What do you think of New Yorker editor Harold Ross’s calling Joseph Mitchell’s profiles: “highlife-lowlife” pieces?

I agree very much so with New York editor Harold Ross’s calling Joseph Mitchell’s profiles “highlife-lowlife” pieces. Joseph Mitchell would make his way around the city dapperly dressed in designer attire. He looked higher up in social class yet he never wanted to interview anyone that looked this way. Harold Ross writes, “The only people he didn’t care to listen to; were society woman, industrial leaders, distinguished authors, ministers, explorers, moving picture actors, and any actress under the age of thirty-five.” Mitchell was only interested in interviewing lower class, “low-life” types that had fascinating stories, whether he was elaborating them or not.

Joe Gould is a perfect example of a “low-life” profile done by a “high-life” Joseph Mitchell. Gould is an oddball and while seemingly he may seem to be of a higher stature it is merely a facade. Truly Joe Gould relied heavily on the support and charity of others. Possibly this is why he spent so long and filled over one hundred spiral notebooks with an “oral-history” and events in his life that were never even true. Gould having writers block was constantly writing and rewriting this. Mitchell spending much of his time writing about Gould was outraged when he found out that it was a lie and revealed Joe Gould’s “secret”, that this history was false. After writing this Mitchell had writers blocks and never really published anything for the rest of his life. The irony in this is that both Joe and Joe fabricated fascinating stories and could not collect their thoughts in their last pieces of work. Perhaps Mitchell’s reason for having writers block at the end of his life was because he was disturbed by how much of himself he saw in Gould.