Regarding Momus

anyone who, on the morning of 9/11/01, thought it would be a good idea to take a picture of himself with the burning world trade center in the background is a shit

http://www.dragcity.com/catalog/records/dc222.jpg

Pic now?

Momus is someone I actually miss.

He talked me out of suicide once, without even realising that he had done so. (Whether my continued existence on the face of this planet is a good thing or not is up to you.)

He had his troll-like tendencies, but in the best possible way. He's one of those people who says outrageous things in order to force one to confront one's own prejudices and one's own thought patterns and beliefs. There was a great deal of playfulness to him which was lacking in other ILX "characters."

I know that he infuriated and frustrated a lot of people (myself included, before I actually met him) - but like many internet personalities, he was kind of a litmus test. One's reaction to him said as much about the reactor as it ever did about him. But hey, I come from a long line of effete Scottish intellectuals, so I have a fairly high tolerance for that sort of thing.

I've even come around to his music. "The Homosexual" is one of the greatest songs ever recorded about the male ego and its discontents.

Click Opera, the short version:

http://twitter.com/Twit_Opera

sub-buttez at best

momus always annoyed the lamers

― velko, Sunday, 24 May 2009 04:33 (3 hours ago)

!!!! Yes!

I miss the guy, I've got to admit.

last week a friend i'd gone to college in japan with emailed me a link to a post on clickopera - the 'i hate japan' april fools one from yearssss back (i do not think they noticed, that it was an april fool)

and so i wrote 'oh momuspaws' and hit send

and then thought: wait.

This as the most otm thing ever posted about Momus...That said, I like reading his blog ...I just wish I liked his music more

If Momus wasn't sexually attracted to Japanese girls two decades younger than him, I doubt if he'd have bothered to work up his latter-day orientalist theorising. If it had been, say, black Americans he was into, no doubt we'd have been bombarded with posts about white American protestant work ethic vs the exotic Other of African American culture bla bla bla.
― Iggy Fop, Thursday, December 30, 2004 3:17 PM (4 years ago)

Yeah but that's every white dude with an asian girl fetish that didn't study IT.

Wait, you mean Momus wrote about things that mattered to him? omg etc

xpost

Have said it before and will say it again: everyone gets the Momus they deserve.

i'm almost sort of impressed dude has managed to blag living like a really "wacky" self-regarding art-foundation course fresher for the last 30-odd years without starving/being beaten to death.

Unfortunately, Wendy Carlos couldn't quite manage to cut his balls off. Which was a surprising turn of events.

The three O records he made in Berlin ("Oskar Tennis Champion", "Otto Spooky", "Ocky Milk") are pretty damn weird and beautiful because of that. He has a real talent for taking found sound/concrete audio collages and arranging them under a nice classically pleasing melody. First time I heard "The Artist Overwhelmed" I was awestruck.

If his old records are like "A Clockwork Orange" his new ones are like the end of "2001".

I'll stan for this record anytime.
http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/03fb57ee6e40d8df0531d59e88d7dfe7/8201.jpg

He's one of those people who says outrageous things in order to force one to confront one's own prejudices and one's own thought patterns and beliefs.

Sadly, many of those who are good at this trick get stuck in a holding pattern, because they stop at the point of discovering the errors of other people's ways and do not continue on to construct a coherent set of ideas and values that are any better than those they spend their lives challenging. As a result, they are totally lacking in humility, when humility is precisely what they need most.

Wait, you mean Momus wrote about things that mattered to him? omg etc

theorizing a sexual fetish might matter to you, but it's also stupid. luv the etc btw

It just seems like a strange criticism. Should he be writing about things he has no experience with? I disagree with a lot of things Momus says but I like that he says them. Even when he's wrong wrong wrong it's like Oliver Wendell Holmes said about friends with strong opinions, they're like rough tree bark you can scratch yourself against.

Sadly, many of those who are good at this trick get stuck in a holding pattern, because they stop at the point of discovering the errors of other people's ways and do not continue on to construct a coherent set of ideas and values that are any better than those they spend their lives challenging. As a result, they are totally lacking in humility, when humility is precisely what they need most.

― Aimless, Sunday, May 24, 2009 4:34 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

But sometimes the point is precisely to make people think about, to challenge the validity of "A" rather than to make a case for an alternative "B", which will inevitably have it's own flaws and contradictions.

I agree with Masonic Boom, Momus may be nothing more than a troll, but at least he's an intelligent and charming one.

More lurker than troll these days. This very thread gets a mention on his blog.

Posting merely to report that I misread this thread title as "Regarding Moms"

Even when he's wrong wrong wrong it's like Oliver Wendell Holmes said about friends with strong opinions, they're like rough tree bark you can scratch yourself against.

What is this quote? I like the sentiment, but can't track it down.

It's in his short book, "The Poet at the Breakfast Table"

He does a good deal of the talking at our table, and, to tell the truth, I rather like to hear him. He stirs me up, and finds me occupation in various ways, and especially, because he has good solid prejudices, that one can rub against, and so get up and let off a superficial intellectual irritation, just as the cattle rub their backs against a rail (you remember Sydney Smith's contrivance in his pasture) or their sides against an apple-tree (I don't know why they take to these so particularly, but you will often find the trunk of an apple-tree as brown and smooth as an old saddle at the height of a cow's ribs).

That's actually as good a description of a "benevolent troll" as I've ever read

Awesome. thanks.

What are you people doing trying to be a Captain Save-A-Mo(mus)?

What are you doing giving a shit?

oh come on this guy is a cunt you numbfucks

didn't want to say

oh man my prejudices are being so shaken by how much of a sleazy shitbag this guy is!!!

Ibid.

is it wrong to wish that with all his intelligence and sensitivity momus would try to think or at least communicate in less programmatic and essentializing and oversimplifying and ungenerous ways? his MO always seemed to be to place things in categories and then argue up a storm trying not to refine those categories but to rationalize them in ever more tortured ways. frustrating.

maybe it's just because i'm so far away from college radio now (going on a decade) but does his music just seem amazingly irrelevant, even more than before? i mean i sort of get pangs of sympathy when i read about him playing to disappointingly small audiences. i hope he has a little nest egg for the next few decades.

he's pretty easy to avoid, folks!

He was great. Miss that dude.

he didn't use to be! although i enjoyed sparring with him. sometimes.

he's pretty easy to avoid, folks!

unless you're an asian girl!!

maybe momus will get shot in a liquor store robbery and re-emerge as a simple, caring ilxor who starts posting on all the surmounter and bimble threads

I really don't get the Momus hate around here. A "cunt"? Really? Based on what?

Maybe based on his wearing an eyepatch? But man if losing an eye doesn't entitle you to wear an eyepatch, then this is truly some harsh crowd!

lol omar i was gonna request a photoshop of that poster because everytime i see this thread i am reminded of that awful movie

read thread title as "Rereading Momus", revision style

i haven't posted here long enough to have a lasting impression of Momus as a poster, let alone a positive impression. If anything, he came across as a blowhard -- but there are plenty of ilxors who share that distinction.

yeah but they don't do it for a living

holy shit at the number of threads with "momus" in the title

always thought this guy was a contrarian jerk

I recall him remarking on the lack of cheese shops in Brooklyn?

Momus and the Jews

^^lots of quality nonsense here