"Curators"

When strolling the galleries of museums both grand and intimate, I am always grateful for the discerning eye and expertise of curators even if I don’t always fancy the art itself.

In college, I interned at a terrific museum in Washington, DC devoted to art by women. I went on behind-the-scenes tours of other museums ranging from the National Gallery to the Corcoran, and sat down with curators for brown bag lunches to learn about what they do. I even helped take a Frankenthaler off the wall.

Respect, y’all.

But sadly the ranks of actual curators have been breached and sullied. Just like anyone can start a blog, print up 100 Moo cards, and call themselves a professional writer, so too can some yambag create a list of cured meats for a regional magazine or a collection of sunglasses or yoga pants for Piperlime.

So you eat a lot of sausage and like to shop. Do you have a PhD in anything remotely relevant? Is there any standard that makes you a bona fide expert in anything other than being obnoxious? And there’s the trend to call employees “content curators.” Call me crazy but in my day, that was an editor. So go ahead and offer your top ten list or opinion freely and often, but don’t call yourself a curator. The only thing you’re qualified to select and collect is my ire.

(Photo: http://ny.racked.com)

Bloomsday

I once engaged in a vigorous round of literary flirtation with a fellow writer. Scratch that. He was an aspiring writer. He would send lengthy e-missives designed to make me swoon, or at least open up my, uh, Rolodex. He wanted my agent’s information.

In the words of Alicia Silverstone’s Cher in Clueless, “As if.”

What made him especially odious, however, was not his naked ambition. It was his blathering nonsensical jabberwocky. He concluded with one simple sentence that I shall never forget.

“I’m speaking, of course, of Ulysses.”

Let me paint a portrait of this artist as a young man. He, and innumerable other numnuts, gather every June 16 to read the novel Ulysses (which takes place on this day), dress as the book’s characters, embark on pub crawls, and indulge their inner McAsshole.

The bloom is off this literary rose. While I generally applaud literary events of every kind, Bloomsday acolytes, in my experience, are not a cause to re-Joyce. They are pretentious prats who smoke pipes, affect accents that don’t exist in nature, and reference films that never made it out of the film festival circuit.

I’m speaking, of course, of punching each and every one of them in their monocle. And yes I said yes I will Yes.

(photo: vicbooks.wordpress.com)

Celebutard authors

Nicole Richie did it. The Sisters Kardashian did too. Snooki, Lauren Conrad, and Teresa Guidice did it more than once.

I’m not talking about making a sex tape.

These dimwits all wrote books. Everyone mentioned above, save Teresa, wrote novels. And by “wrote,” I’m guessing that means they slapped their name on something a publishing intern knocked out.

Don’t you need opposable thumbs to write a book?

These celebs have all added “author” to their multi-hyphenated bios. Well, I’ve got a few choice words that might sum you up: Fame-seeker. Cooch-flasher. Grammar bungler. Low forehead.

Teresa Guidice can’t even string words together with any sort of proper syntax. She’s like Jersey’s version of Yoda. “Kidding me you are?”

And box of hair Snooki is even less believable, not because she’s mostly likely illiterate but because she would never take time out of her GTL regimen to direct her ghostwriter. I see it going something like this: “Um, yeah, let’s write a book—is nonfiction or fiction the one that’s not real?—where there’s a girl who, you know, is DTF with a juicehead she meets at a club. Wait, is that a pickle?”

Fuck yes, I'm mad bitter. Like prescription eyeglasses, let me have this. I’ve never been cool or tan or on a reality show. But I write. I have been published. You can have your reality show, oily bohunk and what will assuredly be an orange baby. Just let me and other writers have our bylines. I may not be a triple threat but I can live quite happily with my multi-hypenate of blogger-author-malcontent.

(Note that I'm talking about a select group of "famous for no reason" celebrities who parlay their celebrity into other products to extend their brand. I love loads of television personalities—Hello, Stacy London!—who bring integrity, wit, expertise, and intelligence to book projects. I'm a niche, not a broad-brushed, hater.)

(photo: celebritychatta.com)

Nicholas Sparks’ oeuvre

I’m a sucker for romance. Speaking of suckers, I don’t need my lovefest to be sprinkled with unrefined sugar. Romance is sweet enough on its own without the leading man—who, by the way, never remotely resembles Zac Efron in my dreams—uttering crap lines like, “You need to be kissed every day, every hour, every minute.” Even Robert James Waller would be ooked out by that. In any other universe, this soldier-turned-stalker would inspire a scary thriller. But this is Nicholas Sparks’ world, and we’re just the not-so-Lucky Ones to live in it.

His treacle makes me want to take a walk to remember…right off a cliff. I want to put a message in a bottle in hopes that someone will rescue me from Nights in Rodanthe and its ilk.

Dear John: It’s not me; it’s you. I have to stop seeing you or risk type 1 diabetes. 

(photo: freefreedownload.net)

Announcing...TIWTPITF: The Book

From today's Publishers Marketplace: Jennifer Worick's THINGS I WANT TO PUNCH IN THE FACE, an irreverent compendium of pet peeves, mundane activities, and batty behavior, to Colleen Dune Bates at Prospect Park Media, by Joy Tutela at the David Black Literary Agency.

It goes without saying but I'm tickled pink. And as you know, that is as rare as a unicorn sighting! Look for a compendium of the most punch-worthy people, places, and things in online and brick-and-mortar stores everywhere this fall. It will make an excellent gift for you and your snarkiest friends!

Let me know which posts you think must be included in the book, as I'm putting the manuscript together now. Mwah, all you dear malcontents.

TYPING E-MAILS IN ALL CAPS

When you rip off an e-mail to me using only capital letters, I reckon that you’re pissed, lazy, or both. You’re pretty much passive-aggressively shouting at me. I’m certainly screaming inside my head reading your rant.

STOP IT.

I’M NOT KIDDING. CUT IT THE FUCK OUT.

I’m a big believer in proper grammar and punctuation, and I feel there's a perfect word or phrase to express a thought or feeling. You don’t need to resort to all caps to get your point across. I GET IT!

I also get that you’re a monster A-hole who's in serious need of an etiquette class. I don’t care that you’re rushed, I don’t want to hear that your pinkies can’t operate the shift key properly, and I really don’t give a shit that your shit is irked. If you want to communicate with me, I’d better see some ascenders and descenders coming at me through my in-box. If there’s no x-height to be found, you can bet money that I’m going to seriously font you up and put a cap in your ass, where it belongs.

(photo: flickr.com/photos/deepfriedkudzu)