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Tom writes over on his Blue Lines tumblr:
One of the things I like most about writing for Pitchfork is that with Poptimist it lets me be a bit more subtle and unopinionated in my writing, which is how I like to do things anyway.
In the comments I challenge his contention about how he likes to do things:
Well, I notice that orgafun on Poptimists and Freaky Trigger is centered around like versus dislike, or better versus worse. Convos can arise from that beginning, but like/dislike is the game, which is the first hook that makes it fun, even if there's better fun when a good discussion develops as well. As Frith and I were saying back in the day, value judgments are the first feature of the social life around music. I often find this frustrating; I'm someone who wants to break down the wall between hallway and classroom, but giving priority to opinion tends to suppress the classroom altogether. Few people seem to know how to get far beyond their opinion. But suppressing opinion - while it often might be a good strategy in situation G or H, say, or even be a good rhetorical strategy for the news pages on a paper - is how the classroom made itself feel not like life in the first place, so suppression is not a long-term solution.
One of the things I like most about writing for Pitchfork is that with Poptimist it lets me be a bit more subtle and unopinionated in my writing, which is how I like to do things anyway.
In the comments I challenge his contention about how he likes to do things:
Well, I notice that orgafun on Poptimists and Freaky Trigger is centered around like versus dislike, or better versus worse. Convos can arise from that beginning, but like/dislike is the game, which is the first hook that makes it fun, even if there's better fun when a good discussion develops as well. As Frith and I were saying back in the day, value judgments are the first feature of the social life around music. I often find this frustrating; I'm someone who wants to break down the wall between hallway and classroom, but giving priority to opinion tends to suppress the classroom altogether. Few people seem to know how to get far beyond their opinion. But suppressing opinion - while it often might be a good strategy in situation G or H, say, or even be a good rhetorical strategy for the news pages on a paper - is how the classroom made itself feel not like life in the first place, so suppression is not a long-term solution.
