Smoking Zora

2012-01-31T10:43:00.000-08:00

He might be having fun, of course; one always wonders, and indeed one suspects that men wonder right up until the moment they die, whether one is just having fun, whether one has only to gather himself, his thoughts, set straight a few errands, and then one’s real life will begin, one’s true life. It seems hard to believe that this is it, after all: standing in a parking lot behind a crane inhaling cheap, cold beer on a cheap, cold Saturday afternoon. But this is precisely what it is.

-from Beer in a Parking Lot by Mills Baker.

2012-01-31T07:32:00.000-08:00

Kidz In The Hall: "I Swear" feat Vic Spencer from Ruby Hornet on Vimeo.
South Side YMCA. Nathan's. Hyde Park Harold's. Kidz in the Hall serve Chicago realness in their new video 'I Swear'.

2012-01-30T12:00:00.000-08:00

that tweaky video game beat. King Louie too cool.

Meltable Graffiti

2012-01-30T10:09:00.000-08:00

Pavel Puhov's Eyeglasses (via)

Dog soup, Adam & Eve on a Raft, Clean Up The Kitchen

2012-01-30T08:53:00.000-08:00

From the Wikipedia page on diner lingo:

Adam & Eve on a raft & wreck 'em: two scrambled eggs on toast
Adam's ale: water
Bullets/Whistleberries/Saturday night: baked beans (so called because of the supposed flatulence they cause)
Burn the British: toasted English muffin
Cats heads and easy diggins: biscuits and gravy
Clean up the kitchen: hash
Cops & Robbers Donuts and Coffee
Dog soup: water
Draw one in the dark/flowing Mississippi: a black coffee
Frog sticks: french fries
Honeymoon salad: lettuce alone
Sea dust: salt
Shingle with a shimmy and a shake: buttered toast with jam or jelly

The Best Fake Holiday Ever!

2012-01-30T06:55:00.000-08:00

Someone on the Internet has decided that February shall henceforth be known as the Month of Letters. As far as arbitrary holidays go, this is about a million times better than Sweetheart Day.

The rules are simple:

In the month of February, mail at least one item through the post every day it runs. Write a postcard, a letter, send a picture, or a cutting from a newspaper, or a fabric swatch.
Write back to everyone who writes to you. This can count as one of your mailed items.

That's it. She figures you're going to send 24 letters in total, maybe more if it catches on. I'm so in, if only because it gives me an excuse to play with stamps. Email your address if you want me to mail you something. I might be asking you anyway, so consider this fair warning.

Ice Cube's 'Good Day' Identified

2012-01-29T07:32:00.000-08:00

A persistent rap detective and historian took it upon himself to verify the actual date of Ice Cube's legendary 'Good Day', as immortalized in the video and song above. That day was January 20, 1992, the only time in the early 90s when Yo MTV Raps was on the air, the Lakers beat the Supersonics, South Central LA was relatively smog-less, beepers were in production and Ice Cube had nothing to do but hang out with his friends. So there you go.

late > never

2012-01-23T15:55:00.001-08:00

donald glover. heartbeat.

stuck on you

2012-01-19T10:44:00.000-08:00

swooooon

Amateur Vagrancy

2012-01-19T09:17:00.000-08:00

“There is nothing we enjoy more than a little amateur vagrancy — walking up one street and down another, and staring into shop windows, and gazing about as if…the whole were an unknown region to our wandering mind.”

-Charles Dickens on walking, via

cf. also: dérive

2012-01-18T23:13:00.000-08:00

Rarely do I watch a movie and know instantly that I'm going to watch it five more times in the next week. bill cunningham new york is one of those.

-his file cabinets. the importance of saving, referencing, remembering.

-the simplicity of his life compared to the proliferation of his work. how he seems almost boring personally when measured against his output.

-'you see, if you don't take money, they can't tell you what to do, kid! that's the key to the whooole thing. don't. touch. money. it's the worst thing you can do.'

-'money is the cheapest thing. liberty, freedom, is the most expensive.'

-the UN dude from nepal. nuff said.

-his accent! it's boston, right? not new york? can't tell. wikipedia's still blacked out.

