The Armond White Thread

[HistoryProf]

Isn't that the pot calling the kettle a troll? AW is the only one I know of who insists on casting everything as an either/or choice....and he pioneered the year end "some shitty movie (or Spielberg's latest) over some good movie" schtick. That's, like, all he ever does in his "reviews." They're never about the actual movie, but about what it's not and who should have been in it and/or directed it instead (again, Spielberg).

[mfunk9786]

Haneke and Bunuel are like apples and something that isn't a fruit at all

[MichaelB]

I'm a big fan of both, and I'm really struggling to think of any significant common ground at all.

In his memoirs, Buñuel describes being genuinely upset over someone calling him "the cruellest director in the world" (and he's right: it's an absurd charge), whereas I suspect Haneke would relish the accolade.

[MichaelB]

Sorry if this has come up before, but I've only just spotted Armond comparing The Turin Horse and War Horse.

No prizes for guessing which he prefers.

[Brian C]

If Google is any indication, White just coined the term "mammal-witness".

In other news, even by his standards, that review is unusually contemptuous of people who disagree with him.

[Mr Sausage]

Here's something peculiar (even for an Armond review):

...without the textual depth and frisculating light...

Never seen that word before, so I popped it into the OED and came back with nothing--and the OED pretty much has everything, including words I thought I made up. So I googled it and found this from Urban Dictionary:

1. friscalating

An effect caused by the sun setting over the horizon creating an optical illusion of shimmering, liquefied light. Akin to a mirage. (Created by Wes Anderson for his film The Royal Tenenbaums: the character Eli Cash reads an excerpt from his book, Old Custer, which contains the word 'friscalating'.)

He's using--in a print review--a word Wes Andersen coined in one of his movies, a word that isn't even in any dictionaries. Why?

[HistoryProf]

Here's something peculiar (even for an Armond review):

...without the textual depth and frisculating light...

Never seen that word before, so I popped it into the OED and came back with nothing--and the OED pretty much has everything, including words I thought I made up. So I googled it and found this from Urban Dictionary:

1. friscalating

An effect caused by the sun setting over the horizon creating an optical illusion of shimmering, liquefied light. Akin to a mirage. (Created by Wes Anderson for his film The Royal Tenenbaums: the character Eli Cash reads an excerpt from his book, Old Custer, which contains the word 'friscalating'.)

He's using--in a print review--a word Wes Andersen coined in one of his movies, a word that isn't even in any dictionaries. Why?

because it makes him sound smart and everyone will assume he knows more than them by using a word they don't know. My god what a vocabulary the man has!!

I await his review of the next scrumtrulescent Spielberg effort.

[cdnchris]

It will embiggen us all I'm sure.

[domino harvey]

I love this thread

[colinr0380]

Here's that scene

[med]

I wonder less why he used it than just why the editor let it pass. Even with White's previous crimes against the English language going unchecked by his editors, has he ever actually used a made-up word before?

[Brian C]

He's using--in a print review--a word Wes Andersen coined in one of his movies, a word that isn't even in any dictionaries. Why?

Because it's really pretty funny, and a rather thoughtful homage to one of the filmmakers that he actually seems to consistently like. Plus, it seems that the word actually is apt for what he's trying to say.

Good catch on your part, though.

[MichaelB]

I wonder less why he used it than just why the editor let it pass. Even with White's previous crimes against the English language going unchecked by his editors, has he ever actually used a made-up word before?

How do you know that it went unchecked by his editor? I've had several cases of my editors querying a particular word or phrase and leaving it unchanged after being satisfied with my explanation, and there's no reason to assume that the same thing wasn't true here.

Because it's really pretty funny, and a rather thoughtful homage to one of the filmmakers that he actually seems to consistently like. Plus, it seems that the word actually is apt for what he's trying to say.

When I reviewed one of the early Pasolinis (Accattone or Mamma Roma, I forget which) in Sight & Sound, I'd recently read and thoroughly enjoyed Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts' Edgelands, so in homage I slipped in a reference to Pasolini's fondness for "the Roman edgelands" as a key location. That word also isn't in the OED, or indeed on Urbandictionary, but if you Google it you'll come across a definition quickly enough - assuming you couldn't work out what I meant from the context, which I reckoned was overwhelmingly likely.

[Michael Kerpan]

Lewis Carroll made up words that lots of people use nowadays. Should we not do this any longer? I never dreamed it was a problem. I'm SO sorry.

[knives]

It was a perfectly cromulent word to use.

[matrixschmatrix]

Maybe if White keeps writing like this, he can someday be almost as good a writer as Eli Cash

[swo17]

Lewis Carroll made up words that lots of people use nowadays. Should we not do this any longer? I never dreamed it was a problem. I'm SO sorry.

There's nothing wrong with making up words. Armond's use of a made-up word is noteworthy here though because a) the word was made up by Wes Anderson to poke fun at poor writers who hide behind excessively flowery language, and b) in only like the third time the word has ever been used in the history of the English language, Armond managed to misspell it.

[Brian C]

There's nothing wrong with making up words. Armond's use of a made-up word is noteworthy here though because a) the word was made up by Wes Anderson to poke fun at poor writers who hide behind excessively flowery language, and b) in only like the third time the word has ever been used in the history of the English language, Armond managed to misspell it.

a) The self-awareness on Armond's part makes it all the more amusing, and

b) How do we know?

[swo17]

b) How do we know?

It's times like these I wish I were still on speaking terms with Owen Wilson.

[jwd5275]

a) The self-awareness on Armond's part makes it all the more amusing

And how do we know Armond is self-aware of this? In all seriousness, he could be simply aspiring to emulate Eli Cash..

[Brian C]

And how do we know Armond is self-aware of this? In all seriousness, he could be simply aspiring to emulate Eli Cash..

I suppose, but AFAIK he likes Tenenbaums, and while he's incredibly pompous and something of a clown, I don't think of him as a total idiot. He seems intelligent enough to get what is an obvious joke in the movie.

[Anhedionisiac]

swo17's right, Armond did misspell it. A quick glance at my copy of the script reveals the scene as written:
"...And they rode on in the friscalating dusklight."
Incidentally, I thought it worth noting that in the very same reading Eli gives, the spanish word "Vámonos" is misspelled as "Vamanos".

[Matt]

Maybe Anderson misspelled his own made-up word, too.

[domino harvey]

Isn't the funniest possible reading of all this that Armond White remembered the line from a favorite movie and just assumed it was a real word?

[Gregory]

As to the question of why the editors or proofreaders apparently didn't catch it, I can say from experience working with "problem" authors that there can be an avalanche of problems in any given piece, and it's a heroic feat if all of them are somehow prevented from getting into print. Querying things that are strange or outright erroneous in a piece of writing is often a prickly process that requires forbearance and give-and-take on both sides. With the "problem" writers you just have to throw up your hands and tell yourself that it's their byline and they're the ones who will look the most foolish for being too careless and recalcitrant about the editing of their work. It's difficult to fully imagine what it'd be like to edit White, whose personality has earned him quite the reputation several times over.
Plus, most publications (print and online) have slashed resources dedicated to copyediting, which is why I now frequently see things like this Washington Post article, in which the subject of the piece has her name misspelled in the first sentence and it never even gets corrected.