{"id":9459,"date":"2015-02-13T20:48:55","date_gmt":"2015-02-14T00:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?p=9459"},"modified":"2015-02-13T20:48:55","modified_gmt":"2015-02-14T00:48:55","slug":"david-carr-rip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2015\/02\/david-carr-rip.html","title":{"rendered":"David Carr, RIP"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I now inhabit a life I don\u2019t deserve, but we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope the caper doesn\u2019t end anytime soon.<\/p>\n

\u2014The Night of the Gun<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ve noticed in reading the tributes to David Carr that he used the word \u201ccaper\u201d a lot. He talked about life\u2013sobriety, work, marriage, parenting\u2013like it was a carnival, like it was something he was getting away with. His book, which obviously you should read<\/a>, is one of the few \u201caddiction memoirs\u201d which make recovery seem more vivid than degradation. I read Night of the Gun<\/em> toward the end (let\u2019s hope) of my drinking career and copied out big chunks of it into the journal my spiritual director was making me keep. Carr exposed my lies and rationalizations along with his own; but for that exact reason he showed me a future I couldn\u2019t imagine.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of revealing moments in that pulpy, hard-fought book; one which stands out to me at the moment is Carr\u2019s treatment of Jayson Blair. He writes about Blair as a friend, a fellow newspaperman, and a fellow addict: Carr\u2019s whole shtik in this book is honesty, and yet he shows so much empathy for a fabulist. But I shouldn\u2019t say \u201cand yet.\u201d The whole book is about the internal pressure to lie to our diaries, to live in a better world than this one and face a kinder jury than the one in our skulls. (Let alone the one on Twitter.) If you\u2019re gonna extend any empathy to the guy who got caught and disgraced early in his career and privately, you need to give it to the guy who wasn\u2019t so lucky.<\/p>\n

Here are some quotes from Carr on his faith<\/a> (and see also the thing I quote here<\/a>). And from Jack Shafer: \u201cA vain but not narcissistic man, Carr would have been the last to leave the party<\/a> had fate given him any choice in the matter. \u2026He loved to exploit other reporters, and was generous about letting them exploit him, which is unusual in the trade. His generosity, especially with younger journalists, explains the many positive notices his death has received, although most of the young writers will never fully appreciate how much he was nourished by their attention\u2026. Never was there a man who talked so much but listened so well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyway, I don\u2019t have a lot to say except that David Carr\u2019s book helped me. I trust and pray he has found himself another caper.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I now inhabit a life I don\u2019t deserve, but we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope the caper doesn\u2019t end anytime soon. \u2014The Night of the Gun I\u2019ve noticed in reading the tributes to David Carr that he used the word \u201ccaper\u201d a lot. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,177],"tags":[473,50,132,52,55,41,299],"class_list":["post-9459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mackerel-snapping","category-too-much-is-never-enough","tag-david-carr","tag-five-star-final","tag-i-should-be-drinking-a-toast-to-absent-friends-instead-of-these-comedians","tag-if-whiskey-were-a-woman-id-be-married-for-sure","tag-prayers-to-ven-matt-talbot","tag-reading-and-repentance","tag-use-each-man-after-his-desert-and-who-shall-scape-whipping"],"yoast_head":"\nDavid Carr, RIP<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I now inhabit a life I don't deserve, but we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds. 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