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Things That Go Pop!

Let's talk about Carl Wilson: Toronto writer does Colbert Report

Thursday, March 5, 2009 | 01:22 PM ET

Illustration by Jillian Tamaki

A shaggy, soft-spoken music critic from Toronto who's written an esoteric study of Celine Dion isn't the likeliest candidate for international notoriety. And yet Carl Wilson inched a step closer to becoming the next major Canuck pop cultural hero last night when he swapped bons mots with faux pundit Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report.

Until recently, Wilson was primarily well-known within savvy critics' circles for his in-depth (and occasionally academic) critiques of popular music and other cultural curiosities. A long-time writer for the Globe & Mail and freelancer for glossies like Blender, Wilson also presaged the blog explosion with his own collection of musings, Zoilus. And last year, he made small but crucial waves in the publishing community by releasing a well-written study of taste and culture in the work of Canada's pre-eminent bilingual diva, Celine Dion, titled Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste.

The book -- an entry in Continuum's 33 1/3 series on albums and musicians -- received considerable acclaim, including a mention in this site's round-up of 2008 in books. Let's Talk About Love was also ranked fourth in the year's best books by New York Magazine, and the UK Telegraph called it "the year's most essential book on music."

But those accolades paled in comparison to Wilson's most recent shout-out. In a red carpet interview during the Oscars, actor James Franco gave an appreciative nod to Let's Talk About Love. A Hollywood actor celebrating literature? It caused a seismic shock in the media, and nerds went nuts... including, one assumes, a producer on The Colbert Report, who immediately contacted Wilson for a tete-a-tete.

Here's a clip of the interview, which aired last night.

I think Wilson acquitted himself well. He handled Colbert's mocking interrogation with humour and grace, and managed to communicate the key points of his work (and the broader thematic messages) without coming off as stiff or uncomfortable. Good on ya, Zoilus.

A question, though: Is anyone else finding Colbert's over-the-top persona increasingly grating and irrelevant?

--Sarah Liss

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Comments

Zebra 3

Céline is the greatest singer in the world and you're not.

Posted March 5, 2009 11:18 PM

Anonymous

"Is anyone else finding Colbert's over-the-top persona increasingly grating and irrelevant?"
Yes

Posted March 6, 2009 11:07 PM

Vivian

Edmonton

I'm not tired of Colbert at all. If anything, he remains one of the few pop culture voices that I pay any attention to. There are different kinds of "grating": his "grating" is caused by the friction of ideas, not the friction of irrelevancy against relevancy.

Posted March 8, 2009 06:12 PM

Max

It's just so stupid. The love affair with Celine held by so many people worldwide is not associative or as particualr to something as simple as defining taste. Wilson is wasting his time and passing off his own deep probe into why Celine is loved as a legitimate intellectual exercies and I feel sorry for the people who buy into it and are duped. She is in one breath and one summation, both the quintessential Canadian love story told on a grand larger than life scale and also the proverbial overcome the odds success story that inspires hundreds of millions of people worldwide. If Wilson doesnt care to be or feel inspired thats his problem.

Posted March 8, 2009 09:25 PM

James

Edmonton

1. The book was released in 2007.
2. If you find a commentary on the cult of personality in American news media to be "irrelevant", chances are you haven't been paying attention to the news media.

Posted March 10, 2009 04:53 PM

Sarah

Toronto

James -

1) I wrote that he "made waves" "last year" because the majority of the buzz around Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste appeared in 2008. The book itself came out at the END of 2007, in December.

2) You're misinterpreting. I do think commentaries on the cult of personality in American media are relevant and necessary. And I think that Colbert's persona was caustic and fresh when he first trotted out the "Stephen Colbert" character. But as time's passed, I find he's gotten a bit lazy and relies too heavily on the same tropes. Certainly, there's something to be said about the way Colbert's incessant samey-ness (not truthiness) mimics the talking heads he sends up. Colbert's fiercely intelligent and critical and has the capacity to make "Stephen Colbert" evolve more than he has so far.

Thx for reading and taking the time to comment.

Posted March 10, 2009 05:52 PM

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