February 23, 2011
In Which I Detest The “This Recording” House Style

This essay/manifesto deserves all of the widespread praise it has received, and I think its author is one of the most talented writers on “the Internet” today. But what the hell do those “Mad Men” publicity stills add to it, exactly?

One picture, at the top, as reference or illustration of inspiration or winking joke, gets the point across. I am perfectly fine with one picture. For a reader who doesn’t watch or particularly care about that show, a half-dozen pictures of pretty people playing dress-up reads like the precious version of a “Scarface” poster taped to the post’s otherwise tasteful walls, signaling only that “the author thinks these people look cool.”

(Although I guess there already is a precious version of the “Scarface” poster.)

Everything on that damn site is larded down with GIS results for pretty people or old picture postcards or uncredited copyrighted images that Magnum hopefully never finds out about.

Back in the Olden Days, the era they mine for cheaply evocative illustrative purposes, the pages of magazines — even magazines with George Lois covers — had full pages thick with small text and few visual interruptions. Unless the inspiration is LIFE, where the words were more or less superfluous — but I don’t think it is. (For one, they took their own pictures.)

“Clink! Clink! Another Drink” — Spike Jones and His City Slickers (YouTube)
“Clocktails for Two” — Spike Jones and His City Slickers (YouTube)
“I Went to Your Wedding” — Spike Jones and His City Slickers (YouTube)

5:49pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z56Iby3EvFqT
(Notes: 50)
  
  1. cajunboy said: I was beginning to think I was the only one who felt that way. I refuse to click a link to TR because of that cutesy bullshit.
  2. celebraterickysargulesh reblogged this from pareene and added:
    ALSO WHY ALL THE MP3S AT THE END OF EVERY POST
  3. placesweusedtogo said: I couldn’t even read the essay because I was so sick of looking at those people tbth.
  4. richardgin reblogged this from pareene
  5. rendit said: My God it’s full of me making the “My God it’s full of” reference.
  6. ley-lines reblogged this from kingdrake1 and added:
    Completely agreed and I did like that piece. I also hate the “In Which…” titling tic—is Neil Gaiman an editor there?—and...
  7. zmedelegantdiningroompackanimal said: The detestable act of tacking on multiple, often irrelevant tracks from recently leaked albums to drive in mp3 aggregator traffic drove me from that blog long ago, despite liking some of its writing.
  8. wizardishungry reblogged this from pareene
  9. artyucko reblogged this from pareene
  10. artyucko said: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
  11. kingdrake1 reblogged this from pareene and added:
    hahaha. It also gives...writing this odd loping pacing.
  12. 6h057 said: Marry me.
  13. brianvan reblogged this from pareene