the gray train

March 1, 2008 11:47 AM

"Google “brooklyn writer” and you’ll get, Did you mean: the future of literature as we know it? People are coming in from all over. In fact, the physical act of moving your possessions from Manhattan to Brooklyn is now the equivalent of a two-year M.F.A. program. When you get to the other side, they hand you three Moleskine notebooks and a copy of “Blogging for Dummies.” You’re good to go."
posted by The Jesse Helms (37 comments total)

I took a break from revising my manuscript in my Brooklyn Heights apartment to check Metafilter, and now I feel like a major tool.
posted by Bookhouse at 12:03 PM on March 1, 2008 [6 favorites]

So what does the last link have to do with this post?
posted by ssg at 12:09 PM on March 1, 2008

When my first book was published, I did a few radio interviews. For reasons that escape me, every interviewer asked me about being a writer in Brooklyn -- and then moved on to a completely different subject when I said that actually I lived in Queens.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:15 PM on March 1, 2008

From the first link: There was the famous case of the language poet from Red Hook who grew despondent when the Shift key on her MacBook broke. She couldn’t write for weeks. Overcome by melancholy humors, she jumped into the enchanted, glowing waters of the Gowanus Canal, her pockets full of stones. And ... she was cured!

From the last link: A New York City College of Technology biologist released a report Thursday finding the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn tested positive for gonorrhea contamination. The Gowanus Creek Canal in the western portion of Long Island was dubbed Lavender Lake due to its oily discoloration, the New York Post reports.

Language poets are so nasty, gonorrhea cures them!
posted by Powerful Religious Baby at 12:16 PM on March 1, 2008 [2 favorites]

Writing: What you do in Brooklyn when not playing kickball.
posted by basicchannel at 12:20 PM on March 1, 2008

"So what does the last link have to do with this post?"

Clearly, those filthy writers moving in from Manhattan have brought their dirty, dirty diseases with them.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:21 PM on March 1, 2008

Oh yeah?

Well, I'm going to write a fucking book, too.

And it's going to be really, really good.

So fuck you guys.
posted by kbanas at 12:25 PM on March 1, 2008

Presumably all this mainstream attention means that no-one who embodies the stereotype has been able to afford to live in Brooklyn for the last five years.
posted by rhymer at 12:30 PM on March 1, 2008 [4 favorites]

I can't tell if these links are deriding the ridiculousness of people moving to Brooklyn (only certain parts of it, I'm guessing) to become famous writers, is praising the notion that people are moving to Brooklyn to become famous writers or is just advertising the idea that this is what's happening. I think it's the last one, but I wish it were the first one.

But obviously I'm not a writer.
posted by peppito at 12:35 PM on March 1, 2008

gag
posted by fourcheesemac at 12:36 PM on March 1, 2008

I like Colson Whitehead:

What do they expect me to say? “Instead of ink, I write in mustard from Nathan’s Famous, a Brooklyn institution since 1916.” “I built my desk out of wooden planks taken from the authentic rubble of Ebbets Field. Have I mentioned how I still haven’t forgiven the Dodgers for moving to Los Angeles?”

posted by languagehat at 12:53 PM on March 1, 2008

Hamill, who is one of nine authors participating in this year’s popular “Eat, Drink & Be Literary” series at the Brooklyn Academy of Music

How can you "be literary"?
posted by ersatz at 1:05 PM on March 1, 2008

How can you "be literary"?

Move to Brooklyn, apparenlty.
posted by jokeefe at 1:10 PM on March 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

Even apparently.
posted by jokeefe at 1:10 PM on March 1, 2008

The Whitehead essay is hilarious. Thanks for posting this.
posted by loiseau at 1:17 PM on March 1, 2008

I live in Brooklyn, but in the part with the scary black people and random shootings, so I can still pretend I'm not "one of them."

Small victories, I tell myself.
posted by nasreddin at 1:46 PM on March 1, 2008

Writing: What you do in Brooklyn when not playing kickball graphic designing.
posted by degoao at 1:47 PM on March 1, 2008

I read essays like this from the office of my four bedroom, 2800-square feet house situated on a piece of land that is exactly the size of a Manhattan city block, for which I pay the same in monthly mortgage as someone in Park Slope pays for a one-bedroom fourth-floor walk-up, and you know what I do? I laugh my ass off.
posted by jscalzi at 1:56 PM on March 1, 2008 [2 favorites]

Colson Whitehead is just cool. The Intuitionist was pretty solid debut.

oh, and: NYC, OTHER 4 BURROUGHS CONSIDERED COOL, NEWS AT 11
posted by [son] QUAALUDE at 2:26 PM on March 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

nasreddin - Living in Bensonhurst, I can commiserate with the "no one cares about this part of Brooklyn, thank god" mentality.
posted by griphus at 2:28 PM on March 1, 2008

jscalzi - do my favorite bands happen to play your acreage on a near-daily basis?
posted by griphus at 2:31 PM on March 1, 2008

Rad. I just filled out my second hipster bingo card in 24 hours.

