Based on reviews of concerts and other concerts i didn't attend, did everyone bite the Janelle Monae or am I trippin?
Is a word used twice in this review of a book I now desperately want to read, to show how the author, Aleksander Hemon, annexes the page with his liberal use of the oft-debated semicolon. To use or to shun? DSW hated it as her writing (and editing!) shows; she writes short sentences with periods, deliberate sentences. Sentences that are beautiful and precise. I like the semicolon, but then I am in my heart a stream of consciousness writer as you probably know if you have ever read more than one entry of this blog. The semicolon gives breadth to a thought and is more elegant and decisive than parentheses (though I am a slutty parentheses writer, too).
Well apparently Aleksander Hemon wrote his entire book with long semicolonic (ew) phrases, about an immigrant in Chicago at the start of the 20th century who was murdered, and the writer a hundred years later who sets about to trace his steps and uncover the truth. It seems like my kind of writing, my kind of book. My birthday is coming up, as ever, on the same day as Janet Jackson. I, too, will be 20 Y.O. No actually I will be turning $&@O#*^$@ and if you are the type of person who wants to get me a present (though I don't require it) The Lazarus Project by Aleksander Hemon is it. Also the new Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves, which is supposed to be her best (based on: this, of course; aren't they all? I mean all works of fiction. They were all born at some point as a short story in the New Yorker. Every last one of them). Also, Louise Erdrich, she is one of my favorite novelists.
I would also like to read The Importance of Music to Girls by Lavinia Greenlaw, even though its title is mushy like half-chewed grits. She's an amazing writer and I saw her read the germ of this book at EMP Pop Con like three or four years ago or whenever I last went. She talked about having her first kiss to punk in the middle of Picadilly Circus, or at least I remember it that way. this person gave it a bad review because it is not a memoir like the woeful hack Nick Hornby, and because it was not what the reviewer wanted it to be. As I remember the story it's more about finding oneself within the music, and the experiences attached to it, rather than, like, a novelized eve in the ILM wanktank. But I guess my true critique shall come later.
The new issue of the FADER, the magazine where I edit, write, and basically live, is on your newsstand shelf tomorrow. It is our icon issue and has Aaliyah on the cover. I spent two months thinking about it and her, to the point where I started having bad dreams after our creative director gave me an unauthorized Aaliyah commemorative DVD that, tastelessly and rather sadistically, opened with actual footage of the fallen plane. But I am extraordinarily proud of how the book turned out. I hope it does her justice. They showed and discussed it on 106 & Park last week. Rocsi pronounced everything right, so that was cool.
We are posting Will Caps' special two-part exclusive Aaliyah mix on The Fader Dot Com tomorrow so you definitely will want to go and cop that. He spent a lot of time working on it and it's chronological and very beautiful.
We miss you Baby Girl.
can you spot mark ronson in this clip?! hint: he is wearing a Mark Ecko puffy jacket, word to the homies at complex. at the time he was dating rashida and her sister kidada was aaliyah's bff so aaliyah called him up and asked him to play "the DJ" in this video. you could have read that in our Aaliyah issue, except we had to cut it for space, so I'm telling you now.
Me and B saw Baby Mama this weekend, which inspired me to troll for Tina Fey clips on SNL. This is the best, and appropriate for mother's day.
So Baby Mama was really funny - Amy Poehler was brilliant, Steve Martin stole the whole movie as a ponytail-sporting hippie guru/entrepreneur. It was a semi-spoof on the upper class working woman impulse to have a kid at any cost (in this case, $100,000 for a surrogate, which Tina Fey's character, a VP at a Whole Foods-like organic food company, didn't blink an eye at). All the obvs feminist issues came up - her doctor regarded her with skepticism ("I don't like your uterus!") because of her advanced age (37), her singledom, her lack of fertility, her lack of a man, etc etc etc etc. Then Amy Poehler comes along as the hip-hop loving "white trash" young STefani type (it was set in Philly so I kept imagining the screenwriter totally modeled her after Amanda Blank). Amy is her surrogate, which sets off all sorts of class issues for both of them, the central conceit of it all, and honestly, I think if it hadn't had such an amazing cast, who understand the importance of pulling off the subtlety of the humor, it might have been super offensive. But coming into it knowing it's a feminist film, it worked. Also it was fucking hilarious.
