Arts Profile: Music: Singer/rapper/poet who makes an artform of cursing and 'talkin' dirty' ...

A protégé of Dr. Dre, rapper Eminem emerged in 1999 as one of the most controversial rappers to ever grace the genre. Using his biting wit and incredible skills to vent on everything from his unhappy childhood to his contempt for the mainstream media, his success became the biggest crossover success the genre had seen since Dre's solo debut seven years earlier. The controversy over his lyrics was the best publicity any musician could afford, and being the first Caucasian rapper to make a significant impact in years may have given him a platform not afforded to equally talented African-American rappers. A gifted producer as well, his talents always seemed overshadowed by his media presence, which was a mix between misunderstood genius and misogynistic homophobe. Both may be true, but his message spoke to legions of disaffected youth who had few role models in the rap world who could relate to the white lower-class experience.

Pop Music, by Earfix

He was born Marshall Mathers in St. Joseph, Missouri, USA

Read More of this splendid bio at Amazon MP3 ("music downloads for any device"), plus a complete discography of E's recorded albums, and an online marketplace with shopping cart for purchase of his MP3 Amazon releases, no doubt a lead for attracting buyers to the new Amazon website that's directly in competition with Apple's iTunes -- my past first choice for buying music downloads hitherto. Here on Amazon MP3, Eminem is a 'spotl+t artist for May' and he's #4 on the list of "25 artists to watch in May," says the Amazon MP3 merchandising text, the whole page indeed and many linked to it on this website in the season of its initial marketing.

Did I buy, you ask, a US$8.99-priced version of E's recently-released new hip-hop curse-fest, Release? -- No, but I did go for the cheapest version, that option being one of three; my cheapo option I later noticed (in a post-purchase insite) was the only one not labelled "Explicit" (these two versions or purchase-portals cost a buck more ... so, I began to wonder whether my version is full of blips or instead of that something like, let's say, sound-emptied dead moments, excisions, but even without such distortions to cover up or erase out precisely the over-the-line words of Eminem's vocabulary and metaphory, I ask, can you actually achieve a mature appreciation/critque without experiencing explicitly the way (and with the words he chose in performance and recording, all the words before the blips or cuts removed them, those words...)--can you attain as good an aesthetic experience of what Eminem has to offer?, his art such as it be.

But I should not shy away from my inability to make an online purchase of Release due to the fact as I belatedly noticed--only USA residents can buy online at Amazon MP3. Hrrrumpppffft!

Principium Consumers Hub

On purchase matters, you (residents in the USA) can buy individual songs and slowly collect the songs of the tracks of a given album, single by single, if you want. Just to give you a picture of how Amazon MP3 is competing with iTunes.

Technotes, by Technowlb

Sports: Soccer: Chicago Fire trashes Toronto Football Club

. "Toronto FC midfielder Amado Guevara and Chicago Fire midfielder Mike Banner battle for the ball during the second half in Toronto on Saturday. (Pix: Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press)." Paul Attfield in Globe & Mail

Sports: Basketball: LA's Lakers vs. Houston Rockets

Kobe Bryant, star and guard for the Lakers' basketball team, in unguarded moment chewing his game-shirt while team heads into a fall -- Houston Rockets 99 - Lakers 87 (May16,2k9, L A Times). One fan called it a "fiasco."

This was the sixth game in a seven-game series of the SemiFinals for the Western Conference of the National Basketball Association.

The winner of this physical, sometimes-testy series will advance to the conference finals to face the Denver Nuggets, who've been resting since eliminating Dallas on Wednesday night.

Kobe Bryant admits it's a mystery why the Lakers have been so wildly inconsistent against a team few expected would reach the second round, let alone push the top seed in the West to a Game 7.

So, it's onward to the finals against the Denver Nuggets, who won entry to the Finals by defeating Dallas.

