ABAW: Decoded by Jay-Z

Decoded by Jay-Z, Spiegel & Grau 2010 (library copy)

This is the autobiography of Jay-Z (aka Shawn Carter), the controversial hip-hop star, entrepreneur, and businessman. I don’t listen to much hip-hop and knew very little about Jay-Z, but I was drawn to this book through two separate channels. One was the interview with the artist on Fresh Air with Terry Gross last year. His intelligence, his unflinching storytelling, his laugh made me want to read the book. I put it on a list and then didn’t think of it for a while.

The second channel was the physicality of the book. I walked into my local library and saw it on the shelf. It’s a slightly larger than average hardcover with a white jacket. The cover has a golden Andy Warhol Rorschach. I was reminded of a coffee-table art book. The book is an attractive object. I saw it and knew I had to read it.

Jay-Z says he wrote the book with three goals in mind. 1. He wanted to convince people that hip-hop lyrics are poetry. 2. He wanted people to understand the reality of the historical moment in which his generation grew up. 3. He wanted people to be able to relate to the universality of the hip-hop story. The implicit argument in every page of the book is that his work is Art.

Pages are heavily illustrated with photographs of people, places, and visual works of art. Pages of standard text give way to pages of larger print, underscoring his building narrative. The artful presentation of the text always feels crisp. The images are often stark. For every few pages of narrative about the life and times of Jay-Z, there are a few pages of annotated song lyrics. This breakdown of the songs and their lyrics forms the heart of the book.  

“The reason this book is ultimately about my lyrics, instead of being a typical autobiography, is that my creative work is my truest legacy, for better or worse.”

Shawn Carter, both in his youth and his professional persona as Jay-Z, did some bad things. He was a crack dealer for many years before finding steady success in the music industry. He is unapologetic about his past, but does seem to regret some of the choices in his life.

“If you focus only on the criminal act and lose sight of the whole chain of cause and effect, you get a distorted, unfair picture. People are often pushed into desperate acts and bad choices by circumstances.”

To be sure, this is a biography of Jay-Z, the public persona, not of Shawn Carter. The book is intensely personal at times in the sense that he is open and honest about his emotions. But there is also a wall of privacy in the story as well. We are given glimpses behind the wall only a few times in the story, when those glimpses provide credibility to Jay-Z’s emotions and complexity. His emotion is often raw, but always with a measured sense of self-control. Even when he’s telling about loss of control. 

“The real bullshit is when you act like you don’t have contradictions inside you, that you’re so dull and unimaginative that your mind never changes or wanders into strange, unexpected places.”

Jay-Z reminds us to listen. To empathize. To remember that we’re all human beings in this world. That hip-hop, like all other art, is trying to make sense of the world, is searching for the meaning in a world that is often chaotic. Rap is used as a tool to find truth. Rhymes remind us that everything can be, and is, connected. 

“The great hip-hop writers … take whatever’s at hand and churn it into their work. Whatever feeling demands a release at a given moment finds its way out in the songs. The music is as deep and varied as life.”

I loved this book. I listened to Jay-Z’s music, really listened to it, for the first time. This line sums up what I found most profound and inspiring:

“The words are witty and blunt, abstract and linear, sober and fucked up. And when we decode the torrent of words — by which I mean really listen to them with our minds and hearts open — we can understand their world better. And ours too. It’s the same world.”

Contemplating geographic specificity in writing: do we need the detail?

Setting is an important facet of our understanding of a story. Setting can add layers of meaning to the interpretation of a story. It can offer a more abstract background for the unfolding of events. Setting can pass by, almost unnoticed, or can pop out on every page. Handled clumsily, setting can be a distraction. 

I’m reading Decoded by Jay-Z right now, and the setting of his youth—the Marcy Housing Project—is essential for an understanding of the story Jay-Z is trying to tell about himself and his generation. Before this book I knew nothing about Marcy. Jay teaches the important geography. He teaches me how to understand Marcy, and does it so well that Marcy becomes its own character in Jay’s story. This is a case of a writer taking an unfamiliar setting and unpacking it, DECODing it, making it known, even if it’s light years away from my personal experience. 

