6B - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 21, 2006
HATE
Continued from page 1B
in the name of some guy who want
to teach people to appreciate their
lives. In the dorms students crowd
around televisions and howl with
delight at every pulled tooth and
broken jaw - what is enjoyable in
this experience? Are you kidding?
Painfully derivative and dumb to
protruding bone, "Saw" and its
many contemporaries have taken
the American horror film hostage
and brutalized it to its worst state
in decades.
MYSPACE.COM
Myspace.com clocked the cre-
ation of its 100 millionth user pro-
file last month, and it's become a
multimedia marketing force for
indie-rock bands as well as a com-
munication vehicle for large-scale
corporations. And that "Christina
Dolce" chick that arranges her
profile name ForBiddeN like a
preteen on instant messenger?
Buzz on Myspace nabbed her a
Playboy spread. Oh, and the site
also contributed to the summer
love match between a 16-year-old
honor student from Michigan and
a 20-something man in the Middle
East. She tricked her parents and
booked a flight to Jordan, only to
be stopped by authorities. Self-
promotion and love with minors
is TEH best !!!!!III lol ;)
DMB
OK, so that one summer you
got weed, your driver's permit
and an acoustic guitar ... that
was 10 years ago. You thought the
world was easy and Technicolor
back then. We forgive naivete,
candy-ass drums, and what basi-
cally amounts to an abused fid-
dle. Dave sounds so blissfully
stupid and idiotic as he crows out
some indecipherable shit about
world peace, it was only a matter
of time until Under the Table and
Dreaming became the most satis-
fying dorm-room drink coaster.
YUNG JOC
He astonishes for two reasons:
In recent memory, no rapper has
so clearly struggled with the basic
concepts of the art (not always
rhyming words with themselves,
moving beyond nursery diction,
showing some human interest
beyond buying things, rapping
about old things in new ways or
new things in old ways) and taken
a dreadful, heartless debut, Young
Joc City, to the top of the charts.
Literally each song is a copy of
the next: frigid, squirrelly synth
turds and blind, bland talk about
being sweet. I hope Scarface
comes out of retirement and beats
him with a trashcan.
VANITY FAIR
Anyone else sick of their stab
at sophistication? If you can stom-
ach the extreme price tag, Vanity
Fair is really the most expensive
tabloid out there - a half-naked
Lindsay Lohan, confessional Jen-
nifer Aniston and now over-exu-
berant dad Tom Cruise have all
graced its cover over the last few
months in glorified versions of
the National Enquirer's top sto-
ries. Even their green-thumb issue
stank of journalistic insincer-
ity - very impressive that such a
distinguished magazine can spare
some room for environmentalism
between their encyclopedic dis-
plays of the latest overpriced high
fashion. It's a delicate art to spout
Graydon Carter's predictably lib-
eral bitching and still boast lavish
photo specials on the latest yachts
of the superrich. Mindlessly hate
Bush but love in-depth interviews
with such high-profile figures as
Nicole Ritchie? Man, have I got a
$10 stack of glossy paper for you.
THE PERSONALITY CULT
OF DAN BROWN
We get it. He writes books for
people with short attention spans.
But I still don't get what the big
deal is. Just because his books
are superficially suspenseful
doesn't make him a good writer.
And don't even get me started on
the titles of his books. "Da Vinci
Code"? I can't tell if it's "The
Vinci Code" in slang or if it's
Leonardo. "Angels and Demons"?
Probably one of the most generic,
derivative oppositions in all of
literary history. Someone's hair
"rippling" does not a novel make.
Popular literature should still
have standards. So step off, Dan
Brown. You're not good enough
to be the next Stephen King.
THE WORD "PLETHORA"
The English language is mas-
sive. You took English in 10th
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DAILY ARTS.
WE HATE A LOT
OF THINGS, BUT
WE LOVE YOU.
COME IN ANY
DAY SUNDAY
THROUGH
Courtesy of interscope THURDAY AFTER
"Pinstripes make us look skinnier. And sound less shitty."
grade. Such benign facts, such a
destructive path in their collective
wake. Sprinklings of "utilized"
instead of "used," "individu-
als" instead of "people" - inane
flourishes that keep putting more
nails in George Orwell's coffin
- have nothing on this one. Why,
under any humane circumstanc-
es, would someone use the word
"plethora"? Many. A lot. Quite a
few. So many words and phrases
words that don't recall a rancid
fungus and high school vocabu-
lary tests are out there, and yet,
even in the dullest prose, this
word pops up again and again.
Please stop now and preserve the
little sanity we have left.
THE CATALOG OF MITCH
ALBOM
Mitch Albom is not an author.
Mitch Albom is an overstuffed
sports columnist who woke up
one day and decided he had the
right to infect millions of people
with his schmaltzy, melodra-
matic musings on the meaning
of life. "Tuesdays with Morrie"
and "The Five People You Meet
in Heaven" sold millions of cop-
ies not because they're amazingly
well-written or groundbreaking,
but because they're easy to swal-
low: Little boxes of life lessons
wrapped up with tacky, sentimen-
tal bows. Talk about setting the
bar low - you would be better off
reading the latest issue of Pent-
house than one of Albom's gems.
AWARD SHOWS
It's now safe to agree these
are now officially meaningless.
Let's just call them the popu-
larity contests that they truly
are, because they serve very
little purpose other than fueling
another fortnight of tabloids with
fresh red-carpet photos. Traves-
ties along the lines of the Teen
Choice Awards are obvious trash
(with Hilary Duff and Rob Sch-
neider co-hosting last year, the
TCAs practically bragged about
it), but the supposed high-class
ceremonies are running to join
them. The nail in the award-show
coffin: Ellen Burstyn's Emmy
nomination earlier this year for
a 14-second role. That's like P.
Diddy winning a Grammy for
grunting in the background of his
latest protbg6's single.
KEANE
They say that every time a bell
rings, and angel gets its wings.
Conversely, every time Keane's
latest video for "Is It Any Won-
der" comes on television, some-
thing very, very terrible happens
to that little angel. There's just
something about this unremark-
able, bland four piece that is
utterly repugnant. Is it the chub-
by, no-talent lead singer? Could
it be the repetitive, vapid lyrics?
Or is it their complete and total
lack of originality? We're not
sure. Keane simply encompasses
everything that is wrong with
music today.
- Complied by Daily Arts edi-
tors Jeffrey Bloomer, Kimberly
Chou, Caitlin Cowan, Kristin
MacDonald, Evan McGarvey
and Bernie Nguyen.
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