The Hunting of the Snark
February 22, 2009 8:11 AM   Subscribe

 
FWIW: Walter Kirn's Up In The Air is a fantastic book, and much better than the writing in this piece.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 8:20 AM on February 22, 2009


Previously
posted by Rhomboid at 8:24 AM on February 22, 2009


This made me miss Spy magazine.
posted by Miko at 8:31 AM on February 22, 2009 [1 favorite]


MetaFilter: Just the place for a Snark!

(What I tell you three times is true.)
posted by The Bellman at 8:38 AM on February 22, 2009 [4 favorites]


delicious.
posted by The Whelk at 8:51 AM on February 22, 2009


Famous snarkers: Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill

Metafilter: pithily sarcastic
posted by Mental Wimp at 9:13 AM on February 22, 2009


Famous snarkers: Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill

Notable Wilde snark:
The difference between journalism and literature is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.
Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
I think that God, in creating Man, somewhat overestimated his ability.
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

And from Churchill:
Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.
Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
posted by netbros at 9:24 AM on February 22, 2009 [3 favorites]


For those less sophisticated readers, like me:

"This book are teh dumb. Denby is fail."
posted by tcv at 9:45 AM on February 22, 2009


Wonkette has been ragging on this book for a long time.
posted by The Whelk at 10:36 AM on February 22, 2009


This has got to be the most pilloried culture book I can remember.
posted by kosem at 11:35 AM on February 22, 2009


Famous snarkers: Ambrose Bierce, G. B. Shaw
posted by Miko at 1:08 PM on February 22, 2009


I've been told that 'snark' is a portmanteu of "snide remark," which just so happens to share the same spelling as the Lewis Carroll nonsense word. Not that, you know, being pedantic about a review of a book about snark is useful or anything, but hey.
posted by Alterscape at 4:37 PM on February 22, 2009


I've been told that 'snark' is a portmanteu of "snide remark,"

I've heard that too, but it's so pat. It feels more like a back-formation or false etymology.
posted by Miko at 4:40 PM on February 22, 2009


The Whelk: Yes We Have!

I'm deeply uninterested in this David Denby's opinion of Tom Wolfe or Spy, but his current obsession with the site I edit was creepy enough to compel one of my colleagues to purchase this Snark pamphlet to see what, exactly, was being said about Wonkette.

Nothing accurate, it turned out. Wildly inaccurate, in fact. Humor is obviously subjective, but he got the names, dates, authors and publisher wrong, and he displays a stunning bone-headed inability to decipher obvious references to Oscar-winning classic movies -- and he's a movie critic, although certainly not the good movie critic at the New Yorker.

One of his primary complaints about "snark," apparently, is that it doesn't make time for basic journalistic fact-checking.
posted by kenlayne at 9:44 PM on February 22, 2009


HA! A dork, again, thinking his screed will get "the kids" to stop doing what they are doing these days. Because, fuck, my vice-principal's poem about "Dope" in the school newspaper got me to stay away from DEVIL WEED.

Anyway, all this talk of snark reminds me I need to get over to Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan.
posted by MrPants5000 at 2:46 AM on February 23, 2009


Denby's Great Books wasn't that great either.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:37 AM on February 23, 2009


Denby was on NPR a couple weeks ago flogging his book. Basically his argument seemed to boil down to his dissatisfaction that any schmoe with a computer could put their two cents in, rather than qualified pro-fessional writers like hisself.
posted by electroboy at 6:56 AM on February 23, 2009


« Older PANTS! (not including fish)   |   That *would* make a good band name. Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments