Discussion → The Idiot: Anis Shivani
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OK, maybe not idiot. But what's the use of his fifteen overrated writers on HuffPo? We know there are a lot of overrated writers. We are some of them. Still, how is this exercise useful? You've got your crap opinion and I've got mine. Only this dweeb has HuffPo to squirt his on. Probably shouldn't say that, that squirt business. Will be misperceived. Anyway, I read it and thought, huh. Stupid. Worse than stupid. Like, useless drivel. Not just drivel, but useless drivel. Thought that. Then I thought, well, he left out a lot of people. I can think of a hundred. OK, a couple dozen. OK, too, some of his were right on target. Maybe. But who cares. It's like, X is not handsome. Thanks for the news.
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It's all about generating page views, isn't it? Lists get linked around. Controversial lists get linked around with extra fervor. Then some people made some other lists about writers that all linked back to HuffPo. Nobody learned anything, but somewhere somebody counted the eyeballs.
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Shivani does grind an axe, and - for me - at least 4.7% of the article makse sense. He likes fish in a barrel.
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read it, forgot it, these simultaneous acts, bit thanks for the recall. am now back to chardonnay
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Classic attention-seeking behavior from someone toting a huge chip on his shoulder. Got a kick out of your 4.7% Sam.
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My animation of Shivani here. This is how I process these days.
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Shivani is marketing his new short story collection. He has accumulated power very quickly here with this list as well as the recent one about the best indie presses (purposefully leaving out one or two whom he didn't like). All of this means name awareness, brand building = book sales. But man... Just leave these mostly talented and ethical writers alone. He has gone too far. He is becoming despised.
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Saw a link to this article on a friend's page couple of days ago. Got there and: oh, no, this same Shivani - twice in two weeks. Started to write couple words, or maybe a diatribe in response. Don't like this Shivani. Can't make myself go back and pick the particulars to pick on. Remember well enough the queasy feeling blooming out of his views, and I'm tired of diatribing. But cool to turn up here and see like-minded reactions. I hold with idiot, FB, a fave in my pejorative bag these days. Idiot. Mean-spirited, little one.
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Yes, I was momentarily depressed to read Anis Shivani's August article in Huffington Post about supposedly over-rated writers, not least so because he was awarded a book review assignment that first had been offered to me. I won't even think about that now. I'm relieved. I want to say he's better on poetry. Perhaps it's that he isn't writing it so much as asking poets to speak:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/state-of-american-poetry_b_706734.html
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The Ding Dong School Core Beliefs:
1. Too many writers, too little art.
2. Maybe we should not publish our cat food.
3. When you think it's ready, rewrite.
4. You can be too precise.
5. You can be too coy, clever, edgy.
6. You can be way too nice.
7. Let somebody else publish it.
8. Try to sell it first.
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