-Editta! Editta Sherman and her hats

Carry on, Jeeves

2012-01-18T10:44:00.001-08:00

INTERVIEWER: Do you ever go back and reread your own books?
WODEHOUSE: Oh, yes.
INTERVIEWER: Are you ever surprised by them?
WODEHOUSE: I’m rather surprised that they’re so good.

*********

INTERVIEWER: Did you always know you would be a writer?
WODEHOUSE: Yes, always. I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don’t remember what I did before that. Just loafed, I suppose.

*********

INTERVIEWER: Have any other writers ever been envious of you?
WODEHOUSE: Well, I always thought A. A. Milne was rather. We were supposed to be quite good friends, but, you know, in a sort of way I think he was a pretty jealous chap.

...and other gems from the P.G. Wodehouse interview here.

picture is unrelated, but incredible

2012-01-18T09:44:00.000-08:00

- Falcons are girls and tercels are boys, or used to be, because only five people actually pay attention to that stuff anymore
- The expressions "fed up," "wrapped around his little finger," and "under his thumb" are all derived from falconry
- Apparently, falcons do not grow to love you, and only return to your glove because you provide them a small advantage in obtaining prey
- If you are a crappy falconer, which you probably would be for a long time, they will not return to your glove at all

...and more gems about falcon ownership here.

dream operator

2012-01-18T08:44:00.000-08:00

let the children do the shopping

2012-01-18T07:44:00.000-08:00

“The question of repetition is very important. It is important because there is no such thing as repetition. There is always a slight variation. Somebody comes in and you tell the story over again. Every time you tell the story it is told slightly differently.”

-Gertrude Stein

Lately I've been thinking about repetition and its disproportionate power to amplify and modify the thing it's talking about, simply through its own insistence on itself. It's lovely that Stein was the one who said this, because her work reveals that, while linguistic content may be reduplicated, a reader's understanding of, interest in and emotional connection to that content exists in perpetual flux. The thing is, it's not just that the reader changes, but that the repetition changes them.

See also: blues music. See also: the Loops episode of Radiolab.

your new favorite emoticon

2012-01-17T21:29:00.000-08:00

t(*-*t)

give it a second

My Horoscope is Illin Right Now

2012-01-17T20:49:00.000-08:00

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

This hits the sweet spot in my Venn diagram. You know. The one where hip hop, etymology and crosswords collide.

It is Marvellous to Wake Up Together

2012-01-16T17:51:00.000-08:00

It is marvellous to wake up together
At the same minute; marvellous to hear
The rain begin suddenly all over the roof,
To feel the air suddenly clear
As if electricity had passed through it
From a black mesh of wires in the sky.
All over the roof the rain hisses,
And below, the light falling of kisses.

An electrical storm is coming or moving away;
It is the prickling air that wakes us up.
If lighting struck the house now, it would run
From the four blue china balls on top
Down the roof and down the rods all around us,
And we imagine dreamily
How the whole house caught in a bird-cage of lightning
Would be quite delightful rather than frightening;

And from the same simplified point of view
Of night and lying flat on one's back
All things might change equally easily,
Since always to warn us there must be these black
Electrical wires dangling. Without surprise
The world might change to something quite different,
As the air changes or the lightning comes without our blinking,
Change as our kisses are changing without our thinking.

- Elizabeth Bishop

music to make clean by

2012-01-09T19:47:00.000-08:00

YG & Nipsey Hussle - Motto [Remix]

Infamous 3rd (Mysfits) -Test Dummy

S.dot - Drill Music

Money Mob Cannon - Untouchable (most videos via So Many Shrimp. And Chicago.)

Advice from Aurelius

2012-01-06T10:25:00.000-08:00

"They cannot admire you for intellect. Granted—but there are many other qualities of which you cannot say, “but that is not the way I am made”. So display those virtues which are wholly in your own power—integrity, dignity, hard work, self-denial, contentment, frugality, kindness, independence, simplicity, discretion, magnanimity. Do you not see how many virtues you can already display without any excuse of lack of talent or aptitude?"

-Marcus Aurelius

so then i'm like

2012-01-06T09:25:00.000-08:00

On the use of like as a quotative.

