why i will no longer read Pitchfork

Is there really anything more satisfying than watching someone who has clearly put a lot of time into something, who has situated their opinion in an historical discourse, who rolls it out on a red carpet, only to be see that they have merely dressed up a piece of shit and tried to present it as Something Important?

This happens fairly often, of course. I feel like aged professors sometimes get so wrapped up in thinking about something like ethics and a democratic society (for example), they inevitably produce this kind of boring platitude, already drenched in its self-important redundance.

This is also how I feel about any new Bruce Springsteen album. Unlike the Rolling Stones, who (at least I hope) know they are turning out garbage, or Neil Young, who is actually crazy, or Paul McCartney, from whom no one expects anything, Bruce Springsteen genuinely thinks he still has it in him. And because his music engages a broader cultural range than most pop music, and does so with a painful earnestness, he certainly can appear to be saying Something Important to a great many people. This is where Rolling Stone magazine comes in. As the completely sold-out bastion of the 1960s completely sold-out legacy (and legacy of selling out), Rolling Stone EXISTS in order to see Bruce Springsteen as a relevant figure. Their relevancy is tied together. There is a whole circuit of bogus cultural affirmation that serves as a mass circle jerk to this mainstream BoBo cultural that (I predict) will completely baffle everyone in thirty years, when the idea of Bruce Springsteen in 2006 will seem as ridiculous as it actually is. That is to say, as the importance of the moment Rolling Stone represents becomes settled into a timeline of our understanding, the unnaturally-prolonged life of post-sell-out masturbation will firstly lose all of the lustre it has assigned itself, and secondly, be forgotten about altoghether.

Today, I announce that Pitchfork has BECOME Rolling Stone, is no longer distinguishable from it, and therefore has obliterated itself. From falling over itself to praise the new Bob Dylan album (long a Rolling Stone trademark), the "greatest songs of the 1960s" list, which I won't even go into here, Pitchfork has issued enough definitive proofs that it IS what it has always wanted to be: Important. In the same way that Rolling Stone is Important. And in fact, by becoming hardly distinguishable.

Now, when I was a sophomore in college, I declared War on indie rock. I stopped listening to Fugazi, Sleater-Kinney, whatever, because I do not feel that punk exists on some kind of spectrum with those artists, with the same fans, etc. In this, I think Pitchfork and I are in agreement. Punk has nothing to do with it. Ditto, DIY. If ex-hardcore kids want to sound like the Human League, so be it. But it has nothing to do with me.
(By the way, this spectrum which I refute has earned the MOST EMBARRASSING name in Texas, and perhaps elsewhere: "scene." People actually refer to themselves or their scene AS "scene." Like "all those scene kids with white belts." !!!!! Mortifying!)

Now, I feel bad for people who thought that indie rock "meant" Something, and who have had to see it dragged through the mud and finally abolished in a quagmire of shame. You can't win 'em all. But I imagine these people feel massive resentment towards Pitchfork in its Time Magazine-like dedication to Sleater-Kinney, its obliviousness to hardcore, its embrace of Techno, its willful irrelevance, its reviews which completely ignore the music in favor of a Statement, its celebration of "Hey Ya", and therefore (here's the point of all this) ceasing to be the infuriating, clueless, pretentious, musings of indie-rockers too boring to "get" hipsterism right, and becoming like the Kennedys, like Wynton Marsalis, like Ken Burns: spokespersons for an Americanism so bland and so outside of my universe, it isn't even fun to deride anymore.

