From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V17 #107 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Tuesday, April 7 2009 Volume 17 : Number 107 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: all Joss, all the time [vivien lyon ] Re: all Joss, all the time [kevin studyvin ] Re: all Joss, all the time [Carrie Galbraith ] Re: all Joss, all the time [kevin studyvin ] Re: all Joss, all the time [2fs ] Re: all Joss, all the time [Rex ] Re: the weekend concert wrap up [lep ] Re: all Joss, all the time [lep ] Re: all Joss, all the time [Jeremy Osner ] Re: all Joss, all the time [2fs ] "This is not Pitchfork" [Jeremy Osner ] Cybele [Jill Brand ] Re:Joss etc [James Dignan ] Re: Cybele [vivien lyon ] Re:names [James Dignan ] Re: all Joss, all the time [Terrence Marks ] Hitchcock in Nashville tonight: the day in previews [Miles Goosens ] Re: all Joss, all the time [lep ] Re: "This is not Pitchfork" [kevin studyvin ] Re: Cybele [kevin studyvin ] Re: all Joss, all the time [lep ] Re: Joss etc [kevin studyvin ] Re: "This is not Pitchfork" [2fs ] Re: all Joss, all the time [kevin studyvin ] Re: "This is not Pitchfork" [kevin studyvin ] Re: Joss etc [vivien lyon ] Re: "This is not Pitchfork" [kevin studyvin ] Re: "This is not Pitchfork" [2fs ] Re: "This is not Pitchfork" [kevin studyvin ] Re: "This is not Pitchfork" ["Stewart C. Russell" ] Re: Cybele [Rex ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 11:44:25 -0700 From: vivien lyon Subject: Re: all Joss, all the time On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 11:39 AM, kevin studyvin wrote: > > > My dad was born in Birmingham, AL and named Sherrill, a name I never, ever > heard anybody use. > My dad was born in Hollywood, but raised in Birmingham! I love Birmingham! My grandad's name was Woodrow and my grandmother's name was Ruby. Such sweet names. Ruby's making a come-back as a name for little girls and puppies, I've noticed. My other grandma is Tula, and she's the only Tula I've ever heard of. Her husband was named Plummer. My mom dated a guy named Pryor in college (before meeting my dad... ironic, no?). Oh, Southern names. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 11:45:01 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: all Joss, all the time > And for strange names, I need go no further than my family: > Grandfather: Holly Prentiss > Uncles: Zadoc Casey and Forrest > Great Grandfather: Summers Enoch Arden Leach (named after the > Tennyson poem which was published the year he was born) > Great Grandmother: Euphenia Minerva > and on it goes... > Read the above and got a terrible giggle-fit remembering an ad campaign in some ancient National Lampoon dedicated to wiping out Neuristic Euphemia. (Which was a tad subtler than the campaign against Terminal Flatulence, or TF, with ads featuring among others a photo of a demolished bathroom and another showing a sad-eyed kid captioned "Little Julio will have to sleep on the fire escape again tonight.") ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 11:53:59 -0700 From: Carrie Galbraith Subject: Re: all Joss, all the time On Apr 6, 2009, at 11:45 AM, kevin studyvin wrote: > And for strange names, I need go no further than my family: > Grandfather: Holly Prentiss > Uncles: Zadoc Casey and Forrest > Great Grandfather: Summers Enoch Arden Leach (named after the > Tennyson poem which was published the year he was born) > Great Grandmother: Euphenia Minerva > and on it goes... > > Read the above and got a terrible giggle-fit remembering an ad > campaign in some ancient National Lampoon dedicated to wiping out > Neuristic Euphemia. (Which was a tad subtler than the campaign > against Terminal Flatulence, or TF, with ads featuring among others > a photo of a demolished bathroom and another showing a sad-eyed kid > captioned "Little Julio will have to sleep on the fire escape again > tonight.") Oh god, I'm laughing remembering "Negligent Mother Magazine" and the ads for the "all-day diaper suit!" Nat Lamp and the Firesign Theater kinda made the 70s worthwhile. - - c "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. " - - Thomas Jefferson ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 12:11:32 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: all Joss, all the time On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 11:53 AM, Carrie Galbraith wrote: > On Apr 6, 2009, at 11:45 AM, kevin studyvin wrote: > > > And for strange names, I need go no further than my family: > > Grandfather: Holly Prentiss > > Uncles: Zadoc Casey and Forrest > > Great Grandfather: Summers Enoch Arden Leach (named after the > > Tennyson poem which was published the year he was born) > > Great Grandmother: Euphenia Minerva > > and on it goes... > > > > Read the above and got a terrible giggle-fit remembering an ad > > campaign in some