She writes to the council, they don’t listen, Ned never writes, nor Gloria, they live communally but she is the only one who thinks communally and oh Christ that poor homeless worm livid in the sun. Like foreskin moving forward and back, forward and back, over itself. Nobody loves me everybody hates me because I’m a wriggly worm.
— Zadie Smith, NW
um…what.
If you’re on Goodreads, don’t forget to vote for the best books of 2012!
I try to keep up with contemporary stuff, but it’s hard for me to read until they get to paperback. Consequently, I haven’t read any of these:
I haven’t read it yet, but how is Zadie Smith’s NW not on here?
Zadie Smith’s the best y’guys. just the best.
Georges Perec and Jay-Z
At times he restricts himself formally, like the Oulipo, that experimental French literary group of the 1960s. In the song “22 Two’s,” from 1996, we get 22 delicious plays on the words “too” and “two.”
Ten years later, the sequel, “44 Fours,” has the same conceit, stepped up a gear. “Like, you know, close the walls in a bit smaller.” Can he explain why? “I think the reason I still make music is because of the challenge.”
— Zadie Smith, “The House That Hova Built”
On “Who Gon Stop Me,” Jay-Z asks that we “please pardon all the curses” because “when you’re growing up worthless,” well, things come out that way. Black hurt, black self-esteem. It’s the contradictory pull of the “cipher,” rap terminology for the circle that forms around the kind of freestyling kid Jay-Z once was. What a word! Cipher (noun): 1. A secret or disguised way of writing; a code. 2. A key to such a code. 3. A person or thing of no importance. “Watch the Throne” celebrates two men’s escape from that circle of negation.
He is mildly disappointed that after publishing “Decoded,” his 2010 memoir, people still ask the same old questions. The flippancy annoys him, the ease with which some still dismiss rap as “something that’s just this bad language, or guys who degrade women, and they don’t realize the poetry and the art.” This is perhaps one downside to having the “flow of the century.”
Zadie Smith Interviews Jay-Z for The New York Times Magazine.
Zadie Smith’s newest book, NW, came out this week. Put it on hold from the library today. Or, pick up Jay-Z’s 2010 memoir, Decoded from the Library and read it this weekend!
Pursue understanding. Deconstruct systems in order to taste building blocks. Happiness waits else/everywhere. And the heart(h). Do spheres not pull at each other?
The Old Pier Bookshop, Morecambe (by Squatbetty)
At Gladstone’s Library in Wales, you can stay on the premises for $75/night to...
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