The best reaction to Date Night

The Obamas were in Manhattan last night for a performance of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and dinner at Blue Hill. Bruni is unrelentingly Bruni in response. This tickled me:

In the very predictability of this choice, in its all-too-neat squaring with the officially sanctioned food agenda, in its absence of surprise or abandon, isn’t it ever so slightly disappointing? Just a little too pat and controlled?

During the 2008 campaign Mr. Obama sometimes came across — and was often portrayed — as someone almost joylessly disciplined and restrained around food, and that discipline and restraint went hand in hand with an unflappability that, on occasions, made it difficult for him to connect.

It would have been fun to see the president contradict that impression and play against type when he and the first lady sat down to dinner in New York. It would have been interesting to watch him bust loose and reach for something rich, messy, decadent, gluttonous: a plate of fatty lamb ribs at Resto; some pâtés and terrines at Bar Boulud; one of the offal dishes at Babbo; that killer bone-in New York strip at Minetta Tavern; the oyster pan roast at the John Dory . . .

[Diner's Journal]

Trying to work up the courage to finish this book

First came the sound of wind, a rushing we decided later must have been caused by her wedding dress filling with air. This was brief. A human body falls fast. The main thing was just that: the fact of a person taking on completely physical properties, falling at the speed of a rock. It didn’t matter whether her brain continued to flash on the way down, or if she regretted what she’d done, or if she had time to focus on the fence spikes shooting toward her. Her mind no longer existed in any way that mattered. The wind sound huffed, once, and then the moist thud jolted us, the sound of a watermelon breaking open, and for that moment everone remained still and composed, as though listening to an orchestra, heads tilted to allow the ears to work and no belief coming in yet. Then Mrs. Lisbon, as though alone, said, “Oh, my God.”

What you gonna do when they come for you?

Have Erykah Badu on repeat recently. The above is one of my favorite vids, featuring former real-life boyfriend Andre 3000. He’s a handsome dude under those crazy get-ups. I’ve always had a thing for him.

This is a gem on a whole nother level:

The lyrics are just so damn good. Lacking context to quote it, I will just reproduce here:

Your booty might be bigga
But I still can pull your nigga
But I don't want him
Ya got sugar on your pita
But ya nigga thinks I'm sweeter
But I don't want him
Ya know the whole encyclopedia
But ya nigga thinks I'm deeper
But I don't want him
Got a whole lot a junk off in ya trunk
But ya nigga think I'm live and I keep him crunk
I don't want him

Your kisses might be wetter
But your nigga likes mine better
But I don't want him
Ya got the beans and rice and the hot ho cakes
But ya nigga still over here in my plate
I don't want him
Ya got a PHD, Magna Cum Laude
But ya nigga love me with a GED
I don't want him
You the one with all the money
And he knows my money's funny
But I don't want him

Got ya pad all decked out fa sho
But ya niggas at my door, thought
I don't want him
Well you can do the butterfly and the tootsie roll
But ya nigga straight sprung off the way I stroll
I don't want him
Ya know the whole 120 + degree
But you can't keep ya guy up off his knees
I don't want him
Got a 9-5 and a 6-10
But ya nigga told me not to work again
I don't want him

Hey, hey, hey
I don't want him
Cause of what he doin to you
And you don't need him
Cause he ain't ready

Fuck yes.

I don’t have the chops to make a judgment on her record, and a lot of the shit written about her, sources included, just sounds like straight-up bigotry. “She can be difficult.” What fucking lawyer isn’t?

Reality is, she hasn’t proven herself yet. I know this much: she has an amazing biography, and she is qualified. I’ll trust the man on the last one. I don’t know how much of the decision was based on her ability versus her biography. And, I don’t care right now.

For now, I’m just going to be happy about this. Just say it to yourself: a Black president. A Hispanic female supreme court justice. Fucking elated.

Now if only we could do something about this. *Shakes head*

[Pic from this awesome interactive.]

Home is where you mail your rent checks to

I had a great, frenzied time in Providence. I ended up at the waffles and champagne breakfast, where we drank Andre straight from the bottle and Will splashed around in a wading pool in his underwear. Then we went to Loui’s, and before I knew it the sun was up, it was morning.

I parted with Will and found my way to Stephanie’s backyard, which is the front yard of the house I lived in senior year. Its ingenious new residents had built an outdoor room (pictured), which for the purpose of sounding cool I will call a fort. There was a hammock in the fort, where I slept for about two hours when I was awaken by rain. I stumbled to Stephanie’s apartment and collapsed on her couch.

