What Passes for Discourse

Been a while since I've seen a really good rant against the old-media lit coverage. This would be the rant:

What really bugs me about this article is how Pitchfork-y it is. (Pitchfork being one of the largest music websites out there, with more influence than just about any publication. And its influence is directly correlated to how half-assed its reviews are. Reviews that come with numerical scores so that you don’t actually have to read the review. Which is usually gibberish anyway. Ah, but I digress.)

And this would be what set it off:

September will see the publication of three unusual-looking books: Farrar, Straus and Giroux’s No Impact Man by Colin Beavan, Viking’s Bicycle Diaries by former Talking Head David Byrne, and Graywolf’s The Adderall Diaries by Stephen Elliott. What makes these books so unusual-looking is that, even though they’re hardcovers, their cover art is not printed on dust jackets but instead stamped directly onto the boards that hug their pages. The result is a handsome, eye-catching look that reflects a heightened awareness on the part of publishers that books these days cannot be counted on to simply sell themselves.

When I read things like this, I can only be reminded of Mulligan Stew. Ahhh, for the old days of the book business when the books just sold themselves . . .

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