Michiko Kakutani, have you read your review of Calvin Trillin’s “Dogfight: The 2012 Presidential Campaign in Verse”? Actually grabbed a cup of coffee and the New York Times’ arts section and tried to read your 13-stanza poem written in some approximation of Trillin’s voice? Did you think it was funny?
Did you think that we just wouldn’t notice it if it ran the Tuesday before Thanksgiving? When we were out of town, or rushing to get ready for the holiday weekend? Do you know that almost worked?
Is it wrong to notice you always seem to go a little crazy close to a holiday weekend? That it was Memorial Day when you reviewed “Bridget Jones’ Diary” in the voice of Ally McBeal? Almost Christmas when you broke out the Brian Griffin voice for “Andrew O’Hagan’s The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog and His Friend Marilyn.” Do you just need to make yourself laugh around the holidays? Maybe you’d like to come over for turkey next year?
Or is that when your editor is away? Was your editor on summer vacation when you snuck in that review of Shawn Levy’s swinging London book as Austin Powers? And Ben Kunkel’s “Indecision” as Holden Caulfield? Was your editor happy when he or she returned?
But really, what were you thinking when you started this review? Was it white wine or pinot noir? Guy Fieri’s watermelon margarita?
Full piece at Salon