* Todd VanDerWerff was more patient with last night’s Lost episode than I was, and I think he’s largely convinced me, though I feel like we sort of need to see how things go in the next few episodes to see if this was laying the groundwork for something or just sort of anomalous. Ryland Walker Knight, by contrast, was even more dismissive of it than I was, though I think his characterization of it as feeling very Season Three was accurate. Again, though, we’ll see where things go.
* After its world tour of crossovers with the X-Men, the Avengers, Thunderbolts, and Incredible Hercules, Agents of Atlas is returning as just-plain Atlas. Hooray! I’m happy to see how hard Marvel worked on this book’s behalf, the apparently soon-to-be high profile of Gorilla Man being a good example.
* I really like the idea of War of the Supermen, the next big DC event, taking place over the course of 100 minutes. If the creators involved really work on packing those 100 minutes of battle in terms of memorable physical beats that are easy to follow from one to the next, it could really be something.
* Ta-Nehisi Coates on “the death of hip-hop”–this passage was a real eye-opener:
When I was a kid, I thought only better (lyrically) things would follow. I think that was a function of me not really understanding why most people were listening to hip-hop. Sure some of us obsessed over the words, but Dre basically had it right–“Ya’ll don’t wanna hear me, you just wannna dance.” That’s basically been the case from jump. Great lyrics were a beautiful and important side-effect, but a side-effect nonetheless.
Sad but true?
re: hip-hop – I’d say not true. To me, it seems like there were a lot of dumb lyrics around when I was paying closer attention to the music 10-15 years ago. I only listen to a few new hip-hop albums a year nowadays, but people still seem to be doing interesting/ambitious stuff lyrically.
But I recognize the sentiment. Rock and roll (and its children – punk & hip-hop) seems to be continually disappointing its critical champions in one way or another. I think it is a side-effect of a certain kind of intellectual engagement with those popular art forms that actually have a popular (i.e. huge) audience. The critic sees some kind of revolutionary (aesthetic or otherwise) potential in the art and begins to hope that this potential will effect the perception of the audience (i.e. make them more appreciative of good lyrics).