Prince is dead, at age 57. We feel you, sad teacher. We feel you.
Makes U Laugh, Makes U Cry:
- Aisha Harris and Chelsea Hassler round up reactions from Prince’s fellow musicians. Michelle Branch: “When Eric Clapton was asked how it felt to be the world’s best guitarist he replied: ‘I don’t know. Ask Prince.’ #RIP”
- We’re listening to the Prince livestream from the Minneapolis radio station The Current, because Prince—as Dan Kois explains—vigilantly controlled his music’s online presence, so you can’t hear him on Spotify.
- We’re watching a 1982 concert video Forrest Wickman found on YouTube. There is a pole dance, and there are splits.
- Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson writes about the time he obeyed a special summons to go roller-skating with Prince. (Questlove and Talib Kweli are DJing a tribute party at Brooklyn Bowl on Thursday night, if you’re in the area and don’t mind standing in what will likely be a killer line.)
- David Marchese offers a list of some of the funniest maybe-true Prince stories out there. “‘Your magazine probably won’t print this,’ Prince said in response to a question [from an interviewer] about his youthful appearance, ‘but I don’t believe in time. I don’t count. When you count, it ages you.’ ”
Makes U Think:
- Ta-Nehisi Coates, on the Atlantic’s website in 2009: “One thing I’ve appreciated about Prince, as I’ve aged, is that he knows how to sing about sex, like a man honestly singing about sex.”
- Jack Hamilton writes that Prince was “fluent in the matters of the flesh,” and “Little Red Corvette” is Exhibit A. “What makes ‘Little Red Corvette’ so great is how seriously it takes casual sex: it’s awash in ambivalence, vulnerability, and fear,” argues Hamilton. “It’s not about sex as fun—or at least it’s not just about that, but rather about the entirety of the act: its physical, emotional, psychological, even spiritual dimensions.”
- Christina Cauterucci writes about Prince’s gender fluidity, and its profound influence on popular culture.
- And Hilton Als, writing for Harper’s in 2012, spins a consideration of Prince into an extended meditation on normativity, androgyny, gender, and race.
In non-Prince news, Helaine Olen catalogs the long tradition of male writers penning screeds bemoaning their financial straits. And criminal defense attorney Emily Galvin argues that—Whole Foods goat cheese scandals aside—prisoners should be allowed to work.
Perhaps a distraction from the Big Sad? Seth Stevenson went to umpire school and tells us all their secrets.
No, I refuse to be distracted,
Rebecca
