Jump to content

Dan Schneider (writer)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mitziohara (talk | contribs) at 21:48, 14 August 2008 (→‎Interviews: broke paragraph). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Dan Schneider
Born (1965-02-02) February 2, 1965 (age 59)
New York City, New York, USA
OccupationFilm critic
poet
writer
NationalityAmerican
EducationGraduated from Franklin K. Lane High School
Period1984 – present
Subjectfilm
poetry
SpouseJessica Schneider
Website
http://www.cosmoetica.com/

Dan Schneider (born 1965) is a United States poet, critic, film critic, essayist, and fiction writer best known for his criticism and literary website Cosmoetica. Schneider was born out of wedlock to a Minnesota mother and given up for adoption in New York City. After being in a gang during his youth, he discovered poetry as a young adult and educated himself in the subject. He has since published his poetry and essays in a number of magazines and newspapers. Schneider’s outspoken critiques of academic-style writings and political correctness in publishing have caused him to be recognized in a number of media outlets, including Cambridge University Press, The New York Times, and City Pages.

Biography

Schneider was born in 1965 to an unwed Minnesota mother. Given up for adoption in New York City, Schneider grew up with a working class family in the Glendale-Ridgewood neighborhoods of Queens. According to his memoir and press accounts, at age six Schneider witnessed a murder, the first of many. During high school, Schneider was a gang member.[1][2]

As a child and young adult, Schneider worked a number of working-class jobs, including dairy manager at a grocery store. It is around this time he became interested in poetry. According to him, "I was watching the Phil Donahue show one day and they were talking about romancing a woman, and this guy on there said that poetry always worked. I remember that I had to look up the word in the dictionary."[3] Schneider set out to become self-educated about poetry (and literature in general).

Schneider has written a multi-volume memoir titled True Life. Sections of this memoir, along with other of his writings, have been published in a number of print and online magazines, such as The Manifest,[4] 10,000 Monkeys, [5] and the Dublin Quarterly.[6]

Poetry and publications

When Schneider was in his mid-twenties, he moved to Minnesota to learn more about his biological family. While living in the Twin Cities, Schneider became involved in local poetry readings and poetry slams. Schneider created and ran the Uptown Poetry Group [1], which was billed as the longest-running poetry critique group in the Twin Cities. He married poet Jessica Schneider (nee Lester) in 2000. Schneider became known for his poetry, ability to critique others, and criticism of academic-style poetry, what he called the incestuous nature of poetry, where writers praised each other’s works in a self-promotional cycle.[7]

This latter quality made him controversial. In one reported instance, Schneider attended a poetry reading by Robert Bly. During the question and answer session, Schneider asked why Bly was "such a lousy poet." Schneider followed this by quoting from an essay Bly once wrote on Robert Lowell, in which Bly talked about the younger generation needing to destroy the old, and how trees needed to burn to save the forest. Schneider said that’s what he wanted to do for poetry. [8]

Schneider has published poetry, fiction, and nonfiction in online and print publications as diverse as Cambridge University Press, Discover Magazine, Talking Points Memo, Monsters And Critics, La Prensa, City Pages, the UCLA Journal of the American Indian (now American Indian Cultural and Research Journal), Blogcritics, Obsessed With Film, Hackwriters.com, LauraHird.com, Alternative Film Guide, Feel The Word, Nimrod, Sentence, Argestes, Midwest Book Review, storySouth, Jacaranda Review, Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, Neo-Victorian, Curbside Review, Piedmont Journal, Taj Mahal Review, Unlikelystories.org, Dublin Quarterly, The Simon, The Moderate Voice, Subtle Tea, Boston.com, Cleveland.com, Houston Literary Review, Poligazette, They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?, Culture Vulture, Retort, Unlikely 2.0, New York Review, and Yet Another Book Review.[9]

Media coverage and criticism

In 1997, Schneider's poetry group, the Uptown Poetry Group, was featured in an article published in the Pre-Raphaelite Review. In 1999, the alternative newspaper City Pages (a sister paper of the Village Voice) printed a cover story about Schneider. The article, titled "Dan Schneider vs. the Rest of the World," focused on Schneider’s attempts to change what he saw as the incestuous nature of the Twin Cities' poetry scene. In addition to samples of Schneider’s own poetry, the article featured comments about Schneider from both supporters and detractors. The reaction to the article was massive.[10] According to the writer of the article, more people responded to the article than anything the newspaper had ever published. For a month afterward, City Pages published letters to the editor about the article, with most of the established poets in the Twin Cities condemning Schneider and most general readers praising his honesty.[11] The article later won a third place award for best Arts Feature in the nation from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies.[12]

In 2004, Schneider and his critical essays about literature were mentioned in a New York Times article, "The Widening Web of Digital Lit" by David Orr.[13] He has also been quoted in other newspapers such as The Village Voice[14] and on public radio.[15] Schneider's critical essays on fiction have been published in a variety of print and online publications, and have elicited much response for their sardonic takes on contemporary authors. They have been condemned and praised by a number of online publications, from Web del Sol [16] to the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore[17] to various blogs.[18]

