Somebody should write a history of reviewing -- as in book reviews, movie reviews, music reviews, and so on. Who died and made these people King?
I think of it as a 19th-century thing, but somebody correct me if I'm wrong. That's when you get art produced on an industrial scale -- big operas, mass-circulation books and so on -- and an audience largely composed of culturally insecure and thrifty bourgeois unwilling to trust their own judgement or waste money on inferior product. So a corresponding quality-control function arises; it's much the same as meat inspectors in a slaughterhouse, stamping one dismembered haunch 'prime' and the next merely 'choice'.
Comments (57)
A real critic, not least for pointing out a ubiquitous enemy:
Posted by sk | June 30, 2012 5:14 PM
Posted on June 30, 2012 17:14
The problem with critics is that none of them have the shitty taste in craptastic B movies that I do.
Mystery Science Theater!!
Posted by Drunk Pundit | June 30, 2012 5:51 PM
Posted on June 30, 2012 17:51
the us of the northern america have been taught, in a rather, to say the least, sadistic s&m fashion, to worship thugged up and bought "experts" and refute our own gut instincts ... so morbid and depressing I need to have a bit of a twenty four ouncer to blur my rage as a human.
(Was going to take a weekend sabatical, yet couldn't resist, Michael. Can you see fireflys at night? .... I envy you so much in that regard ...along with the tee shirt nights ....it's chilling as fuck in the obscene gut of Cali, $$$$$UZ$$$$$$ ....Day or Night ...... regardless of season ....)
Posted by diane | June 30, 2012 6:42 PM
Posted on June 30, 2012 18:42
What a funny guy -- Godard, I mean. I really had no idea. I like him better than his movies, actually. The earlier clip makes him look uncannily like Dr Strangelove.
Posted by MJS | June 30, 2012 6:46 PM
Posted on June 30, 2012 18:46
There are fireflies in Riverside Park, fifty feet from the horrible West Side Highway. I was amazed the first time I saw them, and I'm still amazed every year when the weather gets warm and they come back.
Posted by MJS | June 30, 2012 6:58 PM
Posted on June 30, 2012 18:58
Dear lawd, Mr. Smith..."critics" are an integral part of industry marketing. They do occasionally slap at something to keep their cred, but primarily, they exist to get memos from big producers and publishers about what product to push, then establish media campaigns that get movies, books and albums moving off the shelves.
To take them as actual "critics" is tantamount to taking the pundits of any major news outlet as serious political analysts. Rather, just like critics of the "Democratic" or "Republican" parties, entertainment critics exist to create an environment in which only certain major products are the ones possible to buy, whether with a vote or a dollar.
What they do very well is ignore things that are actually different, high-quality art, which would risk upsetting the nice balance of soulless crap that dominates the marketplace. Ergo the battle of the summer action blockbusters or the Obama v. Romney election.
And Then Came The Next One.
Posted by High Arka | June 30, 2012 7:09 PM
Posted on June 30, 2012 19:09
The professionalization of reviews has its entertaining aspects. The industry has had to struggle with the blatant silliness of a profession in which receiving payment is, alone and by itself, the essential qualification for residing on a critical perch. The rest of is window dressing and the end result is Michiko Kakutani, which allows me to rest my case without further argument.
Posted by Al Schumann | July 1, 2012 8:55 AM
Posted on July 1, 2012 08:55
If we didn't have critics, who would utter things like, "How could Nixon have won? I dont know anyone who voted for him."
It's a cliche, and true, and bears repeating: Reviewers are people who suck at creating something in the medium they're reviewing. Those who can't, review. And their reviews end up only telling us how they would've made the book, art, movie...if they didnt suck so badly at it.
The term "critic" is to be avoided, though. It only adds gravitas and flatters the reviewer. Flack or consumer reporter will do.