ancient National Lampoon dedicated to wiping out > > Neuristic Euphemia. (Which was a tad subtler than the campaign > > against Terminal Flatulence, or TF, with ads featuring among others > > a photo of a demolished bathroom and another showing a sad-eyed kid > > captioned "Little Julio will have to sleep on the fire escape again > > tonight.") > > > Oh god, I'm laughing remembering "Negligent Mother Magazine" and the > ads for the "all-day diaper suit!" > Nat Lamp and the Firesign Theater kinda made the 70s worthwhile. > - c > One reason I was so grateful for the rise of The Daily Show was the degree to which they've captured the vibe of the Lampoon in its heyday (though I do miss Beth Littleford). In re: Firesign Theatre, you might be interested in the recently released Box Of Danger, which includes pretty much every Nick Danger bit they've ever waxed on four CDs. It's a ton of laffs. (Perhaps unfortunately the box also serves to underscore the way Phil Austin's relationship to the FT resembles Neil Young's relationship to Buffalo Springfield.) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 14:47:25 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: all Joss, all the time On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 1:44 PM, vivien lyon wrote: > On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 11:39 AM, kevin studyvin > wrote: > > > > > > > My dad was born in Birmingham, AL and named Sherrill, a name I never, > ever > > heard anybody use. > > > > My dad was born in Hollywood, but raised in Birmingham! I love Birmingham! > My grandad's name was Woodrow and my grandmother's name was Ruby. Such > sweet names. Ruby's making a come-back as a name for little girls and > puppies, I've noticed. My other grandma is Tula, and she's the only Tula > I've ever heard of. Her husband was named Plummer. My mom dated a guy named > Pryor in college (before meeting my dad... ironic, no?). Oh, Southern > names. I have a niece named Lillian Ruby. Her brother is Maxwell Magnus. Her cousins are, in one family, Finley Miles and Kyra Virginia, and in another, Reid Morrison and Devin Norman. If I remember correctly, Finley, Virginia, Morrison, and of course Norman are all names used in our families, while Lillian's initials pay tribute to her grandfather, my dad, Lyle Redin, who's never ever called that (he's "Chuck" from a childhood nickname). - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 13:26:19 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: all Joss, all the time On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 12:11 PM, kevin studyvin wrote: > > One reason I was so grateful for the rise of The Daily Show was the degree > to which they've captured the vibe of the Lampoon in its heyday (though I > do > miss Beth Littleford). With you on that one. It can be hard to explain the "original" Daily Show to those who have only seen the current version. Both are great, for different reasons, but I useta live for "Godstuff", "Out at the Movies", the video reviews... - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 16:40:26 -0400 From: lep Subject: Re: the weekend concert wrap up Marc says: > Sunday (evening show)--Leonard Cohen kicked numerous asses tonight. His > voice was super gravelly, but he was hitting all the notes. It was pretty > much a greatest hits show with almost no weaker material tossed in. Leonard > was not only sang well, but played a decent amount of guitar, joked, told > stories, danced, and skipped on and off stage. Not bad for a 75 year old, > and his three hour plus set topped Springsteen by almost half an hour. If > you were debating on whether it would be worth dropping a hundred bucks or > more to see someone old enough to be Robyn's dad, go for it. You'll probably > be glad that you did. (rating--9.5 out of 10) i love it when someone turns out to be as cool as i suspected them of being. xo - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 16:55:29 -0400 From: lep Subject: Re: all Joss, all the time 2fs says: > Here's an article from a local online thingy about _Dollhouse_: <* > http://tinyurl.com/dces86>* i mostly disagree with that. i'm too lazy to detail why, but most telling is the author's branding of topher as a misogynist. he's not a misogynist; he's an *asshole*. and not just an asshole - he's evil. not in the big, self-aware way, but a very common way - it never seems to occur to him that the work he does is wrong, because he's so busy impressing himself by doing it. at any rate, i think it's irresponsible to throw the word "misogyny" around instead of bothering to learn the difference between hating women, and hating everyone. xo p.s. also, that's the second time i've read about one of the doll's being there "voluntarily." the first time, i had to actually figure out WTF the author meant. in what way is