Arts: Poetry: Poetry Out Loud awards national winners of competition

"Poetry Spoken Out Loud Gaining Popularity in US," by Deborah Block (May14,2k9, Voice of America).

On Tuesday evening at the White House, President Obama hosted an event celebrating poetry, music and the spoken word. In the United States, there has been a resurgence of interest in poetry, especially poems that are recited out loud. For the past several years, thousands of high school students have been learning about poetry through memorization and performance in a program called Poetry Out Loud. The top performer from each state competes in a national championship. It took place recently in Washington DC.

Wiyaka wins competition

This is the Poetry Out Loud champion from the western state of South Dakota who recently competed in the 2009 national competition in Washington. Wiyaka is a Native American whose family name is His Horse is Thunder. Her father is an Indian chief and she is related to Sitting Bull, a famous chief in the 19th century who fought to protect his tribe's land. Native American tribes are known for storytelling, and Wiyaka says she is keeping that tradition alive, in her own way, by reciting poetry to audiences.

"I just want them to feel something when they hear it," she said.

Rebirth of art form

John Barr, head of the Poetry Foundation says much of the poetry written during the past 25 years was difficult to understand, and the public lost interest.

"Fine poems were being written but they were not the kind you would read in a newspaper," he said. "We're trying to get good poetry back in front of the general public."

The resurgence of recited poetry was influenced by two modern trends, beginning with poetry slams that started in the late 1980s. They are usually held in music clubs, where people can recite their own poems. The other influence is rap in hip-hop music.

More than reciting a poem

Students who compete in Poetry Out Loud do not recite their own poetry. They choose from a long list of poems.

Kareem Sayegh from the midwestern state of Illinois came in third in the national competition. His parents are from Egypt and he says he has been influenced by Egyptian poetry.

Kareem says he makes subtle gestures when he recites poems, since the contestants lose points if they are overly dramatic. "I just use my hand lightly and and then it becomes somewhat clearer," Kareem said.

Will Farley from Virginia recited a poem by one of his favorite poets, Langston Hughes, a well known African-American poet in the last century. When he was a university student in New York, Hughes wrote, "Theme for English B."

Will's interpretation of that poem helped him take the top prize. "Before Poetry Out Loud, poetry didn't mean much to me and Poetry Out Loud changed that," Farley said. "For me, poetry is alive, something I can connect with and feel, and express myself with."

Will won a $20,000 college scholarship, which he says will help him with his future ambitions. In the words of Langston Hughes, "Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly."

Words: Meanings: A contentious word, that "factoid," to be sure, Bernie ...what's that you say?

As entitled, I'm repeating my immediately preceding blog-entry, but only its lower half (whereas the upper half, the actual factoid in review has since been posted to topleft [sidebar top] on refWrite frontpage). Now, I'm floating-up (Frye) the lower half of the previous entry, and I shall say why after quoting myself, even at the risk of repetitiousness:

I developed a little tidbit now on the frontpage at the top of the r+ts+d s+dbar, where I repristinate the word "factoid." Why bother? I bother because I heard the word defamed on TV--the Fox worldwide cablenews show that recently carried Bernard Goldberg, media critic, former CBS reporter, a serious guy I otherwise respect for his analysis and opinions ... he made "factoid" to mean a fake "fact," a fact so weak or sickly or so fuzzy in meaning that it just did not qualify as a genuine fact (at least, I guess, in the professional journalistic way that said defamer claims to represent). Ah well, I think and use the word otherwise in an otherwise world he can't discern, apparently. Thus, I've already copied the refWrite factoid presented above, to the spot where the former, usual pen&ink image has been pushed below the new factoid spot. I'm sorry that the reader must put up with the lack of proper aligment of all the items on my little list.

The point being, what is a fact?, and what possible constructive meanings could "factoid" have?

I shall have to find a visual semiote (other than speech-bound typography) for this new series on fact, factoids, and manufacting.

