It Was Only a Matter of Time: The Aleksey Vayner Book Pitch
You know, in all the stuff we’ve written about Aleksey Vayner, we’ve never actually used the word “douchebag.” Well, we’re getting pretty close to using that term right now. Only we’re not talking about Aleksey.
Daro Mott and Marcelino Pantoja (Yale ‘06, above) sent the book query below to the Wiliam Morris mega-agency. G’head, read it, we’ll wait.
From: “Mott, Daro” [redacted]
To: “Suzanne Gluck” [redacted]
CC: “Marcelino Pantoja” [redacted]
Re: Query: Aleksey Vayner, a MemoirOctober 25, 2006
Suzanne Gluck
William Morris Agency
1325 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10019Dear Ms. Suzanne Gluck:
We would like to preface our query letter with a short paragraph about ourselves. My name is Daro Mott and I graduated from Yale University in May of 2006; I currently live and work in Louisville, Kentucky. My co-author’s name is Marcelino Pantoja; he lives and works in Tracy, California and he also graduated from Yale this previous spring. We are budding writers and intend to produce a memoir regarding our puzzling friend, Aleksey Vayner, whom we met as undergraduates at Yale.
In our book, we reveal the most intriguing and entertaining Ivy League persona of today: Aleksey Vayner.
The story of Aleksey Vayner is both sensational and seemingly apocryphal. On the one hand, Aleksey and his family, penniless, emigrated from Uzbekistan to the United States; at eighteen, he gained admission to Yale University as a tennis recruit. On the other hand, Aleksey Vayner sexed up his accomplishments one time too many: recently, he single handedly became the laughing stock on Wall Street after sending an eleven page résumé and
promotional video to UBS AG, the world’s largest asset wealth manager.On October 9, 2006, the New York Sun went to press on Aleksey. Within the span of a week, the Wall Street Journal, the Dow Jones News Wire, Fox News, US News and World Report, London Times, Daily Mail, Forbes, the Yale Daily News, Market Watch, the New Yorker and dozens of other national and international media ran articles on Aleksey. The New York Times, the Today Show and other media picked up the story the following week. Following suit, Aleksey Vayner was featured on Inside Edition and MSNBC early this week. Blogs can’t get enough. Yale students scream Vaynergate. Public interest is skyrocketing! Why?
Aleksey lifts 495 lbs of steel, clocks a tennis serve at 140mph, whirls around a ballroom dance floor with a gorgeous dancer, shatters six bricks with a karate chop, pulls off fantastic stunts with skis-he choreographs all this information and more in his promotional video. Moreover, Aleksey boasts of being the CEO of Vayner Capital Management, a partner in a mega real-estate development firm, a professional athlete and the founder of Youth Empowerment Strategies (YES), a non-profit. He even claims to have self-published a book on the Holocaust from the perspective of female survivors! Aleksey has chutzpah!
But Wall Street erupted with laughter. And they have not stopped. Aleksey is being bombarded with requests for interviews. The calls have not stopped. Wall Street circulated Aleksey’s video and résumé because, Aleksey, whether we like it or not, is simply entertaining.
In the light of this, his cadre of friends proposes to write a book about Aleksey situated in Yale University where we first met him. As his closest friends and recent graduates of Yale, we have personal access to him; in other words, we are self-anointed experts of Aleksey.
In his memoir, we detail the reality that is Aleksey with a flavor made possible from having tasted the “inside scoop.” We raise interesting issues and get down to bottom of life at Yale with Aleksey Vayner. We will answer soul searching questions: Who is he? What does he want out of this gift of life? What is folklore, what is reality? Did the allure of Wall Street make a zany guy even zanier? Is he a typical Ivy Leaguer? Is Aleksey Vayner legitimate or is he an imposter? We know the truth.
We look forward to speaking with you.
Respectfully Submitted,
Daro Mott
Marcelino Pantoja
Choo choo! All aboard! The Aleksey Vayner gravy train is leaving the station! Good to know that even during these tough times, Aleksey’s “closest friends” are standing by him … ready to cash in on his fame.
Seriously, though — most intriguing Ivy League persona? The New York Sun as catalyst? “What is folklore, what is reality?” Sign us up, you “budding writers,” for the “flavor made possible from having tasted the ‘inside scoop’” on your “puzzling,” “zany” friend.
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October 27th, 2006 at 4:11 am
further evidence that the ivy has degenerated into crass popularism. how did these two uncultured boors get in i don’t know
October 27th, 2006 at 5:45 am
Idot Yalies, these guys make Aleksey look legit. Almost.
October 27th, 2006 at 7:21 am
This book is destined to be a best seller. Look at the quality of writing. Feed me more of the Aleksey “scoops.”
