MC Rove
One of the more stunning images of the past week was of Karl Rove singing hiphop and dancing at the Radio-Television Correspondents' Association Dinner. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLvfbNBucEM
A chilling blizzard of thoughts flashes through the mind. Was he mocking his detractors, thumbing his nose at war protesters? Should he be having such self-important fun while his war rages on? What are we to make of the racial and cultural connotations? Was he honoring hip-hop? Does he ever listen to hip-hop? Is it like Nixon, with surprising (and unaware) prescience, saying "Sock it to ME" on Laugh-In? Can we imagine Condaleezza Rice doing rap? She'd more easily get away doing a Britney impression.
Imagine Rove, Cheney, and -- say -- John Foreman teaming up to do an impression of the Beastie Boys? I'd so pay to see that!
How will his biographers record this moment in his public life? Where did he learn his dance moves? The lateral jumping up and down, arms upraised, was distinctly reminiscent of punk-era pogo.
Most of all, his dancing and celebration reminds one a great deal of another controversy of late, a white person appropriating the dance moves, look and style of another culture, ultimately for the cheering of the crowd, for the self, not for the culture represented.
And I thought my life lacked dignity.
"I can't recall if I remember." -- Alberto Gonzalez
Quote from Gertrude Stein
"I write for myself and strangers. No one who knows me can like it. At least they mostly do not like it that everyone is of a kind of men and women and I see it. I love it and I write it.'
"I want readers so strangers must do it. Mostly no one knowing me can like it that I love it that every one is a kind of men and women, that always I am looking and comparing and classifying of them, always I am seeing their repeating. Always more and more I love repeating, it may be irritating to hear from them but always more and more I love it of them."
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