On Summit

No review of a Guided By Voices show is ever truly complete without a reference to Bob Pollard's leg kicks. Here's some commonly used descriptions you might consider for your next GBV review: Big leg kick High leg kick Really high leg kick Boozy leg kick Classic leg kick Chin-high leg kick Waist-high leg kick Kung-fu leg kick Patented high leg kick Trademark high leg kick Botched Bob leg kick Aforementioned leg kick High leg kick or really high leg kick? Good critics can tell the difference. Check back next month for Reviewing Guided By Voices: Part Two: Estimating Bob Pollard's Blood Alcohol Level .

Recently, the Wall Street Journal published an article by Meghan Cox Gurdon decrying the state of contemporary young adult literature. To hear Ms. Gurdon tell it YA literature has become little more than a cesspool of sex and violence cultivated by amoral publishers and depraved authors. Oh it's a threatening landscape to be sure; one full of "ever-more-alarming offerings", "hideously distorted portrayals of what life is", and "damage, brutality and losses of the most horrendous kinds". Now, if that sounds a bit over the top, it is. Gurdon's article is an inflammatory screed of such epic proportions that it almost defies argument. Her accusations, assumptions, and misrepresentations fly so quickly and with such vigor that a rebuttal seems nearly impossible. Should one strike first at her narrow characterization of YA literature or her tacit approval of censorship? Should opponents spend pages debunking the supposed ill-effects of exposure to ...