Xgau replacement hasn't read Keats

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the relevant links arehttp://www.villagevoice.com/music/0703,odonnell,75544,22.html

and
http://www.bartleby.com/101/625.html

― killa bee (killabee), Saturday, 27 January 2007 00:28 (nineteen years ago)

This reminds me of when I was taking a Systems of Psychotherapy class and someone was talking about a book called something like The Still Unravished Bride, and everyone was laughing about the title saying, you know, those crazy Jungians, where do they come up with these titles. I, the only English major in the class, chimed in that it was Keats. (That was a really fun class, incidentally, becuase most of the students had a strong preference for one form of therapy over other forms, and often looked down on the others (or some others), so there were lots of arguments.)

― R_S (RSLaRue), Saturday, 27 January 2007 00:38 (nineteen years ago)

The only two students I really remember were the devout Jungian (a vaguely Germanic looking, very academic female), and the ardent behaviorist (an athletic-looking male, who looked more like a prospective business major). Sorry, you were saying. . .

― R_S (RSLaRue), Saturday, 27 January 2007 00:41 (nineteen years ago)

While Opportunity isn't Deerhoof's most exciting outing, surely they've got plenty more tricks up their sleeves.

there should be a thread devoted to banal closing lines of reviews.

― roger goodell (gear), Saturday, 27 January 2007 00:43 (nineteen years ago)

Who's Keats?

― thelexico (rogermexico), Saturday, 27 January 2007 00:46 (nineteen years ago)

Who's Keats?

google.com

― kyle gorman (killabee), Saturday, 27 January 2007 00:48 (nineteen years ago)

or click the second lihnk even

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Saturday, 27 January 2007 00:50 (nineteen years ago)

haha wait, "thelexico"

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Saturday, 27 January 2007 00:57 (nineteen years ago)

I was wondering when you'd notice that.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 27 January 2007 00:58 (nineteen years ago)

better late than never

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Saturday, 27 January 2007 01:08 (nineteen years ago)

Who the hell can be a behaviourist in this day and age.
I took philosophy of mind classes and we had that whole bitchy thing going on amongst our lectures. Bloody Lacanians...

"Xgau replacement": can someone print that t-shirt and send it in?

― Major Alfonso (Major Alfonso), Saturday, 27 January 2007 01:13 (nineteen years ago)

"there should be a thread devoted to banal closing lines of reviews."

there is! or at least banal lines in general.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 27 January 2007 01:19 (nineteen years ago)

dear kevin o'donnell:
who's "occidentally challenged" now, bitch?
love,
deerhoof

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Saturday, 27 January 2007 01:21 (nineteen years ago)

http://home.hetnet.nl/~nickgielkens/who/keats.jpg

"occidentally challenged"

― M. V. (M.V.), Saturday, 27 January 2007 01:26 (nineteen years ago)

music critics are the art of pretend closing line significance

― roger goodell (gear), Saturday, 27 January 2007 01:28 (nineteen years ago)

I haven't read Keats either, but I still like Deerhoof.

― aaron d.g. (aaron d.g.), Saturday, 27 January 2007 02:25 (nineteen years ago)

whoa holy shit, "occidentally challenged". i'm not gonna defend this anymore.

― aaron d.g. (aaron d.g.), Saturday, 27 January 2007 02:26 (nineteen years ago)

I'm sorry but regardless of how good/bad the writer is, why does this matter? You can't read everything and this smacks of pedantry and point scoring. It's a sound and fury signfying nothing.

― Treblekicker (treblekicker), Saturday, 27 January 2007 17:46 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, but it's from a poem that everyone reads in high school, and even if he didn't immediately recognize it, it was pretty dumb of him to assume that any phrase he didn't understand was the product of poor command of Enlish.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Saturday, 27 January 2007 17:50 (nineteen years ago)

What smacks of pedantry? I wouldn't normal care that a rock critic was unfamiliar with what might be the most famous lyric poem in the English language, but when he starts throwing around phrases like "occidentally challenged" when referring to a singer/lyricist of Asian decent, I think he deserves to get nailed.

x-post

― R_S (RSLaRue), Saturday, 27 January 2007 17:51 (nineteen years ago)

Well maybe you read it in the States but we didn't read it here. The original poster took him to task for not having read something that to my knowledge seemed obscure and out of his beat.. so it seemed a pretty pedantic point. Occidentally challenged wasn't mentioned there so isn't relevant. But it is lame. Shame it wasn't mentioned at the top.

