Back-to-School, Desperately-Trying-to-Stay-Hip-with-the-Kids-Well-into-My-Thirties Jottings

Posted 30 August, 2007 in Jottings |

• It’s Frosh Week at Ryerson University, and the campus environs have been descended upon by marauding bands of freshly scrubbed, rosy cheeked young men and women who not only don’t look old enough to drink (or, in the men’s case, to shave), but look as though they’ve only recently graduated from high chairs and sippy cups, which makes me feel the encroaching tendrils of old age and decrepitude profoundly, if somewhat unnecessarily. So, in an attempt to stave off incipient feelings of irrelevance and obsolescence, I give you TSR’s first — and likely only — MTV-oriented roundup.
• The New York Times is reporting that MtvU, an MTV affiliate broadcast exclusively into college campuses, has chosen a poet laureate, and it’s not Justin Timberlake or Avril Lavigne. Instead, the poet who will be bringing iambic pentameter sexyback is eighty-year-old John Ashbery, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. I wonder if this means Lauren and Heidi will start carting around volumes of modernist poetry on The Hills, or is that just too much to ask?
• Writing in something called The Daily Toreador, Britney Drumm suggests that Miss South Carolina’s recent botched attempt to answer a question at the Miss Teen U.S.A. beauty pageant is emblematic of the ills of such competitions. If you haven’t seen the clip (which I won’t link to: it’s easily found, if you’re so inclined), Miss South Carolina is asked why she thinks that one fifth of American teenagers are unable to locate the United States on a map, which precipitates a rambling and incoherent response about “U.S. Americans,” “the Iraq,” and South Africa. According to MSNBC, Miss South Carolina, whose real name is Caitlin Upton, later claimed that “she was so overwhelmed by the moment she barely heard any of the question.” I have a certain amount of sympathy for this, and for the unfortunate fact that, thanks to the Internet, her embarrassing moment is being kept alive for mockery online. Obviously one would have wished for a more coherent response to what seems like a fairly straightforward question, but the continued delight over her evident discomfort has a vicious and mean-spirited aspect to it that is upsetting, to say the least.
• Talib Kweli, one of the most articulate, politically aware, and intelligent hip-hop artists currently working, has been denied the brass ring once again. His new, career-best release, Eardrum, which (among other things) quotes Langston Hughes in its opening track, has been kept out of Billboard’s number-one chart position — by the soundtrack to High School Musical 2. And the world slouches one step closer to the Apocalypse.
• R.I.P. Hilly Kristal, founder of legendary New York punk rock club CBGB’s, dead of complications from lung cancer. He was seventy-five years old.
• The Killer’s frontman Brandon Flowers made one of the most arrogant and hubristic comments by a rock star since John Lennon claimed that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus when he said that Sam’s Town is “one of the best albums of the past 20 years” (for the record: it’s not). But that hasn’t seemed to hurt the band any. According to bassist Mark Stoermer, they’ve managed to land some heavy help on at least one of their new tracks. One of the songs the band is currently working on is a duet — with Lou Reed. What was I saying about the Apocalypse?

7 comments to “Back-to-School, Desperately-Trying-to-Stay-Hip-with-the-Kids-Well-into-My-Thirties Jottings”

Nathan, August 30th, 2007 at 12:36 pm:

• Re: the Talib Kweli jotting

  If being “articulate, politically aware, and intelligent” is reason enough to be embraced as a performer, why are we not despairing of the Indigo Girls’ lack of chart action?

  Being the worst kind of white liberal fellow-traveller when it comes to hip hop, I’m not a big fan of the “face down, ass up” school, either, but most ‘conscious’ rap sounds like watered-down De La Soul to me.

  Clucking our tongues because the “smart” rapper didn’t hit #1 is too close to the Obama Barack “clean, articulate” black man bit. I know that wasn’t your intention, but it still feels a little condescending. We don’t ask AC/DC to address issues of sexism - why ask more of rappers? Stupid is stupid across the board, but being talented and entertaining has a sneaky way of making being stupid not so important.

Sarah, August 30th, 2007 at 7:14 pm:

• Nice to see a reference to The Hills on TSR. I like to think that’s my influence creeping in.

Steven W. Beattie, August 30th, 2007 at 7:54 pm:

• Nathan: Okay, I take your point, but … can we not agree that Talib Kweli at his worst is preferable to High School Musical 2 under any circumstances?

Steven W. Beattie, August 30th, 2007 at 7:56 pm:

• P.S. I like the Indigo Girls, too. Sue me.

Nathan, August 30th, 2007 at 8:28 pm:

• Steven - you’ll be hearing from my lawyer. You’ll be ‘turning me on’ to 10,000 Maniacs next….

  I don’t know - I would pick Kweli’s new one over HM2, probably (haven’t heard either, to be honest), but at the same time, exuberant stupidity very often wins out over maturity and insight when it comes to music – not just on the charts, but also in my head.

Kerry, August 31st, 2007 at 9:26 am:

• I liked Sam’s Town.

Steven W. Beattie, August 31st, 2007 at 10:35 am:

• Nathan: Trouble me, disturb me / Leave all your cares and your worries.

  Kerry: Yeah, but one of the best albums of the last twenty years?

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