Let me preface this post with two apologies: 1.) I apologize for the sardonic-irreverent tone I'll be taking in the following (as already evidenced by the title), which I honestly hope doesn't detract from the general earnestness with which I approach reading and analyzing literature on this blog (although I acknowledge my posts have frequent tongue-in-check moments just in general, so whatever). And 2.) I'm sorry for even bringing up the subject of Cosmoetica.com creator and visionary, Dan Schneider, all 6'1" 195 lbs. of him, whom I think debases the discourse merely with his being cited -- and I understand that in so doing I likewise give his "criticism" some level of validity, for which I also want to apologize profusely. So I guess all told that's really three apologies.
Moving on . . .
Jamie: I barely remember writing this.
he's right, though-
i envied him terribly.
still do.
Matt: good god, I know. he doesn't do the best job of refuting
Jamie: did he really save this up in the hate box under his
Matt: that's the thing I took away from it
Jamie: he was like our only reader, apparently
Matt: i literally can't think of anyone else who read it.
anyone we can VERIFY read it, anyway
the fact that he decided to respond says more than
Matt: I sometimes see links to it
Jon (1:57 PM):
whooooooooa - readership of 150 million...
Jon (2:04 PM):
Matt: hahahaaha
i can't believe he wants to prove he's not fat!
Jamie: i know
um, I've got news for you, dan! I actually DON'T
Matt: an American hero.
Jamie:
Matt: this is about the stupidest stuff I've ever read
Jamie: really? "just about"?
Jamie: really, here's what I should say-
today, I am destroyed. a few years ago, i sarcastically
Jamie: today, the world cries,
I co-founded and used to write for an exceedingly unpopular website called The Weekly Johnson. If we specialized in anything it was humor, I suppose. And for a variety of good reasons we discontinued work on the site in 2008 or so. But ya know, shucks, I still remember it fondly -- and recently I let my curiosity get the better of me and searched to see if anyone out there on the Internet-scape was curious about what had become of it. Mostly, predictably, no one had wondered -- pro, con, or neutrally.
That is, with the notable exception of Dan Schneider, who was at some point the subject of an article by my friend and site co-founder, Jamie Ferguson, entitled: "Dan Schneider: Douche Bag".
The WJ now belongs to the internet's Way Back Machines, left to be dissected by future anthropologists or whatsoever might subsume and displace that particular scientific discipline, perhaps something involving cybernetics?
Dan Schneider, meanwhile, remains very much active and screed-ey. And long story made short: Dan apparently found Jamie's article and decided to respond in a way only he would. Good for him, I say.
And but anyway, here in the Rowanverse the fourth law of poetastering is: the Schneiderverse is a, as the delightful Homer Simpson might say, groin-grabbingly awful milieux of the abounding excruciating minutiae that is his oeuvre. But that's not my opinion; that's the law.
And Thus We Respond to Dan with: A High-Minded Gchat Discussion of All Things Schneiderian Whence The Rowanverse:
Matt: hey
found out some stuff
you might be interested - Dan Schneider apparently responded
found out some stuff
you might be interested - Dan Schneider apparently responded
to that article you wrote about him in the WJ
Jamie: wait, like 3 or 4 years ago?
Matt: he says we're wannabe hipster losers
He's amazingJamie: ha, my goodness
methinks the bard must have googled himself
Matt: methinks he certainly did.
I'm perpetually on the nation's lips.
I think people know who I am
Jamie: aaaaah. idiocy is like a fine wine.
Matt: the only case he has, really, is that the article is glib
but that was the point to begin with
Matt: he says we're wannabe hipster losers
He's amazingJamie: ha, my goodness
methinks the bard must have googled himself
Matt: methinks he certainly did.
you should see, it gets really megalomaniacal
um, I happen to have 150 million viewers a yearI'm perpetually on the nation's lips.
I think people know who I am
Jamie: aaaaah. idiocy is like a fine wine.
Matt: the only case he has, really, is that the article is glib
but that was the point to begin with
Jamie: I barely remember writing this.
he's right, though-
i envied him terribly.
still do.
