"... no conferences for the countless writers indebted to her. And so her friends... were shocked to find out only after the fact that the writer’s personal belongings were sold off in an online auction last week.... The bargain-basement prices that resulted made it feel all the more cruel. There was the handbag that they knew Wurtzel would have wanted to go to a specific friend (and even with a reserve of $6,500, the Birkin did not find a purchaser). There went the entire contents of her desk (including three heaping cups of pens and pencils), sold off for $29. The desk itself, beautifully marked with use, had a bit of a bidding war and went for just $535, still way under estimate. A drawing of her rescue dog, Augusta, sold for $20. (I bought her coffee table for $100 — 'Needs Refinishing,' the listing claimed incorrectly — precisely because of the signs of hard use on it.)"
From "The Last Traces of Elizabeth Wurtzel" by Choire Sicha (NY Magazine).
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27 comments:
Another article that didn't need to be written. Does everyone know who Elizabeth Wurtzel is? Googling her, she's kind of pretty and wrote Prozac Nation. Nobody wants old stuff. It's impressive that Wurtzel's pencil cups went for $29. There is nothing cruel about the auction, it's how these things are handled.
Wow. The details of her death ended up pedestrian, like almost everyone else's.
I was going to comment, but then I realized that I couldn't really distinguish Elizabeth Wurzel from Susanna Kaysen, Emily Gordon and other therapy/addiction memoirists. Throw Camille Paglia, who was famous at about the same time Wurzel was, in to the confusion and everything is even less clear.
I do notice a resemblance now between Wurzel and Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted, but that was adapted from Kaysen's book. Come to think of it, Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci, the leads in the Kaysen and Wurzel movies, do look a little alike as well.
Alas, Wurzel. Sad, confused, messy life. Too much self-sabotage. Too much negative feedback from the critics. Too early end.
My wife and I started watching The Sopranos last week. I'd seen an episode here and there over the years, but never actually watched it as a series until now. Tony's relationship with his mother seems so much like my wife's relationship with hers--elderly, failing capacity, a danger to herself but refusing to go into a home because she doesn't want to leave the memories of her house, and completely unconcerned about the burden she places on her children due to that refusal to cooperate in her own care.
I bring that up here because of another consequence of letting a person with dementia live alone for too long--the careless giving away of valuable family heirlooms, the squandering of family history through gifts to near strangers that should have been saved for the grandchildren.
Wurtzel's situation is different but, at base, she failed to take the trouble to make sure personal items would go to the people they meant the most to. She left these decisions to someone else, someone who may not care or understand, and much was lost.
"confused, messy life" Indeed. A theme in recent Althouse posts?
From the article:
"Wurtzel had a romantic attachment to luxury that’s common among people who grew up without money and who thrive within a constant roar of financial chaos. A music writer for this magazine, she became one of the most famous Gen-X writers with her first book; her second netted her a half-million-dollar advance. “I never saved or invested,” she wrote in New York in 2013, “because I believe if you take care of the luxuries, the necessities will take care of themselves.” (This is not generally true, in case you find that viewpoint seductive.) Wurtzel’s permanent record is littered with tax liens, a bankruptcy filing, even an eviction in New Haven while she was in law school in the mid-2000s, as her apartments were littered with Hermès scarves and Chloé sunglasses."
And the point is?
Does everyone know who Elizabeth Wurtzel is?
Yes, I find it very pretentious that the writer of that article didn't bother explaining who this person was. The name sounded vaguely familiar but I had to Google to figure it out. And it was not worth the trouble.
It’s a postscript she might have written for herself.
Had to look her up.
She didn't know what a lawyer was?
Very pop Gen-Xer way to go really. Addicted, slacker whose death stuff didn't live up to any of her acquaintances' expectations.
Rushdie has a very boomer ending going on, broken by the very lingering, long term acts his works of bold protest initiated
Did her company make the famous pretzels?
Take only memories leave only footprints
Since you see me choosing to blog about this, you ought to click on my tag. Then you’d see that I have found her interesting and experience this as a continuation of what I am writing, which you find yourself reading.