Oh, and Suzanne Gluck is a woman of obvious probity. Apparently, Ms. Gluck, the literary agent, is a graduate of Brown. Think she wants to slander Daro and Marcelino because the’re graduates of Yale and she went to Brown?
October 27th, 2006 at 7:34 am
ick. jesus, yale, why not slow down on the fedexing yourself to hell in a handbasket. then again harvard seems to be catching up with them on the plagiarism front.
October 27th, 2006 at 7:50 am
I don’t get the last blogger. Nothing about the letter is plagiarized. What’s the deal?
October 27th, 2006 at 8:12 am
Aleksey Vayner Not Only Enterprising Douchebag From Yale
We’re not sure how to view the latest Aleksey Vayner dispatch from the kids at IvyGate. On the one hand,…
October 27th, 2006 at 8:37 am
The previous blogger’s reference to plagarism is related to another recent scandal - google ‘Harvard plagarism’ and you’ll see.
Also, how rolled up is Marcelino? 2 is company, 3 is a crowd, dude.
October 27th, 2006 at 11:41 am
From the first word to the book reaching shelves, we’re looking at 18 months of editing, revising galley proofs, and promotion. That’s way too long for any internet fad to be remembered, Savekaryn.org be damned.
Anyone who cares about the Aleksey story has already been following it, and with Aleksey’s silence there’s nothing new to learn. A book with gossippy hype by “self-anointed experts” would hit the discount book section with a dull thud, like Steven Glass’s “The Fabulist” and Jayson Blair’s alleged memoir did. It’ll be a waste of pulp and ink for everyone involved.
Oh, and rhetorical questions in query letters? Common amateur mistake. These don’t peak anyone’s interest. Finding out what is folklore and what is reality is hardly soul-searching. Legit or imposter - is that even worth asking? What does he want out of life - yeah, who freakin’ cares?
October 27th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
the funniest thing is that I knew Marcelino at school and he bragged about a 1060 on his SATs and basically failed out of Yale so he had to take time off. I would doubt very much that he got it together to write a memoir. Also isn’t a memoir something someone writes about themselves? And if someone else writes it isn’t it called a biography?
October 27th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
1060? Geez, that’s barely above average.
October 27th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
Nate, I think you meant to use “pique” instead of “peak.” Is that another common amateur mistake? Good luck with your query letters…
October 27th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
Brian, stop being a dick.
October 27th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
1060!? That’s not even three complete revolutions.
October 27th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
Tahnks, Brain, aisle cend ewe uh cop-e ove mai booke wen eit goats pooblished. Teh tittel iz, “Knitpicking fur Dushebagz.”
October 27th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
1060? obviously
1. athletic scholarship
2. affirmative
3. both
Meritocracy at its best.
October 27th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
I have to come back to this later. My sides are splitting, so I must stitch up! LMFAO
October 27th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOO @ Nate. too funny.
October 27th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
There genuinely seems to be a dumbing down in the standards of the Yale elite. Perhaps is now the perfect time to seek a scholarship there! I’m more interested in Aleksey Vayner’s perception of the Uzbek/Kazakh crisis as so eloquently portrayed by Borat of Kazakhstan in London last week. Perhaps Aleksey can bullshit Uzbekistan’s way out of the current dimplomatic standoff.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movies/10/27/becky.borat/
October 27th, 2006 at 4:27 pm
Obviously diplomatic not dimplomatic before some Yaleite attempts a cheap shot.
October 27th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
That query letter is well written. All these posts are made by wealthy, white, jealous, prejudiced persons. End of story.
Good luck with the Aleksey Vayner Memoir. I can’t wait to read it!
October 28th, 2006 at 12:13 am
I would hire these two young men sight unseen.
October 28th, 2006 at 12:33 am
Marcelino was not a recruited athlete — he walked on the crew team.
October 28th, 2006 at 3:00 am
Honestly, if they can’t even speak correct English, how are they going to write a book?
October 28th, 2006 at 10:10 am
Are all Ivy Leaguers prejudiced towards black and brown people? If they wrote that letter, they have a stronger command of english than I do. And I’m from India.
October 28th, 2006 at 11:39 am
Ivygate, I don’t think this is going over to well. Stop insulting brown and black people on account of their being black and brown.
October 28th, 2006 at 11:44 am
Classics of Douchebag Street.
October 28th, 2006 at 11:58 am
Let me guess. The 1060 SAT came out of the black guy, right? I’m not being racist, I’m just saying that when you admit someone with a 1060 to Yale, chances are he’s gonna flunk.
October 28th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Is Ivygate encouraging racism? Let me see, two minorities and an Uzbekistan are poked fun of for your enjoyment. Ivygate, are you racist?
