Eunoia l Losing Out

Black Milk: Losing Out Ft. Royce Da 5'9" (courtesy of FWMJ)
Tronic (Fat Beats, Oct. 28, 2008)

Eunoia is the shortest word in English containing all five vowels - and it means "beautiful thinking". It is also the title of Canadian poet Christian Bok's book of fiction in which each chapter uses only one vowel.

Mr. Bok believes his book proves that each vowel has its own personality, and demonstrates the flexibility of the English language. Extracts from each chapter are available at BBC.
What beautiful thinking listens and reads like is not loss in either Bok's nor Milk's explorations.

Idaho Students Chant l 'Assassinate Obama'

CLD PRSS

Madison County, Idaho was once dubbed "the reddest place in America" by Salon, but that didn't make it any less shocking when elementary school children allegedly started chanting "assassinate Obama" on the school bus.

Matthew Whoolery told KIKD News he found out about the chanting from his second and third graders, who had no idea what the word "assassinate" meant.


Rhetorical: Has Obama become an effigy at the behest of elementary school students or are school children, as they often do, mimicking their parents who joke (?) with race and terrorism? For this I request that the Phantom Band chime in: No More Fooling (courtesy of Bumrocks). WTF??!!!

Black Milk l Give The Drummer Sum (Video)

Setting the tone of the whole album, Fat Beats hit OKP with the World Premiere video for Give The Drummer Sum, the lead single off Black Milk's latest album, Tronic.



ELEC
The Official Mix CD (mixed by Bill Sharp)
Courtesy of HipHopDX.com
Click here to download

This free mixtape highlights 25 of Black Milk's finest works since the release of Popular Demand in March 2007. Featuring an all-star lineup of emcees and producers that includes Busta Rhymes, Jake One, Elzhi, Pharoahe Monch, Kardinal Offishall, Royce Da 5'9", DJ Khalil, Bishop Lamont, Guilty Simpson, and more.

Beyond Red & Blue l 7 Ways to View the Presidential Election Map

Per SciAm, Nov. 11, 2008:

Electoral maps are all the rage in presidential election coverage, with NBC going so far as to turn the Rockefeller Center ice rink in New York City into a map of the U.S. on Election Day. As the network called states for the two candidates, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain, staffers manually colored those states blue or red, respectively.

Mark Newman, a professor of physics at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, took the simplistic concept of red and blue states and exploded it, reimagining the country as defined by its politics and not by its borders. His "cartograms" take state- and county-level election returns as well as data about population and electoral college representation and churn out a vision of the U.S. that is novel, yet still recognizable.

Slide Show: Beyond Red and Blue States


+Slide Show: Obama's Victory On Newspaper Front Pages l Huffington Post
+Obama's First Meeting with a Dangerous World Leader without Pre-conditions l NFADK
+Great Expectations l Economist

?uestlove l What Obama Will Bring (Video)

The Roots drummer hypothesizes about the changes Barack will bring with the UK’s DJ Manny Norte at their Obama Fundraiser in NY’s Sutra Lounge.

Black Moon & Smif-N-Wessun l Duck Down Records Presents: Tribute To The Classics (Video)

This concert was postponed for over a month due to an ailing Buckshot. Restored, Buckshot mastered the crowd. Black Moon and Smif-N-Wessun (Duck Down) performed cuts off Enta Da Stage and Da Shinin‘, respectively, backed by a live band giving the classics a renewed sound for a time and era of Hip-Hop that fails to be recaptured on new albums.

Meet President Nanobama

Per New Scientist l Blog:

The image shows the tiniest representation of the new US president yet. Each face is built from roughly 150 million carbon nanotubes.

As the artist/mechanical engineer that made them, John Hart, puts it "that's about how many Americans voted on November 4". Although, of course, only about 53% of those nanotubes actually voted Obama. For more images, and to see how they are made visit Hart's site.

Hart's creation is the latest in a tradition of nanoscale engineers making tiny structures for artistic or self-promotional reasons.


+Obama Promises New Era Of Scientific Innovation: NS

Much A-Poo About Nothing

Dedicated to my son: Taj.


+Grist

The Day After l Science In The Obama Administration

CLD PRSS

Stanford University biologist Sharon Long, a science advisor to the Barack Obama campaign, talks about science in the upcoming administration:

Podcast hosted by Steve Mirsky.


+Obama's New Ad Frontier: Video Games: Wired l Blog
+White Supremacists Fantasize That Obama Will Help Them Recruit: AlterNet
+On Fears Of Obama's Stand, Gun Sales Spike: NPR
+Obama Mocks Socialist Attacks: "I Shared My Toys in Kindergarten": AlterNet l YouTube
+Inspired by Obama, Jay-Z for New York Mayor: AHH Rumors l Illseed's Quickies

Omar Rodriguez Lopez l Private Fortunes

Omar Rodriguez Lopez (The Mars Volta guitarist/producer/writer/arranger): Private Fortunes
Old Money, (Stones Throw, Jan. 27, 2009)
The digital release is available now exclusively at Stones Throw.

The addictive melodies and passionate execution of the performance renders Private Fortunes, as I have not yet listened to the entire album, perhaps the most accessible of his non-Volta recordings, and the perfect entry point to anyone not yet familiar with what this prolific artist has to offer.

My death-metal head homeboy Tex hipped me to virtuosic TMV almost four years ago and my fan-hood is (t)history.


+News: Omar

Roc-A-Fella l Funkmaster Flex Freestyle Pt. 2 (2001) (Video)

I spotted this video on Nah Right.

From the archives of the best mixtape of all times. This mixtape is good enough that when crackheads robbed my previous car while I was still living in Capitol Hill (NE, District of Columbia) they walked with this double CD classic - now that's good music.


+2001 Roc-A-Fella Funkmaster Flex Freestyle Pt. 1: Nah Right