Scrupulously Mean

Predict-A-‘Fork-Review: Summer Edition

2010-06-23T16:57:00.000-07:00

Gearing up for the summer music season? Me too! But sometimes, it’s hard to decide what music sounds good. Oftentimes, I find myself thinking, Golly, people would take me much more seriously if I knew in advance which albums Pitchfork Media was going to review favorably! So for those of you who—like me—crave a little critical reinforcement but just can’t wait for the actual Pitchfork review to come out, I’ve compiled a list of albums coming out this summer and a prediction of what the Pitchfork review will contain. Enjoy!

“How I Got Over”- The Roots

Rating: 8.8

Rationale: Despite their recent foray into the banality that is Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, The Roots maintain their marvelously eccentric sound, proving they are as relevant today as they were twenty years ago.

Descriptors Used: elegiac, harrowing, vitriolic, un-vapid

“The Suburbs”- Arcade Fire

Rating: 6.9

Rationale: Win Butler’s decidedly long-winded probe into the marginalia of suburban life, post-postmodern detachment, and cultural transiency ultimately falls short of expectations.

Descriptors Used: fecund, dolorous, turgid, lugubrious, Dostoevskian

“/\/\ /\ Y /\”- M.I.A.

Rating: 8.5

Rationale: The third—eponymously titled—album from M.I.A. captures the Sri Lankan provocateur at her rabble-rousing best—at once, celebrating the Dionysian qualities of life and decrying the anathema of modern society.

Descriptors Used: Orphic, churlish, neo-feminist-yet-kind-of-anti-feminist-in-an-ironic-way

“King of the Beach”- Wavves

Rating: 4.2

Rationale: Gone are the pithy reminders of profundity in the mundane, replaced by didactic gleanings into the ineluctable modality of the visible.

Descriptors Used: Beach Boys-esque, masturbatory, vacuous, skateboard-gaze, vainglorious, platitudinous

“Tomboy”- Panda Bear

Rating: 9.2

Rationale: Another phantasmagoric panoply of beguiling samples and rapturous melodies obliquely amalgamated into an alchemical miasma of unmitigated bliss.

Descriptors Used: Elysian, nebulous, whirling dervish-esque, chimerical, Noah Lennoxian, high-in-the-sky-gleaming-dirigible-ambitious

Overshadowed: The Life of Hortense Rand (Part the First)

2010-04-23T17:15:00.000-07:00

You've probably heard of the famed author and philosopher Ayn Rand, but few people know of her sister, Hortense. Born a mere fourteen months apart, Ayn and Hortense could not have had more disparate childhood experiences.

According to a new biography by Odette Salerno, Overshadowed: The Life of Hortense Rand (Vintage Press, 2010, $24.99), Ayn enjoyed all of the luxuries of aristocratic life while her younger sister was mysteriously shunted off to live with distant relatives. Odette Salerno provides two possible reasons for this: (1) Zinovy Rosenbaum (Rand's father) agreed to hand the girl over in exchange for his cousin Yuri Oglivich's silence regarding Zinovy's bizarre sexual practices (which are unknown but may have involved "the prying of cobblestones from busy streets" and "improper use of the imperfective aspect tense of the Russian language," Salerno, p. 34) or (2) Zinovy and his wife Anna were so repulsed by the "fleshy hook" Hortense had in place of a right hand that they sold her off to Yuri Oglivich. Either way, Hortense spent the first fifteen years of her life in Bashkortostan with the Ogliviches, where she worked many grueling hours a day in her uncle's makeshift animal rendering plant.

In 1921, pressure from the Bolshevik regime in Petrograd forced Uncle Yuri to close the plant after, literally, hundreds of complaints were filed about the putrid stink of animal carcasses wafting into the nearest town, Oktyabrskiy, over seven hundred miles away.

The next year, Hortense, at the age of 16, moved to Paris in search of work and a rare artifact called the Eye of Djoser. Although she never found the artifact, she found work as a personal food taster for General Charles de Gaulle, who insisted that all of his food be tested for hints of penguin dust---a substance he claimed to be violently allergic to.

