Only Built 4 Reuben Linx

Some love:


Mexican hipsterism with Poni Republic. A new blog about impulses on the dancefloor at House is a Feeling. And Philip Sherburne alive in Cologne.

dollar, dollar bills, ya'll:


Talking to Tito from Molotov earlier today from Madrid, I asked him if he could go back and tell himself something when he started in 1997, what would it be?

"Ahorra, cabron." (translation: "Save money, bitch.")

Like most things, I like my literature to be difficult. The tiny pulse I feel when reading something again and again--meaning is always melodic to me--gives me the sensation of figuring out a code. Flipping through books today, and having some thrown my way (I could list them, but refuse to give these authors free marketing), it's become a trend in mainstream publishing to simplify the prose and experiment with structure/form. Of course this goes back to the early 20th century (if you want to talk about the modern novel and shit like that), so it doesn't strike me as particularly original ('All minds quote'--Ralph Waldo Emerson). But, my beef is, why don't the big publishing houses or agents or you encourage future writers (my 6 year old nephew being one of them) to write more--thicken the sentences, make the paragraphs and stories weightier. I read some of this McSweeney's stuff like I do billboards. And. Writing. Like. Hemingway. Does. not. make. it. any. better.


PS FUCK HEMINGWAY.


PSS I keep thinking, wouldn't it be great to read a well-written 'black' novel about Harlem, now? And yes, I know its not necessary (hip-hop records are the new literature) but I think how interesting it would be. Juelz Santana meets Ralph Ellison or something.


thats it.


(all this began when I realized I couldn't finish this story I'm working on tonight cause I ran out of coffee. shitshitshit)

Look over to the left of the screen and see my scribbles on both Xiu Xiu for this month's Signal to Noise and a tiny piece on Argentina's U2: Los Enanitos Verdes. I'll also be writing about Mexican punks Molotov and arthippy band Aterciopelados for the Chronicle soon.


I might have to interview Bloc Party also. Yee-haw. How do you say 'you won't be here next year' in Britain?



up next: "Going to Cali, For the First Time, Pt. 2"

Future rappers, British no less, Kano and his Roll Deep crew came to New York like it was 1812. And with the same amount of weapons, too. Listen to the bonkers live set here.





(Thanks to DJ Lioness via Mudd Up!!)

Xiu Xiu vs. Devendra Banhart 7" is dumb hot. Blips + Down South harmonizing + quietness+ "sounds like he recorded this in a warehouse"-ness + splintery vocals. I'll try to post the mp3 when I can.


For those that don't know: Devendra and I probably shared the same hospital facilities. For those that know: Jamie told me that he and Caralee are really cousins. A couple years ago I had dinner with Devendra and Xiu Xiu at a Taco Cabana on accident. Devendra was pretty quiet.



"why should I care if you ever get killed?"




But back to hip-hop: some kind soul over at Mush Records transcribed my interview of Busdriver, Saul Williams and Rob Sonic. It's on the left over there and here.

You think you understand things, then it all falls apart. Like, Kanye. I was just starting to get used to the idea of possibly not talking to you anymore, just deleting your emails, those weird phone messages about "diamond-studded pancakes" and that new Rothko painting you bought. I was tired of hearing about it. No more magazine covers, Doors samples or 800 dollar jeans. Kanye, I was ready to move on.


Then.


You have to call up Jon Brion.


And now: I can't help but prance around like its a musical outside , telling the world what a good person you are--oh, he's a great at Bridge, he really loves kittens, you should have seen him as a boy, he even made a building out of drum machines in Chicago.


Late Registration ain't even in the mailbox yet, either.

And then you have the always lovable centrist Fareed Zakaria. Joy Press (longtime Voice writer and significant other to this guy) whips up this piece of reporting on the pop cultural landscape that is Zakaria. You've might of seen him on The Daily Show where he waxes philosophical with Jon Stewart with erudition and a pregnant lucidity that is generally well-balanced. Standing in the middle, looking out. Has a column in Newsweek and now has a show on PBS called Foreign Exchange. Book smart and funny (once, when Stewart remarked, "I like you Fareed cause you always go where no one else does," Zakaria retorted with crinkled eyebrows, "New Jersey?")he's a walking news channel.