October 28th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
I fail to see the racsim. Had Aleksey been black, the PC brigade would have been quick to dismiss those who poked fun as being racist. The issue at hand is that Aleksey Vayner is obviously an idiot, and his ‘two friends’ are muppets who can hardly contain themselves in their attempt to profiteer in the downfall of their ‘friend’.
October 28th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
Think hard on this one. If the brown and black guy had been blond and white, nobody would have mentioned any SAT score. I’m white, poor and I go to Upenn. BTW, I got an 1100 on my SAT and I’m proud of it.
October 28th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Aleksey is my great Uzbeki hero. Hail the white man!
October 28th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
Don’t really see the reason for the big fuzz. The video seems like something every other American could create; selv centered, lack of essens, packed with buzz words. What is the big deal? Is it the fact that he is an immigrant?
October 28th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
He is not an immigrant, he is the son of immigrants. Like many millions of his american compatriots. So being an immigrant is the reason for the ‘big fuzz’. Have you seen the video? It is hilarious to put it mildly. We’re all just trying to get as much banter off if as possible, its too funny…a film should be made on the life of Aleksey Vayner, aka Sir Cornelius the Great of Humperdink-upon-Benchpress
October 29th, 2006 at 2:37 am
I wonder what would happen if Aleksey met his ark enemy Borat in the U.S and A..I am not sure it would be so easy for him to ignore this looser!!
October 29th, 2006 at 11:04 am
wow everybody from yale is a retard. i’m seeing a legacy here: bush, vayner, then these two bright kids
October 29th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
pretty sure there are douchebags everywhere you go, and yale is no exception. Only difference is he has used film as his choice of letting all the douchebaggedness out and now everyone has a chance to laugh at it. Let’s not forget the reason he is such a big deal. No one really cares that he is an immigrant. They care that he makes up elaborate stories.
October 30th, 2006 at 2:13 am
“While Vayner keeps his silence?!”
Check this out appearing Fridays on newsstands Yalewide
http://www.yaleherald.com/article.php?Article=4977
October 30th, 2006 at 7:55 pm
As a former Yale professor I can honestly tell you that these three dimwits typify your average Yale student. It was no great suprise to me when I first saw that Vayner was a Yalie. Nor am I suprised by the behavior of these two gentlemen. Coddled, overindulged, and enamored by their own perceived superiority. I have brighter students black, brown, and otherwise at NYU.
October 30th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
As a current Yale student, I can tell you that these three dimwits do not typify your average Yalie. Your average Yalie can’t lift above 300 let alone above 100, and he can’t write as well as the “black and the brown.” But he isn’t “Coddled, overindulged, and enamored by their own perceived superiority.” And unlike you, “Professor James,” the average Yale student is not a racist. I believe your racist views are a better fit for a fascist site like stormfront.org than they are for an Ivy League blog.
October 31st, 2006 at 1:08 am
first of all, yale has one of the lowest acceptance rates in the nation, far lower than NYU, ( where the air headed olsen twins went/go ). There is absolutely no comparing NYU to Yale. Any contention that NYU atudents are brighter than thos at yale harvard or princeton, the nations three finest institutions, is absurd.
October 31st, 2006 at 9:32 am
cause prof james really is obviously a racist from that last post. i get it now. when somebody attacks something a yalie does wrong they shout out rraaaaaaaaaaacccccccccciiiiiiiisttttttttttt!!!!!!
must have learned it from the law school you intellectual midget
October 31st, 2006 at 10:24 am
I love it!
And he [Professor James] can’t write as well as the’black and brown.’
October 31st, 2006 at 6:03 pm
All right prissy useless plutocratic fascist naziesque orwellian roveianlly infanticidal yanks to feed on. You read like satan, talk like satan smell like satan, it must be America. Do you like talking trash? You ivy league brats are raised on an argument between fascists that want to kill us all fast and fascists that want to kill us moderately slower. You are so far gone you don’t even care that it was American plutocrats sponsorship of adolf hitler and 400,000 storm troopers to topple Germany. If I was an American I would want to erase America’s role in the WW II. You were not any hero. It has gone past the point of necessity, past the point of sport, past the point of deviancy to now where the goal of the American individual is to be so freakishly deviant that no one could believe the satanic corporate behavior. When confronted you yanks claim insult and take great offense but behind closed doors you love being evil. Check out kenneth r thomsons resume. Now go find some unpopulated area of the sandbox to go continue to play cannibalizing Americans and leave the planet alone you cowards. Your economic theology is infanticidal and you’re proud kings and corporate royalty, and totally conscienceless sadistic self medicating sociopaths. I have some predigested peanuts set aside for you specially picked at the peak of ripeness. You are the proud parents of a propaganda ho, a $ 1 Trillion dollar market capitalization tool for murderous fascists, and convinced the whole world to invest in your mouthpiece to battle communism.
