RIP to two American greats, and a Palestinian one too. Never forget Macaroni and Black Moses.


You should read this English translation of a poem Mahmoud Darwish wrote for Edward Said. I particuarly like the part where he is describing Said as he knew him: New York. Edward wakes up to
a lazy dawn. He plays
Mozart.
Runs round the university’s tennis
court.
Thinks of the journey of ideas across
borders,
and over barriers. He reads the New York Times.
Writes out his furious comments. Curses an Orientalist
guiding the General to the weak point
inside the heart of an Oriental woman. He showers. Chooses
his elegant suit. Drinks
his white coffee. Shouts at the dawn:
Do not loiter.
You can also listen to him read it in Arabic on his website.

Even though the Olympics are boring and the announcers keep making borderline bigoted remarks about other countries, Esan and I watched part of the gymnastics trials tonight, because we decided if the American teams win it might be good for the depressed economy. Or at least will provide a moment of jingoistic respite from our current recession/depression? woes. The American team is six blonde 15-19-year-olds from the Midwest and you can intuit the mean-girlsesque power dynamics going down hard–you can see it in their heavily-makeupped faces, by who pointedly hugs certain girls and ignores others, by which girl gives the inspirational post-trials speeches as if she is a cross between deputy coach and lauren fucking conrad from the hills. None of this is surprising; six teen overacheivers, ostensibly part of the same posse but in reality are competing against one another for gold medal status in the world’s foremost sporting event? Sorry, no, I am not available to chaperone you guys’s slumber party tonight. I’m busy for the next 17 1/2 years.
Alicia Sacramone is clearly the alpha chick of the crew–snitch goes to Brown!–even though her nicer and very graceful teammates Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson are way going to kick more ass and might even place ahead of the Chinese team (which is better than ours, a fact which causes endless displeasure for the ABC announcers, who literally almost said something like “Of course they’re working hard, they’re Asian” or some bullshit. Also, direct quote: “The Chinese team is showing exuberance, but when the American team shows they will bring a level of refinement.” The American team proceeded to fuck up in every category). Bridget Sloan is the b- or c-girl insofar that she only barely made the team, and she told the anchors that she suffers from low self-esteem, a fire surely stoked by the presence of her beefy teammates. Teenage girl beef is the worst, and teenage girl beef within such a particularly coded, mainstream social construct that is famous for fostering eating disorders in its grotesquely shaped daughters is deadlier than a night out with Bear Grylls. Word to Bear Grylls. Sidebar me and B were watching Man vs. Wild and are wondering when a rapper is going to namecheck Bear Grylls. It’s five metaphors waiting to happen. Can somebody help me out? Charles Hamilton, it’s your move, baby.
Okay I just read one interview with Alicia Sacramone and discovered she is the teen captain. Hence her onscreen mommishness and A-girl staturetude. Also not too mad at her iPod playlist, tho she needs to get off of Diddy’s jockerstein.

Jamie is a secret hippie and has been sending me posts from the Phish message board all day, such as the Craigslist ad from the 21-year-old SUNY undergrad who is willing to trade his chocolate labrador Caterpillar for a ticket to the Trey Anastasio concert at Music Hall of WMSBG next week. Twisted. The post he just sent me is inscrutable and has something to do with Disc Golfers. It’s obviously not about minigolf, so I posited that the post was bootlegger’s secret code, or perhaps sign language between mescaline dealers. What do you think this shit means? Can you interpret this?
Topic: Disc Golfers ———————->
for all you par 3 folks, there are two holes in Chapel Hill that are def par 4’s. Both of them were once two holes but had catchers taken out and are now over 600 feet long. I mean maybe Climo could par them, but if the pros cant birdie it, I see no way it could be a par 3.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 was a contractual agreement made before the collective successes of the stars.

FABU outfit Blake!