best movies i saw this summer

The Apartment- Jack Lemmon, Shirley Maclaine
selling points: Shirley Maclaine is really cute, Fred Macmurray captures the creepiness of the 1950s perfectly
notable: whack gender politics
The Last Movie- Dennis Hopper
selling points: hilarious, meta, audience-baffling
notable: Talyatastic soundtrack, indecipherable plot
Time Regained- Catherine Deneuve
selling points: I cried. Marcel perfectly cast
notable: why film only the final book of a series?
Sword of the Beast- japanese people
selling points: looking for gold
notable: "What connection do I have with you? Why kill me?" "We ARE connected...because I'll see you in HELL!"
Army of Shadows- french people
selling points: Correggio-esque cinematography, every actor from every other French film of this era/style
notable: bizarrely brutal; great score
Manhattan- Woody Allen, Muriel Hemingway
selling point: Diane Keaton's intense perm
notable: rooting for Woody Allen to get with a 17-year-old
Hidden Blade- different japanese people
selling points: sequel to "Twilight Samurai," intensely thoughtful genre entry
notable: last scene almost exactly like the end of the Keira Knightley "Pride & Prejudice"
Clans of Intrigue- Di Long, Betty Bei Di
selling point: treacherous hermaphrodite japanese monks
notable: tearing off your own hand to use as a projectile weapon (YES)
L'Eclisse- Monica Vitti, Alain Delon
La Notte- Monica Vitti, Jeanne Moureau, Marcello Mastroianni
selling points: two of the best final scenes in cinema, Monica Vitti is a babe
notable: the strange shuffle-board scene in "la notte" rivals the mime-tennis scene in "blow up" in terms of "Best Imaginary Game in an Antonioni Movie"

"minor parker"-- brief thread

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "LET'S CELEBRATE! DO YOU HAVE ANY PICKLES?" - "monika" (bergman)

two books i finished yesterday: Proust and Signs (deleuze), This Side of Paradise (Fitzgerald).

Deleuze-- uh, considering how revelatory Proust is on almost every page, this kind of took all the "fun" out of it. overall, boring, not insightful, and almost a mockery of good literary criticism. on the other hand, deleuze is a smart dude, there aren't any missteps here, just a miscarriage of tone. the Rene Girard discussions of Proust are far superior.

Fitzgerald-- ugh, fuck this book. total "first novel" syndrome to the 10th degree. i don't even really want to talk about it. worst part is his attempt at characterization for the 8 or so minor characters... why bother?

the new paris hilton song

Am I the only person who wanted the Paris Hilton song to be AWESOME? And not awesome in a Beyonce way, but awesome, like have HG:Fact-style art, the O RLY? bird, guest appearances by Dave Navarro, Paris rapping, etc. I mean, what is the point of her recording this Blondie-lite pop-ska song? There's no way it is going to be a big hit, what with the new Beyonce, Outkast, Gnarls Barkley, etc. And I'm not into "production" or "producers," but at least I know that is what sells records. Granted, this is better than Hillary Duff, but Kelly Clarkson shits all over this, so it is just this boring, forgettable song that Gwen Stefani probably turned down.

Next song:
-- guitar solos
-- part of the video should be in night vision
-- she should rap
-- lyrics should be about saving the rainforest but also include innuendos about sexual positions
-- whatever style it is in, should be described as "emotional funk metal"
-- should be so unbelievably bad that her label will drop her, but it will be a huge hit on the internet

further: why isn't Jada Pinkett-Smith's rap-metal band taking off? it is the high concept of the century!

social circkle

OK, today I saw Social Circkle at ABC No Rio and I was really into it. Here's why:

-- 10 minute set
-- obviously playing below their collective talent level
-- no "fashion" (you could almost remove the quotes)
-- no mosh parts (and this coming from Boston!)
-- no premature crappy 7"s (I'm looking at you, Splitting Headache)
-- their fans were friendly and cute
-- totally DIY
-- playing a timeless style, which at the same time is totally unexplored by US bands since the 80s
-- obviously care about what they were doing, but were not "professional" or fake-careless

So, I'm into their songs, and their style, etc. But what I'm REALLY INTO is how they are running the band. No bullshit, no cellos, no Jade Tree, no splits with Agathocles, nothing to remind you it's 2006, no "unique" vocals, no myspace, no "rock" guitar parts, no substituting band shirts for real influences; their whole deal seems thoughtful, if not explicitly a manifesto, and I wish more bands would be as right-on as Social Circkle.

