July 28, 2005
A Call to Musical Arms
A Call to Musical Arms
Just the other day, dear reader, one of the junior editors here at “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly”—let’s just call him “Chip”—was perambulating along a typical suburban sidewalk. During the course of this relaxing stroll, a handful of cars (if, in fact, you have a rather large hand) passed by, blaring “music” that was aurally offensive.You know the kind of aesthetic palaver we’re talking about, dear reader: The owners of these automobiles appear to have enjoyed so-called “rap,” the musical equivalent of Chinese water torture. Accordingly, “Chip” was positively bombarded with the thud-thud-thud of one cacophonous calamity after another.
As you might imagine, dear reader, this got our friend “Chip” to thinking: Why is it, he pondered, that those who play their car stereos the loudest are always enraptured by the worst brands of pseudo-music? Why doesn’t anyone with good taste drive by with his radio a-blazing?
Good questions, those. In fact, they are so good that they have compelled us, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” to ask for your help.
If you, dear reader, enjoy this humble “weblog,” there’s a pretty good chance that you have taste. After all, “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” is essentially the caviar of “weblogs”—overpriced and a bit fishy. As such, we figured that our discriminating reader(s) must like the finer things in life: Classical music, Platonic dialogues, The New York Post, &c.
Given your impressive savoir faire, dear reader, we humbly exhort you to aid us in our attempt to take back the streets. Don’t worry: This isn’t anything like “taking back the night” on a college campus. You don’t need to chant misandrist slogans and tout a “10 out of every 9 womyn are victims of rape” placard.
So what, you may be asking yourself, must I do? Well, we humbly enjoin you to grab a good CD, throw it in your car stereo, turn up the volume to a ridiculous level, and drive around town.
We know it sounds stupid. But just think: You pull up to a streetlight with some baroque music blasting, and scream out to a crowd of gangbangers: “That’s C.P.E. Bach, bitches!” Or you let your ’78 Caddy idle in the parking lot, whilst John Coltrane screeches in the background. How do you like ‘dem apples, Mr. Snoop-Doggity-Doggers?
Or, our more avant-garde friends might enjoy popping in some Karlheinz Stockhausen and heading to the ‘hood. As far as we’re concerned, nothing is as satisfying as watching baggy-panted misfits run from a German composer. And we mean nothing.