2012-01-05T11:13:00.000-08:00

(via)

2012-01-05T10:25:00.000-08:00

Oh, you know. Just another intergenerational lip dub of Tyga's 'Rack City'. (Warning: Language not suitable for all grandmothers.)

The Language of Stamps

2012-01-05T09:38:00.000-08:00

With the advent of greeting cards came a new way of communicating - the language of stamps. Through this code, a stamp's orientation on an envelope could say so much more than words. After a Hungarian weekly paper first explained this philatelic parlance in 1890, it went on to be taken up by love-lorn correspondents in countries as far-flung as Finland, France, Bulgaria, Russia and Great Britain, and developed new dialects everywhere it emerged.

Two dozen more examples can be found here.

Stream of Time, Chart of Universal History (1842)

2012-01-05T09:24:00.000-08:00

An early infographic from the Big Map Blog that charts great names and events from Western history along interconnecting 'rivers' of time. Equal parts ambitious and dizzying.

rough drafts

2012-01-04T15:15:00.000-08:00

Via Wikipedia:

Sexting is the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photographs, primarily between mobile phones.

A few potential alternatives:

psexting: the act of sending psychologically explicit messages about your sexual subconscious
nexting: the act of breaking up with someone explicitly, primarily between mobile phones
hexting: the act of cursing someone explicitly, primarily between mobile phones
flexting: the act of explicitly bragging about your musculature
texmexting: the act of convincing someone to grab tacos with you later tonight
lexting: the act of sending explicit legal advice, primarily between mobile phones
kleenexting: the act of explicitly asking someone to pick up a few basic household necessities for the apartment, as long as they're out

Stankoff 2011

2012-01-03T15:03:00.000-08:00

I wasted about 20 minutes today reading this Outkast Tournament Bracket, trying to discover which Outkast song would ultimately reign as The Best Song of All Time Ever. No spoilers on the outcome, but here are some choice judgments:

How dare a song challenge Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik
Storytellin, pt. 1 is my song when I need to get a wake-up call on life
Nothing from Idlewild stands a chance
Hey Ya! is...just Andre, doing his spaced-out, Capt. Crunch, weird schtick
The trumpet in SpottieOttie is better than any track on the Love Below. Just the trumpet.

Truer words. Not only is this article a reminder of how fun it is to make brackets for arbitrary things, it also makes you want to listen to wall-to-wall Outkast for the next three months. As if you needed more incentive.

Obit

2012-01-02T14:44:00.000-08:00

Our love will not come back on fortune's wheel -

in the end it gets us, though a man know what he'd have:
old cars, old money, old undebased pre-Lyndon
silver, no copper rubbing through...old wives;
I could live such a too long time with mine.
In the end, every hypochondriac is his own prophet.
Before the final coming to rest, comes the rest
of all transcendence in a mode of being, hushing
all becoming. I'm for and with myself in my otherness,
in the eternal return of earth's fairer children,
the lily, the rose, the sun on brick at dusk,
the loved, the lover, and their fear of life,
their unconquered flux, insensate oneness, painful "It was..."
After loving you so much, can I forget
you for eternity, and have no other choice?

-Robert Lowell

Teach Me How to Dougieleh

2011-12-20T11:18:00.000-08:00

my only critique of this clip is that it should be about 5x longer

Could Be a Country Song

2011-12-19T09:59:00.000-08:00

"He and She"

When I am dead you’ll find it hard,
Said he,
To ever find another man
Like me.

What makes you think, as I suppose
You do,
I’d ever want another man
Like you?

– Eugene Fitch Ware, Some of the Rhymes of Ironquill, 1900

Franz Kafka was a Flake

2011-12-14T19:10:00.000-08:00

His excuse to Max Brod:

My Max

I am in such a bad way that I think I can only get over it by not speaking to anyone for a week, or as long as may be necessary. From the fact that you won’t try to answer this postcard in any way, I shall see that you are fond of me.

