go ahead make fun of the new believer magazine music issue cd comp you know you want to

come on don't be shy

nabisco will beat you down though

just so you know

so make it good!

why would someone make fun of this - because it's all indie rock or because of the particular choices or...?

yearly tradition!

because the first track is cryptically labelled with only a "." it is too indie for the number "1".

we all gripe about white people for 650 posts, enjoy some cocktails on the porch, and then kill ourselves.

OK. Let me think... Ah, there you go:
Wot no One Ring Zero?

i mean LOL @ aesop rock being the only rap choice!

i miss having mod deletion powers u_u

hey -- that tracklisting is basically what I imagine everyone else on ILM is listening to all the time. this is why I talk to you all as if I think you're idiots.

i'm sure it's no worse than any twenty track indie compilation some magazine would have put out ten years ago or twenty years ago. surely better in fact!

x-post BTW I'm not saying that's right of me!! So put yr flames away dudes.

'where is teh hyphy'

Sufjan, credibility.

if only this could be more like the hot chip dj kicks

4 out of the 20 artists have cities in their names.

'lol believer' etc now my impeccable taste is reinforced

2 out of the twenty have animals.

this comp is more yoga fire than yoga flame

Wow, a band name that has something to do with Iceland AND has an exclamation point.

haha I didn't even notice that, Tim, considering I started a whole thread about that shit last week. (xpost)

you take what you get, hurting! x-post

yoga sulphur for all time

I will totally hand out sonnings if people aren't actively PROUD of the Believer for this one. Everyone mocked the last collection for being precisely the kind of safe, boring, strummy indie music often listened to by people who are highbrow about books but not so much records. Since then, they have gotten more involvement from people with actual music backgrounds -- last I heard, Brandon Stosuy was working on compiling this, and judging by the tracklisting, that doesn't seem to have changed. I can't see much reaction to this other than congratulating them for a big improvement.

I remain, however, totally available to remind people what a literary magazine is.

2008 will feature tracks from Slothhunt!, Franzjosefland, White Sloth, Greetings from LOLCANADA, and Sage Francis

yeah the believer has gone downhill in terms of interesting articles in the past year or so.

(Haha now that criticism I can kinda sign on with.)

I like the city names more than the animal ones. The rest of the band names are:

2. No Age
6. Aesop Rock
8. YACHT
9. The Twilight Sad
12. Clogs
13. The Blow
16. Magik Markers
17. The Drones
19. Lightning Bolt

sad to hear that - I think the last thing I saw was a really great interview with Bun B but that was awhile ago.

x-post

What are Clogs like?

like shoes, but slip-on, and made out of wood

for the first two years i would pick it up and flip through it and buy it because they were always talking about interesting books but now it's all like weird articles about shit i don't really care about, hardly no book stuff at all besides the tiny reviews. and then if they do have a book article it's like Rick Moody writing about Sebald. it's totally off my radar now, though i usually pick it up and read at least one interview, but i love reading interviews.

like shoes, but slip-on, and made out of wood [ / Leslie Nielsen ]

(jesus, i sound like some old indie rocker bitching about a band's first E.P. "OMG PERFECT SOUND FOREVER IS SO PERFECT.)

I couldn't begin to make fun of it, the only band/artist on their I've actually heard is Aesop Rock.

Yeah the interviews are usually pretty good.

I hope someday soon the upshot of music blogs and all these different ways for people to endorse/distribute music they like will be that non-music magazines (and music magazines, too, for that matter) stop bothering with fucking compilation CDs.

Leagues ahead of the last few comps. Go Believer!

I wouldn't bother making fun of it either, I've only heard 6 of the bands and they're all okay, more or less.

David Byrne interviewing Olivia Judson was the greatest thing in forever: he seemed like he was turning cartwheels trying to impress her with his "deep" questions, and then she'd get all "umm, no," and then he'd back up and try again -- it was like reading a very pretentious 15-year-old with a crush conduct an interview. (NB this made me like Byrne, really)

I would happily read Moody on Sebald! I haven't felt like any recent drop-offs are any result of changing topics or content -- just that after the first couple years of excitement and bringing new writers on board, things tend to simmer down a bit. Your regular writers need to recharge on ideas, you have to start looking farther and wider for okay new contributors, etc.

