Book Reviews – November 2005

Book reviews for the SLUG reader with a library card and actually use it
Hip-Hop & Philosophy: Rhyme to Reason
By Derrick Darby and Tommie Shelby, Open Court Publishing
Street: 11.09
Can Lauren Hill help you uncover the meaning of love? Can Jay-Z teach you about self-consciousness? Can Mase  shed light on the conception of God’s essence? No, I didn’t think so either. Rhyme and Reason reads more like a literary hand-job to every famous “microphone commando” to hit the top of the hip-hop charts from the 80s to the present day. To tell you the truth, this book was extraordinarily offensive. Who the fuck compares Socrates with 50 Cent? It’s like comparing the enlightened mind of the Dalai Llama to that of an inbred hillbilly, hell-bent on poking every dead thing he can find with a stick… Oh, the audacity! To the uneducated hip-hopper, this book explains the meaning of “beef,” “booty,” “queen bees and big pimps,” “niggaz and bitches,” and other perplexing topics that pertain to hip-hop culture, err, I guess. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love hip- hop. Most of my CD collection consists of hip-hop albums, but this book is a pile of poodle shit with a layer of cheap gold paint slopped all over it. I think that the title Jerking Off For Dummies would be a far more interesting and educational read. So, why would you go pick up Hip Hop & Philosophy: Rhyme to Reason? Irony, self-loathing and the inability to deal with how truly out of step you are with hip-hop culture. -Lance Saunders
Go Ask Ogre: Letter From a Deathrock Cutter
Jolene Siana
Process
Street: 08.01
Jolene is your typical gothic teen in many ways: she loves art and music and is a fan of Skinny Puppy, with a place in her heart for the front man, Ogre. What makes her unique is her relationship with her abusive mother, her desire to cut herself with razorblades and her persistent suicidal thoughts. All of these things make Go Ask Ogre a compelling story with Jolene writing confessional letters to Ogre, littered with artistic designs and life experiences. Surely Ogre has received plenty of fan mail, but saw something special in Jolene’s words and saved them. As their friendship developed, Ogre told Jolene he would send the letters back to her some day. The idea of this book seemed cheesy, but as I was reading I remembered my troubled-teen years and could relate to band obsessions and writing letters to them. The way Ogre and the rest of Skinny Puppy reached out to Jolene is quite touching and will keep a reader up late at night to find out what happens.

– Amy Spencer
The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas
Davy Rothbart
Touchstone Books
Street: 09.02
Sometimes the boys and I, after tossing a few back, find ourselves in adjacent stalls in casino and/or luxury hotel bathrooms. It is typically someone’s first inclination to sing “Amazing Grace.” The other gents join in, each fulfilling a harmonic niche. Imagine my surprise when one of my life’s ongoing jokes appeared in Mr. Rothbart’s (the Found Magazine guru himself) new fiction collection. However, the title story of this collection is no laughing matter. One man’s daughter is dying of cystic fibrosis. One man accidentally shot a civilian at a traffic stop and is in jeopardy of losing his badge (and as it is a small Kansas town, his livelihood). One man, our narrator, rescued the lone surfer after a nasty fall and can’t seem to figure out his girlfriend/cross-coun- try companion. They all “sing [“Amazing Grace”], slowly, wrenchingly.” To the narrator, “the beauty was excruciating.” To me, the need to proclaim this the worst conclusion to any piece of short fiction I’ve ever encountered is excruciating. Davy seems like a pretty swell guy; but this book is terribly overwrought with cantankerous similes and hyperbolic emotion (all of which probably nets him more tail than George Saunders and John Haskell combined). -Ho Chi Minh (City) SLUG