Your Franz

(via)

Chart of the Planetary Orbits, 10th or 11th Century

2011-12-14T18:36:00.000-08:00

(from, via)

What're You Doing New Year's

2011-12-13T09:47:00.001-08:00

Andy Williams

Fables in Slang

2011-12-08T10:52:00.000-08:00

Wishlisting: Some call George Ade the first great American humor writer. Ade himself would've given that accolade to his hero, Mark Twain, but he wasn't far off. Starting in the 1890s, Ade wrote closely-observed profiles of the hustlers, shoeshine boys and liars he met in and around Chicago. He captured a period of American history when burgeoning urbanization made young cities like Chicago tumultuous and endlessly fascinating places to live.

Over time, his work became less journalistic and more fabulistic. Fables in Slang is his best-known book, and relies heavily on Ade's ear for contemporary colloquialisms. It begins: "The Learned Phrenologist sat in his Office surrounded by his Whiskers. Now and then he put a Forefinger to his Brow and glanced at the Mirror to make sure that he still resembled William Cullen Bryant."

Timeless.

The Adventure Calendar Has Returned !

2011-12-05T21:22:00.000-08:00

That is all.

impossible objects

2011-12-02T08:01:00.000-08:00

for more impossible objects, check out impossibottle, FolkArtInBottles.com or just google Harry Eng.

2011-12-01T10:49:00.000-08:00

loved this song last night when i was drunk. love it again today.

the fuck is a guilty pleasure, anyway?

Stabilimenta

2011-11-30T13:09:00.000-08:00

According to Wikipedia, stabilimenta are silk structures spun at the middle of some orb-web spiders' webs. Their purpose isn't entirely clear, and it probably varies from species to species. Some spiders may use this decoration to attract prey. Others, to repel predators. Stabilimenta are made of many types of material, including egg sacs and random detritus. Perhaps most interestingly, these designs seem to have evolved separately within 9 different spider species. Also, they look trippy as hell.

The Diary of Leonardo Da Vinci

2011-11-30T12:53:00.000-08:00

Da Vinci never left the house without a tiny black notebook (among other things he was apparently the inventor of the Moleskin as well). He hung it from his belt and whenever something caught his eye or tickled his brain, he'd scribble it in this book. Wendy McNaughton has translated a sample page. How casually he proposes to draw Milan! More here.

For Eleanor

2011-11-29T10:02:00.001-08:00

Birthday Shout-Outs

2011-11-25T09:04:00.000-08:00

Me and OJ are doing just fine, thank you.

rubbernecks in broadway

2011-11-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

(via)

On Carving

2011-11-23T13:10:00.000-08:00

From Samuel Orchart Beeton's Etiquette for Families (1876):

A great deal of the comfort and satisfaction of a good dinner depends upon the carving. Awkward carving is enough to spoil the appetite of a refined and sensitive person. No matter how well the meats may be cooked, if they are mutilated, torn and hacked to pieces, or even cut awkwardly, one half of their relish is destroyed by the carver. Formerly in England there were regular teachers of the art of carving and Lady Mary Wortley Montague confesses that she once took lessons of such a professor three times a week. Besides the annoyance and mortification of bad carving it is a very extravagant piece of ignorance, as it causes a great waste of meats. In the seventeenth century carving was a science that carried with it as much pedantry as the business of school-teaching does in the present day; and fr a person to use wrong terms in relation to carving was an unpardonable affront to etiquette. Carving all kinds of small birds was called, to thy them; a quail, to wing it; a pheasant, to allay it; a duck, to rembrace it; a hen, to spoil her; a goose, to tare her, and a list of similar technicalities too long and too ridiculous to repeat.

OR IS THE LIST JUST LONG AND RIDICULOUS ENOUGH?????

allay a pheasant
barb a lobster
break a hare
chine a salmon
culpon a trout
disfigure a peacock
dismember a hen
display a quail
fin a chevin
fract a chicken
frush a chub
gobbet a trout
lift a swan
mince a plover
rear a goose
sauce a capon
scull a tench
side a haddock
splat a pike
splay a bream
spoil a hen
string a lamprey
tarne a crab
thigh a pigeon
thigh a woodcock
transon an eel
trench a sturgeon
tusk a barbel
unbrace a mallard
unjoint a bittern
unlace a coney
unlatch a curlew
wing a partridge

You're welcome. (carving terms via)

turkey trot

2011-11-23T11:09:00.000-08:00

little eva 4eva.