That’s not the sort of geography that I’m contemplating. I’m talking about the other sort of geography that Jay engages here. He’s also a dropper of names in the broader milieu of New York City. He mentions the names of streets, neighborhoods, boroughs with the ease of someone who knows those corners and crannies. Stieg Larsson does this as well, taking great pains to name streets and towns as his narrative unfolds in the Lisbeth Salander novels. I mentioned this detailed geography in my comments on the Larsson trilogy (see “Locational Specificity” late in the post). I wondered if I was missing some significance in these allusions. And although Jay-Z’s New York City names have more familiarity to me in terms of language and popular culture, I couldn’t help feeling that I might be missing some connotation. 

How much effort I put into figuring out that significance might depend on how invested I am in the story. But if I’m really gripped by the tale, I’m less likely to care about the geography, and more likely to speed past those road signs in search of the next plot development. This is as true with Jay-Z’s memoir as it was with Salander’s trilogy. 

I confess that part of the problem is my own ignorance of the geographies in question. I may recognize the New York City places, but I’d be at a loss if you wanted me to point them out on a map. And the Swedish geography (even if you excuse that some of the places are fictional)? I got nothing. 

I’ve decided there is only one city I know well enough to use geography to generate added significance: Albuquerque. But would anyone outside of Albuquerque get anything from those names? Is it worth the time of the writer to build that level of specificity? 

My knee-jerk response was no. I thought, Build into the story a sense of the significance of the places that really count, as Jay has done with Marcy, but don’t bother name-dropping other geography. But. But. Then I thought of the handful of times I have read stories in settings I know personally. I remembered the thrill of recognition, the richness that my familiarity added to my experience of the story. Even if only a fraction of the audience gets that thrill or makes that connection or recognizes the possibility of an additional connotation, then those mentions ARE worthwhile.

Jay-Z talks about hiding Easter eggs in his songs. Tiny gems of added meaning that are packed into his rhymes for those listeners willing to think and find them.

Even if *I* don’t get the significance of the specific geography of a well-crafted story, someone else will. I hope someone else will get that thrill of recognition and the treasure of puzzling out additional meaning.

ABAW: The Fall by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

The Fall: Book 2 of The Strain Trilogy by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

William Morrow 2010, library copy

Check out my comments on The Strain here. 

This trilogy is sort of Outbreak meets Bram Stoker’s Dracula in post-9-11 New York City. The Fall picks up right where The Strain ends, with very little back fill. Mayhem and destruction grips the globe as a vampire plague spreads quickly from an epicenter in New York City. The team of heroes is set.

• Eph: Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, former CDC epidemiologist, now a discredited fugitive wanted for murder (alcoholic, divorced, devoted father who doesn’t want to screw up anymore).
• Nora: Dr. Nora Martinez, also of the CDC (token woman and Eph’s love interest, with bonus aging mother suffering from dementia).
• Fet: Vasiliy Fet, NYC pest control officer, the talented Ukrainian-American rat-catcher (and my favorite character from this book; his tool of choice: nail gun loaded with silver nails).
• Abe: Dr. Abraham Setrakian, the Van Helsing of the set, pursuer of vamps since his time at Treblinka (complete with heart problem requiring nitroglycerin tablets).
• Gus: Augusto Elizande, the gang-banger turned vampire mercenary (a resourceful survivor, and my favorite character in book one).
• Zack: Zackary Goodweather, son of Eph, whose mom Kelly is now vamped and wanting to turn him too (grieving for his mom, with bonus asthma).   

They have some tools for self-defense and close fighting of vamps, but Abe wants to destroy The Master, his longtime nemesis and the source of the scourge. To do that, he needs a special book, uncoincidentally about to go up for auction for millions of dollars at Sotheby’s in New York. 

The enemies are many.