How long ago was that games issue? My mind is lost, I can't tell if that was last summer or like two years ago.

Alex in Baltimore otm

i guess i have this stupid idealized version of the believer in my head, it's all articles on writers i've never heard of, or haven't thought about in a while. it's probably never been like that, though. i guess i'm thinking of the pessoa article early on way back when. and i have this thing about rick moody. maybe that article is good.

i haven't picked up a copy in a while. i let my subscription lapse about a year or year and a half ago. i always find SOMETHING worth reading when i do buy a copy. this issue looks like it has a few things i would read:

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200706/

and this is kinda neat and you can read the whole thing on-line:

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200706/?read=article_collins

only non-music mag comps i end up playing more than once are the ones that come with the oxford american music issue.

Comp looks quite good, better than the last couple on paper at least (not sure I never listened to those). I need to pick up this issue.

i like CD comps w/magazine. even if there's nothing good, who cares?

honestly, i guess i'm lame but i have some Mojo ones that I'm glad I got...like they did this Southern Soul one and it had a bunch of good songs I'd never heard.

mojo has done tons of good ones! though i did check out a recent issue at the store that was all young brit bands and i didn't buy it.

mojo punk one. soundtrack one. reggae one. drug one. all really good. (punk was old and new stuff)

i even own the mojo 4 cd psych box. which i was just playing last week.

THE BELIEVER is not WAX POETICS

The only track I've heard is The Twilight Sad, and it's a cracking album.

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200706/?read=interview_gates

This is not an interview with the dude from Bread. Dud.

can not deal with the liner notes on this one.

hahaha it's the Believer, what do you expect. It's associated with probably the lamest, safest, most boring, most absolute beige literary scene in New York City history.

What, you expecting them to start a Chrome revival?

you know, I dig the Believer and have always thought the yearly "oh no why didn't they put E-40 on their comp, they are so square lol" throwdowns are totally lame & clued-out, but at the same time, I share many people's "that seems so safe and predictable, like a buncha understudies for this month's Paste cover story" misgivings - and I'd be interested in hearing N**s*h's, or anybody's, further breakdown as to how this year's model is riskier etc: they seem to be sticking to their guns

THE BELIEVER is not WAX POETICS

-- tricky, Monday, June 18, 2007 7:08 PM

most otm post on thread

joanna newsom -vs- lightning bolt

actually, i've only heard seven out of twenty on that track-listing, so i have no idea how much riskier it is. lightning bolt are noisy though.

and sufjan stevens is a serial-killer, isn't he?

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

it's a bit like watching paint dry, innit? or see title of track 9.

you know, I dig the Believer and have always thought the yearly "oh no why didn't they put E-40 on their comp, they are so square lol" throwdowns are totally lame & clued-out, but at the same time, I share many people's "that seems so safe and predictable, like a buncha understudies for this month's Paste cover story" misgivings - and I'd be interested in hearing N**s*h's, or anybody's, further breakdown as to how this year's model is riskier etc: they seem to be sticking to their guns

If you live in New York City and have paid witness to the creative scene here, then you can be none other than part of the Invasion Force: Beige. maaaan.

i fucking despise the believer and its alternayuppie milqutoast worldview to the point where i'd be probably start to hate a band i liked if it showed up on their music comp. no problem with this years' crapfest.

My friend bought me this back from the States, I think mainly cos he knew I'd want to hear the Lightning Bolt thing (which was pretty good). The mag I found a bit, hmm, beige is a good word here I guess. I did like the piece about Bob Fox or whatever his name was, the Ohio songwriter guy who dropped out of music and became a total recluse.

yeah it's exactly when people start breaking out the "ugh! yuppies!" stuff that I start scratching my head - man the barricades if you like, but is there anything wrong with, y'know, people just writing about stuff?

