Pretentious?
Radiohead - 'Kid A'

Sorry, but don't give me that shit, it's crap.
(FiftyFour, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 3:14, Reply)

Ballet schmallet
At primary school we had a drama teacher who existed on a world not entirely similar to this one. On her world taking a mixed group of 10 year old boys to see "Swan Lake" would be an uplifting experience for them. As we know in the real world it would likely:

a) be boring as shite (the most popular choice)
b) produce interesting new sensations at seeing women in tights with legs wide apart
c) produce interesting new sensations at seeing men in tights with legs wide apart (this just applied to Freddy. Who liked playing with girls and talking about his cats).

At the end of it all we were expected to write a report on what we saw. I produced a lovingly detailed description of the decorations on the theatre ceiling. And I got an A. How's that for post-modern?
(Captcheese, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 2:55, Reply)

I'm in a performance art class
And for the most part it's great: you do little performances in class based on a prompt (use words or a prop or a partner or tape yourself etc) and a good time is had by all.... until it's time for the final performance wherein we (up to 20 kids last quarter) take over two whole art rooms and the performances now seem to be wildly out of context and being viewed by strangers in a strange setting.

Room 1: The exhibition room. Everyone is doing their own thing all at the same time, kind of like living sculpture. There's also a small food line. Imagine having to eat while a guy is being "stabbed" (I was slashing his clothes off with a boxcutter for 15 mins) and another is being written on with molten crayon wax. At least one person has described it thusly: "it was like I was in hell!"

Room 2: Performance room. Performances are done one at a time. I've doused myself in "blood", a girl dragged herself across the floor while a guy held onto her waist, a guy served as a human bridge for his partner, and a lot of people were tied up in bags. The most imfamous thing that I've seen so far is a guy who raped a computer tower with a zucchini (yes you read that right); the veggie broke midway through the performance!

Art students? Pretentious? Absolutely not!
(Kitsune-chan I'm not a bunny I'm a grownup girl, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 2:05, Reply)

Oh, and also
Emo
Indie (at least from the last couple of years)
Hardcore (because all these bands are emo bands that think they're not)
R 'n' B (to mean "rap 'n' bass" rather than rhythm 'n' blues)
( Styxx hates when people talk in the third person, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 1:39, Reply)

Not the most pretentious, thought I'd just share it
Went to see Monster Magnet by accident last year. Their singer has a wind machine to blow his hair back. Who does that? Really? Especially in a small club like the Oxford Zodiac. Fucking arse nugget.
( Styxx hates when people talk in the third person, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 1:33, Reply)

Tones and Cleo
Went to see Antony and Cleopatra at the Wharf Theatre in Sydney many moons ago (maybe 1993), and it was pretty good. I was just getting into a bit of Shake, we didn't do Shakespeare at my tough nut highschool.

So, it's looking good, I'm enjoying the play, when onto the stage comes the lass playing some soldier who has to have a long convo with Tones, telling him how the battle was going, etc. And she was deaf.

How she new when to come in and "speak" remains a mystery to me. As, indeed, does anything she said.

Emadex - That photog looks like it's done near the Museum in Carlton Gardens. Is it?
(Pleiades, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 1:11, Reply)

"Strange Fruit"...
...these wankers from Victoria who recently performed "The Field" in my town, a place although starved of culture is not gullible enough to be impressed by a bunch of tossers-on-sticks-swaying-to-a-soundtrack-of-utter-artsy-bollocks-lyrics-about-"freeing-your-mind"...




Never a fucking chainsaw around when you need one, eh?



edit: even their name is pretentious - it's taken from a poem about black slaves who were lynched in the US.
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 1:11, Reply)

It's the most pretentious thing ever

What, you don't already know?
(subculture, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 0:55, Reply)

Wim Delvoye's
Cloaca. It's a shit machine. Literally. It actually produces shit.
Food goes in, shit comes out, "inventor" sells the shit for insane amounts of money. I put the quotes there because the guy did fuck all (jack shit pun intentionally avoided). He basically told a bunch of engineers "I want a machine that produces shit out of food. It will make me rich and famous. If you make it happen, I'll give you all a poo you can sell on eBay." That's contemporary art for ya.
They're actually working on a compact version of the Cloaca. Imagine that. Now you can have a faeces producing machine in your own home! Right next to the washer and the dryer!


