The Drizzy-Jhene Duet of Smooth Ambivalence

   "From Time"

   Drake ft. Jhene Aiko

   Nothing Was The Same

YOU DON'T really hear straight up love songs nowadays. Artists are too cool for You're mine baby I love you old-timey stuff. Everything has to be complicated, flippant, vengeful, sexual, ambivalent.

Drake is undisputed king of complicated, flippant, vengeful, sexual, ambivalent sorta-love songs. He excels (so Jewishly) at hyperanalytic relationship talk. He seems to spend ungodly amounts of time ruminating on woulda-couldas and past flames, which I find endearing and relatable. "From Time" is easily his best riff on this theme, with his neurotics calmed by some understated piano and the placid voice of Jhene Aiko.

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Love, Loss and Cheek Feathers Vol. II: Hard Knock Life

By Ximena the Hen, guest plogger

I BEGAN laying later than most. The other pullets were stepping out of the nest box clucking, tweeting egg pics, preening smugly like they knew they were real hens now, while I just waited. I waited for that feeling you are supposed to get, the deep soul urge that sends you looking for a bit of straw in which to leave your indent. 

Finally, after fall had turned to winter, the urge came. I needed the quiet of the nest box and the undulations of my oviduct as I needed feed and water. There is no greater satisfaction than laying an egg. In my early laying days I would set proudly atop my creation for a good hour after it emerged, enjoying the round certitude under my breast feathers. Sometimes I clucked. Mostly my celebrations were quiet, private.

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On Gender

Gender is not a crime.

Feels a tad controversial to say so, as many nowadays consider gender roles oppressive, and condemn 'gender essentialism' in favor of some sort of neuter ideal. We humans do have a sordid record of forcing each other into restricted roles based upon gender, skin color and so on; I suppose our skittishness on the matter is understandable.

No one should be pressured to adhere to any rules of gender. We ought to all be free to express ourselves, gender-wise and otherwise, as we like. This seems an obvious platitude. And yet, we might remind ourselves how widely it applies, scolding not just icky misogynists with retro notions of femininity, but also Women's Studies majors who would denounce my tight jeans. Both, after all, implicitly impose their own gender ideas on others. My ass is mine to objectify as I please.

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Letter to Game

Game darling,

Been too long since my last letter.  I actually wrote this one ages ago and straight forgot to send it. Accept my apologies. Where have I been? You know: hustlin. 

I'm on that money grind, backyard grind, spine care grind. Every morning homie, it's the microwave heat pack and the yoga strap and I'm lying on tennis balls and hanging upside down and shit. But hey. I get to be out in this world, going places & doing things, so I am nothing but happy to spend an hour every day mollifying the left psoas and putting space between those lumbar discs. And since I know you'll ask, fuck yeah I'm working them muscles too. I dare any of those health care bishes implying I might need to "strengthen my core" to take a punch at these abs and break a damn hand.

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La Crise Plogxistentielle (Deuxième Partie)

Over the past couple years I have many times feared my plog would die. It has not died. It has, however, limped along pitifully and huddled in the corner with drooping wings. And you know...

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The Clebilicious Review: Born Sinner

    J. Cole

    Born Sinner

J. COLE HAS a soft power delivery. His touch is light, but when he gets his words right they make deep impact. He doesn't wear an armor of swag and yet, in his understated way, he's extremely swaggish. (The author would totally do him. Take that haters.)

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The Network Marriage Plot

We nowadays are too anti-romantic to quite embrace them--even the excellent book called The Marriage Plot does not (spoiler!) end with true love gratified--but marriage plots do, mercifully, live on, in the form of the classic, slow-build network sitcom romance. Our Darcys and Lizzys are Ross and Rachel, Jim and Pam, Will and Emma--subjects of will-they-won't-they teasery spread languidly over episodes and seasons.

To my utmost delight, Fox has fashioned a Tuesday night with back-to-back sitcoms of the best kind, starring lead ladies with Lizzy wits. New Girl's Jess is zany and adorable, as only Zooey Deschanel can be. She means well all the time and risks harming others only by annoying them with excessive cheer. Mindy of The Mindy Project is also zany and adorable, but with a twist of caustic Kaling lime. Jess is willing to impersonate Elvis at a funeral to help her roommate (who is also her Darcy); Mindy freely admits that she expects to go to hell because she loves gossip and doesn't "really care about the environment."

