In the Waka / Gucci contrast I’ve noted before that Waka holds the Snoop Dogg path of long-term success. Despite releasing albums like Flockavelli where he is splattered with blood.
Waka simultaneously seems to be welcome in the pop culture sphere. In some ways because of his bloody rhyme content and choice of representation and his willingness to play a role in the phone scene from mean girls.
http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/997405/throwback-theater-mean-girls.jhtml#id=1721274
Filed under communication, hip hop, juxtaposition, representation
Artifact One: Fiona Apple at a Tokyo fashion event.
Apple grew frustrated with the ongoing chatter in the venue, a hall at Tokyo Station Hotel, where the exhibition makes its home. Partway through her short set, she climbed on top of her grand piano and asked the audience to be quiet so that she could perform. She then challenged everyone to be silent for the duration of a tone she created by striking a small metal bell. The performer grew even more angry when the noise in the venue continued.
Apple instructed the audience to “shut the f–k up” and uttered other expletives, both audibly and under her breath, calling the event’s attendees “rude.” She continued with her set before shouting, “Predictable! Predictable fashion, what the f–k?” as she stormed off the stage. The show was punctuated with other bizarre moments, such as when she hit her head with her microphone, did a back bend over her piano bench and stared intensely at her guitarist as if in a love-struck trance.
via Louis Vuitton Toasts ‘Timeless Muses’ in Tokyo – Parties – Eye – WWD.com.
Artifact 2: Dave Chappelle walking off the stage at a Connecticut comedy club.
Chappelle wasn’t having a meltdown. This was a Black artist shrugging the weight of White consumption, deciding when enough was enough. This isn’t the first time Chappelle has done so and it isn’t the first time his behavior has been characterized as a meltdown.
There is a long history of asking African-Americans to endure racism silently; it’s characterized as grace, as strength. Chappelle’s Connecticut audience, made up of largely young White males, demanded a shuck and jive. Men who seemed to have missed the fine satire of the Chappelle show demanded he do characters who, out of the context of the show look more like more racist tropes, than mockery of America’s belief in them.
When he expressed shock at the fact that he’d sat there and been yelled at for so long, people yelled that they’d paid him. They felt paying for a show meant they could verbally harass him, direct him in any tone of voice, as though they’d bought him.
via Dave Chappelle Didn’t Melt Down – Entertainment & Culture – EBONY.
Filed under art, fashion, juxtaposition, media, protest, race, representation, resistance, vulnerability
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
Artifact one:
Recent wins don’t undermine these tragedies in any way. In fact, it’s all that much harder to see the most marginalized in our community facing violence at the same time that we’re winning victories. Changes in our laws don’t mean people automatically stop hating us. Sometimes increased visibility can mean increased violence. We have to continue working to change people’s minds while we also work to change the laws. Trans women of color continue to face the worst transphobic violence. So we have to continue working deliberately to lift up the voices of trans women of color, to make sure the community most impacted can speak for themselves and humanize themselves.
via A sea change in transgender rights.
Artifact two:
Filed under communication, feminism, hip hop, homophobia, human rights, juxtaposition, representation
Artifact 1:
Thirty-four people were arrested, mostly on suspicion of weapons violations, and 23 guns were recovered in a law enforcement sweep targeting probationers, officials said Thursday.
The operation Wednesday was confined to the area represented by L.A. County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, including locations in the San Gabriel Valley.
More than 250 officers participated in the countywide operation, including the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, the Los Angeles County Probation Department, the Pasadena Police Department, the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services’ Multi-Agency Response Team (MART), and members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
via Gun sweep centered in San Gabriel Valley nets 34 arrests – latimes.com.
Artifact 2:
Around 200 U.S. military personnel will remain in Iraq after this year, but only to administer arms sales and other limited military exchanges as members of the U.S. diplomatic mission.
via U.S. military formally ends mission in Iraq – latimes.com.
Filed under juxtaposition, media
Artifact 1. The editor-in-chief of the Bay Citizen was gassed in the #occupy oakland actions.
I looked down and my hand was black, my four fingers covered in toxic chemicals. I couldn’t feel my hand much but could clench it and unclench it and assumed I was okay. My blue flannel shirt also was black, stained where the canister had struck me and discharged. I was soaked in tear gas, but for some reason it was having less of an effect than the burning on my hand.
