Thursday

 

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Ys funny, no?



Even though he seems to be generally pro Joanna Newsom, I can't resist the chance to pass on this fantastic para from Sasha Frere-Jones writing in the online New Yorker:

"Her voice is an acquired taste: a wobbly mezzo-soprano that leaps into falsetto and breaks in a woody squeak. At first, she sounded to me like Lucille Ball reciting Edmund Spenser. She brought to mind a college student I knew who wore suspenders to show that she would not countenance this debased modern world."

And no, I still don't "get" Ys.

posted by Ian 11/30/2006 01:28:00 PM

Comments:

Me neither. Though the picture in Wire - simply oozing smugness - didn't help. Ys sounds like Lisa Simpson talking gibberish to me.

# posted by  mark k-punk : 30/11/06

 

How daaaaarre you, sir! The Lady Lisa never talked gibberish in all her noble days! (O, apart from that one time she drank the yellow water in the Duff Land boat ride and started freaking out ...
"I am the Lizard Queen!"

# posted by  Ian : 30/11/06

 

You're right, of course; I should have said, Lisa Simpson IF she were speaking gibberish....

# posted by  mark k-punk : 30/11/06

 

I know, I know ... but any excuse to quote The Simpsons.

{Homer: "The fame was like some awful drug. But what was even more like a drug were the drugs ..."

# posted by  Ian : 30/11/06

 

I think the involvement of David Eggars is always instructive when we hear of a new artist of any kind - if he endorses them then we will know that we are dealing with the idea of art rather than any actual art - I bet Zadie Smith loves her too, in fact I bet they all get together, Zadie, Dave, Bill Callahan, Soppy Coppola, Hornby even and have dope and Newsom evenings. I haven't actually listened to it though

# posted by  me : 30/11/06

 

Nor should you, (necessarily) ...

Mark Sinker (for one) and I have always championed this form of, uh, 'inventively non participative' reviewing - whose results, more often than not, can be uncannily accurate.
Let's say it's the ultimate form of 'speculative' or 'deductive criticism ...

# posted by  Ian : 30/11/06

 

RE: David Eggars. The more I see him in the cultural 'aether' the less inclined I am to finish the first chapter 'Oh aren't I self-depreciatingly clever?' or whatever the fuck it was. Even his arch prefaces, 'ironic' footnotes, typsetting gimmicks etc. are ripped off Alasdair Gray.

The self-congratulatory smugness of 'McSweeney's' is apparent just by looking at it on the bookshop shelf. He's become like the Bono of lit.

# posted by  Anonymous : 1/12/06

 

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