Despite his arcane fears, Hortense found de Gaulle to be quite agreeable. In fact, the two may have, at one point, had more than just a professional relationship. In an interview given in 1973, Hortense claimed to have once had torrid affairs with both Charles de Gaulle and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyons---the latter of which her sister called "about as convincing as the ethic of altruism displayed by my character James Taggart in Atlas Shrugged, on sale now in Bantam paperback, $8.99."

Hortense left France in 1931 under mysterious circumstances and moved to Baltimore, Maryland. This marked a turning point in young Hortense's life. Up until this moment, she had thought she was an only child and that her Uncle Yuri was not her uncle by blood. Apparently, Yuri Oglivich told Hortense he had found her as an infant, lodged in the asshole of a dead circus elephant.

The discovery of her true identity, the first meeting with her sister Ayn, their friendship, subsequent falling-out, and the formation of Hortense's philosophical movement, Subjectivism, will be the focus of Part Two of Overshadowed: The Life of Hortense Rand. Stay Tuned!

Child's Letter to Vladimir Putin

2010-04-06T09:45:00.000-07:00

Six-year old Chechnyan, Oksana, managed to write this adorable letter to Vladimir Putin. (In English no less!)

Bipartisan Coalition Vows to Fight "Papist Conspiracy"

2010-02-15T18:22:00.000-08:00

In the U.S. Senate, the dust has begun to settle from the seeming failure of two major Democratic bills—an event GOP senators have described as both “cathartic” and “pants-creamingly awesome." Legislators on the other side of the aisle have been markedly less enthusiastic. However, key Senate members from both parties have signaled for bipartisanship going forward.

“We need to address the country’s problems with the recognition that voters sent us to Washington to work in their best interest—not to line our own pockets with money from special interests,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said at a press conference today. “With that in mind, I am willing to extend an olive branch to Sen. McConnell and his fellow Republicans so that we can confront the country’s rising health deficit, stagnant job growth, and—above all—troubling reports this week from the intelligence community of a papist conspiracy.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell echoed Reid’s bipartisan sentiments, adding, “We all remember the rumors our parents told us as children of papists stroking guns in their basements, just waiting for a signal from the Pope.” McConnell, at a press conference held separately from Reid’s, appeared shaken for a moment, but went on to say, “It seems the Pope has sounded his clarion call. We must now put aside our partisan differences to combat the papist blight—to defend the inherent WASP-iness of our nation and its institutions.”

When asked by reporters whether his conspiracy theory was really just a desperate ruse to shake voters from their recent rancor against incumbents in Washington, Sen. McConnell shot back, “Well, that’s exactly what the papists want you to think. It’s just like in the Crusades.”

When asked to elaborate on his analogy, Sen. McConnell seemed perplexed. “What analogy?”

Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, was decidedly more illustrative regarding the sweeping papist conspiracy. “The SSCI was briefed yesterday about a papist plot to smuggle hundreds of priests into water filtration plants all over the country to transform our nation’s drinking water into cheap cooking sherry they claim to be the blood of their leader. They’re nothing but dirty cannibals and they obviously lack the refined palates needed to appreciate fine wine.”

NYTimes Special Report: Embattled Governor Possessed by Iconic Ghostbusters Villain

2010-02-08T16:27:00.000-08:00

The blogosphere was abuzz Sunday night with rumors of an expose expected to run in Monday morning’s Times on New York governor David Paterson. The rumors reminded many bloggers and political pundits of a lengthy piece that ran in the Times regarding an extra-marital affair of then Republican presidential candidate John McCain in summer of 2008.

As Monday morning came and went, the so-called expose did not materialized either in print or on the newspaper’s website, which led to rumblings that Times’ reporters were following up with sources. The Times received much flak in 2008 following their report on John McCain as a result of its policy of keeping political sources anonymous.

Just as interest in the Paterson expose seemed to be waning, the Times flummoxed readers with the headline, “Embattled Governor Possessed by Iconic Ghostbusters Villain.” Reportedly, at some point between December of 2008 and January of 2009, Governor Paterson came into contact with and was possessed by Seventeenth Century despot, Vigo the Carpathian.

Apparently, while under the control of Vigo—also known as the Scourge of Carpathia—Mr. Paterson ignored suggestions from aides to appoint Caroline Kennedy to Hillary Clinton’s vacant Senate seat and, instead, appointed little-known U.S. Representative Kristen Gillibrand—who, according to the Times, may or may not be possessed by the Sumerian goddess, Zul, from the original Ghosterbusters film.

