So...is it just me? Or did they bury the lead? I'd be more interested in the fact that there is a brothel in Columbia Heights..
I've been told that its hard to prove that sex acts occur if both parties know its illegal and won't talk. However, its odd that they would CLEARLY say this is a brothel. No ifs ands or buts about it. I suppose they merely can't prove it. And I'm sure all undercover cops are scared away now...now that fingers can be lost for simply grabbing a couple hundreds.
Oh...and if I was EVER thinking of joining a brothel...the one in Columbia Heights is obviously off the table. I try to avoid machetes. How awesome is it that someone had that just lying around?
Robber gets away with cash, leaves thumb
By Scott McCabeExaminer Staff Writer 10/22/08 An armed robbery suspect made off with the money but left one of his thumbs behind following a violent armed robbery and double shooting at an alleged Columbia Heights bordello.
Police used the bloody appendage to track down the nine-fingered bandit suspected of robbing what authorities say is a Hispanic brothel and gambling house in Northwest Washington earlier this month.
Authorities said the suspect, Bryan Perez, 22, and his partner were able to escape from the row house with hundreds of dollars in cash. But, according to charging documents, Perez’s right thumb was left behind on the living room floor, hacked off during a struggle with one of the victims....
DC Examiner
http://www.dcexaminer.com/local/Robber_gets_away_with_cash_leaves_thumb.html
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Max Utzschneider...if that is your real name...I think that I love you.
Transelation:
There is some doubt and distrust that I harbor within me. But, if you give me a chance, I believe...much like Blair and Chuck...that I can overcome the cards that I was dealt, and engage in a healthly rich relationship that
Popular Culture: An Apology - Volume 1
Posted by The Colonialist
October 21, 2008
Submitted by Max Utzschneider, Logic Tutor
–
It has become cliché to lampoon popular music for being lyrically incoherent or banal. By popular music I mean the type that teenagers gyrate to in clubs across the country, repeating the refrain in endless, subconscious monotone. But perhaps we are not giving popular music the analysis or review it deserves. Perhaps the charge of triviality is unwarranted. It seems worthwhile to attempt a defense of popular music, to see if it can be feasibly interpreted to say something interesting.Today, I will look at a song by Ms. Britney Spears, entitled “Womanizer”. I have selected this song because it is said to be popular – according to the Billboard charts, which, I have been told, measure this sort of thing. I have not heard the song, but have written down the lyrics on my notepad for analysis. Let us begin.
The first verse reads:
Superstar
Where you from, how’s it going?
I know you
Gotta clue, what you’re doing?
You can play brand new to all the other chicks out there
But I know what you are, what you are, baby
What message does this verse convey? Ms. Spears is addressing someone named “Superstar”, or perhaps even someone who is a superstar. The latter interpretation seems at first unwarranted, considering that on the second line Ms. Spears questions where Superstar is from. It is possible that this person is a superstar, and Ms. Spears is cordially asking his country or state of origin, but, again, this seems unlikely considering that in the last line of the verse Ms. Spears claims to know quite a lot about Superstar indeed. I think a third alternative is plausible, however. Ms. Spears claims to know what Superstar is, but doubts that Superstar knows where he is going. He is a superstar – or at least she derisively labels him as such. Perhaps she is insinuating that he has lost himself and forgotten where he is from. This reading is supported by the idiosyncratic third and fourth lines, which are posed in the form of a question. Ms. Spears knows what Superstar is, but perhaps Superstar doesn’t. This song deals with the problem of identity in modern society, with Ms. Spears acting as our collective self-consciousness. She knows what we are, and asks us if we can say the same. Heady material indeed.
The second verse:
Look at you
Getting’ more than just re-up
Baby, you
Got all the puppets with their strings up
Fakin’ like a good one, but I call ‘em like I see ‘em
I know what you are, what you are, baby
This is excellent. Ms. Spears is quite fearless in confrontation – the very first line commands: “look at you”. Of course she is asking us to look at ourselves. We tell ourselves that we are getting more than just re-up (I do not know what re-up is, but I assume she is referring to some psychological crutch we all tragically weild). We think we have everything figured out, that the world is ours to command. Obviously, our tragic flaw is hubris. The fourth and fifth lines seem strange at first, but easily collapse into the above interpretation. Ms. Spears knows that our self-analysis is doomed to failure because we are faking like a good one – what is this good one? Perhaps it is one of the puppets referenced on line 4. Ms. Spears shatters our illusions of control – we are the puppets. She does not apologize for her brutal honesty, she merely calls “em” like she sees “em”, because she knows what we are. She is our prophet of truth, using her superstar position to turn us against the unconscious repose of unreflected Being.
