an album stream.
BROOKLYN VEGAN: Jason Feathers (Justin Vernon, S Carey & Astronautalis' band) streaming debut album, 'De Oro' (listen)
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
de oro.
an album stream.
BROOKLYN VEGAN: Jason Feathers (Justin Vernon, S Carey & Astronautalis' band) streaming debut album, 'De Oro' (listen)
black like me.
an ongoing discussion/moment of clarity.
words.
"...on Sunday, the hashtag #iftheygunnedmedown began circulating on Twitter, with thousands of tweets pointing to the ways in which incidents such as these play out. Many tweets were accompanied by the sort of pictures that could be used to tar even staid black professionals as intimidating. Brown was a large eighteen-year-old—six feet four inches, according to his mother—and, in the image that circulated in the media immediately following the shooting, his size is highlighted. He flashes a peace symbol that, in conjunction with his imposing stature, could predictably be assailed as a gang sign. The hashtag was an overt riff on the way a jury, for example, might decide that a slight teen-ager like Trayvon Martin could be justifiably seen as a threat to George Zimmerman, a man with a gun. Imagery counts as a kind of unspoken forensics, with the power to render someone an innocent victim or a terrifying menace. Implicit is a question: Would you be afraid of this person, too?
The truth is that you’ve read this story so often that the race-tinged death story has become a genre itself, the details plugged into a grim template of social conflict. The genre is defined by its tendency toward an unsatisfactory resolution of the central problems. Two years ago, I visited St. Louis to give a talk at a museum. My visit fell in the wake of a rally in which hundreds of local residents turned out to demand an arrest in Martin’s death. (Brown’s family has now retained Benjamin Crump, the attorney who represented Martin’s family.) Martin was killed nearly a thousand miles away, but when I spoke to people about the rally they conveyed the sense that what had happened to him could happen anywhere in the country, even in their own back yards. For those people in Ferguson pressed against the yellow police tape separating them from Brown’s remains, the overwhelming sentiment is that it already has."
THE NEW YORKER: The Anger in Ferguson
EARLIER:
words.
SEE ALSO:
THE NEW YORKER: A Militarized Night in Ferguson
words.
"...on Sunday, the hashtag #iftheygunnedmedown began circulating on Twitter, with thousands of tweets pointing to the ways in which incidents such as these play out. Many tweets were accompanied by the sort of pictures that could be used to tar even staid black professionals as intimidating. Brown was a large eighteen-year-old—six feet four inches, according to his mother—and, in the image that circulated in the media immediately following the shooting, his size is highlighted. He flashes a peace symbol that, in conjunction with his imposing stature, could predictably be assailed as a gang sign. The hashtag was an overt riff on the way a jury, for example, might decide that a slight teen-ager like Trayvon Martin could be justifiably seen as a threat to George Zimmerman, a man with a gun. Imagery counts as a kind of unspoken forensics, with the power to render someone an innocent victim or a terrifying menace. Implicit is a question: Would you be afraid of this person, too?
The truth is that you’ve read this story so often that the race-tinged death story has become a genre itself, the details plugged into a grim template of social conflict. The genre is defined by its tendency toward an unsatisfactory resolution of the central problems. Two years ago, I visited St. Louis to give a talk at a museum. My visit fell in the wake of a rally in which hundreds of local residents turned out to demand an arrest in Martin’s death. (Brown’s family has now retained Benjamin Crump, the attorney who represented Martin’s family.) Martin was killed nearly a thousand miles away, but when I spoke to people about the rally they conveyed the sense that what had happened to him could happen anywhere in the country, even in their own back yards. For those people in Ferguson pressed against the yellow police tape separating them from Brown’s remains, the overwhelming sentiment is that it already has."
THE NEW YORKER: The Anger in Ferguson
EARLIER:
words.
SEE ALSO:
THE NEW YORKER: A Militarized Night in Ferguson
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
break free.
a video.
starring ariana grande.
PITCHFORK: Ariana Grande Destroys Aliens and Robots in Her Campy Sci-Fi "Break Free" Video
starring ariana grande.
PITCHFORK: Ariana Grande Destroys Aliens and Robots in Her Campy Sci-Fi "Break Free" Video
words.
for your consideration.
