First of all, I am not Tim Mohr.
However, judging by this post he wrote for the Playboy Blog on Sasha Frere Jones's "A Paler Shade of White," either he read my post on the same subject (in which case I should be upset) or we (Mohr, Slate's Carl Wilson, and myself) are all on to something.
And that something is (and here I'll borrow Tim Mohr's words): Sasha Frere-Jones is a jackass. And a sloppy one, at that.
(Via Stereogum.)
On some level, there's a bit of a conflict of interest in Playboy advancing the claim that "The desire to read and the desire to fuck live comfortably side by side in many well-adjusted teens of both sexes," which is of course (so long as the person under discussion is at least 18), the Hugh Hefner doctrine. (Whether he actually ever really believed it, and/or whether his magazine really believes it now, is up for discussion. I've seen footage of Hef's film collection, but never any pictures of the Playboy mansion's library.)
ReplyDeleteStill, it's nice to be able to call someone a jackass in print, even if it is a blog.
My copy of the New Yorker finally arrived today, incredibly late, and so I've finally read SFJ's article. Beyond the points already discussed in depth, it's disturbing to me how much SFJ's article really seems to hinge on the fact that he can't sing. I come away with the impression that it SFJ had just been able to sing "black," whatever that may have meant in his own head, this article would never have been written.
The sad part, as has already been observed repeatedly, the separation of "black" vs. "white" singing just doesn't hold up. If nothing else, I'd like to hold up Bootsy Collins as a fabulous example of a funk freak, who, when it comes down to it, is a big nerd, and sings like one. But it works. And why does it work? Because Bootsy says it does.
And thus we are led to the life lesson that SFJ, for all the breadth of his listening, somehow missed: listen to Bootsy, baby. He'll show you the way.