In his final project for 2201, Nigel Becker offers us “the latest oldest scoop on English pop culture”! His mock pop-culture website, The Rolling Shawm, is a nod to digital journalism today and pays tribute to the diverse cross-section of texts explored in 2201 this past semester. In a series of articles, Becker uses his project to explore the connections between the literature from premodern England and modern journalistic forms, including interviews, book reviews, political analysis, buyers’ guides, and music and television reviews. Very perceptive and fabulously witty, The Rolling Shawm is sure to delight fans of social commentary.
You can check out the front page here.
Preview: Margery Kempe’s Outspoken Audio-Biography
The outspoken musical mystic gives our critic at large a sneak preview of her forthcoming debut record.
By Nigel Becker
”You already know you’re listenin’ to Miss Big C/And if you’re messin’ with Jesus, you’re messin’ with she!” warns Margery Kempe on “$tyle,” the fiery opening track on her forthcoming debut album, Autobiography. It’s a brash track, with pulsating percussion and a rapid-fire beat paired with the sort of lyrics one would expect from a woman who’s made her name for saying exactly what she thinks, when she thinks it. Although she’s always professed to travel around for the sole reason of proselytizing, winning converts, and keeping the religious faithful, she’s also seemed to relish the attention in her own right, and that holds true here.
Earlier this year, she put the finishing touches on her own autobiography, the first ever written, so it only makes sense that she should put it all to music to spread her message even farther. The album stays more or less true to her written work, tracing her life chronologically, with a couple of detours. One such detour is the aforementioned ”$tyle,” in which Kempe brags about her past and present aesthetics: sartorial, religious, and verbal. The track starts off with an invective hurled at Kempe by an elderly monk. “I wish you were shut up in a house of stone where nobody should talk to you,” she repeats mockingly, before turning it around: “Everyone tries to shut This Creature up, but TC always finds a way out/Because her love and her faith are too strong: what choice has she but to scream and shout?” For the remainder of the track — just as on the rest of the album, and in her autobiography — Kempe straddles the line between self-congratulatory and self-deprecating, and whether she’s describing her dress sense (“Gold pipes on her head, and daggings all about/They said ‘That’s no way for a lady to dress!’ – They threatened to throw This Creature out!”) or her big mouth (“This Creature said the wrong thing — should’ve stayed quiet a while/But by now you should know that’s hardly her style!”), her rhymes are engaging and very clearly her own.
After that opus, which is a quite apt thesis for the songs that follow, she walks listeners through her life: the near-death experience that forever changed her (on ”Die Tonight (Visionz)”); her fight to get her lustful husband to leave her alone (on “Outta This Bed (Pay U Off),” she strikes a deal with him; on ”Hunger,” she threatens to starve herself until he lays off); her impulsivity and the fixes it gets her into (“Talk Too Much” and the skit ”Testing Miss Big C,” in which a man offers to take her to bed — only to scoff and reveal that it was a test of her piety after she consents); and her encounter with Julian of Norwich, a pious woman with a decidedly different view on what it means to do God’s work (on ”U ’N’ Me,” the two duet as they lightheartedly spar over whose approach to faith is more becoming).
Closing out the record is a trio of tracks that again strays from the chronology of her life. On ”Virtual Lover,” she addresses her critics who accuse her of using Jesus as an excuse to do whatever she pleases. ”They say This Creature is making it up, that she and Jesus aren’t even really in love/That she lies and says Jesus approves whatever she does!” she paraphrases in a mocking tone. But, she counters, ”This Creature isn’t perfect, but it’s the trying that counts/And try, she always does, every day her trying mounts.” Then there’s ”Come 2 This Creature,” the bizzarest cut here by a mile, in which she narrates a steamy bedroom encounter with Jesus. She keeps her language more family-friendly than many of her peers, but that does little to reduce the listening experience’s strangeness: “He says he wants This Creature to treat him like her husband, to lay beside him in bed, give him a little lovin’,” she purrs, before switching roleplaying exercises: ”Love Him like a son, He’s the one, He’s the one for This Creature/When she’s lying here with Him, she’s the world’s truest believer.” Mercifully, she makes up for that misstep with ”This Creature Is.,” a reprise of ”$tyle” in which she looks back on her life and owns up to her shortcomings: ”This Creature is strange, and This Creature is sometimes wrong/And This Creature’s not always pious, and maybe she doesn’t write the best songs.” But at the end, she makes peace with herself, and for a single time switches from the third person to the first: ”But there’s only one of This Creature, and This Creature is Me.” In that moment, all the album comes together. For better or worse, this is Margery Kempe, the one and only.
