I've been involved in just general Queer things since as far back as I can remember and even I'm shocked by the progress we've made.
A mainstream, well-known music group dedicating a whole music video directly to Queer kids? Where were you during my childhood! Finally New York (of all places; Stonewall, anyone?) gets marriage. And (while, admittedly, not on a large scale) sensible social change towards gender‽
Dear God, I love it.
It seems the theme of this month has been "Let's revisit all the relationships you fucked up Senior Year." Not that I don't deserve it, mind you. I don't think I've listened to this much ABBA in a while.
Calling tears from deep inside; oh, you're so exquisite… And in the mirror…all midnight eyes Oh, if I could remain, but it's just a visit All midnight eyes…read "vacancy"!
Twisted! Twisting…
To the lovely dancing lights, I begged, "May I cut in?" But they never stopped…playing "their song" Of a joyous song they sing; I've heard whispers On a freezing note, I resonate!
Just like romantic verses…just like a joyous end… Just like a memory, it twists me… Just like romantic verses, just like a joyous end Twiiiii-iiiii-iiiii-iiiiist…twisting me… -AFI
The only benefit I've been able to come up with so far for my insane procrastination this weekend is that it'll result with me in the comp. sci. labs from roughly 1 to 9 in the morning munching on a full pizza and blasting Bruce Springsteen music in a pure marathon (17 albums? Should be enough to last me the night) because no one will be there with me at so late an hour.
Also, my latest music obsession:
So, I know I've been saying I'd do another archaic word of the day for a while now (that being an understatement). And, in pure Jon fashion, I have yet to do it. SO, to make it up to you all, I'm doing three today. You English-lovin' subscribers, start rejoicing.
Since, admittedly, it's been a while, I'll explain the point and purpose behind this little (laxidasical) project of mine again. I'm a writer, and, as such, I love words. I particularly have a taste for the rare and obscure (for whatever reason), so I'm naturally drawn to archaic words. Also, I'm finding I love linguistics, and I like things which are in sort of in-between positions (such as, for example, words that belong to a particular type of a language (I'm thinking British English here) and not others - scrumping being an excellent example. It means to steal, specifically, apples from a garden or orchard (not any other kind of fruit, funnily enough). Use it in an American conversation sometime). Plus I think once a word has a definition, that definition is valid forever.
Also, I'm going to start re-posting the definitions of all the past words when I do this too, so you don't have to figure it out from the example sentences alone or search through my xanga for the original entries.
Now, without further ado...our three new words! They are Weal, Nesh, and Farrant. Farrant, in fact, is so archaic that I can't seem to find a definition of it anywhere other than the text I got it from for my English class and the OED. Also interesting (according to the OED apparently), Farrant has two adjective forms (Farrantly as well). However, seeing as farrantly as an adjective is first seen used several centuries after farrant, it's likely just a product of the language breaking down over time; need further evidence? Quick - adjective, quickly - adverb.
Interestingly for neal, only the World English dictionary (of the dictionaries that dictionary.com lists; I didn't check the OED) list weal as archaic. It's a good crop this time, guys.
1. of a person: Obs. a. well-favored, comely, handsome, good-looking. b. genteel, respectable 2. of a thing: becoming, fit, proper 3. having a specified appearance, disposition, or temperament: auld-farrant, evil-farrant, fair-farrant, fighting-farrant, foul-farrant, well-farrant.
Origin: c1380; probably an application of farande, northern present participle of farev.; compare the sense ‘to suit, befit’ of Old Norse fara
Related forms: farrantly, adjective (same as above) farrantly, adverb
1. wale, welt,Also called:wheal - a raised mark on the surface of the body produced by a blow 2. archaic prosperity or wellbeing the public weal, the common weal 3. obsolete the state 4. obsolete wealth
Mauger the upcoming onslaught of the end-times, I haven't had such a lucucent vision of what I want to do with my life in years. Ere the Hell-demons come, I shall have to do more physical work (my skin is far too nesh at the moment - there are ice demons in Hell, you know). I'm told I have far too acherontic of a future-view but I gainsay those people and tell them the simple truth - they are ignoring our impending reality. I surely find it better that I not allow pride to influence me; should I never deign to speak on the future would be a severe blow against the public weal, surely. If only wish more could learn to be so farrant a person as me.
