You never see the lies that you believe

With regard to The Believer, it seems that anybody who doesn't know and/or care about literary stuff has never heard of it, and of those who have heard of it, it is incredibly uncool to say anything nice about it.

I don't know where exactly I fit into the literary schema, or where I will fit, but I'm suspecting that compared to the population at large I'm on the "well-read" end of the spectrum, but compared to the literary circles in which I hope to someday travel, I have a lot to learn.

With that in mind, select one of the following paragraphs according to what applies to you:

For those who have not heard of The Believer: Hey, there's this magazine put out by the folks behind McSweeney's, and it's called The Believer, and often it contains these incredibly cogent, esoteric articles by amazing writers. Even though it's eight bucks on the newsstand, you should check it out sometime. This month's is especially awesome, especially if you're into music like I am.

For those who have heard of The Believer: I know it is cool to disparage this publication and its faux-hipness, but more often than not, I actually, legitimately enjoy it, and I refuse to apologize. If this somehow detracts from my reputation as one of the literati (if, indeed, I had one as such), so be it. If loving The Believer is wrong, I don't want to be right.

Maybe it's sort of like how liking, say, the Shins these days is not really edgy for a music fan among certain indie-rock fans, but it's pretty edgy for the folks who forget songs as soon as they fall off the top 40. In any circle of cultural enjoyment, there's always going to be somebody who knows more than you, and thinks your tastes are pedestrian. There's always some record-store basement-dweller who has some CD recorded by some techno-punk-balalaika player in Siberia, of which only three copies actually exist, and which makes your precious Shins look like hacks.

Likewise, for every five or so Lethem- and Chabon-heads (of which yours truly is one), there are about 100 people who never read books at all, another 50 who think The DaVinci Code is good literature, and one person whose library contents make Lethem and Chabon look like, well, Dan Brown. It's a spectrum of cool - someone out there is always going to find you edgy and someone is always going to find you square.

And so it is with The Believer - some people find it fringey, some find it pedestrian. Very few, in any case, seem to really like it without irony or poserdom. But I do.

Now, as overrated (albeit talented) as I think Dave Eggers and his little circle might be, there aren't many magazines anymore that put an in-depth, academic spin on the arcane as well as the mundane, and The Believer, in my opinion, does this often and well.

Yesterday (as Daryl and some other blog, maybe Gothamist or Gawker, pointed out in the last 24 hours), The New York Times ran an article castigating The Believer for being too narrow in their indie-rock-specific focus. And I see their point, I guess - to some extent, it DOES seem to be feeding into the hipster zeitgeist - but take what's there for what it is, and the majority is damn good. To wit:

• Steve Almond's profile of kid-rockers Smoosh is adorable. I just finished Almond's Candyfreak last weekend, so I'm very much in love with him right now in general, and he doesn't disappoint even when he's not waxing rhapsodic about AbbaZabbas and Clark bars.
• Rick Moody delivers what starts out as a review of the Danielson Famile's oevure but veers off into a thought-provoking meditation on faith. And I have never had a kind word to say about anything Rick Moody has written before this.
• And then, on the opposite end of the Jess Spectrum of General Adulation, there's Douglas Wolk. Ah, Douglas Wolk. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I've never read anything by this guy that I didn't like. In this issue, he manages to enmire me in his own enthusiastic, emotional connection to the Fall, whose work I'm not at all familiar with. (If I've even heard them at all, it was probably on a mix CD given to me BY Douglas Wolk after I friendstered him an obsequious fan letter.)
• (See, now half of you are shaking your heads at my total un-hipness at having never heard The Fall, and the other half are accusing me of being a pretentious hipster because I dropped a music critic's name and used "friendster" as a verb. I just can't win with you people.)

Speaking of CDs, this issue, like last year's music issue, comes with one. This year, it's a compilation of cover songs, most of which were previously unreleased. As a big flashing target for both the folks who are too hip for The Believer and those who are not hip enough for it, there's even a cover of a Postal Service song by the Shins**, which even I recognize as the poster child for that chasm where the truly edgy hate it but the plebes can't really access it either. My scalp itches with the pseudo-hipness of a phantom trucker hat just listening to it.

However, there are a number of quite lovely songs on the CD, including the Spoon cover of Yo La Tengo's "Decora" and Josephine Foster's absolutely gorgeous rendition of "The Golden Window" by the Cherry Blossoms. The CD alone is worth the eight bucks, if my opinion holds any weight at all with you.

**I don't mean to unfairly bust on the Shins. Truth be told, I have no opinion on them either way. They're just a convenient target due to this Times piece. However, any busts I make on The DaVinci Code are both fair and completely intended. That book is a piece of shit.