I dunno, as soon as somebody professes a hatred for "yuppies" I sorta think "you don't actually mean anything by that, do you, it's just kind of an all-purpose rhetorical target"

The problem with the Believer is basically the same as the problem with McSweeney's: a few very good pieces aside, most of the writing is awful tripe about stuff that nobody but precious, trying-to-be hip people pretend to care about. Since many of these people are alterna-yuppies, people roast them instead of just roasting the magazine for being the total rag that it is.

And it is a rag, to the utmost. It is a magazine whose writing is as bland as its layout, which is saying a lot, because that layout is fucking disgusting.

Again, I think that much of the problem with the Believer is simply the fact that it just screams, "AREN'T WE CLEVER AND CREATIVE?" It's like the kid in the creative writing workshop who tries too hard.

I dunno, as soon as somebody professes a hatred for "yuppies" I sorta think "you don't actually mean anything by that, do you, it's just kind of an all-purpose rhetorical target"

This is OTM and I have exactly the same problem with 'hipster' and 'trust fund' (unless someone is actually talking about a trust fund, which doesn't seem to be very often be the case). I completely understand the root of why people use these words as pejoratives but it's like every time they get busted out, their definition gets that tiny bit vaguer until you get to that point where 90% of the time it's just a rant about nothing in particular

yeah its the preciousness of the believer/mcsweeney's sensibility that looses me.

"yuppie" actually meant something in like the first half of the 80s. nowdays I just take it as a generational smear, like if you're old enough to remember its genesis you must be one.

Actually the main problem w/most perjorative uses of youppie/hipster is that they're usually coming from the lips of people who'd most likely qualify for both groups (at least for a day pass). When minorities who are about to get gentrified out of a neighborhood use the words, suddenly we're in that 10% where it means something. Anyone who's a member of a mailing list where, you know, poor people post will have a good sense of this.

My main beef with the Believer's music stuff is also extremely hard to argue: that at root they fundamentally don't have the depth of knowledge or actual interest to produce much worth reading. Of course anytime you bring this up, some smart person points out that you're in no position to judge the workings of someone else's brain. And they're totally right, congratulations, and I still don't buy the magazine anymore.

a mailing list where, you know, poor people post

guiltywhiteliberal.com

i should re-subscribe to the believer. i still like it. every once in a while i buy it when i see it at the record store. there aren't too many good magazines where you can read good writing on books and writers. the last great thing i read in believer was probably that gary gygax profile. that was awesome. that was a while ago though.

there aren't too many good magazines where you can read good writing on books and writers.

Poets & Writers, the Paris Review, Harper's, Zoetrope, and about a zillion others are better magazines and just as widely available. that and none of them are stupidly obsessed with Rick fucking Moody, who is possibly the most overrrated writer of our epoch.

a zillion others?

also, they don't sell the paris review where i live. or zoetrope. or poets & writers.

i subscribe to harper's though. sometimes their lit stuff is good. sometimes not. most magazines don't devote as much space to writers/writing/books.

there are 6 bands on that list that I have listened to before: one that I love, two that I used to love, one that I could potentially love, and two that I don't really care about

I guess what I'm saying is that I am an optimist and I prefer to think about those 6 rather than the 14 collapsing blog-hype souffles whose ridiculous names haunt my mildest nightmares

Rick Moody has stuff in the Paris Review all the time. he used to be on their advisory board. i agree with you that he sucks though

stuff that nobody but precious, trying-to-be hip people pretend to care about]

a charge leveled against ILM how many times?

this is cool:

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200611/?read=article_eden

and they have stuff like that all the time in there. i dunno, i don't live in brooklyn, i don't care who RUNS the damn magazine. they print good stuff. not all the time, but there is always 1 or 2 or 3 good things in every issue.

