Hank Stuever is one of the best writers in the country. He’s a Pulitzer finalist. Works at the Washington Post. Smart guy. Funny. And if you’ve been following along at home, you know that he wrote a book called Tinsel, which is, on its surface, about Christmas in Frisco. But it’s really about suburban America and our consumer culture. Great book. We excerpted it in our December issue.
Steve Blow hasn’t read the book, but he has an opinion about it. Here’s a post he put up yesterday:
I’m sure Hank Stuever is a very talented writer. But ever since I heard about his book on how Christmas is celebrated in Frisco, I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to read it.
Well, after reading most of the excerpt in yesterday’s Washington Post, I stand by that judgment. I couldn’t even bring myself to finish the excerpt.
Maybe it’s all just too familiar to me but somehow deeply fascinating to outsiders.
The various exotic tribes and cultures covered in National Geographic probably find those articles boring and obvious, too.
Seriously. He wrote that. A newspaper columnist working in the fifth-largest media market in America actually wrote that.
You know what? As long as Steve Blow is working at the Dallas Morning News, none of the other stuff matters. The editors reporting to salespeople? It doesn’t matter. Because whatever changes are made there, they will all be overshadowed by the fact that one of the paper’s most high-profile writers is such an embarrassment.
48 comments
Aw shucks. Roger that. Golly gee. Sunnyvale. Hey, DMN can I be a columnist, too?
At least he didn’t write column on how the inventor of deep fried butter should be Texan of the year. That was one of the other columnist.
I agree. I think DMN needs to get way better columnist for the Metro section.
Steve’s just jealous and upset that he didn’t think of writing the book before Hank did. Golly gee willikers.
This is why I throw the Metro section directly in the recycling bin.
Yeah, but you have to admit that he was right about your former back page columnist Marty Cortland.
Oh JonathanS, please provide us with more of your parody and satire. Every blog site needs an Al Yankovic or Al Franken.
I am not a fan of Steve Blow, but that does not mean he was wrong about the excerpt being boring. I read it and it was.
This is exactly what I have been experiencing
all this week… I have had so many people say I hate “Going Rogue” by Sarah Palin and am not going to read it.. you don’t have to read it but how do you know you’ll hate it. Actually it’s not bad reading. No matter which team you play for. I didn’t agree will all of it but enjoyed the read.
The continuing slide of the DMN reminds me of the Bud Light tailgate ads. “What is your tailgate missing? More tail!” What is your newspaper missing? More news!
Somehow the Belo folks keep missing this, and the lack of a City Hall reporter to replace Levinthal is Exhibit 1. Unless and until the DMN re-establishes itself as must-read, it will continue to fail. Blow’s inane don’t-need-to-read-it-to-critique-it theory certainly isn’t helping things in that regard.
What Grant said. There are better (worse?) examples of the crappiness of Steve Blow.
I read Tinsel last week, which actually humanized the caricature of Frisco. I was amazed that people really do some of those things, while a few other parts made me stop and think about some of my own craziness.
So I’m gonna make monkey bread this Christmas, Mr. Stuever. And each time I hear the song “Mary Did You Know?”, I think Tinsel.
I just finished the excerpt and it is so sad, but so true.
It reminds me of the time I videoed me and my girlfriend doing the nasty. We thought we were great until we watched the video. Vieweing your life from a different perspective can be a downer. I won’t do that again.
Why do newspapers still have columnists? We don’t need more cheeky opinion pieces; we have about thirty million of those across the internet on a given day. We need more information, raw data, and in depth research.
Steve Blow isn’t horrible, it’s just that his career is completely obsolete.
I’m about halfway through the book. Sadly, it is accurate.
I worked a home tour in Frisco a few years ago at Christmas as a school fundraiser. I so wanted to strangle the participants.
It’s even worse to see it in print.
BTW, I own two sleaves of those “Gobble Gobble Cups” and they make real “cute” to go cups according to the DPS officer who pulled me over.
Tim, you do know that Steve will write some kind of passive-aggressive, wanna-be-snarky-but-golly-gee-its-harder-than-it-looks, post on the Metro blog about it. And then Jack Floyd-from-the-80s will weigh in.
And then, exhausted, they will retire for a two hour lunch.
@Yvonne: That’s my beef. It’s one thing for Blow to say that he thinks Tinsel is “boring and obvious” (from having read only a portion of an excerpt). It’s quite another to say that when you heard about the book, you couldn’t even imagine why someone would want to read it. That is a truly profound lack of imagination. And with the National Geographic comparison, it sounds like he’s saying that he thinks an outside observer can’t tell a community anything about itself.
Between him and “Let’s tear ugly downtown down” Floyd, it’s hard to figure out which is worst. I have been a die-hard DMN subscriber for 20 years, but am about to have an extra 30 minutes for the gym before work if they don’t step things up FAST….
The way Blow’s first sentence reeks of condescension… Hank Stuever can write a better grocery list than any column Blow ever wrote or will write. And Blow knows it. Tool.
Of course Frisclosure is ridiculous to most people. Sunnyvale isn’t that much better.
Blow and Flower Mound Flo need new glasses.
Are the newspapers in other countries in the same dire straits as they are here?
@Mark – Your girlfriend was outstanding in our video – not to sell you short or anything but she did mention that it was just a learning moment with you.
Hank is going to be on Craig Ferguson’s Late Late Show 12/17… when is Steve Blow going to be on?
I hate to say I told you so….but:
http://metrocolumnistsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/12/the-book-that-must-be-loved.html
Last i checked, people have been basing their judgments about books and whether or not to buy them based on excerpts for, oh, i don’t know, quite a while now. And isn’t this excerpt in the Post meant to do just that, give people a glimpse of the book so they can decide whether or not to buy it? Well, that’s what Steve Blow did, that you got so upset about it says more about you than him.
