New Yorker writer resigns after making up Dylan quotes

And, of course, getting caught doing so. The Post has the AP story:

A staff writer for The New Yorker has resigned and his latest book has been halted after he acknowledged inventing quotes by Bob Dylan.

Jonah Lehrer released a statement Monday through his publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, saying that some Dylan quotes appearing in his book "Imagine: How Creativity Works" did "not exist." Others were "unintentional misquotations, or represented improper combinations of previously existing quotes."

How creativity works. New York mag has more, with links (the website for Tablet magazine, which broke the story, is currently crushed). Basically Lehrer got caught because he'd just got caught plagiarizing himself in earlier New Yorker pieces. He then tried to lie out of it by claiming he'd gotten the Dylan quotes from unreleased hunks of Martin Scorcese's doco on same.

Yeah, big deal, another young writer a little too eager for whatever it is young writers are eager for (books, a handsome desk, tweed jacket with elbow patches--stuff like that, I'd imagine). But this was odd. AP says,

Among Lehrer's inventions was a quote that first appeared in the famous documentary from the mid-1960s, "Don't Look Back," in which Dylan tells a reporter about his songs that "I just write them. There's no great message." In "Imagine," Lehrer adds a third sentence—"Stop asking me to explain"—that does not appear in the film.

I've looked several places--a Times blog, Forbes, Huffpo--and that's the only fake quote quoted: "Stop asking me to explain." (The Tablet probably has more, but, again: crushed.) Why did Lehrer add that? What does he think it adds? A tiny look at possible Dylan peevishness? Seems like a lot of risk for such a small character revelation. Hell, if you're gonna make up quotes, why not go for the wow? "I just write them. There's no great message. Elvis sucks cocks in Hell."

On the other hand why, if there are punchier made-up quotes quoted in the Tablet piece, did AP use that one? I mean, "Stop asking me to explain" over "Elvis sucks cocks in Hell"? Are there no editors any more?

Update: Have just been informed that young writers do not lust for desks or elbow patches or such nonsense, but for other things, IYKWIMAITYD.

Update II: Just noticed that Huffpo posted some tweets of readers' suggested fake Dylan quotes. "Elvis sucks cocks in Hell" holds up rather well.

Finally

James Holmes has aquired his well-earned mass-murderer middle name. It's "Eagen." James Eagen Holmes. Conduct yourselves accordingly.

Update: I see others are spelling it "Eagan." Whatever.

Aurora mass shooting

The Telegraph, probably not surprisingly, has better coverage than the Denver Post. Here's some eyewitness stuff. TV coverage is unwatchable, of course, but must-watch all the same.

Update: TV coverage no longer must-watch. Smarmy repetitive bastards.

Update II: The Telegraph's liveblog or whatever has this (last graf) at 7:32 MDT:

. . . We could hear screaming and chairs being broken around us so we just figured we would stay down. There were about 50 to 75 gun shots, we were playing dead for about 45 seconds or a minute.

Forty-five seconds or a minute. Is that all the time it took for this guy to kill 12 (originally reported as 14) people?

Update: Back up to 14, according to KOA radio.

Update IV: Back down to 12, according to KOA. Jaysus.

You know what this means . . .

That's right! Venerable North Denver Italian restaurant Pagliacci's is closing August 19 after 66 years.

Or, as the Denver Post put it: "Pagliacci’s, North Denver’s [check] venerable [check] Italian restaurant [check check], will close Aug. 19 after 66 years [hah!] serving up such classic dishes as calamari fritti, caprese salad, gnocchi, fettuccine with bolognese sauce and a memorable seven-layer lasagna."

Oddly enough, we were there just this past Friday night, and as soon as we walked in we knew something was wrong. Maybe it was the bowling-ball-clutching half-clown-suited ladies hovering menacingly over every table, but there was definitely tension in the air.

Oh, the D-blog had the gnocchi. It was gummy. In fact, being an in-the-moment kind of guy, the D-blog made just that observation at the time: "This is gummy." Some genius, either the D-a-W or one of the D-blog's many easily replaceable sisters, replied, "I think it's supposed to be gummy."

Oh.

