NYZD

Being a writer today means:

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 04:41:54 -0400

Too mired in self-doubt AND too busy w/ pageviews to dare to wonder if there are people who like your writing.

MAGNA CARTA HOLY GRAIL works, but so would’ve THE...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:07:52 -0400

MAGNA CARTA HOLY GRAIL works, but so would’ve THE CONSTITUTION MORGAN FREEMAN or WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE LOBSTER BISQUE, so I’ve got 25 alternate album titles for Jay-Z. Have fun.

Jay-Z's New Album Is Called 'Magna Carta Holy Grail,' and It's Coming in a Few Weeks | Vulture

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 23:44:00 -0400

Jay-Z's New Album Is Called 'Magna Carta Holy Grail,' and It's Coming in a Few Weeks | Vulture:

popculturebrain:

And there’s a trailer:

Through.

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:15:00 -0400

nayyirahwaheed:

oh, writing it
writing it
is nothing.
now,
feeling it.
feeling it long enough
to
write it.
that’s the work.

through, by Nayyirah Waheed

This woman’s poems…

Photo

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 02:55:00 -0400

“Booking It” by Britt Julious

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 11:01:41 -0400

britticisms:

The Printer’s Row Lit Fest is this weekend. Wrote a personal essay for the WBEZ tumblr on what the festival means to me and growing up with an obsession with both reading the act of collecting physical books.

(via wbez)

I am a collector. What I want is knowledge, the power to hold in my hand ideas not my own, ideas that are too great for any one person, ideas that startle and surprise.

I used to move from apartment to apartment, feeling dissatisfied from year to year. There was always something that could be better, that should have met my wants. But I’ve lived in my current home for two years, the desire to go someplace else a dull ache of curiosity rather than a frantic urge. What I remember too is not just the pleasure of someplace new, but also the getting there. After the first few moves, my father said he was too old, too weak to assist in the moving process. But really, there were too many books. We rolled a dining room table up three flight of stairs. Boxes and boxes of books were another matter.

If you love books, you’ll love Britt’s newest piece on books. (And here’s an earlier essential one by her, on Jamaica Kincaid.)

Photo

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 13:56:39 -0400

"Both of these incidents go a long way toward illustrating a larger point about leaning on racist..."

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 02:52:00 -0400

“Both of these incidents go a long way toward illustrating a larger point about leaning on racist jokes: That shit is seriously only funny to idiots. People who spend a lot of time defending racism like to point out that racist jokes are OK, as long as they’re funny — which might conceivably be true, except for one glaring problem. The problem is that when you’re relying on the glorious power of stereotype to make your comedic point, you are, by definition, not making an original observation about humanity. You might manage to tickle the idiot few with your ‘insights,’ but keep it up and your audience starts to get the feeling that they’ve heard this shit before. And then, all of a sudden, boom, you become the senile grandpas of the digital age, endlessly repeating racist shit. P.S. This, by the way, is where people who are extra invested in their racist worldviews will trot out some claim that ‘stereotypes exist for a reason,’ as if that qualifies as an argument. Have you considered, racists, that the reason stereotypes exist is because they’re constantly reinforced by, you know, racists?”

- —amazing Yo, Is This Racist/Andrew Ti column from 2012 from Grantland

popculturebrain: Poster: CBS’ ‘Under the Dome’ | Dread...

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 21:07:24 -0400

popculturebrain:

Poster: CBS’ ‘Under the Dome’ | Dread Central

My heart.

Oh man.

Dave Chappelle’s Block Party. One of the coolest, most...

Fri, 31 May 2013 09:00:14 -0400

Dave Chappelle’s Block Party. One of the coolest, most valuable movies ever made. Enjoy while it’s just sitting here on YouTube for some reason.

WHO WILL SURVIVE IN AMERICA? WHO WILL SURVIVE IN AMERICA? WHO WILL SURVIVE IN AMERICA?