Oh yes, same guy also makes a fortune selling the hides of tattooed pigs.
([sic] You're ad here?, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 0:36, Reply)

donnie darko


nuff said
(teasus likes tea, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 0:25, Reply)

We lurve us sum feedback
Was seeing an incredibly good band in an incredibly hole-in-the-wall place.
So of course the opening band was:
men prob in their 50s, fat, and balding (the worst of which had his shirt off)
and their idea of music was playing the feedback on their guitars from scraping metal along the strings. but that wasn't enough noise...he proceded to screech IT'S ALL WHITE NOISE!! over and over.

cleared out the entire place.
(Babbeyroad, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 0:09, Reply)

Indie "rockers"
Went to an indie night at a local nightclub. The few bands on weren't too bad (including the Morphines mentioned below, didn't seem too bad when I saw them, but they were probably too pissed up to be pretentious). But gawd, the way half the guys on stage dressed was stupid. They were basically wearing anything that looked retro and knackered. But was obviously brand new. One guy's seriously torn-up jeans still had the freakin' price tag on. Most of them looked right tits too in their tweed jackets and public school style blazers and tatty jeans trying to look cool. The one thing I hate about non-comformists is they all dress the bloody same.
(Egret, Thu 29 Sep 2005, 0:02, Reply)

And another:
Typical Islington lady, cream suit, 40 or so, absurdly over-pampered hair, gets on tube at Sloane Square. Before the doors even close, her little flip-phone rings. The whole carriage is treated to this monologue (imagine high-pitched faux-posh voice):

'Eeeeeaaars?'
'Oh, hellooah'
'Eeeears'
'Ears, absolyootely'
(Muffled sniggering)
_{and now, the punchline . . .}


'I'm on the Underground.'
(Radio Free iPods "Fickt nicht mit dem Raketenmensch!", Wed 28 Sep 2005, 23:55, Reply)

Written by a pretentious 17-year-old (not me though):
Discourse Between Death and None

Says it all really.
(Radio Free iPods "Fickt nicht mit dem Raketenmensch!", Wed 28 Sep 2005, 23:47, Reply)

"The morphines"
I turn up at a gig to see some flavour-of-the-month band that's been on an advert to find that they have a support act. They call themselves "The morphines". They begin to churn out songs in a cliched indie way, while their 8 devoted fans (i.e. their mates) scream like idiots at the front. Screaming must mean they are doing well, so the ego inflates as the singer struts around like a twunt. He decides at one point that he's famous enough to get away with spitting beer on all the people standing near the stage through lack of anywhere better to stand (busy club). I wandered off at that point. Twunt.
(matthyaouw, Wed 28 Sep 2005, 23:36, Reply)

Computer animation
At SIGGRAPH '93, there was a superb animation screening. Companies have teams working all year just to produce a 5-minute short for SIGGRAPH. Most of them are witty, amazing, or more frequently both.

However, the 1993 festival had an animation called "Stripebox" - various white solids (cubes, cones, etc.) whirling about against a white background, with stripy shadows cast on them. Fair enough. Nice shadow algorithm. Next.

Oh. There's more - these stripy shadows are horizontal. And more - diagonals!. And more. And more... more... more... The thing was the longest animation there, and it seemed longer than the rest of them put together when you had to sit through it.

The point? God only knows.
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Wed 28 Sep 2005, 23:34, Reply)

C1aybourne's post has reminded me about crappy campus sculptures..
Here at Cornell it is 'diversity week'. To celebrate this, the powers that be have installed , at great expense, a series of red arches all over campus. We are all supposed to walk under these arches which represents the diversity of the campus.

What a load of arse! its especially amusing to note that most of these have been graffited by students who object to having their (not inconsiderable) tuition fees spent on this kind of crap.
(danlondonny, Wed 28 Sep 2005, 23:32, Reply)

More art...
At the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice my little brother is quite literally brought to tears by this profound piece of artwork.


(georgia, Wed 28 Sep 2005, 23:08, Reply)

workboresme...
many thanks! at last support!
(Arse Biscuits The question is not who, but why?, Wed 28 Sep 2005, 22:52, Reply)

Jonty's Klang
I once went to see a guy called Jonty Harrison perform a piece of music called 'Klang'. He had recorded himself banging pirex dishes together and sat in front of the audience, moving the playback of the recording to and from speakers sat around the room. I sat through it all, and it was shite!
(cuntymints Cuntymints, Wed 28 Sep 2005, 22:52, Reply)

I love the irony of your post, Polly.
I've never been to see anything pretentious, but I do go to the theater a lot and of course, a lot of people who go ARE pretentious, especially in Orange County (rich fuckers).
Last summer, when the Royal Ballet danced here, I went to see both Cinderella and Giselle. It was hilarious listening to all the snobs saying how much they'd paid for their tickets, and how they'd been to London just to watch the RB perform at the Royal Opera House.
Should've seen the looks on their faces when me, in my best Hull accent, said "my brother dances with them, he does" and went backstage to see him.

