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Asides

Hollis James interview in Gothamist (from Dec 06)

By September 27, 2007No Comments

Hollis James is Editor-in-Chief of Celebrity Skin magazine but that’s not why I offer you this quote:

fRINGE Underground was star­ted by me and a friend because we felt that no one had taste any­more. I mean, I under­stand people who fire on all cyl­in­ders all day long who want to shut down the engines and escape with a romance nov­el or slash­er flick. But people were no longer see­ing guilty pleas­ures as any­thing oth­er than pure pleas­ure. Crap bands, lousy movies, unwatch­able TV shows and bor­ing books were rock­et­ing to pop­ular­ity because people simply did­n’t want to think. Thanks to Coldplay, Adam Sandler, The King of Queens, and Oprah’s book club, people with no taste actu­ally thought that simply because they liked what every­one else liked they were digest­ing quality.

So we star­ted fRINGE to try and offer altern­at­ives that nev­er got any publicity–art films that died quiet deaths, artists that nev­er sold a record, books that nev­er got a fair shake. We wanted to at least be one voice in the wil­der­ness cry­ing out that you don’t have to listen to John Maher when there’s Elliott Smith, you don’t need to waste time see­ing a Matrix sequel when there’s Wes Anderson, and while you were watch­ing Everybody Loves Raymond qual­ity shows like Freaks & Geeks were get­ting can­celled. And if you need Oprah Winfrey to pick your books for you, the only thing you should be read­ing is an eye chart.

(from Gothamist, Dec 2006)