According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C., held an old-fashioned book burning last week (above is an AP video on the same).

Now, my people didn’t burn books when I was growing up, but my youth pastor did ask me to toss my copy of Pyromania, and my grandfather, an Episcopal priest, refused to allow books written by Carl Jung inside his house. Also, I once had to scribble an ode to masturbation on a slip of paper during mass and throw it into a cauldron of fire.

Based on these criteria, I feel qualified to offer the following FAQ for attending a book burning.

Read More “What is the Proper Etiquette for a Book Burning?” »

Hey y’all, welcome to the San Francisco Panorama Arts Desk roundup. Jingles, $20 newspapers, copyright treaties, comic books, singing gynecologists, Fotoweek drama, and Chuck Klosterman, after the jump.

Read More “It’s Finally Here: The Arts Desk Roundup” »

The only time a piece of music writing is better than the music being written about is when the music being written about sucks.

This is the case with electronica band Owl City, which makes soulless music. Pitchfork, perhaps in an effort to seem current or some shit, reviewed “Fireflies,” the title track from Owl City’s new album.

Did they review it because it falls under the auspices of experimental music, and yet made it on the radio, providing them with crossover justification? Did they review it because they know what we all know, that you feel less dirty and less derivative when you talk shit about a bad band than when you talk hearts-for-”i”s about a good band?

At least Ian Cohen gave it a “1.”

All I know is that Scott Plagenhoef told me there is an unofficial moratorium on writing about emo at his site. Well, I can see now that this makes total sense: ban good music based on its shitty genre and review shitty music based on its great genre.

Goddamit, Pitchfork, behave!

Tuesday marked the 20th anniversary of the release of Say Anything…, the 1989 teen-love movie directed by Cameron Crowe, and starring John Cusack, as well as the release of Say Anything, the fourth studio album by L.A. emo rockers Say Anything.

While the band’s publicist claims that the coinciding release of the two cultural artifacts is “total kismet” and was “not planned,” Say Anything (the movie), which chronicles the quest of one underachieving Lloyd Dobler (Cusack) to win the affections of the brainy Diane Court (Ione Skye), just happens to be the most emo movie ever.

Its 20th anniversary matching up with the release of the self-titled album by the band it inspired, well, that’s totally fucking kismet.

After the jump, John Cusack’s branch of the emo family tree explained.

Read More “Lloyd Dobler, Max Bemis and the Origins of Emo” »

Thereby further cementing his place in the annals of weirdness.

Someone should give Walken the treatment Chuck Klosterman gave Val Kilmer. By which I mean a nice thinky profile that makes you love him more than you already do.

This is the question Mike Conklin asks at L Magazine:

Right around the mid-80s, or 25 years ago, or the exact amount of time that needs to have passed since a band’s debut in order for them to be eligible for induction, when hair-metal came along and ruined everything, it simply became cooler for rock bands to exist below the radar of the mainstream. With the exceptions of a period of a few years in the early 90s, with Pearl Jam and Nirvana, and then again a decade later with the White Stripes and Radiohead, all the best rock bands have been, for lack of a better term, indie rock bands.

Are the Replacements going to be inducted? Sonic Youth? Husker Du? Joy Division? The Go Betweens? Pavement? Guided By Voices? If they’re not, it’s bullshit: for people who actually still really, truly care about rock and roll, these are the bands that have carried on in the tradition the Hall of Fame has always held dear. But if they are inducted, the Hall of Fame will surely lose the massive cultural appeal it so obviously strives for, considering barely any of those bands have sold as many copies of all their records put together as most current inductees have of even their least successful record.

While a good question on its face, a little historical digging says we can prolong answering this one for a while yet.

Read More “When Will the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Run Out Of Mainstream Acts to Induct?” »

This is surreal: Das Racist are sorta-kinda-but-not-really calling Sasha Frere-Jones a racist for saying what’s what about the death of rap.

Here’s Victor Vazquez, one half of Das Racist, taking SFJ to task:

SFJ is savvy enough to know that before pulling a “white man speaks authoritatively on black culture” move, he needs to first establish an acceptable precedent for his argument by locating it in the ideology of a credible black artist (in this case Nas’s 2006 album Hip Hop is Dead). But notice how SFJ then immediately undermines that credibility: while he could just say “Nas called it three years ago,” he instead claims that while Nas’s sentiment was correct, the proclamation was three years premature, as if to say “Nice try, Nas, but leave it to the professional (white, college-educated) music journalist to make sweeping statements about (black, ghetto-originated) music.”

That last line is hilarious, as both members of Das Racist went to Wesleyan University–not exactly a black or brown school.

But what would I know: I’m just another “(white) internet commenter,” who listens to too much white rap and can’t get it up when a post-colonial jerk-off session comes calling.

Reading Jonah Weiner’s Creed encomium yesterday reminded me that when “Higher” hit the airwaves in 1999 as the first single from Creed’s Human Clay, I knew on first listen that I had to learn that song.

Read More “Creed Was Never Underrated” »

Unemployment has not been easy for Paul Sherno. Since losing his job at WJLA-TV, the veteran TV executive has applied–with 60 other people–for a warehouse job (didn’t get it), considered selling insurance (money was crap), and attempted to enlist in the Army (too old).

“I speak two languages, I’ve won a bunch of Emmys, and I’m pretty much qualified to do a whole bunch of things,” Sherno, 50, says. “But all my contacts in the TV industry are searching for work as well.”

It’s enough to make a guy want to mete out some justice.

“‘Shoot a banker’ ran through my mind,” Sherno says. “I’m not an inherently violent kind of guy, but a lot of people were angry.”

Also, he had an iPhone.

Read More “Ex-TV Executive Creates Way to Kill People for $1″ »

As some of you may have noticed in this week’s letters section, David Vladeck, director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, took issue with my post about the FTC’s new “guidelines” regarding independent bloggers who review products.

In grand government style, Vladeck’s letter is an ode to bullshit obfuscation:

Read More “The Federal Trade Commission’s Incoherent Response to Dissent” »