Although that Moth story is hilarious, if you listen to him deliver it.
― sad-ass Gen Y fantasist (jaymc), Tuesday, 14 July 2009 21:42 (fifteen years ago) link
"so you'd like oliver sacks' writing more if a movie made 20 years ago was better?"The movie felt icky and exploitive, and that ickiness retroactively tainted the book. It is a dark, malevolent prism!
If Moneyball the movie portrays Billy Beane as a slobbering OCD savant, I might just like the book a bit less. Oh yeah wasn't Michael Lewis unmasked as a BSer w/r/t Iceland or something?
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 21:44 (fifteen years ago) link
xp Yeah but it not being true takes all the wind out of it.
― a Gioconda kinda dirty look (kenan), Tuesday, 14 July 2009 21:44 (fifteen years ago) link
Gladwell's articles always come off to me like "I just finished reading about fishing, which if you think about it, is one of the few single-minded pursuits, so I asked a neurologist about indirect concentration and its connection to tasks, which Maori tribesmen are actually really good at.."
It's all about finding something novel, or something that is so completely un-novel that you wouldn't normally use it as a data point, and then conjecturing around that while throwing in some cushy quotes.
― mh, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 21:47 (fifteen years ago) link
yeah it's probably like reading a goddamn 300 page book composed of ilx posts
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 21:48 (fifteen years ago) link
Gladwell's books could use more animated GIFs.
― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Tuesday, 14 July 2009 21:49 (fifteen years ago) link
"I like Chomsky."
what's his funnest book? I've been meaning to read some but they all look pretty dry.
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 21:53 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.amazon.com/Chomsky-Reader-Noam/dp/0394751736
― a Gioconda kinda dirty look (kenan), Tuesday, 14 July 2009 21:58 (fifteen years ago) link
Steven Pinker:
Readers have much to learn from Gladwell the journalist and essayist. But when it comes to Gladwell the social scientist, they should watch out for those igon values.
― Jeff, Monday, 16 November 2009 13:30 (fourteen years ago) link
^That link reads like an Arts and Letters Daily blurb!
― Nuyorican oatmeal (jaymc), Monday, 16 November 2009 14:15 (fourteen years ago) link
hard to argue with though. i find gladwell entertaining but hard to take seriously, he's always looking for some neat simple solution.
― Maria, Monday, 16 November 2009 14:43 (fourteen years ago) link
exactly
― jazzgasms (Mr. Que), Monday, 16 November 2009 14:44 (fourteen years ago) link
Ultimate nerd battle: Steven Pinker vs. Malcolm Gladwell.
― o. nate, Monday, 16 November 2009 18:48 (fourteen years ago) link
The original New Yorker article actually spelled "eigenvalue" correctly:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/IgonValue2.png
― Nuyorican oatmeal (jaymc), Monday, 16 November 2009 18:50 (fourteen years ago) link
i was wondering abt that! thought it was weird the fact checkers wouldnt have caught it
― just sayin, Monday, 16 November 2009 18:51 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, it suggests that for the book, Gladwell just put in his pre-copyedited draft. But why?
― Nuyorican oatmeal (jaymc), Monday, 16 November 2009 18:53 (fourteen years ago) link
How do we know the misspelling originated in Gladwell's draft? Couldn't it have been inserted into the book version by some over-eager spell-check program or sloppy proofreader?
― o. nate, Monday, 16 November 2009 18:55 (fourteen years ago) link
it's wrong on his website
http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_04_29_a_blowingup.htm
― jazzgasms (Mr. Que), Monday, 16 November 2009 18:56 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh, well, I guess that's pretty damning then. Or would be if anyone really cared whether or not Gladwell knows what an "eigenvalue" is.
― o. nate, Monday, 16 November 2009 18:58 (fourteen years ago) link
http://velvetpenguin.blog.friendster.com/files/egon.jpgMaybe he means egon value
― Philip Nunez, Monday, 16 November 2009 19:00 (fourteen years ago) link
I still think this is the essential Gladwell profile:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-09-13/the-love-guru/
― o. nate, Monday, 16 November 2009 19:01 (fourteen years ago) link
Gladwell's response to Pinker:
http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2009/11/pinker-on-what-the-dog-saw.html
― o. nate, Tuesday, 17 November 2009 18:50 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/05/10/100510crat_atlarge_gladwell
― Mordy, Sunday, 9 May 2010 04:37 (fourteen years ago) link
Interesting, grumpy essay in the latest New Yorker about why social-media "activism" is a pisspoor substitute for real, risk-inviting activism. More like a long newspaper column than his usual research-heavy pieces - the closest you can get to a rant while still meeting New Yorker style guide, I'd say. But hard to argue with. Just a shame he didn't mention the fucking twibbon - the acme of meaningless protest.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell
Have we covered this on another thread? Apologies if so.
― Haunted Clocks For Sale (Dorianlynskey), Friday, 1 October 2010 17:48 (thirteen years ago) link
why social-media "activism" is a pisspoor substitute for real, risk-inviting activism
has anyone ever said any different? i didnt even bother reading this article because i couldnt really understand why it had been written
― just sayin, Friday, 1 October 2010 18:30 (thirteen years ago) link
i like this piece bcuz usually i see him advocating in 'chill out, bros' kinda rhetoric & it was nice to see him a lil :-( tense
― HOW I FOLD MY BANDANA (deej), Friday, 1 October 2010 18:54 (thirteen years ago) link
Hey, I met Lois "Six Degrees" Weisberg last night.
