The Oddsmaker: Pygmalion Edition

If rednecks, hicks, and rubes are too predictable for you, and you desire a more elusive, dangerous game, well…we recommend you look elsewhere because Champaign-Urbana is about to get hit with the biggest bout of groupthink since Jamestown linked through Drudge to watch the Two Minutes Hate.

If South By Southwest is Hipster Disneyland…

then Pygmalion Music Festival is no less than their Creationist Museum.

Let’s break this sucker down, day by day; remember, cash on the barrelhead is the only method of payment.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21

• Seth listens to more than 30 seconds of any act at his festival: 1000 to 1 (note: these odds are valid for any and all days of the festival)

• Black people attend: Ha Ha. Right. (side note: this significantly decreases the odds of Honest Abe from Deland getting polar bear’d)
• Side bet — This is the only part of this piece that will actually offend Seth: 2 to 1.

• After closing their set, Common Loon announces that their sophomore album, tentatively titled The World is Going to End Blah Blah Blah, will be released on September 23, 2017: 8 to 1

• Seth makes reference to the nexus between his Jewishness and his stature as an impresario: Not open for betting. We want to make money.

I, Robert Hirschfeld, hereby copyright this.  I am gladly willing to license it to the State of Israel.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22

• The universe implodes when two kids sporting Kendall Gill Hornets jerseys with matching high-top fades gaze into each others’ eyes from across the room. 25 to 1.

• Teeadora Nikolova will get hit on by a drunk frat boy who’s quite sure Teeadora’s a lady: Even money.

• Hipster sagely expounds on his theory that hipster bashing is a fundamentally recursive exercise in The Meta: 7 to 1.

• The Parson Red Heads do Horrible Things to The Capstan Shafts with their Bear Hands: 16 to 1.

• The Green Room will be used as a venue to talk massive amounts of shit about bands and musicians not present: 2 to 1, depending on your definition of “massive” and “present”

• Doug Hoepker will finally get one of the bands to play basketball against he and his new 2-on-2 partner, Justin Vernon (Eau Claire represent, bitches): 3,000 to 1.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23

• Jessica Lea Mayfield is looking at you like she’s into you: 1,000,000 to 1. No she’s not, dude.
• OK, now she’s looking at you like she’s into you: 2,000,000 to 1.

• Don Gerard posts a picture to Facebook of the G man kickin’ it with Cut Copy. The coveted chillwave demographic swoons: 10 to 1.
• Deb Frank Feinen waits in the wings: Yep.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24

• You spit randomly into the air and hit someone with the last name of Kinsella: 3 to 1.

• Polyvinyl Records celebrates 15 years of 6.2s on Pitchfork: Unless it rains, it’s happening.

• The Special Guest at Exile is Kevin Barnes from Of Montreal: 3 to 1.
• Barnes performs an entire set without showing his penis to the crowd: 2,000 to 1.

• Braid’s set will be met with a resounding call to return emo to its midwestern roots: 999,999 to 1.
• Braid’s set will destroy what little remains of the fondness for your youth as you come to the conclusion that you had no taste and have been living a rose-tinted lie: 3 to 1.

• Bass Drum of Death show results in actual death: 500 to 1. Cause of death: Bass Drum of Death: 10 to 1. Cause of death: Deathtram: 20 to 1. Cause of death: the field: 100 to 1.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 24

• At the climax of a meticulously-erected, highly-elongated, and gratuitously extended medley of covers including I Touch Myself, Freak N You, Knockin Da Boots, Sex Dwarf, and Red Light Special, Ryan Groff whispers a forbidden list of dirty words in your ear: 69:1