Technics: Blogging refWrite: a factoid is not necessarily a bad thing

Factoid refWrite

Here's a complex decontextualized ("floated" when dissociatively quoted, litcrit Northop Frye, The Anatomy of Criticism, or for that matter Paul Ricoeur's Metaphor) but that takes me far afield from this list of computing systems with which refWrite readers connected to us:

MicroSoft Window .... 1078.... 70.05%
Apple .............................. 326.... 21.18%
Linux/Unix ...................... 89.... 5.78%
Other Systems ................ 35.... 2.27%
Mobile Systems .............. 11.... 0.71%

May9,2k9

------------------------------------
I developed the little tidbit above, where I repristinate the word "factoid," because I heard it defamed on TV--the Fox worldwide cable news show that recently carried Bernard Goldberg, media critic, former CBS reporter ... he made "factoid" to mean a fake "fact," a fact so weak or sickly or so fuzzy in meaning that it just did not qualify as a genuine fact (at least, I guess, in the professional journalistic way that said defamer claims to represent). Ah well, I think and use the word otherwise in an otherwise world he can't discern, apparently. Thus, I've already copied the refWrite factoid presented above, to the spot where the usual pen&ink image has been pushed below the new factoid spot. I'm sorry that the reader must put up with the lack of proper aligment of all the items on my little list.

Movies: Box Office: new Star Trek movie whammos the box office this weekend. But here, it's raining

I've never viewed a Star Trek flick in a movie theatre, or in the last several years, any other film either. I've come to enjoy several of the space-trekking series of episodes on TV as well replays of the movies, but not the early one/s where William Shatner stars. I like/d Spock, but he's wearing thin in the reruns (TV series) and replays (movies on TV) especially. For some unknown reason, Star Wars movies seem far more durable to me; that flick is scheduled to be "episoded" in 2010, but these will be built around minor characters that appeared in the story of the movies. So much for the chief theme-competition between Treks and Wars.

Back on the main track:

J.J. Abrams' Star Trek is on its way to boldly going where no Star Trek movie has gone before: to a huge opening weekend. The film bowed at 7 p.m. Thursday night and grossed an impressive $7 million in 3,849 locations. Sure, those numbers were boosted by the geeky fanboys who were salivating to catch the movie as soon as possible. Still, such a great start should help propel Star Trek's weekend gross to as high as $75 million. Quite impressive for a franchise that was considered dead a few years ago.

Nicole Smith so reports on Hollywood Insider (May8,2k9).

Movies, by FlickSleuth

Another report forecasts a weekend take even larger than what Smith forecasts.

If early comments (there are lots on the cited webpage) are a good indication, the new movie takes the brand into another dimension.

In passing, I should add that on TV I've found the series Andromeda often engaging, but onot always. I could stand only so much of the series The Battlestar Galactica but it mercifully substituted the old-stock f-words and derivatives to the neologism "frikkin'," which was a good move (a substitution word I want to discuss further later in regard to ths Galactica TV context). It's released its finale episode, its finale. Good riddance. I'm hoping for a lot more from the new trekkie flick, but of course it could be years before, presumably, it moves from the theatres to DVD rentals or TV.

Update:

Star Trek starts off fast.... -- Laremy Legel "Movie Review: JJ Abrams gets it right with new 'Star Trek'" (Film.com via seattlepi.com)

slows down a bit for a few laughs, and then furiously culminates ... but not before setting up the franchise for the next decade. At its Treky heart, this is an origin story: how Captain Kirk got to the Enterprise, and how his good pals Scotty, Spock, Uhura, "Bones" McCoy, Sulu, and Chekov came to join him on that iconic vessel. We're transported to a time before the entire Shatner mythologies, with Chris Pine taking the helm as the new Kirk. He's very, very good in this film, far better than I've seen him, and his performance here gives me a lot of hope for the compulsory sequels.

