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can't run out of breath when you don't have breath phonemes

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Earl Sweatshirt: A Geography of Grief and Growth

I made myself the poet of the world. The white man had found a poetry in which there was nothing poetic….I had soon to change my tune.

—Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952)

I suggest that we do not necessarily need to hear and know what is stated in its entirety, that we do not need to “master” or conquer the narrative as a whole, that we may know in fragments.

—bell hooks, “Teaching New Worlds/New Words” (1994)

Breakin’ ’em down to micro-fragments.

—Saafir, “Battle Drill” (1994)

What is asked of me is not to ascend but to descend.

—Robert Bly (1990)

1.

Earl Sweatshirt’s arc, swerving and dervishy, isn’t difficult to see, as we’ve witnessed it with him—we’re either interlocutors or interlopers, both with questionable motives. So when Earl looks back on school daze, as he does on “OD,” we look back with him (though ours is often an imperial gaze [HOW COULD IT NOT BE?]). We tee-hee and titter as we hear that “somebody tooted in the student commons,” tooted being the most puerile word for gas he could have chosen. An array of scatological options were ignored. It’s a deliberate gesture toward juvenilia. He doesn’t want his expression to be too mature, ha. He wants to welcome you to the romper room, ha. Remaining a kid until the moment he expires, apparently. So he sets the adolescent scene: the student commons. “The bell rang,” and the accused student was spared the prolonged opprobrium. In about four seconds, the student will begin to post. He “went home and argued in the comments,” channeling his embarrassment elsewhere, talking shit (shit) on the internet behind the safety and quasi-anonymity of a screen—an odd facade. He can walk right up to your avi and diss you. That’s his philosophy. The public humiliation replaced with a private self-possession. The discomfort of the crowd exchanged for the solace of solitude.

2.  DID AN ANGEL SPEAK?

The sonics of “tooted” and “student” are twee, giggle-inducing. We laugh along with the concatenation of m and n phonemes [somebody | student | commons | rang | went | home | then | in | comments]. The near-homophonous commons and comments scan hysterical. With “OD,” it’s easy to confuse adolescence with adulthood. That “somebody” committed this social transgression seems defensive. Maybe it was him—the subject, Earl, Thebe—seeing as how the rest of the song is delivered in the first-person. Embrace the Age of Immaturity. Channel the Fat Boys: Darren Robinson’s flatulent beatbox. Place it beside the disorderly lyrics that Bobbito spits: “I write my own shit from finish to start, / Diminish the heart, / I eat a knish and then I fart.” Like the Cenobites, Earl kicks a dope verse, and only that. “I keep my sentences short,” he says on “EAST.” Beauty is brevity, brevity beauty. A “brevity pack,” as Earl has referred to the Feet of Clay songs. He strives to be live ’cause he got no choice. He runs his own business like James Joyce. In A Portrait of the Artists as a Young Man, a similar flatus incident unravels. At Clongowes Wood College (Stephen Dedalus’s Coral Reef Academy), a “stout student who stood below…on the steps” by the name of Goggins “farted briefly.” Sonically, the sentence shares much with Earl’s opening line. Dixon asks, in a “soft voice,” “Did an angel speak?” But the others react with bellicosity and name-calling (stinkpot; flamingest dirty devil). Goggins doesn’t retreat home; he simply asks, “It did no one any harm, did it?” You still bet that you can harm me, but you don’t alarm me, Goggins might say another way, reprising Del the Funky Homosapien, echoplexing Masta Ace. 

3. 

Earl “watched the doppler move,” the wavelength shift—the siren song of the “toot,” something insidious—or maybe it’s just the tremors we’re feeling. Woop, woop: that’s the sound of the beast, KRS would say. The frequency shivers. The shift, the movéd doppler, means Earl is immediately older, he’s the child who “get[s] introduced to violence,” even if he acknowledges the line was inspired by his nephew on a playground in South Africa, experiencing apartheid reincarnate as a whiteboy cuts him in line for the slide. Cranly, bullying Goggins, “shove[s] him violently down the steps.” The doppler moves. It slides into violence—like the violence visited upon the MOVE compound located at 6221 Osage Avenue in Philly in 1985. Gradations of black/white. ELUCID mentions the “gray on [his] face showing age” on his Osage (2016) project. Isn’t it strange—how the youngins can turn cold, hoarfrosty, in an instant? The grayscale cover to ELUCID’s tape is graced by a photograph of Birdie Africa, the sole child survivor of the siege. The bone fragments of the MOVE children have since been used in anthropology courses at UPenn and Princeton—case studies. It’s a good trope. Fascinating stuff.

4.  TRYIN’ TO TRANSFORM YOU BOYS TO MEN LIKE DAYCARE

When JuJu of the Beatnuts asked, You want pain?, he wasn’t referencing the dramatical-traumatical pain Earl negotiates—JuJu’s question posed a ruffneck and ruffian pain on “Watch Out Now.” Somewhere closer to Marcy, where Jay-Z’s streets was watching. Earl clocks minutes, anaphoric with what he watches (I watched the doppler… / I watched a child…), much like Dylan’s portentous hard rain in which he saw endless racialized visions: “I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it”; “I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’”; “I saw a white ladder all covered with water.” For Earl, the ladder is a slide. The saw is watched. Witnesses all.

5.

In “Theory as Liberatory Practice,” bell hooks writes that she “came to theory because [she] was hurting”: “I wanted to make the hurt go away. I saw in theory then a location for healing.” hooks says that she “came to theory young, when [she] was still a child,” citing Terry Eagleton who argues that “[c]hildren make the best theorists.” Children, Eagleton insists, possess “a wondering estrangement.” No wonder, then, that “since a jit” Earl has found no use in “giving up.” He rather make it make sense. 

6.

I beat you to the point. Having gained experience, there’s nothing you can tell Earl that he doesn’t already know, that he hasn’t already seen. He’s seen enough, had enough. He doesn’t await the mob’s pursuit; he places the noose on himself, he RE: DEFines it within his own lexicon. His noose, therefore, “is golden.” He’s a young youth, rockin’ the gold [noose], DEATHWORLD goose. He speaks with criminal slang, with a split tongue like ELUCID. Where ELUCID was “true and living, actual—no dull axes, owner of all heads,” Earl is “true and living, lonesome,” with no skulls to keep him company. He has to square up with the “pugilistic moments” on his own. 

7.  I AM OLDER THAN I ONCE WAS AND YOUNGER THAN I’LL BE

I’m thinking of “The Pugilist at Rest” (1991) by Thom Jones, whose epileptic protag describes a “grainy black-and-white photograph” of the bronze statue called The Pugilist at Rest. The pugilist, with a pocketful of mumbles, has “slanted, drooping brows that bespeak torn nerves” and a forehead “piled with scar tissue.” Torn nerves and scar tissue—sounds like the physical manifestations of grief. And, yes, Earl has grieved, and he continues to grieve—as listeners, we’re accustomed to his grief pedigree, as per Ka. In the past, Earl was “panicking a lot”—he just “want[ed] [his] time and [his] mind intact.” That’s a cold fact.

The narrator of “The Pugilist at Rest” readies himself for a cingulotomy—a psychosurgical procedure that will “cauterize a small spot in a nerve bundle in [his] brain.” In other words, he wants to keep his mind intact. The neurosurgeon promises the operation will lift “the heaviness of a heart blackened by sin,” which is what convinces the narrator to agree to it. Good grief, he thinks, he’s been reaping what he sowed. He “can’t go on like this,” barely living “with a deadening sense of languor,” a phrase which calls to mind Earl’s lethargic, slugabed flow. Feeling insane in the membrane, like he’s a Soul Assassinated, exploring the depths beneath his whooligan behaviors. 376 was a brothel. “Good and evil are only illusions,” Jones writes. In anticipation of the surgery, the protag considers the worst-case [so what, so what] scenario: “If they fuck up the operation, I hope I get to keep my dogs somehow.”

8.  MOURNING & MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLIA

Grief carries its own antidote along with it.

—Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland (1798)

“Grief is the door to feeling,” Robert Bly says. But Earl, on “Grief,” told us he “ain’t been outside in a minute”—and that minute, whether we’re speaking with criminal slang like Nas on “It Ain’t Hard To Tell” or not, is an eternity. Earl hadn’t crossed that threshold, hadn’t kicked in that door. MIKE would realize it much later on “No Curse Lifted (rivers of love),” how you “had to walk through the grief,” even if it “was the worst feeling.” In 2015, though, Earl found these passageways distorted. Like the undulating photograph on the cover of his first mixtape. Like the blur-obscured selfie on the cover of Some Rap Songs. Like the static-scrambled cover of I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside. Earl’s dealt in fragmentary confuzzled noise for a full career. He’s been standing on the corner, red burnt, moving down alien lanes paved by GBV, greenthinking to himself. It ain’t hard to tell that Earl “don’t act hard” and yet is a “hard act to follow.” The density or opacity of his exterior notwithstanding, grief don’t come easy. “As men,” Bly says, “we’re taught not to feel pain and grief as children.” So Earl spits somnolent, numb-tongued and slack-jawed. Like he said on “Cold Summers”: muffle my pain and muzzle my brain up. 

