That's it! The only ism I want to come out of your mouths is jism. Overacademic Bullshit Must Die.

if there's NOTHING for the reader to do, then brains will not get engaged (however an awful lot of academic discourse is actually extremely stylised, mannered and samey: its difficulty entirely superficial, like haxorspeak)

(it's sunny out and i'm sick.)

Not acceptable.
Think of the carpet cleaning bills.

Yeah, but would you yell at him from a car? I would!

When you read stuff at college, you sometimes get bright text full of ideas and well written. More of the time though, you get some small ideas appallingly written. Very frequently, it's worse: cliche rewritten as gibberish.

So, it's natural to distrust stuff that seems "academic".

Most people, especially here, can take a bit of braininess.

Some people, especially here, can detect faux-braininess, yes?

Without any examples (and I didn't spot any as I skim-read), this thread gets nowhere. That's where it is. Where is the end?

People tend to yell Miccioooooo from cars at me, so ya know. And I'd think right now it would neither positively or negatively affect the world much if I got trampled to death at a Bizkit concert. Plus there's always my legacy to worry about...

The End Is The Beginning Is The The End

Sorry. I couldn't resist.

Actually, in this context it means nothing. Its a pun that has to be said out loud to make any sense. (Although the reader would have to assume your last name is pronounced Mish-EE-OH.)

Now why does this matter? Coz to me often "theorists" and rock musicians are often finding different ways of addressing the *same thing* and so often indirectly addressing one another. One way to kill the self-satisfied patrician role of academia is to actually try to bring it into *dialogue* with the things it addresses.

One of the more thought-provoking/useful things about Meltzer was that for him philosophy was the question and ROCK!!!! was the answer. Hendrix's famous logical connective "A public hair B" etc. But that's really just a varient of left-hegelianism. (which is another reason knowing theory is good, because it helps you spot old debates in new clothes).

Another problem is that sometimes cryptic references are meant as jokes and not as k-brill. insights. So plenty of times there's no *point* in explaining them if someone doesn't get them because the explanation kills the humor and without the humor there's nothing left. I know I do this IRL fairly often, but mainly w/r/t pop-ephermia from the 80s or early 90s as opposed to with highfalutin' theorists.

Pick up an instrument.

(jess, thank you for omitting that comma)

I seriously don't even know why people bother writing about rock in his wake. Kogan's stuff (like that Disco Tex essay) comes pretty close, tho.

oh shit, did i just use "theory" again!? sorry.

Criticism is public service, but it's not office work. Its ultimate purpose is to communicate to others about music and the culture surrounding it, but not dryly or obviously. It's journalism, but it's meta-journalism. It is aware of itself. It exists to inform and elucidate, but also to entertain. Whether it's bullshit or not is purely subjective, and whether it's academic or not depends on the kind of writer you are, and the audience you want to reach. Taking an academic approach to writing about music is not the same thing as being an academic -- music, after all, is not an academic exercise in and of itself, or at least it shouldn't be. Sounds are not ideas, they are sounds. Music writers are exactly the kinds of organic intellectuals that Sterling mentioned (I really like that concept, BTW). They work from a base of that which is un-intellectual and attempt to put it in broader context, which is an intellectual activity. This activity contains an inner conflict, but a mild one, to my thinking. If Walt Whitman can intellectualize a blade of grass, why can't I intellectualize a guitar?

I understand all this very clearly, and I accept it, and I don't think it an act of stubbornness to refuse to discuss it further. There are layers here, and contradictions, but no more than in my own personality. The true measure of an intellectual is the ability to deal with contradictions.