The Post's story (teased on the front page at the moment) is by William Porter, Restaurant Critic, who grittily notes that a developer bought the place and plans to put up (evil squealing serial-killer music here) an apartment building on the site. But Porter notes the tender side of the Pagliacci's story as well, long before its kulak owners sold out to the man for some gold:

The Pagliacci’s story is a good one, ripe as a tomato with immigrant ambition, the American dream, and even a love story. It was founded in 1946 by [Frank] Grandinetti, a Sicilian produce vendor who six years earlier had met his future bride, Thelma Balzano. The family legend has it that one day when Thelma leaned out her window to chat with Frank, he tossed her an apple.

I heard he threw it at her, which logically is the only way such a boring incident could reach legendary status, and even then only if he left a significant dent in her head. Anyway, it's clear Mr. Porter is ripe as a tomato with writing talent and perhaps a love story. I will look out for his offerings in the future.

Update: The caption on the photo of the ball-wielding ladies reads, "In 1952, Pagliacci's founder Frank Grandinetti sponsors a bowling team with, l to r, Billy Carbaugh, Hazel Dopheide, Jen Campbell, Genevieve Sellers and Mary Friedl." Scary stuff.

Update II: As several commenters at the Post note, Pagliacci's minestrone is super-excellent*.

*Sorry, it was either "super-excellent" or "to die for," so no contest there.

WATCH THIS SPACE

Thanks.

Patriotic theme today!

He said sullenly. Okay, here's a sculpture that recently appeared in front of Brown International Academy (formerly Brown International Baccalaureate School, formerly Brown Elementary), which the D-a-W and I used to live across the street from, almost:

Kiddies with their hands over their hearts, looking up at . . .

An empty flagpole, but you get the idea.

It's very weird. As you can tell by its name changes, poor Brown has been buried under all the worthless tranzi-eco-multi-culti fads its been possible to heap on it, and the school is actually quite diverse, racial-wise*, and yet, look at this sculpture. Five kids with no ethnic tells at all honoring the flag.


Even weirder, all the kids' noses are exactly the same.

And there's a rat looking on.

Must be ironic. Okay, enough patriotism. Here's a sodey machine with some holiday words of wisdom:


Yes, do.



A wedding party, I guess, at Sloan Lake.

See if you can find the goose-stepping duckling.

A member of the beloved Hat Patrol.

Sworn to drive 45 in the left lane--for YOU!

And lest our enemies forget . . .

He's pissed, he's riding an eagle, and he's got a rocket launcher.

*As the D-blog noted in 2007, "Brown is 74 percent "Hispanic," seven percent "Pacific Islander," seven percent "American Indian or Alaska Native" and six and five percent respectively "White" and "Black." Wild."

Indisputable

Post: "Guest commentary: Rides to a mental health clinic should be dependable."

Heat stroke

Strange poll on the opinion page of the Post: "The mercury has already soared past 100 degrees in Denver five times this month. Do you think the heat is connected to anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change?"

They think they need to explain "anthropogenic." Anyhow, answers are:

"No. It's just another example of extreme weather conditions. That's Colorado" (leading with 344 of 605 votes, 56.85 percent);

"Yes. And stupid questions like this only feed skeptics who ignore reality" (206, 34.04); and

"Maybe. Not that I'm a doubter, I'm just not sure this is connected to climate change" (55, 9.09).

The "no" answer is reasonably straight, but look at that "yes" answer. Such hostility. Amazing that the editor or reporter or flunky who thought it up managed to avoid, at least in the published version, the dread "D" word.

But it's the "Maybe" answer that's really weird. ."Not that I'm a doubter . . ." Blank eyes turn toward the doubter. The piteous screaming begins . . .

Somebody at the Post actually thought this poll up. And the Post printed it. Although to be fair, they do include a pic of a hot, sweaty chick to add pizzazz, like so:

Helps a little, huh?

Went to a Rockies game t'other day

First time in several years, for reasons I have yet to explore with my therapist. One of them is probably racism, though, wouldn't you think?

Crummy game, Crotchies lost, etc., but I got a pic of little stormcloud nips (to the right of the light towers) disgorging some feeble moisture. None of the rain came close to making it to the ground, of course, not in this drought-plagued ol' fungustown.