“I’ve been alone in my shit for the longest,” he spit on “Grief,” and in work as recent as “Vin Skully,” he’s still figuring out “how to stay afloat in a bottomless pit.” Bly says that “we receive something from our father by standing close to him—something moves over that can’t be described in material terms.” Bly speaks of being in a “conspiracy with his mother” from early on. Earl finds himself “thinking ’bout [his] grandmama” while he wallows and lies in a bottle. “Grief” catalogs all the things his mama taught him. Earl’s work, of late, is autodestructive. He peels away and pastes back haphazardly. He vibes with this Bly shit: “If you can deny something so fundamental as grief in the whole family, you can deny anything. And then how can you write poetry if you’re involved in that much denial?”

Bly goes on to quote Alice Miller, the psychoanalyst who gave us The Drama of the Gifted Child (1979): “When you were young, you needed something you did not receive, and you will never receive it. And the proper attitude is mourning.” Mourning is the proper attitude, not blame—mourning. Mourning makes its way through moaning and mumbling—Earl’s current intonation. On “Grief,” he “cut the grass off the surface [and] pray[s] the lawnmower blade catch the back of a serpent.” Philip Larkin’s poem “The Mower” (1979) leans more literal: “The mower stalled, twice; I found / A hedgehog jammed up against the blades, / Killed. It had been in the long grass.” Larkin’s speaker genuflects before the innocent critter, recalling how he “fed it, once.” Now, he mourns how he has “mauled its unobtrusive world, / Unmendably. Burial was no help.” Earl, of course, is less forgiving of the serpents in the grass. They’re threats, not friends. Still, a void opens up when the mower—(and let’s not forget the lawnmower is a modernized scythe)—does its mowing. Grief is the door to feeling, and on the other side:

Next morning I got up and it did not. The first day after a death, the new absence Is always the same; we should be careful Of each other, we should be kind While there is still time.

9.  NOBODY KNOW WHO MADE THIS WELL, FOR IT WAS HERE WHEN I WAS BORN

“Come get to know me at my innermost…”

Riveting, Earl raps. Earl raps are riveting. We fix to the flow—riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s. We’re invited to know Earl, to become familiar, and his “innermost” is a constant vacillation between optimism and [afro]pessimism. The sudden switches—these switches on bitches like fixed with hydraulics—establish what Danny Schwartz, writing for Rolling Stone, called an “uneven terrain.”

Earl’s “family business [is] anguished,” and that’s recognizable. We’ve known Earl (on “Chum”) with the “pendulum swinging slow” and low. He holed up, hostage-like, in his “heart’s bottomless pit.” Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1842) brand of captivity. “I was sick,” that narrator says, “—sick unto death with that long agony.” Something tells me there should be an exclamation point there (SICK!). Earl Sweatshirt was down, down, down. “I was in the fucking pits for like 10 months post my pops dying,” he said in an interview. The Spanish Inquisition ain’t shit.

But for these countless downs, “OD” tracks the ups like naloxone in the nasal membrane. “Now I need atonement,” Earl notes—he makes a case for reparations. He “sets the goal[s]” like some motivational speaker. If “half [his] wings is broken,” he can “spread the other for [his] brodie OD.” Somewhat circumspect as he’s “tiptoeing,” yet the approach is laden with “too much love.” Even when his “sister showed in a rut,” he’s joining arms with her and “getting over, sending up.” That rut she walks—like Eudora Welty’s worn path (1941)—is a path through the pinewoods, and she’s suddenly Phoenix Jackson. “She was very old and small,” Welty writes, and she moves “with the balanced heaviness and lightness of a pendulum in a grandfather clock.” Even with her pentium processing and pendulum low, she swings back up—the rise of her namesake. She screams phoenix, her feathers and flames are one skin. “Living in the moment,” Earl raps, and his craft is bars. “You been corrupt”—and, sure, who hasn’t?—but you recover with “some ginabot.” Welty’s Old Phoenix surveys a spring “silently flowing through a hollow log.” She bends and drinks and says, “Sweet gum makes the water sweet.” It’s the equivalent to Earl putting “shilajit in his sippy cup,” which is “healing cuts revealingly.” And, yes, from a “sippy cup,” so we’re back to toddling around again (“Since a jit,” he says). “I can’t give enough,” Earl raps, his last winding-sheet made of nard and myrrh. 

10.

We crouch and teeter, caterwauling along the ledges, for we’ve got these clumsy feet of clay. This is the intended effect[/defect]; this is the rubble of what Earl calls the “crumbling empire.” This is us feeling the violent vibes of the “death throes” he speaks of. Why would we expect anything to resemble traditional song or rhyme structure when the earth quakes, civilization trembles, and Earl’s dungeon shakes? His chains have fallen off. The tenor is tremors. He’s living the trife life—hell on earth—but still living. Earl’s done trying to not look down—he embraces an outer appearance which scans dour; he deliberately gazes into the pit, inviting the vertigo, for it “haunts the whole of existence,” as Fanon says. But Frank B. Wilderson III promises a “vengeance of vertigo.”

11.

Gallons of rubbing alcohol flow through the strip, and Earl’s lips. He’s “refilling the pump”—his heart, yeah—but with a sawed-off shotgun, hand-on-the-pump posture. There’s “no concealing it,” not even with a concealed carry permit. He brandishes right back at “the enemy up in arms bearing snubs.” The mood swings; been down so long it looks like up to him. The turns require tourniquets. This is some Battle of Dak To torture—somewhere between Retaliation and the Heavenly Divine. Emotional turmoil seems violent by design, and Earl’s “memory [is] really leaking blood.” Fear not, the blood is “congealing, stuck.” Like Havoc says, “The Mobb rollin’ thicker.” Prodigy cites it, too: “This ain’t rap—it’s bloodsport.” But Earl has known that all along—he’s been “mobbin’ deep as ’96 Havoc and Prodigy did” since 2013.

12.

HipHopDX’s Kevin Cortez referred to listeners having to “sift through the muddle” in order to appreciate the bars, but where muddle suggests a disorderly conduct, a kaos network, Earl’s style, more appropriately, models. The woozy, wavy, and inner-conflict-war-torn vocals model an abstraction that anticipates the listener’s loyalty. This is what I’ve got, brief and cryptic as the gesture may be, the model says. Writing for NME, Dhruva Balram described Earl’s lyrics as “slurred,” but slurry is the form.

13.

If the empire can deploy Orwellian technologies of repression, its outcasts have the gods of chaos on their side…

—Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (2005)

So if we’re giving ourselves over to the woozes and waves, we’ll just as well find ourselves lost. Let’s go—like those tourist books run by students—and let’s wander eastward. Follow our napkin-scrawled directions and disorientations to a somewhere elsewhere. Let’s go east for a second, for a spell, on a lark, in the dark (word to AKAI SOLO). Earl’s bloodwork contains “pieces of slums”—or more aptly, [sLUms]. He’s hand-to-hand with that Jungle Boy MIKE, but also the god Mike Davis. “[T]he cities of the future,” Davis wrote, would be “constructed out of crude brick, straw, recycled plastic, cement blocks, and scrap wood.” Just the same as an Earl Sweatshirt verse is built—under the tutelage and overstanding-sharing, symbiotically, with MIKE. Davis says our cities aren’t “cities of light soaring toward heaven,” but a world that “squats in squalor, surrounded by pollution, excrement, and decay.” Smells like somebody tooted in the student commons. Smells like a slum village, something we’ve smelled before—possibly coming straight from the slums of Shaolin. 

14.  ACID EASTERNS

Earl trekked to the East and squinted into “one beacon in the dust weaving”—like Clint Eastwood arriving out of the hazy horizon ether of High Plains Drifter (1973). But Earl is heading to the East, blackwards. And though Brother J claimed you can’t define what’s direct from the East, Jeru told us on The Sun Rises in the East that you can’t stop the prophet either. So on “EAST,” Earl traverses a tricky terrain—it’s tricky, tricky, tricky because it’s an acid western landscape: an acid eastern.

The path isn’t direct or linear—it zigs and zags like rolling papers, and stimulates the same. “Double back when you got it made,” Earl says at the start of his journey “EAST.” The objective is to talk sense condensed into the form of a poem like Special Ed once did on “I Got It Made.” Instead, Earl’s poems—his L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poems—skew [non]sense, go form[less], and vaporize rather than condense. Lyn Hejinian in cinnamon Timbs: “constant change figures / the time we sense.” The narrative is hallucinogenic (note: “how the story careen against the bars”). Earl’s bindle contains “thirty racks and weed [with] no fat in the collard greens.” That’s how he gets funky on the mic like an old batch. That’s how he gets sincerity on the mic: “Off top it’s me—no cap, / I don’t bottle things.” That buck that bought a bottle could’ve struck the lotto, maybe. But Earl’s “canteen was full of the poison [he] need[s].” He gets where he’s going like El Topo, bereft. The “trip was long and steep”—that being an acid trip—so let me see you try to ride a horse into the chasms of the canyon.

“EAST” is a death meditation, a grand duel between Dantean and Donneian lyric voices [he damn-near well should’ve double-tracked the vocals]. In a 2015 interview with SPIN, Earl is asked about the worst thing he did that year, to which he replies: “Umm…acid?” He elaborates: “I took it at a time when I really didn’t need to be taking acid. I had like a fucking existential crisis at, like, four in the morning. But it was tight. We reeled it back.” Jodorowsky called El Topo (1970) an “eastern” in that it “incorporat[ed] ancient eastern wisdom in the materiality of American cowboys.” For Earl, it’s more a rhinestone cowboy—he holds the cold one like he holds an old gun (as evidenced in the “EAST” music video). DOOM was no stranger to grief, of course, and the rumors persist regarding the bad acid that precipitated Subroc’s early demise (“Bad Acid” also being the original title for “December 24”).