I also hope I am never in the situation where I am 37 and single and desperately want a baby. Not because there's anything wrong with single adoption, but having grown up with a single mom, I know how hard that shit is, even when you're rich like Fey's character (um, we weren't). I'm not tryna do that shit dolo, no fuckin way. And I want my kids to have a dad. A cool dad. With a job. And an arsenal of witty bon mots.
I do not want kids for a long, long, long time! I AM TOO DEEP IN THE CLUBS!
I mean, considering there is a flyer. Sheesh.
Something MAGICAL is about to happen.
First: Sarah came back from Beirut to get her computer fixed. She had files of work on the hard drive she needed and to access it there, they said, it would take maybe two months.... maybe three. So she traveled to NY, to the Apple store. Then she flew back to Beirut and there was chaos. If Abuela was still alive I would say, "Let's pray for her." Abuela is dead, I am not religious, and still I do it. For everyone. But S.C. espesh.
Second: I shall take it down many notches. Mariah is on the cover of VIBE. Haven't read it yet, though you know how I love Mariah, best singer ever. She married Nick Cannon for fake-real. You know when you are dating someone your friends are like... WHAaaaa....whyyy...you are far too good and you're like fuck you, this is what I'm doing, you don't know him, he is amazing? Yeah, well, that is that I feel like.. from the friend side...like NICK CANNON? COULDNT YOU JUST HAVE HAD SOME AFFAIR WITH JADAKISS INSTEAD? Only, I think he is
The whole point is, this is one of the best writers I will ever know, and B. MARIAHS ALBUM IS ACTUALLY PRETTY GOOD. It's no emancipation, I think, but ask me in awhile.
THIRD: there is no third.
LOVE,
JS
If you have never listened to Faded Radio, http://eastvillageradio.com/modules.php?name=evrshow&showid=68">this last one on Friday was our best banter ever. If you don't like music, we start talking at 55:. But you should listen to all of it cause there are some good songs. That Sizzla shit is jamming.
Alexandra Fuller, the woman who wrote the wonderfully accurate portrayal of Wyoming's landscape and its energy industry and its meth problems in the New Yorker a year ago, has now written a book based on the essay, and she is profiled in the Times today.
Wyoming, my home state in case you didn't know, where I spent the first 19 years of my life, really is a red zone, a hot spot in the oil war. It's appropriate that the dark father Dick Cheney is from there, and I grew up looking at nuclear weapons replicas in the middle of our city, proud statues like the Esther Hobart Morris "equality state" tribute in front of the capital, and now they're destroying its landscape with insatiable drilling and mining. Wyoming is supposed to be left alone. It's a place no one is supposed to come to, and barely anyone is meant to leave. And as much as I hated it growing up, it's a travesty to see it change, and to see its citizens, hard working and spirited and proud, be preyed upon.
Quickly, because I have no time, but must comment: the acquittal of three NYPD who emptied 50 bullets into Sean Bell, an unarmed black man, on the eve of his wedding, is a national tragedy. A travesty, too. I was in Europe when the verdict came back -- it was on the front page of a major European newspaper, and all the people I spoke to knew about it and Amadou Diallo, too - and expected rioting in NY... and it wouldn't have been an inappropriate response.
Here is a good piece in the voice about the verdict and its potential judicial legacy.
Related: The Murder Book 2008, an ongoing log of murders in New York by a former Newsday reporter, in a city where the crime rate is steadily rising. Each month he calculates the stats of each murder. By and large the victims are young black and Latino males.
Thank you for coming back to me. I know you... I know where you stand... I know what you represent and what you are worth. I stick my card into the machine, and you come back with the actual numbers, not a double speak that actually translates to "you are poor [especially in this country]." We are on an even plane.
I have been to an unnamed European country and another EU country that, retardedly or smartly, does not euse euros, and now I am back, and it feels awesome and melacholy at once. For the beauty, mostly. I never thought I would see the Alps in my lifetime... never dreamed them... but there they were, by accident and so wholly beyond me.
We have a new roommate who programs computers and does capoeria. We decided on him 3 hours after I deboarded an 18 hour plane journey. He is awesome and that is not even the JET LAG talking.
I'll be more specific about my European Vacation (no Wally World) in two months when the article is published. More very soon.
