Momus, judges

judges: http://www.cardozo.net/life/spring1999/wigs/group-of-judges-sm.jpg

http://www.flim.com/flim/article.html?a=026&t=article

Chris, this piece of writing is either an emulation of the Eliza computer program or an actual dialog between a human and said program. My problem with it is that the human responses seem as random and programmatic as the mechanical ones. The considerable possibilities for humour have been missed, and I consider humour a great sign of intelligence. I award 3.

Who will submit the next URL of web-scrawl to my gavel of mercy?

I haven't read this myself, I just called it up randomly. It looks like it wants to be intelligent, though.

http://deanna.ladyinterference.com/ilx/deannarant01.html

No matter what criticism you may throw at it, I've already thought it about this piece, probably.

Actually, I've only just found out. This is turning into the sketch where the judge doesn't know what a VCR is, but can identify an inflatable woman.

And I'm still on the phone, damn, ten minute recess!

http://www.completeobscurity.com/x/showart.asp?ID=66

This is very badly written and punctuated, a passive agressive employee rant. I'm tempted to see it as an Onion-type parody. Unfortunately it seems

('What are you typing?' says the person on the phone, angrily. 'You can do that later!')

2 out of 10.

http://www.erickraft.com/markdorset/topicalguide/dust.html

www.freakytrigger.co.uk/underworld.html

http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/underworld.html

Amaterist, this is the best text so far. It's pithy, brief, well-expressed, speculative. It has something of La Fontaine about it, and something of Aesop, and those two are models of excellent writing. The methodical investigation of something inherently impossible also reminds me of Kafka and Borges. I was going to say 8, but I'm going to knock off a mark for the text's main failing, the unnecessary reductive one liner about 'Sheesh, I'm eating my own tail'. In my view it would be much stronger and more elegant if this obvious, populist line were cut. 7, then.

Francesco, this exegesis on dust begins by reminding me of the too-sensitive, too laboured 'fine writing' of Proust and Peter Handke, but soon turns into the gobbledygook of algebra, thereby revealing itself to be parody. I suppose it might tingle some propellorhead's funny bone, but for me Raymond Queneau did this kind of thing much better. I'll give it a 6.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Parker

Ronan, this piece begins in unpromising 'employee rant' mode, like the one Ned linked above. It's better written than Ned's. With the transition to a live review half way through, the reader is in a quandry. Should he feel annoyed for being subjected to the writer's musings on his own trapped, lazy and frustrated life? Or should he admire the daring mixture of genres (autobiography sliding into criticism) and applaud the way this highlights the cathartic nature of music, which can only ever be consumed by persons in the midst of all their contingent personhood? I'm going to plump for the latter yet still award only an ambivalent 5, perhaps because the final sentence should have a question mark at the end.

Cinniblount, my first inclination with this Eminem review by our very own Ethan is to applaud the adoption of a strong narrative voice, in this case scattershot AIM-talk. It's certainly original, and probably 'the voice of youth'. What would I know, though, I never use AIM and I haven't been young for a while. (Come to think of it, when I was young I modelled my prose on Boileau and Tacitus.) So I'll give it a ten for nerve. My reservation comes with the thought that this is a 'Catcher in the Rye' written by Holden, or a Molesworth book written by Molesworth himself. I don't doubt the author is mocking himself and treating himself like a persona, but I do doubt he has any other styles or personae at his disposal. The disadvantage of this, of course, is myopic closeness to his own concerns, which are not necessarily those of the reader, and a failure to do 'prolepsis', or to internalise an editor or even a reader. To its credit, the piece acknowledges this limitation by putting in a (somewhat incestuous, in-jokey) dialogue with Ryan, the Pitchfork editor. If Ethan has invented this dialogue, I will eat my hat and admit that he has two (rather similar) voices in his repertoire. Otherwise, I will award 0 which, combined with the initial 10, makes 5. A rare combination of cosmic vision and autistic navel-gazing.

Dom, this is a blog that follows the standard blogging formula almost suspiciously closely. It reminds me of the blog about the porn store clerk, which I was sure was written by a professional writer who'd studied blog form and got its glib, punchy triviality down pat. The phrase 'hugging the shore' comes to mind. This writer flits inoffensively over the surface of her academic life, never being exactly boring, but never showing any genuine originality or passion either. I'd have to give it a 4, and recommend the author to take a peek at this blog for an example of something better written and more original.

David, this Colleen review follows the same pattern as Ronan's Underworld review, shifting from the personal to the critical. The writing here is more polished and considered -- in fact, I have a feeling that if Henry James had written record reviews, they might have read like this; sentences strung out through endless subordinate clauses, fusty words like 'flaneur' and 'heuristic', delicately existential insights into how 'we' live our lives, ostentatious abstractions like 'my identity... blurring and fraying'. It's all the stuff of somewhat forced 'fine writing', and therefore risks looking like a sophomore effort, a spurious attempt at profundity. There's considerable writing skill on display here (with a brass frame), but when it all boils down to the judgement that the record in question is 'boring', there's a distinct sense of bathos. Extra marks for the conceit at the end whereby the writer affects to 'pretend I'm not me' and gives us a capsule review, peeked over his own shoulder. Very M.C. Escher! 7

Lots of testosterone in this angsty, angry blog, the kind of thing that seems always on the verge of 'going postal'. Rather too many fuck yous for my liking, a rather disingenuous tone-mixture of 'meh' and cautious vulnerability. The brevity and perplexity have an almost Pinterian tone of menace sometimes. 'So I got the car.' (Paragraph.) 'Everyone can and should fuck off.' (Paragraph.) Actually, come to think of it, Hemingway's blog might have read like this. Anyway, it seems all tied up with the tragedy of being an American male, and I'd like to see this writer getting in touch with his inner female. 6.