Part II:
See below post, see above (about Social Circkle)-- your life is a manifesto of how you think life should be lived. There are people with more talent, more creativity, etc., than I-- and there are people less privileged than I-- but all things being equal, without (always or necessarily) a value judgment, the way I live my life is not some accidental series of whatever-strikes-my-fancy, but is pretty much a principled existence. Of course, what life ends up being is a combination of principles, circumstances, abilities, "choices," etc., but I would like to make clear that for the most part, my behavior is not some random series of actions that could have gone the other way.

Easy example: I don't do drugs. I think drugs are bad.

Intermediate example: I don't go to Misshapes parties, I prefer movies. While I would like to meet cute girls as much as the next person, and, having long ago made a conscious decision that I am not "above" fun (a character trait I despise as woefully Brontëan), I certainly find hipsterism and vapid socializing ultimately unfulfilling. And I would prefer to share a cultural interest with someone, instead of a mutual love of dance kitsch. If someone went to such things, and even had a good time, I wouldn't judge them. But if someone partied nonstop and didn't have time for seeing classic or interesting movies, I would probably think that person was a bore.

Other examples: I don't vote for Democrats, I don't eat meat, I am DIY, I am not a Christian, I write lengthy reviews of punk records, etc. I think Democrats are bad news, meat is murder, DIY or die, Christians are self-delusional, I think punk is worth thinking about at length. This doesn't carry over into all aspects of life, but in all of the above examples, I do not feel like I could meet someone half-way. The way I act is how I feel about it-- if I thought eating meat was sort of OK, I would do it sometimes. If I thought Democrats were sort of OK, I'd vote for them sometimes. I don't. These are maybe too-political examples, but I dunno-- It's hard to give examples of daily life without getting into tedious minutiae, and moreover, I think I've made my point. Anyways, I don't want to seem like the most dogmatic person in the world, but I would like to set this in stone: wherever possible, when not trying to get ahead, or get laid, (and even then), I would like to say of my actions, that is how I think things should be done.

The joke is on me, of course, because no one takes my example seriously. But then, the joke is not on me, because (allowing for self-rationalization and excuses), I run my life in a way I respect, and not as some random free-for-all. So, believe it or not, however fucked up you think I am, for the most part, that is how I want to be and have gone to a lot of trouble to be.

(two emendations: 1) this ought to include the obvious necessity of personal growth, dialectical maturation, etc, and therefore *must* include a good number of mistakes, errors. 2) this comes across as weirdly "moralistic" when basically I just think a lot of stuff is "lame" and not "wrong" per se.)

-- People who "don't care about music" listen to shitty music. I guess that seems like an obvious point, but since the inverse could just as easily be true, it actually doesn't make sense. Have you ever met someone who "doesn't care about finding out about music," who is not a record-collector, who doesn't seek out new artists, who listens to "just whatever it is I enjoy," who listens to like, Neil Young, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix-- that is, completely well-known and accessible artists? --or, you know, just listen to classic music? Instead, the opposite is nearly always true, that people who "just listen to whatever" listen to music I've never heard of, which is terrible, disposable, and constantly changing.

My point is not (only) to insult people who listen to mp3 blogs, movie soundtrack albums, re-mixes, covers, or the radio, or buy CDs at Starbucks--- although as I have said, these people's "whatever" attitude actually seems to involve MORE effort at listening to WORSE music than if you just bought the top 20 albums on that Rolling Stone list--- it is that there is no such thing as a "neutral" or "whatever" attitude, really. Someone who "doesn't read" is 10x more likely to pick up a not-acclaimed, anonymous mass-market mystery, than to read a famous novel like The Grapes of Wrath. Someone who claims to hold some position outside of taste is actually an enemy of taste, and not just an innocent bystander.

