Young Martin Cizmar™, the Beach Boys, and "reverse homerism"
Dear Martin:
In your much-anticipated inquiry into Beach Boys Party!, there was a part I got hung up on.
It’s the emphasized phrase below.
Pet Sounds […] has been called the best rock record ever made by most of the top British music mags — NME, The Times and Mojo among them. America’s top source for all things ‘60s, Rolling Stone, in a perhaps non-coincidental case of reverse homerism, put it at number two, behind Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Let’s try to parse it out!
“Homerism,” as I understand the term, is derived from the more common word “homer,” a slang term for someone who would give brownie points to something for being local.
In this case, I think you are referring to the U.K. vs. the U.S.
If the editors of Rolling Stone were being “homerist,” they would vote for Pet Sounds over Sgt. Pepper. In this case, they didn’t, so they weren’t being “homerist”; they were being, in Cizmarianistic terms, “reverse homerist.”
By the same token, one might call you a “reverse prose stylist.”
However, this was not merely generic “reverse homerism'; it was a "perhaps non-coincidental” incidence of it.
Again, let’s take a step back. First, “coincidental.” Coincidental with what?
This is a truly cosmic question, second only to whether The Times is a “British music mag.”
I believe you are referring to the U.K. papers' having similarly reverse homeristically lauded the American Pet Sounds over the indisputably British Sgt. Pepper; in this context, Rolling Stone is unquestionably (and amusingly) coincidentally (and parallelledly) being precisely as reversely homeristic.
Yet you do not take this at face value. You delve deeper.
Could the Rolling Stone plaudits of Sgt. Pepper over Pet Sounds “perhaps” be “non-coincidental”?
I believe you are raising the question of its being … deliberate. Intentional. Planned, even.
Aha! I can hear the editors of Rolling Stone thinking. Those British papers wanna play coy, hmm? If they put Beach Boys number one, why, we’re gonna put the Beatles number one!
Young Martin’s point is finally plain.
Dark international deeds were afoot in the Rolling Stone offices, and Brian Wilson may have been cheated out of a transatlantic sweep had not this “non-coincidental reverse homerism” stolen away his rightful place at number one.
Perhaps, anyway.
Previously in PHXated!:
April 22: Confidential to Young Martin Cizmar™
April 15: Cizmar-apalooza!
April 14: Young Martin Cizmar™ update!
April 9: Should KJZZ play indie rock?
April 2: Martin Cizmar: ‘Dost thou portend to know what was notable?’
April 1: McCartney Mania! New Times' Martin Cizmar responds!
March 31: The curious Martin Cizmar
Comments
Martin Cizmar Monday, May 31, 2010:
First, Bill, I'm going to echo comments I've heard privately from others and vow that if you don't remove the vetting process for your comments I'm done leaving them here. I've heard allegations of you not posting certain things which, in addition to being intellectually dishonest, is ridiculous. I'm sure the 12 readers you get a day won't mind looking at a few spam comments from time to time if that means we can freely discuss your work without threat of a heavy-handed moderator.
Second, perhaps not surprisingly, your basic point about homerism is undone by your misunderstanding of the word. Not being very familiar with sports jargon, and apparently not being resourceful enough to put it in proper context with the use of the interwebs, you write that" "'Homerism,' as I understand the term, is derived from the more common word 'homer,' a slang term for someone who would give brownie points to something for being local."
The problem? Like most things you write about, you're missing a huge piece of the puzzle. A "Homer" is not someone who gives "brownie points." That would probably be called a "Fanboy," depending on the context.
From Urban Dictionary: "Someone who shows blind loyalty to a team or organization, typically ignoring any shortcomings or faults they have."
The whole point of calling someone a "homer," you can hopefully now understand, is that you're alleging they're unaware of their subconscious but obvious preference. They're blindly loyal. In the reverse of that, "reverse-homerism," I called it, someone shows blind preference to the more exotic offering.
So, working with that definition (we'll call it "The Accurate Definition") you can see that your whole argument falls apart. The non-coincidence I'm talking about is not a "dark international deed," nor could anyone who knows what the word Homer mean think that. It's about the fact that most American critics tend to laud British artists a little more than their own, and vice-versa. It's a weird phenomenon, but hopefully one you're familiar with. I'm hesitant to make any bigger points about this to you given your inability to understand the basics.
So, yeah, you seem to be asserting that I'm some sort of tin foil hat idiot who is assigning dark motives to Rolling Stone editors when, in reality, the problem is that YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT ANY SLANG TERM COINED AFTER 1993 MEANS! Paired with your desire to criticize people for using words that are too old (my use -- in a COMMENT, mind you -- of the obsolete but more charming definition of "portend") it makes you completely insufferable. Actually, looking at it this way, you've probably libeled me, at least according to the definition your little troll friend Tyler uses. Then again, neither of you have ever made much of a point to learn what words mean before acting nutty about them. Like the time you failed to understand how I meant straw man as "an opponent set up so as to be easily refuted or defeated."
Ugh. Like I said, insufferable.
Honestly, Bill, when you do stuff like this is makes me question how you could ever make a living off the written word.
It's not that you're an idiot, Bill, it's just that you don't read enough. At least not enough stuff outside the narrow world of your obsessions. So, yeah, I'm sorry for using syntax you're only kinda-sorta familiar with in my work, as it tends to offer you irresistible opportunities to look like a jackass.