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April 8, 2004 #
Gettin' All Up In Your Hezzie I've just realized why the Amanda Hesser story will never die: she's not dead. Well, at least not to us anyway until the Times gets a permanent replacement in there pronto. Poor thing. For someone so diminutive in size, she's a big target. Picking on her is like when you're drunk at 3am and throwing down a crumbled fiver at McDonald's to get as much as you can off the Dollar Value Menu. You don't really want to do it, but you can't control yourself. When you read something like "But off to the side lies a chickpea pancake, lost and forlorn" you might want to scream like Chicken Little that the chef is falling but c'mon, that's *hilarious* and she knows it. At this point she is obviously having fun with this and it's totally intentional. It reminds me of the time I was watching The Spanish Prisoner with a friend and the Campbell Scott character had a line that was so absurd, beyond the usual David Mamet, that I hit pause and asked "What the fuck was that?" My friend offered, "That's just Mamet making fun of Mamet." Good point and I believe Amanda is now Hessering herself. The other night I was watching NY1 and gazing at the New York Times Close Up segment hosted by Sam Roberts. It featured Amanda Hesser giving her on-air preview of yesterday's restaurant review of Compass. I know it's standard practice to pixelate criminals, victims, mob informants, terrorists (and obviously, restaurant reviewers) on television for the sake of safety and protection -- or journalistic integrity in the case of Hesser, but it was completely hypnotic. I couldn't turn away but I got the strange feeling her pixelation was for reasons that would put her in the previous groups. She's been chopped, pared, julienned in so many ways that she may now wish to wear that pixelated face in everyday life. If blogs were bombs, she was Baghdad. Look, she's a writer not a tv personality, so it's not her fault she sounded a little shaky but it honestly made her so sweet and likable. The nervousness clearly prevented her from using the extensive vocabulary and meta-metaphors she is known for, leaving her to speak in a way that was normal. And of course, full restaurant reviews are meant to be read, not spoken aloud to be appreciated. (Or not? Quicknote to NYT: audio reviews on CD? Contact Meryl Streep's agent!) She sounded so apologetic when she responded to Sam's last question about Compass's rating with a tone-lowering "one star" that I couldn't help but wipe the tears with my greasy KFC hands. Yes Amanda, one star: shining, falling, twinkling...pixelating. Archives "The Other Page" powered by Removable Hype. RSS. Copyright © 2003 La Otra Página, Inc. All nights observed. Feel free to email "info(at)krucoff.com" for questions, comments, stock tips, and family gossip. |
