oh klosterpaws

I would guess that anybody influenced by Barrett through a secondhand source -- like say Robin Hitchcock -- would eventually search out the original, esp. give the amount of proselytising done in Barrett's behalf. Every dumb high school kid who bought Wish You Were Here had a definite sense of who Barrett was.

so pick on whoever was against that comparison, not me, i felt that was one of the few spot-on (if not exactly revelatory) things in the obit.

and I guarantee you that nuances like "but Wilson still contributed somewhat to 70s records" got left out of every other piece in here that boiled someone's lifetime down to five paragraphs! Saying "yeah, Wilson's creative input was kinda shot by then" strikes me as less of a "wrong detail" and more of the kind of big-picture compression that's necessary for a piece that's not even centrally about him.

it's more than five paragraphs and it completely discounts the fact that wilson's "smile" was one of last year's most lauded records. i know critics are the pretend art of forgetfulness, but come on man. if anything perhaps there should've been something in the piece about how ultimately neither his illness nor landy's completely fucked care was able to diminish wilson's creative powers? i dunno, maybe yeah save that for wilson's obit and not landy's, but i think it's worth sayin'.

Anyway, we don't have to go over whether Klosterman's "immune to criticism," cuz god knows nobody's saying he isn't -- I think all I'm saying (and maybe Matos too?) is that ... well, I'll say that personally I don't see what's that offensively lousy about this piece,

maybe what you should be saying is you don't give a fuck about wilson, landy or barrett, rather than protesting that you're not trying to save-a-klosterfuck? and really, why is it so outlandish that people who do care for, well, at least 2 of those 3 might find this piece banal, simplistic, uninteresting and lame? is it so hard to understand why even casual fans of barrett and wilson might find it, y'know, crap?

and that if we had a thread for every NYTMag article that was kinda hand-wavy and boring we'd be here for a long while, etc.

we pretty much do already, i remember scott (damn you seward!) started a thread about that sunn0)) article i mentioned upthread! and wtf, this is ilm, is there all of a sudden an embargo on discussing music criticism? i dunno about you but i'd rather read threads like this that actually discuss something as opposed to say, some shmuck's list.

-- I dunno, I feel like it should be clear where I'm coming from, but judging from your last post, maybe not? Whatever. The one about the body-building lady bugged me way more than this one.

i didn't even read that one! but it looked way more interesting than klosterfuck's uh clusterfuck. maybe i'll read it tonight.

yeah, really. although, i have given myself a self-imposed limit of two new york times-related rants per calendar year. so i only get one more in 07. i didn't read all of the obits in the magazine, but this definitely stuck out as the worst that i read. seriously, it reads like 5 minutes of google/wiki "research". it reads like he's never even HEARD barrett before. which could actually be the case. and, okay, a "fanboy" writing it might have been worse, but i doubt it. just somebody, anybody (david fricke, maybe?), who has some sense of why syd's stuff is so long-lasting and how his music made an impact on 60's rock and beyond. till today! prog, psych, metal, indie-rock and on and on. klosterman's cult of the artist bugaboo is almost as tired as artist as crazy-ass shaman anyway. and, yeah, like matos said, maybe most people do know barrett more as a myth and all that crazy diamond stuff, but this kinda article is the reason why! trotting out the same tired lore and anecdotes that will never ever be as exciting or as interesting as the music he made. so, that's all i hope for as a fan. someone who takes the music and art seriously and gives someone who was talented their due. in a remembrance anyway! and i get matos's point that landy is good material, but he's a footnote. a footnote that belongs in a wilson bio. syd doesn't deserve being paired with him. someone who has been giving people nothing but pleasure for over 40 years does NOT need to be remembered as someone who "couldn't do anything". and that's why i started this thread.

NYTIMES EDITORS HIRE THIS MAN INSTEAD OF KLOSTERFUCK NEXT TIME, PLS.

^^^^This is basically my stance here.

But Stence, saying that Barrett's voice influenced people who didn't know of him is not a "wrong detail," it's demonstrably k-correct

It may be correct, and I obviously understand his implication I just protest the way he said it. No big thing. If I was his editor I would have said something like: I get what you are saying, but it reads pretty stupid and maybe you should change the wording around.

so not otm.

Damn, you're right, I'd forgotten about that! Something to catch up on.

That's all.

Okay, I'm coming in late, but WTF? Of course it's about his tone and not his points. KLOSTERMAN is about his tone and not his points!

In the rare cases when he has any... Reading him can be mildly pleasant, in the way that having a VH1 list show on in the background while doing other things can be mildly pleasant, or intensely aggravating, in the way that a VH1 list show inspires atavistic blood-fury if you actually pay attention to anything the talking heads say.

Joan Didion wept.