How Does This Happen?

Smoking Gun victim, urgh, writer James Frey has written a new book called Bright Shiny Morning. You may remember Frey as the writer who faked two memoirs and faced a public flogging by Oprah Winfrey on national television.

Full disclosure: I haven't read the book. But AAPW senior staff writer was keen to point out two reviews, one by the Los Angeles Times and one the New York Times.

David L. Ulin, the LA Times Book Page Editor, hated it. Janet Maslin, a NY Times reviewer, loved it. Huh?

Well, I read both reviews and am inclined towards Ulin. Ulin is a die-hard LA transplant and has over the years made an earnest effort to know and love Los Angeles on its own terms. God knows this region is one of the most beat up, reputation-wise, in the country if not the world.

Maslin seemed to be reading the book in a void or vacuum of realism: There is no Los Angeles. Diversity is static here. Brown people are unactualized. As usual.

Kudos to Ulin for being such a keen reader and pushing his criticism and thus the way we read contemporary literature (with contemporary ideas) and Los Angeles (a much more complicated place than its given credit for).

The Lamest Article Ever? Ever, Ever? Ever Ever

So I was reading the LA Times and ran into an article about n + 1, the critical and brainy journal out of New York, and how a lot it initially defined itself by what is was against: McSweeney's, the war, the New Republic, and yes, even exercise.

Well, as I was updating the site, for some odd reason, I remembered this article about Asian men being en vogue to date. It appeared in Newsweek in 2000, right as the dot.bomb thing was happening (not to be confused with the home-bomb thing happening right now). It is so bad it can't even be funny bad. Who thinks of articles like this? Was it the writer? Was it the editor who walked into a party and noticed like two gals with Asian bf's? Were they both strolling the streets of NY and bumping into Asian men accessories left and right?

Whatevs. It was so yesterday, it was a week ago. And it was written in the year 2000, when the new millenium was supposed to mean something. Oh well. It's so bad, I can't even believe it is still hosted by Newsweek. I would have taken it down as fast as my Robotech posters when I bring a girl over. But I guess, it's good for you, the reader, to see it.

First amendment of AAPW's constitution: Crap articles like this get the Gas Face! (not to be confused with the Thizz Face) Don't submit them. EVER. It is one thing we are TOTALLY against. Cheers!

And Now Introducing...Fata Morgana

This sculpture, called Fata Morgana and shown at Coachella 2008, epitomizes the latest in retro-industrial design, capturing a bygone era of hope and prosperity following WWII and ushering in the Cold War and foreshadowing nuclear proliferation. That it was made now, in 2008, it works less as homage and more as satire of another technological dead end, like ships, railroads, cars, and planes, because in the end, it says, we can never escape ourselves.

It could mean all that, or, it could just be a cool hunk of a metal that spins around in the day time and lights up at night, shooting a beam of light into the blue-black sky. You decide. Regardless, I love it. Check that: I am in love with Fata Morgana, the coolest sculpture of Coachella 2008. It is totally Spaceship! one of the fashion themes of 2008. Promise!