Thanks to Retronaut for the astounding verse by Yosemite’s gangsta bear from outer space.
Category Archives: representation
Dapper Dan: Respect
You think you know about roots of hip hop? Get correct.
Thanks to Nah Right for the link.
Filed under art, fashion, hip hop, representation
Indigenous people’s day juxtaposition
Thanks to Vintage Ads for the image.
Filed under colonialism, cultural appropriation, human rights, juxtaposition, learning, Native, race, representation, slavery
Andrew W.K. parties with the My Little Pony crew
I’m thinking about Iris Young and her notion of the city.
“What ever you want to play with, it’s okay. It’s more than okay. It’s good.”
‘It was only released in Japan. But you can get it on illegal downloading. Please do.’
50 minutes and the party cannon emerges.
‘I would tell them. It’s totally fine to be in the corner.’
Dude sounds wicked Canadian.
Previously, I wrote about Andrew W.K performing in a wheelchair.
Filed under health, juxtaposition, learning, music, representation
Two takes on bath salts
Thanks for retronaut for the image
When bath salts first appeared in 2010, the products were crudely packaged — a label from an ink-jet printer slapped onto a plastic container, Ryan said. But over time, they began to look increasingly more professional and often specifically tailored to the place. Products in Louisiana donned names like Hurricane Charlie, NOLA Diamond, Bayou Ivory Flower. Bath salts had also surfaced in Illinois, Kentucky and Florida, but Louisiana was hit especially hard.
The product that Sanders snorted was called Cloud 9. At the time of his death, he was in a drug program for marijuana abuse, actively attending group meetings and undergoing frequent drug tests. He was told that the drug was legal, a great high and wouldn’t show up on a drug test.
via The Drug That Never Lets Go.
This contrast came about organically. My RSS feed contained this lengthy essay on the chemical make up of bath salts and the erotic towel advertisement about three hours apart from each other. It was ordained.
Filed under art, colonialism, drugs, health, juxtaposition, representation
Earl Warren and Japanese internment
Thanks to Mother Jones for the image of George Takei.
In the Mother Jones interview with George Takei he gives a fascinating insight into the role of future-Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren in Japanese Internment and the strategic historical silencing of the internments.
GT: Yes, for America it’s a shameful experience—embarrassing—and for some non-Japanese Americans, it’s something they don’t like to talk about. For example the attorney general of California at that time was very ambitious, he wanted to become governor. He saw that the single most popular issue was “getting rid of the Japs,” and he used this to get elected. After two terms he went on to become Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. His name was Earl Warren—a so-called liberal justice. He was prodded and challenged by Japanese Americans throughout his career. He only spoke about it when he was near the end of his life. That’s one reason why our history books are rather mute.
via George Takei, the Best Driver in the Galaxy | Mother Jones.
Filed under human rights, learning, propaganda, race, representation
Juxtaposition: New York Times on spray tans and Toxins in your couch
Artifact one: Who Made That Spray Tan? – NYTimes.com.
Even so, the bottle tan — especially when slathered on — tends to turn out brassier and Snookier than the real thing. But at least it’s safer than a binge in the sun.
HOW SAFE IS THE SPRAY-TAN BOOTH?
Darrell Rigel is a clinical professor of dermatology at the N.Y.U. Medical Center.
Are spray-tan booths, where the customer is standing in a fog of chemicals, safe? The concern used to be that you’re breathing in acetones — those fumes that smell like nail polish. Recent studies have suggested that dihydroxyacetone binds with a protein in your skin, and it does get absorbed systemically, but there are no smoking guns.
What do you tell your patients? I say don’t inhale in there. You’ll probably be O.K., but it’s not a totally benign alternative.
via Who Made That Spray Tan? – NYTimes.com.
Artifact 2: Arlene Blum’s Crusade Against Toxic Couches – NYTimes.com.
The problem is that flame retardants don’t seem to stay in foam. High concentrations have been found in the bodies of creatures as geographically diverse as salmon, peregrine falcons, cats, whales, polar bears and Tasmanian devils. Most disturbingly, a recent study of toddlers in the United States conducted by researchers at Duke University found flame retardants in the blood of every child they tested. The chemicals are associated with an assortment of health concerns, including antisocial behavior, impaired fertility, decreased birth weight, diabetes, memory loss, undescended testicles, lowered levels of male hormones and hyperthyroidism.
via Arlene Blum’s Crusade Against Toxic Couches – NYTimes.com.