Two things: how does someone arrive at a "whatever" attitude, in a culture which is inundated with reviews, lists, music videos, Barnes and Noble Classics, the Criterion Collection, employee picks, and THE INTERNET?, and secondly, what is the "message" of this position? My contention would be that it is a secondary position-- that of being defeated by or of rejecting this culture of taste/the canon/the new. This is why no one who supposedly "doesn't care" about music doesn't simply stumble upon having really good taste, by accident and by the massive availability of good music. You've got to really want it, to be into total crap. And someone who has this neutral attitude is not AS likely to stumble onto something great as to something banal and mainstream. The mainstream AT LEAST serves a regulatory function-- it is still where some aspects of culture occur. But the mainstream is actually fairly risqué, and stumbles forward unwittingly. I have no *real* beef with mainstream culture, which has given us The Simpsons, among other things. What I would like to see destroyed is the attitude that masquerades as indifference to culture (even mainstream culture), while at the same time despising culture, erecting of taste an Idol that will condescend to them, that they may hate it and plan its destruction.

the "real" ignorant hit of the summer

Miss Talya Cooper has advanced the position that the two upcoming football movies "Gridiron Gang" and "Invicible" (starring The Rock and Marky Mark, né Walhberg, respectively) are actually the movies people should be sending phone-exhortations to, and internetting about, instead of "Snakes on a Plane."

Let's look at the last unbelievably-good summer movie, the first "Pirates of the Caribbean," by all accounts should have been a disaster, as its sequel indeed was, but was totally awesome because no one knew that Johnny Depp was going to steal every scene. But it isn't as though director Gore Verbinski had a handle on the genius of that film, because not only did he water it down with an extra half-hour of Orlando Bloom time, but then showed no understanding of its charm in making the sequel.

Most of the time, when you know you have something good on your hands, you ruin it, usually by overdoing it. This is the case with nearly every minor Simpsons character, most of whom were loveable as occasional one-liners, but nearly all of whom have been milked for entire plot-lines they were incapable of supporting. Which is to say, what is charming is often so only in moderation, and it is no logical jump to say that "Snakes on a Plane" will not be about moderation.

In short, if there is only one thing going for a work, and it is good every time it comes on, you want to keep the audience expectant. Like Grant Hart songs on Husker Du records. Like Tom Sawyer in Huckleberry Finn*. Like Randy Rhodes' solos on Ozzy Osbourne albums. and so forth. actually, I would love to make a longer list about things like this. But for now, let us just say that there is NO FUCKING WAY that "Snakes on a Plane" will keep itself in check, and you can bet your life that it will try to be "extreme" all the time, something that is nearly impossible to do and remain interesting (cf: death metal, Ezra Pound).

"Gridiron Gang" will not be as good as it should be, because it is a highly sincere movie whose star is bascially a con man (which is like being an actor, but not quite the same thing): The Rock. There was a great interview I read, where the interviewer admitted being impressed by the Rock's candour, intelligence, suavity, etc.... and then read a different interview the same month where he had given almost the exact same answers. I would almost prefer to rent "Walking Tall," because that movie was not attempting to disguise that it was a piece of violent trash. "Gridiron Gang" will run into a weird problem about 65 minutes in, when for a split second, you will enter a kind of moral worm-hole in which all you want to happen in the movie is for the Rock to pull some Scorpion King-style shit and rip someone in half, before you snap back into the Bruckheimer lull and realize that you aren't "supposed" to want that. Then, 15 minutes later, the movie will ASK overtly for you to want the Rock to tear some dipshit in half, and then when he does or doesn't, you will be satisfied/disappointed no matter what.

"Invincible" will be awesome. I bet there is a really trashy bar-maid he gets with, and hopefully something to do with the Mob/Vegas/corruption in football.

(* I like other things about Huckleberry Finn, too, but obviously Twain was concerned that people wanted more of Tom Sawyer, and when I read the book when I was 10, I felt that way, too.)

goodfellas

-- So, from time to time, I like to randomly put certain "classics" in their place. I just watched Goodfellas for the second time, which confirmed my opinion from when I saw it in high school. Overrated. It's great. Totally entertaining. Classic lines, great performances, good soundtrack.

But this is where I have to step in to set the record straight. Let's look at some of the accolades this film has received:
"The best mob movie ever"- Roger Ebert
#1 in Total Film's (??) 100 greatest movies ever list
#28 on IMDB's top 250 movies list
Sight & Sound magazine named it the fourth best film of the past 25 years

etc.

