Courtney passes the meme to me…

Behold, the Caesar’s Bath meme! List five things that people in your circle of friends or peer group are wild about, but you can’t really understand the fuss over. To use the words of Caesar (from History of the World Part I), “Nice. Nice. Not thrilling . . . but nice.”

1) The Arcade Fire. Layered, complex, emotional, and . . . grating. I bought this CD solely on the raves it was getting from critics and people whose taste in music I admire. I’ve trudged through five listens. And I can’t figure out what the fuss is about.

2) Day by Day. Conservatives and right-leaning bloggers can’t get enough of this web comic strip. Okay, so if you’re not a flaming leftist, it’s nice to occasionally see a comic strip that reflects your worldview. But isn’t the primary function of a comic strip to be, y’know, funny?

3) The Watchmen. Neat drawings. Dark subject matter. Interesting perspectives. But…still a comic book. I just can’t get into the graphic novel-comic book thing. I tried. I’ve had a copy on loan for months now. Call me a comic book bigot. But I keep waiting for Mr. Weatherbee to tell Rohrshark to stop flirting with Betty and Veronica and get back to study hall.

4) Radiohead. Good band in the beginning. Now, pretentious apirations for profundity. Or, noise.

5) The NFL Draft. I like football. And I like to read about who the Colts picked up on draft day. But man, when did this become such a big to-do? The NBA draft I can understand. It’s short, and the two guys your team picks up aren’t lost among the other sixty of so on the squad. Who cares about the number four left tackle still on the board? And all of the smoke screens, buzzwords, and conjecture are irritating. In making the draft a Big Deal, ESPN, the NFL, and Mel Kiper have pulled off the greatest marketing coup since the guy who gave us chicken wings.

I tag Justin Logan, Brooke Oberwetter, and Gene Healy, the latter to in part hear explain why he doesn’t like the Beatles.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 23rd, 2005 at 1:31 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.