But how tight were his lips?

This post by guest-blogger John Mulaney

From NYtimes.com, "A Reporters Notebook," Jan 9, 2006:

"Judge Alito seemed almost to blush at the attention, smiling with tight lips, nodding his head, and murmuring thanks as he headed for the door of a Senate office building."

All too often I will find myself reaching the end of an essay or profile in the newspaper without any clue how tight anyone's lips are. Normally I will do a quick skim through again to be sure; thinking, surely the writer has taken the time to address the tightness of the principal subjects' lips. But all too often I face that ineveitable conclusion: slackness and/or tightness of lips has simply been ignored like how Don Cheadle's family was ignored by the Western World in "Hotel Rawanda."

At some point in the last twenty five years journalists decided that the way to be a good writer was to really just describe the shit out of stuff. No adjectives should be spared. "Let the non-writers not describe shit. We're gonna!" they proclaimed. Profiles on and interviews with people of note now always include some obligatory reference to what they are eating/drinking and how they are eating/drinking it. I do not need to know that, "Sam Mendes sips thoughtfully on his Nestea before answering." It's not an important detail. It doesn't add to the piece and it's kind of a stretch to say that anyone sips thoughtfully. He was thinking thoughtfully while sipping, I'd imagine. The sipping part of it was probably pretty midless. You are a bad writer. Go home and sleep in your closet.

New Yorker profiles are still pretty good but Vanity Fair interviews are BONKERS. They are almost exclusively about what the people are eating during the interview. The interviewees are said to be "wolfing down" Lite Popcorn and "devouring" Edamame and...seriously bad writer shouldn't you go home and lay down in the closet and stop bothering people? ("typed Mulaney before allowing generous helpings of Teddy Grams to find their way into his mouth.")

On the subject of profiles however I have to give some credit to the Rolling Stone writer who, a few days after Columbine, described killer Dylan Klebold as having a "huge Jay Leno-chin." In that case, the extra wording to describe how "huge" and "Jay Leno" that kid's chin was much needed and appreciated.


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Guest Blogger John Mulaney

This post by guest-blogger John Mulaney