Am sleepy but can't sleep. It's 2 am, dammit!

[raincitygirl]

Truly rage-inducing Daily Telegraph obituary for recently deceased Irish novelist Maeve Binchy is eviscerated at Feministe. Short version of the obit: even though Binchy never publicly expressed any unhappiness over being childless, CLEARLY she is less as a human and as a writer. Bonus points to the author for using Jane Austen as another example of a woman who could've obviously written deeper, more meaningful books if only she'd spawned. That last one takes chutzpah, I'll give the obituarist that.

Edited to Add: Actually, it turns out that Binchy DID want children, and she and her husband were plagued by infertility issues. Which doesn't actually make it any better. Is there anything tackier than hijacking an obit to proclaim that the subject was a worse writer because she didn't have kids? Yes, hijacking it when the subject was a worse writer (in Craig's view) involuntarily.

I think my mum has a girl crush on Gabby Douglas. She's been watching the women's gymnastics religiously, watching her interviews, etc. Please note that my mother is not even American. Of course, I don't think Canada was ever really expected to pick up any medals in women's gymnastics, so perhaps that's why the suspension of national hostilities.

Condom seizures as evidence of prostitution are undoing years of progress on AIDS prevention, according to the Guardian.

The Readercon thing is continuing to blow up. You know, I realize the Board were probably trying to do Rene Walling a favour by giving him a two year ban instead of the lifetime ban in their policy. But now that it's blown up all over the internet, his name recognition is much higher than if they'd just given him the lifetime ban. It's just one con, after all. Now tons of people at tons of cons associate his name with sexual harassment. Doncha just hate when you try and do something nice for someone and you actually end up making it worse for them?

Please note that I have NO problem with Walling suffering reputational issues. I just think it's darkly funny that the Board, in their very leniency towards him, triggered this shitstorm and probably ensured the next con he goes to everybody's whispering about him behind his back.

Comments

[legionseagle]

Good grief about that ludicrous "obituary". Personally, I think using someone else's memorial to promote one's own book threatens to turn "deeply tacky" into high art, and that anyone who thinks Jane Austen was "preoccupied by romantic love" has clearly got a lot less perceptiveness than WH Auden, who wrote

"You could not shock her more than she shocks me;
Beside her Joyce seems innocent as grass.
It makes me most uncomfortable to see
An English spinster of the middle-class
Describe the amorous effects of ‘brass’,
Reveal so frankly and with such sobriety
The economic basis of society…”

And, if you want to see a really dodgy development of the Readercon saga, see the "you'll never work in this town again, missy, if you make waves" threats that Veronica Shanoes alludes to here (people bob up in comments to say that actually, no, despite the claims made by cogitationitis the "black-balling" discussions are about black-balling harassers not harassees and no-one thinks for a minute that any woman reporting sexual harassment should ever suffer personal or professional harm as a result, what a bizarre idea, perish the thort, what amazing imaginations you little ladeez have to be sure. I remain unconvinced, and will be until Rene Walling comes off the staff list for Worldcon 2013)

[raincitygirl]

That Auden poem is hilarious, and oh so very true. And yeah, promoting your own book in an obit is SO tacky. I had never heard of Amanda Craig before now, so me not buying her books was just an oversight. Now it's a vow!

As for Readercon, I hadn't kept up with THAT development. Well, someone's a little tinpot Mussolini.

*blinks*

Gawd almighty. That's....really blatant. She couldn't have tried for a bit more subtlety and plausible deniability? Evidently Rene Walling is fortunate in his friends: fortunate that they approach life much the same way he does.

[legionseagle]

Apparently (I hadn't heard of Amanda Craig before either but people have been falling over themselves to fill in the gaps in my knowledge) she was done for libel by an ex-boyfriend whom she seems to have included in a roman-a-clef back in 1996.

[raincitygirl]

Oh, I see, so tackiness isn't just a one off for her, it's a lifestyle choice!

[katta]

That obituary is ridiculous. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I think an obituary should be about the person who died, not a place to vent one's personal pet theories. Possible exception if the pet theory was also the pet theory of the dead person, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

Also, WTF is up with a bunch of people (directors included) failing to see that Austen wasn't a romantic? I figured that one out at 14.

[raincitygirl]

Yup and yup.

I had no plans to buy Amanda Craig's books before, simply because I'd never heard of her. Now I *actively* have no plans to buy her books. If not for the tackiness, then for the misreading of Jane Austen.