Posted by Chomskyzinn | July 1, 2012 9:38 AM
Posted on July 1, 2012 09:38
of reviewing for ... , of one of my part time jobs ( of having a few part ' .. with my being physically disabled , as i am ) ,.. of one of part .. , was for a book shop . a boy of then twelve was so taken by my verbal reviewing ..that he brought his mother in with him one day so that he could say something of .. in her presence .. that he would be coming back when he had finished all of his schooling and was old enough .. to get down on bended knee to ask for my hand .. ,
Posted by anne shew | July 1, 2012 9:39 AM
Posted on July 1, 2012 09:39
I once almost came to fisticuffs in a bar with a man who called himself the Dean of Rock Criticism, or something like that. He had publicly insulted a friend just a few minutes before. Although how I could take seriously anyone who called himself the Dean of anything....
Posted by Chomskyzinn | July 1, 2012 9:44 AM
Posted on July 1, 2012 09:44
CZ, I agree. His self-titling is self-disqualifying and given this indisputable reality, a critical review of his conduct may, in some circumstances, best be performed with fists. One can lament the lack of general understanding that provides him with shelter from a truly profound critical statement.
Posted by Al Schumann | July 1, 2012 12:41 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 12:41
I'm glad somebody else mentioned Michiko Kakutani, so I didn't have to. She really is the locus classicus, or rather the pestis classicus.
Posted by MJS | July 1, 2012 12:46 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 12:46
The mention is a credit to the Python implementation, which blessedly and fortuitously brings up a potential solution. Thrifty bourgeois publishers may wish to implement a similar solution. All that's necessary is a database stuffed with catch phrases, a text scanning routine and a sub-routine that makes gratuitous use of "limned". Presto! Critical review. Any bugs will lend authenticity and a reasonable facsimile of individual voice.
Posted by Al Schumann | July 1, 2012 12:54 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 12:54
Re critics, as The Who put it rather susinctly: WHOOOO ARE YOUUU?
Posted by Chomskyzinn | July 1, 2012 12:55 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 12:55
Al, reviewing is a field that calls for some outsourcing, pronto. You mean to tell me there's no one in Bangladesh who can comment with reasonable intelligence or insight on a book or DVD? Or at least someone who can, like a good First World scribe, fake it?
Posted by Chomskyzinn | July 1, 2012 12:59 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 12:59
as the king of wet blankets and soiled sheets
what's with this ever increasing
wave of culture speak ?
this site is becoming
a twizzle topped cocktail pick
----------------
alphaville went hollywood bowl cut
decades ago
Posted by op | July 1, 2012 1:30 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 13:30
i'm here to untop the cock tails .. . , finger bowling rinse .. ,
Posted by anne shew | July 1, 2012 1:43 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 13:43
It's the wig powder. They must put something in it. It gets me kinda high.
Posted by MJS | July 1, 2012 1:57 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 13:57
oH, ..that's just what i had thoughts about michael ,your powered wigs ,after i left that tailing comment on op . oddly the thoughts went well with something of my lolling here near my fan listening to pete townshend with an acoustic of mary and acid q, /added mary note - someone once asked me .. if i had decided to have a child and it was a girl what name would i give her, i replied mary .. . just so i could go around saying anne mother of mary
Posted by anne shew | July 1, 2012 2:36 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 14:36
Thanks for the firefly post, Michael, I'm glad for you and glad that they haven't been decimated. Interesting that they don't seem to inhabit states west of the Rocky Mountains, I think it's the aridity.
Bummer, though at least the cockroaches seem to be smaller with the dryness. No less nasty though, as can be witnessed in any honest review of the bipartisan public servants representing Cali (the Dems slobbered over the groper nazi, and the jesuit has appointed a banker as the jawbz czar, among other countless crimes against humanity).
Sorry to be so off topic, but even discussing 'our experts,' particularly those of the Techie Industry (such as Andreeson), puts me in an unbearably foul mood.
Posted by diane | July 1, 2012 4:11 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 16:11
(oh, and a belated apology to Owen, for responding to him as 'op.'
In my thoughts there is something very nefarious in the acronymizing of all beings and subject matter, and far more deadly: powerful murderous 'bills' and 'think tanks.'
