Regarding Momus

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

So sue him for not going to Park Slope ever? xpost

I think it's pretty generous to serve as a strawman for five years to a bunch of underachievers dissembling their own sexism and racism by going lol dude likes Japanese girls. I'm sure working on a handful of columns, two books, various art projects, LPs and a blog is much more satisfying than having to wade through douchey, reductive challenges just to have a decent exchange of opinions with the couple of dozen people he actually respects here.

Can I sidetrack the thread to ask who was the sadistic asshat who came up with the idea of the hairshirt?

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, March 10, 2004 11:50 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

same guy who invented the sadistic asshat

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Wednesday, March 10, 2004 11:57 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

respect

MomoM vs. suMus : fite!

http://i44.tinypic.com/167ms7c.jpg http://i41.tinypic.com/ll6dz.jpg

(um sorry, carry on)

zomg how can I get hired to be a blowhard for a living?

otoh not sure I'd meet the job reqs.

I liked Momus and always wished I cld live his life, which looks pretty fun!

I think it's pretty generous to serve as a strawman for five years to a bunch of underachievers dissembling their own sexism and racism by going lol dude likes Japanese girls. I'm sure working on a handful of columns, two books, various art projects, LPs and a blog is much more satisfying than having to wade through douchey, reductive challenges just to have a decent exchange of opinions with the couple of dozen people he actually respects here.

wow, the "you're just jealous" retort. didn't think people actually did that anymore.

xpost: zomg how can I get hired to be a blowhard for a living?

otoh not sure I'd meet the job reqs.

blow. hard!

he's like an effete candyman!

― Wyndham Earl

http://www.mr-c.me.uk/BlogImgs/candyman.jpg

????????????

you dumb motherfuckers can type and post as much as you want but I doubt you'll ever post anything as beautiful as this:

I'll tell you a funny story. I went to dinner in Japan at the house of a famous TV comedian, Suidobashi Hakase. He's a protege of Takeshi Kitano. It was quite a gathering, with legendary author and tattooed hardman Ishmaru Gensho also present. We tucked into sushi prepared by Hakase's bald manservant.
Hakase had just published a book in which all his friends narrated their early experiences with masturbation. Kitano and Gensho had whole chapters to themselves. In the middle of supper, my girlfriend announced that I was fond of gansha, a more modestly-scaled and intimate version of bukkake. I blushed, but Hakase and Gensho seemed delighted that I had taken the trouble to learn Japanese customs, and from that moment on I felt like they'd accepted me into their club.

Hakase later married Chie, one of the two girls with whom I was living at the time. She had first introduced herself to him with a playful photo of herself dribbling condensed milk from her mouth. Apparently this is quite a common method of flirtation -- a lover I had in Japan that same year produced, on our first date in a cafe in Nakameguro, a portfolio of photos of herself, one of which featured herself in an open white National Standard zip top, with some white substance trickling down her chin onto her breasts.