Hate Mail - What Did I Say About Him Not Reading It?

Steve Simels, blog malignancy • 20 hours ago
Morning, good people (and others).

And meanwhile, over you know where, you know who dismisses a brilliant New Yorker essay on Keith Moon because -- wait for it -- its author may be an atheist.

Anyone who wants to read it for themselves can see that I didn't say anything remotely like that.

I don't have any idea if James Wood is an atheist and didn't mention anything about that.  All I did was say he wrote a self-indulgent, irrelevantly name-dropping childhood nostalgia piece about him fantasizing to be a rock star like Keith Moon in a typical New Yorker style.  And that he obviously knew little about music, his piece had nothing to do with music.  That bit of hackery is the only thing by him I've ever read.  Brilliant, it waren't.

Galen Strawson, now, in his review of Wood's novel which I linked to he talked about atheism, I didn't.   Why would I have linked to a review by Strawson, well known to those who have any idea who he is as an atheist, if I were dismissing what someone said because they're an atheist?    Not only that, but Strawson is one of those materialists who calls himself a "physicalist", a position I criticized here last week and, as such, has attacked the possibility of free thought.   Yet I cited him and his rather unpositive review of Wood's attempt at practicing the art of fiction.  I think he's a pretty crappy philosopher but am prepared to read what he has to say as a literary critic.

I don't expect that Simels or the other equally lazy ditto heads at Duncan's "brain trust" (they really have called their chat room that) will bother reading this, either.   Just wanted to point out that I called it right.   Well, that is unless he did read it and he just lied to "the reality community" (another thing they like to call themselves) and they believed him.  Him!  if you can believe it.

Update:  Sims is now trying to wriggle out of lying about what I said because he said I dismissed, "a brilliant New Yorker essay on Keith Moon because -- wait for it -- its author may be an atheist."  Since Simels was a professional writer - in the sense that he was paid to write crappy reviews of crappy music - who slammed my writing, let me point out that his statement trying to back out of what he said backs up what I said.

 He didn't say that I "might have dismissed a brilliant ...  (yada yada) ... because he might have been an atheist".  Which is what he's claiming he meant now.

Won't read, can't think, can't tell the truth..... that pretty much sums up all but a handful of the bright no longer young things at Duncan Black's blog.  I really don't know how that handful can stand the place, most everyone else with any integrity left it long ago.