• The Master, the youngest of the seven ancients and the originators of all vampires on earth. He currently occupies the body of a European giant. He’ll trade up to a Marilyn-Manson-style rock star by the end of book 2.
• The Ancients, three Old World and three New World who are less than happy with their little brother. They equip and bankroll a number of mercenaries, including Gus, to contain The Master’s mess. Turns out though, that The Master’s plan was their too all along. He just took control and sped up the timeline.
• Eldritch Palmer, one of the three richest people on earth. Sickly his whole life and propped up by extraordinary and unsavory medical practices, Palmer provides the funds and the conspiratorial connections to help The Master in his plot. In exchange, Palmer wants to be a vamp. Alliances between bad guys don’t usually end well. Especially for the weaker bad guy. 

I think the suspense of the unknown in the first book made it scarier than the second. This one is more focused on logistics, filling in the history, and assembling the key pieces for the final confrontation to come. I am disappointed (but not surprised) that not all of our heroes make it to book 3. No I’m not naming the casualty.

Some people have complained about the constantly shifting perspective in the stories, offering a wide-ranging viewpoint on the catastrophe, including minor, disposable characters. I think the shift in point of view is a strength of the story. While the main plot is tightly focused on our band of heroes, the disaster reaches around the globe. Tucking in other viewpoints reminds us of the external and epic mayhem without distracting from the main story. My favorite sub-plots are the astronaut on the International Space Station and the tagger named Phade.

My main complaint about the story… The first book seemed to grow out of fear of terrorism (which was tight), but this one is environmentalism? Nuclear reactors? Really? The books are fast-paced, heart-thumping, fear-jumping good stories though. I look forward to what happens to Fet and Gus, and wonder whether Eph can avoid complete self-destruction to lead the team. I also wonder how the role of Love will play out in the accounting of the story. 

The final book of the trilogy, The Night Eternal is due out October 2011.

Hatching Eggs, a weird dream

I had a very strange dream. In the nature of dreams, not all of it made sense. So as I relate it to you here, I have freely edited to add some sense (though not all).

Walking with my Very Large Dog through a wooded area near my home (I don’t actually have a dog or a wooded area, and it wasn’t my actual home or any home I’ve ever had), I found four eggs. Make note of that. FOUR. For some reason, I believed these eggs to be abandoned, but viable, though I do not know what kind of birds they were.

I carried the eggs home, glancing at my watch because I had somewhere to be. Where? I had to go get some clothes for an important event. What clothes? What event? No idea. You tell me. Your guess will probably be just as appropriate. 

I climbed the steps to the top floor of the townhouse where I lived, climbed the ladder of a bunkbed in the corner bedroom, and opened a small door that enclosed a tiny storage space above the top of the stairs. (Doesn’t everyone have one of these? No? We had something like this UNDER some basement stairs once. It’s the sort of cupboard that would feel at home in a horror movie. I would expect small creepy creatures to come out, or perhaps a portal to another dimension. In this case it was just a cupboard.)

The cupboard was empty except for a bare lightbulb. The lightbulb was very hot, so I put the bowl/basket/something holding the FOUR eggs into the cabinet to keep them warm while I went to procure clothes. (Note, I never once thought “shopping” during the dream. Probably because I don’t like shopping. Perhaps I was going to go borrow clothes from someone? Or steal them?)

I didn’t get to go procuring though. Before I could close the cabinet door, one egg started hatching. This egg hatched dream-style. As in super-fast. Bam! Fluffy little birdling, dry, and running around on the bed where I sat. I reached quickly to catch the little bird, wondering if it was a duck, when the crazy little bugger jumped off the bed to the floor. I was sure it was dead. No way a newborn chick could survive a five foot fall, right?

I peeked over the edge of the bed, squinting against potential nastiness. The bird was stunned, as indicated by the cartoonish large eyes, and feathers spiked out into fluffball points. I gaped. It recovered and took off across the bedroom floor. Meanwhile, behind me, the other THREE eggs hatched and the birdlings did a similar leap off the bed into cartoon-stun.