Rockies. Game. Well. Hell, since I'm just throwing pics around all profligate-like, here's one of Billy Bob in his "Dying Hole":


That's what the D-a-W calls it, anyway: his "Dying Hole."

Some other dog actually dug it, but BB quickly took it over. It's perfect for him, nestled as it is in the deep shade of Silver Lace vines and commanding a view of most of the backyard, three backyard gates and the whole south side of the house.

Not that BB ever moves if he detects a disturbance, of course. He just, you know, notes it and goes back to sleep.

About the appellation "Dying Hole." The D-a-W, unfortunately, has this thing she does where she points out far too often that a) Billy Bob is olddddddd; and b) he will probably croak in the not-altogether-unforeseeable furture. Her latest way of reminding me of this is to call BB's hole the Dying Hole, a term she got from the animated movie Madagascar 2: Something, something, in which hypochondriac giraffes use the term for where they go to croak.

I'll quit now.

Yesterday's spam e-mail winner

"Your new erection will have all the lads . . ."

No way I was going to open it to find out what effect this fresh-as-a-daisy boner would have on the "lads," so you'll just have to take your dark imaginings from the, uh, header.

*Cough*

Downtown Denver this morning through the haze of smoke from the High Park wildfire near Fort Collins, 65 miles north of here.

Not as bad as the Hayman fire in 2002, which was much closer to Denver and rained ash and the occasional cinder on the poor Queen City of the Plains for two or three days. It also melted metal into squirrel shapes, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Today, you could definitely taste the smoke.

For comparison, Denver from almost the same spot, sans smoke:

Damn me if I know why the pic is so huge, or how to (de? un? dis?) embiggen it.

Better late than never

For some reason Ward Churchill decided that right about now would be a good time to reply to a two-and-a-half-year old article on his case by Ellen Schrecker, "Ward Churchill at the Dalton Trumbo Fountain," that appeared in the inaugural (2010) volume of the AAUP Journal of Academic Freedom (Ward's reply is in volume three (2012) of the same journal).

In her article (which PB mocked at the time) Schrecker, a member of the all-powerful Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), actually does criticize Churchill, a little, but ultimately excuses him with a boys-will-be-boys flippancy: "Churchill did not have to be dismissed. Plagiarists and charlatans remain on other faculties."

Yes, yes they do. Anyway, you know Churchill wasn't gonna let that go by, whether she concluded that his case was "tainted from the start" or not. But why it took him so long to respond I don't know, unless he was saving the piece for the Colorado Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in his case Thursday and allegedly will render an opinion within (God) several months. Getting them to add this rebuttal to their post-orals reading would be quite the feather in Wart's cap, so to speak, wouldn't it?

The piece is crap, of course, with a few nuggets sprinkled in. In the first four pages, for example, Wart calls the Denver Post "openly reactionary;" implies Schrecker is a McCarthyite; and flatly says that she's a race-baiter.

Actually only about half the piece is a direct attack on Schrecker; most of the rest is an attack on the national AAUP, which has repeatedly failed to officially support Ward at critical points in his travails over the last few years. It's pretty funny, because Ward is right: the AAUP pussied out on him, and has generally pussied out in dealing with radical academics from its start.

Doesn't make Ward any less of a liar and a cheat, of course.

Ace bans comments

Temporarily, I guess, while threatening to let the Ace of Spades blog "go dark" because of some persistently wedgeheadish commenters.

Don't really think that'll happen, at least, because Ace also says, "registration is coming," perhaps as early as Monday.

Short of actually nuking the blog, commenter registration is probably the worst thing that could happen. For one thing, wouldn't it kill sockpuppeting, the near art form practiced by some of the commenters over there?

Worse, it would kill the whole freewheeling, spontaneous nature of AoS threads, in which commenters strive to either top or build on one another toward the same goal: teh funneh (or, alternatively, teh serioso).

This is bad. And it's just another hunk of fallout from the brouhaha with the guy who, I now firmly believe, did not set off bombs in Speedway, Indiana. (Courage!)

What a fucking mess.

Update: Shadow comments site here.

We are all bad men

There's a guy who comments frequently at Althouse whose icon is Billy Mumy pointing angrily.

Thusly.

Finally bothered to track it down, and yep, it's a still from Billy's turn as the malevolent little kid with God-like powers (and the family who loves him) in the 1961 Twilight Zone episode, "It's a Good Life."