Verse 3:
Womanizer
Yes. This is it. The moment of revelation. Ms. Spears bravely calls out our “fakin” for what it is: the misogynistic pretense of domination. In a society of womanizers, we are all victims, even our superstars. Ms. Spears remains above this morass – she is our Cassandra, doomed to speak the truth only to those who cannot listen,
Verse 4:
Boy, don’t try to front
I know just what you are
We protest, but Ms. Spears presses the point – like Oedipus, we cannot avoid the truths sprung from the mouth of the prophet, though we deny them vociferously. Again:
Verse 5:
Womanizer
Unfiltered, Ms. Spears is a torrent of Messianic violence – immediate, it wrenches our petty equivocations from us in the name of the truth that dare not speak its name – the rotten core of modernity that ever evades the light of Spearsian revelation: Womanizer.
Verse 6:
Daddy-O
You got the swagger of champions
Too bad for you
Just can’t find the right companion
I guess when you have one too many, makes it hard
It could be easy, but that’s who you are, baby
Too bad for us indeed. We cannot escape the contradictions inherent to our precritical rationality – and despite our attempts to drown the demands of self-consciousness in the dogmatism of the champion, we will never find peaceful repose, for we cannot repose within ourselves. We cannot “find the right companion” within, and so will never “find the right companion” without. Ms. Spears obviously invokes a theme from Nietzsche: we have many wills to power battling within one breast. As a battleground, our identity has been, is, and will be torn apart – an eternal return. We must affirm our own will to power, and the first step is realizing what it is that we have become, what false will to power undergirds our fractured identity. We must become camels, and determine to bear the heavy loads incumbent upon those who seek the truth: Womanizer.
Verse 7:
Lollipop
Mistake me as a sucker
To think that I
Would be a victim, not another
Say it, play it how you wanna
But no way I’m ever gonna fall for you, never you, baby
Ms. Spears has revealed to us our problems. She has stripped our pretensions from us and exposed the self-inflicted wounds of ignorance. As a final act she wished to crush our last defence, the final vestige of relativism. We ask who is this Ms. Spears to claim such a unique hold on the truth? Who is she to tell us who we are? But Ms. Spears will not fall into that trap, and your equivocations will fall on deaf ears. For once, this time, we will have to deal really and fully with what Ms. Spears tells us. She will not back down. She will never fall for us (baby), because it is simply not our position to question her. She is no lollipop.
Verse 8:
Maybe if we both lived in a different world
It would be all good, and maybe I could be ya girl
But I can’t ‘cause we don’t
Unequivocal. A call to action. We must imagine a different world where Ms. Spears could be “ya girl”. “Ya” has connotations of celebration – I assume that such a world involves one in which Ms. Spears’ proclamations do not fall on deaf ears, a world where it would be all good, and rational introspection would be valued and practiced universally. In such a world Ms. Spears would become one of us. But that world does not yet exist, and until then, Ms. Spears remains alone, a silent voice of passionate reason trapped within the machine she wishes to destroy – a superstar.
I believe this inquiry has revealed several things. First, it is quite obvious that Ms. Spears is not a peddler of superficial tripe. She is deeply engaged in the problem of superficiality in modern society and our collective inability to become fully self-conscious. Second, the fact that this song is apparently quite popular reveals that this concern is not Ms. Spears’ alone. Radios across the country replay this song in the hope that just this once, this one time, we may open our ears and really listen – listen to Ms. Spears, and listen to ourselves. This brave work is at the heart of the MTV corporate agenda – a desire to promote and play songs that really challenge us, and ask us to take a hard look at ourselves, the way we treat one another, and the way we have constructed our society. Have we realized the promise of the enlightenment? Ms. Spears doesn’t think so, and after reading her song, I am inclined to agree.
Posted by The Colonialist
October 21, 2008
Submitted by Max Utzschneider, Logic Tutor
–
It has become cliché to lampoon popular music for being lyrically incoherent or banal. By popular music I mean the type that teenagers gyrate to in clubs across the country, repeating the refrain in endless, subconscious monotone. But perhaps we are not giving popular music the analysis or review it deserves. Perhaps the charge of triviality is unwarranted. It seems worthwhile to attempt a defense of popular music, to see if it can be feasibly interpreted to say something interesting.Today, I will look at a song by Ms. Britney Spears, entitled “Womanizer”. I have selected this song because it is said to be popular – according to the Billboard charts, which, I have been told, measure this sort of thing. I have not heard the song, but have written down the lyrics on my notepad for analysis. Let us begin.
The first verse reads:
Superstar
Where you from, how’s it going?
I know you
Gotta clue, what you’re doing?
You can play brand new to all the other chicks out there
But I know what you are, what you are, baby
What message does this verse convey? Ms. Spears is addressing someone named “Superstar”, or perhaps even someone who is a superstar. The latter interpretation seems at first unwarranted, considering that on the second line Ms. Spears questions where Superstar is from. It is possible that this person is a superstar, and Ms. Spears is cordially asking his country or state of origin, but, again, this seems unlikely considering that in the last line of the verse Ms. Spears claims to know quite a lot about Superstar indeed. I think a third alternative is plausible, however. Ms. Spears claims to know what Superstar is, but doubts that Superstar knows where he is going. He is a superstar – or at least she derisively labels him as such. Perhaps she is insinuating that he has lost himself and forgotten where he is from. This reading is supported by the idiosyncratic third and fourth lines, which are posed in the form of a question. Ms. Spears knows what Superstar is, but perhaps Superstar doesn’t. This song deals with the problem of identity in modern society, with Ms. Spears acting as our collective self-consciousness. She knows what we are, and asks us if we can say the same. Heady material indeed.
