The NYT reports that Yankee pitcher David Wells has created a new literary genre with his book, Perfect I'm Not: the unauthorized autobiography. (NBA star Charles Barkley pioneered the concept in 1993 by claiming that he'd been "misquoted" in his own autobiography.) The emergent genre has, in turn, spawned a new game called "Fact Or Fiction" in which every detail of the book is open for debate: "We learn in the book, for example, that when Wells was inexplicably attacked last year in a Manhattan diner at 5 a.m. he was not only stone-cold sober, but also innocently tucking into an egg-white omelet. An egg-white omelet? Really? At 5 a.m.? Let's put it to a vote!"
Boomer fact or fiction, it's all part of the game [NYT]

"Feb. 14: Reported to camp today. Nearly impossible to get any writing done with this pitching business. I find I'm too tired at day's end, especially if I've drunk a case of beer at lunch. Kafka spoke of the devil's pact writers make with paying work. Bacchus haunts me."
David Wells, artiste [NYT]