Drivers Like Me Because I Stop At Red Lights

            On Wednesday, September 14^th, it was quite a bit cooler than it had been for a long time. I wore long pants and a long sleeved shirt for the first time since early June, but it warmed up while I was on my way along College to my second class in the Philosophy of Art, so I was thinking that later on I might regret having put on the extra clothing.

I noticed that on the north side of College Street between Ossington and Shaw there is a construction fence up that blocks direct access to a lot of businesses. On the fence, about a meter out onto the street from the sidewalk in front of the A&W at Ossington is a sign that reads “We Are Open”. Since the nearest business is the A&W, I assume that the sign is theirs, but it looks strange because it’s so far from the sidewalk. It looks like it means that it’s the fence that’s open.

            A little further on, I was waiting at a red light when a guy in a car that was waiting to my left rolled down his passenger side window and leaned to the right to call to me what sounded like, “I gotta comment ya, buddy! You’re the first guy on a bike I seen so far today that’s stopped for a red light!” I responded, “Well, a person could hit somebody!” He repeated, “I gotta comment ya!” Maybe he meant “commend” or “compliment”, but whatever it was, he liked what I did.

            For some reason it made me feel good to be complimented by a stranger, but I was actually in a very good mood that day anyway because I’d found out that George Elliot Clarke is my poetry professor and that he was going to let us submit our own poetry for a final paper.

            My philosophy professor, Devlin Russell, arrived wearing a brown jacket that seemed too small, that was buttoned once in the middle and had several pens in the vest pocket. Underneath that he had on a white shirt with a light blue tie.

            I talked to him to explain that I hadn’t bought the iclicker yet because I wouldn’t be able to afford it until at least the end of that week when I would probably get my grant. He said, “I’m not gonna say this too loud, but I won’t be counting anything students do in the first week of classes.” That was a relief to hear.

            While waiting to start, Devlin played not very good computerized dance music over the lecture theatre sound system.

            It’s nice to know that there are no exams for either of the courses I am taking this year. That means that most of my December will be free.”

            Our first lecture was entitled “Aesthetic Concepts”

            One of the first things Professor Russell did was to play us “Hypnotize” by Notorious B. I. G. – “ Sicker than your average poppa … Twist cabbage off instinct niggas don’t think shit stink … Poppa been smooth since days of underroos, never lose, never choose to bruise crews who do something to us, talk go through us, girls walk to us, wanna do us, screw us. Who us? Yeah Poppa and Puff close like Starsky and Hutch … recently niggas fronting aint saying nothing … Tits and bras, ménage à trois, sex in expensive cars … At my arraignment, note for the plaintiff, ‘Your daughter’s tied up in a Brooklyn basement’ … Richer than Richie till you niggas come and get me … Tell them hoes take they clothes off slowly, hit em with the Force like Obi Wan Kenobi …” I noticed that the lines given to the female back-up singer were very simple and subservient.

            After listening to the song we were asked to take our first iclicker poll. The question was, do we think the song is A course; B warm; C dynamic; D smooth or E serene. I thought it was lyrically course and musically dynamic, but there was only one choice, so I punched “dynamic”.  21% thought it was course; 2% warm; 38% dynamic and 39% smooth.

            Next we watched a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWveXdj6oZU

            Of MF Doom: “You have entire bars that rhyme. The entire set up bar rhymes with every syllable in the punch line bar.”

            “It made me wonder what can I learn from rappers by looking at how they rhyme with the bear.”

            Rakim: “I try to start off with sixteen dots on the paper … In four bars I see like a graph between the four bars. I can place so many words and so many syllables, I can take it to the point where there’s no other words you can put in that four bars.”

            “Before we get into rhymes we have to know what beats and bars are.”

Martin Conner: “I always try to find the beat of the music first. A bar is a grouping together of four beats.”

            Fast-forward to 1986 and you’ve got “Eric B is President” from Eric B and Rakim. Not only are you seeing more rhymes you are also starting to see different kinds of rhymes. Internal rhymes and multi-syllable rhymes. The other thing Rakim does later in the verse is cross the bar line happens when a sentence like. Crossing the bar line happens when a sentence like “The rhyme can’t be kept inside” doesn’t end when the bar ends. If you listen closely you’ll hear that the second syllable of “inside” ends on the first beat of the next bar – “ … It’s biting me, fighting me, inviting me to rhyme … tome MC means move the crowd … man made a mix … band-aid to fix. His fingertips sew a rhyme until there’s no rhyme left …”

            Fast forward eleven years and Notorious B. I. G.’s “Hypnotize” used Rakim’s techniques to make one of the smoothest rap songs ever. Sometimes his sentences are long and sometimes they are short, as in “Dead right” and then “if the head right, Biggie there every night” He’s also completely comfortable delivering a sentence across the bar line. But what makes the song stand out the most is that before one rhyme scheme ends, another one begins – “All Philly hoes go with Moschino/Every cutie with a booty bought a Coogi/ Now who’s the real dookie meaning who’s rally the shit/ Them niggas ride dicks …” The first group of rhymes is the “oo” sound and it links the first and second sentence which begins the “i” sound. This is the reason Biggie sounds smooth here.”