Guess it would be too easy to just post exceptions, but there have been some great, long, in-depth articles in the Believer. Wolk's piece on the Fall box set, his piece on Cerebus, the Gary Gygax piece, Christgau's couple pieces incl. the one on Eminem, the piece on "My Way", Stosuy's interview w/ Matthew Barney (only good interview I've read w/ him ever), Caramanica's interview w/ Bun B. Yes, some dull stuff too.

okay, yes, they publish an occasional good piece, but then i don't understand the hatred towards mcsweeneys that i read a lot around here. mcsweeneys really DOES publish the best fiction in america at the moment, and while there are as many stinkers as great pieces, it is certainly a better read than any issue of the believer i've perused.

i also think much of my dislike, tho, is more my complete lack of interest in Eminem, the Fall, Matthew Barney, or almost anyone the Believer has ever profiled/interviewed. the piece on "My Way" certainly gets my props for being among the best pieces of music writing i read last year, but otherwise, i say "meh."

scott, where do you live? i thought you were right outside of philly.

or maybe that was a 'once upon a time, scott lived in philly'?

This is pretty good:
http://www.believermag.com/issues/200706/?read=article_collins

in spite of its propensity to use cutesy and needless stylistic devices (the repeated "KER-CHUNK!" and "ahhhh-AHHHHHH-ahhhhh").

i like the believer. not all of it but like scott says there's always something good and the interviews can be great. most of the criticism of the magazine on this thread is vague to the point of meaninglessness.

It's going to be hard to get really detailed criticism without having ten-mile-long posts, which I'd just as soon not read. I think the specifics have been pretty well detailed: dilletantism, preciousness, insularity and a certain academic blandness. Enough people seem to get that that I can't help but think the magazine's defenders are setting an unreasonable standard for complaints.

It's not like the magazine is the antichrist, but there's a good case to be made that it's often quite annoying.

This sort of sampler isn't for the sort of person who reads ILM, obviously. Any music-only site is more about preaching among the converted. The Believer list looks like a good birds-eye view of what's happening in indie rock, the sort of thing that could get a Gen X'er involved in new music again, instead of just putting on Pavement or Daydream Nation again. And this is too great a decade in music to let it pass by. Likewise, those Oxford American music ish's probably did more to promote alt.country than any issue of No Depression. And a lot of music nerds would get a lot out of writing floating around in the greater the Eggars orbit

Is the Gygax thing online?

I was all set to let my subscription lapse this year, but then I caved at the last minute and renewed, but they still haven't sent me my next issue (which was supposed to be the one with this CD on it). IIRC, last year's comp also had some fairly noisy stuff on it (like Blood on the Wall) and was all recorded "live" (by Brandon Stosuy, I think) so it was kind of lo-fi and ragged as well. So if any props are to be given out for adventurousness, they probably should apply to last year as well.

My favorite Believer music comp was actually the prior year (2005), the one that featured all covers of other bands' songs, which was indeed the kind of folkish, literate, NPR-ready indie that would probably send any ILMer worth the name screaming from the room, but which I found frequently illuminating and enjoyable.

i resubscribed when i heard about how their recent money woes, a distributor went belly up and took mcsweeneys money with it.

I agree with the praise of the Gygax profile. That was quite enjoyable, and I've only played D&D a few times long ago with my little brother. They often have some very good pieces in there, but I'd still say that overall the ratio of worthwhile to forgettable is still not quite as high as I'd like. I did renew though, so I guess I must not dislike it that much.

And I think that maybe the "yuppie" tag has something to do with the high sticker price - $45/year is a bit steep for a monthly, but since they don't carry ads (well I think they do carry one per issue now), it's somewhat understandable.

I couldn't care less about the CDs that come with the music issues at this point, they are what they are, but this year's issue itself was kinda disappointing to me, esp. the not especially insightful Beatles/Stones thing (especially the "pop culture just ain't what it used to be/get the hell off my lawn" ending) and the unbelievably precious (not unexpectedly so, obv) Miranda July-interviews-the Blow Q&A. still like the mag overall, though.

to be fair, the actual hard copy of mcsweeney's is a lot better than the online stuff, which is largely wink wink ironic hip humor stuff. i love the short stories in all the quarterlies i have.

i have the believer comp from a while back that has this absolutely gorgeous six minute kora composition from mamadou diabate.

John, I think seeing the development from last year requires looking at this less in terms of musical genres (it's still "indie") and more in terms of what stuff actually sounds like -- compared with what the expectations are for people who read lit magazines (strummy/comfy, mostly), the mere presence of stuff like No Age and Lightning Bolt is a nice move, wouldn't you think? It's not like this tracklist is a huge jump from expecations, but it's enough of a small step that it doesn't seem worth trotting out last year's objections.