With the monstrous takeover of technology, we have refused ourselves time to actually meditate ...and truly measure what we intuit to be our realities. I despise the mean, Ayn Randian gatekeeper (and so afraid of being called a luddite, when actually, it's a compliment as regards being against inhumane industrialization), coded cryptic shit of shortening entire sentences.)
Posted by diane | July 1, 2012 4:32 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 16:32
diane , i'm not at all technical in the ways that most are because of the isolation that my disability creates , on my seeing some of your technical related comments when you began writing here in the week after my landing here with my first comments , as i asked you about and you said that you have been reading on this site for a while but not commenting .. , the questioning that i had wanted to put to you at the time but didn't get to was related to some of the technical comments you made then , / .. of a question for just here of your comment above for now , could you say more of what you mean of - "coded cryptic shit of shortening entire sentences.)" .. . what of software operating systems do you mean ,and of the code writers that control .. ?
Posted by anne shew | July 1, 2012 6:36 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 18:36
Pynchon wrote a tolerable essay on Luddites.
http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_luddite.html
The SMBIVA line on Luddism is we like it.
Posted by Al Schumann | July 1, 2012 7:03 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 19:03
I'll try to put together a response to that in the next tewnty four hours Anne, I want to think on it a bit, and also relieve myself of the puter world a bit.
(and I'm sorry, re a prior comment I made, I thought we coincidentally landed here within 24 hours of one another (which has now clearly become an ugly and deliberately dehumanizing joke, among some). Also, can I ask as to why you added to the "shew" to your first name, as opposed to how you post on IOZ?)
Posted by diane | July 1, 2012 7:15 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 19:15
Thank you so much Al (at least if it's more than a just 'a line' in the negative sense of the phrase), nothing like feeling that you're not alone.
I mean that. I've never been a fan of gratuitous dry snark. Deserved satire, yes. Gratuitous, mean snark, no.
Posted by diane | July 1, 2012 7:22 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 19:22
Diane, where Luddism is concerned, you're among friends at this blog. I posted in support of you.
Posted by Al Schumann | July 1, 2012 7:44 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 19:44
diane , i think that hal 9ooo, has us together in his commenting for his own back of a cab amusement .. ( and i liked that clip to whoever posted it ,of the cab it brought back some memories of an andre and larry ,of friends ), don't worry about that , we are clearly a very different from each other gather of the recent of gathering here ,/ of the shew , a long telling , of the meaning of the word connected , not my name , / i noted the 'puter when you mentioned it before because one of the first things that i said on line about eight years ago was pute pute .. . / if you have looked over at ioz as you suggest , did you see my comments on ayn there a while back ..
Posted by anne shew | July 1, 2012 7:44 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 19:44
and a note on the luddite mention , all of my work is off line , of my drawing and bits of writing that go with , and to where and how .. ,and more .. . / my .. . on line .. is of reading and of some communicating, like this, of trying , to the side of.. as i work here at my desk .. .
Posted by anne shew | July 1, 2012 7:58 PM
Posted on July 1, 2012 19:58
Thanks Al, I appreciate the freindship and support, a great deal.
Anne, can you point out your Ayn post, I don’t recollect it. (I don’t always read the comments there as so many go totally over my head and there seem to be a lot of dry personal attacks there which depress me deeply.)
The ‘mean’ Ayn Randian code I was referring to above was actually the shortening of sentences, examples: IMHO; YMMV; LOL, etcetera (perhaps in the future we can even replace those acronyms with the zeros and ones of coding?). In my subjective opinion that not only created a mean and negligent, coded ‘gate’ between the ‘dull luddites’ and the shining pixel tech savvy, but also created a false sense of urgency - an unconscious undercurrent of fear in giving thought and full expression - a sense that there’s not enough time to take time. Perhaps a fruitless competition with the nanosecond, if that makes sense.
