago) link
nearly every person under age 50 had “died suddenly” or a similar phrase in their obit in the last year if they died of covid
― mh, Sunday, 11 July 2021 17:55 (three years ago) link
Died "suddenly" or "unexpectedly" with no further information is one of those phrases that, in its attempt to be discreet, can just sow further misunderstanding. It started as a "tasteful" way of indicating suicide and retains that connotation every time it appears.
― Halfway there but for you, Sunday, 11 July 2021 18:22 (three years ago) link
it’s very context-sensitive and is generally used when the cause of death isn’t relevant to the case at hand (see: the slate article) or if a family wants some level of discretion (opiate overdoses, the similarly vague “death by misadventure,” something shocking (violent car accident), and so on)it’s basically an indicator you’re trying to say “the cause of death is irrelevant to what I’m writing or I would prefer you not dig into this” which is absolutely what we’re doing in this case
― mh, Sunday, 11 July 2021 19:34 (three years ago) link
"fan death"
― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Sunday, 11 July 2021 20:12 (three years ago) link
in the uk there is a standard stock phrase for reporting suicide that confused me the first few times i heard it: “the death is not being treated as suspicious.”
― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 11 July 2021 22:29 (three years ago) link
the other thing to note is that, in an article calling out overly-specific details that make real peopleidentifiable, giving “Charles” a specific cause of death would probably make it easy to figure out exactly who he was irl, and give the whole thing an air of hypocrisy
― mh, Sunday, 11 July 2021 23:55 (three years ago) link
Not hypocritical. The author hopes, I’m sure, that the people who recognized him in the original story will recognize him now. Part of the point of the story, I assumed, was to clear his name among this set.
― treeship., Monday, 12 July 2021 00:50 (three years ago) link
…among the people who already recognized the character as a distinct person, yes
― mh, Monday, 12 July 2021 01:20 (three years ago) link
If the author didn't want people to recognise "Charles", she wouldn't have written the essay in the first place.
― Zelda Zonk, Monday, 12 July 2021 01:35 (three years ago) link