Talk:William Benton (writer)

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Sources

[1] (The New Yorker) may be a good one but I can't access it. Subject may also be known as Bill Benton. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:59, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

?

@Beccaynr, what source calls him an art curator? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:05, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

The Guardian introduces him as "curator William Benton" for his review of selections of art. I was not sure whether it was necessay to link this to the lead - there are also other works listed as related to art, so it seemed like a reasonable way to summarize. Beccaynr (talk) 20:13, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

• Also, this was removed per WP:BLP, but other than the birth year, does not seem contentious:

"Born in 1939 in Houston, Texas, he grew up in a small town on Galveston Bay. He received his early training in music and worked as a jazz piano player before becoming a writer. In the mid-1960s he moved to New York City, where he edited riverrun magazine and press. He is not associated with a specific school of poetry, although Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, as well as the Black Mountain School, influence his work. In 1970 he was hired as assistant dean of Pacific Northwest College of Art (then The Museum Art School) in Portland, Oregon, where he remained as acting dean for three years. He has read and lectured at various universities."

• Gråbergs Gråa Sång, I think it should be restored and tagged as needed. We both appear to be unable to access the two New York articles that indicate biographical coverage. Beccaynr (talk) 20:20, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

  I meant The New Yorker [2], [3] e.g. "Tells about Benton's early life and how he came to write the musical in 1984" Beccaynr (talk) 20:40, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

  I struck part of my comment above; I found a publisher website, but it does not help verify much information. Beccaynr (talk) 00:25, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

  I tend to think of any kind of uncited education/"accomplishment" as failing WP:BLP/WP:PROMO, if no independent WP:RS bother to mention them we shouldn't either. We can try WP:RX on the paywalls. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:52, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, it took my research-addled mind some time to catch up with the reasoning, thank you very much. Beccaynr (talk) 13:45, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

  Oh, and good work on the article. I'm thinking of adding something on the Diebenkorn-story, what do you think? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:00, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you, and your work is great, so please continue. Cheers, Beccaynr (talk) 13:49, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

  I looked for the id.loc.gov btw, but I didn't find it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:39, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

  It was in the authority control box, libraries section, United States - I was checking them all, and surprised to not be finding more on Exhanging Hats, because according to WorldCat, there are 9 editions and it is held by 425 WorldCat member libraries. Cheers again, Beccaynr (talk) 13:55, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

  I'll look there next time. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:02, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

  Also, thank you for adding a citation for your joke - I had totally missed it, although it did help draw my attention to this article, so thank you for that as well. Beccaynr (talk) 14:27, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

  Very obscure text-only joke, thanks for not reporting me for accusing the poet of a crime without a good source. Someone made this template:. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:36, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Suggested sources

Sources suggested at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#exchanging_hats. some may be in the article.

https://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/08/books/art.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/02/books/elegant-gift-books-to-admire-and-even-read.html

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1997/05/15/the-many-arts-of-elizabeth-bishop/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/08/19/easel-2

https://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2011/nov/03/elizabeth-bishop-exchanging-hats-in-pictures

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1996-12-08-9612080176-story.html

https://newcriterion.com/issues/1997/3/not-so-innocent-eyes

https://www.missourireview.com/elizabeth-bishop-and-the-art-of-the-tablecloth/

https://elizabethbishopsociety.org/bulletin/2012-2/tibor-de-nagy-exhibition/

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/01/17/pronoun-trouble/

Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:13, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for posting this, Gråbergs Gråa Sång, and Lafcadio4, this is an example of how to use the Talk page to suggest sources, ask questions, and/or express concerns about the article. Cheers, Beccaynr (talk) 14:15, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you both, Gråbergs Gråa Sång and Beccaynr, for being so helpful. I see also that the William Benton (writer) WP page has been rewritten. I greatly appreciate the attention that you have given it. I don't at all mind the Kirkus and Library Journal comments about MADLY; they're a sewing circle of anonymous readers. But why remove the praise of James Salter, who was a literary giant? Three of the blurbs on the book were written by major figures in American literature, who signed their names to their comments. Each reinforces the view the other. It feel punitive to not include at least one of these. Here they are in full as they appear on the back cover of MADLY

“Love, carnal and fated, fills these pages. You can have it but as if in a proverb of the East, you cannot keep it except in brilliant memory. Beautiful, intense, and utterly absorbing.”

JAMES SALTER

“Very persuasive, disturbing, and written with lovely sentences and small, understated, elegant moments.

ANN BEATTIE

“A deeply engrossing page-turner, driven both by its erotic fascination and stylistic beauty, it is finally and movingly as much about the utopia of poetry as it is about the folly of desire.

PHILLIP LOPATE

(COI) I am william benton (writer) 65.65.159.176 (talk) 17:46, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your question - I had removed the Salter quote as unsourced, but it also seemed possible that it was a blurb from the book cover. From my view, our policies encourage us to be careful to avoid WP:PROMOTION, e.g. All article topics must be verifiable with independent, third-party sources [...] Wikipedia articles about a person, company or organization are not an extension of their website, press releases, or other social media marketing efforts. Also, in the WP:INDEPENDENT explanatory essay, examples of non-independent sources include book jacket copy. From my view, blurbs selected by the publisher are not clearly independent third-party sources. It would be different if the publisher was quoting, e.g. a review or article from The New York Times, because that would be an independent third-party and the original source could be used in the article. With this book cover, the publisher has gathered quotes that do not appear to have otherwise been independently published, in order to promote the book, which seems more like a press release and marketing effort than something we can use to build the article. Beccaynr (talk) 22:17, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Beccaynr is correct. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:40, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Another thing. Thank you for being mindful of the COI-thing (we have a whole article on those who don't, Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia), it is very much appreciated.

