June 18, 2013
"Rap music is so diverse in its themes, its style, its content but when it becomes a vehicle to be talked about in mainstream news, the rap that gets in national news is always the rap music that perpetuates misogyny that is most obscene in its lyrics and then this comes to stand for what rap is. Really its for me the perfect paradigm of colonialism, that is to say, we think of rap music as a little third-world country, that young white consumers are able to go to and take out of it whatever they want. We would have to acknowledge that what young white consumers, primarily male, oftentimes suburban, most got energized by in rap music was misogyny, obscenity, pugilistic eroticism and therefore that form of rap began to make the largest sums of money."

—

bell hooks, cultural criticism — rap: authentic expression or market construct? (via ellesugars)

I would like to direct this to the attention of one of my coworkers who I was talking to about this exact subject yesterday.

8:26pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUayng0L8R
(Notes: 7,317)
  
June 18, 2013
"I think the way Kanye uses women as metaphorical receptacles for his bodily fluids as a way to express his contempt for men is fucking reprehensible. When feminists say “feminism is the radical concept that women are people,” it’s shit like “I fucked your hampton spouse, came on her hampton blouse” that they’re responding to. Kanye could have done some brilliant shit with this record, and it’s really not bad, but it is heavily marred for me by the outright misogyny that runs through so much of it.

I think the thing that bothers me the most about the misogyny on several songs, especially the stuff in “New Slaves”, is that it seems like Kanye is mad about the right things. But then he shows his anger (again, metaphorically) by doing things to women in order to express his contempt for men that are associated with those women. Which is so backwards. He’s clearly not even considering the implications."

— A couple of facebook comments I posted about the new Kanye West record. I think “New Slaves” is a fascinating song with a chilling sound and some incredible lyrics in it. The first time I heard it, I was blown away. But the longer I listen to it, the more disquieted by it that I feel. There are some lines in it that tarnish, if not outright ruin, it for me. And then, once I got the whole record, I found a bunch more lines that reinforce the same problems (especially the entirety of “I’m In It” and “Bound 2,” though almost every song has at least a couple of lines that bug me). Before Yeezus came out, I was hoping for a really dark record about how much Kanye hates rich people. I think I might have gotten a dark record about how much Kanye hates women. That’s a letdown no matter how cool the music is.

8:08pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUaynfxcT_
(Notes: 4)
  
June 18, 2013

isabelthespy:

hmmm on reflection “did you know sometimes are times for facts and other times are not those times,” which is not identical to but heavily overlaps with “sometimes it is less important to be accurate than to be kind,” is like, the major lesson of harriet the spy (which is not a lesson book, hdu how could you imply that, but that’s a lesson, in the book, v. crucial), and i’ve never really done a big like, Why I Love Harriet The Spy So Very Much (The Character And The Book, Equally Beloved But Distinct In Their Marvels) post even though i’ve considered it on and off because, you know, *points to URL which is bscly internet identity*, but one reason that i went with it as my internet identity/one reason that i am still v. glad, almost 5 years (!) later that i went with it as my interent identity (haha that sounds so pretentious), is because even now, well over a decade since i first read the book, i keep finding new things to love about it and new ways it’s important to me and new things that are terrific (i should do another re-read soon, been a couple years), and i mean — there is really really really not a lot i can say that for.

i mean, strictly speaking there’s nothing, because my exposure to harriet the spy predates my exposure to liz phair and louise gluck and my so-called life and iron man 3 and tender is the night. but anyway, i don’t have tests for things, but this is a way, certainly, for a thing to become a talisman of mine, is for me to not just remember it, even not just to remember it with great love and admiration, but to have an active and evolving relationship to it for a very long time. and with harriet sometimes it’s been appreciating new things about the text that i think are smart (“i hate money”/”you’d jolly well like it if you didn’t have any”), and then other times it’s been articulating resonances, recognitions, that i think are part of why this book drew me so strongly, stuck with me much longer than any other book i read as a kid, even his dark materials, was so dear to me, for reasons i’m still uncovering.

If you had one of your patented several-week-fixation rounds of blogging that was devoted to Harriet The Spy, it would absolutely MAKE MY LIFE so I’m just sayin it really must happen at some point.

12:10am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUaync6MCy
(Notes: 15)
  
June 17, 2013
‘Coming Down Is Calming Down’ by UnderoathThere are demons inside my head. I always let them win. I have to learn to suffocate them.

‘Coming Down Is Calming Down’ by Underoath
There are demons inside my head. I always let them win. I have to learn to suffocate them.

11:55pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUaync2VhD
Filed under: thisismyjam 
June 17, 2013

Sometimes when my female friends are feeling down about their body image, feeling ugly or unloved or unable to measure up to “what men want,” I find myself wanting to say to them “Fuck that—you’re totally beautiful.”

