Wednesday, June 13, 2012

angry crank

I was 20 minutes late to work because of that stupid yellow plane that flies over the causeway!  It filled me with rage, just because everyone knows that this plane does it but no one can do anything. I already emailed the FAA last year.

I don't know if you guys read Saveur, but the newest one also filled me with rage.  Almost every single article (at least five of them) started with the lazy "remember when?" intro.  As in, "I always picture my grandmother with a gin and tonic in her hand" for an article on making tonic water (who has the time?) or "My first taste of creme brulee was during a summer roadtrip in France when I was 16". These are not direct quotes but are based on two real articles in the mag.  This is just lazy writing and a tired cliche.  Who the fuck cares when you first experienced something?  It's usually not that exciting of a story.  Can we keep it a little more current? How do you feel about it now? I can't say I've never done it, but I try not to and I wrote a column (probably not one of my best) making fun of it.  It was about having shabu shabu in Japan.

At least half of my rage is because this type of intro usually reveals a very privileged background on the part of the writer (like in Bon Appetit last month, the daughter of some super famous painter - can't quite recall which one - recounts summers on a yacht in Greece and the cooking their servants did for them).  Yes, I am jealous because it is often the 1% that have the connections to get these writing gigs.  Vogue is dripping with this, of course, not that I'd ever want to write for Vogue.

3 comments:

Rosalitahead said...

That sort of writing makes me rage up too. Which is why I can't read either of those magazines. When I discuss these topics I immediately take on tea party tones. Less said the better.

Lately I feel like I am drowning in that entitled, fancypants, elitist tone.

n.

Anonymous said...

Ha! I always roll my eyes if I'm reading a food blog and they start waxing on about having their palate formed by childhood trips to France or when they were an exchange student. There should be a rule in the Chicago Style of Manual that unless you're Julia Child or Anthony Bourdain (who actually did go there to visit family as a kid), you can't use that type of anecdote in a food writing article.

beckler said...

or at least restrict it to once an issue! not four times