Doug: People may judge whether they buy a book from an excerpt, but a writer in a newspaper is held to a different standard. He in essence wrote a review of an excerpt – which is bad enough – but he didn’t even read the entire excerpt.
It’s akin to writing a paper on “Pride and Prejudice” after just watching the trailer to the movie.
Here’s what Blow’s colleague Rod Dreher had to say about the book: “Stuever is both a magnificent prose stylist and a compelling storyteller, and his richly detailed reportage rings true to North Texas life.” Shame that Dreher is leaving the paper.
What a coincidence. Here is what I just wrote:
Tim Rogers is both a magnificent prose stylist and a compelling storyteller, and his richly detailed reportage rings true to North Texas life.
I think both say much about the greatness of the English language, and who knows how much about anything else.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove, Aaron, but Tim did link to Dreher’s review in its entirety.
And it’s obvious, by reading it, that Dreher read the book. The whole book. Not just part of an excerpt.
Did Steve read Rod’s column? Did he know that Rod also blogged about the book?
I’m guessing no. There’s two whole flights of stairs dividing Rod and Steve’s departments. I think the phones still work, though.
So obviously Mr. Blow is either completely daft or he his pandering to the majority of the DMN readership (Suburban apologists). Either way it’s not very becoming of a newspaper who’s head honcho recently said their content is not for sale.
The Tinsel excerpt in the WaPo? Boring. The outrage over Steve Blow’s opinion of it? Boring. Tim’s revelation that Steve’s continuing employment is a bigger issue than the Sales department controlling the content of the paper in the country’s fifth largest market? Kinda interesting!
Aren’t y’all just upset b/c you printed this excerpt in the most recent D Magazine???
Come on now, at least mention this in your post, otherwise it looks like you are trying to pull a fast one….
I see you mention it, my bad, but still…
Not that I disagree with you, but seems like a little conflict of interest to me.
Corwin – the fact that the DMN has cut people who actually provided the real meat and potatoes of the paper – the reporters that in some cases did much, much more than write two or three columns a week and a couple of two paragraph blog posts – yet kept people like Steve Blow IS related to the fact that they’re now having to resort to the sales department scheme.
This is a management group that has always seen more value in its top-heavy squad of upper level managers than it has its reporters.
As someone who has had recent dealings with the DMN sales staff, all I can say is that it is amazing the entire operation has not yet gone under…
I read this blog fairly regularly, and always enjoy it; however, when did D Magazine become the standard of responsible journalism? DMN certainly has its faults, but last time I checked it was generally considered to be a somewhat responsible news agency. I don’t think that title has ever been applied to D.
@Bethany: Upper management protecting itself at the expense of the rank and file? Welcome to Corporate America!
The point being I am much more interested in Tim and Wick’s take on The News’ bold move and not so much in the further piling-on of Steve Blow.
i have to admit, i could never read this book and the article was hard to finish. these are very dull people and subjects he is writing about, the only entertainment would be the shock one felt for the insanity that is these peoples’ lives. and i feel like i am interested and can read a lot of stuff that most would consider boring…ie frontburner, etc
Sorry to disagree, but I like the job Blow is doing.
Corwin: Truth? Because they also know when 1/2 your print product is advertorial, it’s hard to get too angsty about the proposition.
I actually get tense with anger when I read Steve Blow. I’ll just stare at his picture, and I imagine his voice as a slow, flat drawl, and I just want to die. He says nothing. He has never said something.
I picture him sitting around with a legal pad in front of the TV at night, jotting down ideas for his next column… Hmmmmm… Hmmmmm… I could write about how nobody says “terwillikiers” anymore…. Hmmmm… What’s the deal with ipods… Hmmm… BARB? Bring me a sandwich! Hmmm… That’s it! SANDWICHES!
He’s like Andy Rooney, except at least Andy Rooney is psychotic.
Remember when he decided to investigate the homeless lady? And he basically spelled out that the only reason he got interested and noticed was because she was a mildly attractive white person?
GREAT. I JUST THREW UP. THANKS BLOW.
It’s good to see the feisty, job loving, had-just-enough bourbon Tim Rogers is back for at least one day. In 2009, I was tiring of morose, job-hating, drinks-too-much bourbon Tim Rogers.
@Bethany – you are a peach of a gal and an insightful writer, but it’s time to forgive and forget your too-short tenure at DMN.
Liked the book despite the fact I’m not an urban yokel, and I love the smell of fresh commerce in the morning.
Talent transcends all issues. And mediocrity stinks anywhere it lives.
Since I didn’t read Steve Blow’s column about not reading the excerpt from Hank Stuever’s book, I feel myself particularly qualified to comment here. I am sure Tim Rogers is a very talented reader, but I can’t imagine why anybody would want to read Steve Blow’s column about an excerpt he didn’t read from a book he didn’t read, nor can I imagine why anybody would want to read Tim Rogers’ comment on the column about the excerpt Blow never read.
But, then, that’s bloggery for you.
Be more funny!
If Steuver had gotten to Frisco 15 years ago he could have written about Christmas AND April’s. The view west just isn’t the same across Preston road from the Lebanon Baptist Church. Tinsel as accessory for the working girls? Who knows?
Pulitzer prize and Washington Post? Why didn’t you say so? Yawn.
Hank is a sweet, funny guy with a wicked sense of humor. Steve is a nice guy with a hometown perspective. Two different guys, both entitled to their points of view. That one doesn’t read the other is hardly the stuff to ignite passions, or so a sane person would think.