And then all the ones that don't even make sense, or at least need some unpacking:

probably the lamest, safest, most boring, most absolute beige literary scene in New York City history -- can we get more on who these authors are being compared to, both in the present and historically? They aren't aiming for a rep as lit rebels for certain, but I don't see what's so incredibly safe about Ben Marcus's writing, or Paul Lafarge's, and I'm having a hard time thinking of what young writers are or should be getting some rebel mantle, and I'd actually rather read lots of these people than, I dunno, Tama Janowitz -- hot damn does this claim need a hell of unpacking! (Haha maybe especially with regard to "scene in New York City" versus "scene in San Francisco.")

its alternayuppie milqutoast worldview -- what worldview are we talking about? It's mostly a literary magazine. There are articles about literature and stuff. Is that a worldview? Has reading become a yuppies-only hobby? Do yuppies buy small-press publications and poetry? What constitutes a less milquetoast, more "hardcore" mostly literary publication? Has Bob Silver at the NYRB started wearing platinum fronts?

awful tripe about stuff that nobody but precious, trying-to-be hip people pretend to care about -- like books? Like Sebald? Like the one guy's travels in northern Israel during the summer incursion into Lebanon? Like interviews with award-winning authors, with Richard Powers and Lorrie Moore and William Gass?

yeah its the preciousness of the believer/mcsweeney's sensibility that looses me -- can we separate these things, maybe, seeing as one of these items consists of fiction and the other does not? can we figure out what specifically about the Believer's sensibility is "precious," or anyway significantly more precious than competing literary publications? Is this sensibility located solely in the front matter, dingbat sketches, and recurring one-page features, or does it actually exist in the features, interviews, and essays?

To be clear, I don't think the Believer is the greatest thing in the history of the world ever, though I do find it a pretty likeable / readable lit mag, and more accessible than the average, which I choose to think of as a positive thing. There are plenty of perfectly sound reasons to rag on it, but the ones that get trotted out on ILM tend to be SO casting and ridiculous and basically amount to "LOL it is a literary magazine" without even realizing it, and every year when we have this thread it amuses me.

I mean, god, anyone "trying to be hip" by reading lit magazines is in for some really unpleasant disappointments.

i think for some people the cult of eggers is too much to bear or something. but it just seems really really knee-jerk. especially if you take the time to actually read an issue or two.

i feel a definite deja vu all over again here though. how many times have i defended the believer on ilx? and same with you, nabz. it's kinda crazy.

I think this

the cult of eggers is too much to bear or something

has a lot to do with people freaking out over the believer.

It's weird -- I feel like I would defend it LESS if I were in love with it, or something. But it's just such a standard, ordinary, kinda-accessible lit magazine that it seems particularly weird when people act like they loathe it.

You're absolutely OTM that it's all about associations, mostly stemming from Eggers -- you can kinda tell, actually, in that so many people's knee-jerk criticisms of it seem entirely based on reading the online McSweeney's reader submissions.

heh. yeah McSweeney's online can be pretty bad. sometimes it's so bad i get inspired and submit my own bad stuff and sometimes they even put it up there. they must get a lot of crap , though. i doubt they get a lot of great stuff. whatever.

i think i just used to buy mcsweeneys for the packaging. i wouldn't end up reading much. believer is more up my alley. a lot of the longer pieces i like would fit happily in harpers or the atlantic or whatever. that conlangers piece. that two-part jerry lewis thing.

I have to say, it was when the Believer ran the Gass interview that I was like "yup, these guys are for real and I'm on their side"

also, Wholpin is fucking boss

God, when I think of Harper's, I inevitably think of that ancient Yum-Yum piece a.k.a. the worst music article ever written. So I'm not sure if "would fit happily in harpers" is a compliment or what. Actually, given that standard, a lot of Believer bits I've read would fit happliy in harpers.

xpost

How about this?

I don't dig the snark.

