Middlebrow

For real, what's that about?

Is the correct answer.

(Actually use of the word 'risque' = most middlebrow thing ever.)

Alex K's was golden

Post of the day! Way to go!

the fucking "swiffer" wet mop is the ultimate in middlebrow.

any "value meal" is middlebrow.

claiming an interest in architechture as a hobby, being proud of completing the new york times crossword on mondays and tuesdays, owning a golden retriever and constantly maintaining a well manicured though not overly decorative yard in a suburban sprawl hell where every home looks alike and everyone has a new ford explorer, coming home from work at five o'clock to have sex with your with who has just finished reading the entire oprah book club collection = middlebrow.

What is middlebrow?

Er, but still. I adore As Time Goes By, Alex K's "average slice of life" description actually sounds a bit nice, and I actually like Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks romantic comedies.

Me = middlebrow, then, it seems.

this, incidentally, is why terry gross's "interview" with gene simmons was so great. it was a head-on collision b/w the Queen of Middlebrow and the King of Lowbrow.

Also see Nabokov's piece on 'poshlust' (it's in a book of essays on Russian literature & has a great image of an advert for fancy silver spoons). From an interview with Nabokov in the Paris Review:

Q: What is most characteristic of poshlust in
contemporary writing? Are there temptations for you in the
sin of poshlust? Have you ever fallen?

A: "Poshlust," or in a better transliteration poshlost, has many nuances and evidently I have not described them clearly enough in my little book on Gogol, if you think one can ask anybody if he is tempted by poshlost. Corny trash, vulgar cliches, Philistinism in
all its phases, imitations of imitations, bogus profundities,
crude, moronic and dishonest pseudo-literature-- these are
obvious examples. Now, if we want to pin down poshlost
in contemporary writing we must look for it in Freudian
symbolism, moth-eaten mythologies, social comment, humanistic
messages, political allegories, overconcern with class or race,
and the journalistic generalities we all know. Poshlost
speaks in such concepts as "America is no better than Russia"
or "We all share in Germany's guilt." The flowers of
poshlost bloom in such phrases and terms as "the moment
of truth," "charisma," "existential" (used seriously),
"dialogue" (as applied to political talks between nations), and
"vocabulary" (as applied to a dauber). Listing in one breath
Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and Vietnam is seditious poshlost.
Belonging to a very select club (which sports one Jewish
name-- that of the treasurer) is genteel poshlost. Hack
reviews are frequently poshlost, but it also lurks in
certain highbrow essays. Poshlost calls Mr. Blank a
great poet, and Mr. Bluff a great novelist. One of
poshlost's favorite breeding places has always been the
Art Exhibition; there it is produced by so-called sculptors
working with the tools of wreckers, building crankshaft cretins
of stainless steel, zen stereos, polystyrene stink-birds,
objects trouvйs in latrines, cannon balls, canned balls.
There we admire the gabinetti wallpatterns of so-called
abstract artists, Freudian surrealism, roric smudges, and
Rorschach blots-- all of it as corny in its own right as the
academic "September Morns" and "Florentine Flowergirls" of half
a century ago. The list is long, and, of course, everybody has
his bкte noire, his black pet, in the series. Mine is
that airline ad: the snack served by an obsequious wench to a
young couple-- she eyeing ecstatically the cucumber canapй, he
admiring wistfully the hostess. And, of course, Death in
Venice. You see the range.

disagree w/golf, that's just boring.

Now, if we want to pin down poshlost
in contemporary writing we must look for it in Freudian
symbolism, moth-eaten mythologies, social comment, humanistic
messages, political allegories, overconcern with class or race,
and the journalistic generalities we all know. Poshlost
speaks in such concepts as "America is no better than Russia"
or "We all share in Germany's guilt." The flowers of
poshlost bloom in such phrases and terms as "the moment
of truth," "charisma," "existential" (used seriously),
"dialogue" (as applied to political talks between nations), and
"vocabulary" (as applied to a dauber). Listing in one breath
Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and Vietnam is seditious poshlost.

Quietist horseshit. Graham Greene, who liked VN, once said he'd rather live in the USSR than the USA. VN was a saucy liberal; one would not expect him to like 'social comment', but then people of his rank rarely do. What his prob was with existentialism I don't know, but his snobbery appeals to a certain type of English grad who aspires to getting into the Believer. Nabokov, through being witty, gives license to far worse snobbery than you get in, say, Evelyn Waugh.

Poshlost = things he doesn't like. In other words, it isn't too significant unless you take his utternances to be as 'important' as his novels.

I don't really get the middle class self hatred, uh, meme. Can we talk about what it means?

Scott seward's post is a laugh.

My new wesbite essay is about things finished versus things unfinished, and a recent encounter I had in Lisbon with 1998. I would say that, in the light of this essay, I'd qualify as middlebrow any repetition of the radical experiments of yesteryear's avant garde, now solidified into orthodoxy and critical consensus. In other words, Radiohead (and all those much, much worse than Radiohead), it's not big or clever or daring to fight again battles which have long since been won.

It's middlebrow to never make mistakes. It's middlebrow to say they 'got it right' back in 19XX. And it's middlebrow to value what's finished over what's unfinished.

http://www.onpointradio.org/content/2002/09/25/092502jail.gif

Jonathan Schwartz

With all the Terry Gross hatred expressed above, I am surprised at no mention of Dick Cavett, the Godfather of middlebrow interviewing.

Barnes and noble

spicy tuna roll

"Again, I try not to get caught up with the critics. The critics like only a few people. Most of them aren't that funny. I'm always of the mindset that if only smart people like your shit, it ain't that smart. If a guy drives a truck and he doesn't get your jokes, something's wrong there. I'm not saying you have to dumb it down, but they sell newspapers to everybody, not just the smartest people in the country. Everybody buys the newspaper. Everybody kind of watches the news. Your comedy can appeal to a wider audience if it's funny. After the special, the response was great, but I'm telling you, if I won awards and was on Oprah and 60 Minutes and I was only playing clubs, it was a failure. It's all about the people showing up. If I'm just playing... No disrespect to people playing a thousand seats, but that's not where it's at."

- chris rock

This American Life
The Believer

facials

of all kinds

mogwai

roasted red pepper flavor

W Hotels

Drama on HBO.
Dinner parties.
The film 'Crash', 'Dogville' and 'The Sixth Sense'
The books of Oprah's Book Club.
Polo shirts.
Time Magazine.
Imported beer in a glass at a bar.
Most charities.
Public Broadcast Television. The History Channel, etc.
Mozart for Babies (and other similar 'baby genius' things).
Stock reports sent by email.
Autobiographies.
Documentaries.
The concepts of 'political correctness'.
Abstract nouns.

Andy Warhol.

Sushi.

murakami ftw. I wouldn't say PBS - it's mostly enjoyed by the kind-of people who go to polka festivals for fun and DVR CSPAN. Also people who like watching 25 year old reruns of crappy British TV.

NPR
Hybrid cars/caring about the environment
If this were 2001, McSweeneys. But it's not, so The Believer, N+1, other pop literary magazines.
Brooklyn Brownstone fiction
Whole Foods/Traders Joe/etc.
Condos in super hip urban areas
Sleek minimalist design
indie rock

turks and caicos

david yurman

Adults reading Young Adult literature.

"It helped that there was an evident attempt to avoid medium-brow sludge, and instead offer a little bit of everything."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/15/jean-luc-godard-films-french-swiss-died-life