Thursday, November 25, 2010

Matt Taibbi Before He Was Discovered

Five years ago I was siting in a felafel joint on the upper west side when I picked up a local free newspaper expecting to waste some time. A review of Tom Friedman's "The World is Flat" caught my eye and gave me a jolt of sheer delight. I'd never heard of the author, but that reading experience in a by-the-way throwaway left an indelible engram...(and confirmed once more that NYC is just way cool)

So today while perusing Salon.com's list of the "Hack 30" (where Friedman comes in at Number 3) I discover that the author was none other than Matt Taibbi:

An excerpt from the review:

I'll give you an example, drawn at random from The World Is Flat. On page 174, Friedman is describing a flight he took on Southwest Airlines from Baltimore to Hartford, Connecticut. (Friedman never forgets to name the company or the brand name; if he had written The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa would have awoken from uneasy dreams in a Sealy Posturepedic.) Here's what he says:
I stomped off, went through security, bought a Cinnabon, and glumly sat at the back of the B line, waiting to be herded on board so that I could hunt for space in the overhead bins.
Forget the Cinnabon. Name me a herd animal that hunts. Name me one.



Now I get the pleasure of reading a relatively recent one, a review of the environmentalist Tom.

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