The layout is fucking ugly. The covers don't even deserve "fucking ugly"-- they are ghastly.

The "Discussed in this Feature/Interview/Review" bit at the beginning of everything always makes me NOT want to read. It doesn't pique my interest. If anything, it makes me think, "wait, if I know what they're going to discuss and can pretty much guess what they're going to say about it...then why should I read it?"

Re: Harper's-- is a political/social critique magazine. Which would explain why that article sucked so bad.

Lethem's article about plagiarism/copying/Web 2.0 issues was spot on, for example, and quite cleverly done.

I don't dig the snark.

I've only flipped through them recently, but, uh, they haven't mentioned this stuff for months. Years, even???

also, Wholpin is fucking boss
OTMxEleventy

"Funky Forest" on the latest one is indescribably good. Indescribable in that if you even try to begin explaining it, it's difficult to get past the physical and the guy trying not to get a chest boner from the teenage girl tennis player in front of him.

they put FUNKY FOREST on the latest wholphin?? the whole thing?!?!

that is 100% cool. i love that movie.

The Gass interview was admittedly quite awesome, but mostly because I love William Gass and have read most of his books (including The Tunnel, which is nearly 800 pages of pure unwieldy mid-life crisis Holocaust fiction).

I guess my feeling is that there are no print magazines that fulfill my design, literary, political and criticism standards at the same time. Harper's does political. Design is pretty pwned by faggoty art and architecture mags. Literary is the Columbia Poetry Review, Paris Review, Zoetrope, McSweeneys. Criticism is a bit of everything.

I've only flipped through them recently, but, uh, they haven't mentioned this stuff for months. Years, even???

Yr missing my point-- the editors and many of the contributors are snarky, was what I was saying.

I mean, I've had dinner with Vendela Veda and Ed Park. They're nice enough (and very smart), but they're also incredibly snarky-- arrogant and cynical in a way that makes me feel like shit.

Their magazine is less snarky than their dinner conversation.

The Gass interview was admittedly quite awesome, but mostly because I love William Gass and have read most of his books (including The Tunnel, which is nearly 800 pages of pure unwieldy mid-life crisis Holocaust fiction).

come on that's weak. then you should appreciate that they would interview him!

The Gass interview was admittedly quite awesome, but mostly because I love William Gass and have read most of his books (including The Tunnel, which is nearly 800 pages of pure unwieldy mid-life crisis Holocaust fiction).

Yeah so have I but so what? And also listened to the recently released discs of Gass reading that shit aloud, which are also awesome but also big hairy deal. Guess what, the editors of the Believer also read Gass and know he's awesome. I suspect that Gass feels like the Believer is a decent enough magazine. You seem to have a real chip on your shoulder about it. It's just a damn magazine with its own little style. Getting worked up about it, as if the New Yorker and Harper's and Zoetrope and Prairie Schooner and even Poetry for that matter didn't all have their own kind of we-are-our-own-thing snark, seems kinda "wha?"

here's the link to Gass reading the Tunnel btw, if you've read the book you'll be giggling from the first phrase:

http://books.dalkeyarchive.com/book/each_book/13

"Design is pretty pwned by faggoty art and architecture mags."

WTF

"I don't dig the snark."

wait, i don't get this, didn't the believer editor write an entire anti-snark manifesto!!?? or was that someone else?

they hate snark! here is the whole thing:

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200303/?read=article_julavits

when people call the believer snarky I think they mean "I bet they wouldn't invite me to their parties if I knew them, those fuckers"

"Just the place for a Snark!" the editor cried,
As he landed writers with care;
Supporting each one on the top of the tide
By a keyboard entwined in its hair.

yeah, i sense jealousy or something. the writing in a lot of the pieces is GOOD JOURNALISM. there is more here than meets the eye. if anyone here wrote something really really good and sent it to the believer i'll bet they would print it! i don't get the sense of this closed up club that i think some people get. yeah, they are friends with moody and hornby. nobody is perfect.

fine, fuck it, i'll admit it: i dislike the 'young' literary establishment presented by the Believer, mostly because i AM jealous. is that a crime?

that and to say that they aren't some closed-up club is absurd, scott.

when people call the believer snarky I think they mean "I bet they wouldn't invite me to their parties if I knew them, those fuckers"

You know, this is insulting enough that I could throw something nasty your way, Darnielle, but I won't because "We Shall All Be Healed" pretty much saved my life for a while.

also thx for link to Gass. i am giggling.

yeah, i sense jealousy or something

CLASS(ic)!

