"America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy." JOHN UPDIKE
Finding Updike in Others...
JOHN UPDIKE BROTHER ALI
As John Updike has just recently passed earlier this year, it was hard to come up with a "Modern Day" resemblance of him. However, needing to be crafty as to come up with someone nowadays who is just as articulate in voicing their opinions as Updike, I remembered an underground hip hop artist from Wisconsin who has collaborated many of his songs with the upcoming hip hop group Atmosphere, stage name Brother Ali. As he states in an interview about his album, The Undisputed Truth, "I wanted to make an album that gives you no choice but to feel what I'm feeling at the time," Ali explains. I found that Brother Ali is reminiscent of John Updike specifically for the fact that he raps about his situations, good and bad. He, just as Updike, talks about sex, America, and the everyday life through his eyes.
Comparison of an Updike Poem and a Modern Song
Within many of Updike's poems, sex is used not just as an act, but also shows its relevance to commitment; commitment to the moment, the other person, and to the feeling of it. By today's standards in music, "sex" is a prevalent theme in nearly every mainstream hip hop, rap, R & B, pop, and rock music, so there were many songs to choose from. However, most of the songs today are crude in their sexual content, and therefore it was difficult to find a song to resonate with Updike's work. I believe that the song by Ciara and Justin Timberlake "Love, Sex, Magic" relate to Updike's "Tossing and Turning" best. In Updike's work, he is referring to the act of sex with a partner and enjoying it. The same goes for "Love, Sex, Magic", as the two singers compose a song about the feeling of the act of sex, and enjoying it to the best of their abilities.
"For male and female alike, the bodies of the other sex are messages signaling what we must do, they are glowing signifiers of our own necessities." JOHN UPDIKE
Tossing and Turning John Updike The spirit has infinite facets, but the body confiningly few sides. There is the left, the right, the back, the belly, and tempting in-betweens, northeasts and northwests, that tip the heart and soon pinch circulation in one or another arm. Yet we turn each time with fresh hope, believing that sleep will visit us here, descending like an angel down the angle our flesh's sextant sets, tilted toward that unreachable star hung in the night between our eyebrows, whence dreams and good luck flow. Uncross your ankles. Unclench your philosophy. This bed was invented by others; know we go to sleep less to rest than to participate in the twists of another world. This churning is our journey. It ends, can only end, around a corner we do not know we are turning.
| Love Sex Magic Ciara featuring Justin Timberlake 1, 2, 3..go..uh, yeah |
thanks to:
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/ciara/lovesexmagic.html
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=172267
