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Dear "Jess":

I am the Series Editor for DA CAPO BEST MUSIC WRITING 2002, an annual anthology published by Da Capo Press. Jonathan Lethem, the novelist (MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN, etc.) and Guest Editor for this edition, has constructed a "thread" of comments about The Strokes from ilovemusic.com, to be included in the collection. Yours is one of the "voices" in the thread (which is attached in its entirety hereto).

― "Jess.", Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"ilovemusic.com"

― jess, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Big Fucking News I am disappointed that i am not on that thread.

― anthony, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Wow! Congratulations and jubilations as da Cliffster would say. ;-)

― nathalie, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

they used you = you used full sentences. i used to CAPITALIZE things then for chrissakes. (also, i agree with nothing i wrote. god, i was such a rockist.)

― jess, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Which Thread?

― Sterling Clover, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

dis.

― jess, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Here's the original thread!

― Daver, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

This Interweb moves much too fast for me.

― Daver, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dubplatestyle: i dont agree with these statements!
Dubplatestyle: who is this jess??
Dubplatestyle: is he a pseudonym for some other writer?
Dubplatestyle: lester bangs
popshots75: Brent D.,br> popshots75: Pablo Neruda
Dubplatestyle: famous internet journalist tom ewing
popshots75: Hey! I know him!
Dubplatestyle: i know! we're so lucky!

― jess, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

They better get the name and URL of the damn site right, at least. Can they include this thread as a followup?

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Motherfuckin' son-of-a-gun! And I'm the one initially suggested to Tom that he read Motherless Brooklyn for his what-the-hell- should-I-buy thingie!

Note to self: post to more threads about greasy hypes.

― Michael Daddino, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i'm more concerned about getting my whole name in there so my mom can get off my back about doing something with my life. look! a book!

i'd post the edited "thread", but i've already probably broken some sort of agreement which will sink the whole thing.

― jess, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Also good to see that Kris S. is included there, 'cuz he don't post enough.

Are you guys going to get paid?

― Michael Daddino, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dubplatestyle: what the hell is $50 bucks? is this thing gonna be the entire entry? WHERE ARE MY ROYALTIES?
Dubplatestyle: its shit editing too.
Dubplatestyle: and hey!
Dubplatestyle: he may use it to make fun of us...lookit these silly children, etc.
popshots75: Whatever. I get paid.
popshots75: Feel free to quote my whorish proclivities to zee thread, BTW.

― jess, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

mike, only about 4 of us were actually "quoted".

― jess, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Jess - can you tell us whose comments they did use?

― Andrew L, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Jess, I already spent my dough during lunch time, so if you screw this up, I'm sending you a bill.

― Daver, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Wow, it's odd that they've taken comments off a thread which is a comment on a blog entry which is a link to another article. There are much better threads on ILM - hell, there are much better threads about the Strokes on ILM.

Yes they absolutely should get the URL right - or at least mention FT heh heh.

― Tom, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

But of course! :-) And since I didn't say it before, congratulations indeed. :-)

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah, well done - if they want Best Music Writing 2002 then someone should also send them the URL of Otis' John Fahey obit, come to think of it.

― Tom, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

me, poopchutes there, fritz, nitsuh...some others i'm forgetting...the indie tarts, basically. i saw the email in my inbox with BEST MUSIC WRITING 2002 in the subject header and thought it was either a. a joke or b. someone has very low standards. tom, i have to email the editor back to make sure my name and my "author biography" (if i took the whole 80 words, it'd probably be longer than my entry) so i'll make sure he has the full info.

― jess, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Cripes, the list of good writing FT/ILx-associated is endless, Tom, as you said. We should just publish our own darn anthology. ;-)

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Congratulations, y'all! (Hmm, maybe I should talk more about music and spend less time wallowing in sact-humor...)

― Dan Perry, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the more i think about this, the more i realize we're probably going to be dropped into the middle of lethem's introduction as a way of talking about the "strokes hype."

― jess, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It would be possible to construct a really really bad unrepresentative article out of that thread - all the stuff about importance, and wanting to hear people playing real instruments again, etc. etc. Amusing how Nitsuh and my positions on the Strokes shifted, though.

― Tom, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

mine too, pal.

― jess, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

cf. my post earlier about being a whore that couldn't give two squirts about the implementation of this thing. I ain't worried about misrepresentation; my reputation *ahem* speaks for itself.

(And, for the record, my contribution to this entire enterprise amounts to 23 words. Over Brussels.)

― Daver, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

shit, I dunno. I come off as a real half-wit on that one. they dress like menswear? what the fuck? who cares?