To which I would reply: THIS IS A FILM STARRING RAY LIOTTA. It's messy, rambling, and doesn't really end well. It lacks a moral compass, a plot, character development, pacing, relatable themes, etc. So, not only is The Godfather a better movie (it has all of the above in spades), but I think in Goodfellas you can see Scorcese making a great movie at the same time as he is showing why he has made utter crap since then.

Take out the Joe Pesci character, actually, and what have you got? Evidently, Pesci wrote and directed the "You think I'm funny?" scene himself, and the great scene with Martin Scorcese's mother (before they kill the guy in the trunk out in the car) is almost entirely improvised. So, you see how, if you threw, say, Leonardo DiCaprio into this film, maybe it wouldn't be any better or worse than The Aviator or Gangs of New York, which just come across as tiresome, sprawling period pieces with no direction. Actually, as shitty as Gangs of New York is, it at least had some big set piece scenes, whereas Goodfellas is oddly close, zoomed-in, and anonymous. Sure, that's an effect of the paranoia of the character, but give me a break. You remember the dialogue in this movie, not the visuals. And that is a liability. (although i have to give due credit to the long tracking shot into the Copa Cabana with Henny Youngman on stage).

Point being: change a few elements, lose the charm of the first-time-around, and Goodfellas is not very different from Casino. I know everyone loves this movie, and I do too, but let's keep everything in perspective. Flawed classic. Probably would be rank at about 140 on my all-time list.

who wants to see The Brink's Job tomorrow?

-- So, I switched over to the Scott-Moncrieff translation for volume 4 of Proust. I have heard some snobs complain about the title "Cities of the Plain" instead of the literal translation "Sodom and Gomorrah," but I dunno, I think "Cities of the Plain" is a beautiful title. Ironically, the Sturrock translation, while getting the title right, is clunky and hard to read. My french is not great, but I think he tried to stick too closely to the idiosyncracies of french (with redundant demonstrative pronouns, for example), and doesn't render the feel of the English language.
-- Also a beautiful title: a tiny subsection of vol. 4, not even a chapter really, is called The intermittencies of the heart.
-- Uh, so I am not a creative person. In NYC, a lot of people are turning commercial or warehouse space into living space, or starting their own businesses, or making films, or music, or are writers, or are doing their own design label, are freelancers of some sort... and I have a lot of respect for that, but it's not me. I will probably always live in a regular apartment in a regular part of town, I'm not a trailblazer/gentrifier. I am already on a "career path" that is long-established and, while maybe my work *within* academia will be interesting and new, the actual chart of my life looks pretty set right now. Which could be boring, I guess. I don't think I'm a boring person, so I'm not very worried, but you know. The other thing is that a main tenet of my beliefs is DIY, but the problem is that I don't "D" much. Maybe when school calms down, I can put out some records, but basically for the next few years I will be reading and writing constantly, probably not much else. On the other hand, that is what I am interested in-- it is largely a personality thing, since I have never been good at art or music, and can't write fiction or poetry. I guess I'm not complaining; I like what I'm good at, and I've enjoyed reading other people's criticism, but sometimes I wish I was more creative with either my life or my productivity.
-- Bad mood: week 4

talking shit about austin

It's a beautiful day here in New York, reminding me that it is probably over 100 degrees in Austin right now, and also that I probably have been out of Austin long enough to talk shit on it from a proper perspective.

Now, Austinites will say, "It's not fair to compare Austin to NYC." And they are right. It's not fair. But perhaps the most irritating thing about Austin is that it admits this, and then instantly takes it back, because it has such a love affair with itself. Unbelievably obsessed with South by Southwest, Slacker, the University of Texas, the local music scene, Lance Armstrong, residue hippie-ism, and with keeping itself weird, Austin is more of a piece than any place I've ever lived. Leaving aside "the punks" (about whom more later) and probably the members of the Texas legislature, almost every single person I met in Austin was INTO all the above things. Every weekend the city would almost shut down to participate in a UT game, or some Lance Armstrong parade, or some hippie craft-fair bullshit, or the ubiquitous "live music" outdoors.

