Here’s my column from today’s paper. It’s something some folks would consider a rarity coming from me: a feel-good story.
The preferred term is “promotion ceremony,” for the record. But whatever you do, don’t call what’s about to happen at KIPP TRUTH Academy an “eighth-grade graduation.”
“We reserve the word ‘graduation’ for the end of high school,” said the school’s principal, Steve Colmus. “Finishing eighth grade is a step along the way. But the goal is bigger than that.”
Also, something most excellent happened to me this morning. Forces beyond my control mean I can’t tell you what it is for several more weeks. But it is most excellent, trust me.
Leave It To Beaver: Home of inside jokes. “This paragraph has absolutely nothing to do with anything. It is here merely to fill up space. Still, it is words, rather than repeated letters, since the latter might not give the proper appearance, namely, that of an actual note.”
Jeff Sharlet has a piece on authenticity in popular music. There’s some decent thinking in there (and some sophomore-level thinking), but the two things that struck me were both Kurt Cobain-related:
First, conclusive proof that the 20-year-old version of Sharlet was an ass:
Like many people of a certain age, I remember where I was and what I was doing the day Cobain died. I was in my third year of college, I was in a dorm; friends and I were drinking 40-ounce bottles of Colt 45 malt liquor, and when we heard the news, we laughed. Cobain, the gold standard of rock-star sincerity since his suicide, had long seemed to us like a joke, a poseur, a pretty-boy pop singer for the high-school teens who gathered in herds of earnest weeping within hours of the news.
Wow. I think it’s fair to say one can dislike Cobain’s music and still think the proper reaction to his death is something other than laughter.
The second thing is just sloppy, a quote from Cobain’s suicide note:
“The fact is,” wrote Nirvana’s singer Kurt Cobain shortly before eating the muzzle of a shotgun in 1994, “I can’t fool you, any one of you … The worst crime I can think of would be to rip people off by faking it and pretending as if I’m having 100% fun.” (The italics are Cobain’s.)
“The italics are Cobain’s”? Who in the history of earth has ever used italics in a handwritten suicide note? Underlining, sure — I’ll even buy bolding. But human beings don’t handwrite italics. Check for yourself (about 40 percent of the way down). As I said: sloppy.
(For the record, the best thing to come out of that suicide-note line remains Matthew Sweet’s album 100% Fun.)
The best thing about “C&H” was the ease with which its imagery were importable into any reader’s mindset. On one hand, Calvin could become the truck-rear-window-sticker maven he is today, forever pissing on whatever rival brand the truck’s owner doesn’t care for. On the other, you can have an exchange like this:
Q: So many of Calvin and Hobbes strips had some kind of moral/theological element that I wonder what your religious upbringing was and if it influenced that. (For instance, the “Love the sinner, hate the sin” strip as well as many Santa-related Christmas strips.) I’m guessing you were raised Catholic?
A: Actually, I’ve never attended any church.
— Some Abe Lincoln assassination conspiracy theories. Interesting that three of the six theories presented basically involved blaming Jews and Catholics. (In the case of Catholics, the alleged plotters are quite specifically the leadership of the Vatican. The stand-ins for the Jews are “a conspiracy of powerful international bankers” (!) and “the Jewish Confederate” Judah Benjamin.)
Elizabeth Albanese may be one of the most honored journalists in North Texas. Or she could be at the center of one of its biggest media scandals.
The organization she led until last month, the Press Club of Dallas, is investigating whether she truly earned the four awards she won in a contest for which she helped arrange the judging.
Documents obtained by The Dallas Morning News show that Ms. Albanese has a criminal record under the name Lisa Albanese centered on allegations of theft. Former co-workers described a history of spinning lies. She also has a record of mental illness and delusional behavior.
“It’s incredible,” said the Press Club of Dallas Foundation’s president, Rand LaVonn, when told of The News’ findings. “I’m stunned.”
Ms. Albanese, in an interview with The News, at first said she was the victim of mistaken identity – that she had no criminal record. “I don’t know what you’re talking about – these are very odd questions,” she said.
But an hour later, she called The News back and acknowledged that Lisa and Elizabeth Albanese are, in fact, one and the same. But she believes that she should not be judged for her past.
Saw the great Ted Leo over the weekend, who put on his usual fine show. And, of course, my attendance at a show means it’s time for another edition of Who Dat Drummer?, the special crabwalk.com game.
As I wrote some time ago: “It’s my attempt, the day after attending a fine indie-rock show, to describe the appearance of the performing bands’ drummers in terms of other historical or contemporary figures. Drummers are, of course, the quiet showboats of indie rock — free to cultivate a sartorial or facial-hair strangeness, but not burdened by the attempts at prettyness required of frontmen.”
Now, the first ever installment of Who Dat Drummer? featured Ted Leo, so I am already on record with an evaluation of drummer Chris Wilson:
Sixty-five percent book-blogger Maud Newton, thirty-five percent White Stripe Meg White.
And for the record, Fikerle is no skins neo-primitivist like fellow females White or Mo Tucker. She’s kinda awesome. Reminded me a bit of Joy Division’s drummer. I guess that’s not surprising, since everything about Love of Diagrams sounds like an early-’80s post-punk pastiche. (Drums and basslines from Joy Division. Female vocals from X. And the guitar player both looks and sounds like a Gang of Four understudy.)
I know Fametracker — one of the small coterie of web sites I can say I’ve been reading for seven or eight years — was sold last month along with its big sister, Television Without Pity. But I hope Fametracker isn’t being lost in the shuffle; its content has been a bit anemic in recent months.
Malan’s a complex fellow, as the piece makes clear. But his 2000 piece on the forgotten African provenance of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” remains one of the best magazine pieces I’ve read, and My Traitor’s Heart is an especially gripping brand of nihilism.
Joshua Benton is the director of the Nieman Digital Journalism Project at Harvard University, among other things. Before that, he was a staff writer and columnist for The Dallas Morning News. (More.)
