Kanye analyzed in NYT

TODAY’S READING ASSIGNMENT: Excellent analysis of the enigma that is Kanye West by Jon Caramanica in the N.Y. Times. The writer notes that Jezebel.com recently compiled a five-minute video “stitching together several of West’s televised outbursts and outlandish statements over the years. And while they’re mostly uncomfortable to watch, they’re motivated by a consistent, if peculiar, internal logic: that West isn’t to be disturbed. And this: “‘Kanye West media trainer quits after disastrous Today interview,’ read a headline in the New York Post following the incident, and it almost read like a headline from The Onion. First, West has media training? And second, who would take that job?” Caramanica calls My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (11/22, Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam) “terrific—of course it’s terrific—[though] that doesn’t matter nearly as much as it should, at least partly because of West’s insistence on his own greatness… The result is that West becomes a polarizing public figure who happens to be the most artful pop musician of the day, not the other way around.” Insightful stuff. (11/18a)