The ride back to New York was incredibly peaceful. On Saturday we made our way down Pelham, through Yonkers and the Bronx. The Major Deegan carried us over auto shops, then past Yankee Stadium, over the bridge and onto 137th street, where the streets grew closer and people walked about.

Down Fifth Avenue and housing project after housing project turned to brownstones. We made the turn around Mount Morris park, and the brownstones turned to the new brick townhomes. I spent the summer of 2006 in the basement of one of them. From that apartment, I watched the same buses I was on make their way down Fifth Avenue coming from my then-home, Providence. This evening I felt the reverse—I was returning home, the place I was leaving feeling more like the past.

How good He is

I escaped Providence in tact. Praise be. Not sick, to my knowledge, though a little achy. To bed early.

The Atlantic does Hip Hop

It didn’t turn out so bad, though low expectations are a factor. Two of the writers were really smart, and if it had been just them I think it could have gone further, but the third kept dragging them down into the burden of representation muck. That is, the larger expectations placed on rap music–in this case, political. A commenter on Ta-Nehisi Coates’ blog described it well, though in service of an objectionable point:

the discussions are framed by either:

1. (mostly white) rock/pop critics who don’t know or care much about rap beyond what appeals to (mostly white) rock/pop critics.

or

2.) rap revisionists, KRS-type 4 elements zealots, hip hop “activists,” simpletons who think in binaries (“conscious vs gangsta…underground vs. corporate…hip hop vs. rap”), and out of touch hip hop academics, who care so much about hip hop that they have an unhealthy and unrealistic view of its history and importance.

Anyway, there’s not much to say on this that hasn’t been said already, but this, at least, I hadn’t heard before:

I’m not saying that hip-hop has not entered into larger conversations on inequality; nor am I saying that it has failed to inspire people. (Isn’t this what Jeezy’s entire career has been about? Motivating people?) But the idea of “political rap songs” seems to overdetermine what the music is about—and it is music.

[...]

there’s more to [representation] than authenticity and protest. Sometimes that protest isn’t literal—it’s a protest of form (like Lil Wayne). Sometimes it’s a strike against “community,” as with Wayne’s unhinged, solitary “I Feel Like Dying” or DOOM’s Born Like This. And sometimes it’s just masquerade. N.W.A. was angry as fuck—but they were also performing the part of being angry as fuck.

It’s a testament to how out of hand the discussion around hip hop has gotten that so simple a point seems so groundbreaking. Hip hop should be judged as music–Gasp! It’s  the only starting point for a discussion on it. Next time fools get out of hand talking, remind them of that.

More on hate

A tidbit, from T-NC:

The city of Philadelphia, Miss., where members of the Ku Klux Klan killed three civil rights workers in 1964 in one of the era’s most infamous acts, on Tuesday elected its first black mayor.

[NYT]

That skinny nigga on the boat?

Last day of work this week. Tomorrow is Providence. Commencement.

Benji & Ice Cube

An interesting passage from Sag Harbor:

We’d learned to change the character of our fighting and would continue to do so for the rest of our lives, readjusting for different provocations, different stakes. The music grew up, too, testicles dropping, voice changing, going from this:

Rhymes so def, rhymes rhymes galore
Rhymes that you’ve never even heard before
Now if you say you heard my rhyme, we gonna have to fight
‘Cause I just made the motherfuckers up last night

To this, in so short a time:

“Hey yo, Cube, there go that motherfucker right there.”
“No shit. Watch this…Hey, what’s up, man?”
“Not too much.”
“You know you won, G.”
“Won what?”
“The Wet T-Shirt Contest, motherfucker!”
(sounds of gunfire)

[…]

“Wet’cha,” as in “wet your shirt with blood.” All of us, the singers and the audience were of the same generation. Something happened. Something happened that changed the terms and we went from fighting (I’ll knock that grin off your face) to annihilation (I will wipe you from this Earth). How we got from here to there are the key passages in the history of young black men that no one cares to write. We live it instead.

This is a powerful parallel set up here. My main complaint about the book is that the transitions from humor to seriousness are often forced, as in the above. I would definitely chop off the last sentence, maybe even the last two. Humor isn’t Whitehead’s natural form—it’s closer to the last two lines.