Friday links! Striking discrepancies edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 1 Comment
A 1939 photo of Harlem containing a man who looks strikingly like Jay-Z

A 1939 photo of Harlem containing a man who looks strikingly like Jay-Z

That is not Jay-Z in old-timey photographer Sid Grossman’s picture of Harlem, sent to me by old-timey pornographer Ben al-Fowlkes. It sure looks like Jay-Z, though. Either I am some kind of hair-toucher who does not notice subtle facial distinctions among people of other races, or that Depression-era Harlemite looks uncannily like Hov.  The already alarmingly low level of can is reduced even further by the familiar idea of Jay-Z dressing up in old-fashioned luxury clothes to evoke a particular period in black history. Appearing in a wool suit and newsboy cap in Harlem is not something he did do, exactly, but it sure is the kind of thing he might do. Today is Friday, and the world is full of striking discrepancies. Most of it fits, and then one detail blows the whole thing into weirdo territory. Won’t you demand an impossible consistency with me?

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Friday links! Obliviousnessery edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment

We’re in the city!

“Everything that exists without my knowledge,” remarks Judge Holden near the end of Blood Meridian, “exists without my permission.” A whole bunch of stuff that we don’t know about it happening out there, and the more we learn about it, the more we extend our authority. Another way to put that is “the more we extend our responsibility,” and sometimes—as in the photo above—innocence is only possible through ignorance. That doesn’t work once you introduce a third party, of course. Once you know about someone else’s ignorance, their innocence evaporates—but then you’re offering their behavior a Holdeneque permission. It’s a damn thicket, is what it is. Today is Friday, and the internet has made it harder to remain ignorant than ever before. Won’t you expand the scope of your indulgence with me?

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Friday links! Problem of Others edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links, Uncategorized 3 Comments

As I write this, my neighbor Greg is watching me from his front stoop, which he does for pretty much the entirety of my workday. Greg is not employed; he receives Social Security disability payments and lives in a state-subsidized apartment, leaving him and his girlfriend free to drink beer on the stoop from 11am to sundown—which, in Missoula this time of year, happens around 9:30. Because my desk is in my window, Greg is under the impression that I spend all my waking hours on the computer. That’s only kind of true; Greg just sees me whenever I’m on the computer because he is always looking, and I am on the computer a lot because that’s my job. As a self-employed person, I pay double Social Security,* so I sometimes imagine that I am covering myself and Greg, too. I try not to, though, because he is super nice. Last night, when he drunkenly greeted me upon my arrival home, he noticed that I was sick and joked that I had caught a computer virus. It was pretty funny, especially for a guy who had been drinking for 10 consecutive hours. It was also infuriating, since I am not just a nerdy shut-in the same age as Greg but also one of the large number of people who work to ensure that he does not die. This is what we call the Problem of Others.

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Being cool: People should want to kill you

By Dan Brooks in Being Cool 4 Comments

The second coolest dog ever (Number one: Phife Dawg)

In keeping with its tradition of covering the news not just as it happens, like most papers, but also possibly before it happens, the Style section of the New York Times announced today that bulletproof vests are totally hip. The author of the article, Ruth La Ferla, says the phenomenon was likely spurred by the return of the Fox show 24, in which Jack Bauer often wears a bulletproof vest. I guess that’s possibly true—24 is a show on television now, and people are apparently wearing bulletproof vests for fashion now—in the same sense that eating breakfast makes it get lighter outside. As is usually the case with a style piece, you can’t prove it’s not happening. La Ferla points out that bulletproof vests are worn by counterterrorism operatives and wealthy plutocrats, as well as Hollywood moguls and 50 Cent. “So it may have been only a matter of time,” she writes, “before aspiring hipsters embraced the style — the sartorial equivalent of a safe room — as a badge of cool.” Because as any hipster will tell you, no one is cooler than 50 Cent, unless it’s the guy who runs Wuhan Steel Group.

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