Tag: #Marketing

  • The MTA Gods

    Oh! How the MTA gods have forsaken me!

    It was only to be a minor trip. An expedition to the 93rd Street Trader Joe’s.

    A goodly visit to precure sustenance for myself and my family. To feats vastly not only for this week, but for the conclusion of the week when the Bowls are Super.

    But low, my hubris caught up with me. The flaw was tragic, the results ordained by Oracle of the IRT. For I, though humble in my ways, forgot to leave the sacrificial offering of Beam in the Holy Shot Glass on thy fire escape, thus anointing me, and allowing my transits to be good.

    Neigh, as the sacrifice was forgotten, so was the transit ruined. The signals of 59th refused to obey thy will of the conductor, and thusly the trains ground to a halt.

    No, this was not an incapacitated passenger, not a police investigation. Nor was it the, not as rare as you think, fire on the tracks.

    This was green, yellow, and red lights escaping to the realm of “No Power,” and leaving New York City at a standstill. Well… At least the Upper West Side.

    It was I, stuck at the 96th Street Station, with three heavy and bulging bags of well-earned groceries, that was stuck for almost an hour, waiting on a C Train. I could have been happy with a B even – I could have made that work.

    But I, fortune’s fool, who forgot his sacrifice, was punished by the MTA gods. BMT and the Lexington Line punished me by blowing up my schedule. Not allowing me the time to do my work.

    Learn, dear ones, from me. Never let the cold, or the hour of night, delay you bourbon offering for good and safe travels. Because if you forget, the MTA never will.

  • Thoughts on the Philip Roth Biography

    I don’t know if you have heard, but there is a new biography on Philip Roth called, “Philip Roth: The Biography” by Blake Bailey. It’s not the most original title, but not unlike a well worn club, it gets the job done. That having been said, I will read Bailey’s Roth biography, and I will also read his biography on John Cheever as well.

    Over the past couple of weeks, as this biography was about to be released to the public, the W. W. Norton & Company marketing department went into overdrive promoting this book, as they should. There was an article in The New York Times, one in The New Yorker by David Remnick no less, and even one on CBS Saturday Morning. I am sure there were more out there, but I stopped with three. They all did their job; made me want to get the biography, and to reread Roth’s work.

    I did notice that all three of these stories on the Roth biography had the same through-line; Roth didn’t want a biography written about him. In one form or another, each piece detailed Roth’s troubled relationship with past biographers, and his tendency to lash out, through unpublished books, defending his reputation after he felt attacked. And, that somehow, either through Roth reaching the end of his life, or by Blake Bailey’s ability to mine the information out of Roth, this biography came to be. And all of that might be completely true. Or a narrative created by the marketing department to increase sales.

    But, then I had this wacky thought that, what if this was Roth’s plan all along? Such as, he denied that most of his work was auto-biographical, but it turns out it was auto-biographical. Roth sure didn’t like the book his ex-wife wrote about him, which painted him as a misogynist. This led Roth to write one of the unpublished manuscripts where he attacked and attacked her, which in the end, sort of confirmed his ex-wife’s book. So, what if Roth created a narrative of “not wanting” a biography, while at the same time leading the biographer to “water?” Wouldn’t that give Roth the final say?

    I will add this; Philip Roth did write a memoir (Patrimony: A True Story) so if he wanted to tell his own story, he could have. In fact, he tried twice, but was persuaded, and it sounds correctly, not to publish. Also, choosing a biographer for your life while you are still alive, does come off as sounding subjective, especially after you had already fired one biographer. Finally, Roth was the best storyteller in the room, so why would he let someone else tell his most important story?

    Just a thought. I mean, I will still buy the book.