"I don't care if others rioted or why. I don't care that ballplayers and rappers are what they shud be. I care that we as humans care as much about one another more. I care we see past Class, race and culture and honor the humanity that unites our species. Stop talking and LOOK at these PEOPLE. LOOK at these HUMANS and stand with them against a system allows a Human PIG to slaughter their child. Forgive any typos love and respect u all." - Killer Mike
DEADSPIN: America Is Not For Black People
SEE ALSO:
PITCHFORK: Killer Mike Writes Essay About Michael Brown, Black Teenager Killed by Police in Missouri
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Shooting Spurs Hashtag Effort on Stereotypes
"I don't care if others rioted or why. I don't care that ballplayers and rappers are what they shud be. I care that we as humans care as much about one another more. I care we see past Class, race and culture and honor the humanity that unites our species. Stop talking and LOOK at these PEOPLE. LOOK at these HUMANS and stand with them against a system allows a Human PIG to slaughter their child. Forgive any typos love and respect u all." - Killer Mike
DEADSPIN: America Is Not For Black People
SEE ALSO:
PITCHFORK: Killer Mike Writes Essay About Michael Brown, Black Teenager Killed by Police in Missouri
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Shooting Spurs Hashtag Effort on Stereotypes
Monday, August 11, 2014
war on war.
a moment of clarity.
words.
"When I wrote first wrote about Martin’s killing, I said that one of the burdens of being a black male was bearing the heavy weight of other people’s suspicions. The McBride murder shows that such suspicion knows no gender. I also wrote about the lessons my mother taught me growing up. How I shouldn’t run in public, lest I arouse undue suspicion. How I most definitely should not run with anything in my hands, lest anyone think I stole something. The lesson included not talking back to the police, lest you give them a reason to take you to jail — or worse. And I was taught to never, ever leave home without identification. The reason was not only a precaution in case something happened, such as an accident, but also in case I’m stopped by police for whatever reason.
...When you’re black and especially male — in the United States — you have to go to these seemingly overboard, extra lengths in the off-chance they might save your life.
...The so-called victims of the nonexistent “war on whites” have absolutely NO idea what living under that kind of siege, that kind of very real threat, is like."
THE WASHINGTON POST: The Michael Brown shooting, the ‘war on whites’ and me
words.
"When I wrote first wrote about Martin’s killing, I said that one of the burdens of being a black male was bearing the heavy weight of other people’s suspicions. The McBride murder shows that such suspicion knows no gender. I also wrote about the lessons my mother taught me growing up. How I shouldn’t run in public, lest I arouse undue suspicion. How I most definitely should not run with anything in my hands, lest anyone think I stole something. The lesson included not talking back to the police, lest you give them a reason to take you to jail — or worse. And I was taught to never, ever leave home without identification. The reason was not only a precaution in case something happened, such as an accident, but also in case I’m stopped by police for whatever reason.
...When you’re black and especially male — in the United States — you have to go to these seemingly overboard, extra lengths in the off-chance they might save your life.
...The so-called victims of the nonexistent “war on whites” have absolutely NO idea what living under that kind of siege, that kind of very real threat, is like."
THE WASHINGTON POST: The Michael Brown shooting, the ‘war on whites’ and me
world restart.
starring kindness, kelela, and ade.
PITCHFORK: Kindness Announces New Album Otherness, Shares "World Restart" Featuring Kelela and Ade
PITCHFORK: Kindness Announces New Album Otherness, Shares "World Restart" Featuring Kelela and Ade
Sunday, August 10, 2014
mirrors.
a moment of clarity.
words.
"Not all fat gay men are resentful of fit ones, and not all fit gay men are condescending toward fat ones. But Whitesel touches on a real problem: Many gay men put a shockingly high premium on looks. Most pride parades are populated by unbelievably sexy gym bunnies in skimpy attire; a typical gay bar will feature a mind-boggling number of bulging biceps and rippling abs. It’s a tough market out there for an average-looking guy, let alone a tubby one. And if you can’t slip through the bear escape hatch, you’re bound to wind up a bit aggrieved.
There’s a strange irony in all this. By coming out, gay people have already thrown off the shackles of societal expectations in so many ways, defying gender roles, sex stereotypes, and sexual conformity. So why, after freeing themselves from these conventional traps, do gay men create a whole new set of stringent standards to hold each other to—standards largely cadged from heterosexual society?
...Yes, for reasons that remain totally unclear, many gay men do put a disproportionate amount of effort into personal appearance. But the stereotype has also become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Younger gay men think they must have perfect bodies because everyone expects them to have perfect bodies. This leads to predictable consequences: Gay men have a distressingly high rate of anorexia and are more likely than straight women to have an eating disorder. That’s a dark side of the quest for the six-pack, the one you never hear about during the fleshy revelries of a pride parade.
...In one sense, then, the fat gay men of Fat Gay Men are lucky: Their willingness to embrace their fatness means they’ve wriggled out of the body image bear traps that ensnare so many. But there’s no point in outwardly celebrating your body if you still harbor jealousy of your fitter brethren, as so many fat gay men in Whitesel’s book seem to. What we see here is the inevitable discontent of a stratified community, with the lower strata basically displeased with their lot but unwilling to smash the hierarchy altogether. By boldly trumpeting their own corpulence, the fat gay men of Whitesel’s book want to challenge the norms of their community. Too bad their community doesn’t want to hear what they have to say."
SLATE: Big Gay Pals: The troubles and triumphs of fat gay men.
words.