You've probably seen it, or know the story, but here's six-plus minutes of highlights anyway.

Still pretty creepy.

Inevitably I ended up at the wiki for the episode. Interesting, he averred weakly, especially the paragraph about the 2008 theatrical adaptation of the original short story, which notes that the play included some new scenes, in one of which

Anthony's [the mean widdle god's] mother apologizes [to a neighbor and his boy] for "what happened to your dog." The boy responds, "Yes, it was good that Anthony made Jasper choke to death eating his own paws."

Now that's playwritin'! Suck it, Serling! After that, the paragraph can only end lamely:

Also, Dan Hollis kills himself with shards of his birthday record rather than Anthony transforming him into something awful.

Zzzzzzzzz.

Reporter still immune to* evenhandedness

Westword's Michael Roberts recounts the arguments the state Supreme Court will be hearing today in the Ward Churchill case--as told to him, of course, by Wart's lawyer, David Lane. Once again Roberts doesn't bother to ask CU if they might have a comment or two, either on the case itself or Lane's spin on same.

Roberts says the hearing "is slated to last an hour, with a ruling expected to following [sic] several months from now." Sheeeeeit. I'm going to be older than Wart before this is over.

Update: Piece in the Gamera on the hearing. David Lane mouths the p's as usual:

The attorney for Ward Churchill told the Colorado Supreme Court this afternoon that the University of Colorado conducted a sham investigation to retaliate against the former professor for his controversial post-9/11 essay that compared some World Trade Center victims to a notorious Nazi.

Which Nazi was that, anyway? Been so long I kinda forgot. Oh, sorry, David Lane:

"First and foremost, is that if free speech cannot find a safe haven on a university campus, this society, in general, is in decline," attorney David Lane told the court during a one-hour hearing at the Colorado Capitol.

The D-blog is probably just ignorant (remove risible "probably"), but why one hour? Why not one day? A week? A month (like Wart's trial)? No doubt both sides could fill the time.

Anyhow, CU attorney Patrick O'Rourke, answering Lane, was a little more substantive:

But CU attorney Patrick O'Rourke said the university was well within its rights to fire Churchill."If you approach this case from a First Amendment standpoint, the university wins," O'Rourke said. "Here's why: It's absolutely clear under federal law that a governmental entity may discharge an employee for otherwise protected speech when then employee's conduct is disruptive to the operation of the entity.

Did CU take much more than a tiny stab at this argument during the trial? Don't think so. Weird.

Lane responded by saying that while the university fielded several angry complaints from citizens outraged by Churchill's speech, his employment didn't cause a disruption. He said that CU's firing of Churchill was to appease those angry about Churchill's essay, which was protected by the First Amendment.

"It was a torch light parade -- a march by angry citizens -- to Regent Hall all but armed with pitchforks, demanding that the monster, Ward Churchill, be turned over for immediate destruction," Lane said.

Perfectly accurate, except for the torches, the march, the pitchforks, and the "immediate destruction" (sigh).

Supreme Court Justice Greg Hobbs posed questions for both attorneys, asking O'Rourke whether a Vietnam-era professor who burned an American flag in protest of the war should be fired for upsetting others and causing outrage.

He asked Lane why CU should be forced to rehire Churchill if investigations found academic fraud in his work.

And our no doubt delightful reporter, Brittany Anas, doesn't tell us what either one answered. She does note that "Churchill dodged questions from reporters, saying that he'll comment on his appeal after the Supreme Court issues a ruling in the coming months." . . .

There's that word again: Months. Anas has more, but screw it. But be sure to watch the video at the top of the story of Chutch leaving the courtroom. How does one single person exude (yes, exude) so much sheer charisma?

*Retarded preposition replaced by correct one due to the cruel taunting of the Participle Police.

Ray Bradbury

At 91 (that's Althouse's link to the NYT). I'll just post The Veldt and leave it at that (X Minus One, 4 August 1955).

First?

Fox (radio) just said that the Wisconsin vote today will determine whether Scott Walker is the first governor to survive a recall that actually made it to the ballot. I did not know that.