Note that I filled out the first one last night after crashing a party in the Mission. Buncha tight-jeans-wearing, fixie-riding rich white kids in matching plaid shirts sniffing glue. Actually sniffing glue. And playing foosball. While. Sniffing. Glue.
posted by loquacious at 2:34 PM on March 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

In case you have never read any of Colson Whitehead's books. He's quite good.
posted by billyfleetwood at 2:34 PM on March 1, 2008

Geographically its Brooklyn but technically its suckville.
posted by cazoo at 2:55 PM on March 1, 2008

jscalzi: "I read essays like this from the office of my four bedroom, 2800-square feet house situated on a piece of land that is exactly the size of a Manhattan city block, for which I pay the same in monthly mortgage as someone in Park Slope pays for a one-bedroom fourth-floor walk-up, and you know what I do? I laugh my ass off."

jscalzi's profile (website)
...
Location: Bradford, Ohio

*laughs ass off*
posted by brain_drain at 2:57 PM on March 1, 2008

But jscalzi, you live in Ohio. As any New Yorker will tell you, it's just one of the flyover states!
posted by ericb at 3:03 PM on March 1, 2008

loquacious - that sounds GREAT! Next time you're going to a party, can I come too...?
posted by twsf at 3:37 PM on March 1, 2008

Writing: What you do in Brooklyn when not playing kickball.

You mean "stickball."

IMPOSTER IMPOSTER IMPOSTER
posted by foxy_hedgehog at 5:43 PM on March 1, 2008

Ohio kicks ass for many reasons, this being just one of them.

Oh, and John, I loved Old Man's War so much I bought my stepfather a copy for Christmas. Suq it, Brooklyn.
posted by adamdschneider at 6:22 PM on March 1, 2008

I live in Park Slope, the apotheosis of Brooklyn writer-dom, and yet all I see are the ghosts of lesbian mom writers, driven underground by the influx of corporate lawyers like myself, who have infested second floor apartments on Fifth Ave., buying our deli sandwiches from Mo and Sam at Fifth Ave Deli, and sometimes debating whether to have dinner at Blue Ribbon or wait it out for a table at Al Di La. I am the new Park Slope: aware of but not a part of the McSweeneys archipelago.
posted by Falconetti at 6:41 PM on March 1, 2008

Sometimes I feel like there are more writers than readers.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 7:16 PM on March 1, 2008

Griphus:

Probably not, Griphus. On the other hand, your favorite bands probably don't play directly outside your brownstone, either, so we're about even on that.

In any event, I see as many concerts a year now as I did when I lived in Washington DC in the late 90s. Strange as it may seem, bands do occasionally wander inland.

brain_drain:

Laugh all you want. I like sitting on my porch, watching the Amish buggies roll by.

ericb:

The irony is that I grew up in LA, so I've been on both ends of the flyover state mentality.

I remember when I moved to Ohio in 2001 at my wife's request (she had family here), I told her I expected my writing income to take hit, because who the hell writes from Ohio? But once we were here, the people I wrote for (corporate clients and freelance) really didn't give a crap; as long as they could reach me by phone, e-mail or IM it was all good. And my fiction career didn't really start until I was here. So, yeah, not a huge proponent of the idea you have to be in NYC (or LA or SF) to write.

adamdschneider:

Thanks. Glad you liked it!
posted by jscalzi at 7:31 PM on March 1, 2008

The Intuitionist was pretty solid debut.

The Intuitionist was great. John Henry Days was pretty good too.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 5:53 AM on March 2, 2008

Sometimes I feel like there are more writers than readers.

This matches my own experiences.
posted by drezdn at 6:20 AM on March 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

I want to add to the Colson Whitehead noise. You don't need to know Brooklyn to love The Intuitionist or John Henry Days.

From memory: The city is the only one who really knows you because it's seen you when you were alone. - Colossus Of New York: A City In 13 Parts.

Plus he is not really your typical McSweeney's twee hipster.

I <3 Colson Whitehead.
posted by maggiemaggie at 10:01 AM on March 2, 2008

This article by Melvin Jules Bukiet in The American Scholar is a scathing assessment of all the Brooklynphilia.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 11:33 AM on March 2, 2008

Sometimes I feel like there are more writers than readers.

I suppose that would explain why no one was paying attention at any of those readings.
posted by box at 5:16 PM on March 2, 2008