Yesterday, New Yorker pop-science wunderkind Jonah Lehrer (already wobbly from a “self-plagiarism” scandal earlier this summer) finally resigned when he was totally nailed on the fact that his best-selling book, Imagine: How Creativity Works, was filled with slightly too perfect, and thus totally fabricated, quotes from America’s most beloved singer/icon/mumbler, Bob Dylan. And while part of us thinks that an overactive imagination is pretty apt given his chosen subject, it was what is typically known in journalistic ethics circles as “a dipshit move.”
But we can definitely sympathize with the desire to bend occasionally inarticulate rock stars’ words juuuuust so until they fit whatever subject we are trying to comment on. After all, if a rock star said it, it must be sexy/true. And while that sort of thing might get you canned from an apex of respectability like The New Yorker, we’ve got a little more leeway. (We hope?)
So let’s try it out on a variety of hot topics…