Could somone summarise thread "...Robert Christgau's sentences" for me?

well, let's say momus got going.

::clearing throat::

Xgau's review of Nas' The Lost Tapes was confusing. Xgau said that Nas was more effective in his hip-hop nostalgia and pronunciation than Missy and Tim are. Dan Perry gets irritated by incorrect grammar. Jody Beth Rosen gets irritated by something the Amateurist said, and renounces her ILX crush on him. Momus gets irritated by Xgau, whom he thinks is trying to fake his populism. ILM gets irritated by Momus, who may or may not have raging classism issues and definitions he should attend to, being a Eurochild. Xgau may or may not have indirectly called Momus a dandy, because he was irriated by Momus'sexual egomania and baby envy. Jess still prefers the Poobah. This thread is beating the dicks thread. Momus has issues with Pauline Kael's negligence of analyzing political matters in her legendary reviews. The Markettes would be better MoTown singers than the Paulettes. The Pinefox agrees with the second half of the Nipper's post. Frank Kogan figured out that "back-in-the-day" could also be used as a noun.

that's all, or at least the highlights, imo

did this help?

(can you help me finish my book?)

But you try, my dear sir, and that's a good thing.

My dad is balding, the 'roots' of the futility are hereditary, ima 'fraid.

Dan Perry had a problem with the sentence (I'm going to pare it down a bit) "Surrounding outtakes is back-in-the-day recommended to Missy and Tim and four autobiographical pieces." He maintained that the verb "is" was used incorrectly because "back-in-the-day," used as a noun, is singular in form (although plural in meaning) whereas "four autobiographical pieces" is plural in both form and meaning.

I asked a couple of writers and English teachers about this sentence. Consensus was pretty much that while Dan is technically correct, he's kinda wrong here since what the "Dean" meant, and which is perfectly clear (once you get past the lame-ass "back-in-the-day" attempt at hip-ness) is:

"Surrounding outtakes IS ALL THIS: back-in-the-day (plural in meaning) and four autobiographical pieces (plural)."

As an editor friend of mine put it, "You could go back and ask him to re-write the sentence to make it 'correct' but it wouldn't be worth it, would it? The sense is there, plus Christgau wants to put this song-title reference in there, so let him have his fun! Christgau is an assured enough writer, with enough rapport with his intended audience, to get away with something like that. You have to bend a little. So, Dan Perry is technically right but on the bigger issue here, I think he's wrong." This is from a buddy of mine who, as book-editor, has worked w/Christgau, Marcus, R. Meltzer, etc. And no, he's not interested in any of your book ideas...

Rest of thread takes on populist vs. elitist criticism, Pauline Kael as either condescending fake-woman-of-the-people or not, class issues, etc. Made my head hurt. Now I guess I have to actually listen to Nas...

Your editor friend is a bad editor, BTW, since the sense of the sentence obviously ISN'T there seeing as half the people who looked at that sentence didn't recognize "back-in-the-day" as a noun.