As you can see, this shit cuts writers deep.

I was discussing this with Caitlin yesterday and had guessed it had come about because she had plagiarized for some essay for a college course, and a professor (or someone with publisher connections) considered that it be written up as a treatment or something for a book deal.

It turned out the connection occurred in high school via her private college counselor who read a different essay (one no-doubt cribbed from another book) which caused the counselor to refer her work to the publisher.

I love the new excuse of “photographic memory,” a claim that is most certainly complete bullshit. Let’s see: the ability to recall something you read four times over only four years ago and not remember that you read it? I could quote long passages of my summer reading books in junior high school and high school because I read them three times each before school started, but I’d be damned if I couldn’t tell you where the passage came from, even a decade later.

Such memory, unless conscious memorization techniques are applied, are limited to a specific area that the brain can unconsciously reduce and summarize into meaningful whole (long strings of numbers, chess positions, facts, or music).

My near-photographic (visual) memory disappeared as soon as I learned to read at age six—that is true with many people.

The only thing funnier is the statement, “I never take notes.” I think that speaks more about how pathetic the undergraduate humanities and economics courses are at Harvard than anything else.

“It’s clear that the girl is intentionally malfeasant (but may not even know that what she did was completely unethical). I found it too rich to be ironic that her
plans are to become an investment banker after graduating Harvard—she
literally has not real interest in writing except to turn a quick buck.”

Hi Terry, long time no see!

-Jon