Quick, Hot, and Cool Minutes: The Paradox of Slang

So what's the deal with this new slang referring to minutes as quick, hot, and cool that seems to be catching on? One of my coworkers was trying to tell me about a friend that she hadn't seen since grade school and told me that she hadn't seen him in a "quick minute," ultimately meaning over a decade. As far as I can tell, a quick minute is the longest duration, followed by hot,  then cool. This makes no sense right? If we are talking about cooking terminology, a hot minute should be the shortest right? And the cool minute should be the longer since it would take a while for the hot food to cool down?

I guess what I'm trying to understand is the paradoxical nature of slang. How did "Bad" become a substitute for "good," or "sick" a replacement for awesome? As far as I can tell, a lot of slang tries to defy comprehension by those not in the know, perhaps because those in the know don't want outsiders to know what they are talking about. If someone from, let's say, Orange County heard someone from Long Beach talking about how he hadn't hung out with his sickest, gnarshtiest friend in a quick minute, the Orange County dude might think that the Long Beach guy was just taking a small break from visiting his friend at the hospital.

In short, slang is  a huge part of the culture war. It's a code that different generations use to include and exclude certain people from knowing what they're talking about. The trend in slang will ultimately have to change though, for if slang continues the trend of simply meaning the opposite of what is actually said... the narcs will catch on pretty soon.

Stay strong... and stay creative

"The Dream Police they live inside of my head": The Triumphant Return of Superjail

As I was waiting for the LSD to kick in last night, I decided to pop in Adult Swim's Superjail in anticipation for the start of the second season that starts tonight. Superjail is an excellently hand-drawn cartoon that is a contender for most violent show on the human plane, so much so that it is sometimes incomprehensible for those who do not vacation regularly in the 5th, 6th, and 7th dimensions. But I digress...

The drugs were starting to weigh me down a little bit, I looked at the poster behind the TV, and the letters that spell out "College" on John Belushi's sweater were starting to jump around and reorganize.  I Remember thinking that "Cell Gloe" might be somehow significant. The DVD wasn't starting, and I started getting anxious. I didn't want to have to figure out any technical problems; I just wanted to get weirded out and sit on my couch. "Fuck it," I said. "I'll just pop in The Twilight Zone." "The Howling Man" episode kept oscillating from black and white to bright technicolor, culminating in a bright red color for the big reveal of Satan at the end.

After the trip slowly faded away, I decided to head over to my friends house for a few late night beers and to talk about all the stupid shit I saw while high, and what happens to be on the television.... motherfucking Superjail...

By now your wondering where this story is going, so I'll tell you. My trip last night is essentially a metaphor for the show. It will constantly surprise you at the most unexpected times. It has your wellfare in mind (it wanted me to see the Zone in color for the first time). And if you let it, Superjail will make itself present to you at all times. This is as far as I can go. As Morpheus and Plato's philosopher king have both said, "I can't show you the truth... You have to see it for yourself..." And then, as Superjails warden says, "I'll see you on the other side of space brothers."

4Chaneration, or the Proof for Postmodernism

At the height of postmodern hubris, the idea that anything is inherently sacred or beautiful was traded in for the idea that anything can be made sacred and beautiful. Derrida coined a key phrase of postmodernism that reflects this idea: "The center cannot hold." He is saying, essentially, that the idea of a stability, the idea of a  constant is really a human construct. Whenever we think we find a center, we are constantly confronted with the fact that it is really not the center. This has been happening throughout time. One only has to look at human history's ideas about the earth's relationship to the sun and the universe to understand what Derrida means, but it extends to all areas of life. Derrida's ideas challenged the literary cannon, or center of literature, among other artistic cannons. If we are constantly finding that there are no centers, how could we say that people like Hemingway and Shakespeare are the "centers" of good literature? Derrida said that we can't. Everything has the potential to be art, even things that seem to depart completely from the "center."

A lot of people were seriously disturbed by this because if there is no center, then there is no standard by which to judge anything. Other people embraced the idea wholeheartedly, and one only needs to look at the hive mind known as 4chan to understand what I mean. 4chan, especially their random board /b/, is an image board filled with racists, drug addicts, pedophiles, sexists... basically every horrible human being you can think of has a home at 4chan. At the same time, they are most likely responsible for the picture that made you LOL before finding this page. For all the gore and pornography and hate, 4chan's collective hive mind is a genius. When nothing is sacred, everything has the potential to become a laugh, and that's exactly what we need in a world as fucked as ours. As a result of essentially saying "not a single fuck  was given" with regards to the "center," 4chan has been able to transform the most unlikely stories and pictures into pure win, filling my brain  and teh internets with billions and billions of fuck.