The New York Times Week in Review and Charles McGrath (check BugMeNot if you don’t want to sign up for a NYTimes account) offer up a great recap of the recent Shakespeare portrait, the so-called Cobbe portrait (pictured left), that was discussed this past week. As the authenticity of this painting is debated, McGrath argues that this portrait might as well be Shakespeare, as “a likeness was not necessarily an exact representation but an idealization, an indicator of the sitter’s wealth and status.” This idea seems so simple and I am amazed that I haven’t thought of it before. Of course the Elizabethans who could afford to have portraits done of themselves would have their picture done to their ideal rather than their reality. Just as we live in an age of pictures Photoshopped to the extreme, every magazine filled with impossibly perfect looking people, our predecessors would have the same ego enough to edit their own image for posterity. It wasn’t until Oliver Cromwell, as McGrath points out, that realism began to creep into these caricatures “warts and all.”

The crux of McGrath’s argument is:

If we accept that these paintings were exercises in image-making — in 17th-century spin doctoring — then why not embrace the Cobbe painting? Even if Shakespeare didn’t actually sit for it, this is probably how he, like any other literary figure of the time, preferred to imagine himself: aloof, sexy, mysterious. And, more to the point, this is how most of us would prefer to imagine him too.

Exactly. The only people that the authenticity of this portrait really matters to are those who stand to profit from its sale. For the rest of us, to perceive Shakespeare as a dapper genius is all we want. Unless, of course, you don’t believe the man actually existed. But that’s a different post entirely.

For more information on the Cobbe portrait, see the New York Times article “Is This a Shakespeare Which I See Before Me?” from last week.

I don’t fault publishing companies for chasing money. After all, what else is there in life? HarperCollins, amid restructuring and layoffs and a faltering economy, has announced a new imprint uncreatively titled “It Books.” This imprint will focus on celebrities and pop culture and internet fads, and include books by such literary heavyweights as comedienne Lisa Lampanelli and porn star Jenna Jameson. When asked by the New York Times about this move by HarperCollins, “It Books” publisher Carrie Kania had this to say:

“It’s a response to the economic times in many ways,” she said in an interview. “It’s escapism and fun. We want to publish books that people want to buy and read. As people turn to movies and television, we want them to turn to books as well, and this seems like a perfect fit for them.”

Ah yes, the great storytelling skills of Lisa Lampanelli and her humor about how many black guys she’s slept with is going to warm me during these cold economic times. For those of you who don’t know who Lampanelli is, she’s the fat white lady on all those Comedy Central roasts and, if you’re not aware, is known for sleeping with black gentlemen. No, she’s not famous but she does like to sleep with black dudes. She’s an unfunny comedienne who never made it big but has been in the business so long that she, and a bunch of other C-list comedians, were given a show where they get to roast some B-list celebrity. Lisa Lampanelli sleeps with black men.

You don’t have to buy the book now. I just told you everything in it.

While HarperCollins does infuriate me because it’s becoming so lowest-common-denominator, I always squint my eyes as much as they’ll go to see the silver lining. The silver lining here being that the publishing industry is most certainly going the way of the record industry. That is, the big dogs have devolved to the point where they mostly produce pop sludge to sell to the celebrity-obsessed heathens and this paves for the way for independent labels to pick up the talent and put out the worthwhile stuff that will stand the test of time. Does anybody think “How to Make Love Like a Porn Star,” a memoir by Jenna Jameson, is going to be around in 100 years? No. Nobody does. In 100 years we’ll all be having virtual sex like in Demolition Man. But for now, a passionless sad nymphomaniac is a fine example of how we should all behave so let’s put her sex book out.

The publishing industry is just pathetic.

To read the article in the New York Times, click here. If you don’t have a New York Times account and don’t want one, check out BugMeNot.

Extended reading: here is another New York Times article about how HarperCollins is cutting author advances and other profit sharing with authors because they’re not making enough money. Of course, HarperCollins deserves all the money because they did all the work, right? Seriously, it is time for the independent publishers to rise.

Reading the Washington Post this morning, I discovered a new novel by first-time novelist Philipp Meyer called American Rust. This novel, set in a mining town in Pennsylvania, connects two unlikely friends as they struggle to get out of a dying town. I won’t say too much more as I haven’t even read this book yet. But I will recommend that you read the Washington Post review by Ron Charles, “A Wealth of Despair Among the Impoverished;” if you do not have a Washington Post login and you don’t want to sign up, you can always visit BugMeNot. Also, check out the Amazon page on American Rust. Meyer offers, on Amazon, a nice autobiography. I will say that Meyer’s novel sounds in a similar genre to my own novel, which is a connection I happily make; there is definitely a dearth of noir/gothic literary novels out there that actually tell a story. I’m sick of all this popular fiction that is little more than thinly-veiled autobiography.