Times Teaches, Can't Do
The New York Times editorial page never shirks the Big Questions, and today it pronounces on a Long Island City reality-art thingamee at the Flux Factory called Novel: A Living Installation. The deal is a trio of aspiring fiction hands gget locked into isolated cells for 25 days until they emerge with completed novel manuscripts. And the Times being the Times, no artsy publicity stunt is too trivial to pontificate upon: part of the meaning of making a novel is commanding the time to do so and owning the workings of imagination, however they pace themselves.
Actually one would hope that other parts of a novel making's, um, meaning would be less convoluted word choice and a more grammatical subject-verb agreement than the Times's prim schoolmarms manage here. We do, however, like the sound of owning the workings of imagination -though it does bring to mind some recent court ruling about freelancers and electonic archives. . . .
As for Gawker's editorial stand on the implications of Novel: A Living Installation, it's much easier to memorize: Q: What do you call three exhibitionist writers locked into isolation cells? A: A pretty good start. MnG