Of T.C. Boyle, Schneider wrote:

"There simply is little worse than a claimed humorist who lacks humor, yet this is Boyle. His satire, such as it is, is slight, forced, and dull- all the things satire should never be to be successful. Yet, he is worse, for he lacks the discipline to even purge his dull A to B to C work of clichés. And he has a need to excessively describe things, rather than let simplicity, or a savvy reader, discern an emotion. Too many of his sentences have pedestrian details, or unnecessary metaphors or modifiers..."[19]

Of Joyce Carol Oates, Schneider wrote:

"Oates, unfortunately, stands at the pinnacle of being a ‘hack’s hack’, as this book amply demonstrates. How someone who has written so obscenely many books can still be so utterly clueless as to what constitutes clichéd and banal writing is beyond me, save that it proves she has very little in the way of writing ability, much less critical ability. She is to criticism what Thomas Steinbeck is to literature- a styleless, generic cipher. That these pieces were originally published in places with reputations as large as the New York Times, Kenyon Review, and London Review Of Books, also comments amply on their assorted falls from grace, as well, as ignominious part in the dumbing down of art and culture in general."[20]

In similar fashion, Schneider commented, of writer Dave Eggers, that, "Eggers aims to be a 5th rate Kurt Vonnegut or a literary Jerry Seinfeld, but he really has no literary ambition, nor the wit to fool a good reader."[21] Perhaps his most stinging review came of fiction writer David Foster Wallace, of whose writing Schneider wrote:

"...has more akin with self-help books, books on pop psychology, and that ilk, then the revelations of an ‘awesome intellect’. Wallace is the ultimate poseur, right down to his triple name. Only using an initial in his first or middle name would be worse. At least Joyce could fob Finnegans Wake off on his syphilitic mind’s ravages. Wallace has no such cover. In the whole of this disastrous tome there is not even a single paragraph, not a single sentence, nor even a single image nor turn of phrase that shows anything resembling a facility for wordplay. His apologists would counter that the book has grand intent. Bullshit. But, even if one were to accept their argument, intent in art is meaningless, for all that is left is what’s on the page or canvas or film screen. Results matter, not intent. Accomplishment is greater than mere talent or ability. Art is a verb, not a noun. The art in a piece of writing resides in how it conveys its message, not the message itself. And, on all scores, Wallace bombs."[22]

Schneider even ended his review of Wallace's work with a biting critical haiku:

Infinite Jest shows
David Foster Wallace sucks
really, really bad.

In 2008, Schneider's review of the novel White Teeth, by British author Zadie Smith was a featured excerpt in Contemporary Fiction: The Novel Since 1990, edited by Pamela Bickley, and published by Cambridge University Press. [23] Controversy arose over the publication when, in an article [24] by Schneider, it was claimed that in a section of the book where a negative excerpt from his review of Smith's novel White Teeth was compared to another review, editor Bickley deliberately distorted Schneider's excerpt by taking it out of context by the use of an ellipsis that made it appear his review did not deal with the substance of the novel, nor include supporting quotations from the book, as opposed to an unedited excerpt, with a quotation, from a positive review printed in the New York Times. It was also claimed that Cambridge University Press deliberately biased the readers of its textbook in the phrasing of student questions posed after the section on Smith's novel, and that CUP even failed to properly credit the writer per his request.[25]

Cosmoetica

In recent years, Schneider has focused his energy on his website, Cosmoetica, founded in 2001. Independent website ranking services rank Cosmoetica as one of the most popular literary websites in the world.[26] Cosmoetica receives approximately two million plus hits per month [27]

Schneider has used the non-commercial site to promote his view of poetry and literature, routinely condemning the works of those he sees as bad writers (such as Robert Bly) and praising the works of poets and writers he sees as neglected. Included in this last group are such writers as African-American poet James Emanuel and essayist Loren Eiseley. While the website started off focusing on literature, Schneider expanded it to cover topics like the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, UFOs, and the current Iraq War.

Film criticism

In late 2006 Schneider further expanded the site to include an all film subsite called Cinemension.[28] The site contains hundreds of in-depth film and DVD reviews of foreign, classic, and contemporary films from a literary and narrative perspective. In 2008, Schneider became an official reviewer for new The Criterion Collection DVD pre-releases.[29]

Interviews

In 2003, Schneider and Arthur Durkee co-hosted an Internet radio program called Omniversica[2], which interviewed such diverse persons as poet James Emanuel[30], scientist Lynn Margulis[31], writer Dorion Sagan[32], actor/poet George Dickerson[33], director Josh Becker[34], astrophysicist and musician Fiorella Terenzi[35], surgeon and writer Leonard Shlain[36], author Howard Bloom[37], and filmmaker Godfrey Reggio[38].

In 2007, Schneider inaugurated The Dan Schneider Interview series on Cosmoetica.

