Category Archives: Literary

bullshit jobs and how to get them

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Weird talesBy Stanley Bing, who knows about these things. MediaBistro is on this like white on lunchtime at Michael's, with two excerpts from 100 Bullshit Jobs and How to Get Them, the new book by the Snidely Whiplash of business journalism.

Here's an example from the main excerpt:

Book Editor

Take breakfast meeting with writers, assign ideas generated by others, hound writers for manuscripts, have lunch, hound writers for manuscripts, have drinks and dinner. Repeat as necessary.

$$: $16,000-$450,000, depending. The lower you are paid, the less bullshit your job is; conversely, the more you make, the more access you have to the highest, rocket-grade bullshit imaginable.

B: 15-104. What a range! Entry-level editors must rewrite and proofread manuscripts (like this one instance for), and field angry phone calls from authors and agents so that their bosses can talk to other people with bullshit jobs (see Best-Selling Author).

Skills Required: There are still some book editors around who actually mark up manuscripts, but the truly successful ones wouldn't risk inkstains on their Armani cuffs. The great ones operate in pure ideas and conjecture—like which to order for lunch at Michael's, the sweetbreads or the Cobb salad? Occasionally, they will weigh into the process by barking, "Where's my book?" The great book editor is at once a gifted salesperson, an arbiter of taste, a babysitter of lost souls, and a closet boulevardier. God bless them, both of them.

No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft. —H.G. Wells

Duties: Ability to "read" a 300-page book before lunch, while answering emails on his Blackberry.

Famous Example: Maxwell Perkins, a towering figure of the 1920s and '30s, whose aggressive yet thoughtful shaping of the great modern authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolf, hewed solid monuments of literature out of flaccit, egotistical lumps of prose. The fact that Maxwell Perkins existed has made it possible for generations of book editors who came after him to feel good about their profession.

Tina, tina, tina

How to Get It: Take a job for no money upon graduating from an Ivy League school; live at your parents' house for three years until you make a living wage; then inherit a best-selling exercise book from an editor who's left for a better bullshit job.

The Upside: Meet Oprah.

The Downside: You are seated with James Frey and Nan Talese at the PEN dinner.

The Dark Side: Must eat at Elaine's.

Where You Go From Here: Elaine's.

Man, how perfect is the fact that I'm listening to the Easy Listening version of Mellow Yellow, and about to hear A Hard Day's Night by the immortal Miss Peggy Lee! I love On The Rocks, it's a great, cheesy album, and there is no pleasure to match the pleasure derived from instigating a conga line to Rootin' Tootin' Wayne Newton's version of Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes. None.

Where was I? Ah, yes. Here's a slice from Bing's piece on bullshit media jobs (I know it's redundant; look, I'm not his editor, okay?).

Blogger
Bad money, but if you're nasty enough [check], lots of power[…]. Try to establish yourself as writersomeone qualified to rattle on for screen after screen with no reporting involved [done like dinnah!]. Several years ago, when I was writing for Esquire, I determined very early on that those who had to report on their subject 1) took a long time to do it, 2) had to talk to a lot of people they wouldn't normally be interested in, and 3) worked too hard for their money [dayum straight]. Consequently, I determined pretty much from the get-go to do nothing but spin out a fine blend of hostility, speculation and wind as long as a publisher would let me [perfect, now can I have your publisher?]. I'd like to think that was an early adopter of the zeitgeist that now runs much of the Internet that matters [yes you were. now can I have a reference, bitch?].

Linkie o’ the day: Pjotro

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Gawd knows what "pjotro" means, but it's plenty fun. A new flash-based musical game. I'm pretty sure this qualifies as experimental music; perhaps I can get a Canada Council grant to play with it? One hesitates to mention the Canada Council, as the last time one did one was practically backed up against the wall at knifepoint by a neurasthenic sci-fi-writing schoolmarm type, inquiring in a quivering and Mark David Chapman-esque way as to how one went about getting that money. I referred her to such esoteric pursuits as filling out the paperwork etc, and she seemed satisfied with that.

caption o’ the day

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From a report on old consumer products containing now-illegal psychoactive substances from the Addiction Research Centre at the University of Buffalo.

