16 OVER THE EDGE PRESENTS... OVER THE EDGE NEWSPAPER. SEPTEMBER 27, 2006 How to be Pretentious Pretentious: 1. Making an ambitious outward show; ostentatious. 2. Making claims, esp. when exaggerated or false. 3. Dr. Phi O _ The Correct Pronunciation of Words Hi, I'm Joseph and I'm pretentious, at least to some extent. My problem is words and their cor- rect pronunciation. I’m English and as we invented the language it's quite ob- vious, to me at least, which pronuncia- tion you all should be following. We'll start with the basics ~ “toute,’ said “root” not ‘rout.’ Routing is what you do to pieces of wood or troops, it’s not a road or a way to a destination, unless you're going to rout out some troops Yes, it's me again back with another pretentious and possibly contentious issue: quoting Shakespeare. I’m nor talking about the man himself, or even Shakespearian actors. but those who just quote Shakespeare for their own personal and pretentious gain. I'm one of them. How to ANDREW KURJATA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF “Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat. And those who do not learn about past music are doomed to not be able to dismiss every new band by saying, ‘Oh, they sound just like . Only worse.” -NORTH AMERICAN PROVERB The first step to becoming a music snob is to beef up on the basics. The best. way to do this is by finding lists from mainstream publications such as Roll- ing Stone that purport to be about the greatest bands, albums, or songs of all time. Familiarize yourself with at least the top fifty on these lists, which will introduce you to perennial favourites such “as the Beatles, Chuck Berry, and Nirvana, while at the same time getting you some of those “critically acclaimed” groups like Captain Beefheart or the Velvet Underground, that you never hear on the radio. Until you have col- lected about twenty “safe” artists (artists that frequent best-of lists) with which you have a strong knowledge of, do not on the way. Next up paedophile. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the latin prefix “ped” meant “foot,” not ‘child,’ so why the hell do people pro- nounce it (and spell it) “pedophile?” Loving feet wasnt a crime last time I looked. Next, my pet peeve: “alum- inum.” It’s pronounced al-u-min-yum not aloo-ma-num. The moral of the story? I'm pretentious and obviously tight, bow down before my superior intellectual wisdom, mere mortals. é or not to be that is the ques- tion,” “Whether it is nobler in the mind to be pretentious” (Apologies to Shakespeare) I could go on, but I feel the noose be- ing put up in my roommate's room at the sound of my quoting, and as pre- tentious as I am, ‘parting is such sweet sorrow’. Of course if there is a very valid rea- son for you doing so, quoting the bard isn't at all pretentious. But doing it just to show you can, like moi, is. (Please note the views expressed in this article reflect the author — the pre- tentious left side of his brain to be ex- act-- and not the entirety of his being) -Joseph Jeffrey, staff writer KYRA JANOT STAFF WRITER No matter what kind of computer you're using, you've seen the ads. On the left stands a rather portly gentle- man, sporting glasses, khakis, suit jacket and tie. On the right is a younger fellow,- much more casually dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. “I'm a PC” proclaims the first, and “I’m a Mac” declares the sec- ond. An event in which the PC is made to look like the lesser of the two inevit- ably follows, and at the end we all know which individual we should aspire to become, However, it is not enough that we simply buy into the ad itself; after all, however much we as consumers like to think it, buying a product does not ac- tually make us into those people we see in commercials. No, to truly -become that slightly pompous, evidently “hip” individual, we must affect the attitude as well.:.we must not- only become Mac users, but pretentious Mac users. So, how exactly does one pull off the “better than thou” aura that so many Mac users are famous for? Firstly, one must purchase a Mac. Not just any old Mac...you'll want to go for the Intel Xeon processors, the 30 inch flat panel mon- itor, the superfluous amount of memory and storage, the wireless mouse, Blue- - tooth, etc, etc, etc....upgrading after the fact just isnt an option. To own a Mac is to say “I KNOW I can afford the latest trends.’ Who needs nourishment? Not you, when you're packing four 500 GB hard drives. Now that you've proven to the world you've got more cash than you can evi- dently responsibly handle, the next step is to purchase a multitude of other Apple products, the most obvious being an IPod. Forget whatever MP3 player you have now, cheaper and just as ef- fective though it may be; click wheels are the key to cool. And if those Apple brand headphones break on you, do not hesitate to shell out the extra 40 dollars for an identical pair. Why bother own- ing an IPod if the rest of the world can't tell just by looking at your ears? And lets not forget the software, the professional grade graphics programs and media editors. Microsoft can only hope to (poorly) imitate them, and don’t you let those misguided PC users forget it. In fact, your best bet is to take a page right out of Apple's book and whine constantly about it...so what if there have been cross-platform similiarities in both directions? Do not hesitate to loudly announce, at any given opportun- ity, that anything a PC can do a Mac can do better (and then some). If anybody mentions gamés, you're above that. A Mac user has-no time for childish pur- suits like “gaming, anyways...not when - you've got a Sudoku widget! Last but certainly not least, faunt that security and privacy. To