Retroactive Auratic Experience

[cbertsch]

Well, since everyone keeps asking me about Ana Marie Cox, in light of Sunday's New York Times feature on Wonkette, I will spill the beans.

Yes, I did visit her in her apartment. But only once!

No, I never figured out how she got the scar.

Yes, I purchased a Silkworm album after she told me that Urban Outfitters was using Silkworm in its in-house magazine.

No, I never understood the East River Pipe fixation.

Yes, I started reading Beer Frame on her recommendation.

No, I don't think she and Paul are still on good terms.

Yes, I wish she'd stayed in graduate school.

No, I'm not sad that Suck has departed the earth.

Yes, I was a little put off by her business wear and martini glass when I talked to her that time in the anteroom bar area of Bimbo's during the Noise Pop festival.

No, I don't have a thing for redheads. Or maybe I do, but not Ana's sort.

Yes, she always struck me as a psychologically damaged person.

No, I don't hold that against her.

Yes, this editor's column was co-written by the two of us. Could I have penned that bit about the gold watch?

No, I don't feel that she was particularly kind to us after departing the Bad Subjects fold.

Yes, we should be grateful to her for the transformation she wrought on both our design sensibility and our sense of ourselves.

No, I don't think she has room in her brain to remember that time in her life.

Yes, you may send this to her.

No, she won't write back.

Peace out.

Comments

[batdina.livejournal.com]

speaking (or writing, as it were) as someone who never quite "got" the AMC mystique, I have, since the Times' piece, now learned enough about her to know that even way back then, I wasn't missing anything.

[kdotdammit.livejournal.com]

Culture vulture. Souless scavenging culture ladder climbing opportunist. Perfect for the GW Bush generation.

[masoo.livejournal.com]

Might as well add my two cents worth.

Yes, I did visit her in her apartment, but only once.

I still miss Suck.

I don't pass value judgments on people who leave Bad Subjects.

I know Ann Powers, and Ms. Cox, you are no Ann Powers. Come to think of it, you're no Heather Havrilesky, either.

But I still miss Suck.

Value Judgments

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

"I don't pass value judgments on people who leave Bad Subjects," is a rather loaded statement, don't you think.

It implies A) that there are people who pass value judgments and B) that you're better than that and, presumably, us.

Maybe that was your intention. But, I at least, would want to hold out for the possibility of differentiation within any group identity.

Ana did some good things for Bad Subjects while she was a part of it, as I noted. And she turned me on to a lot of interesting stuff. But she wasn't exactly friendly with us after she left.

So, even though I wasn't trying to pass a value judgment on Ana, I would, if pressed, distinguish between her mode of being post-BS and, say, yours, or, to make a more obvious comparison, Annalee's.

Re: Value Judgments

[masoo.livejournal.com]

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes, most of the time actually, I just blather about whatever pops into my head. Here is all that crossed my mind when I said that about value judgments: "I'm not saying anything about Ana Marie Cox and Bad Subjects, because I don't have room to talk." If anything, I was implying that I am worse than everyone else, not better, which has been my SOP ever since I was two years old. Really, not everything I write is meant to be an attack on my friends. None of it is, actually.

Ana Marie wasn't v.nice to us before she left, either ... I don't even think of her as an ex-colleague of mine, to be honest. But she does what she does, she's good at it, when what she does interests me I read it, when it doesn't, I don't. I prefer my gossip to be more basic "how big is Milton Berle's penis" stuff than "how can I fuck over Bush's opponent" stuff, so I pretty much ignore Wonkette. But I read Suck religiously.