― fritz, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

damn! I have no words of wisdom on that thread!...If I did it would probably read...

"the strokes are okay, I guess, I don't really listen to their album much"...I don't think it woulda made into a book though!

well done y'all!

― jel --, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I do like having "I'm slightly with Fritz on this one" on Nitsuh's permanent record tho (wink)

― fritz, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Congrats to those who did get included - v. glad I'm not among 'em, 'cos now I think the Strokes are GRATE (but not 'important'.)

― Andrew L, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oh man - the edited version sucks. the original thread is like a B- by ILM standards, but the edited version has a lot of the smart stuff left out. I really come off as an idiot at the top.

― fritz, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ooh yeah, I just got this. I'm not sure how I feel about it, partly because of my whole position-shift. I just think it's weird that it's this slice of Strokes-discussion from a really odd time -- i.e. a few days after the single even arrived in the U.S., meaning it was basically just early speculation. I hope this is the part of the idea.

I guess I could use $50, though.

― Bitsuh, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Why am I not included? IT'S MY THREAD AND I WANT RESPECT! Letham will P433R my WR@74.

― Sterling Clover, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Congrats to you guys. That is very cool. (I do wish they'd picked a more conflicted ILM thread. There's not enough of a FITE going on in that one.)

― bnw, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Better strokes writing = the FT articles published on the topic.

I suspect the r3al point is just gonna be some "lookit the internet buzz" industry-wise get-hip-to-the-kidz-&-their-krazy-komputers thing.

― Sterling Clover, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

hip hip hooray for everyone on their being included in Da Capo Best Music Writing 2002 day! (Poorly edited? Pah! You get 1) money and 2) yr name in a book.)

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

well, just so everyone knows, i am requesting the following before i give my okay:

the real url be published.

a link be published to ft and/or nylpm and/or the original nylpm entry.

i know exactly HOW its going to be used.

even if they wont publish the first two, i'll include them in my "author bio" (ho ho ho.)

― jess, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i know exactly HOW its going to be used.

do tell

― fritz, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

no, no fritz. i mean i'm not going to agree to it until i know exactly how its going to be used, in context.

― jess, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

sorry, jess, if I'd bothered to read your post more carefully I would have got that.

― fritz, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

this is all MY fault foax: if i had finished my monumentalist diss of the hornbyXoR da capo 2001 there wd not BE a 2002 out of shame and ph34r

soz

(i haven't even finished fucking READING it yet: it is pluperfectly awful)

― mark s, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If they were serious about this then doesn't it seem like they could have chosen a really good thread and just printed the whole damn thing, jokes, typos, poor reasoning, flat-out assertions, interweb weirdness and all? To edit down to a "thread" (bad sign that they have to use the quotes!) and to choose it on something like the Strokes seems to avoid some of the things that make music writing on the net, by non-professionals (and professionals not working for pay), a different kind of thing from the usual journalistic music writing published in anthologies like this.

Of course if I hadn't just posted something to that thread that they'd edit out, I'm sure I'd be really excited about the prospect of even going into such a book, but I would still have to think it sucks.

― Josh, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's funny, I was reading about Lethem editing it this year and thinking that if it was really meant to be the best music writing it would involve something from FT or I Love Music.

― Nicole, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I have not read any Jonathan Lethem but he is not Nick Hornby so the 2002 edition must be better. I understand that ILx-frequenter Doug Wolk was the guest editor for the 2000 edition and again, that has to be better, too. Has to be.

But the last one? Key-RIST. I cannot understand why anyone would want to immortalize all that raging banality, all that Salon-speak, all that hackdom that refuses to understand its hackness, all the tepid profiles of aging stars and all the profiles of tepid stars by aging critics. Oh there's a couple good things on there but I bet reading the thing cover to cover would just give me that sinking feeling: Mark, why did you even bother?

― Michael Daddino, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Josh is a psychic mentalist dude. I was thinking the same thing myself early. The thread in question is primarily composed of a relatively small number of relatively thick entries. It's suitably "bookish" but unrepresentative of ILx as a whole.

Any really good thead, if published whole in a mass-produced book, would have to be annotated up the wazoo. And it'd be suprisingly long.

― Michael Daddino, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Still...it's an honor.

― Michael Daddino, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Not for me, since I'm not...but...well, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

― Michael Daddino, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There there, it's all clear, Mike. Next time they just need to pick a thread involving us two more thoroughly. ;-)

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i'm still pleased (provided it's all kosher), but i'm still wondering if the "thread" is going to be it's own piece...it's only about 2.15 pages long in MS word. i really am serious about the mom thing though. even if they were publishing me saying "caca doodoo" i'd probably let them so's i could take it home at xmas time.

