November 16, 2005
Trashing the restaurant reviewer is an age-old pastime. In this town, where everyone is a critic, offering one's opinion on the latest restaurants and reviews has evolved into a sport much like the free-for-all ancient Afghan pastime of buzkashi. (Except we don't ride on horseback; we take taxicabs.) The players here seem particularly galled (or in light of the new Michelin guide, perhaps Gaulled) when a favorite restaurant does not receive the accolades one believes it deserves, and react accordingly. Now this free-for-all increasingly takes place in the blogosphere, where the harsh volume on reviews and reviewers seems to be constantly ratcheted upwards.
Witness, for example, Julia Langbein's blog about Frank Bruni, the New York Times restaurant critic. Editor and Publisher recently wrote about her clever parodies. In fact, E&P writes, "one reader is Ruth Reichl, editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine, who was relieved she didn't have a blogger shadowing her when she reviewed restaurants for the Times." Relieved indeed, perhaps, that her every sentence was not dissected in a Langbeinian manner. Langbein recently wrote of Bruni: "Usually the Count, trained in the infamously razor-witted journalistico-priestly salons of Berlusconi-era Rome, has a firm grasp on subtle humor. But this week, Frank is taking everything literally, in an autistic Amelia Bedelia way."
While colorful, Langbein's language can be rather harsh. Ad hominem—do we still use this term?—or specious argumentation is of course a hallmark of weblogs, probably of this one as well. But is this sort of discourse new? Importune assertions (read: character assassinations) were not invented with the Internet. Reichl, for example, indeed did have a shadow (at least initially) in the form of Bryan Miller, her predecessor at the Times. Or so she claims; we need not recount here how he allegedly attempted to disparage her in various ways after he left his position. Instead, you can read some fascinating tidbits about that as well as how she concocted those clever disguises she wore when reviewing certain restaurants in her book Garlic and Sapphires. "How do you think she comes off giving SoHo noodle shops 2 and 3 stars?" Miller wrote. "SHE HAS DESTROYED THE SYSTEM that Craig [Claiborne], Mimi [Sheraton] and I upheld."
How does Miller vs. Reichl differ from Langbein vs. Bruni? Yet another former Times critic, William Grimes, makes an interesting point to E&P: "In the past, it was random pot shots," Grimes said. "Now, it seems that you're in grave danger of being stalked on the Internet by a philosophical assassin." Aha, now our game does more resemble buzkashi than at first glance! Because the headless calf—the object of bukhashi's horsemen—has no way of defending itself. Or does it? Because the print media follows certain rules ("made to broken!" you comment) and those in the blogosphere do not ("foul!" you cry)? Maybe. Maybe not. But this is precisely the theme chronicled by business writer David Carr in "When Bloggers Joke About the Unfunny" a few days ago. Gawker has covered this story at great length, perhaps living up to its name more than ever. In case you've missed it, Carr writes about Peter Braunstein, a Manhattan freelance writer, playwright and a former media reporter at Women's Wear Daily, [who] is suspected by police of setting small fires outside a woman's apartment on Halloween night, dressing up as a firefighter to gain access, and then sexually assaulting her for 13 hours. Very creepy, and a frightening crime at that. Carr continues: Jossip, another blog, suggested in a headline that "Rape isn't funny, but Peter Braunstein sure is." Do tell. Indeed, how is this funny? Really, how is it funny? Are we so numbed by the prevalence of electronic media constantly bombarding us with stimuli that one must write to gross excess to get attention?
Carr continues to explore the difficulties in blog vs. print media coverage, quoting Jessica Coen, the co-editor of Gawker: Braunstein is not an easy story to cover, but ignoring the story is perhaps "problematic". A generation of Web writers, Carr notes, many of them excellent and genuinely hilarious - sees the world and its travails through a hail of nasty e-mail messages, tips and other blogs. Which is, of course, fascinating—but somehow at root quite problematic when the world is constantly being pelted with hail. Or is it? Is the sky really falling? The earth really warming? The legal writer Adam Liptak today considers the "Mystery of Gossipy Blog On the Judiciary Is Solved"; he refers to Jeffrey Toobin's intriguing New Yorker article that unmasked a blog writer, who was not a "female lawyer at a big firm" but indeed a "male federal prosecutor in Newark". To repeat: Which is, of course, fascinating—but somehow at root quite problematic. Or isn't it? Anyhow, which is more glamorous? Being a female lawyer at a big firm or a male federal prosecutor in Newark? Being Peter Braunstein or Jessica Coen? Being Julia Langbein or Frank Bruni? A case of mistaken identity or identity theft? Or perhaps the food blogger instead is just characterizing (or performing at) an elaborate costume party that resembles a burlesque of the Mad Hatter's tea party. Weren't Sirio Maccioni's Le Cirque and its later incarnation Le Cirque 2000 all about that anyhow? Perhaps 'twas so in the 1980s, when those Christian Lacroix poufs were all the rage, but the food (if not the service) was always extraordinary. Anyhow, Ruth Reichl unmasked that when dining in disguise....
Which does lead us back to Julia Langbein: Because restaurant critics are demanding, can be harsh, can make or break reputations, and certainly promote or destroy multimillion-dollar restaurant businesses, perhaps food criticism in the blogsphere is just another form of licensed licentiousness. Perhaps blogging about a food critic's seemingly absurd mannerisms or style of writing is just the newest form of travesty—oops, of parody. Serious writing about food in America is a serious subject, and certainly the great M.F.K. Fisher did not command so much respect and attention because she trashed those in her path. No, she wrote thoughtfully and indeed lovingly about what makes food great, about creating fine meals (even in times of great adversity and want), and about sourcing ingredients that yield fine meals. Of course, the world of M.F.K. Fisher no longer exists. Of course, lacking a certain amount of decorum and serving forth a big heaping dish of snarkiness might get your blog more readers. But a consistently less reverential tone for the work of others—"snarky" is the word here—might not exactly earn you the respect you think you deserve. It seems the two teams in food criticism, Team print vs. Team blog—like those in buzkashi—are still in a fast-paced standoff around the dead calf.
Photo credit: Jack Gruber | Photojournalist © 2002 USA TODAY
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Posted on 11/16/2005
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