They Like Editors

The Mercury Prize (that bastion of the uber-hip and ultra-hyped but often worthwile work)s hortlist has just been released in London this morning.

Eyewear has yet to hear half the popular music (& indie-textured) albums on the list, but is especially eager to listen to Mr. Thom Yorke's notes on The Eraser, which has songs of - to put it mildly - a political nature.

Seeing Scritti Politti on the list is a thrill - he was one of the most ingenious wordsmiths of the 80s - recall his line "I need a new hermeneutic"? - a first then, no doubt, for a pop song. Arctic Monkeys, whose lustre has gone a bit cold, despite this blog's raves, are likely to seize the day. Still, The Back Room by Editors (they deleted the the) has grown in majesty over the last months, and, while surely not the safe bet, is the dark horse worth backing.

Meanwhile, the album of the year is likely to be Dylan's latest, forthcoming while we all hold our collective breath.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5188692.stm

Comments

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....

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"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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