2011-11-23T09:20:00.000-08:00

Benjamin Franklin and The Case for Turkeys

2011-11-22T13:52:00.000-08:00

From a letter to his daughter (1784):

For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.

With all this Injustice, he is never in good Case but like those among Men who live by Sharping & Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper Emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our Country...

I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America... He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.

Other symbols Franklin suggested for his fledgling country: the rattlesnake, Moses and Pharaoh

fowl play

2011-11-22T11:15:00.000-08:00

young turks

her ax to grind

feast your eyes on this butterball

feathers versus fur

about to go ham

howdy pardoner

plucky thing

turkey in the straw

2011-11-22T09:24:00.000-08:00

by the Original Schnickelfritz Band (1942)

seven bar jokes involving grammar and punctuation

2011-11-21T13:45:00.000-08:00

(via)

pretty girls make faces

2011-11-19T13:05:00.000-08:00

Trisha Brown

2011-11-18T13:25:00.000-08:00

(source, via)

commonplace

2011-11-17T12:17:00.000-08:00

What sort of diary should I like mine to be? Something loose-knit and yet not slovenly, so elastic that it will embrace anything, solemn, slight or beautiful, that comes into my mind. I should like it to resemble some deep old desk or capacious hold-all, in which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking them through. I should like to come back, after a year or two, and find that the collection had sorted itself and refined itself and coalesced, as such deposits so mysteriously do, into a mould, transparent enough to reflect the light of our life, and yet steady, tranquil compounds with the aloofness of a work of art

-Virginia Woolf

Home Chronicles

2011-11-15T14:22:00.000-08:00

From the Wikipedia article on silva rerum:

In historical Poland it was written by members of the szlachta (Polish nobility) as a diary or memoir for the entire family, recording family traditions, among other matters; they were not intended for a wider audience of printing (although there were a few exceptions); some were also lent to friends of the family, who were allowed to add their comments to them. It was added to by many generations, and contained various information: diary-type entires on current events, memoirs, letters, political speeches, copies of legal documents, gossips, jokes and anecdotes, financial documents, economic information (price of grain, etc.), philosophical musings, poems, genealogical trees, advice (agricultural, medical, moral) for the descendants and others - the wealth of information in silva is staggering, they contain anything that their authors wished to record for future generations)

--Once, my rommates and I started a sort of intragenerational silva. It traveled the world with us for about a year before fizzling out. How illuminating it would be to read now. What a perfect time capsule of our brains working together for that year, thinking of each other, trying to provoke each other to laugh or ponder or create.

Spin-off diary ideas:
Couples' diary (a la the Hawthornes)
Family cookbook
Commonplace book (a la Lovecraft)

(via)

the 11/11/11 party mix of your hopes and dreams

2011-11-11T15:33:00.000-08:00

212 - Azealia Banks

Crash Dummy - Kidz in the Hall feat. Killa Kyleon

Cold as Ice - CyHi da Prince (luv u2 mz. jones)

Posted -Pac Div

Awesome Awesome - Buddy

I'm Flexin - T.I. feat. Big K.R.I.T.

there's no way you won't love this

2011-11-10T12:27:00.000-08:00

jian sword dancing (via)

get me bodied: rapa nui edition

2011-11-08T21:24:00.000-08:00

the easter island statues are more mounmental than you thought. literally. apparently the world's most iconic non-talking heads were originally built with bodies, which have since sunk into the ground (tsunami? earthquake? erosion? other?). the easter island statue project (EISP) aims to unearth these buried parts and reunite them with their faces.

bonus fact: EISP staffs its conservation teams almost entirely with Rapa Nui locals. now that's what i call socially sustainable.

the drum set

2011-11-08T19:32:00.000-08:00

catch me at ho etsu taiko, bringing that chicago swagger, every weekend from now til infinity.

Pictures by Francesca Woodman

2011-11-07T15:53:00.000-08:00

Been reading up on Francesca Woodman. Her photos have an eerily romantic, almost Gothic quality, juxtaposing light, shadow, female bodies, paper, cloth, and houses that threaten to crumble, to consume. More here.

