I'll give you quirk

Are you ready for a rant? Excellent.
(You might want to read this first.)

Michael Hirschorn is the Executive Vice President for Original Programming and Production for VH1. He came to VH1 from inside.com, a current affairs website which, under his stewardship in 2001, won a coveted Webby Award, besting the likes of CNN and the BBC. He has also written for New York magazine, Esquire and served as the editor in chief of Spin magazine. This impressive career, blazing through old and new media alike, all started with a degree from Harvard and a Masters in creative writing from Columbia. Who says English majors all end up as barristas in Borders?

Don’t let that ivy-league education fool you though, Hirschorn isn’t your typical soi-disant intellectual - far from it. This is the guy that brought us classic TV staples such as The Surreal Life, Hogan Knows Best, and Celebrity Fit Club. Sure, he likes to mock himself as a “New York snob” occasionally, but this seems more like an attempt at modesty, than serious self-criticism. Indeed, whether this humility is genuine is by the by, because Michael Hirschorn “knows media” - the way Carrie Bradshaw “knows good sex.” His musings on the media world (appearing most recently in the Atlantic) are written from an everyman perspective. However, unlike the fictional Ms. Bradshaw, he’s the arbiter of ‘all things media’ for a popular cable TV channel. It’s as if Carrie’s day-job involved flying around in a fat-suit with a quiver full of arrows, but all the while she was documenting the ups and downs of dating as an ordinary New York singleton in search of lasting love.

Despite his establishment education and his position in the upper echelons of the media world, Hirschorn’s opinions are the antithesis of ordinary, according to Hirschorn anyway. Recently, he’s bigged-up reality TV (because that’s all VH1 makes nowadays?) and slapped down social networking and Web 2.0. (It will go out with a whimper he proclaimed. Something this might contradict somewhat.) There’s a self-assured feel to his opinions that says, “hey, I’m pushing 45, but I’m still hip to the youth jive”, and yet, at the same time he seems to have convinced himself that he’s still a young maverick, sticking it to the man. If his columns were a starter in a SoHo eatery they’d sound great on the menu - a rich intellectual stock, accented with fresh, out-of-the-box thinking, and a tantalizing hint of insider knowledge – but when it arrived you’d realize you’ve just paid 15 bucks for plain old chicken soup (for the 40 something soul). His style is solid, and at times his pieces are persuasive, but in the end it’s clear that Hirschorn is tired (where he tries to be fresh), uncool (but he wants so badly to be trendy) and staid (there’s no railing against the media elite when you’re so much a part of it).

It’s probably about this point (if not quite a bit earlier) when you’ll begin wondering just what Hirschorn did to make me pen this lengthy screed. Well I’ll tell you – he dismissed a number of excellent (in my opinion) movies, directors, writers, radio programs, TV series and websites with a single irksome word – quirky. Let’s ignore, for a moment, that the examples he chooses make pretty strange bed fellows; while some could be considered quirky, several seem to have been selected more because of his personal dislike than their cultivation of oddity for the sake of it (For example Arrested Development). Also, let’s put aside the animus he clearly has against Ira Glass (which is almost as transparent as my own antipathy towards Hirschorn here). For all his dancing around the point, the thrust of his argument is that we are inundated with quirkiness. Try as we might, it's inescapable. Ya think Mikey? I hadn’t noticed it so much. Now, if you’d said we’re being deluged with talentless tween pop drivel, 18 minute TV shows edited for the ADD, celebrity crotch shots, or reality TV – then I might agree, but no. Apparently, we’re "drowning in quirk." A handful of low budget movies, public radio programs and TV shows (that were cancelled) are ruining the American cultural soul.

To illustrate his point Hirschorn selects three examples. The first, Garden State, is a stretch to say the least. Epoch defining as it might be, Zach Braff's soundtrack vehicle of a movie is many things before it is quirky. Hirschorn's second example of the ubiquity of Quirk, This American Life, is on the face of it more valid. The stock and trade of TAL is the not-so-everyday life in these United States, although contrary to Hirschorn's assertions, TAL is rich with stories spanning cultural and socio-economic divides. While some of the links between chapters in a given show may seem tenuous, one never senses that the stories themselves are shoe-horned into something they aren't. After all, the most compelling feature of TAL - the first person narrative - precludes such editorialising. If Hirschorn detects some level of coercion, or leading, on the part of the producers of TAL, perhaps it might be cautiously suggested that his own experience with production - such as the "partially scripted" Hogan Knows Best - is clouding his judgement. Moreover, his characterisation of TAL as formulaic is simply flat wrong. Again, one suspects his own preconceptions are to blame. Has he has spent to long thinking up "creative" takes on the well-worn "reality" format, which is his channel's bread and butter, and not enough time listening to the subject of his critique? The greatest strength of TAL is surely the lack of form and rhythm - the hallmarks of production - an order that we seek, but so often fail to impose, on our lives. On the contrary, TAL presents life in the rough, and perhaps this, and the contrast cast by it on VH1's more formulaic version of "reality", is the root of Hirschorn's unease here. His third example, Wes Anderson, is the most reasonable. But ultimately, can we not concede that there is room (somewhere?) for the obtuse, the unusual - alright the quirky - in American cinema?

