"Even when we think that we see farther than our predecessors, we should remember that it is only because we are sitting on their shoulders." ~Friedman
"Don't worry about going crazy because when you do, you'll never realize it."
"If you think with your heart, anything is possible. But, those possibilities are not always an indicator of reality." ~Rell
The Power of Belief by Dr. Michael Shermermusic, knowledge, debate, The Arts, financial literacy...
God... and anybody wit' connects in tha music industry... (PS- ya'll gone have ta start sendin' a note before you try and add me as a friend. I don't know you yet.)
And now, an excerpt from a book I think everyone should read:
"Integral to the upward creep is the upscale itself. The new consumerism has taught affluent Americans to covet, and then buy, the Jil Sander suit, the Stickley chair, the SubZero fridge, and the Coach briefcase (with a Montblanc and Filofax to go inside). When they display these products, they project taste, individuality, and exclusivity. But isn't it odd that we must have the things certain others have to establish our credentials as a distinctive person-to avoid being seen as just like everybody else?
Some consumer symbols have become fair game for public scrutiny. Politicians and the media have attacked heroin chic and the anorexic images prevalent in fashion photography. But the symbolism of exclusivity and luxury is still off-limits. No one challenges the New York Times for devoting its second page to ads for extraordinarily expensive items affordable to only the top few percent of society. There is as yet no social stigma associated with owning or displaying exclusive products. Indeed, it is rarely even noticed that companies advertise these commodities to a mass consumer audience, large numbers of whom cannot afford them and will go into debt, sacrifice everyday needs, or turn to crime in order to obtain them. When we stop to think about it, what message are we sending here? That being middle-class isn't good enough? That if you are a low-wage earner, you are condemned to a life of inadequacy?
What if the public attitudes to status consumption started changing, so that people saw as tacky attempts to buy their way into a personal image of exclusivity? What if a pattern of upscale purchasing became not something to aspire to but something "uncool" in its inegalitarianism? What if wearing the $2,500 Jil Sander suit was no longer looked at as power dressing but as overkill? What if, when we looked at a pair of Air Jordans, we thought not of a magnificent basketball player, but of the company's deliberate strategy to hook poor inner-city kids into an expensive fashion cycle[...]
[...]Awareness is the first step in breaking down these associations and immunizing ourselves against symbolic spending triggers. As marketers know full well, these symbols are powerful precisely because they reside partly in the realm of the unconscious. The see-want-borrow-buy sequence often does not survive the bright light of day. Denial also helps us live with our ambivalent (sometimes guilty) feelings about consuming exclusively or striving for distinction.
If there's something you really want but don't actually need, there's a good chance that a recurring symbolic fantasy is attached to it. A faster computer? The dream of getting more work done. A remodeled kitchen? The hope of eating proper family dinners. A luxury car? Making VP. Laying bare the fantasy illuminates the often tenuous link between the product and the dream, thereby reducing the power of the object. When identity and consumption are linked, getting too deliberate spoils the symbolism[...]
[...]Not that these symbolic meanings are easy to break down. They are woven deeply into the fabric of our everyday lives. We have profound, if often unrecognized, emotional connections to commodities. On the other hand, Americans will not gain control over their spending habits until they begin to confront that symbolism head on. As the number of prestigious products grow, the financial pressures on people increase. Less and less of what we have remains mere background-things valued for their function, for what having them to use adds to our daily lives, rather than for what they convey about us as quality human beings. The classic pantheon of house, car, and wardrobe has been joined by all manner of new status symbols: stoves come in restaurant quality to signal the requisite level of commitment to good cooking (for the really upscale, there's the $10,000+ Aga, the model favored by the queen of England); wooden swing sets become an aesthetic (class) item that status-conscious association trustees are ready to go to court over; water (once a free, abundantly available noncommodity) has become classed into brand names, with a select few becoming status symbols[...]It is only by becoming aware of the thousand and one little ways that consumption is connected to distinction and status that we can begin to break down those barriers and consume in less socially exclusive (and expensive) ways."
-Page 147-149, The Overspent American, by Juliet B. Schor
Beats by: One Drop Scott, E-A-Ski, BattleCat, Tone Capone, Droop-E, Rick Rock, Sean T, DJ Paul and Juicy J, DJ Quik, FredWreck
... and my own, of course:
T Rell thareallamane music
Check ya boy out!!!
I'm also into Reggae, Neo-Soul, Jazz (Dixieland, Big Band, and Ragtime...), and just a bit of almost everythang else. Try me...
The Usual Suspects, The Postman, Memento, Higher Learning, Pulp Fiction, Friday, Boyz N Da Hood, DJ Quik's Visualism.
Don't really watch TV, but if I did I'd be watchin' Family Guy, Fresh Prince (yeah, tha re-runs), The Daily Show, CNN, The Wire... Shows I used to watch, almost religiously: Quantum Leap and Knight Rider.
Sabriel, The Time Machine, The Starlight Crystal, Catcher In The Rye, Mere Christianity, Damien, The Overspent American, Who Wrote The Bible?, and The Holy Bible (for it's profound impact on the modern world, not by literary merit)...
Here's a few people I admire in one way or another: My late father, My strong mother, Professor Scott (college, philosophy teacher), Dennis Miller, Jon Stewart, Laurence Fishburne, Kevin Spacey, DJ Quik, and Mac Dre... ( I almost don't wanna say 2Pac cuz it's cliche but yeah, Pac too). MySpace Layouts