All You Already Knew About The Dwarf -- And MORE!

[slappy4428]

Two great works of fiction with the same lesson within its pages...oopsie.

But as every great writer knows, the best work is in a trilogy.... can't wait for the next morality play

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

Well, Dreams Deferred will soon be under everyone's tree.

 

[slappy4428]

Well, Dreams Deferred will soon be under everyone's tree.

Better be a small tree. He only writes two a contest Christmas season now... so he can justify "dreams" plural instead of "dream"

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

Mitchie will go to an inner city soup kitchen and provide a menagerie of stories to make up for it.

I am sure you of all people, slap, remember the soup kitchen column he wrote where he was approached by a weeping old lady who told him that his columns changed her life's perspective. (And, being Mitchie, he included that in his narrative).

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Hey, he found a niche he can stripmine.

Don't begrudge him, that.

But when he starts playing all-knowing moral arbiter on Sports Reporters, with playmate Loopy,
it's time to go to the water closet . . . and flush.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Can you strip-mine a niche?

 

[Michael_ Gee]

I think there's a misunderstanding here. No one can write stuff like that unless he or she actually believes it. Mitch is SINCERELY sentimental. Millions of people would like to write best-selling books, me especially, but you can't fake the feelings that make his stories work with people like, say, my wife's friends. Mitch is in tune with his audience and I respect him for that. My question about him is why he bothers still writing for the Free Press in the first place. He doesn't need it, and he isn't really that interested in sports as far as I can tell.

 

[slappy4428]

Mitchie will go to an inner city soup kitchen and provide a menagerie of stories to make up for it.

I am sure you of all people, slap, remember the soup kitchen column he wrote where he was approached by a weeping old lady who told him that his columns changed her life's perspective. (And, being Mitchie, he included that in his narrative).

Mitch's kickoff for the book was a night with himself, Hank Azaria, Tony Bennett and Joe Dumars (sure to make the Dwarf see things objectively for the Dumars'-run Pistons). The Benefit was for Mitch's pet project at the soup kitchen.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

I think there's a misunderstanding here. No one can write stuff like that unless he or she actually believes it. Mitch is SINCERELY sentimental. Millions of people would like to write best-selling books, me especially, but you can't fake the feelings that make his stories work with people like, say, my wife's friends. Mitch is in tune with his audience and I respect him for that. My question about him is why he bothers still writing for the Free Press in the first place. He doesn't need it, and he isn't really that interested in sports as far as I can tell.

A lot of what you're saying here is right, but I don't feel Mitchie is sincerely sentimental. False sentimentality has been pulled off in the arts and humanities -- and let's not forget politics -- for centuries. You think Teddy Roosevelt really gave a fork about Native Americans? It doesn't take a genuine sense of pathos to make it work; Mitchie, for better or worse, has the requisite skills to make it work. That doesn't mean he has the sincerity.

I have often wondered why people with a normally functioning bullshirt detector would buy into Mitchie's ruse. My mother loves Mitchie. His tender whimsy speaks to essentially good-hearted people and he uses them for it. I think Mitchie has a certain fragility along the edges that helps him write his garbage, but the center of his work is hollow and he's able to fill that in with his writing ability. I'm reminded of a Hiaasen line about Disney and I think it applies to Mitchie: So good at being good that it emits a sort of evil. Yep, that's him.

 

[ned racine]

lets give him hs credit..he was once a great sports columnist...the key being once...he found a formula that has worked..he has raised shirtloads of money for charity and for his own pocketbook as well......I really dont care how many books he sells...he is a marketing machine and a product...go to his website and check out the book tour,its like a rock tour....i give him credit for doing anything he can to push his product...and the last 2 are fiction...however i do resent him using his column to market his books and i resent the fact that he has lost touch with the average sports fan in his market....i would respect him much more if he would quit the paper and just write books and screenplays...please Mitch you dont need the paycheck and your passion is obviously not there anymore..if it was you would cancel your tour until the Tigers are gone...although that may be by next week

 

[slappy4428]

lets give him hs credit..he was once a great sports columnist...the key being once...he found a formula that has worked..he has raised shirtloads of money for charity and for his own pocketbook as well......I really dont care how many books he sells...he is a marketing machine and a product...go to his website and check out the book tour,its like a rock tour....i give him credit for doing anything he can to push his product...and the last 2 are fiction...however i do resent him using his column to market his books and i resent the fact that he has lost touch with the average sports fan in his market....i would respect him much more if he would quit the paper and just write books and screenplays...please Mitch you dont need the paycheck and your passion is obviously not there anymore..if it was you would cancel your tour until the Tigers are gone...although that may be by next week

Now why would a sports columnist cancel a 60-some city fiction book tour when his local team is playing in the playoffs?
Where are your priorities!?

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

I won't attack or defend Albom here, but anyone who has read enough of Albom to painstakingly critique his work the way Curtis does in this piece is, after all is said and done, still reading Albom one heck of an exhaustive amount. If Albom is so bad, Curtis has spent a lot of his time reading him anyway. I find that interesting to ponder.