Chris, I'm going to give these oo pieces a 9. Concise, witty, collectible, aphoristic, absurdist, conceptual, minimalist... best thing so far. Eat one, you have to eat the whole tray.

o.nate, this capsule encyclopaedia entry for Charlie Parker at first seems a model of lucidity and concision. Its air of infallible authority, though, is only skin-deep. I just don't accept that Parker's main contribution is in having shifted jazz from 'arpeggionic flurries' to 'chromatisism', and it doesn't help that one of those terms is mis-spelled and the other made up. There's nothing worse than authority trying to blind the reader with science which turns out, on closer inspection, to be voodoo. 4

barbara morgenstern - "die liebe (r. lippok: schneekristall mix)"

I've got some more ideas about things for you to review, but you can start out with these.

Andrew, this is yet more blog despondency (blogspondency?) -- one begins to wonder whether there is therapeutic value in the semi-public admission of negative feelings, or whether they just anchor and externalise what would otherwise be trivial and transitory moods. 'I think I may just be wallowing in self-pity' says the author. Well, yes. 'It just goes further to suggest that I don't have a creative bone in my body. Fuck it.' No, don't fuck it! You're in the entertainment industry now, lad, the roar of the crowd, the sizzle of the greasepaint! It may just be a blog, but pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and let's do the show right here! 5

this writ was by samuel pepsy it says. he writs about the ship and the lord. that means hes talking about jeesus and a boat ride with jeesus. also about the bed and to sleep there too. then about a pickle that was sad but not writ why. and he married a womon that is his wife and likes to go to church. and the talker at the church dood a talk about joggening. then another lady came there that had a baby that was cute and a baby. the lady that had a baby sat on a pew and was talking about feets. then the roof was crashed by a dangerus axcident. then the church talker said. i will fix that roof that got broked and you should go home now. then afterchurch he called a boy on a phone that could ring and they went and had a something drink and it was enjoydible. ate a fish too. then he said. i like a pretty women. and trumpets too. then he vomatid. then he called mister bowzer and asked him fored books. then went to vizet jeesus in the house. when he got there he sat on a bed there and jusd looked at womens that were looking at him thru the windows. he not writ about jeesus and why not in the house. then he left the house and to buy socks for his feets. and met frends while buying socks for his feets. then he writs more about drinkings and some misters. then sleeps in a bed.

when he wakes upped. he talking about mister bowzer and the books of mister bowzer again. then he walked around the river and saw a scary dead man in the river that had to be burried in the nite becos of being dead. then he went and dooded more drinking with importont misters. then they all had a fite and ate walnuts that were good. at 100 oclock he went home and had a barrel that he drank with the misters. then went to bed.

i wantad to hear more about why the pickle was sad and the jeesus boat ride. that means i gives this writ that samuel pepsy dooded the number 5.

'The Caudal Appendage and Haemorrhoids' is my new track on Electromancer. The words are from a poem I recently had published in M(onkey) K(ettle) magazine. I would be thrilled if you reviewed it, Momus.

http://medpundit.blogspot.com/2002_11_17_medpundit_archive.html

...one begins to wonder whether there is therapeutic value in the semi-public admission of negative feelings, or whether they just anchor and externalise what would otherwise be trivial and transitory moods.

OT fucking M

http://biroco.com/2003_08.htm

Unleash you superego on that one, Your Honour. But remember, justic is blind, and you still have one eye.

submitted

There were concerts in the park...

i like how he's based this assessment on the fact that at a club night he went to it took a long time for the DJs to play grime.

I wish he was still doing this thing so he could critique my LJ, now that I actually *have* one (these were the pre-LJ days for me, I think). But as for now, I'll reflect upon his "terrible writing, but terribly entertaining" quip.

American Football (A Reflection upon the Gulf War)

Hallelullah!
It works.
We blew the shit out of them.

We blew the shit right back up their own ass
And out their fucking ears.

It works.
We blew the shit out of them.
They suffocated in their own shit!

Hallelullah.
Praise the Lord for all good things.

We blew them into fucking shit.
They are eating it.

Praise the Lord for all good things.

We blew their balls into shards of dust,
Into shards of fucking dust.

We did it.

Now I want you to come over here and kiss me on the mouth.

Wolves, lower.

.

...

Och, Moemoos, will ye no come back againe?

THREAD TITLE RIFE WITH POSSIBLE ALLUSIONS
ALSO SELF-PARODIC

-- amateurist (amateurist), Saturday, September 27, 2003 9:31 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

lol