The “New York Times Magazine” Thinks CocoRosie Is The Bee’s Knees

noah | July 7, 2008 2:30 am

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I don’t know about you guys, but yesterday’s New York Times Magazine profile of the trying-so-hard-to-be-bewitching duo CocoRosie was excruciating to read–I actually only got through it on a third pass–thanks to the “how does it feel to be so incredibly awesome???” vibe given off by profiler Fernanda Eberstadt, coupled with the Casady sisters’ overarching preciousness. They eat lots of hard-boiled eggs! They have their own blend of tea! And a kooky entourage! I’m not 100% sure if the goal of this profile was anthropological, i.e. showing Times readers what two young women who were fully hatched from a place of complete privilege look like right before the end of our nu-Gilded Age, but I did know that every time I tried to sit down and really read the damn thing I kept getting flashbacks to the Sunday Styles bro-down with Vampire Weekend from a few months back. A few choice quotes after the jump.

Sierra: “If there’s a poetic to our work, a weird continuity of deliberate mistranslation, it’s what comes off the streets and is purified and reduced by the dollar stores. I’ve been reborn by the idea of artificial paradise, an urban hustle. We are finding our way to God through the dollar stores of this world.” To which Bianca added an “Amen.” While wearing “a pair of supersize purple-and-gold Adidas sweat pants in velour, with matching sneakers, a black XXL T-shirt bearing the logo Black Pit Bull and a riding coat constructed from two quilted nylon dressing gowns, one of them red tartan, the other pink-and-green-flowery, with large Japanese Manga-esque appliqués sewn on them.” And one fake pink eyelash. Wait, they sell pink eyelashes at dollar stores? Dude.

Sierra: “[I] wanted to finish high school, go on to college, but my parents wouldn’t let me. They said it would destroy my creativity. They were so right.” So, so right. Imagine if she’d wound up at Columbia–she’d be singing about Oxford commas instead of roller skates!

Bianca: “We never listen to music. Maybe, like, Arvo Pärt, Nina Simone, but that’s it. Music’s just our ticket onto the rollercoaster. We don’t understand people who always have music blasting in the background. What we like is silence.” This would seemingly contradict the assertion of friend and fellow teenage homeless person hanger-on Danielle Stech-Homsy, who said that Sierra was always singing, as well as Sierra’s past studies of opera. But perhaps the music they create is just on another level.

There’s more, but trying to cut and paste them is giving me serious agita. At any rate, I’m just sad that Eberstadt, during her full-on sloppy kiss to the sisters Casady, didn’t find out whether or not they’re still palling around with the Pumpsta. (Although I guess this story points out that Bianca’s tendencies toward “not[ing] her wordliness” haven’t subsided one bit.)

Twisted Sisters [NYT]