SilverJacket

Rapping Is Wrapping

Rapping is very meta. A lot of rapping is about how good you are at rapping. Or about how successful and wealthy you are—thanks to being good at rapping.

Sometimes you think rappers might be rapping about something other than rapping, like The Genius here in "Liquid Swords":

I'm on a mission that niggas say is impossible,
But when I swing my swords they all choppable.
I be the body dropper, the heartbeat stopper,
Child educator plus head amputator.

But it's all just a metaphor for rapping. The next lines in the verse:

Cause niggas' styles are old like Mark 5 sneakers.
Lyrics are weak, like clock radio speakers.

GZA amputates your head lyrically. The "s" in "swords" is merely stylistic.

When rap is completely meta, just a pure feedback loop devoid of any story or lesson, the fun lies in the rapper's creative flourishes, the ornamentation on the perpetual motion machine. There are uncountable ways to say "I'm good (at saying I'm good (at saying I'm good (at saying...)))"

But even given rap's overwhelming self-referentiality, I was struck recently when I re-listened to the R&B song "Feels Good" by Tony! Toni! Toné!.

Here are the lyrics to the rap interlude.

Mosadies the Mellow, quite a nice fellow.
Met three T, hit a rhyme acapello.
They had the rhythm and I had the rhyme,
So then I hit it that one more time.
It worked out and then they worked it in.
Tony Toni Tone has done it again!

As you can see, nearly the entire rap (five of the six lines) is about the arrangement and recording of the rap. Explicitly. No fancy (s)wordplay of note. (Unless you count "it worked out" as brag-worthy braggadocio.) What I'm saying is, I think this might be the most pointless rap interlude ever.

Any other contenders?

Breaking: Woman Boards Plane, Later Disembarks

Apparently an airplane Michelle Obama was on had to circle an airport once before landing so as to give the airplane in front of it enough time to land and get off the runway.

Does it seem odd that The New York Times spent 670 words on this story? Quotes:

"the official described the event as 'routine.'"

"That problem occurs dozens of times a day with airliners at civilian airports around the country, according to aviation experts."

"'the aircraft were never in any danger.'"

"the aerial choreography in this case was not unusual"

"It is reported that she drank some water during the flight--water that, it should be known, had nothing wrong with it. Just perfectly normal water."

Okay, I made the last one up. 

Osbourne Unwound

My roommate Tracy and I started watching America's Got Talent this season because we know some people who tried out for it. (For example, ArcheDream for Humankind, who have spent years producing blacklight shows that are much more rich than the cool but gimmicky stuff put on by the Fighting Gravity frat boys who are now in the semifinals.)

One of my favorite acts on the show has been ArcAttack!, whom I saw performing a scaled-down version of their electrifying show last year at Gizmodo Galley 2009 . In any case, Sharon Osbourne, one of the judges, uttered a pretty hilarious racial slur this week. Due to their Frankenstein theme, I think she meant to call the members of ArcAttack! a group of "geeks and ghouls" or "geeks and spooks" but instead called them a group of "geeks and gooks." 

"Geeks and spools" would have been more technically accurate.

Listen for it in the clip here at 3:29.

Unimpressed with unfriending

I realized recently while writing about blogging protocol that spell-checkers do not recognize the word unpublish. Odd, I thought at first; it's an essential part of my vocabulary. Then: Of course it's not in dictionaries! Before the Internet, unpublishing a piece of writing made about as much sense as undropping an apple. Sure, you could cease publication (Stop the presses!), but once a book or newspaper is out there, it's out there. 

I learned today that the New Oxford American Dictionary named unfriend its 2009 Word of the Year. Unpublish would have served as a less gimmicky option (although maybe gimmickry is part of the criteria for selection). Unfriend in common parlance is restricted to social networking sites. Further, as a general concept, it's not novel. Friends have become enemies for millennia.

Unpublish, on the other hand, signifies one of the largest revolutions in communication since one could publish in the first place. And it's not restricted to getting back at a Facebook acquaintance who uninvited you to her killer birthday party.

Unfortunately, Web publishing may be headed toward one of the words Oxford considered and rejected: paywall. Now there's a surefire way to unfriend your readership.

The Truth is Out There

Conspiracy theorists drive me batty. They distract everyone from the truth. Like those people who think the government brought down the World Trade Center on September 11. When the real cover-up is much more subtle. Everything happened exactly as the government says it did… but on September 12. Memory is so malleable, we don’t even remember that. They shaped the media portrayals because it’s much easier to sell a war when the twin towers graphically line up with the date.

Beware of the Unicorn

This is the actual cover of the January 2009 issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies (a publication I have read recreationally, albeit sporadically, since college).

Big Bopper

Susan recorded my back as I danced at Bioluminescence (yes, on a boat). So sneaky!

Matt Plays with Fire.

Last month at the first Vitamin B party I did a fair amount of fire spinning on the roof. A couple of people recorded me and one video made it online: (Shizaru lights me up around 0:30)

I haven't been spinning with fire very long, but I've been doing poi about a year, and this is the first time I've actually seen what I look like. I'm quite relieved to see that the practice has been worthwhile and I do not look completely goofy.

What's in Playa Dust and Pixie Dust?

Books for Poors

Recently a friend asked me what I thought the tanking economy was going to do to the book industry. I said those Chicken Soup for the Soul books would probably get a sales boost, but everyone else is fucked. Well, except for me, because I'm publishing a new line of books modeled on the X for Dummies series. It's called X for Poors. Here's my first one: Wine for Poors.

Now taking suggestions. (Feng Shui for Poors? Like, which way should the entrance of your carboard box face?)