Iowa vs. Stephen Bloom
22nd December 2011
Lileks points out the unfortunate fact that this alleged Professor of Journalism probably couldn’t write his way out of a paper bag.
Even if you give him a pass on the prose, the opening paragraphs have done nothing but state the obvious, peeling back the withered skin of this wither fig to reveal the author’s alienation from the subject of his piece. He’s lived there for 20 years, but like a plant that sits in a pot on the ground, the roots somehow never made it into the soil. Apparently this makes him the ideal person to explain Iowa to the rest of the world through the pages of the Atlantic.
You suspect at the start that the piece exists to comfort the smart sets living on the coastal crusts: your assumptions of the lumpendorken wandering around the empty innards of the land, one hand scrabbling their goolies while the other digs for nose-gold, are pretty much correct.
Stephen Bloom is one of those sad people who pine for the corridors of academic power on one of the Blue Coasts but are stuck in Flyover Country because of the tedious requirement that one earn a living at something rather than being supported somehow by tax revenue so as to be able to spend one’s days Thinking Deep Thoughts rather than, you know, working. Perhaps out of some cruel whim, the Atlantic has (at last!) given him an opportunity to (a) demonstrate the deep hatred and contempt he holds for the state that has been paying him these last two decades and (b) demonstrate that they’ve not been getting much value for their money.
Them. Iowa is full of them.
Grocery AND clothing shopping at Wal-Mart! These maroons wouldn’t know what to do if you led them by the hand to Zabar’s or Armani’s and pressed a black Amex gently in their palms.
And Lileks mocks him as only Lileks can. Read the whole thing, as they say.
I repeat: Professor of Journalism. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?
It really does.
December 22nd, 2011 at 20:49
Great article. I love James Lileks.