July 2010
69 posts
“I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks—who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering: which word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretence of going à la Sainte Terre”—to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, “There goes a Sainte-Terrer,” a Saunterer, a Holy Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds, but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all, but the saunterer—in the good sense—is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the infidels.”
—the art of walking
Listen
And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there’s doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
“
“Who among us—even today in our jobs—has not looked at the competition and thought, “Keep it real kid, you don’t know who you fucking with.” Of course the next verse begins with “Yeah likewise, tired of rap guys that’s faggots.” What follows are some great lyrics, and truthfully a year ago, it was enough to say, “OK, I’ll never play this publicly.” But the more of it hear in my old music, and the less of it I hear in my new music, my tolerance is wearing down.
It’s the same for Breakfast At Tiffany’s, probably my favorite film of all time. But Mickey Rooney’s yellowface makes it untenable. It is as if someone baked an exquisite chocolate cake, and then having presented it to your party, dumped a shaker worth of salt over the thing. I think this is why we avoid conversations around societal bias. We have so much to defend, and we fear what we may have to leave behind.
I’m not clear that it’s fair for me to hold art that I loved to evolving standards, but one has the right to choose which art they’ll continue to engage. Lately I’ve come to feel that engagement in art that conflicts with my core values, says something about how core those values really are. But this is merely for me, and I’m still working it all out.”
” —revisiting rap years later
Listen
I sympathize with Coates (above). As I get older and (theoretically) wiser, I find it harder and harder to listen to the music I loved when I was younger. Problems with society seem to stem from problems with culture, and rap is problematic. So I find myself listening more and more to other genres, while at the same time searching my stacks for un-problematic songs that I can listen to guiltlessly. Songs that are just good music. This is one of them - later Nas. Reminds me of days like this one, rainy days in New York where all the street sounds are muted, replaced by tires splashing through puddles and the sound of the raindrops pitter-patter on the pavement.
“caught a glimpse of myself in the Barney’s shop window - kinda see my father’s features creeping in a little…”
“One morning it was announced that the men in my ward were to be sent down to Barcelona today. I managed to send a wire to my wife, telling her that I was coming, and presently they packed us into buses and took us down to the station. It was only when the train was actually starting that the hospital orderly who travelled with us casually let fall that we were not going to Barcelona after all, but to Tarragona. I suppose the engine-driver had changed his mind. “Just like Spain!” I thought. But it was very Spanish, too, that they agreed to hold up the train while I sent another wire, and more Spanish still that the wire never got there.”
—
George Orwell - “Homage to Catalonia”
Like Hemingway and certain of his other contemporaries, Orwell traveled to Spain to fight against Fascism during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).
Turns Me On
Big Boi
i used to not like big boi, but in retrospect that was only in comparison to 3000. and that is never a fair comparison.
“Academic training in beauty is a sham. We have been deceived, but so well deceived that we can scarcely get back even a shadow of the truth. The beauties of the Parthenon, Venuses, Nymphs, Narcissuses are so many lies. Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don’t start measuring her limbs. We love with our desires — although everything has been done to try and apply a canon even to love.”
—this is a miserable fate for a man who loves blondes
Listen
my first-born’s name will be ‘florence’ if it’s a girl. and ‘machine’ if it’s a boy.