BLOWY SHIRTS

Photo

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 02:55:59 -0400

ARCO in literature and popular culture [edit]

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:38:00 -0400

Not trying to fetishize an oil company but this new Schoolboy Q/Kendrick song reminded me how much I’ve always loved the sound of the word ARCO. Other ARCO mentions:

E-40, “It’s Pimpin’”

KENDRICK LAMAR, “For the Homies”

KING TEE, “Act a Fool”

SIR MIX-A-LOT, “My Hooptie”*

YOUNG GULLY, “Definition of Gas”

*also see: TUFF CREW in literature and popular culture

"the cover of a book is more of a book than the book is a book"

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:19:50 -0400

“the cover of a book
is more of a book
than the book is a book”

- H.T. Tsiang, The Hanging on Union Square (1935)

[btw - I wrote the introduction to the new edition.]

[From Grantland’s Yeezus shootaround]4. “New Slaves” Hua Hsu: We live in the...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:52:34 -0400

[From Grantland’s Yeezus shootaround]

4. “New Slaves”

Hua Hsu: We live in the golden age of people launching albums we weren’t 100 percent sure actually existed. An hour or so after Kanye foretold of Yeezus by projecting “New Slaves” against a building in Brooklyn, I sat watching someone’s Vine over and over, an infinite loop of him nearing a violent simmer: “Fuck you and your corporation / Y’all niggas can’t control me.”

Bracketing for a moment the specifics of that “corporation” bit — and hasn’t this become hip-hop’s de facto fifth element, sentences that begin like this? — there was something thrilling about it all: the directness, the provocation, the simplicity (were there even drums?). There was nothing to look at except his face. In the full clip he just seemed to stare inscrutably whenever he wasn’t rapping, as though to hold your attention and force you to pay heed to his lecture.

“New Slaves” is a messy song, especially in comparison to much of the rest of Yeezus, which is just messed up. It conflates the one with the many, the hero’s struggle with those of his worshippers, modesty with weakness, boredom with oppression, actual oppression with the paparazzi’s flashing lights, the prison of expectations with actual prisons. It’s the onetime Louis Vuitton Don warning us about how capitalism works. There are moments of “New Slaves” that are absurd and self-absorbed and then there are these brilliant, clear-eyed lines that seem to distill the modern world’s contradictions into something tangible: the rich vs. broke n—— racism bit, the reality that some young fan might enter “DEA + CCA” into their search engine and wonder how we let that happen.

On a record that’s pretty much devoid of other thinking, feeling humans — it occasionally seems like a chronicle of some guy’s wayward semen — “New Slaves” is one of the only moments of empathy, care, maybe not love, but at least vague concern for one’s fellow man.

I remember listening to College Dropout for the first time, thinking of how arrogant yet egoless Kanye sounded. This was an album about some imagined we — “We Don’t Care,” the bird’s-eye view of “All Falls Down” or “Spaceship” — rich with glimpses into other people’s lives. “New Slaves” is one of the only songs on Yeezus in which that sense of paranoid distrust roves toward something larger than the self. The camera draws back to remind us that the hero actually lives in a city teeming with other people, their hopes and fears. He’s not all by his lonesome, pacing back and forth, muttering “The ‘D’ is silent” to himself in the mirror. There’s a crowd somewhere miles away, enraptured by a poem on the side of a building.

“I see the blood on the leaves,” Kanye spits, over and over. It’s not all his. As he approaches full Boucher, no windows are smashed, nothing is torn apart, no chains are broken. But he doesn’t sound like a slave anymore. Instead, a way out: drums roll, the clouds part, strings swell, and Kanye sings, clear-eyed and full-hearted, that he can’t lose, there’s no way he will lose. Elsewhere on Yeezus, these midsong eccentricities can feel like self-sabotage. As Frank Ocean retraces Kanye’s words, it feels glorious, divine, mysterious, senselessly bright. Yeezus drops tomorrow; Wednesday is Juneteenth.

martynpepperell: Lil B at the apex of Mt Victoria in...

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 22:33:55 -0400

martynpepperell:

Lil B at the apex of Mt Victoria in Wellington, New Zealand.

My college roommate used to have those pajama pants too.

Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung while promoting “In The Mood For...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:49:00 -0400

Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung while promoting “In The Mood For Love” in Los Angeles.

Video

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 00:28:32 -0400

All Ready Fresh 2, “Sucker Butts”

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 12:37:00 -0400

All Ready Fresh 2, “Sucker Butts”

Amerie, “1 Thing (Siik remix)”

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 13:32:00 -0400

Amerie, “1 Thing (Siik remix)”

Photo

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:29:37 -0400

Live and direct from Fort Greene circa 1994:Misfits of Madness,...

Sun, 19 May 2013 20:13:20 -0400

Live and direct from Fort Greene circa 1994:

Misfits of Madness, “Peace the Hell Out (Nasty mix)”

The Face of the Watch (Grantland)

Sun, 19 May 2013 19:30:36 -0400

The Face of the Watch (Grantland):

“We narrate the 27-year backdrop to Ferguson’s career as one of innovation, fracture, bizarre juxtapositions: the ancient manager who recalls working as a tradesman during his offseasons forced to deal with millennials, Twitter, and fluorescent shoes.”

“Football as Never BeforeOld Trafford, 12/9/70, as a...

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:45:04 -0400

“Football as Never Before

Old Trafford, 12/9/70, as a middling Manchester United beat Coventry, eight 16mm cameras were trained by a German experimental filmmaker on United’s number 11: the legendary George Best. Shot, edited and framed so that hardly any other players are visible, Best’s beauty on the pitch is captured forever. In the year of his death, surely there can be no better tribute.”

Mentioned in my Lucky Peach piece: the ad my mom took out in the...

Sun, 12 May 2013 11:55:11 -0400

Mentioned in my Lucky Peach piece: the ad my mom took out in the local Plano, Texas newspaper circa the early 1980s.

Lost Weekend (The Daily Note)

Sun, 12 May 2013 11:51:00 -0400

Lost Weekend (The Daily Note):

A Cali transplant becomes a New Yorker with help from a Williamsburg groove merchant.

“The closest I came was a ‘Rump Shaker’ 12-inch I saw sticking out of a wet suitcase next to a trash heap along Avenue C. I grabbed it anyway.”

Photo

Sat, 11 May 2013 22:36:10 -0400

Hard Knocks: Shanghai (Grantland)

Thu, 09 May 2013 23:04:00 -0400

Hard Knocks: Shanghai (Grantland):

“Maybe one night a kid from Shanghai named Shady lines up in the slot for some second-tier college football team, and a thousand teenagers back at home decide that it’s the coolest thing they’ve ever seen.”

Photo

Wed, 08 May 2013 12:38:29 -0400

Photo

Tue, 07 May 2013 09:52:25 -0400

tumblinerb: redbullmusicacademy: Rap 1.0: A History of the...

Mon, 06 May 2013 20:48:20 -0400

tumblinerb:

redbullmusicacademy:

Rap 1.0: A History of the Early Hip Hop Internet

I wrote this.