― Excluding Skits and Such (Eazy), Friday, 1 October 2010 19:29 (thirteen years ago) link
The TweakerSteve Jobs and the nature of innovation.by Malcolm Gladwell
― Abattoir Educator / Slaughterman (schlump), Monday, 7 November 2011 10:46 (twelve years ago) link
Didn't he just write a piece on basically that (Xerox and PARC) a couple of months ago?
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Monday, 7 November 2011 14:01 (twelve years ago) link
The TweakerSteve Jobs and the nature of innovation (meth amphetamine).by Malcolm Gladwell
― ice cr?m, Monday, 7 November 2011 14:17 (twelve years ago) link
imagine he pulled a few all nighters to get that piece out the door asap
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Monday, 7 November 2011 15:10 (twelve years ago) link
piece is an extended metaphor comparing SJ to other guys who stayed up all night in their garage perfecting a new product
http://www.applegazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/jobs82.jpg
where is all my shit
― Abattoir Educator / Slaughterman (schlump), Monday, 7 November 2011 15:16 (twelve years ago) link
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/11/bank-of-america-hired-malcolm-gladwell.html
― iatee, Thursday, 17 November 2011 00:29 (twelve years ago) link
Steven Pinker writes that Gladwell is a writer of "many gifts... He avoids shopworn topics, easy moralization and conventional wisdom, encouraging his readers to think again and think different. His prose is transparent, with lucid explanations and a sense that we are chatting with the experts ourselves."[46]
― The Triumph of the Will High (nakhchivan), Thursday, 17 November 2011 01:18 (twelve years ago) link
an intriguing amalgamation of david brooks and xhuxk eddy
― mookieproof, Thursday, 17 November 2011 06:40 (twelve years ago) link
gladwell is all lolz until he writes abt something you know http://daringfireball.net/2011/11/getting_steve_jobs_wrong
― ice cr?m, Saturday, 19 November 2011 00:27 (twelve years ago) link
mark ames gunnin for u
http://shameproject.com/
― goole, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 18:54 (twelve years ago) link
...and yasha levine, who is another exiled alum i think
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/06/malcolm-gladwell-unmasked-a-look-into-the-life-work-of-americas-most-successful-propagandist.html
didn't know any of this!
― goole, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 18:58 (twelve years ago) link
s.h.a.m.e. on u malcolm gladwell
― lag∞n, Thursday, 7 June 2012 14:57 (twelve years ago) link
theres some good stuff in there, itd be cool if they didnt use so much breathless conspiracy type logic all over the place tho, also a lil more context as far as how wide spread these types of behavior are
― lag∞n, Thursday, 7 June 2012 15:14 (twelve years ago) link
never read a gladwell tome myself; it's revealing enough to know that he was marinated in the same rightwing PR bootcamps that produced much more downmarket fox/radio/regnery types
― goole, Thursday, 7 June 2012 15:17 (twelve years ago) link
gladwell is generally k a dubious character imho (although the s.h.a.m.e. people could def take some pointers from him as far as the efficiency of his prose) but im a lil bit skeptical of the guilt by association narrative they present here, couldnt you just as easily tell a young struggling writer attempts to break into industry story, and its not like they present a comprehensive biography of his formative journalism years so we can judge what % corrupt his upbringing was, also as far as his crimes in his present day media superstar manifestation there are like two sentences shown as proof of his utter debasement, i mean maybe theres more idk, i tend to think of his transgression as being more in the 'lightweight contrarian' tradition
― lag∞n, Thursday, 7 June 2012 15:35 (twelve years ago) link
it's a great piece if you're already predisposed to disliking gladwell, but i can't imagine it convincing any of his legion of fans
― Mordy, Thursday, 7 June 2012 15:41 (twelve years ago) link
i dislike him, but i didnt think it was great, tho it did have some interesting facts
― lag∞n, Thursday, 7 June 2012 15:43 (twelve years ago) link
not only does he have an aesthetic style and fanbase that rankle me, but here's a bunch of evidence that show he's legit a bad human being!
― Mordy, Thursday, 7 June 2012 15:48 (twelve years ago) link
1. he associates w/bill simmons
― lag∞n, Thursday, 7 June 2012 15:49 (twelve years ago) link
2. he wants our children to smoke cigarettes
― Mordy, Thursday, 7 June 2012 15:51 (twelve years ago) link
The only MG book I've read was What the Dog Saw. It was obvious to me that he was not a reporter so much as an advocate, who began each piece with an pre-established thesis and proceeded to argue that this thesis was essentially the 'correct' way of thinking about the subject. Which is fine, in that the facts he gives most likely are genuine facts and they do support his conclusion, but you can be very certain that whatever he is presenting to you is carefully filtered to support his point of view and his rhetoric will enforce a tone of certainty that probably is not justified.
So, the best way to think about Gladwell is as a high class lawyer or public relations agent, where you don't know who his client is, and he pretends not to have one.
― Aimless, Thursday, 7 June 2012 16:23 (twelve years ago) link
That's a nice way of reducing it, but when you get to that point, why even read what he writes?
Also re: guilt by association, the dude wrote a scare article where he advocates for people using a deadly product to save a government program. Imagine Swift writing A Modest Proposal with a straight face while on the dole of a human-meat-grinder company. How is his worst crime being a contrarian? Something serious needs to be missing in you to be able to write shit like that.
― Spectrum, Thursday, 7 June 2012 16:42 (twelve years ago) link
when you get to that point, why even read what he writes?
You'll notice I only ever read the one book. After that, I stopped. I prefer a reporter who trusts me enough to make up my own mind, when presented with the relevent facts. Gladwell doesn't. He stacks the deck in favor of one conclusion.
― Aimless, Thursday, 7 June 2012 17:09 (twelve years ago) link