Recently I had the pleasure of seeing imitation Viggo Mortensens everywhere I go. I had finished The Road and was on the subway when I saw Hot Business Guy (I know, it’s like a unicorn!) Viggo Mortensen, and the other day, taking the train, I see Twentysomething Viggo Mortensen In a White T-shirt strolling along the tracks as the train rolled down the Hudson, away from the Bronx and into the country. TREND ALERT!
And while it’s on my mind, awesome music + film I’ve consumed this year: Miles blah blah blah, Shearwater, Thao Nguyen (go see her), In Bruges, Reprise, America the Beautiful (sloppy but really good).
Also, it’s pretty funny that I wrote this: “do the wild inconsistencies of Jezebel.com reflect the fluctuating state of “feminism” today?” and then Jezebel.com kind of blew up via that Shoot The Messenger appearance. It was shocking how badly the writers carried themselves, it was embarrassing that Lizz Winstead decided to call them out on it. I think the main thing to learn, as Deus Ex Malcontent put nicely, in a post that really sums it up, is that: “What we say, what we write — whether in long form pieces or in quick deadline-driven bits on sites like Gawker; whether in print or on the internet — all of it matters. It’s easy as hell to be clever and glib, and God knows I’m guilty of both quite often, but provocative doesn’t always equal insightful, and it damn sure doesn’t always equal smart. It’s an old cliché that sarcasm is lazy humor, but that’s only true if there’s nothing to back it up — if there’s no substance under all that incisive wit and no real point or passion to bolster all that flowery sound and fury.” Keep reading →
“Buriedfed” is a staggering song, simply one of the best songs I’ve heard in quite some time. Visionary and epic. If the whole album stood up to this song, it’d be a classic. Instead, it’s just very good. I don’t know how I feel about the video, but he’s a charismatic dude. I saw him play about a week or so ago, and he’s excellent on guitar, and despite the fact that he can sing, delivered a lot of the songs in a choked-up Dylan nasal drawl–and it was spot on, actually.
Forgot about this! Eight Arms to Hold You was my first moody-getting-over-a-boy album.
Oh man! Can’t embed anything from American Thighs. Which my best friend had on tape. In the first video, the drummer is Stacy Jones, former drummer for letters to cleo as well, frontman for American Hi-Fi (remember “Flavor of the Weak? The Heavy Metal Parking Lot video?), currently drumming for Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus, and yeah, he produced the Hannah Montana album. I was overhearing a meeting at a restaurant recently between a label-girl and potential director of an American Hi-Fi video. She was saying, “Yeah, they’ve been gone so long, but they’ve influenced so many bands. Like A Simple Plan. We were thinking there could be some sort of party with all of Stacy’s music friends and then you’d realize how influential the band is.” The potential video director gamely played along. I tried not to giggle.
Also: it is kind of a fact that the new Silver Jews album is kind of…unlistenably bad, despite the lyrics? Not feeling it one whit.
Ew. Please, please, please stop parsing “Liz Phair” through a guy lens. It’s offensive and it misses-whiffs, horribly-as to what makes her work special, relevant, and still potentially devastating (That Liz Phair review, as written by a youthful Brown dude, seriously? Why the vitriol? Pitchfork, why did you let that go?). Way to keep the photogenic Amanda Petrusich over to the interview section-and to be honest, nobody here (in the pitchfork.tv stuff) looks comfortable yet, which leads to a pretty boring result, be it Liz Phair or a (dreamy!) nutter like Jamie Lidell. Remember, sometimes interviews are better when edited!
I’d be interested in her take (Petrusich’s) on the album. Or my take on the album! How come nobody mentions Phair’s pop instincts? She has a knack for melody, tunes and riffs that stick in your head. Even when she can barely play guitar and barely sing, it’s still there.