The second verse:
Look at you
Getting’ more than just re-up
Baby, you
Got all the puppets with their strings up
Fakin’ like a good one, but I call ‘em like I see ‘em
I know what you are, what you are, baby
This is excellent. Ms. Spears is quite fearless in confrontation – the very first line commands: “look at you”. Of course she is asking us to look at ourselves. We tell ourselves that we are getting more than just re-up (I do not know what re-up is, but I assume she is referring to some psychological crutch we all tragically weild). We think we have everything figured out, that the world is ours to command. Obviously, our tragic flaw is hubris. The fourth and fifth lines seem strange at first, but easily collapse into the above interpretation. Ms. Spears knows that our self-analysis is doomed to failure because we are faking like a good one – what is this good one? Perhaps it is one of the puppets referenced on line 4. Ms. Spears shatters our illusions of control – we are the puppets. She does not apologize for her brutal honesty, she merely calls “em” like she sees “em”, because she knows what we are. She is our prophet of truth, using her superstar position to turn us against the unconscious repose of unreflected Being.
Verse 3:
Womanizer
Yes. This is it. The moment of revelation. Ms. Spears bravely calls out our “fakin” for what it is: the misogynistic pretense of domination. In a society of womanizers, we are all victims, even our superstars. Ms. Spears remains above this morass – she is our Cassandra, doomed to speak the truth only to those who cannot listen,
Verse 4:
Boy, don’t try to front
I know just what you are
We protest, but Ms. Spears presses the point – like Oedipus, we cannot avoid the truths sprung from the mouth of the prophet, though we deny them vociferously. Again:
Verse 5:
Womanizer
Unfiltered, Ms. Spears is a torrent of Messianic violence – immediate, it wrenches our petty equivocations from us in the name of the truth that dare not speak its name – the rotten core of modernity that ever evades the light of Spearsian revelation: Womanizer.
Verse 6:
Daddy-O
You got the swagger of champions
Too bad for you
Just can’t find the right companion
I guess when you have one too many, makes it hard
It could be easy, but that’s who you are, baby
Too bad for us indeed. We cannot escape the contradictions inherent to our precritical rationality – and despite our attempts to drown the demands of self-consciousness in the dogmatism of the champion, we will never find peaceful repose, for we cannot repose within ourselves. We cannot “find the right companion” within, and so will never “find the right companion” without. Ms. Spears obviously invokes a theme from Nietzsche: we have many wills to power battling within one breast. As a battleground, our identity has been, is, and will be torn apart – an eternal return. We must affirm our own will to power, and the first step is realizing what it is that we have become, what false will to power undergirds our fractured identity. We must become camels, and determine to bear the heavy loads incumbent upon those who seek the truth: Womanizer.
Verse 7:
Lollipop
Mistake me as a sucker
To think that I
Would be a victim, not another
Say it, play it how you wanna
But no way I’m ever gonna fall for you, never you, baby
Ms. Spears has revealed to us our problems. She has stripped our pretensions from us and exposed the self-inflicted wounds of ignorance. As a final act she wished to crush our last defence, the final vestige of relativism. We ask who is this Ms. Spears to claim such a unique hold on the truth? Who is she to tell us who we are? But Ms. Spears will not fall into that trap, and your equivocations will fall on deaf ears. For once, this time, we will have to deal really and fully with what Ms. Spears tells us. She will not back down. She will never fall for us (baby), because it is simply not our position to question her. She is no lollipop.
Verse 8:
Maybe if we both lived in a different world
It would be all good, and maybe I could be ya girl
But I can’t ‘cause we don’t
Unequivocal. A call to action. We must imagine a different world where Ms. Spears could be “ya girl”. “Ya” has connotations of celebration – I assume that such a world involves one in which Ms. Spears’ proclamations do not fall on deaf ears, a world where it would be all good, and rational introspection would be valued and practiced universally. In such a world Ms. Spears would become one of us. But that world does not yet exist, and until then, Ms. Spears remains alone, a silent voice of passionate reason trapped within the machine she wishes to destroy – a superstar.
I believe this inquiry has revealed several things. First, it is quite obvious that Ms. Spears is not a peddler of superficial tripe. She is deeply engaged in the problem of superficiality in modern society and our collective inability to become fully self-conscious. Second, the fact that this song is apparently quite popular reveals that this concern is not Ms. Spears’ alone. Radios across the country replay this song in the hope that just this once, this one time, we may open our ears and really listen – listen to Ms. Spears, and listen to ourselves. This brave work is at the heart of the MTV corporate agenda – a desire to promote and play songs that really challenge us, and ask us to take a hard look at ourselves, the way we treat one another, and the way we have constructed our society. Have we realized the promise of the enlightenment? Ms. Spears doesn’t think so, and after reading her song, I am inclined to agree.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)