― Treblekicker (treblekicker), Saturday, 27 January 2007 17:55 (nineteen years ago)

to assume that any phrase he didn't understand was the product of poor command of Enlish.

Hahaha.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Saturday, 27 January 2007 17:57 (nineteen years ago)

Well maybe you read it in the States but we didn't read it here.

Where is "here" out of curiosity?

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Saturday, 27 January 2007 17:58 (nineteen years ago)

The UK. Funnily enough my US educated 2 MA (including one in English Lit) is here now and is looking blankly about the idea that 'everyone' studies this poem in highschool.

― Treblekicker (treblekicker), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:01 (nineteen years ago)

Occidentally challenged wasn't mentioned there so isn't relevant.

It's relevant at this point in the discussion though.

― R_S (RSLaRue), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:02 (nineteen years ago)

Or college intro to poetry, at least.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:02 (nineteen years ago)

The UK. Funnily enough my US educated 2 MA (including one in English Lit) is here now and is looking blankly about the idea that 'everyone' studies this poem in highschool.

Well, hold on, do you study the Romantic poets in high school, period?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:03 (nineteen years ago)

Not in any depth, not when I was at school anyway. (But I don't remember doing much serious study of poetry until Sixth Form.)

It's beside the point tho, isn't it? Point being: mock somebody's English, look a bit of a dick when it turns out they're quoting one of the most famous poets in the English language.

― God Bows to Meth (noodle vague), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:15 (nineteen years ago)

Yes we do (and I'm familiar with the poem). I just don't see how it's relevant to rock criticism to get every single reference. For example, does it really matter if you don't know that the first track of Joy Division's first album is named after a JG Ballard novel?

― Treblekicker (treblekicker), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:18 (nineteen years ago)

It would if you wrote something about Ian Curtis's "illiterate moaning," for instance.

― R_S (RSLaRue), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:20 (nineteen years ago)

(But this is starting to go in circles.)

― R_S (RSLaRue), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:21 (nineteen years ago)

I think the biggest error in this article is assuming that Chris Cohen's exit was a sign of tension or something, when in fact it couldn't have been less acrimonious. Get one fact checking cuz, please.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:23 (nineteen years ago)

"occidentally challenged" is a phrase which misuses the english language in worse ways than "ditties of no tone" could ever do, keats or not.

(it is easy to mock as i am familiar with the poem, but i didn't study it at school and it's hardly a poem i'd expect many people to know that well, so i guess it's just bad luck for the dude.)

― lex pretend (lex pretend), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:27 (nineteen years ago)

That's kinda where I'm from as well -- the phrase just didn't leap out at me, and I admit I had to reread the poem carefully to spot it. He's tripped up badly but not I think from conscious neglect. And Lex's first point is more relevant anyway.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:28 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, I never had this in high school.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:30 (nineteen years ago)

I think the phrase is not just awkward but offensive. It's patronizing in a way that flat out saying something like "so and so, whose English is not so good" would not be.

― R_S (RSLaRue), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:33 (nineteen years ago)

Thread title should at least implicate the writer, not the editor.

Why should you have to know Keats to EDIT an article about fucking Deerhoof?

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:33 (nineteen years ago)

I studied Keats in high school and college, but not close enough to know that those four words came from "Urn". I guess that part of the poem never resonated with me much.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:34 (nineteen years ago)

"Ditties of no tone" is a marvelous phrase, regardless of who wrote it.

― M. V. (M.V.), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:38 (nineteen years ago)

it's from a poem that everyone reads in high school

Yeah, I don't much feel like voicing a side on the rest of this issue one way or the other, but this is complete baloney.

― xhuxk (xhuck), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:42 (nineteen years ago)

WHERE THE DITTIES AT?