To me, one (of many) hideous aspects of technology, has been the warping of time and devastation of intimate communication. Once there were so many means to store any given communication (voicemails, emails etc.), it gave us the sense that we had more time to respond than we actually did. Then, many started gatekeeping - not answering the phone ...letting emails pile up, etc. – deciding to write people (and what used to be considered the obligations of a mutual caring relationship) off as to which of those now dozens of saved communications they would respond to. It’s no wonder there are large blawgs where hundreds might ask a question of the favored blawger expert/god[ess] and go completely ignored, which strikes me as psychotic and hurtful, negligent. And now the amount of people feeling the need to ask everyone to follow them (even when they don’t give the person the time of day) from their blawg to facebook to twitter etcetera, strikes me as really deranged and narcissistic.
It’s great that so many no longer believe in a big white male Daddy in the sky, but seriously sick that so many now worship the arrogant, narcissistic human techie gawdz who’ve provided them the means to spend all day and night not really communicating, crassly ignoring everyone in their physical vicinity and having their privacy thoroughly violated. It’s bleakly hilarious that those same arrogant narcissistic assholes (Zuckerfuck, etc.) are still white male ‘Daddies in the Cloud, some things never change.
(As to my watercolor comment in the Pettifoggery comment thread, Anne, when you mentioned art, watercolors just came to mind and stayed there.)
Posted by diane | July 3, 2012 3:10 AM
Posted on July 3, 2012 03:10
diane, you're not alone in those feelings about , .. . and i am of some extreme of seeing ,and with born with , and not with .. in that of my physical disability how more abled ,of what that isolation has become in all of this , and of the extremes of feminine that i am , and of the pi of michael's mention last night .., more of a response to you ,on what you have written here ,at the end of my day in a meeting in another part of this walk up , and of the gathering still growing here near the lake ( of this pooling of the lakes place , from tibet and peru , and of where the first of the latest series of occupies really started the spring before last early , and what happened there .. / will be involved in something off line for most of the day here .. / there is more to be said ..of clouds / i'll look back on the ayn and put it here for you in some way ,i'd like to see/hear your response to
Posted by anne shew | July 3, 2012 8:51 AM
Posted on July 3, 2012 08:51
Drunk Pundit sez on 06.30.12 @17:51:
The problem with critics is that none of them have the shitty taste in craptastic B movies that I do.
Mystery Science Theater!!
Boo yah to you, Drunken One. You read my mind. I was about to post a comment here saying that the only film critics I ever trusted were Joel Robinson, Mike Nelson, Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo, and that the only problem was that they limited their critique to movies so bad they were good, and that it was a shame that they didn't shift their aim to supposedly "good" movies, movies which brand-name critics slobbered all over. I've often wished to see the MST3K crew reunite for just one more season and do their versions of, say, A Beautiful Mind, The Accidental Tourist, The Color Purple, Driving Miss Daisy, Adaptations, Forrest Gump, or Sleepless In Seattle. (I spit on the grave of Nora Ephron, now that I know she was responsible for that awful slab of chick treacle)
I've been a "MSTie" ever since way back in the early Comedy Central days, when it was still a kind of weird movie geek underground thing -- yeah, that's right, a Deadhead and a MSTie; how sad is that? -- and I've always loved how they validated and raised to a high art the practice of mocking and heckling movies at the theater.
Thanks to YouTube, archive.org, the Digital Archive Project/MST3K Project and various bootleg download sites, I've reacquainted myself with all those great old stinkbombs I remember from my adolescence via the old Count Gore DeVol Creature Feature (DC local horror host) and all those wonderful MST3K shows.
In the course of all that reacquaintance, I discovered something really interesting -- and that is while anybody can like "good" movies, it takes a special kind of courage to like really, really bad movies. It's not that I don't appreciate the art of a Kurozawa, a Truffaut, a Renoir, a Hitchcock, a Kubrick -- it's just that I've realized it takes real cajones to seek out and enjoy Coleman Francis, Bert I. Gordon, or Ed Wood.
