NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ENDOWED UPDATE: Bestselling author and NEA-welfare cheat Jonathan Franzen has contacted the
New York Post in an attempt to spin his way out of using a taxpayer-funded $20,000 hand-out from the National Endowment for the Arts to buy neat-o stuff for himself rather than funding his latest writing project. The Post reports:
Jonathan Franzen's NEA fiasco continues to unfold. First, we reported that the best-selling author of "The Corrections" had stunned impoverished scribes everywhere by spending his $20,000 tax-funded fellowship on sculpture. Now Franzen tells PAGE SIX that he's reconsidered. "I had hoped to use my . . . fellowship to support artists whose work I admire," he writes us. "I've since discovered that, under the terms of the program, this is not possible. The award money from the NEA will be used for its intended purpose - research for the new novel I'm working on." Franzen says he'll still be buying 20 grand worth of art but "with personal funds."
What Franzen doesn't explain is why an affluent author requires one cent of taxpayers' money to write. Is a pencil and paper that expensive?
