That Person We All Know

Today's Gawker Underminer (a column written in the voice of the friend whose brilliance always makes you feel like topping yourself) hones in on the literary overachiever. Specifically, the poetry overachiever, but it works for every genre. Read it and guffaw. Then go back to staring at your inbox and reminding yourself you're not 23 anymore and vowing to read David bloody Foster Wallace and generally asking soul-destroying questions of yourself.

Enjoy!

PS I couldn't find an image of a New Yorker rejection slip to go with this post, but look what I did find, via cartoonist Royston Robertson's blog: Who remembers the brilliantly vile comic Oink (see here for a history and here for some online issues)? My mother used to buy it for me every Friday, along with the Beano and Bunty. This was when I was seven or eight. One day, after I'd read every issue for about a year, she actually looked through an issue and never bought it for me again.
update: turns out they just stopped publishing it in 1988. That was why the issues stopped coming. Sorry, mum...