"Not all fat gay men are resentful of fit ones, and not all fit gay men are condescending toward fat ones. But Whitesel touches on a real problem: Many gay men put a shockingly high premium on looks. Most pride parades are populated by unbelievably sexy gym bunnies in skimpy attire; a typical gay bar will feature a mind-boggling number of bulging biceps and rippling abs. It’s a tough market out there for an average-looking guy, let alone a tubby one. And if you can’t slip through the bear escape hatch, you’re bound to wind up a bit aggrieved.
There’s a strange irony in all this. By coming out, gay people have already thrown off the shackles of societal expectations in so many ways, defying gender roles, sex stereotypes, and sexual conformity. So why, after freeing themselves from these conventional traps, do gay men create a whole new set of stringent standards to hold each other to—standards largely cadged from heterosexual society?
...Yes, for reasons that remain totally unclear, many gay men do put a disproportionate amount of effort into personal appearance. But the stereotype has also become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Younger gay men think they must have perfect bodies because everyone expects them to have perfect bodies. This leads to predictable consequences: Gay men have a distressingly high rate of anorexia and are more likely than straight women to have an eating disorder. That’s a dark side of the quest for the six-pack, the one you never hear about during the fleshy revelries of a pride parade.
...In one sense, then, the fat gay men of Fat Gay Men are lucky: Their willingness to embrace their fatness means they’ve wriggled out of the body image bear traps that ensnare so many. But there’s no point in outwardly celebrating your body if you still harbor jealousy of your fitter brethren, as so many fat gay men in Whitesel’s book seem to. What we see here is the inevitable discontent of a stratified community, with the lower strata basically displeased with their lot but unwilling to smash the hierarchy altogether. By boldly trumpeting their own corpulence, the fat gay men of Whitesel’s book want to challenge the norms of their community. Too bad their community doesn’t want to hear what they have to say."
SLATE: Big Gay Pals: The troubles and triumphs of fat gay men.
words.
"Like a bunch of other festival revelers, the tie-dye-wearing Hula-Hooper and her crew share their knowledge and drugs. Along with joints they pass on compliments about how beautiful our skin is and how mesmerized they are by our hairstyles and the fact that we know the words to "white songs." They can't really be black, can they? I imagine them thinking. You can tell by their tone that they consider themselves sincere, generous even. The backwards generosity maybe an upshot of the electronic dance music credo, PLUR—Peace Love Unity Respect. I can't help but question if it's kindness or if they don't even see us.
My friend dubs it "black privilege." It's her glass half-full way of looking at racism, at least for the weekend. Instead of playing the race card or getting all angryblackwoman, we should just relish the moment, that for once in our lives we're benefiting from bigotry. Like a slave praising massah for leftover scraps and holey shoes. Am I supposed to say thank you? Should I just believe white people when they claim they aren't racist as a preface for saying something racist, like introducing us as "my black friend" or complimenting how articulate we are? I don't think there are enough psychedelics in this too-big world for me to ever consider microaggressions good-natured banter.
...We come down off our acid so we light another blunt while Kendrick performs songs from his 2012 album, good kid, m.A.A.d. city. I nod my head and rap along for a while. Until the THC wears off. Then I'm standing still. Thinking. Again. Is Kendrick Lamar our Jimi Hendrix? Is this our version of crying for freedom? Are we today's counterculture? I watch the crowd—all the white people in designer thrift-store clothes and American Apparel bohemian chic rapping along to "Backseat Freestyle." In unison they shout, with their arms pumping up and down, "Martin had a dream. Martin had a dream. Kendrick have a dream."
I try not to laugh. Or to think about the thousands of pale Millennial hippies rapping about Dr. King's dream. Yet I can't help but wonder if they know that he also says "One hundred years later, the Negro still is not free." I question if they care that this still holds true. My friend passes me the joint. I try to inhale until I can no longer hear white people screaming "nigga" along with Kendrick. I wonder why I can't be more like them. Their drugs must be stronger."
GAWKER: Half-Dancing in Those Post-Racial Moments
My friend dubs it "black privilege." It's her glass half-full way of looking at racism, at least for the weekend. Instead of playing the race card or getting all angryblackwoman, we should just relish the moment, that for once in our lives we're benefiting from bigotry. Like a slave praising massah for leftover scraps and holey shoes. Am I supposed to say thank you? Should I just believe white people when they claim they aren't racist as a preface for saying something racist, like introducing us as "my black friend" or complimenting how articulate we are? I don't think there are enough psychedelics in this too-big world for me to ever consider microaggressions good-natured banter.
