Blind Boy of Alabama
Newsroom agendas, legal agendas, astral agendas.
Gray Parachutes: The chattering classes are abuzz over the horse race to succeed Howell Raines at the New York Times, but EdwardBoyd thinks the devil is in the details, mainly: What severance package is he going to receive from the times as payment for stepping aside and saving Pinch? Roll, Roll, Roll in Ze Hay! Wellmanswellman reminds Fraysters that even though the Times is maligned as the stateside's Pravda, it was during Raines' tenure that the paper "pursued Clinton/Whitewater like those maddened villagers from Young Frankenstein." This prompts zinya to offer her theory that the Times of the Whitewater era was "'overcompensating' with [its] tirade against Clinton and anything else to try to prove their objectivity in exactly the WRONG way." Will the scandal of the Raines administration hinder the New York Times from setting the topical agenda in newsrooms around the nation? According to Zathras, not until papers other than The New York Times lay out the money to hire enough good reporters to go get stories rather than wait for stories to just show up. More from Zathras on the epistemology of agendas here. Meter-o-Meter: Baltimore-aureole rolls out a menu o' meters for Mickey Kaus to install following the comparable success of the Saddam-O-Meter and the more evanescent but graphically endearing Howell Raines-O-Meter. WVMicko follows up by assigning b-a's creation to appropriate Slate personnel. b-a's "osamameter - not what you think. instead of simply counting off the days to his capture, you make it into a kind of 'where's waldo' deal. put up a map of the middle east and use color intensity to show level of probability (by country and city) of his location. bonus aspect: people won't ridicule it as stupid," WV assigns, "to Peter Maass -- since he knows the Baghdad Blogger, he may have an 'in.'" b-a replies if you give maass the 'where's osama' assignment, isn't this likely to end up with a special ops team capturing osama in the hotel room next to maass, who will lament (again) 'perhaps i should have paid more attention to . . .' Star Sightings: How has the first week of stardom been treating EFriedemann? Now crowned with gold, EF has renewed his longstanding legalistic spat over the Federalist Society with Beverly_Mann. The origin of the debate, so far as Fray Editor can find, is here and here. Beverly and EF got into it again this morning – the first time they've engaged in Fraycombat since EF's June 2 star. Beverly's post this morning, in which she apologizes for misidentifying a judge in a previous message, reiterates the purpose of her initial post "to note the slimy game Sen. Arlen Specter, who will be running next year for reelection, was playing with judicial nominees." EF jumps on this and defends the Federalist Society: I joined the Federalist Society a few years ago, because I admire the group's interest in "federalism." Also, unlike liberal legal organizations, the Federalist Society sponsors talks and writings (e.g. the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy annual edition) that look at all sides of subject legal issues. Is the Federalist Society a "right wing think tank" as Beverly maintains, or merely a legal parlor for the consumption of intellectual fodder. You can read EF's point-by-point rebuttal and decide for yourself here …KA4:45 p.m.
Thursday, June 5, 2003
Packed Like Sardines in a Crushed Tin Box: Music Club-goers may be Paranoid Androids but in the Fray they attack like Hunting Bears, and Sasha Frere-Jones better be Bullet Proof…or wish he was. Drew22 finds the forest through the Fake Plastic Trees here, and essentially calls Frere-Jones out as an Airbag:
I do have to say that the sentence, "Their work reeks of that middlebrow embrace of Modernist gestures without any of Modernism's heavy lifting" made me laugh harder than I have in a long time, so thank you for that. Sometimes there's nothing funnier than blissfully unaware self-satire.
So Radiohead is modernist? OK, I can see that, their music certainly represents an attempt to deconstruct or at least fuck around with the form, tenor, and expectations of pop music, while still ostensibly claiming to be 'pop.' …
That to me seems like the biggest problem that certain critics have not just with Radiohead, but with other half-way experimental mid-lifers like Wilco and Beck. Apparently, all this conflict between wanting to explore the fringe but still acknowledging the undeniable, human pull of pop music is anathema for some critics, who don't mind reveling in the esoteric pleasure of the latest Neptunes track, but who blanch at even seeming to enjoy something that Entertainment Weekly or People magazine would (god forbid) consider 'visionary' or 'cutting edge.'
Anyone Can Play Guitar: TheNewSnobbery finds Gerry Marzorati's quote from Tuesday's Music Club exchange to be Idioteque:
here in the States, and not only in the States, Radiohead's reputation resides less with critics than with musicians, musicians of all kinds—classical pianists and composers; jazz players; countless other bands. It's the music, of course, but I don't want to get your blood pressure up again about that.
TNS, a "classically trained practice room piano nerd and pop fanatic" rebuts, "you're indulging in that worst of arguments, the musicologist/critic vs. musician credibility gambit." TNS continues:
Just like actors fall over themselves over a certain kind of acting, writers lose their minds over 'writerly' writers, musicians … are going to like Radiohead in the sense that there are things to deconstruct, there are unusual moves being made and the whole thing generally smacks of chance music, the a-tonal stuff that every professor we've ever had has told us is too cool and difficult for the average person to really understand.
And just so I'm clear, those really are good reasons to like the band. But it also explains your claim that the critics (implied text: trend chasing, navel gazing english/journalism majors who don't know much about serious music) don't like Radiohead as much as those who, you know, walk the musical walk. Composers. Pianists.