October 31st, 2006 at 6:47 pm
What was christianarchisti smoking?
Happy Halloween Ivygate!
October 31st, 2006 at 10:04 pm
Ironically, genericivyleaguer precisely exemplifies the qualities of “coddled, overindulged, and enamored by their own perceived superiority” in his/her self-serving, knee-jerk defence of the same old bastions of privilege. This inability to “keep it real” and to self-critique is what Vayner takes to the extreme. As a prof who has taught in the Ivies and elsewhere, I can also attest that students are not necessarily brighter at places like Yale, where Dubya-type kids are not at all atypical. Yet tragically, many Ivy students remain firmly convinced that they are the anointed and thus intrinsically better than non-Ivy kids. While Vayner’s over-the-top egotism has been put on public display, he merely holds a mirror up to the arrogance and self-entitlement that pervade Ivy campuses, often rendering students there much less teachable than their equally bright, ambitious counterparts at “lesser” schools.
November 1st, 2006 at 11:11 pm
The substance’s name is Po Chi and it is almost all indica. A good guess on your part. To bad that the 75% of Americans that prefer to legalize medicinal marg can`t visit here more often. I need to smoke a fatty before I smoke a fatty, being yàll. I knew you were lame but that`s your best come back. I presume you just basically agree with me, right on. Now do us all the favor and take your infanticidal philosophies on economics, liberal professors and intellect and behave like the lemmings you love to emulate. You do know what lemmings do don`t you. They hold hands in groups of tens of thousands and all go and jump off a cliff in unison. It really is a gruesome sight. Wow you ivy leaguers are seriously pathetic. I surf the net looking for sites loaded with satanic little yanks and sit down in the middle and throw the crap at you all. Just like your plutocratic fathers who paid friends of mine $ 2000 to shit on a plate and eat it in front of the guests. The price for a mug of piss is $ 1000. Did you know behind the closed doors in red light districts one of your fathers regularly paid a female friend of mine to sew the end of his phallus shut with a needle and thread as a turn on. Come on satan I`m waiting dilligently for the snappy comeback.
November 1st, 2006 at 11:20 pm
Let me clarify your delusions about my friends eating the fudge, wrong. It’s a plutocratic delicacy.
November 1st, 2006 at 11:26 pm
You little fella’s are watching as I write. Why did it take you so long to allow my previous comment to be published, huh? I never swore at anyone. It seems as though you had to think for a while before putting up my comments. Thanks for allowing me to talk trash here. It must be strange watching someone else re read and re write their comments before submission.
November 1st, 2006 at 11:28 pm
Don’t feel like lonesome voyeurs. Revel in the knowledge that your intelligence agencies have me wired for sound and video, above my toilet, bed and shower.
November 2nd, 2006 at 5:54 pm
Christianarchristy the queen of communist sadism, the master of anti-capitalistism rebellion and the pig among the left. How narrowminded, xenephobic and downright anti-american your comments are. The irony stinks of Castro’s ailing urine discharges, the mockery slaps of irrationality the argument communist through and through. Next time you islamofascist, euro-pussy, no doubt anti-semitic piece of euro-trash attempts to riddle this blog with socialist nonsense, recall that you are still OWNED. Thats right, my dreadlocked, leftist extremist friend…corporate america owns you. You can spend your lazy, unemployed MayDay’s amongst your freakish fraternity; smashing up the local McDonalds, rioting along the boulevards of Paris and London, but please, feel content in the knowledge that your twisted ideology is not really accepted. You fail to explain what country you come from, perhaps not surprisingly…that might make retaliation too easy. Please by all means, bow to the royalty of corporate america, concede defeat to the views of economic rightousness and power, or else take your petty grievences to some socialist hellhole where some crankpots might just take you in. Hardly surprisng that this hippy is all cracked up on dope, it seemingly has the unique power to become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Loser Christiana, I know life is tough and your penis maybe small, but at least seek solace in the fact that there are treatments available to solve your problem, unfortunately I dont know of too many health professionals still willing to trade on a bartering system, but if not i’m sure you can don your submissive side, sell yourself and you might just get the help you need. I really hope the computer you used is not a product of American capitalism, likewise the software and countless other products…surely incompatibble with your beliefs..or else you’re just a hypocritical numbskull with a pensis so far up your ass that its penetrating your forehead. And no, I’m not American.
November 3rd, 2006 at 10:18 am
That’s right lefty, I’m Irish - European, sick of the twisted anti-american bullshit that seems to be prevailing throughout the continent.
November 3rd, 2006 at 10:22 am
further i note your spelling - American spelling - of offence as ‘offense’,you sure you’re not american?
November 10th, 2006 at 2:33 am
“Sexed up his accomplishments” — not exactly the most professional language to use in a business letter…