But you don't have to mention it in every comment. Here's the "approved" way: Make sure you are logged in to WP when you comment/edit. That way, all your edits are connected to User:Lafcadio4, your chosen WP-name (should you want to change that user-name, see WP:CHU/SIMPLE).

Next, click this link (while logged in): User:Lafcadio4, type something like "I am William Benton (writer)." and then click "publish page". Now that link will turn blue.

That takes care of the "declare your COI." I noticed Beccaynr had a COI-declaration at their own userpage: User:Beccaynr#Conflict_of_Interest. If you're interested in editing WP in general, WP:TUTORIAL is a good start.

Off-topic but you may like these articles: [4] WaPo on WP-bios in general. [5][6], Judith Newman in NYT on that time she decided she should have a WP-article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:27, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Btw, do you have some sort of personal website? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:42, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I won't, of course, question the policy against blurbs. But when a writer of the stature of James Salter writes a blurb, the integrity behind it is far greater than simply a normal Times review, which can often be incestuous. But I understand -- comPLETELY. Just as a footnote that may have some resonance based on your WP name, my old friend Sara Danius would have opposed removing Salter's quote. He was on her short list, but died before that year's Nobel was chosen. No, I don't have a personal website and, as I've said, don't belong to any social media. Alas. Lafcadio4 (talk) 18:21, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I googled the Salter quote and the only hits I got was online bookstores. Of course google is not perfect and varies on location etc. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:25, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Photo

@Lafcadio4, this is in case you want to try to add an image again. Basically, WP, and the sister-site we keep most pics on, Commons, are very careful about copyright (it comes from a desire to stay online). So a picture like you describe here [7] is too problematic in our context.

The easy solution (for me, anyway), is that you upload a previously unpublished selfie with the process that starts here. Or someone standing close to you can take the new pic and then they can use the same process. You can then mention here that it's done and I or someone else can add it to the article.

Yolanda T. Marshall is an article where the subject contributed the image with this method. We have nice pics of recent US presidents because the US gov publish those under an acceptable license.

It is possible for a copyrightholder (usually the photographer) to permit the use of previously published pics, but that involves some bureaucracy, info on that at Commons:Volunteer Response Team Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:45, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Btw, I added you at Richard_Diebenkorn#Art_market, we'll see if it sticks. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:33, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much for thinking of the photo. I'm going to skip that for the time being. However, I would like to suggest one change to the WP page: to remove either the Kirkus or the Library Journal quotation re MADLY, and replace it with this:

Lacy Crawford wrote in Narrative Magazine: “The love affair is doomed because the woman is mad ... The novel is itself a poetic meditation on how desire attempts to shape the world. Its diction and imagery are startling.”

The complete review is referenced on the WP page. This quote gives a much truer picture of the quality of the novel. It's impossible, of course, for the WP Stealth Police to have any knowledge or even any interest in what are only circumstantial events. But, at the same time, they are walking a delicate edge of inferred aesthetic judgement, at least as far as literature is concerned. MADLY was published at a time of great upheaval at Counterpoint Press. It involved a change of ownership and, among other catastrophic things, the publicist left and took a job with another house. My book just happened to coincide with this, but the result was that it missed all of the normal publicity events, and the book didn't get sent to any reviewers. That's why the blurbs -- all from hugely respected writers -- meant so much to me. The reviews on Amazon were also important for that reason. (I only knew 2 of the 8 people who wrote the Amazon reviews -- and a few of those whom I didn't know are well-known critics.) MADLY is not a conventional, plot driven novel, and therefore any keener sense of it is useful to potential readers.

One factual correction for the WP page: the introduction to GODS OF TIN was written solely by me; my daughter, Jessica, is not a writer.

I'd also beg you to take down the silly Diebenkorn story. It is scarcely representative of my personal life. Let's just pretend I don't have one. Thank you again. Lafcadio4 (talk) 19:33, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• With regard to the reviews, I only linked to the Narrative Magazine review because it is not fully accessible and I could not identify material from the brief preview to include. However, it is useful, along with the Kirkus and Library Journal reviews, for supporting the notability for this article per the WP:NAUTHOR guideline, specifically criterion #3, The person has created or played a major role in co-creating a [...] collective body of work. In addition, such work must have been the primary subject of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews.... The inclusion of reliable sources is related to the verifiability policy, e.g. Even if you are sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it and neutral point of view, e.g. which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. Our ability to use self-published sources such as Amazon reviews is limited by the reliable sources guideline to specific circumstances that do not appear to apply here.
• With regard to Gods of Tin, both the book cover depicted and citation at the Publishers Weekly review indicate co-editing and co-authorship of the introduction, so the verifiability policy noted above seems to favor the current content in the article unless we have a reliable source to help clarify what is otherwise based on how the book is presented and cited.
• As to the content about the painting, I would like to see an approximate date of its creation added if the content remains in the article. Due to the sourcing, it may not be a WP:MINORASPECT. However, I do not have full access to the source so it is unclear to me how and whether this section could be further developed if and when full access becomes available, which may help address concerns.

Beccaynr (talk) 21:18, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Recent New Yorker article

I published an article in The New Yorker.com, on February 8, 2023, called "Marcel Proust On What Writing Is."

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/marcel-proust-on-what-writing-is

I tried to add it to my page, but must not have done it correctly, since it doesn't look like the other New Yorker contributions in my list. Thanks for any help. Lafcadio4 (talk) 03:43, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

 Done Beccaynr (talk) 03:48, 3 May 2023 (UTC)