According to Times reporting, Vigo the Carpathian—also known as the Sorrow of Moldavia—will likely seek an uneasy union with Gillibrand in order to expedite his vile machinations. Paterson is quoted as being intent on “ushering in the Season of Evil.”

New York’s current lieutenant governor told Times reporters shortly after the Paterson expose appeared that he has already commissioned another Statue of Liberty from France to counter the possessed politicians in what the lieutenant governor calls “a two-front assault.”

LOST Season 6 Review Round-Up #1

2010-02-04T17:22:00.000-08:00

You probably haven’t heard about this yet, but the season six premiere of LOST aired this Tuesday. Not having heard about that, you also probably don’t know that this happens to be the final season of LOST. Like most people, you probably watched the pilot episode, enjoyed it, meant to watch the following week’s episode but forgot, tuned in again three weeks later and realized you had no fucking idea what was going on.

That’s ok. Because while you were busy jumping on (and in most cases off) the bandwagons of Desperate Housewives, The Office, Mad Men, Flight of the Concords, Battlestar Galactica, and Glee, I’ve been faithfully watching every episode of LOST. With the knowledge that comes through scrutinizing every complex, multi-layered episode of LOST, I will now critique as many reviews of the premiere as I can find on the Webbernet. I’ll also include some of my own comments as well.

Ken Tucker from EW.com says, “From my point of view… Lost stands far above most fantasy series (and yes, I’m thinking of you, FlashForward, and you, V, if only because you were heavily promoted during Lost) not only for the richness of its storytelling, but also for the richness of… [its] performances.”

Ken Tucker gives the premiere an A. Sadly, Ken Tucker, your review does not fare so well. You get an F for basically grading the premiere based on the merit of the overall series and not the premiere itself. Yes, I know it’s billed as a “mythology-free” review, but you could at least talk about the tension, pacing, believability, set design, plot twists (without mentioning what they are), or something. This review is what people in the literary world call an apology—a defense of something against someone or some opposing side. And here I am thinking critics are supposed to critique stuff—boy, was I wrong!

Here’s what Maureen Ryan from the Chicago Tribune says, “What's that on the floor? Oh. It's a puddle of brains. My brain has melted.”

Although this review opens with a satisfying mental image of Maureen Ryan’s brain splattered on the floor, it’s all down hill from there. She mostly goes on to praise the “clever” new narrative device the writers have chosen to employ this year.

[SPOILERS]

To fill you in, season five ended with Juliet attempting to blow up a bomb that would either send all of the characters back to 2004 (thereby resetting the whole LOST timeline) or do absolutely nothing. Well, instead of choosing a direction and going with it, the writers have decided to give everybody a little bit of what they want—and essentially give nobody anything they want. I’ll explain: it seems the bomb wound up creating two parallel universes, one where the survivors are still on the island and one where their flight arrives safely in Los Angeles in 2004. They call this a “plot device.”

For those of you who don’t know, writers have been using devices for quite some time. (At least as far back as the first Harry Potter book. Maybe earlier. Really, I don’t bother reading thing pre-Fight Club.) An example of a plot device, I’ve been told, is the “flashback.” It allows for temporal shifts in a narrative. Sometimes, lazy writers like to use these so-called devices to make up for deficiencies in a story like, say… lack of originality, depth, or theme.

After viewers began complaining about the LOST flashbacks getting stale and repetitive in the third season, the writers responded by changing the show’s plot device from flashbacks to flashforwards. Not to be outdone, the fifth season then changed its device to time-travel. And so here we are—the sixth season, where all the lingering questions are supposed to be revealed. The problem is there are no satisfying answers to these questions. So because these are clever writers we’re dealing with, they’ve decided the only way to keep viewers interested is to distract them from questions left unanswered in previous episodes with new gee-whiz! plot devices.

Although the writers never fail to impress in their audacity, I kind of wish they had gone the route of alternate gender universe. Just picture it: Sawyer comes falling out of the sky in a peach-colored day dress and Juliet ends up being, well… slightly more of a dude.

I nearly forgot to mention that there’s a twist to the alternate universes. (C’mon, this is LOST we’re talking about here, of course there’s a fucking twist!) The 2004 universe is not exactly what it was. It’s actually Bizarro-2004, where everything is just eerily different enough from the original 2004 to explain why everyone looks older and how all of the actors now under contractual agreements elsewhere never existed in the first place. Genius.

