Monday, November 01, 2004
We're Bigots and Proud of It!
First things first -- chickenhamcheddar from Jewel but we have information that this, the most predicatble of Monz' lunches, is about to change. Thus we have refrained from dubbing it "The Monday Usual."
This Sunday the editors experienced a number of shocks. As a group we visited, for the first and last time (as it has closed its doors), the Terra Museum. We enjoyed their one great painting (Samuel Morse's attempt to bring the Lourve to the masses) and were touched by another ("Snow Birds"). Then we had our own yummy lunch at the Walnut Room (and also learned that the Walnut Room has a Sunday brunch featuring all their best-known dishes sans apple pie with light cinnamon ice cream but all you can eat!).
But this pales to our shock at discovering that we're all a bunch of bigots! Apparently music critics have a name for this which they've been hotly debating for years: rockists! From Kalefa Sanneh, the New York Times music critic who took Ann Powers' #3 spot and whose reviews we quite enjoy:
>>A rockist isn't just someone who loves rock 'n' roll, who goes on and on about Bruce Springsteen, who champions ragged-voiced singer-songwriters no one has ever heard of. A rockist is someone who reduces rock 'n' roll to a caricature, then uses that caricature as a weapon. Rockism means idolizing the authentic old legend (or underground hero) while mocking the latest pop star; lionizing punk while barely tolerating disco; loving the live show and hating the music video; extolling the growling performer while hating the lip-syncher....Rockism isn't unrelated to older, more familiar prejudices - that's part of why it's so powerful, and so worth arguing about. The pop star, the disco diva, the lip-syncher, the "awesomely bad" hit maker: could it really be a coincidence that rockist complaints often pit straight white men against the rest of the world? Like the anti-disco backlash of 25 years ago, the current rockist consensus seems to reflect not just an idea of how music should be made but also an idea about who should be making it. <<
It would take us days to Fisk this piece, but we're too tired and need to rest for election day tomorrow. Which reminds us to remind you to vote AND eat lunch. In the spirit of our democracy, we'll be on hiatus until November 3rd -- see yew'll then!
First things first -- chickenhamcheddar from Jewel but we have information that this, the most predicatble of Monz' lunches, is about to change. Thus we have refrained from dubbing it "The Monday Usual."
This Sunday the editors experienced a number of shocks. As a group we visited, for the first and last time (as it has closed its doors), the Terra Museum. We enjoyed their one great painting (Samuel Morse's attempt to bring the Lourve to the masses) and were touched by another ("Snow Birds"). Then we had our own yummy lunch at the Walnut Room (and also learned that the Walnut Room has a Sunday brunch featuring all their best-known dishes sans apple pie with light cinnamon ice cream but all you can eat!).
But this pales to our shock at discovering that we're all a bunch of bigots! Apparently music critics have a name for this which they've been hotly debating for years: rockists! From Kalefa Sanneh, the New York Times music critic who took Ann Powers' #3 spot and whose reviews we quite enjoy:
>>A rockist isn't just someone who loves rock 'n' roll, who goes on and on about Bruce Springsteen, who champions ragged-voiced singer-songwriters no one has ever heard of. A rockist is someone who reduces rock 'n' roll to a caricature, then uses that caricature as a weapon. Rockism means idolizing the authentic old legend (or underground hero) while mocking the latest pop star; lionizing punk while barely tolerating disco; loving the live show and hating the music video; extolling the growling performer while hating the lip-syncher....Rockism isn't unrelated to older, more familiar prejudices - that's part of why it's so powerful, and so worth arguing about. The pop star, the disco diva, the lip-syncher, the "awesomely bad" hit maker: could it really be a coincidence that rockist complaints often pit straight white men against the rest of the world? Like the anti-disco backlash of 25 years ago, the current rockist consensus seems to reflect not just an idea of how music should be made but also an idea about who should be making it. <<
It would take us days to Fisk this piece, but we're too tired and need to rest for election day tomorrow. Which reminds us to remind you to vote AND eat lunch. In the spirit of our democracy, we'll be on hiatus until November 3rd -- see yew'll then!
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