you, viruses are something for which you go to the pharmacy to cure. On a Mac, malware is simply nonexistant. Perhaps this is because of the lack of market share...or perhaps it is simply that Macs are better prepared straight out of the box? Daily antivirus updates are a thing of the past, as are spyware scans. All that money you save on secutity software can go towards -the purchase of a whole new mother- board when your capacitors blow two - weeks after the warranty runs out. So strut your condescendingly ob- noxious self down the hallways with the MacBook Pro you blew your student loan on, and troll those PC user forums to harass the hell out of them. And most importantly....don't forget to give a smirk (yes, the one you practiced all morning in front of the mirror) everytime you hear some poor sap reboot his PC lap- top, and get right over there to start evangelizing. Be a Rock Sno attempt to discuss music with anyone. You should also start paying attention to how it all fits together-- blues became rock, fused with country to make rocka- billy, went to England to become Mer- sey Beat, and so on. Oftentimes, people who are new to being pretentious think that they are safe in a musical discussion by saying that earlier=better. They rightly observe something like the fact that every blues artist prior to 1940 is a Undisputed ‘Genius, the blues artists from 1950- 1975 get mixed reviews, and the blues artists from 1975 onwards are untalent- ed hacks. But it doesn’t always pan out so simply. For example, you will absolutely fail if you try to make the claim that Carl Per- kins is better than Nirvana by virtue of the fact that he preceded them by forty years. Carl Perkins is rockabilly and Nirvana is grunge, so the two are meas- ured against each other by how import- ant they are in their particular genre, This is how Greatest of All Time lists work-- they are not actually measuring individual artists against ‘each other, but genres of music. Then, depending on the importance of the genre, they choose from one to five artists to be that genre's “representatives. Since Nirvana is a titan within grunge, they become its main repre- sentative, while Carl Perkins comes below artists like Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis in the race to become rockabilly’s representative. Nirvana is therefore bet- ter than Carl Perkins. However, if you were to switch the discussion over to the greatest grunge bands of all time, don't think you'te safe in saying that Nirvana is the best, even though they might be the highest-placing grunge band on the Greatest Band of All Time list. Now, you want to start naming all those ob- scure bands who. came before Nirvana- the Pixies, the Vaselines, the Meat Pup- pets- from which Nirvana took their sound. In this discussion, Nirvana are talentless hacks who simply stood on the shoulders of these other Pure and Noble Artists. Similarly, if you switch it over to rockabilly, suddenly Carl Per- kins can make claim to being better than Elvis Presley, because he is now an Underappreciated Talent from whom Elvis stole his thunder. As should be clear, at this point you should be moving away from knowing about music in general to music special- ization. It’s no longer enough to know about Bob Marley and Lee Perry when talking about reggae, you need to know Jimmy Cliff, Toots and the Maytals, Culture, and more. As a matter of fact, you need to know that “reggae” is just a word that the untrained use to describe all sorts of different music-- there's dub, roots rock, dancehall, and far more ob- scure genres that don't sound any differ- ent from each other. You dont even have to listen to these artists-- just know their names and where they fit, and pretend you like them. When reaching this level, you can longer rely on talking about old artists to ‘establish your credibility, However, talk- ing about new music is far more danger- ous, because there are not safe patterns to fall into. One day Radiohead might be the best thing since sliced bread, the next they might be boring old sell-outs. You have to keep up-to-date by reading websites such as Pitchfork and allmusic and metacritic to sée who is “good” and who isn't. Generally, if the music +e- minds you of some other kind of music, it's not good (for example, Jet just rip of AC/DC and the Beatles). This rule doesn't apply to techno and gangsta rap, however. Since these are newer genres, all artists are “pioneers” at the moment, even if it all sounds the same. Obviously, you just don't “get” it (see sidebar). After moving into this arena, you might begin to be identified as preten- tious (which is what you wanted), but now you have to prove that you're not just any run-of-the-mill rock snob- - you're one with your own opinions. To do this, you have to start throwing people off by saying you like music that most pretentious music fans don't. The - best place to find this music is in the realms of pop. Suddenly claiming that you love Britney Spears or Kelly Clark- son will suddenly make people think, “Wow, maybe she's not just saying he likes Brian Eno to be cool. Maybe she actually likes him, because there's no way he would say she likes Paula Abdul to get in with the rock snobs.” * But you would. Getting It: How to Talk About Music You Don’t Think You Like You hear: a repetitive beat You say: “nuanced” You hear: a complete lack of tunes, melodies, or differences between songs You say: “it's atmospheric” You hear: a singer whe cant singer, a guitar player that can't play, and a drummer that can’t drum You say: “raw”; “real” You hear: a bunch of sounds that don't seem to go together. You say: “challenging”; ‘ground- br . ” You hear: a nice voice, a catchy tune, competent playing You say:“unoriginal’; “drivel”