My Favorite Leonard Nimoy Story

2011-11-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

Once, on meeting Leonard Nimoy and his wife, I was gratified to find out...how literate they are. He advised me on the pronunciation of some words in the expression Alle Kunst ist umsunst Wenn ein Engel auf das Zundloch brunzt (which covers a multitude of sins and means something like: all skill is in vain if an angel pisses down the touch-hole of your musket).

--Heather McHugh

Containment

2011-11-03T16:20:00.000-07:00

So long I have been carrying myself
Carefully, carefully, like a small child
With too much water in a real glass
Clasped between two hands, across a space as vast
As living rooms, while gazes watch the waves
That start to rile the little inland sea
And slap against the cliffs' transparency,
Revise and meet, double their amplitude,
Harmonizing doubt from many ifs.
Distant frowns like clouds begin to brood.
Soon there is overbrimming. Soon the child
Looks up to find a face to match the scolding,
And just as he does, the vessel he was holding
Is almost set down safely on the bookshelf.

--A. E. Stallings

Stallings says about Containment: 'I don't want its "sonnetude" to be the first thing to hit the reader, I just want the reader to enter it as a poem. But the sonnet is a form of immense versatility, flexibility and usefulness...very often about either containment or the opposite, the inability to constrain or limit something - this is part of the sonnet's inherent self-referentiality.'

just because you're excited about something doesn't mean you have to end the sentence

2011-11-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

and other useful, if obscure, punctuation marks.

My Favorite Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle Story

2011-10-31T12:27:00.000-07:00

Conan-Doyle once sent an anonymous letter to ten of his friends which read 'We are discovered, flee at once' as a joke. One of his friends disappeared and was never heard from again.

(via)

Fun guessing game: which of your friends would hit the road?

#OWS

2011-10-22T12:48:00.001-07:00

<3 jay smooth

how did they do this?

2011-10-18T11:14:00.001-07:00

there's trickery here somewhere.

gangsta boo feat. la chat

2011-10-16T22:56:00.000-07:00

don't look at me (thanks so many shrimp)

someone call the harlem globetrotters

2011-08-21T15:36:00.001-07:00

pretty sure they found their next choreographer

i started a youtube channel

2011-08-16T15:59:00.000-07:00

so far only posting videos of brass bands.

http://www.youtube.com/user/StrictlyTits

let's go

2011-07-29T15:51:00.000-07:00

thesis homestretching with 3 of my favorite emcees

2011-07-28T12:55:00.000-07:00

“‘Take for instance,’ [Bob said,] ‘doing something as simple as going downtown to a moving picture show. Every white person I come into contact with, every one I have to speak to, even those I pass on the street—every goddamn one of the has got the power of some kind of control over my own behaviour. Not only that they use it—they use it in every way. Say if I ride the streetcar, the conductor can make me stand there waiting for my change or he can make me ask two or three times for a transfer. Then when I get off and walk down the street the pedestrians can make me step aside to let them pass. The cashier at the theatre can sell me loge seats when she knows there aren’t any, and the doorman can send me on up to the balcony, knowing that there aren’t any loge seats, then the usher will find the worst possible seat for me. And there’s the picture—it’s almost certain to offend me in some kind of way. If there’re Negro actors in it the roles they play will be offensive; and if it’s a play with no part at all for Negroes, if you get to thinking about it, you resent the fact of seeing the kind of life shown you’ll never be able to live. The hell of it is, it’s not just one little thing—say if I bought the wrong ticket I could take it back and have it exchanged, but it’s selling me the ticket and making me go through all the rigmarole. But it’s not only that, it’s the pressure they put on you of being able to do these things to you…’”

- Chester Himes, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945), 166-167
(via)

wu tang X my little ponies

2011-07-28T09:43:00.000-07:00

straight outta comp 101

2011-07-27T18:41:00.000-07:00

Because that’s one of the great paradoxes of rap: The toughest, coolest, most dangerous-seeming MCs are, at heart, basically just enormous language dorks. They love puns and rhymes and slang and extended metaphors; they accuse enemies of plagiarism and brag endlessly about their own hard-core habits of revision.