And so, with that, I leave you all with this special gift:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR7CaVhpl6s
Posted by Mike Flugennock | July 3, 2012 12:50 PM
Posted on July 3, 2012 12:50
dr. d. ,is there something of your tips here for today that i should take note of , or are they all meant for others here as they seem ?
Posted by anne shew | July 3, 2012 8:50 PM
Posted on July 3, 2012 20:50
diane , my mind is stuck on something of the in cheese a go go from mike f. link, it may take til morning to get back to the weathering .. .
Posted by anne shew | July 3, 2012 9:40 PM
Posted on July 3, 2012 21:40
diane , for if or when you are able to look back, still swimming in something of the bour bon of owen's post of this morning , with the humid of this poolinglakes (one word ) , of where i am of descended landing .. . kept, of weather . of a gentle occupy here now of this on line i'm hoping that i may ask you a few questions diane , that we may some how talk a little this way of . of your saying that you have been looking in or reading here a little for a while , in that .. do you know or have any ideas of what michael and some of the others here do for a living that relates to their views , of how commenting and posting here ?
Posted by anne shew | July 4, 2012 12:17 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 12:17
Anne, I didn’t ‘visit’ the link you referred to, I generally don’t watch internet videos, for one they take forever to buffer in order to watch them.
I don’t recollect reading about their specific jobs and, to be honest, would feel creepy discussing their personal details in the third person, on their own website. If I understand what Owen wrote today to mean he resides in Florida, state of: chads; the first Anthrax conspiracy murder; and state to first arrest people for feeding the homeless; etcetera,.. he may have good reason to keep the details of his life off the “We Don’t Believe In No Stinkin' Privacy [But Our Own]” tubes.
Posted by diane | July 4, 2012 3:06 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 15:06
anne shrew sez on 07.04.12 @12:17:
...diane , for if or when you are able to look back, still swimming in something of the bour bon of owen's post of this morning , with the humid of this poolinglakes (one word ) , of where i am of descended landing .. . kept, of weather . of a gentle occupy here now of this on line i'm hoping that i may ask you a few questions diane , that we may some how talk a little this way of . of your saying that you have been looking in or reading here a little for a while , in that .. do you know or have any ideas of what michael and some of the others here do for a living that relates to their views , of how commenting and posting here ?
Ouch, my brain exploded.
Posted by Mike Flugennock | July 4, 2012 3:31 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 15:31
diane, i didn't mean details that would be revealing in the way that what you have written suggests, i meant of just quoting something of the comments and posts that they have made here ..
Posted by anne shew | July 4, 2012 4:04 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 16:04
mike f , could you say more on what your not familiar with my ways , of who i am , .. of what that of you is seeing, of your trying to read ?
Posted by anne shew | July 4, 2012 4:20 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 16:20
Anne, I wasn't at all clear on why you didn't just ask them, and therefore it made me feel uncomfortable and pulled into something I've always been taught was extremely rude and hurtful: talking about someone in the third person in their presence when they've done nothing clearly to offend.
You did that with Mike's coment and then you went further and attempted to pull me into discussing Michael and Owen, as if they weren't even reading here. Please don't try to engage me in that anymore, or I'll just simply ignore you. I despise people trying to pull me into ugly manipulations, and that's what I'm feeling from you unfortunately.
Posted by diane | July 4, 2012 4:31 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 16:31
mike f , if you note where diane has started the going off the path .. . of reviewing up in the commenting , and michael responds ,and then i respond to some other comments that she makes , but now with that comment that you are quoting of me , i am addressing something of the weather here ,of where i am , to their comments on their where they are .. of weather . of the humid, with the lakes ,that all that come from all over the globe to live here find noticeable different from where they have come , and don't see it coming at all , the stiller sea of , and the other wording with is a suggest, of how where from of this landing has me now of mire in so many ways with few words kept
Posted by anne shew | July 4, 2012 4:58 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 16:58
diane, you are not understanding me at all , i am an extreme of gentle , and not doing what only your own mind imagines at all.. .
