Times Scribe Graphically Exposes Affair-Having Friend
So earlier we were innocently reading the Sunday New York Times, happily taking in your typical “Times writer has lunch with affair-having friend” Magazine article, when things got a little, uh, disgusting.
The writer of the article in question is Sarah Vowell and blog commenter-hating Virginia Heffernan, she of the Sunday Magazine “The Medium” column. Heffernan started her piece, the subject of which was people who carry out affairs on the internet, with a story about her recent lunch with a friend.
A friend met me for lunch not long ago and laid a BlackBerry on the table. Throughout the meal, the friend kept a hand on it and shot it furtive glances, like a mobster watching a door. Reading upside down, I saw e-mail messages, all from the same sender, stacking up. “Do you need to look at those?” I asked.
“Nah,” was the effortfully offhand response; later, as we were leaving, I saw my friend gazing deeply into the screen.
At last I caught on. “Hey, you’re having an affair!” My friend tried to look serious and rueful but seemed frankly giggly. “Yes.”
That’s all cool, right? Virginia Heffernan just outed one of her Blackberry-using lunch friends for having an affair, but whatever, it’s all good, right? Oh, well, then Heffernan made the mistake of picking up her friend’s Blackberry.
I was happy to see my friend’s shiny eyes, but I didn’t like holding the device. It felt hot and even damp, as if it had been inside a human body. Lots of erotic energy was going into that thing.
Um, yeah. Thanks for the Blackberry/sex toy imagery Virginia. Thanks a lot.
One last thing—Reading this piece reminded us of a Joan Didion quote:
My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate, that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.
The reason we bring up the quote is because it sure seemed to us as if Virginia Heffernan might have just screwed over, or sold out if you will, one of her friends. She never revealed the person’s gender, but still—Couldn’t Heffernan’s introductory anecdote possibly out her cheating friend? Perhaps even worse, pity anyone whose Blackberry-using spouse is friendly with Virginia Heffernan. We’d be willing to bet that more than one person read Heffernan’s piece today and felt slightly overcome with “is my spouse cheating on me?” anxiety.
Then again, Virginia Heffernan co-wrote The Underminer, so maybe her friends just expect such things.
Love, Virtually [New York Times]
Pic via
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
Writers always love to plagiarize off someone else's life because they often don't have one of their own.
Note to editors: Don't hire writers that don't, themselves, do anything interesting, because their observations tend to be clueless.
In the words of Wolf Larsen, the sadistic sea captain in Jack London's The Sea Wolf. "You haven't seen enough to be a good writer."
Story would have been ten times better, and more informed, in first person. And as one or two commentators note; the tale is probably total fiction.
atlasspanked
@waitingforlefty: What you said.
This is crap. I don't believe a word. And all those lazy and tired expressions, "furtive glances," "gazing deeply..." And "ur so hot"? Either it's a gay guy or a pedophile.
cdmunch
This post is a fake gotcha. The headline calls the journalist out for "expose[ing] affair-having friend" and so I clicked through. But nobody is exposed. Or maybe it's assumed we all possess a list of all the men and women Virginia H had lunch with "not long ago" and that we can confidently cross off all but one name.
On the other hand -- supercilious Joan Didion quote! QED! Something is proven! Don't know what!
Thank God i only used my iphone when I had lunch with her, otherwise I'd be homeless right now.
Yes. Writers are whores and will pimp your story out to the highest or lowest bidder. But if you are having an affair and you confide in a writer and expect them not to write about it, you should just go sit in the corner wearing a funny hat. Lesson: everyone STFU.
Another sign of the Times' plunging paper.
LaLuneEstMorte
If hating Sarah Vowell is wrong, then I don't want to be right.
PicklePants
sell a vowell? buy a vowell?
@lobstr: I laughed when I read that quote because it's so true. I used to write a lot of business stories and interview CEOs and the like on a regular basis. It was incredible what they would tell me because I was this young, female reporter. Them not taking me seriously got me some of the best scoop on stories in my career. Amazing how they forget what a reporter does for a living!
I don't care if she sold out her affair-havin' pal. If she hates Sarah Vowell, she's my new best friend.
@Lou Banjawi: Yeah, I just re-worded it. Sorry for the confusion.
@raincoaster: Thank you for explaining that, my weak little mind was incapable of piecing it together in my head.
A li'l hyphen would help tremendously: "The writer of the article in question is Sarah Vowell- and blog commenter-hating Virginia Heffernan."
Otherwise you have us all walking down the wrong garden path...
Lou Banjawi
Original draft:
"I didn't like holding the device in my hand. It was clearly meant for warmer, more intimate places. It vibrated, sending an insistent tingle though my body, up to my arm. The vibrations said 'I know something you don't, I have information you need'.
I imagined it somewhere else, warmer, moister. Insisting by it's very presence, by it's movement, that it had something I wanted, something I did not have. It was every man, every boy, every careless fumbling and each intoxicated employee party bathroom. It was all of lust, all of love, all lies, and all fantasy.
I set it down, disgusted at myself for my arousal. Wanting to be anywhere else, but wanting to pick it up again and again.."
I could so ghost write for this woman.
Jonathan Kivett
@raincoaster: Yes.
And Sarah Vowell comes into this thing how? Or is it "Sarah Vowell-hating?"
@Pinekatz: ...and I always feel so guilty, bad, and dirty when I criticize writers. I hate myself.
But, just get on with it or don't bring it up. There is more of a story here than lovers texting. I'm sorry!
That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out
...or are just making shit up for a better read. Or both...
"It felt hot and even damp, as if it had been inside a human body. Lots of erotic energy was going into that thing."
OMG, come on!! Who writes this stuff?
Harlequin NovelCorp is looking for volunteers.
@The Cajun Boy: Thanks, I'm easily confused, you know.
@forgetitjake: Well, think on for a second or two. The spouses of the people she did have lunch with around that time (and who use Blackberries) probably know the fact of this innocent lunch. Those spouses will not require a crossed-off list to at least start thinking about the matter (and, say, browsing their mates' phones...)
WretchedGnu