Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Now that finals are over and the holidays are trickling down, David and I will be heading back to the great, scary mainland of our ancestors for New Year's and more. I'm forty minutes shy of departure, my bags are packed, and I'm fully equipped with two sleeping pills (fourteen hour trips are brutal), a copy of Beijing Time (an anthropological study of the city), a neck pillow (Mom threw one in the luggage), a Moleskine journal (which I started using in '05 and still haven't filled up), and a tape recorder (because you never know when you'll need evidence after some creep harasses you, or after you get stranded on an island with smoke monsters that make sounds like taxicabs printing receipts).The sad thing is that David and I are hitting the exact same cities (Shanghai, Beijing, Hainan), but our dads have created completely different itineraries for us. Guess that your twenties don't really mean full independence. Anyway, maybe we'll live blog you or something. Maybe. Maybe we'll just be posting about how much China sucks and we miss NYC, because that's where we're from, and believe it or not, people can tell that we are Westerners and will harass us for it.
Here's a happy, drunken well wish from us to you. We're all finally done and have no qualms with having our brains melt over the break. Hopefully you will be like us and not go watch the "Chinese Meets West Extravaganza".
...so, I admit, I started this off as a "Holiday Gift Guide"-themed post of sorts but scrapped the idea when, suddenly, it dawned to me: why would anyone out there in our readership of tens, when looking for a gift to give, think about listening to the advice of a man and his mostly useless interest in politically progressive hip-hop? Why would you even continue to write this post? Could it have to do with the fact that, after finishing your last final paper, you rejected the most obvious next step (sleep) and instead weighed the idea of writing a blog post?
(And, since it'd likely be asked by somebody eventually--for each artist, I've included their connection to Asian American cultural productions, Kevin Bacon style.)
BAMBU | ...exact change...
Reasons to Listen:
-Bam's lurid storytelling and dozens-playing is all the more focused, and it makes the album feel less meandering and more complete
-"Crooks and Rooks," his retrospective condemnation of gang violence that does its job without being preachy (and the beat is great)
-He can mention "Dirty Sanchez" in his lyrics without me cracking up or recoiling in horror. In other words, he's pretty clever (for those who don't know the term and want to find out: not for the prude)
Highlights: "Crooks and Rooks," "Quit," "Out the Gate," "Party Boy"
The Asian Bacon connection: Bambu is Filipino. One degree!
COMMON MARKET | Tobacco Road
Reasons to Listen:
-RA Scion (emcee) and Sabzi (producer) mesh extremely well, and it never feels forced
-"Back Home (The Return)," in which Sabzi flips the same sample from "Back Home" and makes it sound qualitatively different. Kudos!
-Who else could release a EP and LP with the thematic strain of the early-20th-century labor struggles of white tenant farmers in the rural South? It also merits this RA outfit.
Highlights: "Trouble Is," "Back Home (The Return)," "Weather Vane," "Nothin' At All"
The Asian Bacon connection: Sabzi's other group Blue Scholars features an emcee, Geologic, who is Filipino. Two degrees!
Q-TIP | The Renaissance
Reasons to Listen:
-Q-Tip makes the album sound like 1994 and 2008 at the exact same time, and every song feels like it belongs where it does. And he's still a solid rapper!
-Pop it in and you'll start reminiscing about the "good ol' days of hip-hop," a nostalgic reminder of the Midnight Marauders days when we were 6 and singing along to the Power Rangers theme song
Highlights: "Gettin' Up," "We Fight/We Love," "Move," "Dance on Glass"
The Asian Bacon connection: The music video for "Move" was directed by Rik Cordero, who is Filipino. Also, to give the non-Pin@ys a chance: "Life is Better" features Norah Jones, who is Desi. 2 x 2 degrees!
INVINCIBLE | ShapeShifters
Reasons to Listen:
-Her lyricism is the densest and cleverest of anything I've heard in like 5 years. On "Sledgehammer!" alone, she alludes to the Detroit Pistons, Peter Gabriel, J Dilla, Fred Hampton, Orville Redenbacher, and Frantz Fanon, and has the line "there goes the neighborhood, like Fred Sanford next door to Ned Flanders."
-Strong, critical, genuinely feminist rappers are few and far between in a world of music industries that put butt & bust sizes first
-She walks the walk, and is a community/youth organizer and educator in Detroit and Ann Arbor!
Highlights: "Sledgehammer!," "Spacious Skies," "Recognize," "Locusts," and everything else
The Asian Bacon connection: ShapeShifters both quotes and features an audio sample from Grace Lee Boggs, who is also a badass Detroit community organizer, and is Chinese. Two degrees! This is pretty easy.
KANYE WEST | 808's and Heartbreak
Reasons to Listen:
-.
Highlights: "Spaceship," "Two Words," "Heard 'Em Say," "Flashing Lights"
The Asian Bacon connection: Kanye often works with Jay-Z, whose album American Gangster was based on the movie featuring Denzel Washington, which also featured Josh Brolin, who was in Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon!
(Good night.)
Happy bday, T. Xie! After your first professional year at that fancy investment company, we at The Blaaag are happy to know that you still throw ridiculous parties. Even if they're now in a neighborly residential spot in Astoria, with annoyed downstairs neighbors. We're also happy to know that you still shout nonsense after a few hours and a few drinks.
Love, us.
From all of us Blaaag writers (in our wintry, well-wishing, languid/hung-over/restful contentment)... Happy 2008.
As forwarded by one of our OCMs, Eddie:
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere . Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.Happy holidays!
By accepting these greetings, you are accepting the aforementioned terms as stated. This greeting is not subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself/himself/others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.
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