Filed under capitalism, communication, juxtaposition, nature, representation
911 as Mitt Romney’s campaign song: Rick Ross and Jay Smooth
Freaking brilliant comparison. The Rick Ross strategy of simply lying to make yourself into a celebrity laid out next to the Mitt Romney campaign who, with the advent of VP candidate Paul Ryan, have take lying to a whole ‘nother level.
“Post-realness” indeed.
As someone who has read about the stories Gary Webb reported about the CIA selling cocaine to California gangs, the origin of the “Freeway” Rick Ross name, I’ve felt kind of icky about the linguistic hijack Rick Ross presents. Sort of like someone taking a mass murderers name (Jim Jones?) and re-branding it for sale to teenage pop fans, the choice to appropriate this particular criminal for a nom-de-tough-guy has never sat well with me.
When the real drug-dealer Freeway Rick Ross sued the rapper Rick Ross and lost, I was astounded. I remember ranting at that time that the rapper was impervious to reality.
Jay Smooth suggests the entire republican campaign is generating an inviting and fictional narrative. And like Rick Ross, one that will be resistant to suggestions that it isn’t factually correct. Some communications corrode against other communications.
In this sense, Rick Ross might be the best comparison to the Mitt Romney campaign. “Post-realness” means just making it up and then calling anyone who disagrees with you a bad name.
Since the G.O.P. is having a tough time finding any musician who will allow them to use any of their music, perhaps they should ask Rick Ross if they can use 911? I think it is as strong an ideological fit as Ted Nugent’s “Cat scratch fever.”
1. Explicit biblical reference to open the conversation? Check
2. Focus on wealthy people with explicit disregard for the poor? Check
3. Retaliatory ethics with encouragement of NRA gun violence? Check
4. Consumer identity presented as patriotism? Check
5. Pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps bullshit? Check
6. Women included via objectification? Check
You may know that Rick Ross’s new protege Gunplay (the other guy in the video) has a swastika tattooed on the back of his neck. If Rick Ross’ Maybach Music Group did become more explicitly aligned with the Republican party, the value of Gunplay on the roster would obviously go way up. Not only is his name an NRA wet-dream, but the swastika tattoo would probably help get the votes of those die hard right-wingers who didn’t feel that the GOP showed enough visible Nazi tattoos.
Filed under communication, hip hop, juxtaposition, media, music, propaganda, representation
Kiese Laymon and how to slowly kill yourself and others in America
Thanks to wikipedia for the gun photo.
Kiese Laymon is currently an Associate Professor of English and the co-director of Africana Studies at Vassar College. This essay was originally published on his blog, Cold Drank, and was republished with permission. It is an excerpt from Laymon’s forthcoming book, On Parole: An Autobiographical Antidote to Post-Blackness. Laymon is also the author of the forthcoming novel, Long Division, which will be released in early 2013.
I’ve had guns pulled on me by four people under Central Mississippi skies — once by a white undercover cop, once by a young brother trying to rob me for the leftovers of a weak work-study check, once by my mother and twice by myself. Not sure how or if I’ve helped many folks say yes to life but I’ve definitely aided in few folks dying slowly in America, all without the aid of a gun.
via How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: A Remembrance.
The college decides that two individual fraternity members, Shonda and I will be put on disciplinary probation for using “racially insensitive language” and the two fraternities involved get their party privileges taken away for a semester. If there was racially insensitive language Shonda and I could have used to make those boys feel like we felt, we would have never stepped to them in the first place.
via How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: A Remembrance.
Mama’s antidote to being born a black boy on parole in Central Mississippi is not for us to seek freedom; it’s to insist on excellence at all times. Mama takes it personal when she realizes that I realize she is wrong. There ain’t no antidote to life, I tell her. How free can you be if you really accept that white folks are the traffic cops of your life? Mama tells me that she is not talking about freedom. She says that she is talking about survival.
via How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: A Remembrance.
Filed under academics, communication, human rights, juxtaposition, learning, police, race, representation
Life of refinement 