...We come down off our acid so we light another blunt while Kendrick performs songs from his 2012 album, good kid, m.A.A.d. city. I nod my head and rap along for a while. Until the THC wears off. Then I'm standing still. Thinking. Again. Is Kendrick Lamar our Jimi Hendrix? Is this our version of crying for freedom? Are we today's counterculture? I watch the crowd—all the white people in designer thrift-store clothes and American Apparel bohemian chic rapping along to "Backseat Freestyle." In unison they shout, with their arms pumping up and down, "Martin had a dream. Martin had a dream. Kendrick have a dream."
I try not to laugh. Or to think about the thousands of pale Millennial hippies rapping about Dr. King's dream. Yet I can't help but wonder if they know that he also says "One hundred years later, the Negro still is not free." I question if they care that this still holds true. My friend passes me the joint. I try to inhale until I can no longer hear white people screaming "nigga" along with Kendrick. I wonder why I can't be more like them. Their drugs must be stronger."
GAWKER: Half-Dancing in Those Post-Racial Moments
Friday, August 08, 2014
eggslut.
FILE UNDER: Coming Attractions
"fried chicken festival? might have to do that...", he said.
THRILLIST: The ultimate Los Angeles food fest calendar
"fried chicken festival? might have to do that...", he said.
THRILLIST: The ultimate Los Angeles food fest calendar
Thursday, August 07, 2014
big poppa.
a moment of clarity.
words.
"...Twenty-first-century Republicans (with a touch of self-regard) trace their genealogy to Ronald Reagan, but, if you squint at just about any of them—from “establishment” figures like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to Tea Party irregulars like Senator Ted Cruz—you will see a strong familial resemblance to Nixon. Nixon’s internationalism is of no interest to them now; his domestic achievements are overlooked (Supplemental Security Income, or S.S.I.) or disowned (the E.P.A.), but today’s Republicans were weaned on Nixon’s sour brand of politics: the politics of resentment. Which makes his influence on the party every bit as profound, in its way, as Reagan’s.
...The resentments, racial and cultural and economic, are still real, if not nearly as raw as in 1968, and invoking them has become a kind of reflex on the right, to the point of self-parody. Agnew’s “effete corps of impudent snobs” begets George Bush’s “Harvard boutique liberals” begets Rick Santorum’s attack on President Obama as a “snob” for urging all kids to go to college. “I don’t come from the élite,” Santorum said in 2012. “Élites come up with phony ideologies and phony ideas to rob you of your freedom.” More recently, Ted Cruz attacked President Obama for “doing a lot of pop culture” and acting with “condescension” toward young Americans. It is Nixon pastiche.
It is also a substitute for new ideas and ambitions. In their place, today’s G.O.P. offers only old, recycled grudges (“the press is the enemy,” as Nixon said) and new enemies: climate scientists, unaccompanied immigrant children (who might carry Ebola, Representative Todd Rokita, an Indiana Republican, warns). Every charge now, however farcical, is promulgated by an infrastructure of perpetual grievance—cable news, talk radio, blogs, and the like—that channels middle-class discontent in the right direction (toward “liberal fascists,” judges, lawyers, and “takers”) and not the wrong one (indifferent Republican legislators and their enablers). The portraits on the walls, the marble statue in the courtyard, all these say “Reagan.” But please take a memo: this is the house that Nixon built."
THE NEW YORKER: The Nixon Memorial
words.
"...Twenty-first-century Republicans (with a touch of self-regard) trace their genealogy to Ronald Reagan, but, if you squint at just about any of them—from “establishment” figures like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to Tea Party irregulars like Senator Ted Cruz—you will see a strong familial resemblance to Nixon. Nixon’s internationalism is of no interest to them now; his domestic achievements are overlooked (Supplemental Security Income, or S.S.I.) or disowned (the E.P.A.), but today’s Republicans were weaned on Nixon’s sour brand of politics: the politics of resentment. Which makes his influence on the party every bit as profound, in its way, as Reagan’s.
...The resentments, racial and cultural and economic, are still real, if not nearly as raw as in 1968, and invoking them has become a kind of reflex on the right, to the point of self-parody. Agnew’s “effete corps of impudent snobs” begets George Bush’s “Harvard boutique liberals” begets Rick Santorum’s attack on President Obama as a “snob” for urging all kids to go to college. “I don’t come from the élite,” Santorum said in 2012. “Élites come up with phony ideologies and phony ideas to rob you of your freedom.” More recently, Ted Cruz attacked President Obama for “doing a lot of pop culture” and acting with “condescension” toward young Americans. It is Nixon pastiche.
It is also a substitute for new ideas and ambitions. In their place, today’s G.O.P. offers only old, recycled grudges (“the press is the enemy,” as Nixon said) and new enemies: climate scientists, unaccompanied immigrant children (who might carry Ebola, Representative Todd Rokita, an Indiana Republican, warns). Every charge now, however farcical, is promulgated by an infrastructure of perpetual grievance—cable news, talk radio, blogs, and the like—that channels middle-class discontent in the right direction (toward “liberal fascists,” judges, lawyers, and “takers”) and not the wrong one (indifferent Republican legislators and their enablers). The portraits on the walls, the marble statue in the courtyard, all these say “Reagan.” But please take a memo: this is the house that Nixon built."