Posted by anne shew | July 4, 2012 5:03 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 17:03
for if i am not able to get back to this post , this blog , i was asking what i was of diane , as , for her to be a go between of communicating here ,in seeing that those here can't hear me at all, or of very little , you are all clearly here somewhere , so your suggest diane .. to my mind of what you imagine me to be doing, or be , is cruel, very , as my mind would never be of what you suggest , i was only looking for some help in finding a voice here , , now signed with out .. .
Posted by anne shew | July 4, 2012 6:33 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 18:33
(Well, I’m going to try to respond once more, without the links I used in quite a few attempts at link filled posts which didn’t pass software muster.)
If you’re that gentle, “anne shew,” why then did you ‘carelessly’ (to my mind) state, what I thought a the time/still think, may have been a deliberate fabrication by you about which of us commented first here; stating: ...when you began writing here in the week after my landing here with my first comments that I started commenting here, a week after you?
To my mind and recollect (though I may be wrong): my first post was a comment at “Fundies,” on June 6th, 2012, at 9:14 PM EDT, and your first post was a comment at “how to succeed in ohbummers amerika,” on June 7th, 2012, at 9: PM EDT, (after which ensued an ugly trail of ‘sock puppetry’ comingling your ‘persona’ with mine).
Posted by diane | July 4, 2012 8:14 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 20:14
(sorry for the typo as regards the time of what I think your first post at this website (on “how to succeed in ohbummers amerika,”) was, “anne shew.” I had intended to write: June 7th, 4:06 PM EDT, ...not that it makes much difference, though did feel the need to clarify.)
Posted by diane | July 4, 2012 8:27 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 20:27
a week after i wrote to talk with owen by mail about owen and i being compared on other blogs , i saw your commenting on the same posts that i had commented on , it means nothing , why you are writing about this now like it means anything , and just after you've made such an awful suggest about me .what are you .. .
Posted by anne shew | July 4, 2012 9:45 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 21:45
you threw the jauntlet out, with your unsolicited timeline (which you've yet to actually verify). Don't whip out your hanky as if I'm the one who made the precise timing distinctions, and then sniff that it doesn't matter, when you're the one who initially and covertly, implied that it did.
Posted by diane | July 4, 2012 10:23 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 22:23
you're not understanding me at all, please stop addressing me
Posted by anne shew | July 4, 2012 10:37 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 22:37
gladly, "anne shew," I'd be very happy with the same lack of response from you towards me.
Posted by diane | July 4, 2012 10:50 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 22:50
this is better than the algebra!
very prescient earlier comment:
http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/06/all_wired_up.html#comment-1328978
Posted by Anonymous | July 4, 2012 10:58 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 22:58
(Adding to, and clarifying, my above comment, I'd be very happy with the same lack of response from you towards me: "anne shew," as I recollect, I never engaged in any direct converstation with you until you started asking me direct questions. Questions which I tryed to respond to in an objective manner; until your queries started seeming manipulative and ugly.)
Posted by diane | July 4, 2012 11:13 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 23:13
the manipulative and ugly is of your own mind , STOP ADDRESSING ME
Posted by anne shew | July 4, 2012 11:27 PM
Posted on July 4, 2012 23:27
If I was wrong regarding my recent comments to a commenter, I am very sincerely sorry for any painful feelings that that person has about it; I just don't honestly believe I was far from wrong there.
On that note, I think I'll depart, at least for a while.
Posted by diane | July 5, 2012 12:44 AM
Posted on July 5, 2012 00:44
the next morning , of in this they need to say ,of their add on - " .. I just don't honestly believe I was far from wrong there. " .. clearly not " sincerely sorry " , .. and of the "painful feelings " what is the word .. of projecting not light, of .. but this need to continue in their believing with some thing more of their own mind ,and not seeing . what i see and feel is of this someone else's need to misread my awkward wording here . i have .. no voice .. on line here is worth repeating .