From Sam Anderson's review of The Anthology of Rap.

While something of rap's force must get lost in transcription - no oral art form is properly served when divorced of its rhythm, inflection and flow - I'd love to read this book and judge for myself.

happy birthday america

2011-07-04T10:32:00.000-07:00

james brown japanese cup o noodles commercial

2011-06-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

hardest working man in show business

r. kelly - radio message

2011-06-16T13:11:00.000-07:00

kind of silly, but chicago looks so bright and fresh and lovely in this video, i couldn't resist

guitar hero

2011-06-14T08:28:00.000-07:00

First, open Google Guitar in another window.

Then type in the tune to Star Wars' the Imperial March:
333 1 53 1 53 777 8 53 1 53

If you thought that was fun, maybe check out these other ones.

2011-06-06T14:12:00.000-07:00

NoCanDo - time won't tell (el-p remix)
i want what she's wearing

re:new:mixtape

2011-05-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

if you've been reading this blog/hanging out with me lately/own a radio, you've probably heard summa these jawns. all i did was gather them in a bouquet for you to carry around under your nose.

loveya

re:new:mixtape
Rollin in the Deep [Jamie xx Remix] - Adele feat. Childish Gambino
Ray Ban Vision [Remix] - A-Trak feat. Donnis, Pill, Danny Brown & CyHi Da Prynce
Get Money - Naledge feat. Dee Goodz
I Ain't Shit - Big K.R.I.T.
Shame - Jill Scott feat. Eve
Deep Cover Freestyle - Nitty Scott, MC
You Don't Like It (So What) - Jean Grae
Makes No Sense - Del the Funky Homosapien
Reminded - Tyga feat. Adele
Abrazame [Hold Yuh Riddim] - Los Rakas
For the People - Donny Goines feat. Bobby Creekwater & Mikkey Halsted
Highway to Hell [Ridin' Dirty Mix] - Mexicans with Guns feat. Bun B & Freddie Gibbs

take out 'writers' and sub in whatever you want

2011-05-23T11:27:00.000-07:00

from Richard Hugo's The Triggering Town:

Lucky accidents seldom happen to writers who don't work. You will find that you may rewrite and rewrite a poem and it never seems quite right. Then a much better poem may come rather fast and you wonder why you bothered with all that work on the earlier poem. Actually, the hard work you do on one poem is put in on all poems. The hard work on the first poem is responsible for the sudden ease of the second. If you just sit around waiting for the easy ones, nothing will come. Get to work.

(Via)

A/V Club etymologizes the word 'jawn'

2011-05-23T09:04:00.000-07:00

in a brief interview that also explains philly favorites 'hoagie,' 'down shore,' and 'yo':

There was a suggestion that it could have been some sort of variation on “John,” the name, but people mostly talked about it as coming from “joint,” which seems like the most obvious etymology to me. “Joint,” meaning marijuana cigarette, got extended into referring to anything that’s fun or pleasurable, as in, “That’s the ______.” But it’s difficult when there aren’t a lot of good sources, so there’s a lot of speculation.

via miz jones

for my birthday

2011-05-18T11:55:00.000-07:00

one dress, exactly like this.

his highness gets low

2011-05-18T09:46:00.000-07:00

think he broke out these moves at his son's reception?

in defense of rigorous editing

2011-05-17T16:03:00.000-07:00

“Life is selection, no more. The work of the gardener is simply to destroy this weed, or that shrub, or that tree, & leave this other to grow. The library is gradually made inestimable by taking out from the superabounding mass of books all but the best. The palace is a selection of materials; it’s architecture, a selection of the best effects. Things collect very fast of themselves; the difference between house & house is the wise omissions.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

How to open a new book

2011-05-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

(via)

2011-05-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

i hate hyperbole but this might be the best mariachi cover of pink floyd's 'the wall' i've watched all morning.

martha graham

2011-05-11T09:46:00.000-07:00

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

foetal human faces forming

2011-05-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

guys, think about this for a second. we are literally made of our moms. every part of us used to be a part of her that multiplied and morphed and molded together. each one of us walking around a little mini-mom. whoa.