It’s boring and a little…I don’t know how I feel about it, to see Liz Phair being all, “I did make a classic album, yes! I don’t know what I was doing when I was going pop-py!” Because here’s the secret: Her pop isn’t that bad! In fact, it’s pretty good! People got particularly mean since she was blatantly turning her back on “Liz Phair,” the 22-year-old persona. Who can keep that mix of acid, bite, and honesty for ten years? Who would want to? And when you’re on a major label and teen-pop is all that’s selling and the music business is going downhill, you go with the flow to sustain a career. It may not have been the cool choice, but it’s understandable. It’s absolutely understandable if you’ve ever been a girl dealing with ambitions and a job and realizing what you can take advantage of and what can’t stay. You make compromises. It’s sad but it’s real. You expect that you won’t encounter sexism, that the world’s figured out that you can have it all, but there are still expectations and compromises.
The extreme vitriol sent Phair’s way-why couldn’t she change her style, figure things out?
And Exile In Guyville did its job. She’s in the books for a classic debut. It should be given to girls at their college orientations. It deals with universal emotions; messy, funny, sad, and mean.
“Why Can’t I,” for example, is a particularly hilarious, Liz-esque variation on a song that can soundtrack a falling-in-love montage in a vanilla Mandy Moore film or 1000 teen film trailers. It’s a song about being totally psyched to do it with this person that you like! (Who is in a relationship, and you are in a relationship too, so you are figuring it out) That’s pretty complicated and pretty real and kind of great. It lacks the coy wink of a Britney or Avril, and I love that. Also, notice in the video that she’s playing a guitar at some points, a rarity for pop music in that era, just look at the evolution of forever-little-sister-type Nina Gordon (same era, truly horrifying) from Veruca Salt. (Then, on the other hand, there’s dreck like “Extraordinary,” which actually sounds like her attempt to write a “Bitch.” Women are so complex!)
And yet! Despite the perfectly understandable justification, despite the fact that her “sell-out” route wasn’t as vile or bad as people say it is, here’s a video of her performing “Fuck and Run” in 1995. She can’t sing. She has stage fright. But the charisma, the power of the song; it’s still harrowing and complex.
P.S. I swear this isn’t a music blog. But I don’t really want to write much about my life and I can’t write much about movies since that’s what I’m doing professionally right now. I gotta write a lot more, though. You know why? It’s because I’m complex!
P.P.S. To come, when I can get my thoughts organized: do the wild inconsistencies of Jezebel.com reflect the fluctuating state of “feminism” today? Or is it “feminism” through a pop-culture-lens that has diminishing returns? I do think if Jezebel was a monthly, it’d be wonderful and have the joys of Sassy. But the stress of the Nick Denton thing, the constant posting, it’s far less of a must-read.
First off, All the Sad Young Literary Men is sort of a great title for a book. It’s very quotable and mutable.
Secondly, I think a big part of adjusting to New York, and a way to make that adjustment easier, is if you’re the type of person that gets off on living in New York. As in, WOW, I’m in New York! Good for me, I’m in New York! I’m in New York and it’s going to rule! Because I rule for getting here! New York, you may be the biggest whore of all, but you’re my whore!
I don’t tend to get off on cities. Or at least I haven’t so far. I don’t know if it’s part of my personality, or at least, in the case of New York, not being a corn fed Iowan. I’m from Massachusetts. Half of New York is from Massachusetts*. Aren’t you always reading about successful people from Brookline (John Hodgman) or Newton (all of The Office cast) or wherever Keith Gessen’s from?
A memorable line from Sigrid Nunez’s AMAZING book The Last of Her Kind asked “what kind of creepy little kid wants to grow up to be a critic?” Well, um, I did, but Siskel and Ebert was my favorite show when I was little. I’m more interested, though, in the humanity coming from art. What’s the urge? What’s going into it? What may I learn beyond what I expect from stories? That’s not critical, it’s beautiful, it’s necessary, and there’s precious little of that sort of writing available.
*You know what? The half of New York that’s from Massachusetts/New England is OUT about it because they have Red Sox gear. That’s a big part of it!