THE NEW YORKER: The Nixon Memorial
Wednesday, August 06, 2014
cry (the beloved country).
a moment of clarity.
words.
"Creative change is easier here because we pick and choose from among all the world’s cultures. That inherent advantage in the American system will continue — if we don’t get hung up about whiteness.
The tea party movement was a setback because it elevated extreme individualism over collective responsibilities and because it tapped into nativism and further undermined trust in American institutions. Some tea partyers such as Brooks may never be able to leave the bunkers where they defend whiteness.
But for other conservatives and Republicans — and, more importantly, for America — it’s not too late."
THE WASHINGTON POST: Battle cry of the white man
words.
"Creative change is easier here because we pick and choose from among all the world’s cultures. That inherent advantage in the American system will continue — if we don’t get hung up about whiteness.
The tea party movement was a setback because it elevated extreme individualism over collective responsibilities and because it tapped into nativism and further undermined trust in American institutions. Some tea partyers such as Brooks may never be able to leave the bunkers where they defend whiteness.
But for other conservatives and Republicans — and, more importantly, for America — it’s not too late."
THE WASHINGTON POST: Battle cry of the white man
amazing.
a moment of clarity starring kanye west.
words.
""I'm in the business of trying to make dope shit for the world. You're in the business of representing scums and trying to make as much money as long as there's this lapse in the law." He also claims that he's "the smartest fucking celebrity you've ever dealt with. I'm not Britney Spears.""
PITCHFORK: Kanye's Extremely Kanye-Ish Deposition in Paparazzi Attack Case Is Amazing
words.
""I'm in the business of trying to make dope shit for the world. You're in the business of representing scums and trying to make as much money as long as there's this lapse in the law." He also claims that he's "the smartest fucking celebrity you've ever dealt with. I'm not Britney Spears.""
PITCHFORK: Kanye's Extremely Kanye-Ish Deposition in Paparazzi Attack Case Is Amazing
ass.
a moment of clarity.
words.
FLAVORWIRE: Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda”: It Takes a Woman to Write the Ultimate Big-Booty Anthem
FLAVORWIRE: Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda”: It Takes a Woman to Write the Ultimate Big-Booty Anthem
Tuesday, August 05, 2014
island in the sun.
words.
"In recent years, there has been an onslaught of books, academic and popular, whose titles insist that the decade marked a major turning point: “The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics,” “How We Got Here: The 70s, The Decade That Brought You Modern Life—for Better or Worse,” “Mad as Hell: The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right,” “Pivotal Decade,” “Something Happened.” What happened, we now know, was the collapse of the American consensus, the postwar social contract, founded on a mixed economy at home and bipartisan Cold War internationalism abroad. The seventies turned out to be the decade when the country began its transformation from steady economic growth to spasms of contraction, from industry to information and finance, from institutional authorities to individual freedoms, from center-left to right. Global competition happened in the seventies, and so did populist politics, special-interest money, the personal computer, and the cult of the self. The obsessed-over sixties seem increasingly remote and sui generis, while the trademarks of the seventies are strangely persistent. Wages have remained largely flat since 1973. Gas prices never stopped outraging drivers. “The Happiness Project” updates “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.” We’re still, or again, talking about the decline of American power and prestige. Ted Cruz today sounds a lot like Jesse Helms did back then.
In other words, the seventies were important because of what’s happened since.
...Jimmy Carter, appearing humorless and angry, was no longer capable of inspiration, and had never been particularly reassuring. These were not superficial defects in a leader, and at the Democratic National Convention of 1980 it was the soaring oratory of Edward M. Kennedy—the primary’s loser, though at one point he was far outpolling both Carter and Reagan—that gave delegates an indelible vision of a better country. If you listen to Carter’s Oval Office addresses on inflation, energy, and the nation’s “crisis of confidence,” the level of honesty is shocking, and deflating. No President has ever spoken that way since. The lesson he taught all his successors was not to tell the American people hard truths. Instead, Reagan set the tone. He forced American politics to be played on his turf—a rhetorical achievement that continues today.
In other ways, though, the conservative agenda of Goldwater, Nixon, and Reagan never took. If we see the seventies not as an apocalyptic war between two Americas but as a time of profound uncertainty, in which conflict and contradiction were found just as often within as between Americans, it’s possible to imagine the country, at the end of the decade, turning for inspiration to a vision quite different from Reagan’s brand of denial. His vision was the one on offer—but a majority of the country didn’t vote for the destruction of blue-collar America in 1980, or the creation of a new plutocracy, or the rigging of legislation in favor of organized money. Most Americans still want their social programs kept intact, dislike being told how to conduct their private lives, and don’t want their country to go looking for foreign dragons to slay. What Perlstein calls the “cult of official optimism,” founded by Reagan, requires our leaders, including Barack Obama, to genuflect ritually before America the innocent. That rhetoric has grown extremely thin, however—not many Americans these days are optimistic. Reagan won, but the seventies never ended"
THE NEW YORKER: The Uses of Division: Rick Perlstein chronicles the fall of the American consensus and the rise of the right.
