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let's tell stories

I wrote this as an email to C. before realizing that it made a damned fine blog post, so the conversations refereed to  are with her, though I will be happy to have these conversations with you mysterious internet non-people




so I don't know if you know who Frank Ocean is? He's a sort of r&b singer who's a part of Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All who are this kind of nuts crew. The person from Odd Future I've heard the most about had been Tyler the Creator. I heard that he was pretty good, maybe something to check out, maybe, if I wanted to deal with some juvenile homophobic bullshit, which I didn't. I'd listened to a few Frank Ocean songs too, but mostly decided to ignore Odd Future's music and keep an eye on their antics.

Then Frank Ocean came out. Which was...woah. A big deal, because he's on the brink of being a big deal, and there hasn't been someone in that position before.

I think that this really connects to our ongoing discussion of gay rappers and what rap can be. (Did you know we've been having that discussion? because we sort of have, every time we've marveled at what strange new things our hometown has produced).

Also, he didn't just "come out." He didn't sit down with a journalist and say "I'm gay." He didn't say that at all. He released a paragraph he wrote about the first time he had been in love. And it's remarkable. You should read it and some really good commentary HERE.

The commentary there talks about him being a story teller, as a songwriter and a person, and how that relates to him outing himself. He's eschewing the conventional narrative and the role that's expected of him and telling his own story, which I find much more interesting.

I love this statement so much because it's eschewing conventional coming out narratives and simple identity categories and instead sharing human experience.

Here is Ocean's new single which I am enjoying quiete a bit:

the title of this post is really very very long just like the title of a Fiona Apple album, only not nearly as epic, not even close.

I have listened to Fiona Apple's new album so many times in the past weeks. A ridiculous number of times, in part because Spotify is going all spiny rainbow of death when I try to listen to anything else. I'm taking this as a sign that the universe really wants me to listen to this album repeatedly, which is fine,  because it's excellent.

this is probably my favorite track.