Naw, this isn't intellect This isn't introspect This is when your rope only has a couple inches left This is when your hopes only have a couple minutes left No matter how dope, your homies will never get respect An' everyday's like I'm tryin' to wage a bigger threat Get heavy play just to try to stage a bigger set My steady ways mean I'll never feel the trigger sweat Yeah, I got plenty of rage - you haven't figured yet? I stomp friends like the bottom of a cigarette 'Fore they do the same to me - it's such a sick effect To be alone is a zone that I fit in best Yes, I leave my problems at home where they can get addressed And why the fuck do they care about how I'm gettin' dressed? I - am - not every other girl that you kids impress I'm more focused on the world than getting bigger breasts I'm about to snap 'em back and hit you in the neck So feel my feelin' 'fore you feelin' like you paralyzed I be writin' the realest - you peerin' into Sarah's eyes And every second of this record leaves me terrified That my optimism lost its rhythm when I dared to fly I am me, that's regardless of these starin' eyes Can't impact judgement when your subject has been sterilized Any questions - I'll be happy just to clarify I just want the chance to answer - hope I've clarified
As you guys might've garnered by now, rap tends to be one of my deep passions. Given that it tends to also receive some of the greatest criticism for both being both still a very young genre (it's only 50 years old, at oldest; and remember the reaction when rock first hit the scene? Okay, not literally remember...) and for its popular genre to happen to be...well, fascinating and yet terrifyingly problematic.
So, whenever I find a really great rap song, I try to share it as much as I can. Most recently, I reviewed Kanye's All of the Lights. I've done lists of some of my favorite story-telling songs. Et cetera.
What's nice about Lady Essence is that she's an underground artist so I feel like I'm encouraging the continual blooming of hip hop here; oh, that's the other thing I like - she clearly listens to rap (some underground emcees - those generally who're not involved in the underground culture - clearly just picked up learning rap because of the popular stuff they've seen and, thus, tend to only focus on rapping without the cultural history of producing beats, deliverance form, and themes), so she's keeping rap in the vein of the hip hop culture. She's part of a three-to-four person crew called In the Attic. Personally, of the other two I've heard, I'm not nearly impressed as I am with her.
On top of having an insane and utterly on point flow, she tends to have fairly intriguing topics. Plus, while not being heavy on the wordplay, her rhyme is insane, to the point that I'm just severely impressed every time she's able to articulate such concrete thoughts while having some insanely complex things going on in her rhyme. I mean, there's nothing that's carried out for all too long but there's barely a line where she's not handling two rhyme schemes at once in the above verse, not to mention that most of her rhymes tend to by multisyllabic.
Plus, "And every second of this record leaves me terrified/That my optimism lost its rhythm when I dared to fly"?? Perfect beautiful articulation of not only how it feels when you're first transferring your written raps to actual performance (it really is quite daunting; there's a reason why most rap listeners tend to also pair as actual rappers, even if only for leisure) but also any kind of self-doubt when you try to be ambitious.
"[M]y optimism lost its rhythm when I dared to fly." Gah, love it.
An actual studio version of this song is on In the Attic's first mixtape, which you can download for free here: http://www.divshare.com/download/12457777-ab0 (don't worry, they released it for free).
Also, the link to Lady Essence at ReverbNation and her Facebook page, respectively: http://www.reverbnation.com/essencehiphop and http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lady-Essence/101023706628841. The ReverbNation page has a bunch of tracks not on the crew album as well as some which don't appear on her Youtube page. If you want the Youtube URL, just follow either Youtube video here - they're both from her channel.
If you haven't heard "All of the Lights" by Kanye yet, I highly suggest listening to it. Someone in the comments said (I know, I shouldn't use YouTube as my barometer for judging society at large) that, while the music was great, the song wasn't saying anything of importance.
Well, I haven't reviewed any music in a long while (and, yes, the Archaic Word of the Day will come...soon), so, I may as well respond.
First off, Kanye easily (okay, probably not easily) accomplishes what I'd want to do with rap if I was any ways along the lines of competency when it comes to producing and sampling.
Essentially, you have the traditional form of beat production which is generally lo-fi samples that stress simplicity. Sure, you also have G-funk but it's generally readily evident that some form of repetition (given that it is a sample being repeated) is at work in the beat.
I would love to really go beyond that. Don't just sample, say, horns or piano but actually have it do something as well. Have it shift and sound live and elaborate while still encompassed by the cadence.
All of the lights is one example where Kanye does this. Rich horns, intermingled with piano. Yet it doesn't just stop there. At one point, the cadence drops out as you just get this fan-fair of horns. At another point, the piano gets its spotlight while a hook is sung over them. "All of the Lights" isn't the utmost best example of this type of dynamic sampling but it's a sufficient one. And it sounds gorgeous.
