Concerning the article “Chi Lives: La Vida Kathie” in the September 17 issue of the Reader:
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Are we as a society to admire this type of writer? More directly, does the staff of the Reader admire this type of writer (or is there simply someone on the staff who knows her and wanted to give her a bit of publicity)? Let’s think about the merit of this writer with respect to her newest publication (for that is all it is worthy of being called, least of all a book): someone who publishes a biography of a person whom they have never met; someone who assimilates their material for this biography from questionable sources plastered all over the Web. But maybe “assimilate” (definition: to take in, digest, and transform [food] into living material–American Heritage Dictionary) is too kind. This is more like regurgitation–no, even that can have some nutritional value; it’s vomit. This “writer” reminds me of a character from Ben Jonson’s satirical play Volpone, namely Voltore, a vulturelike advocate who feeds on the rotten waste of others–and the analogy works, because Ricky Martin stinks. It seems that “progress” is merely a myth we all hide behind, since Arthur Schopenhauer addressed this problem over a hundred years ago. He distinguishes between two types of writer: “those who write for the subject’s sake, and those who write for writing’s sake. While the one have had thoughts or experiences which seem to them worth communicating, the others want money; and so they write, for money” (The Art of Literature). The article in question makes it explicitly clear (as if praising this feat) that the author had no prior interest in the subject of her publication–that is, before the offer from the publisher.
Uptown
