How does the New York Times Book Review justify taunting "We told ya so" on the matter of Fake Writer James Frey's memoir like, oh, two freaking weeks after the story was big? They don't really — but as Intern Alexis learns, they make up for it by readily employing the word "twaddle," which is so faux-naughty that it totally makes up for any annoyingly late-breaking Frey thoughts. After the jump, Alexis twaddles her way through this week's Review.

Twaddle

Metrosexual! Truthiness! Intelligent DesiPod Nano! Blogosophogus! Twaddle is the new black is the new pink is the new blog is the new TomKat, apparently. The word is first introduced to us in Wyatt Mason's review of "The Power of Movies: How Screen and Mind Interact" by Colin McGinn. Mr. McGinn, in his book, muses:

I venture to suggest that the use of the word 'star' in application to the film actors derives from its use to name the denizens of the night sky, and not vice versa. Then whoever it was who first employed that astronomical term in application to human beings must have been thinking of the stars of the sky, and hence analogizing sky and screen.

Indeed, that is a pretty moronic observation. So Mason writes: "The word for this sort of writing is twaddle."

Then, a mere two pages later, we see our new best friend used in a sentence. David Kamp wraps up his review of Norah Vincent's "Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again," by writing: "After 200-odd pages of honest and often sympathetic but never mawkish portraiture of the men in Ned's life, this folie twaddle is a tad disappointing."

There you have it! We have officially been brainwashed and twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddletwaddle...

The Colony
 By John Tayman
Reviewed by Mary Roach

We are generally not too squeamish. And we love us an epidemic. But, oh goodness, gracious, we hate, hate gory eye descriptions. This might have to do with the fact that last week when we fucked up and (due to a stubborn insistence to buy only Duane Reade-brand contact solution) cleaned our contacts with hydrogen peroxide and subsequently thought we had gone blind. Anyyywaayyy, Roach, in her review of "The Colony," the story of Molokai's leper colony, writes of the bacteria that causes leprosy:

And then goes on to quote Tynan:

Leprosy bacilli also attack the nerve controlling eyelid muscles, creating a condition known as lagophthalmos, in which the person is unable to close the eyelids. In such cases surgeons rigged a thread of muscle from the jaw to the lid, which caused the person to blink as he chewed - doctors then handed them a pack of gum.

The next time you chew on a piece of gum, think about that... And puke a little in your mouth. Or, really, all over the fucking sidewalk. Shiver. If you thought Discovery Health Channel was narsty, just keep reading the NYTBR!

James Frey, Shames Frey

Dwight Garner, in his weekly delight of a column, "TBR: Inside the List," touches on James Frey's two books and their rise to the top o'
the charts. In an odd move, though, Garner pulls what feels a bit like an "I told you so," writing. Garner digs up David Kamp's 2003 review of "A Million Little Pieces:"

About Frey, Kamp wrote: "There is an audacity to the way he allows himself to appear so unlikable and seldom leavens the proceedings with humor or intimations that everything will turn out all right." But Kamp also observed that "an unwelcome narcissism creeps through, too - it's evident that the sober Frey still digs the supertough, supersick baddie he was. . . . As the showoffy, Peckinpah-bloody set pieces accumulate - James tears off one of his own toenails, James removes his own facial stitches, James has a root canal done without anesthesia (painkillers are verboten at the clinic) - 'A Million Little Pieces' exudes the poseur scuzziness of bad indie films and MTV's 'Jackass.'"

It reads kind of like, "See! The NYTBR knew he sucked way back when." Those NYTBR-ers, they know a real head case when they see one! And they can sniff out a fake, maybe, from about three feet away.