Wednesday, February 24, 2010

LJ-World Article of the Day / More Olympic Coverage / And Pitchfork Bestows a 9.2 on the New Joanna Newsom Triple-Album!

A story in today's LJ-World laments, in exaggerated fashion, the imminent closing of the Casbah, Larryville's downtown grocery shop:

The establishment is referred to as "a ground-breaking urban organic grocery and deli" whose closing marks "the end of a short grocery renaissance for downtown."

Chip: "Face facts, LJ-World. Nobody fucking shopped there because an apple cost six dollars."

East Side President Deron B.lt is quoted in the article, urging residents of the area to make the most of what is available, namely the Dillon's at 19th and Mass.

Richard: "Deron bought me a beer at Dempsey's recently. That guy is cool and I'll do pretty much anything he says."

Chip: "The only grocery store scarier than 'Dirty Dillon's' is Checkers, which is full of drifters and hobos."


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The boys are generally finding the Winter Olympics dull, a little dull (Chip: "Curling? I'd rather watch kickball!"). But future Olympics promise to be a bit more exciting, since a group of pole dancers, led by England's KT Coates, are petitioning for their "sport" to get a trial run in London's 2012 games. Coates says:

"After a great deal of feedback from the pole-dance community, many of us have decided that it’s about time pole fitness is recognized as a competitive sport, and what better way for recognition than to be part of the 2012 Olympics held in London."

Richard: "I find it quite inspiring to know that there's a well-organized pole-dancing 'community' out there, and I hope these women choose to compete naked in the Games, just as they do in their night jobs at the strip clubs."

Honorable Reverend H: "This KT Coates is a distant relative, but we generally don't claim her, as she's a bit of a tramp."

See the full article here:

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2010/02/23/2010-02-23_pole_dancing_could_be_recognized_as_a_sport_and_headed_to_the_olympics_.html#ixzz0gTtvpais


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Any album scoring a 9.0 or better in Pitchfork deserves our attention. Everyone's favorite hipster harpist, Joanna Newsom (pictured below), has a new "triple album" which received a 9.2.

Richard: "Any time a hipster band releases a multi-album project, it's an important event. Naturally, the greatest of all time is the Flaming Lips' Zaireeka, whose four CD's are meant to be played on four different CD players' simultaneously, but I'm also a huge fan of the Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs. I'd say at least 62 of them are very good."

Pitchfork says: "Most of the songs here deal with love in some form, another quality that connects Have One on Me to the broader singer-songwriter tradition... Newsom sometimes approaches the subject from her elliptical perch, talking in pictures--"Each phantom-limb lost has got an angel (so confused, like the wagging bobbed-tail of a bulldog)...".

Chip: "I prefer my love songs simple, direct, and about fucking."

And let's end with this bold Pitchfork comparison: "The name you'll most hear in discussion of this record is Joni Mitchell. Part of it is that Newsom can sound a fair bit like her with her more richly textured voice."

King Tosser: "Did these wankers really just say that this bird has a better voice than Joni Mitchell?"

Richard: "I actually saw Newsom at the Bottleneck just when she was hitting it big with the hipster crowd. The show was spectacularly boring."

We recommend a piece from Vanity Fair called "The Virile Man's Guide to Liking Joanna Newsom":

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/02/the-virile-mans-guide-to-liking-joanna-newsom.html


2 comments:

suicide or dinner music for the elderly said...

Mr. Wagner's "defense" of Joanna Newsom didn't send me rushing out to pick up her triple-disc release!

a virile man said...

I'd like to pluck her harp, if you catch my meaning.