Estranged Earl, alienated—a high plains drifter (not Clint Eastwood, though) who rechristens a town “Hell” through a baptism of blood. Like the Beastie Boys’ version, Earl pulls out a pair of pliers and pulls a bullet out of his chest. He pulls through, true and living. “I’m long distance from my girl,” Mike D raps, so he’s “talking on the cellular,” but Earl is more alienated than that—beyond racking up roaming charges, immersed in dead zones. He “lost [his] phone and consequently all the feelings [he] caught for [his] GF.” Relationships can’t be sustained in these bleak and barren locations. All the blood has been drained from the ruddy faces—sanguine scenery. In his essay “On the Acid Western,” Jonathan Rosenbaum discusses how the subgenre “refuses to respect or valorize bloodshed.” Memory really leaking blood. Congealing. Stuck. To paraphrase Rosenbaum, Earl’s acid eastern “formulat[es] a chilling, savage frontier poetry to justify [his] hallucinated agenda—a view at once clear-eyed and visionary, exalted and laconic, moral and unsentimental, witty and beautiful, frightening and placid.” Earl’s “innocence was lost in the East,” and obsessives speculate whether this refers to Samoa or New York City—how far east we going? Countless spirit-questers pit-stopping at ashrams, searching for that Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal guide. 

“I wait a beat,” Earl says. His canteen stays filled, auto-replenishes. His “cognitive dissonance shattered” and the “necessary venom restored.” Jodorowsky reportedly once taped snakes to his chest for an experimental theater performance. As if it matters if you think it matters anymore. Or, as ELUCID says, “Words mean things but don’t have to.” Acids and bases. Occident and Orient. Western and Eastern. Up is down.

15.  NOTHING LIKE US EVER WAS

Earl’s “EAST” accordion beat—or whatever Orkes Gambus Al Fata instrumentation is at work—is more madcap than madvillainous. In my head is Erick Sermon, though, speaking about how “the flow slow…like a jazz player, or someone on the accordion” on “Knick Knack Patty Wack.” But I’m less concerned with the flow of air through bellows—compressing and expanding—than I am with Earl’s rendering of wind. (Somebody tooted.)

“Let the dead be dead,” Carl Sandburg says at stanza’s end in “Four Preludes on the Playthings of the Wind” (1920). Later, he reports, “The only singers now are crows crying.” And so Earl, a lonesome crow, reminds us—and himself—that “the wind get the ashes in the end” on “December 24.” The whining, wheezing consonance of /-nd/ in “wind” and “end” manages to evoke both the wind itself and the circularity of life. The bar whooshes and whips until we’re at our end, the terminus. That circularity, that full circle: ashes to ashes. “We are the greatest city,” Sandburg repeats, “the greatest nation: / nothing like us ever was.”

Global winds be blowin’—[Of the Soul]—and so billy woods cites that same line on “Haarlem”: “Thebe said the wind get the ashes in the end, bruv.” Check the configuration of the rhime: 

The wind | gets | the ashes | in | the end   {birth}                    {life}                {death}

Even that get does work—whether it’s the violence of Death Grips’ “get got”; Too $hort threatening you to “get in where you fit in”; or the satirical sadism of Keenen Ivory Wayans’ I’m Gonna Git You Sucka. The wind wins out—it gets what it wants. On “EAST,” the wind—infinitely personified—“whispered to [Earl], ‘Ain’t it hard?’” It ain’t hard to tell that it is. How about some hardcore? Yeah, we like it raw like M.O.P. But those burns yield ashes. In Adrienne Rich’s poem “The Burning of Paper Instead of Children” (1989), she struggles with the words she uses, knowing “[t]his is the oppressor’s language / yet [she] needs to talk to you.” I know it hurts to burn, she writes, but writing is no less ardent. “The typewriter is overheated, my mouth is burning.”

Let me bring it back to Robert Bly. “In the ancient times,” Bly says, “the movement for the men was downward—a descent into grief. It’s referred to in the fairytale as ‘the time of ashes.’” Ashes, he explains, is the “code word for the ‘out of it’ time.” 

We know what it is like to take ashes in our hands. How light they are! The fingertips experience them as a kind of powder… Ashes, we note, find their way into the whorls of our fingertips, cling there, make the whorls more noticeable, more visible, more clear to us. We can take our own fingerprints with ashes.

Ashes, then, aren’t simply for the wind’s taking—ashes are for us, are necessary for us to transcend the grief the boys, the men, and the man-child experience. Bly points to the various cultures that have used ashes in initiation rites: “Ashes Time is a time set aside for the death of that ego-bound boy.” Ready to give up, so you seek the Old Earth. The elders cover your face—even your whole body—with ashes “to make [you] the color of dead people and to remind [you] of the inner death about to come.” Consider Earl’s ashen white face produced in the negative imagery of the “Grief” music video.” “The word ashes contains in it a dark feeling for death,” Bly says. “Ashes when put on the face whiten as death does.”

Earl Sweatshirt is a far cry from knocking blunt ashes into caskets.

16.

Feet of clay, hands of light…

—Moor Mother and billy woods, “Furies” (2020)

For Cheryl I. Harris, Earl’s mother, the feet of clay refer to a vulnerability we all possess no matter how formidable we may appear to become. Earl invokes the King of Babylon’s dream, a dream of an idol “meant to represent all the empires of the world,” echoing Sandburg’s imperious “greatest nation.” Earl believes “we at the feet of clay right now…We posted up live from burning Rome.” Imagine the ash pile. So Earl is here, ostensibly, to turn the disco into something dismal—how Mtume becomes “MTOMB” with its entombed sonics, as if he’s rapping from within a wall, the victim of some Poe immurement. 

17.

“I remember woods,” Earl raps on “OD.” “I remember Endom when he wasn’t remembering much, / I remember love healing the ruptures.” I remember is also the refrain and title of Joe Brainard’s poem-memoir, a term which aptly describes much of Earl’s recent output. Brainard’s memories bum-rush into the present:

I remember a dream I used to have a lot of a beautiful red and yellow and black snake in bright green grass. I remember painting “I HATE TED BERRIGAN” in big black letters all over my white wall. I remember liver.

If Earl recalls love “healing the ruptures,” then he also likely recalls Fanon: It is essential to convey to the black man that an attitude of rupture has never saved anyone. But Fanon also speaks of young Black men “maintain[ing] their alterity. Alterity of rupture, of conflict, of battle.” Earl, “feeling rushed, grew up quick.” He echoes Biggie, who “grew up a fucking screw-up,” and Raekwon, who “grew up on the crime side” (though Earl’s mama taught him, as we know from “Grief,” how to avoid the pigs, persecution, and prosecution). Eyes on the clock, Earl acknowledges this “trip around the sun” is his “25th,” so “give it up”—his survival alone deserving of a standing [on the corner] ovation. He celebrates life with “gin and rum.” Again, notably not gin and juice—murder was never the case. The only death is the inner death, the death of the ego-bound boy, that Bly describes. Earl’s gin is the drink of be[gin]ning, of genesis (“Light them Phillies up then…”), of Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, when I was dead-broke, man… “We wasn’t supposed to be alive,” Earl says, yet here he stands.

18.  RUMINANT

Stare at the Feet of Clay album cover—an evocation of folkloric imagery: a Grimm forest with gnarled tree branches—and the enchanted, diabolic goat lying in wait. Earl’s parasocial following speculate G.O.A.T., of course, but I’m more inclined to mythopoeic possibilities. The Feet of Clay goat glares like Baphomet but frolics like a faun over fractured beats. “OD,” Earl has stated, “brought [him] up out of [his] little wreck”—a wreck of wracked nerves. Adrienne Rich encourages “diving into the wreck” (1973).

I am blacking out and yet my mask is powerful it pumps my blood with power.

Earl’s right there with her, submerged and blacking out, but still surviving: Really leaking blood, but refilling the pump.

In her essay “Teaching New Worlds/New Words,” bell hooks invokes Rich’s struggle to navigate the “oppressor’s language.” For hooks, as a Black writer, managing that is even more difficult and historical. “I think now of the grief of displaced ‘homeless’ Africans, forced to inhabit a world where they saw folks like themselves, inhabiting the same skin, the same condition, but who had no shared language to talk with one another, who needed ‘the oppressor’s language.’” hooks explains how Black folks have “remade that language so that it would speak beyond the boundaries of conquest and domination.”

Earl Sweatshirt, especially in his later work, has “altered [and] transformed” English, just as “enslaved Black people took broken bits of English and made of them a counter-language.” The emotional wreckage is also a linguistic heap of fragments—micro-fragments, if we’ve learned anything from Saafir. Earl, in the tradition of his ancestors, “put[s] together [his] words in such a way that the colonizer ha[s] to rethink the meaning of the English language.” “The grammatical construction of sentences in these songs” by Earl, just as by the spirituals of hundreds of years prior, “reflect[s] the broken, ruptured world of the slave.” That crumbling empire Earl mentions was faulted by feet of clay.

