Is Everybody Who Edits the Village Voice Really This Stupid?

i hate reading positive reviews of Pavement. And I say this as a fan.

Why does my lameass g00g13pr00f!ng always bother you, manthony m1cc1o?

-- Matos W.K. (michaelangelomato...) (webmail), January 5th, 2005 2:31 AM. (M Matos) (link)

a "formalist doctrine"? matos, you're not as stupid as this.

You have no goddamn idea, Mr. M. I sped up things by forcing through a written redraft at top speed so we could sit back and let everyone else argue over their rewrites. The sick thing is I think I've actually now written most of the thing by default!

xxpost to Matos's Voice comment:
but they LINK to your stuff, don't they?

xpost to Matos's library comment:
Ned, did you talk about reducing blurriness on the microfiche?

chill
like on,say, "All Things Considered"?

yeah. and . . . ?

I totally disagree. I think rock criticism should follow the model of organized crime.. you know, drive-by's, coke, and shit.

Oh wait...

Uh, no it wouldn't. For one thing, Lefty would accuse me of being one of the ones orally pleasuring Mr. Eddy. (Who I have indeed pitched a couple of things to, though he wisely turned them down as they were usually fairly half-formed ideas at best.)

Ned, did you talk about reducing blurriness on the microfiche?

Part of my relentless modernization drive is demonstrating to professors that, yes, it is in fact much easier to link directly to an article on line than it is to print out a copy and give it to me to scan as a PDF. But I'll spare you further thoughts.

Ned, did you all ingest peyote and sit around in a sweat lodge? That's how we do our vision statements at the library where I work.

We got apple juice and brownie bites.

Oh wait, I think maybe I got mixed up between how the actual vision statement was arrived at (and I certainly was not invited to such an exalted occasion) and some jokes I made about it at the time.

"Heavens! ;)"

matos: i didn't come up with the thread title. i've never called chuck "stupid." i don't think he's stupid. i think he's too defensive and too hotheaded, and this gets in the way of (or supersedes) his making convincing arguments on behalf of his own writing and the music he loves. i think you do this often too--react defensively rather than enter into real argument.

blount asked me, in so many words, if i feel that i get more flack when i "take on" chuck eddy on threads like these, and i kept mum, not wanting at that point to inflame this thread further. but i now feel it's ok to point out that matos is the first person that sprung to my mind as frequently "defending" chuck eddy by simply insulting me...and without providing any kind of substantive defense of chuck's writing. i do seem to get a lot less "benefit of the doubt" when i criticize chuck's writing, and i never seem to have to confront (for better and for worse) so much criticism as when it's about chuck eddy. maybe that simply testifies to the passion his criticism incites in others here. (note that i've *never* made the charge that people are defending chuck because he could give them work.) but it irks me that the "argument" that i get from chuck and some of his fans amounts to little more than sniping. (à la the "formalist doctrine" comment--matos i think you understand what i meant by arguing for a "formalist criticism" or a formalist tendency in music criticism, and i think you know i didn't make the argument simply as a way to castigate particular practicing critics--in fact i avoided doing so on that thread, and tried to make it a "positive" endeavor of coming up with "problems" that could be solved through a formalist-inflected criticism.)

If you reconstitute the grease that will have accumulated on five library books, you can in fact assemble a cheese steak. It's technical possible, though it hasn't actually been tried.

I sped up things by forcing through a written redraft at top speed so we could sit back and let everyone else argue over their rewrites.
Ned, this is no way to get things down. The proper way to do it is tolet everybody else drag you down with their two cents of this and that and then, when nothing is done, join in on the finger-pointing.

yeah. and . . . ?
Nothing. Just trying to pre-push that button before Big Lefty rides into town.

Let us now talk about the aura of bongwater in the age of mechanical reproduction.

I'm getting bad visions of Ann Magnuson singing a song called "Jacques Derrida Wants Ideas."

The proper way to do it is tolet everybody else drag you down with their two cents of this and that and then, when nothing is done, join in on the finger-pointing.

I think of it as my contribution to workplace morale (so they'll leave me alone about everything else).

look: drag city does not hate rock; lots of records on drag city rock--royal trux, viva last blues, some ghost, squirrel bait, red krayola, weird war, etc. these are records made in a style of music conventionally called "rock." if chuck wants to make up his own definition of the word, that's fine. good for him.

working in a library sounds fun.

Hey, didn't I tell you about the time I was playing To Live and Shave in LA's Interview with the Mitchell Brothers at my workspace? I have no idea what my coworkers thought. Though one time one woman accused me of listening only to static (Acid Mothers Temple was playing at the time).

xp #2: I hate to say it, but on a board like this where a good 85% of critical, analytical why-certain-music-doesn't-work discourse is comprised of twenty-word remarks that (albeit good-naturedly snarky) usually boil down to "such and such a band is rubbish and listened to by losers", I can understand why someone might get a bit defensive and pissed-off. Which is pretty much my entire M.O. some days, usually to embarrassing effect. Such is the nature of the geek.

i love libraries! especially academic libraries.

but i don't think i'd want any job where i had most of the day to putter around on the interweb. i've had jobs like that, and they slowly suck out your soul. although i'm sure most librarians are quite busy. (note: i'm not being sarcastic. i've known some busy librarians in my time.)

xpost

I try limiting it to the first part of that sentence, but I suspect I convey too much of the second at points.

I always pictured working in a library as working in some sort of perfect, endless silence

Oh, it can be. But not in the office area, which helps prevent insanity.

but i don't think i'd want any job where i had most of the day to putter around on the interweb. i've had jobs like that, and they slowly suck out your soul

If I didn't have the Net, the soul would have been long sucked out and destroyed years back. (As it currently stands, it's resting.)

i've known some busy librarians in my time.

We all do! Namely the good Leon the Fratboy for a start.

"fame"

or maybe I'm just pointing out when you're being shrill?

What she got was no tomorrow.