Matt: good god, I know. he doesn't do the best job of refuting
arguments, which might surprise you or perhaps not surprise
you quite so much. his fame... renowned.
you wish you had a Wikipedia article
Jamie: ha! "a liar or an obsessive!" i read one hour's worth of
Jamie: ha! "a liar or an obsessive!" i read one hour's worth of
his barfings one day years ago. and that line was control-c'd
straight off of his damn website. if i was going to slander him
and create typos, why the hell would i choose
something boring like "ensconced"?!?
Matt: its possible he leaves typos in his articles all the time
Matt: its possible he leaves typos in his articles all the time
Jamie: did he really save this up in the hate box under his
bed for years? he's so delightfully sad
Matt: that's the thing I took away from it
Jamie: he was like our only reader, apparently
Matt: i literally can't think of anyone else who read it.
anyone we can VERIFY read it, anyway
the fact that he decided to respond says more than
anything else
Jamie: DAN: as for incestual, it's called a neologism.ME: fine, here's another:
retardulate
it's what you are, and what you do.
Matt: anyone with a child's grasp of reality could
rip this fool apart. he's a buffoon
Jamie: yay!
Matt: intelligent people use neologisms all the time!
Jamie: naturally. i know that, too. i utilianate
Jamie: naturally. i know that, too. i utilianate
them oftenday
Matt: I wish we still had a copy of the post
somewhere.
Jamie: yep
jon's reading cosmoetica
Matt: I sometimes see links to it
on various lit things
but never has anyone mentioned anything in
praise of Schneider although apparently
roger ebert did for some reason
Jamie:
Jon (1:53 PM): ah! so he made up a word
because he was afraid his readers would think
most poets had sex with close
family members
Jon (1:56 PM):
he was lead, after searching deep within the
he was lead, after searching deep within the
annals of the internet, to a site
that's been defunct for 3 years
Jon (1:57 PM):
whooooooooa - readership of 150 million...
7 billion hits
Jon (2:03 PM):
this guy is a treasure, wow
this guy is a treasure, wow
Jon (2:04 PM):
every sentence just piles it on
oh, he's not really fat? how wrong you were! what a
oh, he's not really fat? how wrong you were! what a
fool you've been!
Matt: hahahaaha
i can't believe he wants to prove he's not fat!
Jamie: i know
um, I've got news for you, dan! I actually DON'T
eat papa john's, so
there's another little "fact" you got wrong!
Matt: he proves our every point with wicked efficiency.
Matt: he proves our every point with wicked efficiency.
it's like he said
oh, a taste of my own medicine, eh?
well how do you like a taste of MY own medicine!
Jamie: you think you can reveal me as the asshole
oh, a taste of my own medicine, eh?
well how do you like a taste of MY own medicine!
Jamie: you think you can reveal me as the asshole
i am by parroting my childish writing and ad hominem
attacks? how about some ad hominem attacks, typist?!?
Matt: an American hero.
Jamie:
Jon (2:21 PM): oh wait, even better, here's his take on HIS WIFE:
"Jessica is a great poet, but not nearly as vast nor sweeping as I
"Jessica is a great poet, but not nearly as vast nor sweeping as I
was (I stopped writing poetry in 2005-
I simply was not challenged by it any longer)."
Matt: this is about the stupidest stuff I've ever read
Jamie: really? "just about"?
Matt: "If most editors and publishers
were as devoted to quality
as I was, we would have less deforestation,
better literature, and most of the good
published writers could,
indeed, make a living. In short, I walk the walk
that others only talk." - Dan Schneider
must destroy Dan Schnieder...not much time...
puking guts out...
Jamie: really, here's what I should say-
today, I am destroyed. a few years ago, i sarcastically
wrote a piece that on the surface attacked
Dan Schneider- a man I envy more than anything in the world.
i called him a douchebag, a moron,
i called him a douchebag, a moron,
and a "superheated sack of his own ego,
amongst other things."
how is it possible that people couldn't tell I was joking?
how could ANYONE say such terrible things about him?
"A moron," really? have you SEEN how many
how is it possible that people couldn't tell I was joking?
how could ANYONE say such terrible things about him?
"A moron," really? have you SEEN how many
neologisms the man uses?
