Sasha Frere Jones has a problem...and NY Mag has a problem with how he's going about solving it. The New Yorker music critic's files, photos and memories have been imprisoned by the evil LaCie 1TB, and the bail is a hefty $5K. He explains on his blog:
Several years' worth of photos I took with my Canon PowerShot S400—every photo taken between October 2003 and December 2005—are trapped inside a LaCie 1 TB enclosure that has, like all my other LaCie drives, failed. A very friendly firm called DriveSavers is going to retrieve my photos. It is going to cost $5000. I don't have $5000. I know—fancypants New Yorker writer, what the fuck, etc.
New York Mag drops their two cents in his collection jar:
He offers a "disclaimer":
I know—fancypants New Yorker writer, what the fuck, etc.
Let us fill in the etc. for him! Isn't it a tiny bit unseemly for a writer in such a position of privilege to go hat in hand to his readers? We're especially fond of this note:
(I will not send individual thank you notes but will post an honor roll when we've reached the finish line. Thank you, though, to those who have already pitched in.)
So don't expect personal thanks, but if you're the kind of person who's excited to touch the hem of a New Yorker writer — and be publicly associated with him, right there on his own Web page! — by all means, contribute away.
So, manners aside, does S/FJ have a right to ask his readers for money? Why not, it's on his personal blog, and it's not like he's asking readers to pay his salary. He also adds that if you don't donate, he "will love you all the same." And since we've been hearing a lot about these LaCie's acting up (and with such an expensive fee to fix the problem) - maybe someone can drop a tip as to a good alternative...
Update: S/FJ has now gone on hiatus!
Photo via author photo's flickr.
