Maybe it’s because we have similar tastes in music… and there aren’t that many Byrd or Purcell fans out there
The juxtaposition of many and Byrd, with the latter referring to music, makes this a sync.
The context makes it clear that the reference is not to the 1960s Laurel Canyon band but to William Byrd, the Renaissance composer with some 500 works to his name. Apparently he's slipped into obscurity in Europe, but he was still a household name in America when I was growing up. I mean, probably 80% of his oeuvre had been forgotten, but his really popular tunes were on the radio all the time. They used to call them the Bill Byrd Hot 100.
Later today, I read this in Powerless:
That’s the main problem I have with Baumbach… the music is terrible… it’s just not believable that cultured people would like Bruce Springsteen.
I am by no stretch of the imagination a cinephile and couldn't pick a Baumbach film out of a police lineup, but the sentiment expressed reminded me of something I'd seen in a movie: Uma Thurman and John Travolta, both playing characters who are supposed to be very cool, dance together to a Black Eyed Peas song, and she seems impressed that he's a Black Eyed Peas fan, as if liking that very mainstream schlock marked one as a very hep cat indeed.
Synchronicity intermission: Powerless is about the electric power going out. I'm typing this in a cafe, and just as I finished the above paragraph, the power went out. Just the circuit breaker, not a nationwide blackout, but still.
So, as I was saying, we're supposed to buy that Thurman is wowed by Travolta's status as a Black Eyed Peas fan? Even Springsteen would have been more believable. Are Black Eyed Peas fans even a thing? There are hardcore Bruce Springsteen fans. There are even Dave Matthews Band fans; I've met one. But have you ever heard anyone rave about the Black Eyed Peas? Seen anyone in a Black Eyed Peas T-shirt, anything like that? It's generic-brand music. People may listen to it, but they aren't "fans."
What movie was that, anyway? Surely not Pulp Fiction! I know those two famously dance together in that movie, but Tarantino would never be that tone-deaf. Did the Black Eyed Peas even exist back then? I took a break from reading to look it up. Be Cool. 2005. Universally panned. Serves them right.
I returned to Powerless, turned the digital page, and found this:
But then his enemy started talking about Pulp Fiction. He had a theory that the Butch and Marcellus Wallace segment should be the last one in the film.
This caught my attention not only because a sentence earlier in the same paragraph had made me think of Pulp Fiction but also because of the name Marcellus, which has been in the sync stream, primarily as the name of the octopus in Remarkably Bright Creatures.
Who's Marcellus Wallace? A modern person with an ancient Roman name is probably going to be Black. Is that the name of Samuel L. Jackson's character?
I looked it up. No, it's a different Black guy, Ving Rhames. And his name is actually Marsellus Wallace, because Quentin Tarantino is illiterate (as, to be fair, are a lot of Black gangsters' mothers). Only Laeth's spelling error, correcting Tarantino's, made it an exact match for the octopus. Apparently he's a crime lord and wears round sunglasses not unlike Doc Ock's.
Google helpfully informed me that "People also ask: What is the theory of Marcellus Wallace?" I guess he's the kind of guy who attracts theories.
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