Clarifications

Catherine Driscoll catherine.driscoll at adelaide.edu.au
Thu Nov 14 08:20:01 PST 2002


Quoting Louis Proyect <lnp3 at panix.com>:


> My film criticisms are gratis. Unlike you, I never harbored illusions
> that I was the next Hunter Thompson.
>
> amazon.com sales ranking of "Mr. Mike : The Life and Work of Michael
> O'Donoghue The Man Who Made Comedy Dangerous" by Dennis Perrin: 194,031.
>
> amazon.com sales ranking of American Fan: Sports Mania and the Culture
> That Feeds It" by Dennis Perrin: 305,199
>
> No wonder you've ended up cleaning toilets. I only pity the hapless
> worker who has to put up with your "I could have been a contender" bile.

Ah... look, I can laugh at some of Dennis' shtick with the next guy, but what's up with this?

As an Australian academic, and one who writes to the academic audience to which I write, I'd be damned excited by those rankings. I know tons of US academics that would be, and you're all 'academic publishing paradise' over there. I mean, I doubt Dennis is backed by some huge press or anything. What's up with this, Lou?

You don't have to agree with his specific politics to think it good someone does well with anything that's not rabidly conservative (self-help books and autobiographies are particularly unacceptable; I just hate those). I haven't read Dennis' books, but I don't have to in order to say that's just ungenerous, and if I am the person telling you that then honey there's a serious issue cause I think I have a patent pending or something. Now if I do read them and hate them, fore example, I'd be more likely to say 'how the hell does Dennis sell so many copies of his books, because...' You see what I mean, right?

Catherine



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