February 14th, 2009 / 2:30 pm
Excerpts

Cribs: Literature special

cribs1

This post is somewhat of a stretch, but I figured (as a non-AWPer) it’s my duty to post something at least once before their long awaited return.

Last night I watched MTV Cribs, which I’m sure most, if not all of you know, is a show which follows celebrities around in their homes. The first home was 50 Cent’s; he lived in a mall-type castle, with a movie theatre, recording studio, complex lagoon system, and live strip-club (with actual bitches n’ shit — sorry, just keepin’ the vernacular fo realz). The rappers and basketball stars seem to live in the most oppulent places, which are (despite their success) probably on lease. Anyways, I have  a point.

The next house we visited was the guy from Fall Out Boy. Now I don’t keep up with teen culture and the only reason I know this is because they kept showing excerpts of their videos. His house was more modest; he showed us his fridge, which was full of soda. (Celebrities don’t cook and their fridges are always just full of soda.) Then he showed us a stack of books (I recall seeing Celine’s Journey Into the End of the Night) and said something very predictably ‘deep-teenager’ pretentious like “nobody ever reads, this is my reading area.” I immediately thought, “finally, I’m semi-irritated and now have something lightly relevant to post on Htmlgiant.” (I’m serious, I actually thought that.)

This reminded me of Moby’s edition of Cribs a few years back, where he showed us his book-shelf full of literature and made some similar point about how people don’t read enough. This also pissed me off, but back then Htmlgiant didn’t exist yet so I punched a cushion. Now, I know this is a literary crowd, and some of you might also have a tiff with the philistines of this culture/country who don’t read, but let me just say that the ladder excerpt below is from 50 Cent, who employs parenthical rhetorical questions as a way to permeate the self-consciousness of the reader. The first two, from Moby and Fall out boy (respectively) simply blow chunks.

Walking down the street at night
The whole world just comes alight, woah
Moving through the air and you have no cares

Whoah, Whoah, Whoah [x2]

G-Unit (What)
We in here (What)
We can get the drama popping
We don’t care (What, what, what)
It’s going down (What)
‘Cause I’m around (What)

So can I get a What What or what?

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11 Comments

  1. pr

      I only like reading when I’m getting lap danced by my personal bitches, whilst rubbing Moby’s head so that a genie will pop out of Fall Out boy’s ass.

      Jimmy and Matthew- write a post about love or something cause its valentines day. an excerpt from romeo and juliet?

  2. Jimmy Chen

      done.

  3. Jimmy Chen

      done.

  4. tao

      “mall-type castle”

      haha

  5. tao

      “mall-type castle”

      haha

  6. JR

      Even PBS participates… a couple years ago on This Old House a very rich family was renovating some ancient and expensive Boston home. The house had an old school den / library with dark wood and vaulted ceilings. They turned it into a “mud room.” It’s like a metaphor, but it actually happened.

  7. JR

      Even PBS participates… a couple years ago on This Old House a very rich family was renovating some ancient and expensive Boston home. The house had an old school den / library with dark wood and vaulted ceilings. They turned it into a “mud room.” It’s like a metaphor, but it actually happened.

  8. P. H. Madore

      Hey, I always wondered about people with stacks of books — like in my view there are very few books which need to be read more than once, so if you don’t pass it on when you’re done with it (like unless we’re talking about my collection of signed and/or rare editions), then you’re actually keeping the reading from happening because people actually aren’t spending money on books but are reading more than ever before. A shelf full of undamaged books you only need to read once anyway is not proof of anything, unless it’s a shelf full of dictionaries or porn.

  9. P. H. Madore

      Hey, I always wondered about people with stacks of books — like in my view there are very few books which need to be read more than once, so if you don’t pass it on when you’re done with it (like unless we’re talking about my collection of signed and/or rare editions), then you’re actually keeping the reading from happening because people actually aren’t spending money on books but are reading more than ever before. A shelf full of undamaged books you only need to read once anyway is not proof of anything, unless it’s a shelf full of dictionaries or porn.

  10. David Erlewine

      “so I punched a cushion”

      I’ve done that.

      Reminded me of the menacing character in a “Dogwalker” story who intimidates the narrator by throwing a book across the room.

  11. David Erlewine

      “so I punched a cushion”

      I’ve done that.

      Reminded me of the menacing character in a “Dogwalker” story who intimidates the narrator by throwing a book across the room.