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Sam Lipsyte and Lucinda Rosenfeld

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Beware of Frenchmen Wearing Bikini Briefs

By Lucinda Rosenfeld
Posted Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2000, at 5:08 PM ET

Sam,

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Did I give you permission to start talking about books like some kind of god darn intellectual? (I didn't think so.) But since you brought up the topic, let me add this to the discussion: I have never read the work of Michel Houellebecq. Nor do I have any intentions of doing so for the however puny-minded reason that I, too, read that profile in the New York Times Magazine, which was actually written by a lovely lady friend of mine whose judgment I trust implicitly. And, well, quite frankly, Houellebecq sounds like one of those embarrassing, sexist, turtleneck-and-bikini-underpants-wearing, I'm-the-first-person-who's-ever-engaged-in-kinky-sex windbags that only the French could produce. And why, I ask you, would I have any interest whatsoever in reading something written by an embarrassing, sexist, turtleneck-and-bikini-underpants-wearing, I'm-the-first-person-who's-ever-engaged-in-kinky-sex windbag?? (Go ahead, Sam, tell me I should read the work before I feel compelled to criticize it! I won't argue with you.)

Meanwhile, on the other side of the contemporary Caucasian male literary canon, I'm still reading Richard "I'm-the-first-person-who's-ever-engaged-in-depressing sex-in-Midwestern-hotel-rooms" Ford's The Sportswriter, a book I meant to finish off a month ago but continue to find myself 30 pages away from having done so. Why? Brilliant prose aside, it's just so totally thoroughly and relentlessly grim. Also, I could do without the persistent use of the descriptive adjective "Negro." (Note to Richard: In this country we prefer the term "black.")

OK, enough about that dying art form, and back to the major domestic news story of the day: Hand jobs--I mean hand recounts must be completed by 5, after all. (Sorry, Sam, but, like, some of us, like, care about what's going on in the world??) Anyway, since it's 4:04 p.m. right now, my advice to all Floridian truth seekers is as follows: DUDE, TIME TO PICK UP THE PACE!

Speaking of Floridian election officials, am I the only one who thinks the Butterfly Ballot Bungler, Palm Beach County election supervisor, Theresa LePore--whose pretty little punim graced the covers yesterday of both Newsday and the New York Post--bears a vague resemblance to fresh-faced 1970s bathing-suit model Cheryl Tiegs? (Or is it once and future cornrow goddess and Dubya crowd-rallier, Bo Derek, I'm thinking of here?)

Here's another angle of the BBB.

Ciao for now,
Lucinda