And the very next thing I love about this track is once again in the production. Loud and defiant, the beat alone (not including the fact it's backed by a great refrain sung by Rhianna) sounds joyous really. Add in the deliciously scattered drums that back most of the song and it really just sounds completely energetic.
And, given the refrain, nothing seems to contradict this: "Turn up the lights in here baby/Extra bright, I want y'all to see this/Turn up the lights in here, baby/You know what I need, want you to see everything, want you to see all of the lights," Rhianna starts off, sounding perfectly fine like a normal pop song. It's uproarious and sounds utterly (simplistically) hedonistic. Rhianna goes on to also mention, "Fast cars, shooting stars, all of the lights, all of the lights," sounding off traditional bravado that we've heard from rap time and time again. But, in the next line of the refrain, she rattles off, "Until they see exactly where we are." Not really menacingly or forebodingly but almost matter-of-factly. What else would you expect with the spotlight/limelight? You want to be watched because you wanted the attention to begin with. In the next lines, delivered in the same vein as the last, she tells us, "If you want, you can get it for the rest of your life," amid harmonizing vocals that continue to build up the soaring refrain. Rather than offer anything new with the last line, she just repeats the fact.
Enter a Kanye that delivers his next two couplets with such perfect building franticness to highlight the utter genius of them that I'm willing to forgive the use of the n-word and appreciate the way the childlike naïveté in his last line (almost refusing to believe it possible that people - or particular people - can die) highlights the point even better: "Something wrong/I hold my head/MJ gone/Our nigga dead!"
Ignoring the many times that Kanye has referenced/used Michael in his work in the past, it perfectly captures 1. the iconic stature of MJ as a figure and, in some cases, a symbol and what that might mean to people but 2. it also gets at how close to home that death really is. For Kanye, he would've grown up with Michael. Death of an artist who deteriorated just like Kanye often seems to, death of his childhood, death of memories of the very first notions of black artists becoming major (lasting) pop icons during the time of MJ's rise to popularity, to list a few things I've read and thought of off the top of my head. Who's to say whether Kanye meant any of them but it's easy to understand the feeling of the very world you understood falling apart under such gigantic changes.
Understandably, that's what continues to follow. A man (narrated through Kanye) goes to jail for hitting his wife. When he comes back, he goes home to find his wife with another man. The verse ends with Kanye declaring, "I had to take him to that Ghetto University!"
And throughout all of this, Kanye sounds utterly paranoid. Which is perfect. Before Rhianna gets to sing the refrain again, Kanye blurts out in venting fashion, "Cop lights, flash lights, spotlights, strobe lights, street lights," before Rhianna joins his for a sung, "All of the lights," after which Kanye gets in again with, "Fast life, drug life, thug life, rock life, every night!"
Which, of course, only makes sense. If you're in the spotlight, everything you do is going to be shown and fully present: the good and the ugly. And it's under those lights that Kanye is so frantic, so desperately paranoid. Because, the lights ensure one other thing - you can't hide. The world is falling apart, (probably even more terrifyingly because) it's your fault, and all of this is on sight for everyone. It's no wonder that Kanye delivers his lines with a near delirium.
The second verse is about as short as the first, opening with, "Restraining order/Can't see my daughter:/Her mother, brother, grandmother hate me in that order," and detailing the narrator's desire to see his daughter, even going as far to stupidly say, "Told her, she take me back -/I'll be more supportive." The verse ends with the lines, echoing the end of the first verse, "She need her daddy/Baby, please/Can't let her grow up in that Ghetto University!"
The first time I heard the phrase, I thought it was stupid. Most poor phrasing from Kanye to vaguely describe thoughts that aren't fully fleshed out. But then I thought about the contrast he's making between the first verse and the second.
In the first, he delivers the lines with an almost brag, despite the obvious hastiness in his voice. There's not really a sense that he feels like he did anything wrong, at least. Sure, he hit his wife. But she's with another man; clearly he should teach them a lesson and beat the crap out of the guy. School him in the ghetto: violence. You cross/fuck with me, I beat your ass.
However, by the second verse, each line seems to be increasing the fear in his voice. By the time he hits, "Baby, please," it sounds like a terrible beg that's fighting to hold back tears. The Ghetto University line, however, sounds like downright fear. And it isn't the same as the first verse; no one is getting beaten up here. But both times something is getting schooled in the ghetto.