― jess, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

we must convince them to print the jay-z/nas throwdown thread IN ITS ENTIRETY for the 2003 edition!! how cool would that be?! the book would be like 7000000000 pages long!!

― geeta, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was nominally the "series editor" for the 2000 edition. It was one of the two worst professional experiences I have ever had. I'd rather not elaborate in a public forum, but let's just say that the final product, while there are some fine pieces in it, had very, very little to do with what I spent several months putting together, and that I was deeply unhappy with the result and with Da Capo. Those who care can email me privately.

― Douglas, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Geeta: you are super-funny.

― Bitsuh, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Is this for real? Jonathan Lethem reads ILM?

do you thing he's been googling his own name and thats how he found IL*?

This is so cool. I've just finished Motherless Brooklyn and it rocks more than rocks do.

― misterjones, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

1. I doubt Jonathan Lethem reads ILM but if he does, HI JONATHAN LETHEM! We think you're grebt!

2. It's very nice of ppl to say oh FT has published lots of great music writing but it hasn't really. It's published 3 or 4 things I think are really really good and quite a lot more things I think are much better than almost all current print music journalism, but I don't know if it's run very much that's anthologisable. ILM is a different matter in quality terms but pretty much unusable in any non- linkable environment.

3. Josh is completely right about that thread. Sigh.

― Tom, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

michael i thought it would provide me w. a handy cheapshot platform to eviscerate hornbyXoR w/o going back and rereading HIGH FIDELITY or buying the new yorker

hilarious sidebar: the hero's room in the film fever pitch is actually frunished with piles of MY OLD NMES and MMs: the prop buyer = one of my oldest friends and came and took polaroids of my flat before set designing began

― mark s, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mark S = Colin Firth = Nick Hornby!!!!

The truth - as ever - will out.

― Pete, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

also i just remembered another actor was up for that part — bettah than firth tho who isn't — but hornby mixed him because of his receding hair!!

― mark s, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mark, yr comment prompted about the New Yorker prompted me to make the mistake of reading the music section on their website and damnit it's giving me the twitches. It's about, you know, The New Rock. "The Hives are touring the United States starting late next month. Get stung."

― Michael Daddino, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Bruce WIllis?

― Pete, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/parade/abj76/PG/images/speed-the-plow/speed_7.jpg

― mark strong (on the left), Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Get Stung?????????????

It's even worse than I thought....

― Nicole, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ILM is a different matter in quality terms but pretty much unusable in any non- linkable environment.

I don't know about that. There have been some individual postings that work removed from their environment, and can stand alone as a good piece of writing. The only problem is that they usually work even better in the context of ILM.

― Nicole, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think they can. I'm using someone else's post from the Clement Freud thread a week or two back as part of piece of short fiction I'm writing.

― misterjones, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Forgive me, contributors, for missing something here - perhaps I don't quite understand the premise of what you're all talking about - but my question is: who gave these geezers, whoever they are, the right to edit and publish under their own steam something that various other people had written on the www? As far as I can see, there is some kind of 'intellectual property' / abuse issue here which has not been mentioned. But like I say, maybe I don't understand what's being discussed anyway.

― the pinefox, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think that's the point of the email, PF - theyre asking for permission to buy copyright to the posts in question at $50 a pop.

― Tom, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

pinefox surely they are asking for permission (which can of course be withheld)?

the copyright issue is interesting, though: do i hold copyright to my posts here? i rather suspect NOT...

― mark s, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Isn't copyright automatic, in the sense that if you write and publish something it is copyrighted to yourself unless some other agreement has been entered into?

― RickyT, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Or is it all owned by Greenspun?

― Andrew L, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tom / Mark: fair enough - just that this thread itself did not say anything about that. Hence my sense that people were getting text for nothing, without asking.

― the pinefox, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Pinefox: 1) the only editing seems to have been choosing which posts to include, as far as I can see the posts which they are including have not been altered. 2) they have contacted the authors of these posts individually to ask for their permission to print them and offer a token payment. I don't see any abuse here in terms of intellectual property rights.

However, I do agree that it would make for a far better piece if it did include the full thread. In its edited version, the discussion is a lot less interesting. This particularly irks me because I think my post was chosen to lead the edited thread (when it was originally about 2/3 of the way down) because it seems very "web-like" with its capital letters, parentheses, and half-baked assertations when in fact it came on the heels of lots of nice well-reasoned arguments. In its original context, I don't mind my post for what it is - a semicoherent point on The Strokes as being essentially palatable to the Brit crits but romanticized as an archetypal New York band; but this is such a time-specific, insignificant point that I really don't like having it lead the thread.