Most galling of all, it seems that Hirschorn wants to assert that we "ordinary" folk aren’t individual, idiosyncratic or interesting at all really. We only seem like that if we put on our indie specs (thick-rimmed and vaguely retro?) and peer at the world through our (rose) hip tinted lenses. No, according to him, we’re simply automatons that need more failed celebrities getting humiliated, more scripted “reality” docu-dramas and definitely more know-it-alls, like Hirschorn, to tell us why everything they don’t like should be bundled into a hold-all, and thrown out on the curb.

- Mr. Ed

Farmers Market Joy

Here's my haul from the farmer's market in Marion Square this morning. They have great fruit and veg, a lot of it organic, and almost all from local farms. In addition to the produce, they also have local goat's cheese, beef, seafood (my shrimp were caught yesterday in a creek just south of Folly Beach), flowers, plants and herbs. Not only is everything fresh and delicious, but it's all a lot cheaper than the supermarket. This lot - 1lb of Roma Tomatoes, 1 pint of golden cherry tomatoes, a large bag of rocket, 1lb of potatoes, 1lb of green beans, a red onion, two red peppers, 6oz of goats cheese, and 1lb of shrimp - set me back about $28 (£14).



Yum!

- Mr. Ed

PS

I might post a recipe or two using all this lovely nosh, if I get around to it.

Scout's Vietnam Film

I made this short film for Mr Chinn. He is a Nah-Trang based motorbike tour guide, struggling to compete with the 'big boys' who have aggressively dominated the market. They have more resources and don't really believe in healthy competition. Mr Chinn only has a comments to book to show travellers and he borrows the office of a local travel agency.

He and his team of drivers and guides were the most genuine and fun people I met on my trip. Most of them lost parents and family during the American war. I am sending him a full quality DVD of this film in order for him to show travellers /potential customers what to expect from the tour.




- Scout

Advertising feature...

Hey you...

Got a prize wild boar from the last hunting expedition you really want to show off to 'les garçons'?

Dolphin of such quality he's worth more than just the tuna canning factory?

Beloved family guinea pig showing a distinct tendency towards rising from the dead and going on a zombie rampage of murderous intent?

Maybe you need...





-Bluecupboard and Beigey

Just went to see...

Magnolia Electric Company at the Village Tavern. They were fekking great. I'm going to experiment. I'm going to try and post a video, documenting not only how awesome Songs:Ohia Jason Molina MEC were, but also what Simon has been up to this weekend. As far as Simon's 'adventures' go, I'll let you know now, they're not up to much. Nonetheless, watchy video - there there - good lad.

<- There should have been a video here, but it wouldn't upload properly - shame, really. ->

Eeeexxxcellent...

- Mr. Ed

PS
Why not try out som MEC for yourself, like the inimitably good 'best of' entitled (aptly enough) "Sojourner", which is out... recently.

I hate mimes, but...

After reading this obituary about Marcel Marceau, I have a new-found respect for him. I'll confess that I knew almost nothing about Marceau to begin with, but I was really struck by this part:

The son of a butcher, the mime was born Marcel Mangel on March 22, in Strasbourg, France. His father Charles, a baritone with a love of song, introduced his son to the world of music and theater at an early age. The boy was captivated by the silent film stars of the era: Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the Marx brothers.

When the Nazis marched into eastern France, he fled with family members to the southwest and changed his last name to Marceau to hide his Jewish origins.

With his brother Alain, Marceau became active in the French Resistance, altering children's identity cards by changing birth dates to trick the Nazis into thinking they were too young to be deported. Because he spoke English, he was recruited to be a liaison officer with Gen. George S. Patton's army.

His father was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944.

"Yes, I cried for him," Marceau said. But he said he also thought of the others killed.

"Among those kids was maybe an Einstein, a Mozart, somebody who (would have) found a cancer drug," he told reporters in 2000. "That is why we have a great responsibility. Let us love one another."

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan who quoted the exact same passage.
image from maxime-ohayan.com

- Mr Ed

Multi-Tasking Numero 1

This weeks I will mostly be posting beatbox related clips. The following double bill shows that it is possible to multi-task when comes to your beatboxing. Our first example demonstrates the beatbox working terrifically well "a la cuisine", followed by the simultaneous beatboxing & harmonica playing. See if you can find some interesting & /or amusing examples of multi-tasking.







- Scout

The Handbag relaxes

Yes mein pferde, the Handbag returns with a thrice as nice slice of US slack-rockin'. In this issue, M Ward goes to the beach, Sonic Youth star in good song vs terrible video dilemma and Beck mourns his cellphone to an immediately obvious Herbie Hancock rip off. "Schnell, Schnell; take me to the videos" you cry.....

M Ward - Here Comes the Sun Again


Sonic Youth - Dirty Boots


Beck - Cellphones Dead



- Chives

Martinis, warm milk and MASH

Oddly enough, I've used all three to get me to sleep at one time or another - all with varying degrees of success, needless to say.



If this is the first time you've heard of Funny or Die, then you need to watch the infamous Pearl video.

Ready for bedtime,

- Mr. Ed

P Clubbing en Provence

- Scout

Cat Scratch

- Mr. Ed

via Neatorama