In an email, David Weinberger corrected the urban legend version of his bio, which is that he left philosophy to write jokes for Woody Allen.
“Well, it’s a nice myth, but I wrote gags for WA’s comic strip while I was teaching. I left teaching because there were no tenure slots open where I taught.”
Too bad, I like the fictional version better. Not that far off though.
David thinks that I misunderstand his intend regarding authenticity:
…she takes “authenticity” in a way that I don’t quite get and don’t think I intended. She seems to think I mean by it something having to do with the purity of one’s roots when in fact I use it as something like taking ownership for who one is.
No, I don’t think at all that he meant that. I do think that there’s a tension between expressing our “authentic” identities and participating in groups, both of which are good things. For example, I wrote about synagogue on Saturday. If I post the article on Saturday afternoon, I offend the sensibilities of my more observant friends. By writing the story at all, I offend the sensibilities of my rigorously secular friends. Yup, writing is taking ownership of an identity, which brings conflict as well solidarity. Means making choices about who to piss off when.
Since writing the essay, I read some of the other reviews and interviews in the sidebar. The interesting thing about the interviews is that the book’s flippant yet deep style didn’t come easily at all. Weinberger wrote and shredded a couple drafts in Serious Mode and was on the verge of chucking the project when he came up with the voice for the book.
Makes it easier to handle my envy for Weinberger’s light touch; I grew up without much television; conversations about movie stars send me off to the corner to read books with big words. If he had to work to tune the flippancy meter, the crowdpleasing is easier to handle.
I should also say in interest of full disclosure, David is an occasional mentor and is an advisor to an early start-up project that I’m involved with.