La Blogotheque and the Bowerbirds = sheer summer perfection! And nice, oh-so-french, writing that nails New York: “All there is is warmth, a warmth which blooms thanks to the promiscuity of imbricated bodies, in the discomfort of the places where we are stacked altogether.” I’ve probably mentioned that they’re a really striking, pulchritudinous band before, but if not; seeing them live with some friends, I could’ve sworn that we were all struck by their beauty, but it wasn’t just physical, there’s a calmness to their songs, that implies that their hearts have some sort of warm secret to existence, some knowledge of being true and human and I want to feel that way too.
I haven’t said too much lately. I’ve been going to Montreal and playing “The Hold Steady Drinking Game,” (hint: for b-list city or town, try Belchertown, Massachusetts!) where Stu schooled me, quite rightly, on Craig Finn-style freelancing [ha-I meant "freestyling" but I like the freudian slip]. It felt a little unfair since I’m the lapsed Catholic in the relationship.
I miss things, but it’s probably painfully obvious as to what those things are if you’ve read this blog so far. I noticed that I repeat myself: Often, lately, and very very very much on this blog. Again, it’s really annoying that Stu beat me in the Hold Steady Drinking Game.
I don’t have that much to say for now, in particular, nothing too original, at least in this blog-outlet. I’m going to have to take a summer break for now. I did get a Brooklyn library card last week, which felt wildly empowering. Anything can happen!
P.S. Sherman’s, I still love you: I’m just inherently lazy a lot of the time, (I do wish the article mentioned that Symbol of Gentrification Coffeehouse was next door in winter!) and sometimes former freelancers crave the friendliness/anonymity of cute girls who give you better coffee and remember your soup order, as much as I love your dreamy denizens like Boy Without God (and who wouldn’t, it’s like James McAvoy started a folk side-project!).
Clive agrees! Very little to talk about right now.
Information on “the alpha male rockers” from Ann Powers. She talks about Nick Cave, The Gutter Twins, and DeVotchKa. They’re all my boyfriend’s favorite musicians, pretty much, which makes me laugh.
Some unrelated thoughts: I got the Santogold album, it’s great, I love the fact that she wrote the Ashlee Simpson single “Outta My Head.” Makes so much sense.
I found a place to work and type in Park Slope, happily. I was worried. The Tea Lounge is awful and I was leaning on Barnes and Noble since it’s familiar.
It’d be nice to take some time to write something measured about the Emily Gould New York Times piece “Exposed,” but in short: It’s really frustrating to read something that has insights people should’ve had when they were 22 year olds with livejournals. Note: Edited to add Rebecca Traister’s piece from Salon, “Another pretty face of a generation.” Choice quote, question, really, what pisses me off the most: “We have to remember: There is nothing wrong with women writing about themselves, their youth, their indiscretions, their habits and values and personal development. Men have been writing about this stuff for thousands of years; they call it the canon.
And like their male contemporaries, a lot of this writing disappoints. When it does, there is nothing wrong with criticizing it. The thing that is wrong — really wrong — is when we forget that these kinds of stories are not the only ones that women have to tell.
So rather than being troubled by the fact that Gould — or Bushnell, or Bradshaw, or whoever — has the spotlight, why not question why so few other versions of femininity are allowed to share it?” Keep reading →
Fact:Devotchka are one of the best live bands around. Go see them with your significant other, please. If your relationship is dying, well, Nick Urata will revive it. Trust me.
Sigh. I am a little in love with this guy. Such a voice! Devotchka also manage to make a venue that’s equivalent to an airplane hangar feel like church. I need to see them play someplace tiny.
Also: I wrote this piece. Aimee Mullins is kind of pretty much the raddest lady ever. You should read it.
My mood lately= very Gilmore Girls. I miss that show! When I have the time I want to write about the sad evolution of Rory.
I would really like, though, to have a nice cozy house in an adorably small town. Right now. That’s been my mood for the past month. Maybe because I haven’t spent a proper weekend in New York for the past four weeks? Or the fact that I would like things to get a little more settled down so that life can feel as cheesy as Capra-corn, soft as a pretty Sondre Lerche song from Dan In Real Life.
The Lady Killigrew is a magical place, by the way. I love it there.
Fact:Devotchka are one of the best live bands around. Go see them with your significant other, please. If your relationship is dying, well, Nick Urata will revive it. Trust me.
