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    Sonic Reducer 151Rachel Vorona Cote
    4/02/16 3:26pm

    I also can't name a single female writer that inspires me. I can't name a male writer who inspires we either. I am a sentient hunk of cheese that someone plugged directly into the Internet. I am inspired by mold and bacteria.

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      Rachel Vorona CoteSonic Reducer 151
      4/02/16 3:29pm

      As they say, “literal LOL.”

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      Sonic Reducer 151Rachel Vorona Cote
      4/02/16 3:32pm

      *asexually reproduces more delicious cheese in appreciation.

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    Chick CounterflyRachel Vorona Cote
    4/02/16 4:27pm

    He’s an 84 year old white man whose heyday was the 1960's.

    46-56 years after his writing career basically ended, people expect differently from him?

    This is utter horse shit.

    This is a made-up controversy, and you should feel ashamed from this exploitation. You’re picking on someone who is probably just like the 84 year old grandpa of anyone else who had career peak and relevancy in the 1960's.

    This whole zeitgeist around the group of people who are offended is incredibly modern. Talese is not, and he will be dead soon. Good job shitting on an influential movement writer on his way to the grave in order to score some points with the people in your movement.

    You’re giving yourself a bad name and your movement a bad name, and, what’s worse you don’t even represent the writers of your generation. They’re probably ashamed of you and how badly you reflect upon them.

    This is exploitation of an old, now irrelevant man. It’s disgusting and arrogant.

    You can do better than this. You can be better than this.

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      Heidi HoleChick Counterfly
      4/02/16 4:29pm

      He's so irrelevant he was asked to speak at an industry event. Nice argument there

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      Rachel Vorona CoteChick Counterfly
      4/02/16 5:00pm

      I think I’m doing ok! But thanks!

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    picklesandbeetsRachel Vorona Cote
    4/02/16 5:44pm

    In the mid 80s a college professor told me a (possibly apocryphal) story about a male student who wrote an essay arguing that women were inherently less rigorous writers- using George Eliot’s work as an example of the epitome of said rigorous male writing that no woman could match.

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      Rachel Vorona Cotepicklesandbeets
      4/02/16 5:51pm

      Oh GOD I love that.

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      picklesandbeetsRachel Vorona Cote
      4/02/16 5:54pm

      He supposedly received an F for shoddy research.

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    I'm Fart and I'm SmunnyRachel Vorona Cote
    4/02/16 3:39pm

    Okay a couple of things:

    1. Your most acclaimed piece was on Frank Sinatra, not exactly uneducated or antisocial.

    2. Nora Ephron literally wrote for the same magazine as him within a 10 year span.

    2. Frances FitzGerald won a Pulitzer for her work on Vietnam.

    3. Jane Mayer exposed Bush’s war tactics.

    But sorry they don’t write about the important subjects like fucking Frank Sinatra.

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      prollynotI'm Fart and I'm Smunny
      4/02/16 4:04pm

      Oh I didn’t know that about Nora Ephron. Wow. FitzGerald, yes. Forgot about her. Jane Mayer is a much younger writer.

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      I'm Fart and I'm Smunnyprollynot
      4/02/16 4:14pm

      I mean, she is 61, and has been around for decades, mostly writing for the literary magazine The New Yorker, which I’m sure this asshole has heard of. She actually has a new book out about dirty money in politics focusing on the Koch brothers. So if he actually paid attention to his peers without a penis, he would have heard about her.

      ETA: I just googled and found out he has written an article for The New Yorker, the same year she was covering the 2012 elections. So I’m pretty sure he knows of her.

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    deerlady83Rachel Vorona Cote
    4/02/16 3:47pm

    This reminded me of a conversation my female relations and I had with a male cousin. We were talking about our favorite actresses and we asked him who he liked. He said he didn’t like any actresses. I knew he was a big Harry Potter fan and I asked him about Emma Watson. That was a no, too. I don’t know if he was fooling with us or not.