"In recent years, there has been an onslaught of books, academic and popular, whose titles insist that the decade marked a major turning point: “The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics,” “How We Got Here: The 70s, The Decade That Brought You Modern Life—for Better or Worse,” “Mad as Hell: The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right,” “Pivotal Decade,” “Something Happened.” What happened, we now know, was the collapse of the American consensus, the postwar social contract, founded on a mixed economy at home and bipartisan Cold War internationalism abroad. The seventies turned out to be the decade when the country began its transformation from steady economic growth to spasms of contraction, from industry to information and finance, from institutional authorities to individual freedoms, from center-left to right. Global competition happened in the seventies, and so did populist politics, special-interest money, the personal computer, and the cult of the self. The obsessed-over sixties seem increasingly remote and sui generis, while the trademarks of the seventies are strangely persistent. Wages have remained largely flat since 1973. Gas prices never stopped outraging drivers. “The Happiness Project” updates “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.” We’re still, or again, talking about the decline of American power and prestige. Ted Cruz today sounds a lot like Jesse Helms did back then.
In other words, the seventies were important because of what’s happened since.
...Jimmy Carter, appearing humorless and angry, was no longer capable of inspiration, and had never been particularly reassuring. These were not superficial defects in a leader, and at the Democratic National Convention of 1980 it was the soaring oratory of Edward M. Kennedy—the primary’s loser, though at one point he was far outpolling both Carter and Reagan—that gave delegates an indelible vision of a better country. If you listen to Carter’s Oval Office addresses on inflation, energy, and the nation’s “crisis of confidence,” the level of honesty is shocking, and deflating. No President has ever spoken that way since. The lesson he taught all his successors was not to tell the American people hard truths. Instead, Reagan set the tone. He forced American politics to be played on his turf—a rhetorical achievement that continues today.
In other ways, though, the conservative agenda of Goldwater, Nixon, and Reagan never took. If we see the seventies not as an apocalyptic war between two Americas but as a time of profound uncertainty, in which conflict and contradiction were found just as often within as between Americans, it’s possible to imagine the country, at the end of the decade, turning for inspiration to a vision quite different from Reagan’s brand of denial. His vision was the one on offer—but a majority of the country didn’t vote for the destruction of blue-collar America in 1980, or the creation of a new plutocracy, or the rigging of legislation in favor of organized money. Most Americans still want their social programs kept intact, dislike being told how to conduct their private lives, and don’t want their country to go looking for foreign dragons to slay. What Perlstein calls the “cult of official optimism,” founded by Reagan, requires our leaders, including Barack Obama, to genuflect ritually before America the innocent. That rhetoric has grown extremely thin, however—not many Americans these days are optimistic. Reagan won, but the seventies never ended"
THE NEW YORKER: The Uses of Division: Rick Perlstein chronicles the fall of the American consensus and the rise of the right.
Monday, August 04, 2014
Sunday, August 03, 2014
Saturday, August 02, 2014
Friday, August 01, 2014
Thursday, July 31, 2014
blackboard jungle.
an ongoing discussion/moment of clarity.
for you consideration...
words.
"...there is widespread belief that black parents don’t value education. The default opinion has become “it’s the parents” — not the governance, the curriculum, the instruction, the policy, nor the lack of resources — that create problems in urban schools. That’s wrong. Everyday actions continuously contradict the idea that low-income black families don’t care about their children’s schooling, with parents battling against limited resources to access better educations than their circumstances would otherwise afford their children.
...When judging black families’ commitment to education, many are confusing will with way. These parents have the will to provide quality schooling for their children, but often, they lack the way: the social capital, the money and the access to elite institutions. There is a difference between valuing an education and having the resources to tap that value.
...Privileged parents hold onto the false notion that their children’s progress comes from thrift, dedication and hard work — not from the money their parents made. Our assumption that “poverty doesn’t matter” and insistence on blaming black families’ perceived disinterest in education for their children’s underachievement simply reflects our negative attitudes towards poor, brown people and deflects our responsibility to address the real root problems of the achievement gap. Our negative attitudes about poor people keep us from providing the best services and schools to low-income families.
This thinking hurts not only children, but entire communities. Low expectations extend beyond the classroom into homes and neighborhoods."
THE WASHINGTON POST: Stop blaming black parents for underachieving kids: Improving black students' learning doesn't "start at home."
for you consideration...
words.
