A Moment of Musical and Lyrical Genius

My "Prince" Pandora station is pretty awesome. It gives me basic nonstop Prince, Michael Jackson, and Marvin Gaye. Then it throws in Terence Trent D'Arby, which isn't so bad, and "Bad Mamma Jamma," which even without its funkitude is pretty good for a much needed laugh, since I basically listen to Pandora at work. Well today my Prince station opened up my world to the lyrical stylings of T-Pain. Here's a sample from the song it played, "Bartender."

Ooooh, she made us drinks, to drink
We drunk 'em, Got drunk
And then I think she thinks I'm cool
She gave me a wink, I winked back
And then I think that, we headed out something proper like...

I like the bartender
Ooooh, If you're lookin' for me
I'm at the bar with her

So this song has probably been out for awhile, and I'm just showing how out of touch I am. I'll have to admit though, while I normally reject a song I don't like as soon as possible, I did decide to listen to the whole song before I gave it the "thumb down of death." There was too much potential for hilarity, and it didn't disappoint.

On a totally unrelated but sort of related note - yeah I know, I'm tired ok - there are the likes of Jurassic 5 who, way back when, gave out grammar lessons while proclaiming their own hip-hoppitude. As "Quality Control" goes, J5 is "the most celebrated for connecting it (Word!) Like verb subject to the predicate." The song even goes on to say, "You gots to get up on your vocab, you gots to have vocab.
Letters makes words, and sentences makes paragraphs."

Who says rappers don't care about the kids. He's practically telling kids to read! Well, that's how I'll choose to see it anyway.

Colorful Library

Part of my job includes sometimes processing books, which involves putting on those pesky call number labels which are just kind of ugly. In true nerdy form, I sometimes feel like I'm defacing books when I put the call numbers on. I will however, admit that sometimes I really don't care, like when I'm putting labels on books where I'd just like to cover up the whole book (The Uncommon Wisdom of Oprah Winfrey). Anyways, this can get pretty boring at times. One thing that could help is if we started putting call numbers on books this way:





Ok, well, maybe my job wouldn't be a whole lot more fun, but the end product would be much more aesthetically pleasing right? More pictures and info here - Yanko Design: Don't Judge a Book By Its Color.

How Long Until "Burn Notice" Goes Up In Flames?

While eating lunch at Emerson's cafe, facing the window and looking out on the sidewalk, I noticed a guy standing in an empty parking spot. He dismissed three cars attempting to parallel park there in less than 5 minutes. My initial thought was, "Ok, this is probably one of the many Emerson students who need to drop off video, audio, or other production equipment." It happens enough to expect that. So when a white van pulls up and 5 girls and 2 guys wearing rollerskates jump out, a little confused. They stand around, handing out frisbees, blocking the sidewalk, pretending it's not already difficult to move in front of the Emerson College buildings. When a blind man tried to walk past them, you would have thought they were the idiots who couldn't see a thing. So what's this all about, you ask? Burn Notice. Now, I'm not oblivious to current "creative" advertising methods, and I'm not any kind of prude - I think women can go ahead and dress how they want - but isn't there some kind of creeper-factor to have a bunch of girls who aren't old enough to vote rolling around in Daisy Dukes and tube-tops, carrying huge bags of frisbees to give away with "Burn Notice" plastered all over everything? And with guys who at least appear 10 years older? And all this in the name of Burn Notice?

You might be saying to yourself, "But that's Don Johnson from Miami Vice," and you would be correct. Judging from the previews, commercials, and print ads I've been assaulted with since "Mr.Burn Notice" began wearing summer suits, the only difference is the replacement of Tubbs (pictured) with some generic looking female...um...partner? If you can't tell, all these Burn Notice advertisements have only made me want to watch Miami Vice.

Back to School & The Principles of Uncertainty

Yesterday I had my first class of my summer term. I should have definitely have expected to have story collections to read along with the workshop stories, but I didn't, and there will definitely be some story collections to read. Unfortunately, this means an even bigger hindrance to my slow trudge through The Brothers Karamazov. I'm a slow reader, and The Bros K proved to be an even slower read than usual because it forced me to read differently. I've already gone on about Mr. Dostoyevsky's wonderful work longer than I planned.

The real focus of this post was supposed to be this: Maira Kalman's The Principles of Uncertainty. I needed a short break from The Bros K when I found out about this book in the I.D. Magazine annual review issue. The book is beautiful and personal, and at times it feels honest and vulnerable, like someone decided to reveal their secret diary to the world. For information and pictures of the book, visit Book By Its Cover. To see the contents of the book, visit Kalman's New York Times blog by the same name. Even though you can see and read the whole thing there, book lovers will appreciate the feel of holding the book in your hands while soaking in the words, paintings, and vast range of emotions in such short spans.

Back from New York

Hi. Returned. We were able to see it.

Weekend

Rachel and I are off to New York for the weekend. Hopefully we'll be able to see this:



More info here.