Seriously, it was like living in a cult, because to me the defining aspect of a cult is a lack of irony. Like, even Catholics can make jokes about themselves. Ditto, Jews. But like any cult, Austin's self-love was so pervasive that talking about "the outside world" always occasioned this weird blend of ignorance and animosity. To hear Austin talk about Dallas or Houston or San Antonio was so completely defensive; as if people living in these other cities were being scammed. To me, any place in the south or midwest trying to call out some other city on being culturally impoverished, backward, etc, is just the pot calling the kettle black. It's like Austin took the very slight "oh hey this place is better than Alabama" kudos it received, ran with it, and then started blocking its ears from then on.

Here's a rundown:
-real art museum? no.
-real airport? no.
-hippies? yes.
-two-years-behind hipsters? yes.
-fairly small and scenester-oriented punk scene? yes.
-a bunch of emos hopelessly involved with keyboards? yes.
-art-house cinema? no.
-literary or academic culture? no.
-bike lanes? no.
-horrible highway and mall traffic? yes.
-unspoken and uncomfortable racial tensions? yes.
-cool bars? no.
-dozens of lame, vaguely themed bars? yes.

The worst part is that there are all of ten cool things to do in town, and these things are all anyone talks about, as if forgetting that after you've lived there for two weeks, you are completely sick of what there is to do.

I dunno, maybe it's hard to get around nyc, everything is expensive, and the people are ridiculous, but people care about their own lives, whereas much of Austin lives vicariously through the city's life as a whole, which being extremely dull, makes it on a whole feel like a fischer price "My First City" instead of an interesting place to live. Also, fuck being laid-back.

friends

i always get bent out of shape thinking about whether my friends like me or not; like, if i have a really horrible time, or one of us is in a bad mood, or if they don't call forever, or someone lets slip a nasty comment... and get started thinking "no one who actually likes me would do/say that."

And I'm not trying to say that the secret reality of things is that everyone likes me. But the secret reality IS that my feelings towards any individual friend (at any given time) is not this constant overflowing of good will. I have problems with every single one of my friends, and some of my best friends, I have more problems with than anyone. Strangers, people in my classes, at shows, etc., have much more uniformly-positive appreciations in my mind than people I am really close to, about whom I may do nothing but bitch. And my friends are jerks to me, and I am horrible to people I really like and oh-isn't-life-too-short for all this... etc.

My parents, who I dearly love (hi mom!), I have more complaints about than some people whom I totally dislike, but (provided they are following this argument) I also in the final reckoning do NOT have a mixed or qualified love for my parents.

Or, say, a girl I like, with whom things are not going well, or not going at all (purely hypothetical, right?)-- well, I still like that person more than anything or anyone else, and would drop everything to see her or give up pretty much anything to have things work out---- and yet, most of my thoughts about this person would be of frustration, carping, etc. But my good opinion of this person is not *at all* reduced by this.

There are some people, duh, that I feel so-so about, but they don't occupy my thoughts. And really the thing with life is that you can't assume a single causality for things like a bad encounter, or even something actually falling apart. We (I) are so caught up in ourselves (myself) that it is easy, even if it is your favorite concept, to forget that things are over-determined, that the way one situates our relationships with other people is as likely to be insufficiently complex, as it is to be completely incorrect or entirely misplaced, because of some factor we never stopped to consider.

favorite current ten songs (mp3 links where available)

Disclose "NJ/FJ"
Dylan "My Back Pages"
Byrds "Why"
Fucked Up "Vivian Girls"
Rolling Stones "Surprise, Surprise"
Sam Cooke "Touch the Hem of His Garment"
The Lovelites "How Can I Tell My Mom & Dad?"
Negative Trend "Meat House"
Birthday Party "Cathy's Kisses"
Carbonas "Inside Out"

YO NEVER BELIEVE ANYTHING BUT AIR CONDITIONING

i tried to write a poem! (i didn't get far)

Clothing for occasions the wearer of which is dead,
who must have been buried naked: his suits are here instead.
I held on to the clothing but I threw away the self--
it folded more conveniently upon these little shelves.