caroline there voluntarily? technically, you can argue that she is, but only in the same way that someone can be said to make a voluntary decision when there's a gun to their head. - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 17:01:06 -0400 From: Jeremy Osner Subject: Re: all Joss, all the time lep thinks, > it's irresponsible to throw the word "misogyny" > around instead of bothering to learn the difference between hating > women, and hating everyone. But, but "misogynist" is a proper subset of "asshole", isn't it? J If we do not say all words, however absurd, we will never say the essential words. -- Josi Saramago http://www.readin.com/blog/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 16:02:59 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: all Joss, all the time On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 3:55 PM, lep wrote: > 2fs says: > > Here's an article from a local online thingy about _Dollhouse_: <* > > http://tinyurl.com/dces86>* > > i mostly disagree with that. > > i'm too lazy to detail why, but most telling is the author's branding > of topher as a misogynist. he's not a misogynist; he's an *asshole*. > and not just an asshole - he's evil. not in the big, self-aware way, > but a very common way - it never seems to occur to him that the work > he does is wrong You mean like the members of Styx? - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 18:03:07 -0400 From: Jeremy Osner Subject: "This is not Pitchfork" What a great thing: Michele Catalano has decided to "relive" her entire record collection, out in public where we can watch: http://thisisnotpitchfork.com/?page_id=2# J If we do not say all words, however absurd, we will never say the essential words. -- Josi Saramago http://www.readin.com/blog/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 18:04:31 -0400 (EDT) From: Jill Brand Subject: Cybele My son (20) has a friend named Cybele and, yes, the stress is on the second syllable. She goes to Stanford now, so watch out. Jill, still hacking away ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 10:19:52 +1200 From: James Dignan Subject: Re:Joss etc > > And after he named a character "Xander" after truncating Alexander??? > > Duh! > > I mean just noticing... > >And this all from a dude who's legal name is Joseph, but Joss/Joseph >isn't anywhere as bad as Jeph/Joseph pioneered by Comics/TV writer >Jeph Loeb. I'd assumed that was a "trendy" (i.e., prattish) spelling of Jeff. and Xander to me still sounds like a full name, not a shortened form of anything. >It's an old british thing. I had a friend who was the seventh generation >Christopher (imaginative, huh?) and his dad was Topher. There have been Jameses in each generation of my family for at least 150 years. Still, beign known by a diminutive form (in my case Jamie, to distinguish from my Granddad Jim, unkle Jay etc), is far less depressing than being James Dignan V or whatever. (no offence inteded to JH3) James - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 15:22:47 -0700 From: vivien lyon Subject: Re: Cybele The Cybele I know is going to be a force to be reckoned with. Hell, I'm already scared of her. On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 3:04 PM, Jill Brand wrote: > My son (20) has a friend named Cybele and, yes, the stress is on the second > syllable. She goes to Stanford now, so watch out. > > Jill, still hacking away ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 10:23:53 +1200 From: James Dignan Subject: Re:names >My dad was born in Birmingham, AL and named Sherrill, a name I never, ever >heard anybody use. FWIW, i have nieces called Kesi and Onawa - both real names (one southern african, one amerind - the parentsd are of scottish and german descent0. James (habing trouble typing with a cat on my lap) - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 15:27:42 -0700 From: Terrence Marks Subject: Re: all Joss, all the time > Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 09:48:48 -0500 > On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 9:44 AM, vivien lyon wrote: > >> If you guys want to have a weird kids name showdown, I'm ready. My best >> friend's kids are named Hazel and Sorrel (Hazel's a boy), Sorrel's best >> friend is Cybele (pronounced somewhat like "Sybil," but with the accent on >> the last syllable), Hazel's best friend's name is Xander. My 13-year-old >> buddy next door is named Rowan. I also know an Ember and a Viridian. >> > > Isn't "Hazel" a boy's name in the south? > > Are the folks who named "Cybele" fans of Stereolab? Or Warren Zevon's folk-pop duo? Terrence ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 17:36:55 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Hitchcock in Nashville tonight: the day in previews Bobby Bare Jr. opens at 9 PM CDT, Hitchcock & Venus 3 (not "Nashville Crawdads" as of yet, thank goodness) onstage at 9:45, sez the Exit/In's site. Nashville Scene story: http://tinyurl.com/ccgfoz Sorta nothin' Tennessean item, but has Robyn been called a "Psychedelic Statesman" before? http://tinyurl.com/dfwwve Still goin' to the show by myself, but I'll get by. later, Miles - -- now with blogspot retsin! http://readingpronunciation.