Another strange but not entirely unexpected thought popped into my head: 6 inches lower and it would have hit me in the crotch.
Artifact 2. South Korean debate involves MPs using tear gas in the parliament building.
An opposition MP set off a teargas canister in the South Korean parliament in a failed attempt to prevent the ruling party passing a free trade deal with the US.
Proponents said the deal, the largest US trade pact since the 1994 North America Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), could increase commerce between the two countries by up to a quarter. But the opposition claims it will harm South Korean interests, putting jobs at risk.
via South Korean MP lets off teargas in parliament | World news | guardian.co.uk.
Filed under colonialism, documentary, human rights, juxtaposition, resistance
Artifact one: Camping before the Twilight premier
Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters/Landov
Artifact 2: Camping at #occupy oakland
Thanks to #occupy contra costa for the photo
Filed under capitalism, communication, juxtaposition, protest, representation
Artifact 1: US soldiers in Iraq and immunity from prosecution
One of the sticking points in the negotiations with Iraq was a US demand that American forces remaining in the country after December would enjoy the same immunity from prosecution as they do now. The Iraqi government, conscious of public anger over many controversial incidents involving US troops and defence contractors over the last decade, refused.
via Iraq rejects US request to maintain bases after troop withdrawal | World news | guardian.co.uk.
Artifact 2: US soldiers in South Korea and immunity from prosecution
Still, attitudes toward the 28,500 U.S. servicemen and women stationed in South Korea have deteriorated. Many residents call for the South Korean government to end its diplomatic agreement that allows for the U.S. troop presence, claiming that they’re more afraid of the U.S. military peacekeepers than the North Korean regime they are supposed to be protected them from.
Seoul dance clubs once frequented by U.S. military now bar admission to American soldiers after concern expressed by female patrons, according to local press reports here. South Korea also created a task force to seek revisions to the Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, that governs the legal status of U.S. troops in South Korea and elsewhere.
Activists here say that the SOFA, signed in 1965 and amended in 1995 and 2001, is unjust because it goes too far in protecting U.S. soldiers. Many want the police here to be given more legal jurisdiction to investigate sex crimes involving American soldiers.
via Alleged rapes by U.S. soldiers ratchet up anger in South Korea – latimes.com.
Filed under capitalism, colonialism, human rights, juxtaposition
Artifact 1:
January 31: Mubarak still refuses to step down, amid growing calls for his resignation. Protesters continue to defy the military-imposed curfew. About 250,000 people gather in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and hundreds march through Alexandria.
via Timeline: Egypt’s revolution – Middle East – Al Jazeera English.
Artifact 2:
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Protesters say they’re ready to face arrest again on the fourth day of the “Occupy Sacramento” demonstrations, but they are now calling for city leaders to rescind the curfew that makes it illegal to continue protests overnight.
About 14 protesters were arrested after midnight following Saturday’s event, and the attendees of Sunday’s march said they were prepared to follow suit and remain at Cesar Chavez Park until police arrested them.
“These arbitrary rules that say at midnight at this park, you’re not allowed to be here, that’s ridiculous,” said protester Morgan Lesko.
via ‘Occupy Sacramento’ Protests Demand City Rescind Park Curfew « CBS Sacramento.
Filed under capitalism, colonialism, juxtaposition, media, protest
Artifact #1: (How suspect are packaged greens?)
The stuff bought whole and chopped on the kitchen counter is definitely more healthful.
This is because time, temperature and damage during harvest and packing can deplete vitamins and other nutrients. Vegetables begin to shed them the second they’re picked.
via The Food & Drink Issue – Interactive Feature – NYTimes.com.
Artifact #2: (Michael Pollen answers reader’s questions)
Frozen vegetables and fruits are a terrific and economical option when fresh is unavailable or too expensive. The nutritional quality is just as good — and sometimes even better, because the produce is often picked and frozen at its peak of quality. The only rap is that freezing collapses the cell walls of certain fruits and vegetables, at some cost to their crunch. But this has no bearing on nutrition.
via The Food & Drink Issue – Interactive Feature – NYTimes.com.
Life of refinement 