On the other hand, I see the strategy of including a post like mine because I think it is representative of some of what's fun about web writing - you're free to be reactionary, esoteric, use busted syntax etc. - but I don't think it's representative of The Best Music Writing of the year at all.

I don't know what do you folks think? Should I just quit whining and enjoy it or what?

― fritz, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

god you guys are fast

― fritz, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well Fritz you could always say no, you can't publish it.

― Tom, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

yes but is posting to a messageboard “publishing~? Anyway, whose domain of copyright law (US, UK, ??) does it fall under? (diff for each poster??)

I imagine Greenspun would not want to claim copyright, so as to firewall themselves from maximum liability for legal claims against certain kinds of posts (this is on a they-can't-have-it-both-ways principle that I just now invented, but i feel sure something notionally similar applies) (ie they won't be saying “We claim all copyright to yr nonsensical spouting except of course if it lands us in court”)

― mark s, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yes, I could. Do you think that would be wise?

― fritz, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If you dont like what you wrote, or the way it was used, then yes, that would be wise. It's what I'd do.

― Tom, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

WOOHAH..get in!!!!!

― a-33, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

fritz: i agree with tom => where the upside is intangible AT BEST, and the downside so palpable, exercise yr right just to say no to being complicit

(it's like the waiver you're asked to sign when you get interviewed for some meretricious TV doc: the appeal is to the punter's vanity, the lure of the brief flash of stardom, then they can kid themselves that you "deserve everything you get" when they edit it to make you look like a clown...)

― mark s, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

it's not so much that I don't like it - it's certainly not my proudest moment, but I stand by the sentiment if not my articulation of it - it's just the context.

Are you uncomfortable with the edited version being perceived as representative of ILM, Tom?

― fritz, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If Fritz's post kicks off the "edited" thread, and he withholds his consent, would that not mess up the whole of Lethem's "construction"? Tee hee.

― Jeff W, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

well, mark, the tangible upside is $50 and a free book, and Fritz is a pseudonym (i write pro under my real name) so no harm done to the real me.

― fritz, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

fritz it's a TRAP!!

― mark s, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't think it's representative of ILM (maybe of the 'new ILM' I keep hearing about) but that doesn't bother me, ILM is what it is and what I think isn't very relevant. If we get a few curious book-buying punters in so much the better - it's more about whether you think your entry sucks or not.

― Tom, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

yeah it pretty much sucks in the context of a traditional essay, but as a representation of the kind of discussion that goes on on the web as I said I think it's representative.

Basically I feel like I was a member of a crowd in a photograph that someone wants to publish - they don't want to publish it cause I'm so stylish or goodlooking, they want to publish it because they want a snapshot of a crowd circa 2002. The only conscious decision I made was to be hanging out in a cool place to be photographed, everything else was chance. Yeah, I wish I wasn't making a stupid face in this photograph. Yeah, maybe I think the photograph would be better if they hadn't cropped a lot of it out. Should I let them publish it and give me some dough, why not?

(sorry if I'm vascilating on this, I'm just going through it in my mind here).

― fritz, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Go for it! I would be so happy to get paid for anything I wrote (though the chances of this are slim to none...). Even if it's not your finest moment you can at least say you've been published.

― Nicole, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(ok now everyone secretly refuse permission for theirs to run): then the photo will just be CROPPED DOWN TO FRITZ'S SILLY HAIRCUT AND EXPRESSION, and magnified a lot, and captioned "how one idiot looked in 2001: haha"

― mark s, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

um, ok. but this idiot is wearing a fake beard and a zorro mask so he doesn't care.

― fritz, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

mark s. pls. check yr. e-mail.

― fritz, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(that's a gag about how something perfectly ok taken out of context can look not the way you meant it, btw, not my opinion of fritz)

― mark s, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

it dont mean a good godamn thing becuz until i'm sure this thing is on the up and up and not being used by lethem in his introduction to say "haha look at the silly internet people" i'm not giving my okay. and fritz, i dont think you should either, if you dont like what's said. i'm ambivalent about the whole thing now. i was never really "excited" though.

― jess, Friday, 26 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

wow. had NO idea Jess (or anyone else) would get so paranoid about this. for the record, it was my suggestion, so if you have any gripes about it, you should take 'em to me directly.

― M Matos, Monday, 29 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm going to give them my permission.

― fritz, Monday, 29 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Just sent mine in. They now know nothing is going on at "ilovemusic.com."

― nabisco, Thursday, 2 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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