Seinfeld and Joanna Newsom and Me
Let me talk about myself and my opinions, he said, as if he had ever done anything else.
I can’t stand Seinfeld. I‘ve watched dozens of episodes and I‘ve hated every one. But it’s not like I don’t know anything about comedy, I think. I like to think I‘m really dialed into capital-c Comedy - I go to the Magnet Theater basically weekly, watch 30 Rock by appointment, burn out my Arrested Development DVDs, and quote Wet Hot American Summer a bunch. I really like the fine products of MaximumFun.org. But I still hate Seinfeld. And it’s because of the actors.
The writing is great, but I seriously, actually, can’t get past the retarded-child antics [sorry, SP] of Jerry Fucking Seinfeld and Jason Fucking Alexander and Michael Fucking Richards and Julia F. Louis-Dreyfus (who I admittedly sort of like). They’re neurotic, you guys! They yell! AAAAHHHHH!
I feel like I would rather read a book of every script ever produced for Seinfeld than have to watch another twenty minutes of their hypersensitive hot-headed minstrel show. I might actually enjoy that. I fully understand that the jokes on Seinfeld are pretty good. I am trying to calm down.
This all to say that I find it hard to appreciate a good cultural product if it is delivered poorly. WHICH BRINGS ME TO JOANNA NEWSOM.
[insert janky slap bass transition music]
I tried to like Ys, you guys. The music is really pretty. Joanna (yeah, first name basis) is a great songwriter. And harpist. And pianist. But her voice makes her sound like a - well - a retarded child. I laugh through Ys’s [sidenote: Ys’s?] plaintive, lovely songs because it sounds sort of like parody. Oh man. The Seinfeld problem all over again.
Anyway, to wrap up this thing that’s getting too rambly, her new album Have One On Me is pretty great and it’s nice and apparently some sort of voicebox disease killed some aspects of her childvoice, so that’s good, I guess, but she still sounds pretty ridiculous. So, yeah, I won’t be singing along with you to any of this business in 2010, young Pitchfork devotees. Keep trying, music.
Oh, also: Bob Dylan songs as sung by Bob Dylan. Sorry.