That Nicole Wray is the best young R&B singer alive right now. Mariah Carey doesn’t count because she has transcended into a vision at Medjugorje. Nicole got dropped from Def Jam in ’04 after her Jem-themed video for “If I Was Yr Girlfriend” was stashed in the “consider airing if she joins the cast of a reality show” backlot at all major music video networks, but listen to this shit and tell me she isn’t a genius. Fortunately, Dip Set has consistently employed her for their mixtapes since then; unfortunately, no one gives a fuck about Dip Set anymore. (Word to Juelz, Gabe said he grew a couple whiskers.) It’s a travesty that Nicole’s second album has been delayed for night the entire tenure of GW Bush’s presidency. Like what the fuck? Who is running the record industry? LA Reid didn’t even show up for Jeezy’s listening session last night. Which sucks cause he is a really good dancer.
As a side note, today I realized my gimp arm has atrophied to the shape of a chicken drumstick. It’s real skinny around the elbow because of the muscle loss, yet my bicep has turned entirely to flab. This is depressing to me. Oh dear jesus, when will I once again be able to do downward facing dog in pilates class?

this should be me.

He has a song called “My President is Black” about Barack Obama. And last night at his listening party gave a speech about registering to vote etc. Dudes. We must take this!

Last Thursday I experienced a minor tragedy. I had wanted to wear my favorite beret to the American Teen premiere, a vintage black wool number with pearls and sequins dotting it in symmetrical rows, but the sun was oppressive and it was much too hot to wear it in the day, so I shoved it in my gigantic, awesome looking Thai handbag made from hand-dyed textiles that I wish I could find to show you on the internet but I can’t cause I got it at a super hippie shop that only sells fucking CANDLES on their website. ANYWAY. It never cooled off enough to wear the beret. The head went naked. The world turned.
The next morning, I realized the beret was no longer in my bag. I searched for it frantically, for I am the sort of New York nomad who leaves the apartment at 9 am and often does not return until wee morning, a day-traveler working girl who requires eleventy million different life-necessities crammed in the urban knapsack at once–a book, three magazines, two make-up bags, a couple CDs, giant wallet, blackberry cord, ipod cord, reciepts of cab rides I must expense, headphones inevitably tangled around the Jamaica lanyard on which I keep my keys so they are easily locatable within the bottomless chasm that is my handbag, padlock for gym jaunts and, usually, an extra set of shoes. Yet, alas, no beret. I searched beneath the bed, in the kitchen, in the living room where I last left my plimsolls. Nada.
Forgot about it until two nights ago, when Mo and I were leaving the house to go out. We throw open the front door to the building and there stands a superdrunk, superdirty bearded and possibly homeless dude chilling near our stoop. Bopping a little, like there’s a song playing inside his head. He might even be singing to himself. And he has accessorized his green-and-white striped t-shirt very well, because he has accessorized it with my beret. The dude is literally wearing my fucking beret on his head. And the craziest part about it? HE LOOKS KIND OF GREAT IN IT. Like a ’70s East Village muse, a wild poet who just liked it because it sparkled. It’s so odd and serendipitous it feels almost like the beret came home to say good bye. Then again, my walk from train to crib is short, and there is no shortage of inebriated characters within it.

On Monday resident FADER videographer Hanly Banks and I saw Brit sensations / fake shoegaze dance band Friendly Fires play in New York. We filmed some of their show, too, and put them up on the FADER bloggerstino, which you can watch here.
Hanly’s arm was getting tired but she let me give the camera back to her for “Ex Lover” so I could dance, being that it is THE BEST SONG EVER WRITTEN. Then we went to Piano’s* hoping we’d run into our friend Amy Poehler**, but she wasn’t there***.
AND! Here is Maud on our experience seeing bk dancehall deejay / fashion plate 77Klash and Pretty Boy Family from Crown Heights at the LOLA party last night. 77Klash’s dancers are our new spirit guides.
*first time I’ve been to Piano’s since the 1990s
** Amy Poehler is not actually our friend except in our minds, but we are convinced she would be if we knew her.
*** This is not actually why we went to Pianos.

You should go see this show at the Chelsea Art Museum–it’s about the environment but it’s mostly not heavy handed, and it’s by new young artists but they are mostly not shitty or pretentious or driven solely by their retail value (shocking!). And there are some beautiful examples of my favorite mediums: concept-driven pop sculpture and installation pieces.

I suppose it is redundant to say that Trina is coming for K. Sis’ title considering like, w/out Trina K.Sis would not exist. But also, how weird is this vid?