Forgive me for tardiness, but TS: reading/writing "watching paint dry" jokes re Believer CD vs. listening to paint dry on Believer CD.

if anyone here wrote something really really good and sent it to the believer i'll bet they would print it!

uhh call me cynical/jaded/whatever, but...

You know, this is insulting enough that I could throw something nasty
your way, Darnielle, but I won't because "We Shall All Be Healed" pretty
much saved my life for a while.

whoever you are, I appreciate that, just so you know, glad to hear I was of some use - still, it really does
seem like your complaints about the magazine are less about the
magazine itself than something else. It's no crime to be jealous, it can be
a great motivator, but it's a lousy aesthetic yardstick!

why did that come out like free verse, wtf

ah there's just something about it that's so precious & self-contained.
"here's my world and welcome to it" that's OK but I prefer writing that pulls you out of yourself and places you in alien/unfamiliar territory. like those old issues of granta we were talking about scot, all that realistic ficition and wild-eyed travel writing and autobiography.

http://www.uniquedesigns-scenes.com/Dioramas%202004%20002.JPG

i'm sure this makes no sense, but i have a feeling that i would like the believer ok if i read it (which i don't, except for occasional things, and that bun b interview really was great) -- i'm sure in any given issue there'd be articles or essays i would enjoy, at least as bathroom or subway reading. but the idea of the believer annoys me, starting with its name. it's how i feel about eggers as a whole, really -- some good work, sure, and well-intentioned pretty much, but all presented with a slightly self-congratulatory air that among other things imagines itself to be more special/interesting/breath-of-fresh-air than it actually is. which is how their music-comp tracklists read to me too.

No love for N+1? Even though they come out with new issues like ... once every 4 years, they're OK, even if they don't practice what they preach.

Anyway, the Believer is just another piece of the turn of the century puzzle ... a lot of really comfortable, aging Gen Xers who push $800 strollers in urban areas (SF, Brooklyn, what have you) who want to be Cool Forever (or the flip side, Finally Cool), publish a lot of this crap.

It's culture for wheatgrass munching, Midwestern accented, "socially progressive" wimps who ride matching Bianchi cruisers with their wife and kid to their $900k condo in Bed Stuy or Harlem, and then go and file formal complaints with the mayor about the black people causin all the noise on the block and disturbing their kids sleep. (yes, this shit really happens).

All they really want to do is go back to upper class Connecticut, or Vermont, Ohio, Nebraska, so they turn the world into those places - bland and shitty.

So, maybe you have to see these people with your own eyes for the bile to really rise about the culture they produce - Believer, McSweeney's, etc.

ha, your name is cute. more like baarrrrrrrrrrrf10, amirite?

Oh man do I hate those "Midwestern accented" fuckers!

gettin' hot in herre

whhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeat grassssssssssssssssssssss

i think i'm good at ignoring the cutesy elements that bug people so much. i've always hated that long list of stuff discussed before every essay too. i just don't read it. and many of the one-page columns/whatevers are really easy to ignore as well. mcsweeneys is alive and well in those one-page book reviews with the descriptions of the kind of paper they used for the book/font/print-run/etc. those reviews themselves are kinda fascinating as they often cover books that i will never ever see by book companies that i never knew existed and they all have very handsome covers/design. it's like another world of fiction that exists on a cloud somewhere. which i think is kinda cool!

"a lot of really comfortable, aging Gen Xers who push $800 strollers in urban areas (SF, Brooklyn, what have you) who want to be Cool Forever (or the flip side, Finally Cool), publish a lot of this crap."

hahahaha, wow, it's like an epidemic! holy toledo...

I kind of want to have a baby just for the $800 stroller.

