So Long, and Thanks For All the Material

Two good posts at Broadsheet on this Thanksgiving eve. First–and truly reason to be thankful–is that walking evidence for the sometimes-forgotten fact that terrible, shallow ideas expressed in good prose are still terrible, shallow ideas Caitlin Flanagan has been told by the New Yorker to publish her irritating essays elsewhere, hopefully in a magazine I don’t read. About the merits of La Flangan’s work, I’ve already said more than enough. Two additional things from the article. First–and I thought the quality of the magazine had improved–Flanagan hasn’t appeared in the New Yorker since an article she wrote about Mary Poppins received a complaint from a a Poppins expert that “Ms. Flanagan had drawn over-heavily on her work, without adequate credit.” Second, according to agent, “She’s rewarded extremely handsomely for her book-writing, and no magazine can compete with that. Any work she’s doing for a magazine, she’s doing for charitable purposes.” Charitable to whom? Anyway, I’d be interested as to whether her sales justifies these allegedly high advances. To Hell With All That is already down to the low 50,000s on Amazon. One wonders if editors might just be projecting their interest in Flanagan’s complacent, upper-class anti-feminism onto a public that is rather less interested. If anybody with access to BookScan would like to let me know what the numbers have been…

In addition, I’ve been meaning to address this Bill O’Reilly rant about Kansas abortion provider George Teller, but Jessica Arons does the job with great effectiveness.

…a little birdie emails me that To Hell With All That has moved all of 8700 copies. In other words, if there was a six-figure advance we’re well within wingnut welfare territory…