At the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 2019, sharing a dais with his mother, Cherly I. Harris, Earl spoke to this lineage directly: “Rap music is slave music—the modern-day iteration of it. Slave communication had to be encrypted. You got a code.” He shifted: “If I know what I’m saying…I can teach it to you.” On Feet of Clay, Earl is teaching to transgress. “I’m cracking my own code,” he says to an audience member during the Q&A, “how it comes out garbled…,” and then he trails off, as if making a deliberate effort to keep his answer cryptic.

hooks always saw language as “a site of resistance.” This included the incorrect usage and placement of words—she called such practices a “rebellion.” Weaponizing syntax. hooks recognized rap music as a continuation of this fight—the latest [sound]clash, hip-hop artists as rebels without a pause—while still acknowledging the collateral damage it might cause.

Rap music has become one of the spaces where black vernacular speech is used in a manner that invites dominant mainstream culture to listen—to hear—and, to some extent, be transformed. However, one of the risks of this attempt at cultural translation is that it will trivialize black vernacular speech. When young white kids imitate this speech in ways that suggest it is the speech of those who are stupid or who are only interested in entertaining or being funny, then the subversive power of this speech is undermined.

Or, as Earl once said on “Chum,” “Too Black for the white kids and too white for the Blacks,” an axiom he’s come to loathe. Perhaps Fanon had the better bar on this subject: “The white man had the anguished feeling that I was escaping from him and that I was taking something with me. He went through my pockets. He thrust probes into the least circumvolution of my brain. Everywhere he found only the obvious. So it was obvious that I had a secret.”

Despite the pitfalls (and, yeah, the pit is bottomless), Earl’s words play [wordplay] a part in retraining minds, all while exorcizing his own demons through a steady diet of ashes and fractures. hooks promises us that “in the patient act of listening to another tongue we may subvert that culture of capitalist frenzy and consumption that demands all desire must be satisfied immediately.” Through his embrace of a language that indulges in passion and cerebral coding, Earl “heal[s] the splitting of mind and body” so common within Western metaphysical thought. Earl Sweatshirt speaks “words that do more than simply mirror or address the dominant reality”; he builds blips into a reality that is worth the rewind.

Images: Dead Man, dir. Jim Jarmusch, 1995 (screenshot) | Teen at 1990s computer photograph, Unknown (c. 1996) | James Joyce, Age 2, Unknown | ELUCID, Osage album cover (2016), photo by Michael Mally, Philadelphia Inquirer | The Boxer at Rest, bronze statue, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome, Italy (330-50 BC) | Alphonse Legros, The Pit and the Pendulum, second Plate (1861) | High Plains Drifter, dir. Clint Eastwood, 1973 (screenshot) | Subroc on an Apple IIc, Unknown (c. 1987) | Earl Sweatshirt, “Grief” music video, 2015 (screenshot) | Arthur Rackham, The Water of Life, Grimms Fairy Tales (1916) | Dead Man, dir. Jim Jarmusch, 1995 (screenshot)

[thosearentcrimes]

Read Bring No Clothes by Charlie Porter. If I followed the rule "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything", that would have been the only sentence in the review. Well, really, it wouldn't have existed, implicature is still a form of speech. For a while it didn't exist, since I read this book some time back now, but not out of moral concern, but rather simply because I'm not allowed to use the computers at work for personal shit anymore, and that's where I wrote these. So I finally got around to buying a new e-book reader instead, expect more reviews shortly, written from home this time. But I digress.

Bring No Clothes is a truly awful book about the fashion of the Bloomsbury group. I struggle to think of any redeeming features. It is shorter than the hardback makes it seem, but this is simply false advertising, and not a virtue. It chooses to give each chapter heading its very own entire page to sit on, to blow the letters up to an absurd size with liberal line spacing in the style of a panicking high school student, to pepper the book with black and white photos of dresses remarkable for their color. The hardcover copy I read pretends to have 340 A5 pages, and I would be surprised if it got to 100 with reasonable formatting. In truth it is a nothing but a handful of hastily concatenated half-written filler articles and a couple of unpublishable magazine features stuck between two hard covers for no apparent reason, an unfilmed script for a "video essay" (read: summary) that would be too long to watch and too short to say anything.

It is really quite literally a series of magazine articles. Charlie Porter is a fashion journalist, and his work on the book speaks to his total inability to adjust his writing style to the medium, the astonishingly poor standards in fashion journalism, and the seeming absence of any editing whatsoever on the part of the publisher. Though possibly it was edited, and earlier drafts were even worse. Somehow. There is no coherent theme to the book, no throughline connecting the individual chapters. There are entire chapters that are obviously unnecessary and poorly conceived, which would presumably have been removed if not for the desperate need to pretend the book is so much longer than it really is. Lastly, for some reason image descriptions are done in-line rather than through captions. Is this common in fashion journalism? It sucks to read, in any case.

The writing is shit. It's so unbelievably bad. Borderline unreadable, the structural issues with the book as a whole are reproduced even at the level of individual sentences. Porter's chief flaw is that he is preposterously self-absorbed. He is either unable or unwilling to separate his own impressions and delusions from reality. He spends substantial sections of most chapters writing about the personal experience of researching and writing the book, and plenty of other insufferable personal trivia besides. To pull that trick off without boring the reader takes extraordinary talent, personal charisma, and varied and interesting life experiences, none of which Porter seems to have. Not an amazing range of vocabulary on display either, and somehow I doubt this was a deliberate effort to keep the reading difficulty down. The miserable structure, constant pointless personal asides, and general inability to express what few ideas Porter may or may not have render the book a truly tedious slog.

When reading a non-fiction book, I would like to be able to pick out something I learned about the topic, some basic point of interest. It is impossible in this book, which contains nothing but boring accounts of relationships between seemingly insufferable people. Porter's narration does bring his protagonists to life in places, with some help from direct quotes. Unfortunately, they are brought to life as some of the most annoying egotists you've ever met in your life, which admittedly seems quite plausible for British upper class twits (well, mostly twits). Still, I don't put too much stock in that characterization, as it could very easily be projection by the blatantly self-absorbed author.

I generally try to recommend books to sorts of people who I think would like them, whether or not I was a fan myself. I suspect I am a poor judge of appeal, ultimately, but I try nonetheless. I think nobody should read this book, ever, for any reason. It is not that the book is evil. Reading evil has merit. The book is just bad. There are people who would like it, probably. Those people, in particular, should not read the book, as I suspect it would inhibit their development. Everyone involved in the production and distribution of the book should feel shame proportional to their degree of responsibility for what they have inflicted on the world in general, and on me in particular.

[pearlstarlight5]

Vocal synth rant from my Twitter

I've realized that the shift from everything being concatenative to everything being AI reminds me of the shift from 2D animation to 3D animation. Yes, a lot of work goes into developing both and AI vocals are much easier to use, but I'm sad that it's like everyone, indie and industry, is abandoning concatenative vocal synths.

I know that Piapro NT will continue to be supported, but once Miku V6 comes out it will be Piapro Who.

And I will likely get comments saying that AI vocals are objectively better, but are they? That's like saying 3D animation is objectively better than 2D animation. It's a matter of taste and what sounds lend themselves better to the music. Even aside from realism, there's still a lot of things that concatenative vocal synths have over AI vocal synths, like reliability, and in my experience, better tolerance to unrealistic emotional tuning and at the same time you can get away with minimal tuning (except for compensating for phonetic glitches in Engloids at least). AI vocal synths tend to sound bored when untuned and respond best to realistic tuning.

Additionally, AI vocal synths are limited by what the human voice is really capable of. DiffSinger best displays this weakness because the voice cuts off after the optimal range. Even auto-tuning in SynthV and CeVIO gets awkward when the range is too high, like for a human. Meanwhile, due to the nature of concatenative synthesis, the vocal synths are capable of a more inhuman vocal range, so they can be used to sing things that humans are incapable of singing. Once again using my experience as an example, my Utau is way better at high notes and low notes than me, and that's the result of her voice being synthesized from a comfortable range rather than my entire range.

[lesbian-forte]

Criticisms of Vocaloid and why I like SynthV

I'm not trying to change anyone's mind here, but I would like to say my piece after certain takes seem to miss the point entirely. This might be a bit of a rant.

Vocaloid has gone stagnant in recent years. Yamaha doesn't care. Yamaha doesn't need Vocaloid and is a large corporation that gets much more money off of their DAW software and actual instruments as opposed to something as niche as vocal synths that are both only big in Japan and also only if they're in the top ten or so.

Yamaha stopped putting effort into Vocaloid during the V4-V5 transition. There is a reason V4 has so many cancelled voicebanks. Several developers were working on V4 and Yamaha rendered their devkit suddenly worthless. Devs would have to purchase a V5 devkit and start work over, or quit Vocaloid. And as vocal synth companies are generally very small, few of them would want to continue or even be able to afford it.

So they moved. Miku splitting off for Piapro gave them an opening, and others started looking for alternatives. Then IA went to CeVIO. And more and more. And by the time V5's sun was setting, all the third parties that worked on that were gone too.

But for a while, you didn't hear much from most of them. If a company released a V4 at the tailend of its lifespan or a V5, they had to wait for exclusivity to expire. And Yamaha's exclusivity deals are harsh (ending distribution of existing song voicebanks in the case of utaus with the same VP) and long, borderline predatory. So voices that companies wanted to update couldn't receive them until those expired, or else refresh that deal and stay constrained by a company that didn't even want to bother with them.

