I am fresh from a visit to the New York Observer web site. No, this was no random visit. You see, I read that The Observer has begun to reprint and post the old original Sex and the City columns by Candace Bushnell. Being an obsessive SATC fan, (yes, even now - all these years after it ended), I decided I wanted to go back and read the archives from which the TV show I love was started.
I have one thing to say...WHAT THE FUCK???
This is the clever, witty, topical, funny writing that was so inspirational? This is CRAP. It's unreadable. What intelligent New Yorker read this column in the mid-nineties and thought this was groundbreaking? If anything, it proves that Darren Starr and Michael Patrick King are magnificent bastards! Darren for finding any usable material in the drivel that Candace turned out and King for writing what Candace didn't: a brilliant commentary on women, men, relationships and shoes.
I was actually giving Candace a second chance. I'd first discovered that she couldn't write when I read her follow-up to Sex and the City, called Four Blondes. My first reaction was: this woman scribbled some notes on a bar napkin, her publisher let an intern edit it and they put it on the market knowing it would sell millions based solely on the success of the HBO series unjustifiably credited to the same author. The book was horrible.
Now this woman has sold ANOTHER book to TV? Yes, Candace's book Lipstick Jungle is going to be a television series starring Brooke Shields. Although, I can't help but note that it's been pushed back yet again and is, at best, now a mid-season replacement.
Sad as it is to admit, part of the reason I wanted to be a writer was because of Carrie Bradshaw and SATC. I have a variety of other authors who inspire me as well but Carrie inspired me to write a column and keep it real. Deep down inside I know that Carrie Bradshaw is based on Candace Bushnell. Despite this fatal flaw in her character, I still love Carrie.
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