Word: beggarly
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Walking With the Beggar Boys...
...abandoning the region’s mid-90s psychedelic boom, here the Elves seem to be doing their best R.E.M. The album has a warm, folksy sound, immersed in twanging banjo and shuffling guitar. The consequence of this, from a band used to more complex arrangements, is that Beggar Boys ultimately suffers from boredom, especially around the middle of the album where simplistic roots-rock anthems like “Evil Eye” are so unengaging that it’s hard to believe that this is a band with not one but two full concept albums behind them...
...Beggar Boys does have its pop moments. The leadoff track, “Never Believe,” is a riveting opener that belies the monotony that follows. Driving synth opens the album, and quickly gives way to peppy jangling guitar. Only slightly dampened by Andy Rieger’s nasal, expressionless voice, the song is a pleasant chunk of modern folky pop. But after ten more songs of the same, one questions how much of this sound one can take...
...Ultimately, Dyer is so enamored of his own decline that he cannot be bothered to get on with his rebirth. Perhaps that's as it should be. In an early chapter, he meets a vacationing Swede who has had a dead baby shoved in his face by an Indian beggar. "We were all horrified and, I think, more than a little envious," he writes. "All visitors to the developing world, if they are honest, will confess that they are actually quite keen on seeing a bit of squalor." And readers, if they are honest, will confess that they are more...
...there's a special reason to resent a political speech at the Oscars - and it's not just bias against Hollywood liberals. (Everyone considers Arnold Schwarzenegger a nitwit for holding forth politically too, and he's conservative.) Call it the Panhandler Syndrome. A speaker like Moore is like a beggar in a New York City subway car. Even people who give to charity and the homeless resent this kind of panhandling, because it takes advantage of a captive audience. It's not like you can just jump out onto the tracks if you don't want to be bothered...