By Maryann Yin on Galley Cat, May 6, 2011
Minnesota House majority leader Matt Dean has issued a halfhearted apology to fantasy author Neil Gaiman for calling him a “pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota.”Earlier this week, Dean criticized Minnesota’s House Legacy Funding Division for paying Gaiman to appear at a speaking engagement.
Dean told Minnesota Public Radio: “[My mom] was very angry this morning and always taught me to not be a name caller. And I shouldn’t have done it, and I apologize.” Dean still insisted that the author should have “donated his time” to the patrons of the Stillwater Library.
Gaiman responded in a blog post: “He’s apologised for calling me names, he says, because his mother made him. (He doesn’t seem to have apologised for calling me a thief.) He also says that, as a rich person, I should also do some charity work, which sort of dropped my jaw. At this point, I’m just glad his mother (of whom, I must say, I am now a fan) didn’t bring him round to my house with a hand on his collar and make him apologise in front of my whole family, while clearing her throat and giving him meaningful glances the whole time.”
Dean told Minnesota Public Radio: “[My mom] was very angry this morning and always taught me to not be a name caller. And I shouldn’t have done it, and I apologize.” Dean still insisted that the author should have “donated his time” to the patrons of the Stillwater Library.
Gaiman responded in a blog post: “He’s apologised for calling me names, he says, because his mother made him. (He doesn’t seem to have apologised for calling me a thief.) He also says that, as a rich person, I should also do some charity work, which sort of dropped my jaw. At this point, I’m just glad his mother (of whom, I must say, I am now a fan) didn’t bring him round to my house with a hand on his collar and make him apologise in front of my whole family, while clearing her throat and giving him meaningful glances the whole time.”
1 comment:
I am always intrigued by why, in a society where everyone else expects to get paid for the labour they expend to earn their daily bread, writers and artists are, by some curious inverse law, expected to donate time they could otherwise spend working on projects that might earn them income. But consequently not surprised,to the extent that writers (and from my observation to a lesser extent artists) cravenly give in to this unreasonable expectation, that they are thereby an impoverished class. I applaud Messr Gaiman for sticking to his guns and continuing to operate as a businessman, which he legitimately is, and not a charity.
Post a Comment