Jerry Krantz

The Post:

Jerry Krantz, the longtime owner of landmark Denver jazz club El Chapultepec, died Tuesday morning. He was 77.

In its heyday, El Chapultepec welcomed music legends such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Ella Fitzgerald, as well as visiting rock stars like Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger. Krantz's insistence on free, live, straight-ahead jazz every night of the week helped the 'Pec — as insiders affectionately call it — stand out on the corner of 20th and Market Streets.

Haven't been there in years, but back then we called it "the 'Pec, too, so I guess we were "insiders." Wonder why nobody ever told us.

Even President Bill Clinton played his tenor sax on stage there.

"I've had everyone in here but Jesus," Krantz was once quoted as saying.

No, Jesus played there once, too. Oh, wait. That was Art Blakey (scroll down a little).

The club opened in 1933, the day after Prohibition was repealed and decades before Coors Field and historic preservation turned Lower Downtown into a haven for sports bars and trendy restaurants. Krantz began bartending at El Chapultepec in 1958 and inherited it a decade later from his father-in-law Tony Romano.

"He was there just about every night," said musician Freddy Rodriguez, who met Krantz in 1979 and has been playing at El Chapultepec ever since. "He'd sit in the back all night every night. He never came and sat down front where the music was happening, but he knew what he wanted and he just loved the jazz community."

Freddy led--or I guess leads--the house band there. A friend of mine who sat in with them a time or two always called the band, "Freddy and the Plastic-hairs." No idea why.

Krantz's love of jazz and hard-nosed approach to running the bar earned both a loyal audience and the respect of countless musicians — as well a national reputation rich in dive-bar lore. One story says Krantz won the bar in a poker game. Another tells of him knocking an unruly patron's teeth out with a pool cue.

Dive-bar lore: One time (and only one time) I stopped by El Chapultepec in the afternoon. There were three customers, including me, at the bar, and that was it. The guy on my right had his head comfortably ensconced in one of those red plastic bowls of stale popcorn Jerry was so generous with. The guy on my left, while equally passed out, had managed to remain upright on his stool. This simalcrum of consciousness was somewhat marred, unfortunately, by the foot-long hunk of iridescently green snot hanging out of his nose.

One of the few times the D-blog has ever lent sparkle to a gathering.

In piece [sic] for Esquire magazine, long-time Denver-based writer J.R. Moehringer called Krantz cranky and charismatic, a "full-blooded Russian" who didn't take any guff from customers and handled his business brusquely and efficiently.

Cranky, si. Brusque, certainly. Charismatic, not so much.

El Chapultepec "smells like New York, feels like New Orleans, and sounds like southside Chicago," Moehringer wrote for the magazine.

It's just a tiny place; I doubt you could legally stuff 75 people in there--though there was often double that on good nights. I'll let the guy with the discerning nose have his way on what the place smelled like. The fact remains that the 'Pec (see, insider!) was one of the main reasons the D-blog could confidently say: Denver: Not a cowtown.

"His big thing is that he always wanted it to be for everybody," said Krantz's daughter Anna Diaz. "At the time when he started it you'd get dressed up to go to the symphony, and there were people who had never even seen live music. So there was no cover charge, no dress code. The bums on the street were just as welcome to come and listen as the millionaires." . . .

There was, I believe, a two-drink minimum, though. Bums hardest hit.

Oh, well. RIP Jerry.

Nothing much new

In this Gamera story on next week's hearing of oral arguments before the Colorado Supreme Court in Ward Churchill's case. But at least an actual daily newspaper finally noticed.

Meant to go, I swear

To the Service Employees International Union rally in downtown Denver today. The Post covered it, and the D-blog would have too, if he hadn't forgotten about it.

Thank God he did though, for the Post contains this horrifying paragraph toward the end of the story:

"Following the rally, they [presumably the rallyers or whatever] performed a flash mob dance on Broadway."

Cost what little's left of the D-blog's life to have even watched such a thing. And just to be pick-nitty, doesn't a flash mob have to be gathered spontaneously by a "flash" to potential mobsters over your various electronic communication devices? I mean, they were already there, so how can it be a flash mob? Huh? Huh?

Update: The Post has a slideshew. No flash-mob dancing.

Update II: There are surprisingly few pics of the June Taylor Dancers out there.