Tina Brown. Elizabeth Wurtzel. Kate Moss. What a time it was. When bimbos bestrode the earth.
My assumption is that Elizabeth Wurtzel is simply not all that, and her friends' expectations that she would remain all that are false.
Sometimes the person at the center of the myth has to be around to push the myth forward.
What will they auction off when Marie Kondo is relieved of her mortal coil?
Wurzel was a big deal in the 1990s, but it looks like she was crowded out by all the other blogger/memoirists/lifestyle writers. Katie Roiphe and Molly Jong-Fast (second generation blogger/memoirists/lifestyle writers) are other examples. Maybe they owe a lot to Joan Didion, or maybe to John Leonard.
I suppose Wurzel ran out of things to say. Her writing was about herself and her life and once she exhausted that, her life and her self were too big to get away from and write about other subjects. It looks like she made more of an impression on you than on others because of her law school experience. Renata Adler did the same thing - starting Yale Law School as an adult and without much desire to become a working attorney -- but apparently came out of the experience with less damage than Wurzel did.
She had a Slinky. And the AA coins were touching to see.
She died in the process of divorce, but her husband was 'close to her till the end,' it said.
The author bought Wurtzel's coffee table.
The Wurzel movie is worth watching. Christina Ricci takes off her clothes.
In July 2010, she wrote in the Brennan Center for Justice blog to make a proposal for the abolition of bar exams.
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a thought prompted from another thread:
Bar Exams >>> filter or pump for legal/judicial profession v reality and productive life?
"Tina Brown. Elizabeth Wurtzel. Kate Moss. What a time it was. When bimbos bestrode the earth."
At least one of these is not like the others. You've joined together a well-known magazine journalist and editor, one memoirist, and one super model under the term "bimbo." What makes you think the term applies to all or any of these disparate persons? Or are all famous women just "bimbos" to you?
Tina Brown's destructive tenure as editor of the New Yorker, Wurtzel's pop music contributions to same (as well as her glorification of the trashy life) and Kate Moss's heroin chic all seem to me of a piece.
Cookie's inability to see any distinction between them and, say, Hannah Arendt or Joan Didion. provides ample evidence that "bimbo"is a term that can applied without regard to gender.
robother: There is an excellent old movie starring Britt Eckland and Peter Sellers, titled "The Bobo." I think the title is a Spanish term used for a male bimbo, although there are other meanings listed if you google it (nsfw).
The Wurzel movie is worth watching. Christina Ricci takes off her clothes.
The kind of hi-vis, big buzz auction they wanted doesn't just happen. It takes a p.r. firm and careful planning. Reminds me of a colleague who felt dissed when her father-in-law didn't just automatically pop up in one of those "in memorium" segments on an awards show. It doesn't just happen because you want it to. It takes press releases, NYT and LAT hits and favors called in. Even then it's a crapshoot. You gotta fight against "Who is Elizabeth Wurzel?" too.
"Cookie's inability to see any distinction between them and, say, Hannah Arendt or Joan Didion...."
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Do you see the world without gradations, as either/or, black or white, Giantess or Bimbo? So one might assume.
Wurtzel was a talent, not a genius, and her personal belongings may have sentimental value to friends, but were not going to generate a lot of interest by, or cash from, a big auction.
What is missing from this entire piece is any hint as to why things ended up as they did. If there truly was no will, then either her soon-to-be ex-husband or mother would have been the administrator of her estate. Apparently, they felt differently about how to dispose of her things and went the route of having the type of auction that took place. Rather than pointing out these obvious facts, Sicha seems to be trying to milk her supposed friendship with Wurtzel for a buzzy column.
I never read any of her books, but I heard of her. She was pretty and dissolute and, post death, has received an extra heaping of pathos. Maybe as time goes by, she'll be recognized the voice of her generation, and this will become part of the legend. F. Scott Fitzgerald's books were out of print at the time of his death. Now he's a bigger deal than Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis, or Faulkner, so who's got the Nobel now.....Horseman, pass by.
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