>re: the baffler:
>
>>
>>I suspect the hipness in the beginning was largely a marketing
strategy,
>>to attract the young indie/punk rock crowd towards larger political
>>horizons.
>
>I wouldn't be so quick to suggest the Baffler boys had it together
enough
>to have any kind of strategy, other than pontificating on what they
thought
>was important (i.e.: anything they thought about). When it started out,
>they were "hipper" than they are now--they were paying closer attention
to
>what was going on around them culturally, which was a natural
springboard
>for what they wanted to get at in a national discourse.
>
>The Baffler's rarely struck me as being anywhere near as good as its
press.
>Frank's recent writing elsewhere have me thinking he's becoming his
>generation's (which, uh, would also be _mine_) Lewis Lapham--endless
>orotund oratory about a few themes repeated endlessly, spiced with
>quasi-cutting asides, ultimately tedious. Tho I do admit I've liked
some
>things both L. and Frank have written quite a bit.
>
>jf
Yeah. Actually, I'm sort of guessing/hoping T. Frank will write a piece on "That 70's Show" using a remake of Big Star's "In the Street" as the show opener. (I know it's time to lose hope when anything off of Chris Bell's _I Am the Cosmos_ suffers such indignity)
I could go on, but you must excuse me, a very nice boy and I shared a buddy booth at lunch hour today, and I've got a case of Cockburn (the good kind).
-Alec
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