"...there is widespread belief that black parents don’t value education. The default opinion has become “it’s the parents” — not the governance, the curriculum, the instruction, the policy, nor the lack of resources — that create problems in urban schools. That’s wrong. Everyday actions continuously contradict the idea that low-income black families don’t care about their children’s schooling, with parents battling against limited resources to access better educations than their circumstances would otherwise afford their children.
...When judging black families’ commitment to education, many are confusing will with way. These parents have the will to provide quality schooling for their children, but often, they lack the way: the social capital, the money and the access to elite institutions. There is a difference between valuing an education and having the resources to tap that value.
...Privileged parents hold onto the false notion that their children’s progress comes from thrift, dedication and hard work — not from the money their parents made. Our assumption that “poverty doesn’t matter” and insistence on blaming black families’ perceived disinterest in education for their children’s underachievement simply reflects our negative attitudes towards poor, brown people and deflects our responsibility to address the real root problems of the achievement gap. Our negative attitudes about poor people keep us from providing the best services and schools to low-income families.
This thinking hurts not only children, but entire communities. Low expectations extend beyond the classroom into homes and neighborhoods."
THE WASHINGTON POST: Stop blaming black parents for underachieving kids: Improving black students' learning doesn't "start at home."
a moment of clarity.
words.
"Barack Obama is not a tough guy. Everybody rolls him. He’s a wimp, a weak sister; he won’t stand up for himself or his country. Vladimir Putin, a true tough guy, blows planes out of the air, won’t apologize, walks around half-naked. Life, it seems, is like a prison yard, and Obama cowers in a corner. “It would be a hellish thing to live with such timidity. … He’s scared of Vladimir Putin,” one Fox News contributor said about the President. But this kind of thing is not confined to the weirder fringes: Maureen Dowd pointed out a while ago that former fans of Obama “now make derogatory remarks about your manhood,” while the Wall Street Journal ’s editorial page runs a kind of compendium of “weak sister” pieces every morning, urging the President, at one point, to make more “unambiguous threats”—making unambiguous threats evidently being the real man’s method of getting his way.
...We don’t need tough guys. We need wise guys. We’ve tried tough guys, and it always ends in tears. Tough guys you know right away because they’re never scared of a fight. Wise guys you only know in retrospect, when you remember that they quietly walked away from the fight that now has the tough guy in a hospital. Wise women do that, too."
THE NEW YORKER: No More Mr. Tough Guy
"Barack Obama is not a tough guy. Everybody rolls him. He’s a wimp, a weak sister; he won’t stand up for himself or his country. Vladimir Putin, a true tough guy, blows planes out of the air, won’t apologize, walks around half-naked. Life, it seems, is like a prison yard, and Obama cowers in a corner. “It would be a hellish thing to live with such timidity. … He’s scared of Vladimir Putin,” one Fox News contributor said about the President. But this kind of thing is not confined to the weirder fringes: Maureen Dowd pointed out a while ago that former fans of Obama “now make derogatory remarks about your manhood,” while the Wall Street Journal ’s editorial page runs a kind of compendium of “weak sister” pieces every morning, urging the President, at one point, to make more “unambiguous threats”—making unambiguous threats evidently being the real man’s method of getting his way.
...We don’t need tough guys. We need wise guys. We’ve tried tough guys, and it always ends in tears. Tough guys you know right away because they’re never scared of a fight. Wise guys you only know in retrospect, when you remember that they quietly walked away from the fight that now has the tough guy in a hospital. Wise women do that, too."
THE NEW YORKER: No More Mr. Tough Guy
stay with me.
a (sam smith) cover.
starring vin diesel.
STEREOGUM: Watch Vin Diesel Cover Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me”
starring vin diesel.
STEREOGUM: Watch Vin Diesel Cover Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me”
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
rebounder.
a video.
from public access tv.
STEREOGUM: Public Access TV – “Rebounder” Video (Stereogum Premiere)
from public access tv.
STEREOGUM: Public Access TV – “Rebounder” Video (Stereogum Premiere)
how can you really.
a video.
starring foxygen.
STEREOGUM: Foxygen – “How Can You Really” Video + …And Star Power Details
starring foxygen.
STEREOGUM: Foxygen – “How Can You Really” Video + …And Star Power Details
"I Agree with these Statements."
words.
"We don’t hear too many albums like this anymore: Finely observed personal efforts that have been made to sound like a million bucks. There’s nothing remotely indie rock about The Voyager, at least not in the way that term has been traditionally understood. The album sparkles like money, and there’s nothing challenging about any of its musical choices. It’s an album for Sunday morning drives or for playing in the background during brunch. It’s an album your mom might like, at least until that one lyric about the coke and the mushrooms jumps out at her. But all those professionally assembled hooks are used in service of a writer whose throwaway lines can kick you in the gut. None of the glamor we can hear on The Voyager has been enough to protect Lewis from serious unhappiness. She doesn’t make a big part of shattering that glamor around her, but she does it anyway, just by being a human being who knows how to write about sadness and lostness. And in finding a way to render all that lostness in the form of music as sunnily pleasant as this, she’s made a truly great album."
