Rock Snobs
While searching around to find links for yesterday's Orange Juice post, I stumbled over Steven Daly's new book, The Rock Snob's Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Rockological Knowledge, written with David Kamp. The Website defines rock snobs as "those arcana-obsessed people who speak of 'Rickenbacker guitars' and 'Gram Parsons.'" I only wonder if it gives any of us who may (and I stress may) be rock snobs some advice on how to behave in public.
There's also a separate Snobsite, which includes a number of features, among them a blog (which they prefer to call "Annals of Rock Snobbery") and a comix section. As an added bonus, the comix feature Al Jaffee's "Snobby Answers to Loser Questions!" The only disappointment there is that you can't fold a computer screen.
All in all, it looks like a fun project. I'm adding the book to my Christmas list already.
posted by Doug @ 11:55 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
I dunno. I've seen two issues of 'Vanity Fair' that included excerpts from this dictionary, and I actually found it rather insulting. Do they ever refer to themselves as snobs for compiling the thing? Or as backhanded ironists for selling the project?
This is my first exposure to it, but I get the impression that it's all tongue in cheek. It's only rock snobs who would buy the thing anyway, because non-snobs by definition aren't interested. Daly refers to himself as the "Scottish Snob" in an entry still visible on the blog's front page. It's sarcasm--pretty strong in some cases--but it feels like affectionate sarcasm to me.
Maybe it's part of my upbringing...as an "unpopular" kid, I grew to love my interests and obsessions as my own; they were part of what gave me the strength to get through high school. For the deep love of music to be reduced to someone's idea that it's "snobbery" is something I just don't find funny.
Guess I'm still sensitive.
I can certainly understand how that could be a sore spot. Part of the equation of whether to take this as funny or not comes from the source of the material. To me, this reads like self-deprecating humor rather than attack humor. That can be a thin line, though, and if self-deprecation falls into the wrong hands, it can turn cruelly against its target.
The market for this seems limited to music afficionados who'd self-identify as the "target" of the humor, because if you don't already know what the authors are talking about, you're not going to be interested. I could see a problem if those who don't follow rock music closely bought it as a gift for their "rock snob," because that could pretty quickly turn into an insult.
That's a great site, all tongue-in-cheek from my perspective. I of course like calling myself a beer snob and cheese snob, so I already love snobbery jokes. And as someone who read all of the Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions books from cover to cover, I REALLY love the Snobby Answers pages.
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