Lots of talk about this article about literary folks jumping into the music criticism game.
Funny, cause yesterday while I was poking around the Grad Center getting all my gear together for Prague, I got into a chat with Aaron about how he wants to write a book about the 'curation of culture,' which got brought up because I was ranting about how much I HATE when people use that word outside of a museum context (see All Tomorrow's Parties, every DJ night in the world now, etc) and he said 'well my book is going to be more about rock criticism,' which of course terrifies me, but I see his point.
There is a professionalism to the craft that has been hard won, while few have (ahh, the desk/staff job - I have three and STILL couldn't live off it) the security to say that they are 'professional critics.' But the branches and outlets, the ways obtaining a career, while ever changing, are pretty standard. Intern, slog, work for crap, work up to better pubs, get offered a job somewhere, get there and then...What? What do you do after you have a desk job? Write books. Become a public intellectual/VH1 pundit? There's a ceiling to it, and it's pretty low as far as the writing world goes.
So if you want to be a REAL writer, you do criticism as a part time thing, a side passion, and when you're famous, you rekindle this skill and hop through the early stages of slogging and go straight to the New Yorker. Brilliant! I applaud thee. What I don't applaud is nostalgia/sentimentality of otherwise ambitious or interesting writers because they think they can just blabber on about how awesome X album was to them in 1981 when they were a senior in high school, as if this were the universal experience. Cha cha, it is - but only if you draw outward instead of in.
Okay, that was an unintended rant. Go play Asteroids on the website of a band I just did a Voice Choice for. He. There's the level of discourse for you.
ALSO - just bought an issue of Heeb for my dear Amy Phillips, who's Best Of-ing the thing but couldn't find it around (me, I have to go to the MASONIC LIBRARY for my best, yikes!). There's a photo spread of gentiles donning yarmulkes for random public ceremonies, and literally every person next to me on the subway in my 3 train Columbia/Williamsburg commute said something about it. Also, a guy tried to pick me up on the platform while I was reading the mag. WTF?
