the other day i was watching the eminem "artist collection" on mtv with little sammy. (em's new album rehab - oops that's relapse - is out today.) i keep thinking he can't be as good as i remember him being, but he is. there has never been a rapper with a better flow. (the only serious candidate sam and i could think of offhand is immortal technique.) we saw the video from "lose yourself," for example (from the eight mile soundtrack). it is astonishing. every verse builds in intensity, driving home the rhythm perfectly. every frigging word makes sense, even at maximum velocity. every bit is just bristling with rhyme, alliteration, assonance. truly a work of art, driving our language forward. the fictionalized or fabulized autobiography is amazing: a literary achievement: half gangster movie, half brutal self-examination. the political texts (such as "white america") are central documents his time. i'll let you know what i think of rehab in a bit.