Anyhow, Maureen Ryan’s review gets an A for inventive imagery (the aforementioned brain splattering) and an F for not keeping my attention all the way through. That rounds out to a C or something. I don’t know.

I’d go in depth with some other reviews, but I’m tired. So I’ll just post the links and arbitrarily assign grades to them. Enjoy!

This review from Blogomatic.com awards the premiere 4 stars out of 5, but it only shows 3 stars at the bottom of the review so it gets an F.

Den of Geek seems to be leaning towards a favorable review of the premiere, but doesn’t completely commit to it. I hate people like that. F.

This review from Khabrein.info reads like it was written by a mollusk or some other kind of urchin. It gets a B+ for its postmodern take on grammar.

Your Review Sucks #1 (Heartland by Owen Pallett via Pitchfork)

2010-01-31T18:19:00.000-08:00

A little disclaimer before we get started here—I’ve actually never heard the album Heartland by Owen Pallett. From the title, I’d probably begin my review with “Pallett returns to form with album of Neil Young covers.” Normally, a reviewer is expected to experience what he is reviewing before he reviews it—so goes conventional wisdom. Owen Pallett’s new album, though, is not what I intend to review. (Though, I’m sure I’ll do my damnedest to pass judgment on it anyway.) No, what is being scrutinized here is Pitchfork’s review of said album. And I’m sorry to say the review does not live up to the website’s reputation of unparalleled turgidity. It is, in fact, surprisingly un-turgid—perhaps a demoralizing sign of things to come? Pitchfork enthusiasts will be pleased to note, however, that the review continues in the vein of past reviews that regale readers with several paragraphs of background, apology, qualification, and general flippancy before actually getting to the album under inspection.

The review kicks off with the syntactically bizarre—and, therefore, genius—statement “I’ve never known anyone not to be wowed by Final Fantasy’s live shows.” Before you jump out of your seats to buy tickets, I’ll just let you know right now it has nothing to do with the popular gaming series, Final Fantasy. I’ve checked. Owen Pallett used to tour and record albums under the moniker Final Fantasy. (For those of you who’ve been living under a rock!) What’s interesting about this endorsement of Pallett’s live show is that he actually played at Pitchfork fest last summer and may very well perform there again next summer. Let me just add that anyone scrounging around for a conflict of interest here isn’t going to find one. Sorry.

Not having heard the album, I can’t really say much about who Owen Pallett is or what his music is like. However, I know from the review that he loves Dungeons & Dragons and is definitely a virgin. He probably knew what an avatar was even before that movie came out. Here’s a lyric from the album: “The night is split by the whistle of my amber whip.” I’m pretty sure that’s a reference to Simon’s Quest, but don’t quote me. Apparently, he also likes to sing about some made-up Narnia world called Spectrum—which I guess is a good thing because he’s using his imagination and probably drawing maps with little pictures of elves sitting cross-legged on tree stumps playing lutes.

What really disappoints me here is the serious lack of hyphenated words. (Only four!) I clamor for the days not too long ago when Pitchfork reviews were artfully arranged hodgepodges of hyphenated words. Take this brilliant piece of avant-garde criticism from the website's classic review of The Field’s 2009 album: “the poignant you-call-those-melodies? abstracted from the emotionally-manipulative fakebook of post-rave cheese.” I bring this up merely as a caveat to Pitchfork: don’t sacrifice your “reviews-as-art” mentality for the sake of lucidity. If your reviewers can’t make music or write literature themselves, at least have the decency to allow them an outlet to impinge on the artistic statements of accomplished musicians by packing their reviews with personal anecdotes, clever asides, neologisms, and genres they just made up five minutes ago.

The review wraps up with an especially revealing line about Owen Pallet’s Harvest or After the Gold Rush or whatever it’s called—“This stuff is rich with ideas, and they’re offered in the kind of rich, warm sound” that is sure to fill you with all sorts of rich-y richness. It’ll make you feel like you’ve just taken a dip in a pool of Velveeta cheese and melted dark chocolate and, yeah, you might even feel inspired enough to take on the whole world. (…of Warcraft.)