Handshake like dead fish

1)
Remember those times when you had enough sense of self to have clearly delineated an understanding of where you ended and the world began, and you’d have one of those little half-hiccup grimecore burps that brought a little special sauce along for the ride? “Can’t stop won’t stop” (the song, not the book – and when did this need to be clear on which title-sharing, genre-differentiated work one referred to?) is the equivalent of the memory of that moment you hopefully just brought to bear on your reality. No idea to what I refer? No problem.

2)
Sophocles would get hip-hop. It’s like Oedipal king of the mountain, but with gold teeth and little offshoot submovements in offshoot cities like MPLS (e.g. Simon Says ixnay on the ymesayrhmay) that function as safety valves for all the “too street for me”-ers who like their polysyllables in the self-conscious style.
In this country, which likes new things more than old things, what will come of present luminaries over time? I’m not speaking of the sundry Canibuses, Noriegas, Bushwick Bills, and Fife Dogs of the world, nor do I have much concern for the I’m thinking more of the Jiggas and the as yet not gunned down Luminati. There are so many Law & Order series for them to make Ice-T on and keep the scrip coming. Can you see Top Fifty on whatever reality show version of Celebrity Squares drops a decade from now? Will second level players like Common be doing instore appearances at the new Gap that goes up on 51st Street in the HP in ten years? Aging rock and pop stars make sense in that decadent, barnacle-like way they have of remaining just marginally visible enough to keep their names circulating in trivia questions for another two years or so. Ethos- and aesthetics-wise, this seems too bitter a pill for the Big Boys of HHop to swallow. And, I suppose, the ensuing decade or two will make that clear. It’s one thing to repeatedly spew praise on prattle that comes from the fleshy-faced, prostrate-enlarged likes of Young and Dylan, who have interestingly been assigned leading roles in the Nostalgia Wars to which our Boomer predecessors devote time in between power-walk treks and perusals of Time magazine. What spectacles will be wrought when the BBHH are dethroned for good (ah, Puffy, karma’s gonna be a cold pitiless bitch)? Will the devolution be televised? I have no worries that Dre will age gracefully because he already has; those others, though, may never lose their ability to slay all would-be slayers and – tragically or not – never get the chance to reveal it because the young (as they are wont to do) will have set their sights on more recent instances of apotheosis.

3)
I’m beginning to develop a theory about the innate goodness of aesthetic bigamy/kind-of-shit-that-interests you bigamy. In certain life situations, dipping your feet into too many waters can cause dyspeptic stomach or a bout of genital herpes. When it comes to the assemblage of movie/book/music/sport/installation art/etc. domains, however, I’m beginning to think spreading yourself thin yields a surprising amount of depth. Or better to think of it as cross-pollination? Anyway.