Post-Empire

I had to stall that nagging little time clock that sits on my desktop and urges out productivity each day of my weekday life, in order to read this: Bret Easton Ellis's uncut essay on Charlie Sheen and the state of post-Empire public life.  The essay actually originally appeared in the Daily Beast on Monday, but on that same day Ellis tweeted (so post-Empire) that it was a highly-edited version (Empire) and the full version would be available on Wednesday.  Thank you Ellis and Twitter; this version is so much more satisfying.

Calling out Kanye West's "Runaway" as a post-Empire rallying cry; Ellis gets it.  This is exemplary of some of the reasons I suggested Kanye West as being worthy of notice in the zeitgeist of 2011; he is the embodiment of something important in our culture, whatever you may think of that something's (or West's) merit.