As someone has who read some Borges, i actually already got the reference that the Stereogum writer was trying to make to Pierre Menard. It just happens to be shorthand for being dismissive of any kind of post modern deconstruction. That story gets invoked whenever someone wants to chop someone off at the knees when they getting a little too deconstructive for the critic’s taste. It’s not much better than a jock yelling, “Way to go, Einstein!” sarcastically at anyone evidencing higher thought.
The Pierre Menard comparison doesn’t hold water anyway, in that the story describes an author recreating a piece word by word, exactly, and only changing the meaning by the fact in the period in which it was recreated. One extremely fucking salient point about Price’s cover of “Creep” is that he changed the song significantly. This is not the Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard recreation of the Cramps’ 1978 performance at Napa Mental Institute.
I don’t really have a stake in this minor conflict. I’ve been a fan of Eppy’s writing for years. Although i hate the vibe of Stereogum, that writer doesn’t seem so bad in comparison. However, he’s guilty of placing a huge target on Eppy for having the nerve to say anything deeper than “Rock on! Free the music!” and changing the context of Eppy’s writing to something other than Eppy intended after Thom Yorke made his comment.
So, almost ironically, the Stereogum writer changed the meaning of the piece by removing it from the period in which it was written, and placed in a different time completely changed the meaning…. just like Pierre Menard, with Eppy as Cervantes. Eppy is no longer the author of his own work, or better yet, the Eppy, a simulacrum of Stereogum™, who is the author of the latter piece, has ceased being the Eppy of the prior piece. The first Eppy no longer has a credible perspective on the reaction to these words, as they no longer belong to him.
Yep… i’m just winging it at this point.
p.s. The point is moot.
