dang, that guy has some kind of mental problem, he just hates everyone

Uh, hi. This is Patrick. The Civil War is great and lasts only a little longer than the actual war. Baseball is sweet. But you've got to love baseball.

I'm sorry I picked out Burns from the 50 people listed here. I really don't know anything about his work. Patrick, your appreciation of Burns' work makes me want to give the guy a second chance. Which documentary do you recommend?

Watching Burns's Jazz series did indeed make me interested in jazz. Much more interested than I had been before.

A lot of people criticized Burns for focusing so heavily on a few life stories, most notably Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, while providing only a few minutes out of the ten-hour series to cover major figures like Charles Mingus. And yet I went from watching and enjoying the Burns documentary to taking a substantial interest in several of the musicians he covered only briefly. Like Mingus, and Monk, and more modern figures that Burns hardly even mentioned. I don't like Wynton Marsalis's music any more than a lot of the people who trash Burns do. But he's a teriffic explainer of basic jazz principles.

Story, biography, and anecdote are among our most powerful methods of organizing and comprehending information. Burns used those methods to get me interested in the subject in a way that reading a big encyclopedic jazz history never would.

I do agree that Burns's style is easily parodied. Teresa and I have noticed that if you take a drink every time the narration in a Burns documentary starts solefully reciting a long list (of Civil War battles, Negro League pitchers, stops on Duke Ellington's 1956 tour, whatever), you'll be hammered long before the show is over. I like Burns's stuff, by and large, despite his quirks and hobbyhorses. I can well understand finding those quirks intolerable. But I really don't understand the downright savagery of some people's response to his work.

>And of all the people associated with television that he could choose, he picks Ken Burns?

Michael Moore and Bill O'Reilly are TV people, too. I think there are other TV people in there too.

>But of course, it's always easier to get somewhere by criticizing others than by doing something yourself.

That's a criticism.

Edited by author 12-19-2002 02:00 PM
I subscribed to Spy magazine for years. Spy magazine was witty and fun to read (except for late in in its run). This list, sir, is no Spy magazine.

Spy chose its targets carefully. But of all the people associated with television that they could choose, they pick *Ken Burns*? Give me a break. [Yes, there are other TV people on the list who are more valid choices. I originally read the article last night and forgot about the others. But to me, including Burns as "loathsome" calls the list's credibility into question. Just about anyone else on the list would have been more representative of the list as a whole.]

But of course, it's always easier to get somewhere by criticizing others than by doing something yourself. [I consider that a general observation, Mark, not a criticism. It's true for almost everyone, including the writers of this piece.] Look how many people have linked to this article.

> Well, the bits of Baseball that I saw certainly raised my
> interest in the subject.

That's good. Maybe I'm too harsh about Burns. I only saw that one episode of Jazz and it was a big turn off. It made me never want to see anything else by him.

Come on folks, can't we all set aside our petty differences and unite behind the idea that Ann Coulter is truly and indisputably the most loathsome person on the planet?

I read this piece when it came out in the print edition of BEAST, I should hope you all poke around the site, it is a bite in the arse. (one of the few great things in buffalo ny)

Edited by author 12-19-2002 01:41 PM
Well, the bits of Baseball that I saw certainly raised my interest in the subject...

The Buffalo Beast folks take a kind of scatter-shot approach to their list in lumping folks like Pat Robertson, Michael Bay, and John Ritter into the same "loathsome" category with Burns. I don't mind the satire, but what jumps out at me is the repeated uses of the word "abortion" as a derogatory remark which is right up there with "retard."

> Yeah, it's really "loathesome" to make people interested in
> something. Also "dangerous."

But do you really think Burns makes people more interested in the subjects he attempts to tackle? Maybe he scares them off the subject.

Yeah, it's really "loathesome" to make people interested in something. Also "dangerous."

It sure is witty and smart to point this out.

I only watched one episode of the Jazz documentary, and I felt like it was poisoning my brain with a boring take on early jazz. I want to think of old jazz in the way that Robert Crumb portrays it in his trading cards, not in Ken Burns' mushy over-earnest style.

Gawd really. I HATE it when people dis Ken Burns. To dis Ken Burns to tell us all just how smart you are, and that he is the antichrist because he didnt spend long enough talking about Free jazz or too long on Shoeless Joe or whatever. Christ, I even heard people bitching how the Mark Twain picture shown during a particular voice-over was "Not taken for another 2 years after that, dumbass!!" He isn't perfect, but I hate when people get too cool to admit they have in fact spent at least 6 hours *enjoying* his work and learning at least a few things they didn't know before.

Ugh, Ill shut up.....grrrr.....

Don't even get me started.