― R_S (RSLaRue), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:43 (nineteen years ago)

Why should you have to know Keats to EDIT an article about fucking Deerhoof?

what are you talking about? not the editor's responsibility, nor is it the responsibility of the author to get every reference (though it would help...). however, when you insert a patronizing tossed-off comment about lack of knowledge of the west (-ern canon?), which is sort of orthogonal to the story anyways, then miss a clever allusion to the one romantic-era poem american students generally read in high school (we spent at least a WEEK of english class on it in 10th or 11th grade at my midwestern high school in "regular" english class) and ascribe it to poor command of english, you're just an asshole.

i've worked a writer and an editor, and i would have done some "fact-checking" (googled the phrase) as an editor (if not as a writer) on quotes like that (you need to make sure they got them right, if nothing else, and if you do a google search for the phrases with "-deerhoof" on google, it'll get you all the other places it has been used that aren't referencing deerhoof). ANYWAYS, maybe i take back what i've said earlier. maybe art critics SHOULD have read the most important work of the romantic era. like, ones who work for the voice.

actually, "quoting lyrics" is a shitty writing device anyways, and i always discourage people from doing it in reviews. nobody bothers to read through those. anyways, the article as it stands is indefensible; dislike it for the poor matchup between pretense and knowledge, or for the racial overtones.

― killa bee (killabee), Saturday, 27 January 2007 18:59 (nineteen years ago)

If you googled EVERY SINGLE lyric that a writer writes to see if it was actually their lyric or not, then you'd never get any work done. Voice fired their fact-checkers.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Saturday, 27 January 2007 19:04 (nineteen years ago)

If you googled EVERY SINGLE lyric that a writer writes to see if it was actually their lyric or not, then you'd never get any work done. Voice fired their fact-checkers.

and thus dies journalism, not with a bang, but a whimper.

― killa bee (killabee), Saturday, 27 January 2007 19:16 (nineteen years ago)

I agree! Blame the Voice for firing all the fact-checkers. Blame the writer for not doing his research.

But I can totally see how this would slip by an editor.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Saturday, 27 January 2007 19:22 (nineteen years ago)

those lyrics when uttered by folks who look white and english-speaking: poetic and cryptic
those lyrics uttered by someone who doesn't look white and english-speaking: occidentally challenged.

to me, that seems to be where the writer fucked up.

― QuantumNoise (Justin Farrar), Saturday, 27 January 2007 19:29 (nineteen years ago)

occidentally like a martyr

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 27 January 2007 22:05 (nineteen years ago)

occidental tourist

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Saturday, 27 January 2007 22:31 (nineteen years ago)

occidents will happen...

― Michael J McGonigal (mike mcgonigal), Sunday, 28 January 2007 10:09 (eighteen years ago)

you guys are expecting a lot from an article under a banner ad for 'epic movie'

― and what (ooo), Sunday, 28 January 2007 13:24 (eighteen years ago)

i only clicked on this because of the thread title.

― marc h. (marc h.), Sunday, 28 January 2007 15:02 (eighteen years ago)

there should be a thread devoted to banal closing lines of reviews.

from the Voice CYHSY review

"Time for a new producer. Two words: Danger Mouse."

― Zwan (miccio), Sunday, 28 January 2007 21:43 (eighteen years ago)

Which is immediately preceded by: ...the sub-aquatic "Five Easy Pieces," ripe for a Cameron Crowe love scene, is an equally beautiful bit of cycling mist.

― Zwan (miccio), Sunday, 28 January 2007 21:44 (eighteen years ago)

Shouldn't this thread be called "On first looking into Harvilla's 'homer'?"

― fukasaku bloodbath (blackmail.is.my.life), Monday, 29 January 2007 18:01 (eighteen years ago)

one month passes...

Those lines of Keats with "ditties of no tone" are included in the Yale Book of Quotations.

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 19 March 2007 16:22 (eighteen years ago)

I suppose Voice writers feel grateful that they're still allowed to include words in their reviews.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 19 March 2007 16:30 (eighteen years ago)

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