Gratuitous Boob Shot 

I scrambled off the bed, worried that the FOUR birds would dive down the stairs or something, and wondering where the dog could be. I chased the birds down the stairs and watched them run in chirpy little circles around the living room. 

Then Sonar X8 joined me. (Hi Sonar X8!) We decided to get a box to hold the birds. I walked through a door to a front room/sun porch thing (the contents of which resembled our actual laundry room; boxes and stuff piled everywhere), and scooped up one of the birds who ran in front of me. Bird in one hand, box in the other, I heard a great woof, and turned to watch my Very Large (dream) Dog, crash through the front door, knocking it to the floor. The dog stopped and looked around at the crashed door, then walked into the living room. I dropped the box and walked right behind the dog, catching him by the collar in case he might want to lick up some little birds. I put him back outside, telling him firmly to stay (Why did I not contain him somehow? Oh yeah, dream.). He walked away and lifted his leg to gush out a gallon of pee on a neighbor’s front mat.

I could not lift the heavy front door back onto its hinges without help. I looked down at the fluffy bird still in my hand. Except that it wasn’t a fluffy bird anymore. It was a brand new, fuzzy, average-sized, baby. A human baby. A newborn. Somehow in my surprise I did not drop it. I left the broken door, firmly shut the inner door of the porchy room, and Sonar X8 and I went in search of the other THREE birdlings/babies. 

Six of them were on the area rug in the living room. Four were on the couch and rocking chair. I could hear the other one crying from somewhere upstairs. While contemplating just what to do with a dozen babies that were formerly stray, wild, birds hatched in my upstairs cupboard, I decided it was time to wake up.

ABAW Twofer: Gossamer by Lois Lowry and The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

Gossamer by Lois Lowry, Yearling, 2006

A lonely woman fosters a troubled boy. They are both strengthened and healed by the small creatures that bring them dreams in the night. Littlest One is a dream-bringer under the tutelage of Thin Eldest. Each night, the pair visits the house of an old woman. When she takes in John, an angry young survivor of abuse, the skill of the small dream-bringers is tested. John’s vulnerability makes him susceptible to fearsome Sinisteeds, horrifying bringers of nightmares. The dream-bringers build dreams by gently touching the cherished objects of the people they visit: a button, a shell, a family afghan, a photograph, a stuffed animal. John has precious few cherished objects to touch. His time with the old woman changes this. Littlest One cannot stop the Sinisteeds from tormenting John, but with the power of her dreams, she is able to make him stronger, and in the process, to grow in strength and confidence herself. 

This is a sweet, quiet story, occurring over a couple of weeks at the end of one summer vacation. Though the dream-bringers are quite fantastic, the story of the relationships between the people is realistic and touching. Not all is resolved in this story because life is not that simple and the torment John and his mother have suffered is significant. But we do get a sense that each of the three main characters, the old woman, John, and his mother, are set on a road in which they can heal themselves and things will get better. I loved reading this book out loud to all the Sonars. This is a beautiful story to build empathy and to illustrate the importance of dreams and of understanding the story of each person in the world. Perhaps it could also be used as a healing tool for families surviving abuse. 

The Kane Chronicles Book 1: The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

In the same spirit, structure, and sense of adventure that Riordan gave to us with the Percy Jackson novels, The Red Pyramid takes us on a ride through Egyptian mythology in the modern world. Carter Kane travels the world with his archaeologist father. They stop in to London once or twice a year to visit Carter’s sister Sophie. She has lived there with their grandparents since the tragic death of their mother. The siblings are beginning to wonder why they’ve been kept separate for so long and just what happened to their mom. Before they can get answers, dad blows up the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum, gets entombed in an alternate plane, and releases a handful of Egyptian gods, including the chaos god Set. With the help of a mysterious uncle, a cat-goddess, a baboon, and an albino crocodile, Carter and Sophie have to learn how to use their magic, escape the wizards of the House of Life, and stop Set from blowing up Phoenix.

The Sonars really liked this one and we look forward to reading subsequent books featuring Carter and Sophie.