            As much as Biggie daisy chained an entire song together with rhymes, he was for the most part using single syllable and single word rhymes. This is where artists like Mos Def pushed things even further. His first song, “Re-Definition” hits nearly every note within the bar with four syllable rhymes and he does it across fourteen bars. He is clearly rhyming each word with the beat – “ … Niggas is sweet, so I bet if I bit I’d get a cavity … You get kicked into obscurity like judo … cause you pseudo … How to Make a Slave by Willie Lynch is still applying … I’m way past the minimum, entering the millennium, my raps will hold a gat to your back like Palestinians, ancient Abyssinia sure to hold the Gideon, official b-boy gentlemen long term, never interim … These simpletons they mentioned in the synonym for feminine … Rush up on adrenaline they get they asses sent to them. Gentlemen you got a tenement, well then assemble it … Intelligent embellishment, follow for your element … Swing like Duke Ellington broader than Barrington Levy …”

            Andre 3000 shakes things up with his verse in “Aquemini”. Most rappers would have “dollars”, “parlours” and “bottles” all rhyme similarly on the beat, but Andre accents each rhyme within different places relative to the beat and bar - “ … Live from the home of the brave with dirty dollars and beauty parlours and baby bottles and bowling ball impalas and street scholars … These streets is where my folks at, better know that, some say we pro-black, boy we professional. We missed a lot of church, so the music’s our confessional … Sin all depends on what you believing in …”

            So according to the narrator of this video, crossing the bar line and daisy chaining rhymes makes a song sound “smooth”. But the rule is not reliable and one wouldn’t be able to pin down rap songs in this way.

            We then watched another video called “Drive 2011: the Quadrant System”

            “One of the best compliments you can give a movie is that it feels alive. There’s something in there that has a pulse that is unpredictable. It’s not just the story or the actors. It’s in the frames.” A short scene is shown from the Nicholas Winding Refn film, “Drive”. “ At first glance it doesn’t seem special, but if we cover up half the frame. The right side tells an entire story about the characters on its own and the left side tells another, complimentary story. So a shot that could have told one thing actually tells two. Our eyes are constantly switching between the two halves of the screen. In another scene the dynamic is not on the left and the right but on the top and bottom. Above there is a triangle of faces and a composition full of vertical and diagonal lines. Below, even though we are not consciously thinking about it the bottom tells an entire story through the hands. When we say a film is alive, this is part of what we mean. There are subtleties of story telling and behaviour, not just where we look, but where we don’t look. As we watch “Drive” we start to see the pattern. Almost every shot has a compositional balance between left and right, and also top and bottom: a quadrant. At first this might seem restrictive, but using this basic tool, watch how the director takes a conventional scene and does unconventional things. As the driver enters, he’s in the top left. So we assume that the next person will be in the top right, but instead, she is in the bottom right. Once the shots move closer we get two characters short-sided, with tons of space behind them. Even though they want to talk, there are other obligations. Once the two men confront each other, notice that they occupy the same quadrant, with their eyes in the same spot because they are fighting for the same position. Meanwhile, Irene is in top right or dead centre because she is the object of their affections. Even though she is out of focus, watch her performance. The scene finally pays off with a balance between top left and bottom right, letting us visually compare the two men and seeing the long shadow one casts towards the other. Even though we’ve seen the exit door since the first shot of the scene, the visual payoff is unexpected. The director by emphasizing different quadrants can create shots that are both tightly composed and weirdly unpredictable. Quadrants are a very old symbol tool. You just need top, bottom, left and right and the good sense for putting them together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsI8UES59TM

            We had an iclicker question: “Is Drive alive?” 30% agreed; 40% somewhat agreed and 12% didn’t know.

            Someone commented that if one looks closely at anything, including a pile of spit, it could be seen as alive.

            Frank Sibley argues that aesthetic concepts are different from condition-governed concepts.

(A)   There are no reliable rules for their application. This is the main reason.

(B)   Art critics don’t use them like condition-governed concepts.

(C)   Children don’t learn them like condition-governed concepts.

An argument made of reasons gives reasons to believe something.

What is condition governed?

Devlin projected the image of a dinner fork on the screen.

A dinner fork must satisfy the conditions that it be the shape of a fork and that it

be used for eating.

            Frank Sibley is not saying that aesthetic concepts are meaningless. The word “delicate” has meaning, but its application is not hooked up to the world like condition governed words such as fork”. Aesthetic concepts float freely.