the world a letter

I've been reading a lot of poetry I've been really enjoying, but when I close my eyes, all I hear is "I said get ready,/ cause this ain't funny;/ my name is Mike D./ and I'm about to get money." This has been going on for days. Is that fair?

Inevitably, thinking about the Beastie Boys . . . I was lucky to be old (or young) enough (in high school, then college) to hear them as primarily farce. But look where they went. They kind of remind me of the Beatles; they began derivative, so virtuoistic in their idiom as to be parodic; and then took direction from their virtue (so to speak) and not their idiom. The psychedelic overlap is gratuitous, though it supports what I'm saying.

Why am I thinking about these things? Something must have suggested to my brain I'm still in college. Cue heavy smoke drifting through the room . . .