11/26/10

A post about Black Friday (Part 1).

I was going to post about how the US military shouldn't be holding joint exercises with the South Korean military and how that has the potential to escalate the North Korean conflict to the point of a devastating war. But instead I'm going to talk about how I got two books for $1.99.

This is America's fastest rising tradition I'm talking about: Black Friday.

Bloodthirsty consumers stay up all night to form one big line outside of their store of choice, which will open at some ungodly hour in the morning. Why the stores open this early is so beyond me, because regardless of how early they open, there are still going to be herds of sheep who worry themselves more over that discounted pair of jeans then their disrupted sleep patterns. Now that they've heard the phrase "big savings", these people are determined: the hour of the day is irrelevant. Now they just HAVE to get that 84" LCD for their den. They just HAVE to get that red lounge chair that will NOT gather dust in the attic. IT WILL NOT GATHER DUST IN THE ATTIC

Spending = happiness. Profit = exuberance. The doors open and the United States is even uglier than it was before.

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And yet I participated in this mess, twice in one day.

The first time was with Bobina. We went hours after the opening madness, but cars were still everywhere in the Fox Run plaza. We went to Savers to get something for her sister, but we ended up shopping for ourselves. She got a suitcase for some reason, a bag for her laptop, and a sweater that I thought was tacky but she insisted she'd wear. I had to dig to find something worth buying, but finally wound up with a book of short stories by Guy de Maupassant for $1.99 and a used copy of Talib Kweli's "The Beautiful Struggle" for 69¢.

When I got in the car, I opened up the CD case to find...

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I'll finish that tale tomorrow. Nothing like a good ol' cliffhanger.

In response to Dave:
The thing with the Kanye West album is that I tried to approach the album as a piece of music, not a piece of his precious ego. It was hard to separate the two, but with a bit of a struggle, I managed. And I think it's possible for everyone to listen to it that way. So I say, although it's tempting, don't knock it until you try it.

Song of the post: Gong by Sigur Ros (video's not too bad itself)






2 comments:

Dave said...

I didn't knock it, all I said about his music was that I hadn't heard it. But why should I try it when all I know about the man is he's a massive twat? There are a million artists out there that I could listen to, why should that guy get 40 minutes of my time when I could give it to someone who's not a twat?

Jay said...

But should Kanye's personality and backstory necessarily interfere with this album? After all, he has had a bit of a turnaround as of late, he atoned and apologized for a lot of what he had done, and some of that is done on this album: He calls himself a monster, he tells people that they should run away from him.

I think the reason people are so into this, and partially why I was drawn to it, is because it seemed as though Kanye had finally written something that wasn't just about him. People were wondering: Is this a Kanye West album that could actually be saying something, for once? Could it be a testament to how so many of us are way too into ourselves and what we have? Could he have accurately painted a grim portrait of today's society?

No. I don't think it was intended to be that deep. I think it's still mostly about him. So I see your side and I see it well. I also agree that there are so many more credible, less limelight-seeking musicians who can write a better song than Kanye, and who therefore deserve to be heard more than him. Your decision to not listen is more-than-justified.