Thu, 30 May 2013 17:20:00 -0400

3lc3lc3lc:

A lot of critics of “New Slaves” seem perturbed by the fact that Kanye is not the first to espouse or rap about racism and political ideals. I feel like “…and?” is a sufficient response, but to elaborate: this criticism suggests not only that it is not worthy to revisit topics initiated by, say, the Black Panthers or Public Enemy or Gil Scott Heron (all of whom Kanye is intimately familiar with—let’s revisit “Crack Music”: “How we stop the Black Panthers? Ronald Reagan has the answer/ You hear that? What Gil Scot was Heron”) because, you know, been there done that, but also that the context and platform of Kanye’s approach are unremarkable and precedented. They are not. No figure in mainstream culture, with as universal and inescapable and unremovable a presence in the average person’s life, has challenged that very culture so blatantly in decades. The ideals of Public Enemy are as relevant today as they were in the 80’s, but hip-hop was nowhere near as dominant and omnipresent a cultural force as it is at this moment; to compare the reach of their messages is silly. Upper-middleclass white families did not have to deal with Public Enemy if they didn’t want to. Similarly with politically-minded “noise rap” artists that have been name-dropped in reviews of Kanye’s new material—it’s all well and good for Death Grips and Blackie and even Killer Mike to espouse similar messages and sounds (and honestly, the sonic qualities of “New Slaves” and “Black Skinhead” are hardly at the top of the list of why they’re important), but none of them have anywhere near the amount of visibility and influence as Kanye, even if they did hit it first. The position from which Kanye is delivering his message is essential to the message’s power; for this same reason, while it may seem crass that a pop star be the one delivering these messages, from a logical perspective it’s perfectly effective (returning to “Crack Music”: “And we’ve been hanging from the same tree ever since/ Sometimes I feel like the music is the only medicine”).

Tell me how do you respond to students
And refresh the page and restart the memory
Respark the soul and rebuild the energy
We stop the ignorance, we kill the enemy
(“Dark Fantasy”)

Many people seem to think that Kanye’s gestures are ultimately empty because, you know, he’s an asshole, remember, and an egomaniac, and he’s clearly just reaching for new ways to get attention. People in current positions of comfort and stability are so willing to dismiss the transgressive thoughts of an angry black man that they will use any convenient excuse to diminish from them; if someone says something that makes you uncomfortable, why not immediately change the subject to his girlfriend’s ass or that time he yelled at a papparazzi or that time he got drunk and embarrassed a white girl? When was it exactly that Kanye shifted, in the eyes of the mainstream, from lovable polo-wearing backpacker to perpetually and unanimously An Asshole? When, precisely, did everything he said get immediately categorized as a “rant” or “controversial” regardless of the actual content? I want to say it was around the time when he said that George Bush didn’t care about black people on live tv. Hmm. Odd.

What a way to find out about Meaghan Garvey. One of the best things on Kanye I’ve ever read. This is only a snippet. Strongly suggest a full read.

"If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its..."

Thu, 30 May 2013 14:27:00 -0400

“If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isn’t ‘is this a potential friend for me?’ but ‘is this character alive?’”

- Claire Messud, after being asked if she’d want to be friends with The Woman Upstairs’s protagonist.

[hat-tip to Vulture]

How Ticketmaster Made Online Ticket-Buying Terrible | Flavorwire

Tue, 28 May 2013 23:39:33 -0400

How Ticketmaster Made Online Ticket-Buying Terrible | Flavorwire:

In general though, online ticketing has actually made it pretty much impossible to be sure you’ll get tickets at all, and it also often means that the best seats are out of the reach of genuine fans. In the past your competition for tickets was, well, other fans. These days your competition is rich people with American Express cards, LiveNation members, ticket agents (who often get an exclusive presale to themselves), and god knows who else.

"We cannot be all the writers all the time. We can only be who we are."

Tue, 28 May 2013 17:01:45 -0400

“We cannot be all the writers all the time. We can only be who we are.”

- Zadie Smith, here.

Stephen King + Parade mag.

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:19:33 -0400

Stephen King + Parade mag.

"When you’re in the middle of [writing] a novel and enjoying a novel, there’s no greater..."

Wed, 22 May 2013 01:08:29 -0400

““When you’re in the middle of [writing] a novel and enjoying a novel, there’s no greater feeling. That’s such a sensation, when it’s going well. But for everyday kind of cheeriness, I’d much rather write nonfiction, to be honest.””

- Zadie Smith

"If I’d taken on The Dark Tower I would’ve become Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind. It..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 02:51:00 -0400

“If I’d taken on The Dark Tower I would’ve become Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind. It would’ve happened very, very quickly.”

- Damon Lindelof to Alex Pappademas at Grantland

I made this Vulture quiz for you. I hope you get 50 out of 50...

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:54:01 -0400

I made this Vulture quiz for you. I hope you get 50 out of 50 and have a great day.

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Fri, 17 May 2013 09:38:06 -0400

Chance the Rapper - “Interlude (That’s...

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:16:00 -0400

Chance the Rapper - “Interlude (That’s Love)”

Happy Friday.