Joshua Micah Marshall's bio photo

Joshua Micah Marshall is an indisputedly good writer. His work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The American Prospect and Slate. Of course, where a writer has been published is only the beginning of the story. Newspapers make humiliating mistakes. The New York Times, for example, runs a regular column by Maureen Dowd.

But Marshall keeps it real, self-publishing The Talking Points Memo, a thoughtful rumination on public affairs that is braced by the inclusion of links directly relevant to events of the day.

In fact, he typically exercises such good judgment about the things he writes that it's easy for readers to expect him to be a paragon of perceptiveness and sanity.

Not quite. J-marshall.com prominently features a photo of Marshall himself. There is, of course, no shame in showing yourself off a bit, as long as it's done with a modicum of thought.

But Marshall's photo does not betray a modicum of thought. It betrays an eight-pound brick of thought. It hints at a focus group of five or six J. Micah Marshalls, crammed into a big padded booth at a deli, arguing late into the night about the best shot to use.

J-Marsh #1: We can't use that one! Do we look smart in that one? NO! We're just sitting there!

J-Marsh #2: Sitting there wearing the Princeton sweatshirt.

J-Marsh #1: Enough about the sweatshirt already! Christ, the bio already mentions that we went to Princeton! Let's get an action shot!

J-Marsh #3: An action shot? We're a writer. Do want some sort of motion-blurred shot of us on a playing field, cogitating?

J-Marsh #4: Hey, can one of you guys pass the syrup over here?

J-Marsh #2: Take the damn syrup. Look, I like the one with the Princeton sweatshirt.

J-Marsh #1: Action shot.

J-Marsh #4: Wait, guys. How about this one? You can see the sweatshirt – but not so much it looks like we're showing off. And how about that gesture, huh? You want extreme cogitation? There's your damn action shot. That's burnin' up the page.

J-Marsh #5: My god, he's right. Boys, we've got our glamshot.

But sadly, they screwed up. While cogitation is clearly happening, the photo is not even slightly discreet about the writer's academic background. In fact, it's the precise visual equivalent of the following infamous exchange:

Person 1: So, where did you go to school?

Person 2 [coyly]: Oh, in Boston.

Person 1: Really? What school?

Person 2: Oh, you know. Harvard.

Person 1: ...

Shirt aside, perceptive J-Marsh fans might ask: Is the finger thing an accident? Of course not. In fact, it's a little awkward to contemplate how many versions of this photo were probably produced to generate this exact conjunction of head-tilt, pursed lips and weird, writerly gesture.

In fact, the name of the file itself suggests an exhaustive photo-selection process. "DESKLOOK.JPG" whispers at the existence of a secret directory stuffed full of similar images. One can easily imagine J-Marsh leaning forward over his laptop, his fashionably-ensconced eyes scanning down a list of a dozen possible choices:

DESKLOOK.JPG
DEEPTHOUGHT.JPG
IWENTTOPRINCETON.JPG
IWENTTOPRINCETON2.JPG
IWENTTOPRINCETON3.JPG
PENCILSHARPEN.JPG
STERNLOOK.JPG
WHIMSICAL!.JPG
YALESUCKS.JPG

Did he choose well?

If you ask the hoi-polloi, maybe. The ultimate barometer of the public's affections — Hot or Not? — gives Mr. Marshall's agonizingly staged glamshot a respectable 8.3 on the hot-o-meter. The Greeks only gave him a 6.3, but, hey — we all know about Greece, right? So, the general public's reaction is "favorable," to say the least.

But J-Marsh is presumably reaching out for a more sophisticated crowd than the Fritos-eating hockey fans that clog Hot or Not's virtual dive bar. And by plucking out the most elaborately staged shot imaginable, he inadvertently created an image of himself that will lead to intelligent young people flinging snowballs at his head wherever he goes, in the fond hopes of breaking his glasses.

J-Marsh, we love you — but it's time for a new photo. Show us something real. Show us something fresh. Show us something naked, if you have to. But whatever you do, break down the artifice, tap into your inner self and show us the beauty within.

— James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)