Sasha Frere-Jones Recap
Kudos to the junior class of Covenant College for bringing to Chattanooga the pop music critic of the New Yorker, Sasha Frere-Jones (personal blog & twitter). Had the added pleasure of hanging with Sasha till the early morning on Andy's front porch.
Embarrassingly, not a single Covenant professor attended the lecture. C'mon, at least attempt to make the case that "Christian Liberal Arts" isn't some kind of oxymoron.
Some memorable quotes from Sasha's talk:
"Coldplay is like cockroaches, they could sell albums in a blizzard."
"Notting Hill is a better film than Braveheart because it does a better job of accomplishing what it set out to be."
"I'd like to see more people taking The Dream more seriously and taking Conner Oberst less seriously."
"Fuck you Braveheart!"
"Cock Rock and teabagging, two of my favorite past times."
"There's no such thing as a guilty pleasure. It's just pleasure."
Chattanooga Events , Covenant College | By Josiah Roe | 11:29 AM
Comments
Is there audio/video of his talk?
Posted by: Aaron R. Stewart at April 26, 2009 11:04 PM
Did he really say that?!!!
Holy crap, the students probably got pissy and walked out or at least complained about it later.
Posted by: Rob at April 27, 2009 2:47 AM
Judging from the quotes above, it seems an odd impulse to be imagining the audience as pissy. The quotes themselves are pissy.
In any case, I was there and the audience was really gracious. Jones, in spite of his "colorful language", was a real gentleman. He was even considerate enough to ask me before the lecture if he should keep his language clean. I told him to say it however it needed to be said.
I didn't really get the cockroach metaphore, though it made me laugh since he was kind of bashing Coldplay. How are Coldplay like cockroaches?
Cockroaches are hardy little insects (in a tough economic climate) that consume. Isn't it the fans that should be like cockroaches? Coldplay would be the stale bread.
Posted by: Lowen at April 28, 2009 9:44 AM
Lowen,
I don't know when you attended Covenant, however at the time when I attended, language like that would be cause for some to walk out. I assume that there has been much change in 12 years since I was there. However I was always amused, at that time, how sensitive students were at things like that. In fact it made me bitter to the whole Covenant expierence. So yes, 'pissy' was a acurate impulse for my experience. Again, i should think the school has changed some.
Posted by: Rob at May 9, 2009 1:53 AM