    I do wonder how many men have women that they liked and admire their accomplishments. I have men and women that I like and admire their accomplishments. I don’t know how many men are the same way.

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      prollynotdeerlady83
      4/02/16 4:06pm

      Yeah I have a friend whose boyfriend says there are no good female musicians. None.

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      deerlady83prollynot
      4/02/16 4:12pm

      Do singers count or not?

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    TyroneJPKRachel Vorona Cote
    4/02/16 3:28pm

    Hi, my name’s Jonathan Franzen and I really don’t see what the uproar is all about.

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      Hoyo AfrikaTyroneJPK
      4/02/16 4:34pm

      Hi, I’m John Updike and I’m sure no-one has ever finished my stories about rabbits.

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      TakahashiTyroneJPK
      4/02/16 8:52pm

      And you know that Franzen wishes he was born 50 years earlier so he could be in his “prime” during a time when the ladies knew to shut up and white men were unquestioned.

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    MissDezRachel Vorona Cote
    4/02/16 4:07pm

    According to her wiki entry, his wife Nan Talese edited and published Margaret Atwood, Antonia Fraser, Valerie Martin (winner of the Orange Prize) and Jennifer Egan (who published short fiction in many of the publications Gay did, received NEA and Guggenheim fellowships, won the Pulitzer and the National Book Critics Circle award).

    I hope she’s thrilled with her husband’s answer.

    No I’m not. I hope she slaps him upside the head and makes him sleep on the couch the next month or so.

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      PoodletimeMissDez
      4/02/16 4:25pm

      Holy Shitsnacks! Margaret Atwood and Antonia Fraser? Perhaps the folks at BU should have been interviewing his wife instead.....

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      prollynotMissDez
      4/02/16 4:32pm

      But were any of those women journalists other than Egan? I could talk about amazing female novelists and poets all day long, but if I try to name female literary journalists, I have a harder time thinking of more than five or six of his generation. Not that I’m defending him- he is a journalist and has worked with journalists and should know a lot more about journalism than I do! I’m just pointing out that the article title (which refers to women WRITERS) isn’t really what he was asked about. So the authors that his wife has worked with are not really relevant. Not that this excuses him for his remarks, just that it really is a different question.

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    Queen of BithyniaRachel Vorona Cote
    4/02/16 3:27pm

    Wait, someone who is a famous proponent of replacing journalism with narcissistic navel-gazing is a shitty sexist? Gosh I for one am shocked.

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      DestructoBeamQueen of Bithynia
      4/02/16 4:13pm

      and a contemporary of Mailer, Roth, and Hunter Thompson too. amazing, right?

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      LPSheaQueen of Bithynia
      4/02/16 4:43pm

      Suffice it to say that while those guys and their ilk produced lots of compelling and even occasionally brilliant writing, at the same time they will not be missed.

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    SqarrRachel Vorona Cote
    4/02/16 3:36pm

    It’s amazing that he’s managed to reach that age and has somehow never met a single woman.

    Truly a wonder for the ages.

    He should probably receive a medal or recognition of some kind for having managed to survive under such a large rock for so long.

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      Hoyo AfrikaSqarr
      4/02/16 4:35pm

      Maybe if Gay didn’t spend so much time with the boys, he would see women are around. They apparently do stuff, like read and write.

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      SqarrHoyo Afrika
      4/02/16 4:44pm

      They do?!

      What amazing times we live in!

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    Adrastra, patron saint of snarkRachel Vorona Cote
    4/02/16 3:31pm
    literary journalist

    Just to add some extra sting.

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      Zachary BosAdrastra, patron saint of snark
      4/02/16 3:36pm

      Not really, though? It’s a genre distinction.

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      Slay.douché - (dreams to be a puppy)Adrastra, patron saint of snark
      4/02/16 3:38pm

      Maybe it was a *typo* for:
      2liter Gary JOURNALIST.

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