Can’t…Stop…Mocking…Lee…Siegel

I admit it: part of me wanted to mount a modest defense of Foer for giving a blog to Lee Siegel, if only on the grounds that nobody could have expected it to be as bad as it was. And Siegel had in the past shown at least glimmers of talent as a critic. (A book critic, anyway–I’m incompetent to judge, but the arguments in various quarters about his crass ineptitude as an art critic are persuasive. ) But then I read Rob’s link to that Slate diary. I was at a meeting with several other bloggers yesterday and most people hadn’t read it, but if you’re interested in colossal trainwrecks–and if you’re interested enough in this story to have read this far, I’m sure you are–it’s a grimly fascinating read. As A White Bear sums it up:

For five straight days in 2003, Siegel wrote masturbatorily bombastic prose on the subjects of (1) a cat he invented that he feeds real milk, (2) an abusive relationship he invented with a nonexistent Spanish woman, (3) a relationship he pretends to have with a West Indian shop clerk, (4) sex he pretends to have with the cat he invented who sometimes turns into a pretend woman, (5) a ritual he learned from a therapist he invented who insists he name himself to the mirror for hours, (6) his inability to stop inventing personae to contact people he knows in invented voices, and, my favorite, (7) the pain of having to interact with “cool beautiful aloof self-sufficient women” in real life who resist becoming figments of your imagination.

When you read this, the fact that his blog consisted of pretty much nothing but uninformed political rants, ad hominem attacks and inchoate rage about nothing in particular is not terribly surprising.

There is, however, happier news where Siegelpalooza is concerned. Siegel’s favorite hip-hop act has graciously agreed to appear:

Unfortunately, another act had to pull out. Svengali Frank Farian told L, G & M that “we’re sure this will be really wunderbar, and we surely have the playfulness and complexity Mr. Siegel demands. However, we feel our act’s historical analysis holds up much better than the arguments about Iraq made by Mr. Siegel’s former publication, and for that reason we cannot associate ourselves with them.”