Word: cassius
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Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed that every profession is great that is greatly pursued. Boxing in the early '60s, largely controlled by the Mob, was in a moribund state until Muhammad Ali--Cassius Clay, in those days--appeared on the scene. "Just when the sweet science appears to lie like a painted ship upon a painted ocean," wrote A.J. Liebling, "a new Hero...comes along like a Moran tug to pull it out of the ocean...
...French disco house genre with a retro sound that explored house music's roots and brought back a lot of the element of fun, including Daft Punk's Homework album and the song of last summer, Stardust's "Music Sounds better With You." It continued this year with Cassius's 1999, an excellent disco cut-up pastiche work, and I'm hoping for more quality Gallic crossovers. I also think the stunning new Armand van Helden and Basement Jaxx albums (2 Future 4 U and Remedy respectively), with their amazing singles ("You Don't Know Me" and "Red Alert"), signal...
...Prince remake (thankfully), but another release in the French disco house genre that entered the global consciousness last year with the enormous success of Stardust, Daft Punk, and Bob Sinclar. Cassius comprises ace French producers Boombass and Philippe Zdar, and their experience as DJs (Paris's Respect is Burning; London's Basement Jaxx) and musicians (Motorbass and La Funk Mob) shows. The album's delectable pastiche of 4/4 beats, cut-up vocals and instruments, and funk-tinged deep bass (even the Foxy Brown theme gets sampled) creates some of the most massive tunes to hit the dancefloor, including the storming...
...KING OF THE WORLD: THE RISE OF MUHAMMAD ALI A book about a boxer would seem to lack, well, social significance. Not true here. David Remnick takes off from the 1964 bout in which a brash Cassius Clay dethroned the menacing heavyweight champ Sonny Liston. That fight changed Clay into Muhammad Ali and created a new sort of black athlete. Remnick's account of the aftershocks packs a punch...
...time to sift through the Muslim blarney and has returned to the more generous wisdom of the late Malcolm X, whom he regrets having deserted. "Malcolm was a very, very great man," he tells the author in his now halting speech. Odessa Clay's sweetness has manifestly overwhelmed Cassius Clay Sr.'s blather, and there is nothing left about their son not to like. At which point Remnick trips, for the first and only time, on his way out the door by tacking on a routine death-of-boxing editorial that is simply not big enough for the rich, reverberant...