Posted by anne shew | July 5, 2012 6:53 AM
Posted on July 5, 2012 06:53
High Arka sez on 06.30.12 @19:09:
What they do very well is ignore things that are actually different, high-quality art, which would risk upsetting the nice balance of soulless crap that dominates the marketplace. Ergo the battle of the summer action blockbusters or the Obama v. Romney election...
Hiya, High!
Just checked out the link to that article, and I really loved how you summed up the Hunger Games and Harry Potter hype.
My wife is normally an independent-thinking and highly-literate person who's turned me on to some really great books -- many of which weren't huge hype -- which I wouldn't have read otherwise*. You can imagine my surprise when I expressed skepticism about the avalanche of Harry Potter hype -- which hit almost as if someone had thrown a big switch someplace -- and she turned on me as if I were some kind of blasphemer, whining "but, it's getting kids interested in reading!" -- which, by the way, was the exact wording of the marketing tagline in all the advertising for the Harry Potter books. Uh huh, yeah... like, suddenly, Mark Twain, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Verne, Jack London and Ray Bradbury were suddenly incapable of getting kids interested in reading.
In a similar vein... for the past decade or so, I'd been scratching my head trying to figure out why talentless, screeching tarts like Britney Spears and Christine Aguilera suddenly became huge stars clear out of nowhere. Granted, I was a bit slow, but I finally found out that they were churned out by the Disney Corporation, the same assembly line that manufactured the Jonas Brothers (pretty much the only manufacturing this goddamn' country does anymore). Yeah, shit, I thought, that had to be the only way they could get where they were... I mean, seriously -- does anyone honestly think that Britney Spears could've gotten as big as she is doing the kind of crap she does, by working her way up like most musicians... gigging in bars and clubs, touring small halls and theaters, sleeping in her van, living on peanut butter sandwiches, scraping up cash for studio time so she can record an album for an indie label and hope for some college radio airplay, finally getting a crack at opening for a big-name act, at last snagging a major label deal, putting out two or three albums before she finally catches on...? D'ahh ha ha ha ha ha hahh.
I found the emergence of Barack Obama to be remarkably similar. One day he was some unknown hack in Illinois, the next day he was on the front page of the Washington Post, and giving the keynote at the Donkeycratic Convention, the day after that he was running for President after not even serving a full term in the Senate. It was like he was the political version of an American Idol winner. Even if I hadn't done my homework on the guy and found out that he was just Bush in blackface, I still would've known he was total bullshit because of the way he appeared out of nowhere, a political Justin Bieber, complete with big hype and a "fan base" all ready to roll.
--
*Nothing by James Michener is among them. Yeah, I know how many critics can't shut up about how great he is, but they can kiss my sorry old hippie ass. Michener pummelled my brain into hamburger. Trying to finish a Michener novel was like trying to push a truck uphill with a rope.
Posted by Mike Flugennock | July 5, 2012 7:17 PM
Posted on July 5, 2012 19:17
Chomskyzinn sez on 07.01.12 @09:44:
I once almost came to fisticuffs in a bar with a man who called himself the Dean of Rock Criticism, or something like that. He had publicly insulted a friend just a few minutes before. Although how I could take seriously anyone who called himself the Dean of anything...
Huh... that guy wouldn't have happened to have been a pompous, self-important puke named Dave Marsh (of Rolling Stone) would it? Last I checked, Marsh pretty much hated everything -- he seemed especially peeved at the Grateful Dead's comeback with a platinum album in 1987, when psychedelic music was supposed to have been long out of style -- but couldn't stop drooling over Bruce Springsteen. Now, I dig Springsteen OK, I guess, although I thought he pretty much shot his wad with Born To Run, and totally jumped the shark with Born In The USA.
Much of this discussion takes me back to a similar discussion thread under an article posted some months back, on brand-name media pundits... specifically, as I recall, Tom Friedman And His Magic Moustache.
