| The
Rock Snob’s Dictionary (subtitled: An Essential
Lexicon of Rockologial Knowledge) hit bookstores recently,
and thank God--now useless and arcane information such as
the fact that Shuggie Otis was once offered the chance to
join the Stones as a replacement for Mick Taylor is available
to the public at large. What a relief! I certainly was laying
awake at night wondering who Brian Eno was, weren’t
you? (According to the Dictionary, he was an “egghead
producer and electronics whiz with appropriately futuristic
name and aerodynamic pate”--ha!) And it has been ages
since I began to ponder the age-old question of who, in fact,
invented the musical genre of country-rock. (Gram Parsons,
according to the Dictionary--not to be confused with
Alan Parsons, of course, who had other projects…)
Okay, okay. Maybe I’m being a little overly sarcastic
here. But really, this collection of obscure knowledge--while
impressive in its sheer quantity and at times highly amusing--is
slightly ridiculous when you think about it. I mean, does
the music actually sound any different when you know the entire
life history of the artist, including the first, middle, last,
and nicknames of all three of his wives, all six of his lovers,
and all ten of his dogs? Maybe to some people it does, but
for most of us, probably not. We either like what we hear
or we don’t--no trivia involved. Case in point: Bob
Dylan will always sound like Bob Dylan to me, and my ear will
never be twisted enough to enjoy his discordant drawling,
even if you stuff my head full of the facts of his life.
And now that I’ve pissed off all the Bob Dylan fans
out there (sorry, guys--but don’t leave, really--I’m
sure there are some more Dylan-friendly articles in this issue
of the ‘note…), I’ll come to my
point: if these bits of information really are so trivial,
then why do people care about this stuff? What’s the
value in owning a copy of the Rock Snob’s Dictionary,
and attempting to memorize its every page? You need go no
further than the title, man: it’s all about snobbery.
Snobbery is cool--especially if you are the snobber rather
than the snobbee. Snobbery gives you status. It catapults
you into the ranks of the elite. See, it all goes back to
the old maxim “knowledge is power”--and detailed,
esoteric knowledge about a specialized subject gives you the
power to be a snob.
Everyone that I know participates in some form or another--my
significant other, Ryan, has his snobbery about basses (if
you don’t play a MusicMan six string, then you’re
not a true bassist); I have my snobbery about tea (if you
drink Lipton, then you obviously don’t know anything
about real tea); and so on… I bet you can think of your
own personal favorite brand here (hopefully it’s not
Bob Dylan trivia). And why do we all do it? What do we get
out of it? A fleeting feeling of superiority, perhaps. A stirring,
superficial rush of self-importance. A faux sense of commonality
when we meet a fellow snob… do any of these really add
up to anything? Not really. But that doesn’t make it
any less fun.
Having your own particular brand of snobbery at a party allows
you to corner friends or even total strangers at a party and
impress them with your knowledge on a little-known subject.
If they’re a fellow snob, you have an immediate bond
and topic of conversation for hours. If they’re clueless,
even better--you can start with the facts you have on hand,
and then venture into arenas where you don’t even really
know what you’re talking about. (In other words, you
can play at being a politician: once you have leaked enough
of the truth to establish your credibility, you can begin
making shit up.)
Thus, in summary: 1) snobbery is an essentially useless and
pointless pastime, yet 2) snobbery can be a fun and creative
activity while you’re dishing it out, but 3) you’d
better be careful once you leave your own little area of snob
expertise and enter into another’s: dealing with a snob
in their home territory could leave you feeling as if you’re
holding a goldmine of insider information--but you could just
be left with a handful of fool’s gold. Which leads
me to wonder whether I shouldn’t write a Snob’s
Dictionary to Tea (subtitled: An Essential Lexicon
of Teaological Knowledge for the Diehard Anglophiliac).
I’ll consider it while the water boils… |
