{"id":8606,"date":"2010-02-11T11:00:49","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T16:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=8606"},"modified":"2010-02-11T11:38:48","modified_gmt":"2010-02-11T16:38:48","slug":"the-strib-exudes-a-literary-aura","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=8606","title":{"rendered":"The Strib Exudes A Literary Aura"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my comment section, Jeff Kouba pointed me to a recent “book review” <\/a>by the Strib’s Kristin Tillotson.<\/p>\n

At least, it became <\/em>a book review, of sorts.\u00a0 But in the first graf, it was hard to tell (emphasis added):<\/p>\n

Wells Tower is a serious wiseacre, the kind who gets away with it not because of his cleverness, but because he cuts to hard truths.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As a clever wiseacre with a thing for hard truths, I sat up and took notice!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Written with startlingly original voice, careening imagination and an abiding fondness for what Teabaggers would call “the non-elites,”<\/strong> his stories are set in a surreal America we know, but aren’t sure we want to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m trying to wrap my brain around a thought process that prods Ms. Tillotson to swerve that <\/em>far outside any rational connection to her theme to take a passive-aggressive, blovious swipe at what may have once been half of her newspaper’s audience.<\/p>\n

And I’m still trying.<\/p>\n

So I sent this email to Ms. Tillotson:<\/p>\n

Ms. Tillotson,<\/p>\n

I’m trying to figure out the point of the “Teabagger” slur in your review of Wells Tower’s short story collection.\u00a0 It seems – labored?\u00a0<\/p>\n

I’d suggest a couple of possibilities, but I’d hate to get written off as one of those with “pursed lips, bloviating and passive-aggression<\/a>“, so I figured I’d let you put it all in your own words.<\/p>\n

Mitch Berg<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t expect anyone from the Strib to respond to mere peasants, of course.\u00a0 And if they do, it’ll be something…well, pursed, blovious and passive-aggressive, usually.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But I’ll keep you posted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my comment section, Jeff Kouba pointed me to a recent “book review” by the Strib’s Kristin Tillotson. At least, it became a book review, of sorts.\u00a0 But in the first graf, it was hard to tell (emphasis added): Wells Tower is a serious wiseacre, the kind who gets away with it not because of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,4,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-n-e","category-media","category-slander-files"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8606"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8608,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8606\/revisions\/8608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}