MIA

somewhere between lack of em dashes and m.i.a.

btw this week's Talk Of The Town section finally makes clear that in the New Yorker's style guide, 'douche bag' is written as two words.

new yorker's style guide is pretty wacky though, right? every issue i come across some new word that has umlauts, apparently. like just last week: "trüffle fries"

Yeah their umlauts crack me up. There's probs a dedicated thread for NYer style I suppose.

I love their tenacity with the umlauts, like they're worried people will read reentry rather than reëntry and freak out.

REEN-tree

COORD-inated.

"what in the hell does 'kewperate' mean!?"

It has something to do with noted devil dice artist Coop.

i LOVE the nyt diaeresis, really wish more publications would follow suit

Ha, Jaymc, that explanation basically comes from asking Ryan why it's that way -- I think it's a question he's answered a lot. As I recall, the answer goes:

(a) when he started the site, you couldn't count on browsers handling real em-dashes, hence the double hyphens
(b) if you spaced them out -- like this -- some browsers would wrap the line between the two hyphens, so it'd be like

blah blah blah -
- blah blah blah

(c) so he ran them up against the first word, to fix that

And I guess eventually it just became the kind of quirk you run with? I admit, at this point it'd be kinda weird to me to read Pitchfork and see real em-dashes.

hey the site didn't have videos of indie bands rambling on about their favorite tacos back then, either. GIVE US EM-DASHES.

ah since you're here nabisco, i liked your piece, but i still take issue with the "everyone realises that m.i.a. isn't a sophisticated thinker" line - i mean we do, on ilx, but most mainstream media outlets take her persona at unquestioning face value - she says she's a Political Artist with a Serious Message and mostly she gets reported as such, and the message itself or its presentation or most pertinently the actual LACK of message in her material is rarely interrogated. (the reasons for this are pretty interesting - i think a lot of arts editors and even music writers still feel a real need to legitimise pop artists by reporting their "serious"/political sides.) hirschberg wasn't "exposing" m.i.a. to music writers, she was writing for a general audience under the impression that m.i.a. is a sophisticated political artist.

that is all!

"she was writing for a general audience under the impression that m.i.a. is a sophisticated political artist"

Who? They believe what?

lol wtf Lex

most mainstream media outlets take her persona at unquestioning face value -

newsflash - most mainstream outlets take EVERY pop star's persona at unquestioning face value

Lady GaGa is WEIRD fyi!

I am still trying to figure out exactly who this audience is, Lex. If you're talking about rabid M.I.A. fans, that probably is an even split between jaded old people who see the pattern in her incoherency that's been played out multiple times of the course of pop/rock music history (The Clash, Morrissey, Rage Against the Machine, Public Enemy and KRS-One all come to mind, let alone more fringy people like Diamanda Galas) and nicheseekers who are going to uncritically love her until she makes a musical misstep or becomes too popular to be a sign of nichedom. If you're talking about people who like "Paper Planes", I would wager a fuckton of money that most of them have no idea and don't care about what her political stances are.

lex OTM, actually.

I think nabisco's "everyone" should be read as "everyone who cares".

All those people who have been basing their entire understanding of geopolitics on MIA lyrics can now thank Lynn Hirschberg for blasting the scales from their eyes.

i don't think lex was talking about rabid mia fans actually

and i think there's prob a decent amount of casual/paper planes fans who have an impression of her as a serious political artist.

y'know I've never really understood that phrase - scales? over eyes? what's that about?

don't mind me

xp

I don't even know what a serious political artists is.

shakey read yr bible

How is Diamanda Galás politically incoherent?

Bible in vague incoherency shockah (yes I am familiar with the passage ref Saul's blindness)

well, denigrating someone's cultural tourism and thievery by being really fucking racist is kind of incoherent in my book (scroll down to "Diamanda vs Timbaland")

I don't even know what a serious political artists is.

Leni Riefenstahl

Leni was pretty incoherent.

oh well lol if youre asking us to explain some weirdness from the bible. but scales over eyes always sounded really gross to me.

@call all destroyer Really? My impression is that most people are so overwhelmingly cynical about politicised musicians - far more so than at any time in the past - that it's hard to believe anyone is taking MIA super-seriously on that level. More the case that they like the music and don't much give a shit if the politics are scrambled. I just don't know who Lex is talking about.

short answer is "college students" but really that only lasts for like 18 months

i dunno i think people (esp. younger people) still like the idea of listening to a "political" artist w/out really critically examining what said artist is saying vs. what they are doing etc. imo rage against the machine is a great example of this.

Leni was pretty incoherent.

mountain climbing, rats, shiny uniforms - it all comes together!

College students politics are pretty incoherent.

Diamanda really bringing the crazy in that letter to Timbaland.

You convert our Gold! into Mr. Fatbro's Fecal Dump, madcow. You the man, P.I.G., and so I got my SUPERNOVA UNCLEAN EYE on you. I got LOTSA time, a whole LIFE of extra time waiting for us to meet. So WATCH OUT. Unlike YOU, I come alone.
TA MATIA SOU? 666, mamafucker.

i'd like to hear her sing that

I'd like to hear Rodd Keith sing that!

HI DERE, ah, yeah. I thought you were referring to the AIDS & genocide stuff, which has been prevalent throughout her career. That thing she wrote makes very little sense - maybe senility is finally kicking in.

I wasn't going to read the letter, but that quote is making me think I should now.

favorite taco is al fresco style with roasted sweet potatoes and/or cassava with lettuce, radish, pickled carrots & a good salsa on a corn tortilla just fyi

have no idea what any of that Diamanda hoohah is about tbh

She loves commas.

It's really *strange* to me though, that letter. She generally makes a lot more sense and is always super eloquent and well spoken. Maybe she was just on drugs that day.

@call all destroyer Who cares if people like a political artist without going into the details? Who gets hurt? College students are meant to have incoherent but energetic ideas. It's how you learn - it's a place to start. But if you're smart then you'll dig in and learn a bit more and decide what to take from an artist's politics and what to leave. When I first heard Bring the Noise I looked up Louis Farrakhan and decided we weren't going to see eye to eye, but there was a lot more black history that I did engage with because of Public Enemy. Likewise the Clash and Sandinista for people a decade older than me. Likewise Rage, who oversimplified and had some weird sympathies (the Shining Path) but actually included a reading list in their second album. An exciting political artist can be a gateway to politics, not the endpoint.

yeah i mean i agree but i also have no problem w/these artists getting called out a la this admittedly flawed hirschberg piece.

I have a problem when the writer doesn't have the intellectual honesty to do the calling out correctly.

sure! i think i was just attempting to clarify lex's point about who the piece was "for"