Urban Honking

Now look at this. The feminism fairy has delivered my inbox a surprise!

Dick Cheney, harbinger of war, is the consummate patriarch: impenetrable, inarguable, in extreme authoritative tone. He’s all lies and taglines; the language is so rigid and fake-knowledgeable and the phrasing shuts out debate. He speaks with the condescending, firm voice of someone who has never been told he is wrong. He is very much of […]

Chauncey Billups’ silence, explained. It’s not the off-season; <a href= VH-1 annexed his chops. He scribed the page, but did he choose The Real Roxanne photo? And where can I get earrings the size of a chihuahua?

Vice presidential debate tonight, 9 pm Eastern. Also broadcast on npr.org. The New Yorker Festival panel at the NY Public Library: I forgot to mention. The panel was “Political Rockers,” moderated by Sasha, and featuring KRS-One, Henry Rollins, and Krist Novoselic, former bass player of Nirvana; Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney was also scheduled, but she […]

Caffeine at 4 am when everyone else is “four whiskeys to the wind,” as the b-day bwoy self-described. Downstairs neighbors blasting “Touch Me” by the Doors. It is 4:58 am. It is unbearable. Think about this: when dudes are out there out-alpha-male-ing each other, clutching desperately at the final seconds before clownhood is no longer […]

Deerhoof puts live alb on website. Freegan! Deerhoof, please accept this offering of love. You are like a porcupine box filled with a satin pillow. You are like opening a series of doors that get smaller and smaller and finding a single red hot in the end. You are like riding a centaur into a […]

Autumn is the time when I have been in New York City the most, and so it is strange for a place I’ve barely lived for two months to not only smell familiar, but for its streets and shops to evoke memories of ye olde lovers und concubines — with whom I’ve shared the city’s […]

The years 1996-’98 have been relived thrice this week, with Fugees, Natural Resource, and a Black Star set at Talib (lyrics stick to yr ribs) Kweli’s pre-record release. (The Emmy award-winning star of my favorite fairy tale, Mos Def, was short, sharp, shocked, and off-key as ever. Met him briefly; he is even finer in […]

Jean Grae looked radiant at her CD release party, and citing the Fugees session, she reunited Natural Resource briefly. Crispy-fine Ocean emerged for the first track, “Baseball,” resulting in a satisfying moment in the continued and surely eternal lineage of underground hip-hop. Then I left. I’d already been there for two hours literally doin da […]

Oh sure, you will hear breathless tell of the Dave Chappelle rigamorole, recounted by incredulous, red-cheeked attendees; you will hear of the guest appearances, the reunions, the unexpected collaborations, the man in the audience who caught Jill Scott’s drummer’s stick. And you might even witness it with your own two eyes, on DVD, in the […]