Matt: "Shakespeare has no more than a dozen great sonnets.
Matt: "Shakespeare has no more than a dozen great sonnets.
I wrote a series called American Sonnets,
with 154 to match Shakespeare's total output.
You'd have a hard time arguing I missed out on
greatness in a dozen of them." -Dan Schneider.
i am not kidding. he actually said that.
and without further ado, the Schneiderian sonnet.
let history judge. Christopher Guest has
his next muse, if nothing else.
Jamie: today, the world cries,
because Dan Schneider continues to exist.
Matt: today, Dan Schneider cries,
Matt: today, Dan Schneider cries,
because wah wah wah wah wah!
FIN
I cannot wait for Dan to respond to this.......in 2014. PS who would marry this guy?!?!?!
ReplyDeleteI am imagining a woman who is very eager to please, very much harried to the point of being cowed. Then again, Dan will probably yell at me for even suggesting that notion. "Um . . . no, sorry troglodyte, once again you demonstrate how very little you know. My wife happens to be among the most assertive, liberated people on the planet. Second, certainly, only to me. Return to tonguing the glans of the incestual lit scene at once, little troll!" Something like that. Or perhaps I'll be hearing from Dan's lawyer(s). Too soon to tell.
ReplyDeleteIt's true though. Shakespeare wrote about a ton of love stuff and solidified the form, but when you look at something like the below, which begins with a riveting cosmic image of the Earth and is swallowed into a natural image of everyday life, and then extending into a lingering ending, you know that this kills a lot of Shakespeare stuff.
ReplyDeleteI mean Willy had meter, but what does meter matter when you have such intensity? Scrolling through his poetry, he takes on so many themes, voices, etc... Did you even read the long poem on America which starts with a historical conception, even throws in a Nixon parody halfway, and ends with a Sci-fi alien war? If Dan had like 1000 of those stuff in varied tones I would want to read all of it. He even wrote a double Sestina on the twin towers just because he could.
You'd have a better case if you actually had a line-by-line critique of the poems, like Dan usually does for his own. On the other hand, I think if Dan has an ego, he deserves it, because his critiques are jackassery but also has meat. Shame on you for attacking the artist without attacking the art itself.
THE PASSING
There are years to go before the last perfect day
on Earth. Then the sun will begin to swell, and life
will cease, shorelines will retreat as oceans boil,
and all will glow a barren red and airless gray.
By then I will be shadow, long dead. Now, I live
amid joys and sorrows, with the love of a girl
in a backseat, behind her mommy and daddy,
as they pilgrim to a motel in New Hampshire,
blowing kisses out her window to teenage strays,
drunk in a sportscar, honking and cursing at her
family squareback's pace, as they are full on passing,
as if they are ready to face eternal sleep,
as they leave her family behind on the highway,
that is endless, and endless, and everything.
(If you do reply to this, and any of your replies happen to be attacking personality rather than content of the Art, I will label you illogical and ignore you completely. Nietzsche could make doing that fun and lyrical, but you aren't Nietzsche.)
This poem is garbage. It reads like the singing of the tone deaf and its imagery is as cliched as the worst sort of nascent work of an aspirant teenage poet. Cool if you like it. But I suspect you're Dan Schneider on another account.
DeleteYour response to this poem is remarkable. You don't even know what the poem is about, or what cliche means if that's what you come up with as criticism. What I find very telling is the stuff you hold up on this site, things like Infinite Jest, as being great literature. Essentially you have no idea how to evaluate a work of art, and your little rant here is one of the mot moronic troll attacks on a person I have ever read. And no, I am not Dan Schneider before you accuse me of that, believe it or not. Funny how you thought the other guy was, cause you wouldn't know a great writer if they slapped you in the face.
DeleteJudging by your own tastes and penchant for ad hominem, I'd say the same of you. Either you're Dan Schneider or you're his wife and/or his one and only fan.
DeleteIs this the same delusional nutjob who thinks he's a greater poet than Whitman, Shakespeare, and Wordsworth combined? And who thinks his wife wrote a better villanelle than Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle"?
ReplyDeletePretty sure this guy's got mental problems.