And, really, what is a university? It's not just a school. It's higher education, that which is supposed to prepare you for life, give you the life lessons that you keep for life and will ensure your survival in the world. Yet this is not what he wants for his daughter. What would be the result? We might imagine it'd be the exact same as the father. When he shouts for her not to grow up in the Ghetto University, he's literally pleading for his ex-wife to not continue the cycle. Beautifully, Kanye is illistrating the way in which systems like the ghetto just wind up creating a cycle that falls back on itself (father's not there, kid grows up messed up, winds up in jail, repeats the same thing for his kids).
Does this forgive the father? No; just as much as it doesn't forgive Kanye's outburst on the stage with Taylor Swift (or many of the other uniquely Kanye things Yeezy's good at). But it does make him more sympathetic.
Honestly, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is an incredibly impressive album. I'm not sure if it's a perfect album yet (Kanye has an incredible knack for getting guest apprearances that completely don't realize what he was intending to do with the song. Nicki Minaj doesn't ruin "All of the Lights", though she doesn't add much either; though, in her defense, Kanye gave a lot of his guests strangely small space (Fergie's verse is, literally, like 4 lines), plus Nicki Minaj delivers one of the best verses of last year on "Monster"). Regardless, though, there are utter gems like this one on the album, plus - even if the verses aren't perfect - all of the production is absolutely perfect on every song. No lie. I'm not exagerating, 100%. If anything, it'll be wonderful ear candy for you.
I highly suggest getting it.
Heeeeey, little girl, is your daddy home? Did he go away and leave you all alone? Mmhmmm, I gotta bad desire... Oh-ohh-ohhh, I'm on fire...
Tell me now, baby, is he good to you? Can he do to you the things I can do Oh, no...I can take you higher... Oh-ohh-ohhh, I'm on fire...
Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull, and cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my skull...
At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet And a freight train running through the middle of my head Only you...can cool my desire... Oh-ohh-ohhh, I'm on fire...
-Bruce Springsteen
It's no surprise to anyone who knows me that sleep is not exactly my friend. When I get it, it's generally in 12 to 14 hour intervals (regardless of whether I want to be asleep that long) or not at all (I'd never know the morning hours otherwise).
So, in my decision to pull an all-nighter for absolutely no reason (it just felt right...?), several The Arc songs (yes, play me your melodic symphonies!) and more work on my short story later, I decide to look up more on polyphasic sleeping since a friend had mentioned it to me yesterday.
You can see this article here: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/03/polyphasic-sleep-one-year-later/. Don't worry, it's a summation of the experience a year after - because, as a product of the generation that grew up with Google, reading anything (outside of free time) that doesn't simply summarize the answer and information just isn't worth my time. Seriously, summarize, people. It makes life so much easier for the rest of us.
Anyway, the basic idea is this. The polyphasic sleep cycle that the writer of the "article" above used was a simple 20 minute nap routine. Simply do this every 4 hour interval throughout a day. This, in total, equals 2 hours per day.
Why might I do this, you might ask.
Because I ceased thinking about the consequences of anything during Senior year, that's why. Though, on a (remotely) more serious level, there are too many hours of the day I put to waste. Personally, I hate to sleep any of it away. Except maybe the afternoon, but of course that's when everyone's active so I have to do that, now don't I?
So, reducing my sleep to only 2 hours per day sounds splendid. The benefits sound pretty nice as well. Personally, the only benefit I need is long-term sustainability.
Considering that I pulled an all-nighter, I figure I'm in the perfect state to activate REM sleep quickly (not to mention just fall asleep quickly on the fly). The transition should, thus, be more smooth, thus enabling me to test whether this method is suitable for longer periods of time.
My first nap was at 7:30 this morning. My next will start roughly at 12 (I get out of class at 11:50).
Wish me luck.
What is it with me being drawn to German rap these days?
Foreign rap has always interested me because I know the history of American rap rather well. And, when you truly understand its roots, it's almost impossible to separate its cultural roots from those with the black community in America.
So I have to wonder in what way foreign countries come to love the genre. Because, let's be honest, the above video screams pure hip hop - not rap, the culture of hip hop. It makes me miss 90s rap all over again. It's probably the most pure thing I've seen in a long while during this decade of anything resembling hip hop culture.
Which is interesting because how do such pure aspects of the culture get picked up by Germany? Which, while I ask that, I'm being somewhat ironic about. After all, I'm working on my own album that draws off of the history of hip hop though it doesn't represent hip hop in its most pure form, linking the stuggles of urbanization, etc. to other struggles.
But I still find it interesting. Of course, there is no answer to this question with what little I know already. Something to look for in the future.
I so wish I could steal that beat, btw. It sounds absolutely gorgeous.
I'm not even sure this picture makes any sense...but it looks really cool.
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