So, come V6, Yamaha was desperate. Internet Co had made an ultimatum that if a Vocaloid 6 didn't come out soon, then they'd be going too. That was their last, and after Crypton packed their bags, most important third party. So they accelerated their plans and looked at what the new guys were doing to be so successful.

They took the wrong lesson.

AI is not inherently better. Sample-based voicebanks will always have their place. Traditional samples can allow an unnaturally large range and harsher voice acting than would be possible to maintain. AI is more accurate to the voice provider, and you have a greater degree of freedom with its tone, plus updates and additional features are so much easier- but Yamaha took 'AI' at face value and made a low-quality copy that sounds significantly worse than prior Vocaloid versions and pushed it with Gumi. They could have stuck to improving their concatenative synthesis render quality further- that's what SynthV started as, R1 was just a very well-rendered sample-based program that is probably just a fancy utau under the hood.

But Vocaloid jumped on the bandwagon by doing the absolute bare minimum and claiming the ear-grating engine noise that can cause actual nausea is remaining faithful to the 'Vocaloid sound' even though styrofoam on the mic and a sometimes pleasant metallic twang sound nothing alike. They didn't improve accessibility, V6 has the same stability issues as V5, and the shiny new feature Vocalochanger is just RVC but worse.

Then, less than a year after product launch, they start up VxB and don't do anything to improve the software they're actively selling. Internet Co themselves called this out in the form of a Gumi tweet. Then Internet Co got in talks with Tokyo6 and saw a possible out, so they gave it a go. They're still under contract by Yamaha so what they can do is limited, but we saw them stray as well. And the result is a much better quality version (though arguably still worse than her V4) despite being an exact port.

We're still getting a Gumi Solid V6 because V6 can't do emotions and they still have to be separate banks, and VxB still got a major update even though it's dying in April with radio silence for V6 development, while CeVIO/VoiSona is releasing 2.0s that get major acclaim like Ci Flower's reputation totally getting turned around, and SynthV is sitting pretty with several voicebanks announced and several coming out in December alone, and the most recent in-progress update including both voice-to-midi (which is what vocalochanger should've been) and Spanish.

I do not like V6, V5, or Yamaha. It could've been amazing for Gumi or Una to get updates so they'd have crosslang (or better crosslang) capabilities, as I work in English. But the result was extremely poorly implemented and Yamaha has made no effort to fix that.

I use SynthV all the time, I'd do the same for CeVIO if it offered crosslang as well rather than just dictionaries and a couple English banks. I'm not against trying new things. But I either want the other programs to have the things to suit my needs in a quality manner that's intuitive to use or for the voicebanks I love to get versions on programs that already do. It's not that complicated.

The jokes and the yammering from rabid SynthV fans dissing Vocaloid can get to be too much sometimes. But you have to consider where that actually comes from. It's in response to suddenly being spoiled with a cheap, accessible, high-quality program when the expensive, poorly constructed, difficult one has been dominating the market with anti-consumer, anti-third party practices for years.

P.S.: Also you can do robotic tuning and mixing on realistic vocal synths, it's called doing the same thing as before and then adding it in post. You think utaites swallow vocoders or something? No, they just use different tools to get the same result as engine noise. Not fighting the voice when you're trying to go for realistic vs manual tuning and adding some very easy effects on when doing it the other way around is better, actually.

[dead-byte]

Tuning in DiffSinger is soo difficult.

Like, it has a habit of making the mid-range of most singers sound really bored and inexpressive, which generally could be fixed with proper tuning, but another issue with DiffSinger is that it really doesn’t like most non-simple pitchbends, and will often make the voice freak out and have odd glitches.

It’s also really aggressive about maintaining a voice’s optimum range. Like, in concatenative synths, you can stretch most voicebanks beyond their typical range, it just might not sound as good. DiffSinger on the other hand, tends to set a really strict range for voices, and if you go even a semitone or two out of that range, DiffSinger will just remove all tone from the note, and make it voiceless.

This might be more of a dataset issue, but it sometimes also has trouble deciding on the timbre of a voice. Like, for a lot of singers, the singing in the dataset might alternate between singing softly and belting in a higher range, so DiffSinger sometimes either tries to mesh them both, or sing one phrase softly and the next more powerful in a way that’s really jarring.

I like DiffSinger, I do, but man, it can be such a drag to work with.

[cleverusername01]

who else is doing it like she is, combinatorics, rows which concatenate to powers of 11, the sierpinski triangle you get when you just color in the odd numbers, the binomial theorem!!! she has the range

Trick o' treat >:D

Pascal's triangle

[beststudyabroadconsultant]

IELTS Secrets You Ought To Know

The IELTS assessment is objective, adhering to a rigorous marking framework. Each spoken or written word is evaluated against specific criteria. Examiners do not seek perfection; rather, they assess performance in relation to defined band descriptors. Gaining insight into the mindset of an IELTS examiner could transform your preparation approach. This blog aims to reveal how adopting the examiner’s viewpoint can enhance your band score in both Writing and Speaking.

The basic secrets

Focus more on what matters.

Write with purpose and structure.

Speak with awareness of fluency, coherence, and lexical choices.

Avoid the common traps that lower your score.

The WRITING section

Clear answers

Essays receive lower grades due to their failure to adequately cover all components of the question. When the prompt requests an examination of both pros and cons, addressing only one perspective can negatively impact your evaluation. To mitigate this issue, decompose the question into separate elements, highlight or list them during your preparation, and consistently verify that you have addressed each facet with clarity and depth.

Paragraphing and cohesion

Assessors value essays that exhibit logical organization and seamless transitions. A Band 7+ essay does not merely concatenate ideas; it organizes them into a coherent framework comprising an introduction, body, and conclusion. Employ cohesive devices such as ‘furthermore’ or ‘on the other hand’ judiciously, as over-reliance on linking words may render the writing mechanical and interrupt the overall flow.

Lexical variety without overkill

The use of sophisticated vocabulary should prioritize precision over ostentation. Employing terms such as ‘plethora’ or ‘ameliorate’ inappropriately can lead to misunderstandings. It is advisable to select words that accurately convey your message, utilizing subject-specific terminology like ‘carbon footprint’ in discussions about environmental issues, and to familiarize oneself with natural collocations to prevent the formation of a perplexing word salad.

Grammar that communicates clearly

Achieving a Band 9 does not necessitate flawless grammar; rather, the primary focus should be on the clarity of the conveyed meaning. It is advisable to employ a diverse range of sentence structures – simple, compound, and complex – while also addressing common grammatical errors, including the misuse of articles, tense inconsistencies, and subject-verb agreement. It is essential to prioritize clarity over complexity in grammatical expression.

The SPEAKING section

Fluency over perfection

Proficiency in the IELTS Speaking assessment is not determined by the speed of speech, but rather by the ability to sustain a natural and coherent flow. It is entirely acceptable to pause momentarily for thought; however, an overuse of filler words or prolonged silences may adversely affect your score. Engage in practice by articulating your thoughts using cue cards and incorporate strategic fillers such as ‘That is an intriguing question…’ to allow yourself additional time. It is advisable to steer clear of rehearsed responses, as examiners are adept at identifying them.

Vocabulary that shows range

Impressing others does not require the use of obscure or elaborate vocabulary; rather, it is essential to employ a diverse range of words effectively. Evaluators value the use of idiomatic expressions, phrasal verbs, and terminology specific to the subject matter. Incorporate natural idioms such as ‘It’s a piece of cake’ in appropriate contexts, but refrain from relying on clichéd phrases unless they arise organically. Organize vocabulary by themes—such as environment, education, or travel—to ensure confident and pertinent replies.

Grammatical flexibility

Exhibiting a diverse array of grammatical structures is essential; however, they should appear natural. Overly rehearsed or contrived sentence constructions may negatively impact your evaluation. Vary verb tenses according to the context—utilizing present, past, and future tenses, and incorporate conditional phrases such as ‘If I had more time, I would…’. Employ passive voice, reported speech, and modal verbs as appropriate to demonstrate your linguistic range while maintaining a natural tone.

Pronunciation that’s understandable

Possessing an accent does not negatively impact your evaluation; however, indistinct pronunciation can. Evaluators prioritize the comprehensibility of your speech, which encompasses aspects such as rhythm, stress, and intonation. It is advisable to concentrate on highlighting significant words and to rehearse authentic intonation patterns. Recording your speech for comparison with native speakers, along with utilizing resources aimed at enhancing clarity and fluency, is recommended.

Common IELTS misconceptions

“Candidates must employ the most advanced language.”

It’s a misconception. Using precise and contextually relevant terminology is more crucial for candidates than using words that are too complicated.

“Fluency is demonstrated by speaking fast.”

Speaking fast can actually impair a candidate’s pronunciation and coherence, which lowers their score. Not speed, but a smooth and organic flow is what fluency is all about.

“A Band 5 is the automatic result of grammar errors.”

Only when grammatical errors impair comprehension will they have an impact on the score. Higher bands allow minor grammatical errors as long as the message is still understood.

“Higher scores are guaranteed when introductions are memorized.”

Memorized templates are easy for examiners to identify. Producing unique and organic content usually results in higher exam scores.

What examiners want

“Examiners look for natural communication, not perfection.”