By quantity of quality work, he is. Whitman was the most consistently great, but not prolific. Shakespeare wrote an awful amount of trash, same with Wordsworth. Only the handfull of great works are what people actually remember. In Schneider's complete poetry (a volume of over 3300 pages), just about every single poem is of a very high standard, and a good portion are great. That is because he, unlike others here, actually understands poetry.
DeleteIt is funny how this site claims Dan Schneider is a bad writer, and yet holds up such utter garbage as Infinite Jest. Most of the people here who eat up this nonsense don't have a clue what makes good writing, they are just offended that he would call himself better than ______ (fill in some canonical writer). Of course, if he is, what's the problem?
ReplyDeleteSoe of you are offended on behlaf off Whitman, for example, who was himself highly egotistical, and wrote fake reviews to prop himself up. But, Whitman was a great poet, as is Schneider.
Someone posted 'The Passings' in the comments, and the guy who wrote this inane post commented that it has poor music and cliched imagery. This strikes me as odd, because it is rhythmically well structured, and there are no cliches whatsoever. It is as though there is no understanding of what either of these things are, but a need to call the poem bad because admitting otherwise would be contrary to the agenda here.
I see not an hint that minds were involved in all this nonsense, merely emotions. When Dan wrote his This Old Poem pieces, he deliberately chose mediocre to bad poetry to critique. But of course, because of the branding, the names of the poets, people got unbelievably offended. Most of them don't even read much poetry but regardless. The very fact that he would dare to analyse a poem, line by line, and explain what worked and didn't work within it, was heresy.
How DARE he claim to have improved this Frost poem!!!
Of course, his reworkings were improvements in word choice, music, concision, enjambment, and every other technical aspect, while maintaining the core idea behind it. So why the backlash? Well, it is the sad truth that most people are blissfully ignorant of poetry, or any art for that matter. Having read his novels, they are clearly better and more ambitious than anything published, likewise with his plays. They are light-years ahead in terms of complexity, depth, and realism than any one else has ever penned.
To be honest, attacks like this on Dan are silly, and expose what I can only call mindless cow-towing to the power structures of the literary world, with neither care nor comprehension of artistic quality.
It is funny how this site claims Dan Schneider is a bad writer, and yet holds up such utter garbage as Infinite Jest. Most of the people here who eat up this nonsense don't have a clue what makes good writing, they are just offended that he would call himself better than ______ (fill in some canonical writer). Of course, if he is, what's the problem?
ReplyDeleteSome of you are offended on behalf of Whitman, for example, who was himself highly egotistical, and even wrote fake reviews to prop himself up. But, Whitman was a great poet, as is Schneider.
Someone posted 'The Passings' in the comments, and the guy who wrote this inane post commented that the poem has poor music and cliched imagery. This strikes me as odd, because it is rhythmically well structured, and there are no cliches whatsoever. It is as though there is no understanding of what either of these things are, merely a need to call the poem bad because admitting otherwise would be contrary to his agenda.
I see not a hint that minds were involved in all this nonsense, merely emotions. When Dan wrote his 'This Old Poem' essays, he deliberately chose mediocre to bad poetry to critique. But of course, because of the branding, the names of the poets, people got unbelievably offended- it is apparent though, that most of them don't even read poetry! The very fact that Dan would dare to analyse a poem, line by line, and explain what worked and didn't work within it, was heresy.
Of course, his reworkings were improvements in word choice, music, concision, enjambment, and every other technical aspect, while maintaining the core idea behind it. So why the backlash? Well, it is the sad truth that most people are blissfully ignorant of poetry, or any art for that matter. Having read his novels, they are clearly better and more ambitious than anything published, likewise with his plays. They are light-years ahead in terms of complexity, depth and realism than what any one else has ever penned.
To be honest, attacks like this on Dan are silly, and expose what I can only call mindless cow-towing to the power structures of the literary world, with neither care nor comprehension of artistic quality.
Hi, Dan!
DeleteI feel like shooting myself in the face.
ReplyDeleteI’m pretty sure the guy defending Dan is most likely none other than Alex Sheremet of Automachination on YouTube. He’s the biggest Dan fanboy.
ReplyDelete