Jadakiss, whose probably penning another one of these, would be proud.

Remember joy?






(el futuro es un espacio blanco, mi amor.)

Three weeks in California: a new Japanese car, a bag of potato chips, the beautiful GF, Antony and the Johnsons and the freckled American landscape. I drove for two days to get out West and finally saw Los Angeles for the first time. Cities sometimes resemble the very buildings that compose them. Disney buildings are mirrors: fractured, gray angles that make new surfaces and separate. The isolationism (hello, early twentieth-century America) and classism leave a sour taste in your iced-out mouth. But, despite all that, I like the city. The first day there, we watched water for twelve hours. Santa Monica and Venice are where I can imagine reading books on the beach is an actual physical exercise. Lift hand, turn page. Drizzly light endlessly sprinkled across navy-blue waves. There was no reason to remember anything else but the sea (Herman Melville, stand up). And I realized that for all the driving, Hollywoodism and weighty faux creative impulses in the air, normal folk (the homies at Dodger games, gold-hoop earring clad black ladies, nameless actors and Venice beach bums) still run 'tings. Next day: Basquiat at the MOCA was all I imagined as roomfuls of black genius spilled onto the glossy floors. With only half an hour to study these works we went downstairs knowing that we would see the show in Houston and watched some archived videos of Jean-Michel. Real talk as he layed it down about Andy Warhol and his collabo, him not being graffiti, hustling paintings while broke and other stuff. He always reminded me of my man Chang (formerly the DJ for dalek) when he spoke with jittery, thoughtful, hyper-intelligent phrases. And for two seconds one realizes the fictional sensibility of the past. Those that walk among us will one day be canonized and socially cemented. Like the unlidded ears Marias spoke of in A Heart So White one is also unable to not see history. Before that, we saw Margaret Kilgallen's work at Redcat in downtown LA. Redcat is one of the nicest galleries I have ever been because it looks like something out of a Wong Kar-Wai film. Minimalist seventies furniture, a huge window in the center and an intimacy most places sell crack for. Between these happenings, me and the ladyfriend ate the best Thai this side of the Pacific: you should name your future children Saladang.

These first two days were joy.

When I returned to LA a week later on my way back from San Francisco, three not-so-nice Middle Eastern kids rear-ended me. Angelinos must wear blindfolds and drive around with their hands tied behind their back--its the only way to explain their horrific driving abilities. Ask the car repair places, they bank on accidents. Weird that almost dying can make someone so much money.


p.s. Hollywood in the daytime ain't where you want to be.



PLEASE STAY TUNED FOR PART II OF "GOING BACK TO CALI, FOR THE FIRST TIME"



(insert commercial for Paxil here)

For those sitting in lightless rooms: a surprise. The new Sigur Ros album being streamed in its entirety. They haven't changed enough and I will always hug them extra hard for that.


Next up, that Bjork/The Game collabo we've been waiting for so much.








(Thanks to Brooklyn Vegan)

Seu Jorge, "Tive Razao", CRU



Again--words are audible; their meanings are silent. So the meanings are perceived by the mind at the same time the sensible qualities are. Sorting. So the meanings are perceived by the mind while the ear remembers. As then poems' lines are perceived as units, while the sense (a dance) stops or continues as it does. The ear remembers to stop while the mind sees to go on.
--"The Slate Notebook", Gerald Burns, 1979

You think Thomas "How do my nails look, Rwanda?" Friedman and High Priest of the deceased APC are on the same team? Snooty political writers and thick-prosed rappers are the real mash-up, son.


p.s. a big post coming up on how Fiona Apple is really 16, making Danny Devito laugh while in a bathroom line in LA and how Jon Brion is the single best all-around musician in the world. Everrrr.