Chris Jones on Jason Whitlock

Moc - thanks for posting. There is some good stuff in there. Specially the debate about Jones going to work for ESPN. Seemed like an odd fit at the time which we know now did not work out.

Yes I did think " The Things They Carried Was terrific"

I guess I missed the memo though from The Jones fan club that requires unyielding devotion to his work.

You need to lay off the pot. Your paranoia is going to get the best of
you.

 

Jones certainly was not shy about tossing out the insults during his time at SJ. It was not all about "craft" :

He just did not like it when they got flung back his way.

 

Was that the start of the Chris L. vs. Jones feud? Which was a branch of the Chris L. vs. JR and/or Chris L. vs. Fenian feud?

 

I'm curious to know what prompted that response from Jones because barring something truly awful, dragging someone's family, especially kids, into an anonymous pissing match is beyond the pale.

 

I hope you feel the same way about what Boom and BigDog and various other sockmuppets did to shotglass years ago.

That thread started, by the way, with Chris Lynch mocking JR's kids. Hope that puts your mind at ease.

 

You know, it's funny. Someone earlier got pissy about someone mentioning Chris Jones in the same breath with Capote, Mailer, Wolfe, and their ilk.

In some ways, I enjoy reading the work of guys like Chris Jones, S.L. Price, Laura Hillenbrand, Michael Lewis, and David Simon (when he was still writing nonfiction) than I do guys like Mailer and Wolfe and some of the others from the '60s and '70s. For as much as someone earlier claimed that long-formists today write flowery prose, I think it has swung way back in the opposite direction. Even long-form today is written with a spareness and pace and clarity that the long-winded wordsmiths of yesterday would have never been able to let themselves utilize. Story is valued more today than style. (One reason that I don't particularly care for a lot of MacGregor's stuff.)

I know this is blasphemy, but there it is.

 

There is nothing blasphamous about your post. Your opinions are your opinions. There is nothing particularly offensive or courageous about saying you don't like MacGregor's work.

 

Oh, sorry for the confusion. The reference to "blasphemy" was more directed to my comments about preferring the modern magazine writers to the venerated (and rightfully so) New Journalists.

As far as MacGregor goes, I actually do like some of his more story-centered stuff - like the NASCAR book or the piece he did on China before the Olympics for SI. It's when he writes columns that I don't like his style so much. Similar to how I feel about Selena Roberts.

 

And Double Down's post brings us back to the Jones-Whitlock affair. It's one thing to say you don't like a guy's work. Quite another to say he has no soul, etc etc.

 

I went to Atlantic City once. Some degenerate next to me at the blackjack table was losing his ass. He asked the dealer if the casino ever closed. She said no. He asked, even on Christmas and Thanksgiving? She said, nope, open 24/7/365. He said, "This place has no soul."

 

Amazing how a fraud like Boom can be so offended when called out on it.