Edit: Polly, I wasn't supporting you. I just find it rather ironic that you are spelling like a mong and apparently can't use a punctuation mark, yet demeaning Pixel for "not having had an education".
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Wed 28 Sep 2005, 22:49, Reply)

where's gordon?
i worked in the Hammersmith Apollo in the early 90's when Philip (Let's Go Travel) Scofield was 'playing' Joseph in the Technicolor Dreamcoat.

He was full of it.

One night only about 400 out of a potential 5500 tickets sold. Phil threw a thespian hissy crying about how he wouldn't perform to an empty theatre

Who did he think he was? A great actor, apparently.

Cue the manager, "Oi! Scofield! WHERE'S GORDON?GET ON THAT FUCKING STAGE OR YOU'LL BE STRAIGHT BACK IN THE FUCKING BROOMCUPBOARD"

I think that was a night of personal learning for Philip, when he finally realised, deep down, he was a worthless piece of shit that no-one except the mentally subnormal could tolerate
(globalloon, Wed 28 Sep 2005, 22:49, Reply)

"Roundabout Town" - and the building of stupid crap upon them...
Where I live, they built a stupid blue obelisk on top of a roundabout that has shimmering lights on the top of it (like some sort of scary obelisk deely off the film 2001).

And this gyroscope deely on another roundabout next door to White Moss Garage.

And lastly, this thing on another roundabout not too far away with peoples faces on it. F**k knows why.

This was built using some sort of euro funding or lottery money ploughed back into the community nonsense. They should have used the money for some useful purpose, not sticking pretentious b*ll*cks on top of roundabouts to bemuse motorists.

Think this example counts....
(Panteneman Isn't entirely sure why he bothered on, Wed 28 Sep 2005, 22:47, Reply)

To think the Uni payed for this
There's a sculpture at Illinois State University that apparently describes the struggle of the African American, the Native American, and the Hispanic American against prejudice, all in one sculpture.

However, what it really is, is a bunch of concrete pylons in circular shapes sticking out of the ground.

Pretentious? Maybe. Bizzare? Yes. Nonsensical? You betcha.

First post, woo.
(C1aybourne, Wed 28 Sep 2005, 22:43, Reply)

@ pixel
Goddamnit, pixel you twat, just of us have actually had decent educations and u were not fortunate enough to have one doesent make us worse/more socially inept people. You talk a load of shite, and moreover, ur post is the biggest load of 'pretentious bollocks' i have ever witnessed in my life. So, in short, get urself a life and stop posting shite on b3ta. Would much appreciate it if u removed ur post sharpish.

Sorry to rant on for this fairly decent QOTW but there you go.

PS pixel - if u dont understand, catch me back an ill go monosyllabic on u
(Arse Biscuits The question is not who, but why?, Wed 28 Sep 2005, 22:42, Reply)

make the saucepan stop!!
I went to see what was a pretty obscure canadian post rock band in a grubby little venue in north london a while back. the second support act had the greatest & sillyest attempt at interesting music.

they were an emo/post rock sort of lot. for one of their tracks the lead musician bloke, who played guitar, fiddled with a sequencer, a keyboard etc. pulled out a violin bow.

nothing abnormal there. guitars, violin bows. a little wanky but not too bad.

he wanders over to his guitar stand to pick up his intrument. was it a classic less paul? was it buggery. it was a fucking saucepan.

he then proceeded to play his saucepan with the bow with a look of utter musical rapture, whilst the rest of the his band droned away in the background.

i almost died laughing. it remains one of the greatest things i ever seen.
(Lord of the Pies, Wed 28 Sep 2005, 22:39, Reply)

@Didgeridude
Nope, Anima 2005 in my hometown of Ghent.

omgwtfthreadwaste!!!11one!
(Caustic Armadillo consists at least 30% out of custard, Wed 28 Sep 2005, 22:30, Reply)

This
QOTW
( social hand grenade I was a lurker before you were a lurker, Wed 28 Sep 2005, 21:57, Reply)

The Royal Tenenbaums.
Funny? About as funny as listening to the complete works of S Club Juniors whilst having your ballbag stapled repeatedly to your inner thigh.
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Wed 28 Sep 2005, 21:54, Reply)