Geeky Chic

There have a been a few stories about authors who invent the truth or
who are inventions of others this week.  The Freakonomics duo reports this week that one of the heroes featured in their book, Stetson Kennedy, a man who claimed in The Klan Unmasked
to have infiltrated the Klan in the 1940s as an undercover agent, had
gathered this information through standard reporting techniques
instead. One of Kennedy’s publishers described him as an
“entrepreneurial folklorist,” and another historian who uncovered the
fabrications in his writing over 10 years ago, remained mum because “It
would be like killing Santa Claus.”  Kennedy is the least bad of
the three fabricators/fabrications because at least he actually
gathered the KKK’s secret info, and diseminated it in novel ways (i.e.
he gave it to the writers for the Superman radio show, who wrote it
into their plot) to reduce some of the Klan’s power.

That lovely publication, the Smoking Gun, is running a long expose
detailing how the literati’s current “I was once an addict” darling,
James Frey, embellished a good portion of his own rap sheet and memoir.

And finally, the piece de resistance, the Times finally “uncovers” the truth
behind JT Leroy, another “I used to be an addict (and prostitute)”
author.  Surprise, he doesn’t exist, but is really an invention of
Laura Albert and Geoffrey Knoop, the couple that “saved” him.  I
find it funny that part of the NYT’s investigative reporting included
JT Leroy’s expense report that he submitted to the NYT for a trip to
his entourage took to EuroDisney. (New York Magazine ran a piece questioning his existence back in October, so the NYT is a little behind in coming forward with this story).

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Also, I came across this post on young activist burnout by one of SSRD’s associates. 
It’s interesting how coping with burnout doesn’t significantly differ
based on whether one is working for the man, or out saving the world.