And then I realize that my instinct to say something like that is, if anything, part of the problem.

So I don’t say anything. But maybe that’s a problem too—because my beautiful female friends deserve to hear that they’re beautiful. Maybe it doesn’t mean as much from me, a dude that isn’t actually trying to date them, but I would hope it means something.

Still haven’t figured out how to handle situations like this. And when I don’t know what to say, I tend not to say anything.

I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

11:34pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUaynbz6CU
(Notes: 7)
  
June 17, 2013
‘Master Hunter’ by Laura MarlingI can’t get over how much the new Laura Marling sounds like the acoustic tracks from Led Zeppelin III. Which are my favorite Led Zeppelin songs ever, so I am really loving this record.

‘Master Hunter’ by Laura Marling
I can’t get over how much the new Laura Marling sounds like the acoustic tracks from Led Zeppelin III. Which are my favorite Led Zeppelin songs ever, so I am really loving this record.

2:50am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUaynXlkkO
(Notes: 5)
  
Filed under: thisismyjam 
June 17, 2013
americancaptaincomic: Afternoon Delight. This comic is so fucking great. By which I mean both this specific episode and American Captain in general.

americancaptaincomic:

Afternoon Delight.

This comic is so fucking great. By which I mean both this specific episode and American Captain in general.

2:27am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUaynXhiMT
(Notes: 190)
  
June 16, 2013
‘Stagefright’ by Def LeppardI’m not sure this song means to me what it meant to Joe Elliott, but regardless it is important to me. Maybe one day I’ll explain why.

‘Stagefright’ by Def Leppard
I’m not sure this song means to me what it meant to Joe Elliott, but regardless it is important to me. Maybe one day I’ll explain why.

4:33am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUaynSQOS8
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: thisismyjam 
June 15, 2013
Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd on the set of Ghostbusters. (via ontheset)

Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd on the set of Ghostbusters.

(via ontheset)

7:00pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUaynQTL8Z
(Notes: 17)
  
June 15, 2013
nickminichino: girlboymusic: nickminichino: mapsontheweb: Largest Ancestry Group by County, 2000 this says a lot about self-reporting Wait, what does this say about self-reporting? Okay, so I didn’t actually check what “options” were available on the 2000 census form (or whether it was just a blank) but it indicates who is more likely to report as (non-native) “American” (as opposed to a particular European ancestry). You can also lump in the specificity of “Mexican” vs. the multiplicity of identities (not fully) represented by “Hispanic/Spanish” (see also “Aleut/Eskimo” vs. “Native American” etc.) but those could be thanks to the Census Bureau rather than the census takers. I was initially just going to reblog with the separate question of what “Puerto Rican” means as an ancestry, but then I saw “American” and generalized my observation accordingly. There’s a LOT of fascinating shit going on on this map. It seems that in the old south, if you’re not in a majority-black area, you’re in an area where the white people identify as “American”—but in the vast majority of the rest of the country, the default self-proclaimed white ethnicity seems to be German. Which makes me wonder what the patterns of German immigration to the USA have been over its history. And then there’s Utah, the land of the Mormons, where people tend to declare themselves as English—something you only see dominating the landscape in that area, and in northern New England. So what’s going on there? I guess what I’m really fascinated by here is the way white people see themselves, ethnically speaking.

nickminichino:

girlboymusic:

nickminichino:

mapsontheweb:

Largest Ancestry Group by County, 2000

this says a lot about self-reporting

Wait, what does this say about self-reporting?

Okay, so I didn’t actually check what “options” were available on the 2000 census form (or whether it was just a blank) but it indicates who is more likely to report as (non-native) “American” (as opposed to a particular European ancestry). You can also lump in the specificity of “Mexican” vs. the multiplicity of identities (not fully) represented by “Hispanic/Spanish” (see also “Aleut/Eskimo” vs. “Native American” etc.) but those could be thanks to the Census Bureau rather than the census takers.

I was initially just going to reblog with the separate question of what “Puerto Rican” means as an ancestry, but then I saw “American” and generalized my observation accordingly.

There’s a LOT of fascinating shit going on on this map. It seems that in the old south, if you’re not in a majority-black area, you’re in an area where the white people identify as “American”—but in the vast majority of the rest of the country, the default self-proclaimed white ethnicity seems to be German. Which makes me wonder what the patterns of German immigration to the USA have been over its history. And then there’s Utah, the land of the Mormons, where people tend to declare themselves as English—something you only see dominating the landscape in that area, and in northern New England. So what’s going on there?

I guess what I’m really fascinated by here is the way white people see themselves, ethnically speaking.

2:01pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z-FUaynPJcXG
(Notes: 118)