This post maybe somewhat of a stretch, but I figured as its been a while, it’s my duty to post at least something.
Last night I watched MTV Cribs reruns, which I’m sure most, if not all of you know, is a show which follows celebrities around in their homes. The first home was 50 Cent’s; he lived in a Westfield-size castle, with a mini cinema, recording studio, complex lagoon system, and live strip-club (with actual bitches n’ shit — sorry, just keepin’ with the vernacular my homie). The rappers and sport stars seem to live in the most opulent places, which are (despite their success) probably rented. Anyway, bear with me, I have a point.
The next house we visited was the guy from Fall Out Boy. Now I don’t keep up with teen culture and the only reason I know this is because they kept showing excerpts of their videos. His house was more modest; he showed us his fridge, which was full of fizzy drinks. (Celebrities don’t cook and their fridges are always just full of drinks.) Then he showed us a stack of books (I recall seeing Celine’s Journey Into the End of the Night) and said something very predictably ‘deep-teenager’ pretentious like “nobody ever reads, this is my reading area.” I immediately thought, “finally, I’m semi-irritated and now have something lightly relevant to post on my blog.” (I’m serious, I actually thought that.)
This reminded me of Moby’s edition of Cribs I watched a few years back, where he showed us his book-shelf full of literature and made some similar point about how people don’t read enough. This also pissed me off, but back then my blog didn’t exist yet so I punched a cushion. Now, I know this is largely a literary crowd, and some of you might also have a tiff with the philistines of this culture/country who don’t read, but let me just say that the ladder excerpt below is from 50 Cent, who employs parenthetical rhetorical questions as a way to permeate the self-consciousness of the reader. The first two, from Moby and Fall out boy (respectively) simply blow chunks.
Walking down the street at night The whole world just comes alight, woah Moving through the air and you have no cares
—
Whoah, Whoah, Whoah [x2]
—
G-Unit (What) We in here (What) We can get the drama popping We don’t care (What, what, what) It’s going down (What) ‘Cause I’m around (What)
So can I get a Whut Whut or what?
done
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"westfield-size castle"
ReplyDeletehaha
Even PBS participates... a couple years ago on This Old House a very rich family was renovating some ancient and expensive Boston home. The house had an old school den / library with dark wood and vaulted ceilings. They turned it into a "mud room." It's like a metaphor, but it actually happened.
ReplyDeleteHey, I always wondered about people with stacks of books -- like in my view there are very few books which need to be read more than once, so if you don't pass it on when you're done with it (like unless we're talking about my collection of signed and/or rare editions), then you're actually keeping the reading from happening because people actually aren't spending money on books but are reading more than ever before. A shelf full of undamaged books you only need to read once anyway is not proof of anything, unless it's a shelf full of dictionaries or porn.
ReplyDelete"so I punched a cushion"
ReplyDeleteI've done that.
Reminded me of the menacing character in a "Dogwalker" story who intimidates the narrator by throwing a book across the room.