They should just play the theme from Jaws when he goes out to the mound
They're Still Playing Baseball Somewhere, Just Not in Philadelphia: Well, so far, we've got two cold-fish series in the N.L. - the D'bags and Rockies are up 2-0 over the Cubs and Phillies respectively...Apparently no manager in postseason history had ever taken out his starter as early as the fourth inning while his team had the lead. Charlie Manuel was the first, lifting rookie Kyle Kendrick with a 3-2 lead in the 4th, and reliever Kyle Lohse promptly gave up a grand slam with 2 out to Met castoff Kaz Matsui, of all people: 6-3 Rockies on the way to a 10-5 win...Lou Pinella took a lot of heat for pulling Carlos Zambrano after 6 innings in a 1-1 game after reliever Carlos Marmol, who's been stellar all season, gave up a solo shot to the first batter he faced. I'm inclined to side with Lou, who correctly pointed out that scoring 1 run on 4 total hits stacked the deck against the Cubbies regardless of their pitching, but after yesterday's 8-4 drubbing in Game 2, having Big Z rested for Game 4 might seem a bit irrelevant...Yanks got smoked, 12-3 by the Tribe in Cleveland. Wang had nothing in the tank, and neither did the Yankee mop-up men. Indians' starter C.C. Sabathia had nothing going with six walks, but the Bombers - including "El Capitan" Derek Jeter - let him off the hook, driving none of the free pass recipients in. All of the sudden that Yankee rotation is looking mighty shaky...Red Sox-Angels Game 2 in Fenway tonight - the postseason debut of gyro-baller and $100 million dollar man Daisuke Matsuzaka, who pitched to a very un-$100 million dollar man-like 15-12 record and 4.40 ERA. No word if he's going to be downing Asahi between innings. Meanwhile, the L.A. Angels of Anaheim of The State of California on the West Coast of North America will try to, uh, score after Josh Beckett's complete game shutout on Wednesday.
In a Shocking Turn of Events, Man Man to Play Yet Another Pitchfork Curated Festival: Pitchfork is apparently curating half of the 2008 All Tomorrow's Parties festival - the other half of the artists to be selected by ATP - in an event touted as ATP vs. Pitchfork. For those of you unable to trek out to Chicago for the last three Pitchfork Music Festivals, don't worry: this one is being held at the Camber Sands Holiday Centre in...England. I really wouldn't sweat it though, as Pitchfork has managed to book the exact same set of bands it always seems toblackmail into showing up book - i.e. those almost entirely reliant on the site's good graces for what little sales they generate. After all, where else can you catch Of Montreal, Man Man, Los Campesinos, etc. apart from the 200 gigs they seem to rack up in NYC annually?
I Farted: Best New Music: Black Kids' Wizard of Ahhhs EP was the 13th release to receive P-fork's highest honors in the past two months. The beautiful part: this 4-track EP of demos is available for free download from the band's MySpace. The not so beautiful part: they sound like Voxtrot filtered through Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - not exactly what I would call a "distinctive aesthetic." Not bad, but BNM? I've got to stop paying attention to this shit.
Pitchfork Did Some Other Stuff Too That You Surely Want My Opinion Of: Apparently, I'm conspiring against myself to turn this site into an ongoing critique of reissues and Pitchfork, but there are two new developments:
I'm a Prophet After The Fact: Pissed Jeans/Celebration/Man Man @ Webster Hall, 10/2. That's okay; maybe Pitchfork can convince Les Savy Fav or The Hold Steady to play a rare live show or something. By the way, GZA's going to be performing Liquid Swords in its entirety in my back yard this weekend. I'm paying him in hot dogs, so you can get in by bringing some buns or condiments or something.
Awkward Juxtaposition Award: Kudos to Salon scribe Rebecca Traister for attempting to shoehorn Bruce Springsteen's latest album Magic into her review of Susan Faludi's The Terror Dream, an analysis of the anti-feminist (and anti-woman) backlash that resulted from 9/11. Traister herself concedes that the pairing is somewhat less than intuitive, saying that it "may be pop culture heresy to rope together" Springsteen's album and Faludi's book. I'm not familiar enough with Faludi to say whether it's heretical, but I can say as a literate, quasi-intelligent observer that it sure ain't logical. Traister tacitly admits as much, relegating mention of Magic to the very beginning and ending of her piece, while devoting the lion's share to Faludi, whose work is surely more in need of analysis, discussion, and exposure than Springsteen's. No connection between the two works is convincingly developed, beyond the acknowledgment that both artists see the personal in the political and vice versa, and that both of their works "employ images of surrealist dread to describe the post-9/11 manipulation -- by media and politicians -- that has left us warped and brainwashed, and both deploy terrifying visions to make their points." That these qualities are in no way exclusive to Springsteen and Faludi - they are in fact major pop culture motifs, if you believe the cineplexes (Children of Men, V for Vendetta, Munich, uh, 28 Weeks Later) - seems not to have dawned on Traister, let alone alerted her to her thesis' utter lack of cohesiveness. Perhaps Salon felt it necessary to exploit Springsteen's newfound status as a lefty heartthrob to bump up the ol' hit count, or Traister really does see a connection that she's unable to fully articulate; either way it seems to trivialize Faludi's relatively important work by equating it with Springsteen's facile imagery - the Iraq war = a con job, get it?