Sports: Baseball: Drug penalty of suspension and 7 millions fine hit LA Dodger's superbatter, Manny Rodriques

Dave Sheinin, Washington Post Staff Writer, (May 7, 2K9), "Dodger's Ramirez Suspended 50 Games."

The riveting, uplifting story of Manny Ramirez's transformation from cancerous malcontent in Boston to dreadlocked, beloved eccentric in Los Angeles was derailed today by the news that the Dodgers slugger has been suspended 50 games for violating baseball's policy against performance-enhancing drugs.

Sports / Major League Baseball, by Sportikos

The Sheinin artcle is a good read about a sad story. But the wealthy baseball player will payback 7 million, from a $25 million contract.

The Dodgers are in the lead with a record 13-game winning streak. "I'm sorry about this whole situation," the slugger said.

Music: Classical: I got an ad email from iTunes and impulse-bawt 27 Mozart Piano Concertos and am in heaven on earth

I'm listening to Piano Concerto #6 in B-Flat which has three movements (Allegro Aperto, Andante un Poco Adagio, and the final one to which I'm listening now Rondeau (Allegro), performed by Vladimir Ashkenazy & Philharmonia Orchestra, disk Mozart: The Piano Concertos. There are 27 concertos overall, most have 3 movements. These so far don't bolster the fictional image of Mozart in the movie Amadeus, so far these concertos are less frenetic by far than what the movie conveys--from enthusiastic young prodigy to driven old man writing masses for the dead, anticipating his own...perhaps.

These concertos are a different world, with an over-riding gentleness (how's that for a rather self-contradictory phrase).

Classical Music, by Museaos

Movies: Review: Questions to readers who've seen this film

A. O. Scott's movie-review article in New York Times (Feb18,2k9) discourses captivatingly on "Katyn" (2007). The director is Andrzek Wajda. Says reviewer Scott:

The first scene in “Katyn,” Andrzej Wajda’s solemn and searing new film, takes place on a bridge somewhere in Poland in mid-September 1939. The bridge is aswarm with people fleeing in opposite directions. Panicked families trying to escape the Germans, who invaded on the first of the month, collide with equally terrified compatriots coming from the eastern part of the country, scene of a recent Soviet intervention.

Scott has a wonderful write-up of an apparently-exemplary movie that reconstructs history to cast l+t on a horrible moment in a horrible war and crosscurrents of wars in Poland 1939. I was born a year later in July in the USA.

If you've seen the movie already, use the comment facility below to convey your impression of Wajda's Katyn (2007), briefly.

Had you heard of the Katyn Forest Massacre before you saw the movie?

Cinema, by Kinematographikos

Does the Polish Jewish minority population receive any focus in the movie?

Has the movie been released in DVD for rental?

Is the tone unrelenting? Is there any agreeable comic relief?

Make a comment in answer, please -- as O. A. Scott's movie review is so well written and so in awe of Wajda's cinematic achievement that he certainly leads me to seek more info. Where better to comment on recent movie, than here in refWrite Backpage?

Sports: Golf: Tiger Woods still struggling to get back to form after his knee-surgery

Mike Cranston AP Sports Writer (May3,2k9) gives us a glimpse of Tiger Woods' slow recovery:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When Tiger Woods shot a 30 on the front nine in a seven-under 65 in the opening round of the Quail Hollow Championship, he appeared poised to dominate on a tough course with a major-like feel.

But Woods was still working out the kinks in his fifth tournament back from knee surgery. Entering Sunday two shots out of the lead, Woods wasted several birdie chances and one eagle opportunity, closing with 10 straight pars for a 72.

He finished at 9-under 286, good for fourth place, two shots behind winner and buddy Sean O'Hair.

"I've been very pleased with some of my progress. I'm also not so pleased with some of it," Woods said. "It's been spotty, streaky. I just need to get a little more consistent."

Sports Note, by Sportikos

The gentleman sports hero may well turn out to be the all-time king of golf. At least, he's got a sporting chance.