I mentioned that despite the classic wisdom about not judging a book by its cover, I'd recently discovered that I could rarely go wrong by simply reading the byline on an op-ed column and deciding whether or not it was worth the time reading.
I've also noticed that I can apply this method to deciding whether or not to bother with a new movie that's out -- mind you, the DW and I haven't actually set foot in an actual movie theater (even the local art-house theater downtown) in nearly a decade -- by checking to see whether The Critics™ liked it or not. As literate and culturally intelligent as the DW is, she's still really into judging films, art, etc. by the reviews. In fact, one of the the things I dread the most is the sound of the DW trying to coax me downstairs to watch a movie on cable or Netflix by saying that "the critics really liked it!"
Sadly, the DW really places a lot of faith in the value of credentials, and that faith extends beyond academia into culture. Her "second career" after retirement has been booking performers for a couple of local music festivals here in DC, and she takes special pride in the fact that nearly all the performers she books have been nominated for or won a "Wammy Award" (the "Grammys" for DC area musicians). Trouble is, all the bands she books, though certainly technically fine musicians, are totally "safe", middle-of-the-road acoustic/folk/country-rock/bluegrass/swing acts -- none of whom have taken any artistic chances, nor done anything new, radical or provocative, or staked out any new artistic territories, but, hey, they're "Wammy" winners.
I've not mentioned to her that none of my favorite acts from DC, some of whom were nationally known -- Minor Threat, Fugazi, The Bad Brains, Rupert Chappelle, Root Boy Slim & The Sex Change Band -- were, in fact, not even nominated for a Wammy Award, let alone winners.
Posted by Mike Flugennock | July 5, 2012 8:22 PM
Posted on July 5, 2012 20:22
mike f, i haven't looked in at what arka has written about the potter ,but you are right with what you have suggested about here of those like the writer of the potter series ,on the disturbing nature of pushed pop up culture , my main schooling is in the hist. and hers. of ancient tales,and the origin of all of these tellings and of how retold in many ways . Of that a small but well liked , of respected opinions ,and a following in this larger and varied city in that respected , of that small book shop that i mention above ,of what i wrote on reviewing up near the top , there were about fifteen of us , i was the youngest , we helped teachers and librarians select books for school studies
Posted by anne shew | July 5, 2012 9:18 PM
Posted on July 5, 2012 21:18
to michael j smith and al schumann , of your being the two of the group here that tried to respond to some of my commenting over the month of june , re- my mention at 8:51am above in this streaming of commenting , of what i had said that i would continue on when i could of .. . of my mention of something of the latest of occupy beginning here ( in this.. by the lake.. . that is the largest gathering place of the most diverse in unlike by the nature of the lands from, of what the land creates of , like something of huxley sr 's friend d. and others of birds ,of this of landing and moving in their making ,of what they now are of migrating , .. gathered in living ), the spring before last early , it was a small gathering of elders , of those that are more native to this land , of part of it's literal scape, from of north and south of , nomading, of a new word , of not being of a roaming wander in their reach out, .. respected ,gentle chosen of their able beauty to move others in all ways good , the gathering was in the back of a fair .. cafe ,run here by some from south of your border , the group was of an archaeology dig , of something of this long steep sided past the discussion ,from there those of this small gathering moved out in to what is now something of the core of the occupy movements , still unknown by most , i will say more in time but not here , i need the help of those that are better able in their communicating in telling more of , of able to communicate in a .. not so much of water dried and other .. . of what i am in the no wheat's sway and more .. of belly ,means corsage of winnowing gather of writing .. . with no hearing of the literal of my voice , said not sybil / note - - i did not continue with my comments on my father of father 's work for the board of education on the post where i made that comment, because i did not hear back from owen paine by mail, there was a reason to why i commented with that on that post , and of what i added to the first post on montreal comments connected as well ,on the law abider .. post , .. . of my family/famille connect to the under lay and lettering of the globe and mail here in the past as well as .. .
Posted by anne shew | July 6, 2012 2:03 PM
Posted on July 6, 2012 14:03