Oh, Pitchfork, in your teaser for your review of Tapes 'n Tapes, about the band, you say "their total lack of pretentiousness is a breath of fresh air," and yet, pretentiousness just oozes from the review, making me wonder if in fact this band might not also be oozing this despite the teaser's claim. This sentence from the review is almost too much, it probably is too much, it's just so smarmy, and that is probably why I like it so much - take this in:

"But facing the task of averting obviousness, they play the uncool card: 'The Iliad' dresses its keystones in afro-MIDI percussion, cuica and humorously fake timbale, its garb recalling the shy kid in sculpture class who could be a hipster if not for those Sketchers: Are the kicks a defense mechanism, ironic one-upmanship, or just a really good deal at TJ Maxx?"

The audaciousness of that similie still has me a bit stunned, but in a good way. And, PS Pitchfork, obviously I was not a hipster in sculpture class because they are spelled Skechers.

Last night, in bed again reading McSweeneys #18, I was stunned in a not good way. Typo on the very first page (!!!) of the book: "At one point she as writing copy.." [was, not as]. Typo on page five: "Calvin finally giving in to the longstanding salacious advances if our incestuous cousins" [of, not if]. Typo on page 95: "I touched my check and it was sticky hot" [cheek, not check].

This isn't a photocopied zine with all these errors - it's supposed to be an elegant, professionally published literary quarterly. This is maddening. It totally disrupts a story for me, and I am sure lots of other people who come across these typos and totally pause to reread the sentence, to wonder what the fuck exactly these copy editors do if they aren't catching these glaring, glaring typos. The first page! Come on!

I watched The Thin Red Line last night and Scarface the night before and Oliver Stone's fingerprints are all over Scarface and what the fuck is up with Italians playing Cubans, and Terrence Malick is a beautiful human being and so is his star, James Caviezel, even though apparently he is an extremist Catholic. I didn't notice his beauty in The Passion of the Christ, probably because he was covered in cuts and blood, but he is a striking, striking man in The Thin Red Line.

I am going to see AM Homes and Jonathan Lethem talk tonight at Columbia and I am really excited. I should probably ask someone to come with me soon.