William Safire on how the Grey Lady finally embraced the izzle.

are you going to tell Faulkner he's got too many adjectives and adverbs?

Yes. But my Faulkner issues are well documented and likely to become a movie of the week staring Emma Thompson.

I guess as long as people are willing to buy Anne Rice's stuff, publishers will let her go unedited. But I think her books have gone down in quality over the years, and I think her editor-free process is the likely culprit. My standard is purely subjective. And since I'm not forced to buy her books or read them, I'll just roll my eyes and spend my money on other books.

I think that's a reprint from something in the Magazine a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, I remember reading it and being like, "Bill has nearly given himself an aneurysm, stooping to discuss the ways that people under forty speak day-to-day."

The funny part of the article, for me, was realizing that rapp -izzle speak is no different from the idiotic sound-insertion "languages" girls make up to gossip with each other in the 6th grade.

Consuela, the topic has been doing the usual Buffistas sine wave across a central theme. The theme was "cross-pollinations of genres", or at least it seemed that way to me. That specific cross-pollination -- GG meets Witches of Eastwick -- popped into my head as something that I should very much like to see done well. Then, I blurted.

Perhaps I should just go buy a Alice Hoffman novel and quietly read.

Ah. Well, you might want to stop by the fic thread and see if anyone picks up on it. Dana has been known to write Gilmore Girls (and quite well, too).

There is no editing of a finished painting.

As Nutty said, not so- there's even a fancy word for it, which I forget at the moment.

The funny part of the article, for me, was realizing that rapp -izzle speak is no different from the idiotic sound-insertion "languages" girls make up to gossip with each other in the 6th grade.

But he deserves points for name-checking the uber-fun "Double Dutch Bus."

And even if -izzle entered the language as a goof, it's no worse than the story (likely untrue, but a good story of the origin of "quiz."

I knew there was a reason that I thought all of Anne Rice's books sucked dead ass after Queen of the Damned:

"After the publication of the The Queen of the Damned, I requested of my editor that she not give me anymore comments. I resolved to hand in the manuscripts when they were finished. And asked that she accept them as they were. She was very reluctant, feeling that her input had value, but she agreed to my wishes. I asked this due to my highly critical relationship with my work and my intense evolutionary work on every sentence in the work, my feeling for the rhythm of the phrase and the unfolding of the plot and the character development. I felt that I could not bring to perfection what I saw unless I did it alone. In othe words, what I had to offer had to be offered in isolation. So all novels published after The Queen of the Damned were written by me in this pure fashion, my editor thereafter functioning as my mentor and guardian."

There is no editing of a finished painting.

As Nutty said, not so- there's even a fancy word for it, which I forget at the moment.

Yes, and I apologize. I forgot Buffista Law #48: If You Post An Absolute, Odds Are Good That Someone Will Come Along Quickly And Correct You.

It was just an example. And I stand by my comparison of writing vs. painting.

I forgot Buffista Law #48: If You Post An Absolute, Odds Are Good That Someone Will Come Along Quickly And Correct You.

I'm just shocked that Madame X wasn't the example used.

I think the fancy word is "pentimento", which, I believe, is the hidden painting or figure under the clearly visible painting.