25 Extremely Upsetting Reactions to Chris Brown at the Grammys

25 Extremely Upsetting Reactions to Chris Brown at the Grammys

This makes me sick. Not just angry. Physically nauseated. Three years after Brown's brutal and extremely public assault on Rihanna and this is how we treat him? By welcoming him back to mainstream pop society with accolades and open arms? What does that say to a generation of young women growing up with Brown & his apologists & champions at the helm of the music industry?

That domestic abuse is okay. That women's bodies, concerns, and voices are secondary. That their personal safety and well-being isn’t such a big deal, and why are we still talking about it, anyway? That their status as human beings worthy of respect is up for negotiation, depending on album sales.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so shocked at this casual normalization of misogyny and violence. After all, Brown’s comeback has been gaining steam for years. At first, I felt deep disappointment with artists like Busta Rhymes and Ludacris who decided to collaborate with Brown after his return. I’m still disappointed, I guess, but it’s transmogrified into a sort of blunted resignation. If I stopped listening to everyone who still works with him, I'd have to delete half my iTunes library.

This shit is just ridiculous. It's a statement made by Grammy producers on finally getting Brown back after two years of benching him:

“We’re glad to have him,” said executive producer Ken Ehrlich. “I think people deserve a second chance, you know. If you’ll note, he has not been on the Grammys for the past few years and it may have taken us a while to kind of get over the fact that we were the victim of what happened.”

Good work, Grammys. You were definitely the victims here. Not Rihanna, whose face we've all seen, beaten and bloodied. Not the women who now think it's desirable, or at least kind of funny, to talk about how much they want Brown to punch them. Nope. You had to twiddle your thumbs a few years before getting this monster back on stage. What a fucking imposition.

burning questions for snowy evenings

Master blues harpist Sonny Boy Williamson - Who's Gonna Take Care of You? (Thanks, Simon)
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UPDATE: God, this footage is fantastic. MTV TRL, eat your heart out:

It's Raining Outdoors Baby


Nine Below Zero (peep the audience at the end. whatta buncha herbs)

for valentine's

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

(via)

The Sleepy Man Banjo Boys

cover Ralph Stanley's How Mountain Girls Can Love.

dogs you meet in heaven

perfect.

Hands on the Wheel

Hands on the Wheel - Schoolboy Q feat. A$AP Rocky

The Writing Life

This is the kind I wants:

Ms. Szymborska lived most of her life in modest conditions in the old university city of Krakow, working for the magazine Zycie Literackie (Literary Life). She published a thin volume of her verse every few years.

That's it. A quiet life. Every day full of letters and thoughts that once in a great while bubble over onto the page.

This from the New York Times' obit of Wislawa Szymborska, a reclusive Polish poet who won the Nobel prize in 1996.  Below is the entirety of one of the poems quoted in their article. It's really kind of perfect.

Cat in an Empty Apartment

Dying--you wouldn't do that to a cat.

For what is a cat to do
in an empty apartment?
Climb up the walls?
Brush up against the furniture?
Nothing here seems changed,
and yet something has changed.
Nothing has been moved,
and yet there's more room.
And in the evenings the lamp is not on.

One hears footsteps on the stairs,
but they're not the same.
Neither is the hand
that puts a fish on the plate.

Something here isn't starting
at its usual time.
Something here isn't happening
as it should.
Somebody has been here and has been,
and then has suddenly disappeared
and now is stubbornly absent.
All the closets have been scanned
and all the shelves run through.
Slipping under the carpet and checking came to nothing.
The rule has even been broken and all the papers scattered.
What else is there to do?
Sleep and wait.

Just let him come back,
let him show up.
Then he'll find out
that you don't do that to a cat.
Going toward him
faking reluctance,
slowly,
on very offended paws.
And no jumping, purring at first.