Politics: Satan’s Shrewd Plan for World Domination
…every problem they claim they’ll solve, he’ll really just make worse.
By Nigel Becker
By now, you’ve probably witnessed Satan’s smooth politicking. As a candidate in next month’s Leader of the World election, he’ll be standing as the representative of the Devil’s Party (of which William Blake has accused author John Milton of being an unknowing member), and so far he’s run a perfect campaign.
A little too perfect.
Historically — for centuries, in fact — Satan has caught flack for being overly scary, abrasive, not approachable enough; he seemed more like the sort of fellow who would attempt to stage a coup than the sort who would stand in an election. But now, he’s seeking to ditch past perceptions and paint a new picture of himself, one in which he’s compassionate and a fighter for the forgotten man.
“All is not lost!” he roared in his campaign announcement speech, for we still have ”the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and courage never to submit or yield.” In his last bid for office, he was soundly defeated, but now, he’s even spinning that into a victory, crediting all those who backed his first campaign as striking ”terror” in the hearts of tyrants and monarchs, and allowing him to learn from his mistakes.
His sudden savvy didn’t begin with that speech. In fact, the way in which he went about winning the backing of party officials was downright Machiavellian, shrewd as anything and vaguely frightening. Many contingents of the party were uninterested in participating in the election at all; many thought declaring open war on their enemies would be a better move. Embittered Party Chair Belial took this view, arguing in essence that they have nothing left to lose, being held in ill repute by most every segment of the population. Communications Director Belial stood up to him, but this seemed less borne of strategy or pacifistic leanings than laziness. And then Treasurer Mammon lashed out and argued that to bow to the tyranny of the status quo would be an intolerable sin, a moral betrayal. The party was, in short, pissed off and fragmented.
But Satan knew better than any of them how to get what he wanted. He never came right out and told party officials that he regarded the warlike plan as asinine and destined for failure; instead, he shrewdly opened the floor to debate and then enlisted a close ally, the suave Vice Chair Beelzebub, who delivered an impassioned speech in favor of electoral participation that appeared to take into account all the warring factions’ feelings. Satan was, of course, the master behind this entire exchange, but the party leadership were either too gullible or too desperate to see that, and they all ended up nominating Satan as their electoral head, delivering him a sort of ”Draft Satan” moment that permitted him to feign grassroots support.
Satan knew better than any of them how to get what he wanted.
And so it continues in the election. He’s telling everyone what they want to hear: ”Our best days are ahead of, not behind us,” he’s assured us; ”We must stand up to those who have done us ill,” he says on every campaign stop. Some voices have expressed concern that this is all part of a trap, that voters will regret it if they cast their ballots for him — that he’ll destroy everything we hold dear, and crown himself as a dictator. If people feel oppressed now, just wait till he’s the one calling the shots! If they feel humiliated, just wait and see how they feel when they realize they’ve been played for fools and enabled one of the most power-hungry, manipulative figures of our time. But those concerns aren’t being heeded seriously yet, and time is running out.
Ironically, the greatest hope for averting catastrophe might come from Satan himself, and whatever is left of his shredded conscience. Party insiders close to him have recently begun murmuring that he’s begun privately expressing doubts about his plans, wondering whether there’s another path he might have taken, one unifying rather than divisive and honest rather than deceptive. But that’s not enough. Voters seem enamored of his tell-them-what-they-want-to-hear messaging, but it’s vital for the wellbeing of all that he be handed a ballot box drubbing next month.
A bio for Nigel Becker is in the works!