Clear and organic communication is more important to examiners than perfect language use.

“With a few small mistakes, Band 8 can be attained.”

Even with small errors, candidates can still receive a Band 8 as long as their communication is effective.

“Aim to communicate clearly; don’t try to impress the examiner.”

Candidates should put more emphasis on communicating clearly than on impressing the examiner.

“Simple errors like sloppy handwriting or straying from the subject cause many students to lose points.”

Simple mistakes like illegible handwriting or straying from the subject matter can cost students important marks.

Preparing for the IELTS involves not only studying but also comprehending the expectations for output. By adopting the mindset of an examiner, you can better align your responses with the assessment criteria. This shift in perspective has the potential to elevate your score from a Band 6.5 to a Band 7.5, bringing you closer to achieving your academic or immigration objectives.

Want more? Consider the expert guidance available at Next Degree Abroad. This institution transcends conventional coaching by providing trainers who offer insights into the exam from the examiner’s viewpoint. With tailored feedback, practice tests, and strategy-focused sessions, the IELTS coaching classes at Next Degree Abroad are designed to ensure your comprehensive readiness for success. Enrol at Next Degree Abroad and confidently advance toward your aspirations of studying abroad!

Resource: Read more

[codingbitrecords]

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🎯 Whether the items you are trading are goods, tickets, memberships, or accommodations, this can be done in a very professional manner and the deals you get will be very fair if you use our customized WP solutions. They help you to control your company’s peak periods. Be wise and make use of our practical and smart WordPress business solutions to drive your company’s forward at an amazing pace.

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[fromdevcom]

There are hundreds of built-in functions in Microsoft Excel. Furthermore, you can use these functions together in different combinations to create powerful formulas. The ability to create formulas in Excel that solve complex problems is largely what makes the application so legendary. With that in mind, we will now look at 10 Excel functions that you should add to your repertoire. IFERROR The IF function is probably one of the most widely used functions among Excel pros. It is a logical function; if something is true then do something, otherwise do something else. The ‘IF’ function allows you to build metadata - a set of data used to describe other data. Those same pros that use ‘IF’ also use the ‘IFERROR’ function to handle errors in their formulas. We can use ‘IFERROR’ to specify an alternative value where a calculation might result in an error. Let’s look at the ‘IFERROR’ function’s syntax:                       =IFERROR(value, value-if-error) There are two arguments in this formula: ‘value’ and ‘value-if-error’. The ‘value’ argument is the parameter the function tests for an error. This is most often another formula itself. Then the ‘value-if-error’ argument is the replacement value the user has selected for ‘IFERROR’ to return if the ‘value’ parameter does result in an effort. The ‘value-if-error’ can be an actual static value such as a string or a number, but it can also itself be another formula. In the example that follows, we have an average price calculation in the ‘Average Price’ column. It is a simple division calculation that is susceptible to a divide by zero error (#DIV/0!). In cell D6, this is precisely what has happened. However, by using the ‘IFERROR’ function, we can ensure that the value ‘0’ gets returned to the cell in the case of an error. Note the improvement to our result for row 6 in cell E6. COUNTIF Another popular ‘IF’ based function is ‘COUNTIF’. This function counts cells in a range where some specified condition is met. The syntax is simple. There are two arguments: ‘range’ and ‘criteria’. The ‘range’ argument is the range in which you are searching for the ‘criteria’. The ‘criteria’ argument is the specific condition that needs to be met for the count                                  =COUNTIF(range, criteria) In the following example, we use ‘COUNTIF’ to count the number of employees by their years of service. Our ‘range’ argument is the column containing the ‘Year of Service’ for each employee, or “D2: D19” (the dollar signs preceding the column and row references are simply there to ‘lock’ the range for dragging the formula to other cells). The ‘criteria’ argument is the years of service (1, 2 or 3). We could have placed the literal number values for ‘Years of Service’ as our ‘criteria’, but in this case, we opted to use the cell references for each (“F3”, “F4”, and “F5”, respectively). The ‘COUNTIF’ formula in each returns the count of employees corresponding to each value in ‘Years of Service’ in column G. Note the formulas for each row in column H. CONCATENATE The ‘CONCATENATE’ function is one of the most widely used in Excel. A point worth noting is that Microsoft introduced two new functions in Excel 2016 that will eventually replace ‘CONCATENATE’. They are ‘CONCAT’, a more flexible version of its predecessor, and ‘TEXTJOIN’. However, since not all Excel users have upgraded to Excel 2016, we will look at ‘CONCATENATE’. The ‘CONCATENATE’ function combines strings of text and/or numerical values. Syntactically, this simply means placing the values you want to concatenate in sequential order, separated by commas. You can use either literal values or cell references as your arguments. You can use a combination of both as well.                                         =CONCATENATE(text1,[text2],…) In the following example, we have two separate lists: first names and last names. Using the ‘CONCATENATE’ function, we will combine them in a column where we have the last name, then the first name separated by a comma.

Then we can sort each by the last name in alphabetical order. VLOOKUP If you have spent much time with anyone with a reasonable amount of proficiency using Excel, you have likely heard of ‘VLOOKUP’. Like its sibling, ‘HLOOKUP’, it will search a table of values based on a criteria value. The ‘VLOOKUP’ function will search the first column of a table for a criteria value and return a value from some specified number of columns to the right of that first column. The function consists of four arguments.                  =VLOOKUP(lookup_value, table_array, col_index_number, [range_lookup]) The first argument is the ‘lookup_value’ is the value ‘VLOOKUP’ seeks a match for in the ‘table_array’ argument. In the following example, this is the cell reference ‘E2’ where we see the string ‘Finance’. We could have just as easily used the literal string ‘Finance’ as our ‘lookup_value’ argument. But using the cell reference allows us to change the value in ‘E2’ without changing the formula. The ‘table_array’ is the table of values ‘VLOOKUP’ will seek a match for ‘Finance’ in the first column. Since our table is ‘A2: C7’, the match for our ‘lookup_value’ is on the first row (cell ‘A2’) of our ‘table_array’, The ‘col_index_number’ argument is the number of the column from which we want ‘VLOOKUP’ to return a match on the same row from the ‘lookup_value’. In our case, we want ‘Average Years of Service’ in our formula in cell ‘F2’. This means we will insert ‘2’ as our ‘col_index_number’ argument since ‘Average Years of Service’ is the second column in our ‘table_array’. The ‘range_lookup’ argument is an optional argument as denoted by the square brackets. This argument can be one of two values: TRUE or FALSE. A TRUE value tells the ‘VLOOKUP’ to return an approximate match while a FALSE value tells it to return an exact match. When omitted, the default for the formula is an approximate match. In the following example, we can easily look up the average years of service and the average salary for employees by specifying the department. An insider trick regarding ‘range_lookup’: try using ‘1’ and ‘0’ as a substitute for TRUE and FALSE, respectively. This is a shortcut that works just the same. Note in ‘G2’ our ‘VLOOKUP’ uses ‘0’ instead of FALSE. INDEX And MATCH The combination of ‘INDEX’ and ‘MATCH’ function gives users the ability to retrieve data from a table by specifying the row and column condition. Combining the two in a single formula creates one of the most well-known lookup formulas used. The most basic example of what the ‘INDEX’ function does is that it takes an array, like a column of names. Then it takes a second argument, ‘row_num’, and returns the value from the array on that row.                                       =INDEX(array, row_num, [column_num]) Note that since we are working with a single column, we omit the optional ‘column_num’ argument since it is implied. However, if we were working with an array that had more than one column, we would use the ‘column_num’ argument in the same way we use the ‘row_num’ argument. ‘INDEX’ will return the value at the intersection of the two in the specified ‘array’. In the following example, the ‘column_num’ is understood to be 1. This means the formula finds the value at the intersection of row 6 and column 1 of our ‘array’, ‘A2: A19’. The ‘MATCH’ function takes a ‘lookup_value’, a ‘lookup_array’, and an optional ‘match_type’ argument. The ‘match_type’ argument allows for one of three values; ‘-1’ for less than, ‘0’ for an exact match, or ‘1’ for greater than.                      =MATCH(lookup_value, lookup_array, [match_type]) In the next example, we pass in a string value for the ‘lookup_value’ and ‘0’ to ‘match_type’ for an exact match. See cell ‘C12’ for the result. Now you have seen how you can find the row on which a value exists in a column using the ‘MATCH’ function. You have also seen how you can find the value in a cell by passing in a row number to the ‘INDEX’ function.