List of Dan Schneider Interview interviewees

References

  1. ^ Dan Schneider vs. the Rest of the World by Brad Zellar, City Pages, Twin Cities Reader Winter Books Issue, Volume 20, Issue 990, November 24, 1999. Accessed Sept. 7, 2006.
  2. ^ http://www.laurahird.com/showcase/danschneider.html Laurahird.com, excerpt from Angels and Gangsters by Dan Schneider, accessed Sept. 7, 2006.
  3. ^ Dan Schneider vs. the Rest of the World by Brad Zellar, City Pages, Twin Cities Reader Winter Books Issue, Volume 20, Issue 990, November 24, 1999. Accessed Sept. 7, 2006.
  4. ^ "Inside of Ridgewood" by Dan Schneider, The Manifest E-zine, issue 19, accessed March 13, 2007.
  5. ^ "The Essence of Tyranny" by Dan Schneider, Ten Thousand Monkeys, Issue #68, August 2004, accessed March 13, 2007.
  6. ^ The Will to Believe" by Dan Schneider, Dublin Quarterly, Issue 2, accessed March 13, 2007.
  7. ^ "The good, the bad and the poesy," The Star Tribune, June 11, 2000.
  8. ^ Dan Schneider vs. the Rest of the World, page 3 by Brad Zellar, City Pages, Twin Cities Reader Winter Books Issue, Volume 20, Issue 990, November 24, 1999. Accessed Sept. 7, 2006.
  9. ^ [http://www.cosmoetica.com/Contact-Submissions.htm#Info%20On%20Dan%20Schneider Cosmoetica Contact and Submission page. Accessed August 7, 2008.
  10. ^ Dan Schneider vs. the Rest of the World by Brad Zellar, City Pages, Twin Cities Reader Winter Books Issue, Volume 20, Issue 990, November 24, 1999. Accessed Sept. 7, 2006.
  11. ^ City Pages letters page, with 21 letters to the editor published in response to "Dan Schneider vs. the Rest of the World," accessed Sept. 7, 2006.
  12. ^ American Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Awards: Arts Feature, accessed Sept. 7, 2006.
  13. ^ The Widening Web of Digital Lit" by David Orr, The New York Times, October 3, 2004.
  14. ^ "Free Will Astrology" by Rob Brezsny, The Village Voice, October 11th, 2006.
  15. ^ Nebraska-Born Poet Finds Fame Overseas by Avishay Artsy, Nebraska Public Radio special about poet James Emanuel, which quotes Schneider.
  16. ^ Bodega Survey, Reviews of Lit Sites, Publications, and Places by Tim McGrath, Steph Henck, and THE BABE, Web del Sol, accessed Sept. 7, 2006.
  17. ^ The Acid Tongue: Dan Schneider connects the dots by Cyril Wong, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, July 4, 2003, accessed Sept. 7, 2006.
  18. ^ Even grumpier than me! by Michael Allen, Grumpy Old Bookman blog, March 11, 2005, accessed March 13, 2007; Cobb v Schneider, Cobb: Strickly Old School blog, March 12, 2005, accessed March 13, 2007.
  19. ^ Culture Vulture accessed 8/13/08
  20. ^ Hackwriters accessed 8/13/08
  21. ^ The Dangers Of Memoir Cosmoetica, September 11, 2004
  22. ^ Review of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest Cosmoetica, February 10, 2006
  23. ^ Contemporary Fiction: The Novel Since 1990, edited by Pamela Bickley, and published by Cambridge University Press, in July, 2008, mentioned online at Cosmoetica, by Dan Schneider, July 24, 2008, accessed July 25, 2008.
  24. ^ "On Critical Fair Play And Ethics". July 24, 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-7. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  25. ^ [http://www.jasonsanford.com/jason/2008/07/literary-criticism-and-the-difference-in-good-and-bad-editors.html Jason Sanford] dated 29 July, 2008
  26. ^ Ranking.com listed Cosmoetica.com as being in the top half-million websites in the world, and the 8th highest ranked poetry site, in data accessed on March 13, 2007.
  27. ^ accessed September 15, 2007.
  28. ^ http://www.cosmoetica.com/Cinemension.htm Cinemension, accessed March 13, 2007.
  29. ^ [http://www.cosmoetica.com/Contact-Submissions.htm#Info%20On%20Dan%20Schneider Cosmoetica Contact and Submission page. Accessed August 7, 2008.
  30. ^ Sursumcorda February, 2003.
  31. ^ Sursumcorda March, 2003.
  32. ^ Sursumcorda March, 2003.
  33. ^ Sursumcorda July, 2003.
  34. ^ Sursumcorda July, 2003.
  35. ^ Sursumcorda September, 2003.
  36. ^ Sursumcorda November, 2003.
  37. ^ Sursumcorda December, 2003.
  38. ^ Sursumcorda December, 2003.
  39. ^ "First and only in depth interview with great neglected poet of the 20th Century" M&C News Sep 28, 2007.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dan_Schneider_(writer)&oldid=231983210"