Just a note to say my first record review appears in this week’s Vil­lage Voice, which is espe­cially nifty for me, since it was Robert Christgau’s columns in that paper that first taught me what music crit­i­cism could be. Couldn’t've done it with­out you, DE.

Niggas just write
I rec­ol­lect
I really lived it, man
—Young Jeezy

Those blessèd struc­tures, plot and rhyme—
why are they no help to me now
I want to make
some­thing imag­ined, not recalled?
—Robert Lowell

“Great art, the pre­vail­ing theory on the sub­ject goes, forces the artists who follow it to think differently.” Oh yeah? Free DE coffee mug to anyone who can iden­tify the “theory” pre­vail­ing here. (I know, I know. But some­times those fish are so annoying!)

This just in, & I’m truly kind of dev­as­tated. Lis­ten­ing to #1 Record, Third, & espe­cially Radio City on my Walk­man end­lessly, a 21-year-old fool who knew every­thing dam­ag­ing his hearing—there’s not a second on any of those records that’s not engraved, fuck it, on my heart. Tell your dad what we said ’bout “Paint It Black.”