Imagine you had a second column with email addresses that you wanted to look up by employee name. See if you can figure out how to combine ‘INDEX’ with ‘MATCH’ to do just that. Hint: substitute the ‘MATCH’ formula for the ‘row_num’ argument in the ‘INDEX’ formula – then make sure you select the email column as the ‘array’ for your ‘INDEX’ function. GETPIVOTDATA If you have ever tried referring to a cell or range in a Pivot Table, you have probably seen ‘GETPIVOTDATA’. The GETPIVOTDATA function helps retrieve data from a pivot table using the corresponding row and column value. This function is yet another type of lookup function but for Pivot Table users. It provides a direct method of retrieving tabulated data from Pivot Tables.                  =GETPIVOTDATA(data_field ,pivot_table, [field1, item1], …) The first argument, ‘data_field’, refers to the data field from which we want our result. In the following example, this will be our Pivot Table columns. The second argument, ‘pivot_table’, refers to the actual Pivot Table. In the following example, this is simply the cell reference ‘I3’, which is cell where our Pivot Table originates. The third and fourth arguments, ‘field1’ and ‘item1’, refer to the field and row on which we want a match in the ‘data_field’. In our example below, our first ‘GETPIVOTDATA’ formula is looking for a match to the finance department in the ‘Average of Years of Service’ column. Note that instead of hard-coding the literal value ‘Finance’ for the ‘item1’ argument, we have used the cell reference ‘N4’ where we have entered that string value. Just as we have seen with the other formulas we have covered, literal values or cell references can be used. TEXTJOIN We alluded to one of the newest functions in Excel, ‘TEXTJOIN’, in our earlier discussion about ‘CONCATENATE’. This function is only available in Excel 2016 desktop or in Excel online as a part of Microsoft 365. Recall that the ‘CONCATENATE’ function requires an individual cell reference for each string. However, the ‘TEXTJOIN’ function allows you to combine strings by referring to multiple cells in a range. Usage of the ‘TEXTJOIN’ function is simple. There are three arguments.                                    =TEXTJOIN(delimiter, ignore_empty, text1, …) The first argument, ‘delimiter’, is any string you want to be placed between the joined elements. This could be a symbol like a comma(“,”), or it could be a space (“ “). If you want nothing between the string elements you are joining, you still must specify that with the ‘delimiter’ argument. You simply insert two double quotes with nothing in between (“”). The second argument, ‘ignore_empty’, allows you to tell the function whether you want to skip over empty cells when joining their values. This is simply a TRUE value for ignoring blanks, or FALSE when you do not want to ignore blanks. The ‘text1’ argument is simply the cell or range of values you want to join. One thing to note is that you can add multiple ‘text’ arguments for each cell or range you want to be a part of the ‘TEXTJOIN’ formula. Notice that we have a few blank cells in our range “A2: A19” but since we chose TRUE for the ‘ignore_empty’ argument, our result in the merged range “C2: G10” indicates no missing values between any of the commas. FORMULATEXT The ‘FORMULATEXT’ function returns the formula for a specific cell reference. If a formula is not present, the error value ‘#N/A’ results. This function provides an alternative way to visualize the formula present in a cell. The syntax is incredibly simple:                                           =FORMULATEXT(reference) The single argument, ‘reference’, is the cell reference where the formula exists. In the following example, there are multiplication formulas in column C. Placing a ‘FORMULATEXT’ function in the D column that references the cells on the same row in C, we can now visualize the formula as well as the result. IFS Another of the new functions available with Excel 2016 and Excel Online is the ‘IFS’ function.

This function works in similar fashion as the ‘IF’ function, but it goes further by providing an efficient method of incorporating multiple logical tests and multiple values. Where in the past the same results would require nested ‘IF’ functions, the ‘IFS’ simplifies this process.                                              =IFS(logical_test1, value_if_true1, ...) In this example, we can assign a description of performance without utilizing nested IF statements. Download Sample File  With the hundreds of available built-in functions with which to build your own formulas with, this list is by no means comprehensive. Furthermore, some of the functions on this list may not even resonate with your needs. However, we curated the list with broad appeal in mind and feel that most Excel users could find a way to leverage these at some point. Sometimes the simplest functions lead to formulas that create great value. Moreover, sometimes it is difficult to know what is possible until you see them in action. We hope you find this list helpful and inspiring! 

[bmpmp3]

^ Rikka's autopitch trying to sing the bridge of this song

[platypus-platypus-platypus]

25/03/2025

.10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (no 0)

{range(int) creates a tuple containing int number of integers}

---

{remember to initialise variable}

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for i in range(len(variable)):

use indices when need to "recover where matched occurred", or "enumerate" which returns a sequence of tuples which gives you the index & the iterable at that position.

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for i in variable:

iterate over string / tuple / list

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vs

additional code after break not going to execute

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---

{use for loop if u can. if number of iteration unknown or stopping condition complicated, use while loop}

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new methods:

.strip()

.isdigit()

.pop() #wth

.append() doesn't return a value

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tuple('abc') + (4,)

#concatenation creates new string / tuple,

---

difference between iterable & immutable objects

[tccicomputercoaching]

Advanced Excel Formulas You Must Know Today

Introduction

Microsoft Excel is vital for data analysis, financial modeling, and business decision-making. While basic formulas are useful, Advanced Excel Formulas You Must Know Today can significantly boost productivity. This blog highlights essential advanced Excel formulas to help you work smarter and more efficiently.

Why Advanced Excel Formulas Matter?

Grasping the advanced formulas will help you:

Automate repetitive tasks

Enhance the accuracy of data analysis

Efficiently deal with large datasets

Save time and improve productivity

Above all, advanced Excel formulas will boost your effectiveness in Excel regardless of whether you are an analyst, an accountant, or a student.

Top Advanced Excel Formulas You Must Learn

1. INDEX-MATCH (Powerful Alternative to VLOOKUP)

Formula: =INDEX(range, MATCH(lookup_value, lookup_range, match_type))

INDEX-MATCH is a powerful combination that replaces VLOOKUP for better accuracy and flexibility.

2. VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP

Formula: =VLOOKUP(lookup_value, table_array, col_index_num, [range_lookup])

VLOOKUP is commonly used for looking up values in vertical columns, whereas HLOOKUP does the same for horizontal rows.

3. XLOOKUP (New Alternative to VLOOKUP)

Formula: =XLOOKUP(lookup_value, lookup_array, return_array, [if_not_found], [match_mode], [search_mode])

XLOOKUP simplifies searches with more flexibility and fewer limitations than VLOOKUP.

4. IF, AND, OR (Logical Functions)

Formula: =IF(condition, value_if_true, value_if_false)

Logical functions like IF, AND, and OR help in decision-making processes within Excel.

5. SUMIFS and COUNTIFS (Conditional Calculations)

Formula: =SUMIFS(sum_range, criteria_range1, criteria1, [criteria_range2, criteria2, ...])

SUMIFS and COUNTIFS allow users to sum or count values based on multiple criteria.

6. TEXT and CONCATENATE (String Functions)

Formula: =TEXT(value, format_text)

These functions help in formatting numbers and combining text efficiently.

7. OFFSET and INDIRECT (Dynamic Ranges)

Formula: =OFFSET(reference, rows, cols, [height], [width])

OFFSET and INDIRECT are useful for working with dynamic ranges and references.

8. CHOOSE (Multiple Conditions Handling)

Formula: =CHOOSE(index, value1, value2, value3, …)

This function helps select a value from a list based on an index number.

9. UNIQUE and FILTER (Dynamic Array Functions)

Formula: =UNIQUE(array)

These functions help filter unique values and retrieve filtered data dynamically.

10. LET and LAMBDA (New Functions for Efficiency)

Formula: =LET(name, value, calculation)

LET and LAMBDA simplify formulas by allowing users to define variables within Excel formulas.

Optimizing productivity with advanced formulas

Calculations are thus automated and errors minimized

Manual processes are thus eliminated, saving time

Faster and improved are data analysis and reporting

Advanced Excel formulas in practice

Financial modeling using VLOOKUP and SUMIFS

Data Analysts have two advanced functions: INDEX-MATCH and FILTER

Business Reporter with UNIQUE and TEXT functions

Common mistakes when performing formulas

Incorrectly selecting ranges

Not using absolute references ($A$1) when called for

Forgetting about dynamic ranges

How to learn advanced Excel at TCCI-Tririd Computer Coaching Institute

Advanced Excel programs are taught at TCCI-Tririd Computer Coaching Institute by tutors expert in their fields. A practical-oriented training ensures students can practically use Excel capabilities.

Conclusion

Mastering advanced formulas on Excel can greatly help your efficiency and data management. Whether you are starting out or have some experience, gaining such formulas will propel you on the way to advanced Excel skills.

Location: Bopal & Iskon-Ambli Ahmedabad, Gujarat

Call now on +91 9825618292

Get information from: tccicomputercoaching.wordpress.com

FAQs

1. What is the strongest Excel formula?

The INDEX-MATCH combination is regarded as one of the strongest Excel formulas for performing efficient data lookup.

2. Is learning Advanced Excel hard?

Not at all! With adequate guidance and practice, anyone can learn Advanced Excel at TCCI-Tririd Computer Coaching Institute.

3. Is VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP better?

XLOOKUP is more powerful as it overcomes many limitations of VLOOKUP, such as leftward searches.

4. Will I be able to automate reports using Excel formulas?

Yes! Formulas like SUMIFS, INDEX-MATCH, and UNIQUE help automate data processing and reporting.

5. Where do I learn Advanced Excel in Ahmedabad?

You can register for expert training on Advanced Excel at TCCI-Tririd Computer Coaching Institute.

[himanshu123]

The Importance of Security in .NET Applications: Best Practices

 

When it comes to developing secure applications, there is no room for error. As cyberattacks become increasingly sophisticated, ensuring the security of your .NET applications is more important than ever. With a rapidly growing reliance on web services, APIs, and cloud integrations, .NET developers must stay vigilant about safeguarding their software from vulnerabilities. In this blog, we will explore the importance of security in .NET applications and provide best practices that every developer should follow to protect their applications from potential threats. If you're involved in Dot Net Development, it's crucial to understand how to implement these practices to ensure a secure environment for both users and developers. 

