a little late

I love Diplo. Everyone who knows me knows that. However, something he said to Rolling Stone made me love him a little bit less. I don't have the magazine in front of me right now, but it's the issue from a week or two ago with Zac Efron on the cover. Towards the end of an interview with M.I.A., the conversation veered towards he failed relationship with Diplo (sidenote: it must be so annoying for interviews that are ostensibly about your music to turn to queries about your personal life, even when that ex-boyfriend has had a good bit to do with her music). They both seem to be in the practice of slinging barbs at each other and Diplo said something like about how their relationship didn't work because M.I.A. is a "pop star" and that (I am paraphrasing here) "if she worked in a sandwich shop [he] would have wifed her up and had some kids."

And that just strikes me as such an awful thing to say. It also gives additional weight to a lot of the complaints that M.I.A. has issued, particularly to Pitchfork, about how her role in the music is perceived by Pitchfork and other media outlets. Why does M.I.A. need to be the one to give up her career to make a relationship work? (Although, to be fair, I enjoy Diplo's music much more consistently than M.I.A.'s.) His comment also makes it seem like M.I.A. would have had little choice in the matter of wifing-up and popping out some offspring.

I realize that Diplo probably said that in a facetious manner, and I'm sure that Rolling Stone absolutely never takes comments out of their original context. One of the things I am learning about at my internship is to look at situations in terms of race, gender, and class and so I can't help but read into all of this a little bit more.

After all of that, I must say - I don't love Kala. The best song on it, by far, is "Paper Planes," which Diplo produced. He may be an ass but he is also really talented.

this is my kind of small-town America

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/05/us/05parade.html?ref=us

"The parade became a bit controversial in 2004, when a float depicting Ronald Reagan, who had recently died, popping out of a coffin saying 'Nancy who?' appeared. Letters to the editor of the local paper followed."

Less than a month until I move. Should I be packing or thinking about packing or something?

Dear Mr. Postman

Today I received two very important items in the mail.

The first is the first season of The Wire, which is the best television show in the history of television. This should be old news to everyone by now, as the show is currently filming its fifth and final season. Other people have described the show's brilliance with much more eloquence than I can, so I will just leave things at that and urge you to watch the show if you have not already.

The second is the Not For Tourists Guide to Philadelphia, a handy little book that is quite valuable. I am very excited about my impending move to Philly, but the fact that I have never been to the city is a bit intimidating to say the least. It is basically exactly what it sounds like - a guidebook aimed at residents of the city - so it has information on pharmacies, banks, and grocery stores as well as restaurants, bars, and pretty much everything else one could ever want to know about living in a brand new place.

Someday, I really will write about politics or something else important here. Baby steps, you know.

the cyclist and the motorist can be friends

I should start keeping a running tally of how many times cars almost hit me while I am on my bike, obeying every traffic law that applies to cyclists. Is it that hard to look out for people on bikes and to give at least three feet of clearance space when you pass them?

Acknowledgements

It has been a while since I have done this.

While I figure out something worthwhile to write my first post about, I'll throw up a quick explanation of the blog title and web address.

The blog title is an obvious take on "Mr. Me Too" by The Clipse. Because, like, I'm jumping into the blog ring just like everyone else, chasing after you all crying, "hey, me too!" But I am a woman, so...yeah.

The web address (quintessentialone.blogblahblah) is from a nickname that my friend Matt gave me. He determined that I was the "quintessential" Jew - of our group of friends? The world? I'm not sure.

So at least now you have something to look at while I get used to a Blogger that seems to be very different from the one I used four years ago.