STEREOGUM: Album Of The Week: Jenny Lewis The Voyager
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
all eyez on me.
with a beastie boy, mike d.
ROLLING STONE: Beastie Boys' Mike D: Tupac's Determination to Be Authentic Killed Him
ROLLING STONE: Beastie Boys' Mike D: Tupac's Determination to Be Authentic Killed Him
the sex pistols.
a moment of clarity.
words.
"We need to immediately stop perpetuating the myth that pop stars and athletes and actors are able to completely determine the course of a child's life. The biggest influence in your kid's life is you and your parenting. Perhaps the answer to Creekmur's obnoxious question is that impressionable children shouldn't have access to her music in first place, something Nicki herself has said and that is largely the duty of his or her parents. Nicki Minaj is under no obligation to stray from her artistic vision for herself because you don't know how to monitor your child's internet access or have a conversation about healthy sexuality.
...Now, I say this not just to Chuck Creekmur but to all the men and women who ascribe to the condescending, sexist and dated beliefs of this letter: Maybe if you spent less time policing the actions of grown women, you would have more time to have conversations with your own daughters and sons about how they will choose to navigate, succeed and fight back against a world steeped in patriarchy and capitalism. Nicki Minaj has already got it all figured out. She doesn't need your help."
JEZEBEL: Nicki Minaj Doesn't Need Your Advice or Input
SEE ALSO:
NOISEY: AN OPEN LETTER TO THE DADS OF HIP-HOP: STOP WORRYING ABOUT NICKI MINAJ'S ASS
words.
"We need to immediately stop perpetuating the myth that pop stars and athletes and actors are able to completely determine the course of a child's life. The biggest influence in your kid's life is you and your parenting. Perhaps the answer to Creekmur's obnoxious question is that impressionable children shouldn't have access to her music in first place, something Nicki herself has said and that is largely the duty of his or her parents. Nicki Minaj is under no obligation to stray from her artistic vision for herself because you don't know how to monitor your child's internet access or have a conversation about healthy sexuality.
...Now, I say this not just to Chuck Creekmur but to all the men and women who ascribe to the condescending, sexist and dated beliefs of this letter: Maybe if you spent less time policing the actions of grown women, you would have more time to have conversations with your own daughters and sons about how they will choose to navigate, succeed and fight back against a world steeped in patriarchy and capitalism. Nicki Minaj has already got it all figured out. She doesn't need your help."
JEZEBEL: Nicki Minaj Doesn't Need Your Advice or Input
SEE ALSO:
NOISEY: AN OPEN LETTER TO THE DADS OF HIP-HOP: STOP WORRYING ABOUT NICKI MINAJ'S ASS
morning phase.
with beck & stephen colbert.
PITCHFORK: Beck Plays "Heart Is a Drum" and "Heaven's Ladder", Chats on "Colbert"
PITCHFORK: Beck Plays "Heart Is a Drum" and "Heaven's Ladder", Chats on "Colbert"
candy perfurme girl.
words.
" “Heavy Metal and Reflective.” If I may be so bold, this track is far and away her best since “212,” and it’s not hard to see why. Her distinctive voice and slick lyrics are back on display, rather than ceding the spotlight to some forced-on persona or generic production.
"Heavy Metal and Reflective” feels so much more natural and raw — it’s as if, without the pressures (or shackles, as she saw them) of her label or the distractions of those petty Twitter fights, she’s finally able to return to her real self, Azealia Amanda Banks from the 212. Her lyrics are still smart and reference-heavy, dropping Michael Jackson track titles (“I be ‘P.Y.T.’ / You be ‘Billie Jean'”) and showing her age in the best way: “Buy me Tamagotchi / Sippin’ sake and Moëtses.” She’s even kept a bit of the witchy look and attitude she tested out in “#YUNGRAPUNXEL”: “I be in that 750 head up / With that hex witch.” But my favorite lines harken back to that playful sexual confidence we saw three years ago: “I be with that Betty / With that bubble and them breasts / I be looking very / Jiggle Jello in them dresses.”
...Azealia Banks is still only 23, an age where you’re just starting to settle into yourself and get comfortable with your unique talents and style. It feels like she’s finally found it again. So, to borrow the words of Rolling Stone: “More, please!”
FLAVORWIRE: “Heavy Metal and Reflective”: The Goofy, Sexy, Real Azealia Banks of “212” Returns on Her First Post-Interscope Single
Monday, July 28, 2014
anything goes.
starring tony bennett & lady gaga.
POP ON AND ON: First Listen: Lady Gaga & Tony Bennett - Anything Goes
POP ON AND ON: First Listen: Lady Gaga & Tony Bennett - Anything Goes
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