http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/still_fresh/liz.jpg The Internet, glorious as it is, should be thought of as the plague of postmodernity
― velko, Sunday, 10 August 2008 16:51 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― the pinefox, Sunday, 10 August 2008 17:28 (fifteen years ago) link
because she looks like 100000 other chicks in nyc?
― sunny successor, Sunday, 10 August 2008 17:41 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― the pinefox, Sunday, 10 August 2008 18:24 (fifteen years ago) link
I wish I did.
― the pinefox, Sunday, 10 August 2008 19:03 (fifteen years ago) link
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)
― dow, Sunday, 10 August 2008 23:03 (fifteen years ago) link
Kay *Redfield* Jamison, that is.
― dow, Sunday, 10 August 2008 23:06 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― m coleman, Monday, 11 August 2008 00:04 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 11 August 2008 00:08 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― balls, Monday, 11 August 2008 02:08 (fifteen years ago) link
lol at the weird sync w/ david brooks recent apple has destroyed the arts column though. god if those two ever bred...
― balls, Monday, 11 August 2008 02:11 (fifteen years ago) link
guys "more, now, again" was pretty great
― sunny successor, Monday, 11 August 2008 02:47 (fifteen years ago) link
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, Monday, 11 August 2008 04:32 (fifteen years ago) link
My friend was her freshman year roommate OOH THE STORIES but they're actually less interesting than you would think.
― Dimension 5ive, Monday, 11 August 2008 04:37 (fifteen years ago) link
tell us!
― latebloomer, Monday, 11 August 2008 05:00 (fifteen years ago) link
make some up if you must
― latebloomer, Monday, 11 August 2008 05:01 (fifteen years ago) link
-- 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.
― sunny successor, Monday, 11 August 2008 14:31 (fifteen years ago) link
another answer: No.
― the pinefox, Monday, 11 August 2008 14:33 (fifteen years ago) link
Miss Wurtzel, an attorney, is the drummer in Gay Dad.
― stevie, Monday, 11 August 2008 14:46 (fifteen years ago) link
Hahaha.
I read the words "Pete Yorn" and thought "Well, I can ignore this."
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 11 August 2008 16:10 (fifteen years ago) link
[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.
― the pinefox, Monday, 11 August 2008 16:27 (fifteen years ago) link
LizzieWurtzel Elizabeth WurtzelGreat people work in finance, HATE it--& could've retired long ago on Marks and Francs. The time is NOW: quit and protest! #OccupyWallStreet3 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply
― larvae o'dooley, Wednesday, 5 October 2011 03:17 (twelve years ago) link
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
― scott seward, Monday, 7 January 2013 14:07 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― scott seward, Monday, 7 January 2013 14:10 (eleven years ago) link
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
― J0rdan S., Monday, 7 January 2013 14:24 (eleven years ago) link
thought this piece was great
― J0rdan S., Monday, 7 January 2013 14:25 (eleven years ago) link
i loved the warehouse/parking lot/etc thing.
― scott seward, Monday, 7 January 2013 14:34 (eleven years ago) link
I have never liked E Wurzel much but I liked this piece.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 7 January 2013 15:22 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― Tiger Beat On The Potomac (Austerity Ponies), Monday, 7 January 2013 15:43 (eleven years ago) link
yeah i mean the hell of a basement apartment in chelsea is why i thought of the quiddities thread...
― scott seward, Monday, 7 January 2013 15:54 (eleven years ago) link
also, it goes without saying, being a fucked up loser doesn't usually include a yale law degree when you are 40.
― scott seward, Monday, 7 January 2013 15:56 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― buzza, Monday, 7 January 2013 15:56 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― this will surprise many (Nicole), Monday, 7 January 2013 15:56 (eleven years ago) link
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?)
― scott seward, Monday, 7 January 2013 16:02 (eleven years ago) link
Tablet Magazine’s pop music critic!
http://www.tabletmag.com/author/ewurtzel
― buzza, Monday, 7 January 2013 16:04 (eleven years ago) link
obliviousness being the hallmark of the quiddity thing. the cornerstone if you will.
also love the genius legal advice: you should move.
― scott seward, Monday, 7 January 2013 16:05 (eleven years ago) link
tbf if i lived in a basement apartment anywhere i too would be miserable
― J0rdan S., Monday, 7 January 2013 16:06 (eleven years ago) link
but c'mon the line where she says "i, too, am in storage" or whatever was a brilliant kicker
laverne & shirley were totally happy!
― scott seward, Monday, 7 January 2013 16:07 (eleven years ago) link
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_rLAup9Rwp6Y/TUwlnXKuHYI/AAAAAAAAADk/LG0iTJLJFQs/s1600/tumblr_kxifg55z3G1qzbqvao1_500_large.png
― buzza, Monday, 7 January 2013 16:09 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― grossly incorrect register (in orbit), Monday, 7 January 2013 16:29 (eleven years ago) link
Oh nm just got to end of article. That was a lot of words for the number of ideas in them.
― grossly incorrect register (in orbit), Monday, 7 January 2013 16:41 (eleven years ago) link
Has she been introduced to our friend Momus?
― The POLLed Geir America (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 7 January 2013 16:45 (eleven years ago) link
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-gazahttp://www.harpersbazaar.com/beauty/health-wellness-articles/looking-better-at-45-than-25#slide-1
Actually, the latter is more surreal than anything.
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Monday, 7 January 2013 17:39 (eleven years ago) link
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.)
― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 8 January 2013 15:26 (eleven years ago) link
I mean, who even writes like this?
― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 8 January 2013 15:29 (eleven years ago) link
in fairness, there's nothing wrong with the WAY that is written; it's the sentiment that is off-putting
― Solange Knowles is my hero (DJP), Tuesday, 8 January 2013 15:30 (eleven years ago) link
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
― this will surprise many (Nicole), Tuesday, 8 January 2013 15:30 (eleven years ago) link
OTOH that first sentence Nicole just quoted is constructed terribly
― Solange Knowles is my hero (DJP), Tuesday, 8 January 2013 15:31 (eleven years ago) link
teenage girls in the 70s is the correct answer
― screen scraper (m coleman), Tuesday, 8 January 2013 15:47 (eleven years ago) link