Opium Smoking 101 

Students at the University of Heidelburg take a break from their studies while smoking opium (c. 1900). I suppose it makes the accordion music even more enjoyable.

where it was @

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I've always wondered what people did with the @ before Al Gore created the Internet. I mean, check it out; it's easier to get to than the $, and yet people use that quite a bit. Come to think of it, when do they ever use ^ and yet there it is right in the fucking middle of the keyboard like it deserved not to be stuck in a corner where your pinky can't quite reach it, eh?

It's madness, I tell you.

But here's an antidote to all forms of madness and random crazy-making. A general-interest article from the HP corporate website which explains all about the historical uses and nomenclature of the @ symbol.

A blue sky. The nature of love. A child's smile. The "@" symbol.

Some things are so common place that you scarcely notice them. But that doesn't make them any less fascinating. Take the humble "@" symbol, for instance. 

It's something we use dozens—perhaps hundreds—of times a day. This little "a" with the curved tail is inextricably linked to the instantaneous communication that we, as a society, are dependent upon.

But where is @ from, exactly?

Let's go back to the 6th or 7th century. Latin scribes, rubbing their wrists with history's first twinges of carpal tunnel syndrome, tried to save a little effort by shortening the Latin word ad (at, to, or toward) by stretching the upstroke of "d" and curving it over the "a".

Italian researchers unearthed 14th-century documents, where the @ sign represented a measure of quantity. The symbol also appeared in a 15th-century Latin-Spanish dictionary, defined as a gauge of weight, and soon after—according to ancient letters—was referenced as an amphora, a standard-sized clay vessel used to carry wine and grain.

Over the next few hundred years our plucky @ sign was used in trade to mean "at the price of" before resting on the first Underwood typewriter keyboard in 1885, then later rubbing symbolic shoulders with QWERTY on modern keyboards in the 1940s.

Then, one day in late 1971, computer engineer Ray Tomlinson grappled with how to properly address what would be history's very first e-mail. After 30 seconds of intense thought, he decided to separate the name of his intended recipient and their location by using the "@" symbol. He needed something that wouldn't appear in anyone's name, and settled on the ubiquitous symbol, with the added bonus of the character representing the word "at," as in, hey_you@wherever_you_happen_to_work.com.

And while in the English language, we know it as the "at symbol," it goes by many other unusual pseudonyms throughout the world.

  • In South Africa, it means "monkey's tail"
  • In Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia it's the "Crazy"
  • In the Czech Republic, it's "pickled herring"
  • The Danish refer to it as "alpha-sign," "elephant's trunk," or "pig's tail."
  • The French often refer to it as "little snail."
  • In Greece, it's "little duck."
  • In Hungary, it's called "maggot"
  • In Mandarin Chinese, it's the "mouse sign."
  • The Poles say "little cat" or "pig's ear."
  • Russians often refer to it as "little dog."
  • There's no official word for it in Thailand, but "wiggling worm-like character."
  • The Turks lovingly describe it as "ear."

But an "@" by any other name is just as sweet. Online, it's at the heart of every user's identity. It represents the breathless urgency of our connected culture: clear, concise, typographical shorthand for lobbing our thoughts, needs, and ideas to nearly anyone else in the world.  Instantly.

Its ubiquity and urgency has transcended the Latin alphabet of its origins to worm its way into other language groups, including Arabic and Japanese.

And that, web wanderers, is where it's @.


somebody’s j-skool pays off

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Post acting typically classy

Thanks to Gawker for the pic of a truly masterful example of front page class. Also, love the Gawker comment alternate bubble suggestion from Steverino:

"Happy Friday, New York! Now you all have to stare uncomfortably at my bloody face sitting nonchalantly by the side of your desk all day while you work. Who has the last laugh now, bitches?! Oh yeah, just try to eat your little Thai takeout at your desk and NOT turn this paper over out of disgust. Yeah, that's what I thought, wuss."