In a Shocking Turn of Events, Man Man to Play Yet Another Pitchfork Curated Festival: Pitchfork is apparently curating half of the 2008 All Tomorrow's Parties festival - the other half of the artists to be selected by ATP - in an event touted as ATP vs. Pitchfork. For those of you unable to trek out to Chicago for the last three Pitchfork Music Festivals, don't worry: this one is being held at the Camber Sands Holiday Centre in...England. I really wouldn't sweat it though, as Pitchfork has managed to book the exact same set of bands it always seems to
I Farted: Best New Music: Black Kids' Wizard of Ahhhs EP was the 13th release to receive P-fork's highest honors in the past two months. The beautiful part: this 4-track EP of demos is available for free download from the band's MySpace. The not so beautiful part: they sound like Voxtrot filtered through Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - not exactly what I would call a "distinctive aesthetic." Not bad, but BNM? I've got to stop paying attention to this shit.
Pitchfork Did Some Other Stuff Too That You Surely Want My Opinion Of: Apparently, I'm conspiring against myself to turn this site into an ongoing critique of reissues and Pitchfork, but there are two new developments:
- Pitchfork reviewed the Universal/Hip-O "Deluxe Edition" reissue of Elvis Costello's My Aim Is True - the second time the site has reviewed an iteration of the record, which is now in it's fourth CD edition (3rd in the past six years). Thankfully, Matt LeMay doesn't trouble himself too much with the underlying record itself, save for a drive-by acknowledgment of the original's unimpeachable quality in the final paragraph. Instead, he focuses on the extras and how they compare with the 2001 Rhino double-disc set (which earned a 10.0 from the site). The message: buy the cheaper Rhino set before it's completely off the shelves.
- Considered on the merits of the music therein, a 1.3-out-of-10 review for a three disc box of Bob Dylan's best material (give or take) would be cause for revocation of your criticizing license. But Douglas Wolk's review of Dylan is mainly a futile gesture of protest against an industry that may have to resort to selling staffers' kidneys on the black market to keep afloat. We get it: Bob Dylan's been compiled a lot. That's what happens when you have a 45 years-and-counting recording career. Key Wolk assertion that doesn't stand up: if "you're looking for a place to start, [Dylan] will put you right off him. It's cold, dry and dusty-- a sarcophagus for an artist who deserves a bazaar instead." It's got "Like a Rolling Stone" on it, right? And "Tangled Up in Blue", "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall"? While I question who's going to lay down the cash for the 3-CD version (there's also a one-disc set) that's not heard Dylan before, it's hard to think they wouldn't be transported by the brilliance of the songs themselves, regardless of how they're contextualized.
I'm a Prophet After The Fact: Pissed Jeans/Celebration/Man Man @ Webster Hall, 10/2. That's okay; maybe Pitchfork can convince Les Savy Fav or The Hold Steady to play a rare live show or something. By the way, GZA's going to be performing Liquid Swords in its entirety in my back yard this weekend. I'm paying him in hot dogs, so you can get in by bringing some buns or condiments or something.
Awkward Juxtaposition Award: Kudos to Salon scribe Rebecca Traister for attempting to shoehorn Bruce Springsteen's latest album Magic into her review of Susan Faludi's The Terror Dream, an analysis of the anti-feminist (and anti-woman) backlash that resulted from 9/11. Traister herself concedes that the pairing is somewhat less than intuitive, saying that it "may be pop culture heresy to rope together" Springsteen's album and Faludi's book. I'm not familiar enough with Faludi to say whether it's heretical, but I can say as a literate, quasi-intelligent observer that it sure ain't logical. Traister tacitly admits as much, relegating mention of Magic to the very beginning and ending of her piece, while devoting the lion's share to Faludi, whose work is surely more in need of analysis, discussion, and exposure than Springsteen's. No connection between the two works is convincingly developed, beyond the acknowledgment that both artists see the personal in the political and vice versa, and that both of their works "employ images of surrealist dread to describe the post-9/11 manipulation -- by media and politicians -- that has left us warped and brainwashed, and both deploy terrifying visions to make their points." That these qualities are in no way exclusive to Springsteen and Faludi - they are in fact major pop culture motifs, if you believe the cineplexes (Children of Men, V for Vendetta, Munich, uh, 28 Weeks Later) - seems not to have dawned on Traister, let alone alerted her to her thesis' utter lack of cohesiveness. Perhaps Salon felt it necessary to exploit Springsteen's newfound status as a lefty heartthrob to bump up the ol' hit count, or Traister really does see a connection that she's unable to fully articulate; either way it seems to trivialize Faludi's relatively important work by equating it with Springsteen's facile imagery - the Iraq war = a con job, get it?