in other news, people are saying that videos like the one above and the fact that we have hiccups means humans evolved from fish. sounds fishy to me, etc. etc.

isaac asmiov knows what's up

2011-05-09T09:11:00.000-07:00

sent to you from inside a library (more notes here)

justice? served

2011-05-09T05:31:00.000-07:00

jncos are truly a crime against humanity. (via)

one killed, two injured in freak manhole cover accident

2011-05-05T14:06:00.000-07:00

Source: Chicago Tribune, May 30, 1937

asparagus pee

2011-05-04T18:55:00.000-07:00

frankly, it's always delighted me. visceral proof of the body's digestive system at work. a sort of gross magic. but apparently some people don't make smelly pee? and some people do, but can't smell it? in brief:

"Asparagus contains a sulfur compound called mercaptan. It is also found in onions, garlic, rotten eggs, and in the secretions of skunks," they wrote. "The signature smell occurs when this substance is broken down in your digestive system. Not all people have the gene for the enzyme that breaks down mercaptan, so some of you can eat all the asparagus you want without stinking up the place. One study published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology found that only 46 percent of British people tested produced the odor while 100 percent of French people tested did."

yo, those are my people yo.

don't let this happen to you

2011-04-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

while looking up a word online, i spilled hot tea all over my computer.

i've been advised by my school's IT department to let the laptop air-dry. This after an hour spent individually prizing up and wiping down each key. tilting my computer in various directions and mopping up the liquid that seeped out. intimately confronting the filth living beneath the 'fghj' section of my keyboard.

it was a word i'd looked up before. 'racks'. it means, in a rap context, 'stacks of $100 bills'.

hop-in-ion poll

2011-04-26T10:21:00.000-07:00

am i too old to learn how to double-dutch? please say no cuz this looks so freakin fun

Flow (Go)

2011-04-25T09:46:00.000-07:00

Occasionally

carrying the carton
I fantasize

about dropping it

and beating the odds
by breaking

every single egg—

to feel the relief
of none to save.

Occasionally I hope

all hell breaks loose
and I can take

my weight off this

flimsy door
holding back that

last word—lingering

in a lost ward
the warden

is the prisoner of.

-Christopher Phelps (via)

ready set go

2011-04-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

Mike Bigga (Killer Mike) ft. T.I. & Big Boi - Ready Set Go (Remix) from Motion Family on Vimeo.
when you see my brother tell him to come listen to this shit

you could have whatever you like

2011-04-18T16:18:00.000-07:00

if what you like is this adorable dog dancing on the couch

strut off into the sunset

2011-04-15T13:24:00.000-07:00

may we all feel the way this horse walks

petarded

2011-04-13T10:25:00.000-07:00

What was the last word you learned? And I don't mean those flash-in-the-pan Internet portmanteaux that fizzle as soon as they're sparked. Mine is petard.

A list of foods named after people.

As we speak, Cabrini Green is getting torn down. Project Cabrini Green is an art installation that illuminates the empty building with staccato flashes of light, haunting the apartments and reminding passers-by of the lives lived between those concrete walls:

I've been holding out on you: April is National Poetry Month. Here's where I get my daily fix.

Pick one, but choose wisely: 10 Short 'How To' Guides for the Modern Internet Persona.

Lil Wayne is, apparently, only one stretch of skin away from achieving his dream of a full-body tattoo wetsuit. Guess which stretch.

Smokey Robinson, on Being Sampled: "Sample all of mine. (Laughter) Please. I beg of you, sample all of mine, man, because – really, because first of all, what better form of flattery is that, for a young artist who wasn’t even born when that song was written to hear that song and say, “Hey, man, I love this song so much I’m going to include it in one of my songs,” you know what I mean?" More.

slush fund

2011-04-08T15:26:00.000-07:00

parts of chicago still look like this

ray ban remix

2011-04-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

trak keeps getting hotter

back2skool

2011-03-29T11:11:00.000-07:00

"The word does not exist in a neutral language...rather it exists in other people's mouths, in other people's contexts, serving other people's intentions: it is from there that one must take the word, and make it one's own."

- Mikhail Bahktin, Discourse in the Novel