Why Security Matters in .NET Applications 

.NET is a powerful framework used to build a wide range of applications, from web and mobile apps to enterprise-level solutions. While the framework itself offers many built-in features for developers, such as managed code and type safety, security must still be a priority. Vulnerabilities in your .NET applications can lead to catastrophic results, such as data breaches, unauthorized access, or even financial losses. As a result, focusing on security from the early stages of development can mitigate these risks and provide long-term protection. 

Best Practices for Securing .NET Applications 

Securing .NET applications doesn't need to be complicated if the right practices are followed. Below, we discuss several key strategies for ensuring the security of your applications: 

1. Use Secure Coding Practices 

The foundation of secure .NET application development starts with using secure coding practices. This includes: 

Input Validation: Always validate user input to avoid SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and other injection attacks. Use techniques like whitelisting and regular expressions to ensure that data is clean and safe. 

Error Handling: Avoid exposing stack traces or any sensitive information in error messages. Instead, log detailed errors server-side and show users a generic message to prevent attackers from gaining insights into your system. 

Use Parameterized Queries: Never concatenate user input directly into SQL queries. Use parameterized queries or stored procedures to ensure safe interactions with databases. 

2. Implement Authentication and Authorization Properly 

In .NET applications, authentication and authorization are vital to securing sensitive data. These two concepts should never be compromised. 

Authentication: Use trusted authentication mechanisms such as OAuth or OpenID Connect. ASP.NET Identity is a useful library to implement user authentication and management. Always prefer multi-factor authentication (MFA) when possible to add an extra layer of security. 

Authorization: Ensure that users only have access to the resources they are authorized to view. Leverage role-based access control (RBAC) and fine-grained permissions to enforce this principle. This will ensure that even if an attacker gains access to one part of your system, they can't exploit other areas without the proper credentials. 

3. Encryption and Data Protection 

Encryption is one of the most effective ways to protect sensitive data. When working with .NET applications, always implement encryption both for data at rest (stored data) and data in transit (data being transferred between systems). 

Use HTTPS: Always ensure that data transmitted over the network is encrypted by using HTTPS. This can be done easily by enabling SSL/TLS certificates on your server. 

Encrypt Sensitive Data: Store passwords and other sensitive data like payment information in an encrypted format. The .NET framework provides the System.Security.Cryptography namespace for secure encryption and decryption. Use strong encryption algorithms like AES (Advanced Encryption Standard). 

4. Regularly Update Libraries and Dependencies 

In many cases, vulnerabilities are introduced through third-party libraries and dependencies. Using outdated libraries can expose your application to various security risks. To mitigate this, always: 

Regularly update all libraries and dependencies used in your .NET application to their latest secure versions. 

Use tools like NuGet to check for outdated packages and apply necessary updates. 

Consider using a vulnerability scanner to automatically identify any known vulnerabilities in your dependencies. 

5. Implement Logging and Monitoring 

Security isn't just about preventing attacks; it's also about detecting them when they occur. Implement proper logging and monitoring to track suspicious activities and respond quickly to potential breaches. 

Logging: Log every critical event, including login attempts, access control changes, and sensitive data access. Use structured logging to make it easier to analyze logs. 

Monitoring: Set up real-time alerts to notify you about abnormal activities or patterns that might indicate an attempted attack. 

The Role of Security in Mobile Apps 

As more businesses extend their services to mobile platforms, the importance of securing mobile applications has risen significantly. While the underlying principles of securing .NET applications remain the same, mobile apps come with additional complexities. For instance, developers should take extra care in managing API security, preventing reverse engineering, and handling sensitive user data on mobile devices. 

To understand the potential costs of developing secure mobile applications, you might want to use a mobile app cost calculator. This tool can help you assess the cost of integrating security measures such as encryption, user authentication, and secure storage for mobile apps.    If you're interested in exploring the benefits of Dot net development services for your business, we encourage you to book an appointment with our team of experts. 

Book an Appointment 

Conclusion 

Security is paramount in the development of any .NET application. By implementing secure coding practices, robust authentication and authorization mechanisms, encryption, and regular updates, you can protect your application from the ever-growing threat of cyberattacks. Additionally, leveraging proper logging, monitoring, and auditing techniques ensures that even if a breach does occur, you can identify and mitigate the damage swiftly. 

If you're working with .NET technology and need help building secure applications, consider partnering with a Dot Net Development Company. Their expertise will help you implement the best security practices and ensure your applications remain safe and resilient against future threats. 

[advancedexcelinstitute]

The Best Advanced Excel Corporate Trainers in Delhi: What to Expect

When it comes to mastering Advanced Excel and VBA Macros, Advanced Excel Institute, stands out as a leader in corporate training. Led by Pankaj Kumar Gupta, a Microsoft Certified Trainer with over a decade of experience, the institute has built a reputation for delivering impactful training that equips employees with practical, high-level Excel skills. Here’s what to expect from training sessions with Pankaj Sir, Advanced Excel Corporate Trainer.

1. Expert Trainer with a Proven Track Record

He has conducted over 500 corporate training sessions, training more than 10,000 professionals across various industries. His extensive experience and Microsoft certification make him one of the most trusted Advanced Excel and VBA Macros trainers in Delhi. Known for his practical teaching style, focuses on real-world applications, ensuring that employees can immediately apply what they learn.

2. Customized Training Approach

They understands that each organization has unique needs. The training sessions are design in tailored to the specific requirements of each company, whether it's for data analysis, reporting, automation, or financial modeling. This tailored approach ensures that the training content matches the company's objectives and supports the employees' daily responsibilities.

3. Hands-On, Practical Learning

Further, his sessions are highly interactive and focus on practical learning. Rather than just theory, his training includes real-time database examples and hands-on exercises. Employees learn to work with advanced functions like VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, and SUMIFS. They also explore Pivot Tables, data visualization, and chart creation to handle complex data sets effectively.

4. Advanced Excel and VBA Macros Expertise

As an expert in both Advanced Excel and VBA Macros, He covers a wide range of topics that boost efficiency and accuracy in data management. His VBA Macros training is particularly valuable for automating repetitive tasks, saving time, and minimizing errors. This enables employees to increase productivity significantly, making them more valuable assets to the organization.

5. Comprehensive Curriculum

Training sessions at Advanced Excel Institute are structured to cover essential and advanced topics, including:

Formulas and Functions: Covering basic to advanced functions like IF, SUMPRODUCT, CONCATENATE, and logical functions.

Data Management: Techniques for managing data across multiple sheets, using features like Advanced Filter, Data Validation, and Text to Columns.

Data Analysis and Visualization: Creating Pivot Tables, Pivot Charts, and various types of charts (e.g., Gantt charts, Bubble charts) to make data analysis easier and more insightful.

VBA Macros: Automating workflows, writing simple to complex Macros, and using VBA to streamline daily tasks.

6. Focus on Productivity and Efficiency

One of the main goals of the training is to help employees work faster and smarter. He teaches productivity-boosting techniques, including Excel shortcuts, effective use of the Name Manager, and advanced filtering options. These tools and tricks enable employees to complete their tasks in less time with higher accuracy.

7. Post-Training Support and Resources

After the training, Pankaj and Advanced Excel Institute provide post-training support to help employees resolve any doubts and reinforce what they’ve learned. This ongoing support ensures that employees are confident and fully equipped to apply their skills in real-world scenarios.

8. Strong Industry Reputation

With experience conducting training in major Indian cities like Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad, Advanced Excel Institute has built a strong reputation nationwide. Numerous companies trust them to deliver effective training that enhances employees’ skills in Advanced Excel and VBA Macros.

Choosing Pankaj Kumar Gupta as an Excel Corporate Trainer in Delhi for corporate training ensures that your team will receive practical, high-quality instruction that directly impacts productivity and accuracy in data management. With a focus on hands-on learning, real-world applications, and post-training support, Advanced Excel Institute stands out as one of the best training providers in Delhi for Advanced Excel and VBA Macros.

 For more information, contact us at:

Call: 8750676576, 871076576

Email:advancedexcel07@gmail.com

Website:www.advancedexcel.net

[virtualemployeeblog]

Top 5 Excel Functions Every Expert Should Master 

Mastery of any data analysis tool like Excel comes with an addition to productivity and efficiency that is very significant. You can hire Microsoft excel experts who are experts in these functions: 

VLOOKUP- This function finds an item in a table or range and returns the corresponding value in another column. It is very helpful for the process of data lookup as well as matching. 

SUMIF - Sum cells in range that meet certain conditions. It is very commonly applied for filtering, aggregation, or calculation of data; for instance, it will sum up the sales within a specific type of product. 

COUNTIF - Like SUMIF, it counts the number of cells within a given range that meets criteria. It is helpful in running data analysis and also in reporting. 

IF - This function is designed to produce a logical test. Once this test becomes true, then it will yield some values; else it will yield different values. It plays a crucial role in formulating conditional formulas and making decisions. 

CONCATENATE - This function takes one or more text strings and returns them as a single text string. It's extremely useful when creating custom labels, reports, or indeed any other type of text-based output. Using CONCATENATE, you can take separate columns for first and last names and create one single name column with them. 

Anyone who is preparing for excel programmers for hire purposes must know these functions to tackle different types of data analysis jobs in the competitive landscape.