Word: gossipeer
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History proceeds in gossip and fractals. Fractals are the mysterious and apparently irrational forms proposed by the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, who says that reality has shapes undreamed of by Euclid and surprises that ridicule the idea of order. The shape of a mountain is not a cone. Clouds, coastlines, tree branches, commodity prices, word frequencies, turbulence in fluids, stars in the sky, reputations, fame, the passage of history itself (think about the past ten months) -- all these are fractal shapes...
According to Oscar Wilde, who had plenty of reason to think so, all history is gossip. By that definition, Liz Smith is one of America's premier historians. From Palm Beach, Fla., to Santa Barbara, Calif., via her syndicated column and New York City television show, she catalogs the follies and the triumphs of the famous, able in the wink of a cliche to make careers and unwrap reputations. Some folks can't wait to lap up her latest morsels; others think she ought to have her typewriter confiscated. "She has the power to get people to pay attention," says...
...Arriving in New York City in 1949, she learned her trade at Modern Screen, Newsweek and SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and by working in radio and TV. When she was offered a column in the Daily News in 1976, Smith says, "I didn't want to do it. I thought a gossip column was passe." But she couldn't resist the money -- or the forum...
...column, which consists of sweet-'n'-sour snacks served up drive-through quick, hit a public nerve that still tingles. The Trump divorce, she says, is typical of why people love gossip. "It is a faux scandal. You don't have to grapple with it morally. It's the kind of story that takes the public's mind off its own problems...
Cozying up with sources is par for the gossip course, and Smith has her own techniques. "My effort is to turn everybody I know into a legman for me," she says. Reporters at newspapers, magazines and the three networks, she claims, often leak snippets to her. Agents of all kinds drop nuggets, as do friends, parties and openings. Public relations people are "mostly so inept that you should just forget it totally." Though, in truth, Liz has been known to run their press releases verbatim, as well as to promote shamelessly her favorite restaurants, charities and plays...