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The Format Pleasure of Harlem Shake Videos

Amid the internet-wide arguing about whether Harlem Shake videos have redeeming cultural value or demonstrate the "real" Harlem Shake (answer to the latter being a clear negative), I think the point is lost. 

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Tale of the Badu Night PART FOUR

Start at the beginning.

AS WE LEANED against a wall backstage--me awkwardly, Adria looking inexplicably at ease--a fellow passed by and smiled and asked if we were having a good time. He was the selfsame fellow who'd been in front of us onstage, with the triceps and the cornrows.

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Tale of the Badu Night PART THREE

Read PART ONE HERE and PART TWO HERE.

I wish I could better, or more narratively, remember the show. I recall it only in kaleidoscopic pieces, as befits a religious experience. We positioned ourselves in the left wing of the stage, behind scattered members of Badu's band (the one directly in front of us had cornrows, broad shoulders, nice triceps) and I could clearly see Erykah's colorful bra straps, and when she tired of and removed her heels I could see her toenail polish, which looked white. It is silly to worship people as idols, but I couldn't help it: being that close to Badu made me feel imbued with magic powers.

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Tale of the Badu Night PART TWO

Read PART ONE here.

When I found Adria and the five others they were already several phases into devising crisis strategies. The coreligionist who had bought the tickets simply could not find them. She had hoped to offer records of the purchase at the box office, but this was to no avail. Online tickets leave a trail, but tickets bought the old-fashioned way are like cash: terrible to lose. She was willing to re-purchase for everyone, but the show was sold out. Any personage who seemed to work at the Fox had been pleaded with, also to no avail. No scalpers were in sight. One of the ladies had even been lured by a shady-looking character who swore he could get us in backstage, but when he started leading her around the dark street corner she turned tail.

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Tale of the Badu Night PART ONE

A funny thing happened to me in the last moments of the old year and first moments of the new one. It also happened to my friend Adria, the only person I know whose Baduizt fervor might exceed--yes, exceed, my own. I'd dreamt for years of going to see Badu with Adria. I knew that no matter how zealous and ridiculous I became at the high holy day service of Badu, Adria would be no less zealous and ridiculous. 

So when Adria told me Erykah would be at the Fox Theater in my very own city on New Year's Eve--just in time for me to be sufficiently spine functional to stay out all night doing something fun, which I'd not done in a couple years-- you can imagine my delight. A plan quickly hatched, involving we two and five other coreligionists, one of whom worked near the Fox and kindly offered to buy everyone's tickets at the box office, so we wouldn't have to pay online purchase fees.

As the Eve approached I felt nervous. I never really know how my spine will behave. It's more like I guesstimate the odds. In the week before, I was able to predict a 25% maximum likelihood that a spinal disaster would ensue, and decided I couldn't say fairer than that. I dishonestly texted my mom that I was doing great and was quite sure the show wouldn't be a problem. 

I took precautions. I planned to arrive late, and miss The Coup, who were opening. I declined a pre-party invite from the coreligionist who'd bought the tix. Adria stopped by for a pre-pre-party at my house, and made me a shirt with iron-on Badu lyrics, to match the one she'd made for herself. Her back said, You don't have to believe everything you think/We've been programmed, and my chest had the next line: Wake up/We miss you. We were gloriously nerdy in our shirts.

We smoked a few puffs before Adria took off. We'd meet at the Fox. I spent the next hour stressing about parking downtown on New Year's, about spine, about which shoes would be least aesthetically and ergonomically offensive. But I made it, happily sacrificed $15 for a few hours in a $5/day lot, and headed toward Broadway in my coat and leggings and boots. I'd hardly been downtown the last couple years, and here I was amid the hip New Year's crowd, cold air in my face, hair flying. I was feeling myself. I called Adria, but the connection sucked. I figured I'd find her there. She called back, however, because she had to tell me something rather dire.

The tickets. They were gone.

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