Damn you and your $800 strollers, Skot! I expect you to have hauled Cyrus around in old wet paper bags only.

I guess my feeling is that there are no print magazines that fulfill my design, literary, political and criticism standards at the same time.

"So, you want a realistic, down-to-earth show... that's completely off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots?"

we had a jeep stroller for rufus. maria's mom bought it. except i think we put it together wrong, cuz the wheels never worked right. then we had a double stroller after our second kid. i forget what kind. but it was sufficiently durable enough to withstand a car hitting it once. an old lady didn't see maria and cyrus on the side of the road and she hit maria's hand and the stroller with cyrus in it and it flew through the air, landing on the grass several feet away. cyrus was unharmed. i don't know what it cost.

i'm sure people on this thread, IF THEY HAD TRUST FUNDS LIKE ALL THOSE BELIEVER SCUM, would show us how it was done given the chance.

and that bun b interview really was great

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000AJMBH.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

people with trust funds don't assemble their own strollers, they pay someone to do it

i want that toni schlesinger book! i loved the shelter column:

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200608/?read=article_davidson

"midwestern accented" really rockin' my socks right about now

damn those "midwestern accented" people, why don't they talk like REAL PEOPLE

i hate the believer because i'm way cooler than any of them but i dont have my own lit mag.

jesus people (ie "uhhrrrr") find some real criticisms already! they're out there!

for example, talk about the liner notes to this thing.

the line notes too this thing have too much WHEATGRASS

I am starting a band right now called WHEATGRASS

yo, got any room for a slide whistle?

YOU GOT IT

CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER, HERE WE COME

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, people, but the newer Bugaboo costs $900-$1000 (depending on tax). $800 strollers are for the common folk.

And as the proud owner of a Bugaboo Cameleon, I'd like to note that the Believer's music issues really blow.

hahahaha "wheatgrass munching" yes because we all know midwestern-accented motherfuckers are supposed to chew on HAY!

strawman munching

haha

the newer Bugaboo costs $900-$1000 (depending on tax)

those MacLaren's aren't cheap either, and i've already found two perfectly good ones as backups just laying out on trash night.

in Park Slope?

i swear, Park Slope has the best fucking 'trash' i've ever come across.

dear aging hipsters:
please keep throwing away your great books, usable furniture, and AWESOME tape collections.

love
the table

dude j0hn 7ur7urro sold me a $900 aged cherrywood baby crib for $30.
i've found Maximum Joy 12"s and Folkways ayahusaca ceremony records just lying on the street.
it's really random, but when it rains it pours.

btw i thought i might have seen you on the street a month ago.
then remembered you were an oberlin dude and thus not in this state.
your prospect park snap proved me wrong.

i even own the mojo 4 cd psych box. which i was just playing last week

There's a great one-disc comp of UK psych called Acid Daze: 18 Psychedelic Classics from the UK Underground that came with an issue of Uncut in 2003. I happened to see it on a news-stand and picked it up. Turned out to be a lucky whim.

Track listing:

1 Tomorrow - My White Bicycle 3:16
2 Syd Barrett - Octopus 3:45
3 The Move - I Can Hear the Grass Grow 2:59
4 Nirvana - Rainbow Chaser 2:34
5 Tyrannosaurus Rex - Once Upon the Seas of Abyssinia 2:07
6 The Spencer Davies Group - Time Seller 2:52
7 Kevin Ayers - Clarence in Wonderland 2:07
8 The Smoke - My Friend Jack 3:04
9 The Hollies - King Midas in Reverse 3:00
10 The Nice - The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack 2:47
11 The Crazy World of Arthur Brown - Spontaneous Apple Creation 2:56
12 The Small Faces - Green Circles 2:47
13 The Purple Gang - Granny Takes a Trip 2:36
14 Dantalian's Chariot - Madman Running Through the Fields 4:10
15 Status Quo - Ice in the Sun 2:09
16 The Pink Fairies - Never Never Land 6:54
17 The Executives - Ginza Strip 3:09
18 Donovan - Atlantis 5:25

On Rateyourmusic.com:

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/comp/various_artists___magazines___uncut/acid_daze/