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2009 19:04:51 -0400 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: all Joss, all the time 2fs wrote: > > Isn't "Hazel" a boy's name in the south? The late Mr Adkins was Hasil, but it was (apparently) pronounced as in Street. Or the parents could just be huge Steinbeck fans. Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 19:59:56 -0400 From: lep Subject: Re: all Joss, all the time Jeremy says: > lep thinks, >> it's irresponsible to throw the word "misogyny" >> around instead of bothering to learn the difference between hating >> women, and hating everyone. > > But, but "misogynist" is a proper subset of "asshole", isn't it? it is, but that's exactly the problem. in english, when you call someone a misogynist, it (generally) means they have a particular dislike of women. so if they're a misanthropist as well, the subset label ends up being misleading (although technically it's not inaccurate.) i think this has to do with the connotation versus the denotation. xo - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 17:09:34 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: "This is not Pitchfork" This kind of thing is what makes the internet the greatest thing since Hunter S. Thompson. On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 3:03 PM, Jeremy Osner wrote: > What a great thing: Michele Catalano has decided to "relive" her > entire record collection, out in public where we can watch: > http://thisisnotpitchfork.com/?page_id=2# > J > > If we do not say all words, however absurd, we will never say the > essential words. -- Josi Saramago > http://www.readin.com/blog/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 17:13:46 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: Cybele Now I recollect why that sounds familiar - Warren Zevon's original folk duo was called Lyme & Cybele, somewhere back around 19 and 70. On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 3:22 PM, vivien lyon wrote: > The Cybele I know is going to be a force to be reckoned with. Hell, I'm > already scared of her. > > On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 3:04 PM, Jill Brand wrote: > > > My son (20) has a friend named Cybele and, yes, the stress is on the > second > > syllable. She goes to Stanford now, so watch out. > > > > Jill, still hacking away ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 20:16:59 -0400 From: lep Subject: Re: all Joss, all the time 2fs says > On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 3:55 PM, lep wrote: >> >> 2fs says: >> > Here's an article from a local online thingy about _Dollhouse_: <* >> > http://tinyurl.com/dces86>* >> >> i mostly disagree with that. >> >> i'm too lazy to detail why, but most telling is the author's branding >> of topher as a misogynist. he's not a misogynist; he's an *asshole*. >> and not just an asshole - he's evil. not in the big, self-aware way, >> but a very common way - it never seems to occur to him that the work >> he does is wrong > > You mean like the members of Styx? exactly. well, styx is worse because they're non-fiction. xo - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 17:19:23 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: Joss etc On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 3:19 PM, James Dignan wrote: > > And after he named a character "Xander" after truncating Alexander??? >> > Duh! >> > I mean just noticing... >> >> And this all from a dude who's legal name is Joseph, but Joss/Joseph >> isn't anywhere as bad as Jeph/Joseph pioneered by Comics/TV writer >> Jeph Loeb. >> > > I'd assumed that was a "trendy" (i.e., prattish) spelling of Jeff. and > Xander to me still sounds like a full name, not a shortened form of > anything. > Which keeps causing the irrelevant-reference cortex of my brain to start blinking and informing me that the name Alexander (as in the Great) was originally Al-Iskander, pre-Anglicization. For what little that's worth. And Garrison Keillor's parents named him Gary, which he lengthened because I guess his birth name wasn't pretentious enough. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 19:25:38 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: "This is not Pitchfork" On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 5:03 PM, Jeremy Osner wrote: > What a great thing: Michele Catalano has decided to "relive" her > entire record collection, out in public where we can watch: > http://thisisnotpitchfork.com/?page_id=2# > Love the idea - hate her tone, and her notion that critics (implicitly) only like certain albums ("obscure" ones) because they're trendy (then how can they be obscure?) and don't really have any critical reason for liking certain things but like them only cuz, you know, they got laid while it was playing (and she wimps out on that: "agreed to make out with"?). Such a populist cliche (and the worst kind of populism) - frankly, that sort of "anti-elitism" is political poison posing as cure. (Not The Cure, though - they're probably too Someone *else* want to review their entire music collection? I could barely get through those paragraphs - what, did she have some bad experience when a gang of music critics forced her to make top-ten lists? - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 17:27:32 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: all Joss, all the time > i'm too lazy to detail why, but most telling is the author's branding > of topher as a misogynist. he's not a misogynist; he's an *asshole*. > and not just an asshole - he's evil. not in the big, self-aware way, > but a very common way - it never seems to occur to him that the work > he does is wrong, because he's so busy impressing himself by doing it. Kind of a Hannah Arendt banality-of-evil thing - I'm in synch there. The Dollhouse isn't really about mistreating women as much as it is exploiting human beings. I've been assuming at some point the whole thing will morph into some monstrous critique of late-stage capitalism, but then I would... p.s. also, that's the second time i've read about one of the doll's being there "voluntarily." the first time, i had to actually figure out WTF the author meant. in what way is caroline there voluntarily? technically, you can argue that she is, but only in the same way that someone can be said to make a voluntary decision when there's a gun to their head. As in, a lot of our ancestors "chose" emigration to the colonies as an alternative to being hung as thieves? That's the way I've been reading that. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 17:52:21 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: "This is not Pitchfork" On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 5:25 PM, 2fs wrote: > On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 5:03 PM, Jeremy Osner wrote: > > > What a great thing: Michele Catalano has decided to "relive" her > > entire record collection, out in public where we can watch: > > http://thisisnotpitchfork.com/?page_id=2# > > > > Love the idea - hate her tone, and her notion that critics (implicitly) > only > like certain albums ("obscure" ones) because they're trendy (then how can > they be obscure?) and don't really have any critical reason for liking > certain things but like them only cuz, you know, they got laid while it was > playing (and she wimps out on that: "agreed to make out with"?). Way I read that was, critics only liking something because they get snooty points (bad) as *opposed* to A. Listener liking something because it was playing on the P.A. the time they scored in the freight elevator with the hot buyer's assistant (good). Seems like a totally respectable argument to me. > Such a > populist cliche (and the worst kind of populism) - frankly, that sort of > "anti-elitism" is political poison posing as cure. (Not The Cure, though - > they're probably too The Cure is too, too. Someone *else* want to review their entire music collection? I could barely get through those paragraphs - what, did she have some bad experience when a gang of music critics forced her to make top-ten lists? Seems like that's all that ever goes on around here anyway, sometimes. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 18:18:53 -0700 From: vivien lyon Subject: Re: Joss etc On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 5:19 PM, kevin studyvin wrote: > And Garrison Keillor's parents named him Gary, which he lengthened because > I > guess his birth name wasn't pretentious enough. > That reminds me, my uncle's name is pronounced 'Gary' but it's spelled 'Geary.' Anyone else ever seen this? Also, it reminds me of when Homer Simpson was watching Prairie Home Companion and took to hitting the tv, demanding "Be funnier!" Good times. And finally, it reminds me of the picture I have of myself next to Garrison Keillor, in which I look like one of the wee folk because he's hella huge. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 18:29:02 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: "This is not Pitchfork" Also good: if you follow one of the links it takes you a Flickr posting and a story in which, when she broke up with her boyfriend at age 16, and he tried to kill himself by sitting under a sunlamp for five hours. On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 3:03 PM, Jeremy Osner wrote: > What a great thing: Michele Catalano has decided to "relive" her > entire record collection, out in public where we can watch: > http://thisisnotpitchfork.com/?page_id=2# > J > > If we do not say all words, however absurd, we will never say the > essential words. -- Josi Saramago > http://www.readin.com/blog/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 20:41:03 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: "This is not Pitchfork" On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 7:52 PM, kevin studyvin wrote: > > Way I read that was, critics only liking something because they get snooty > points (bad) as *opposed* to A. Listener liking something because it was > playing on the P.A. the time they scored in the freight elevator with the > hot buyer's assistant (good). Seems like a totally respectable argument to > me. > But she also raises the notion of "honesty" in this context - as if the freight-elevator scorer is "honest" because s/he likes the music associationally, whereas the critic is *dishonest* because he likes something because of "snooty points." If you're going to like music for reasons other than the music, what difference does it make? Our elevator hotshot associates music with a pleasurable moment; our critic associates music with the pleasures to be gotten from being held in high regard by others who (pretend to, it's implied) share his taste. But neither of these straw clowns is actually paying any attention to the music. To carry this a step further: our elevator dude is going to like music that *he thinks* (sorry - I'm genderizing these things because it's pretty strongly implied to begin with, plus easier to write about - so switch around at your discretion) - I was saying, that *he thinks* is going to impress potential elevator makeouts...and the critic is going to like music that *he thinks* will impress others of his kind. So really this is just homosexual panic ;-) Seriously, though: the opposition is pretty damned clear: hotshot dude who scores is cool; egghead geek who's lost in his own head is a loser. And yeah: there's a time-honored critical compensatory mechanism whereby nerdy critic rejects shallow Barbies and Kens before they get the chance to reject him, and that rejection (the one the critic's own has thwarted) is regarded as a sort of emotional fascism of control and conformity (queue the first few Elvis Costello albums, in which this paradigm is laid out with perfect clarity - and as probably everyone here knows, the original title of EC's third album (Armed Forces) *was* "Emotional Fascism"). But staying lost within either of those stereotypical dynamics just seems rather lame - and being *proud* of staying lost therein even more so. Never mind all the laptop psychology: the two things that most bug me about Catalano's critical attitude are the presumption to know what other people *really* think (even though they write and say something else) and, following from that, the inability to believe that others actually, truly hold opinions different from your own. And that sort of resentment seems to be all too similar to the sort of red-state populism we've seen poisoning our li'l republic on the prairie for too long. > > >> Such a >> populist cliche (and the worst kind of populism) - frankly, that sort of >> "anti-elitism" is political poison posing as cure. (Not The Cure, though - >> they're probably too > > > The Cure is too, too. > I'm just trying to overthrow the tyranny of. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 18:52:37 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: "This is not Pitchfork" > But neither of these straw clowns is actually paying any attention to the > music. > "Straw clowns" is another one of those phrases that sounds like it should be a band name. > > (Not The Cure, though - they're probably too > >> >> The Cure is too, too. >> > > I'm just trying to overthrow the tyranny of. > And about time somebody did something about ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:58:37 -0400 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: "This is not Pitchfork" kevin studyvin wrote: > > And about time somebody did something about Yeah, I hate it when. Stewart (sorta between jobs for the next week) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 22:22:05 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: Cybele On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 5:13 PM, kevin studyvin wrote: > Now I recollect why that sounds familiar - Warren Zevon's original folk duo > was called Lyme & Cybele, somewhere back around 19 and 70. > D'oh, of course. As collected on the first Nuggets box... - -Rex ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V17 #107 ********************************