Another angle on the Man

[David Morris]

https://youtu.be/Q429AOpL_ds

Theme from “*Shaft*” (1971)
Written and performed by Isaac Hayes

Who's the black private dick

That's a sex machine to all the chicks? (Shaft)

You're damn right


Who is the man that would risk his neck for his brother, man? (Shaft)

Can ya dig it?


Who's the cat that won't cop out when there's danger all about? (Shaft)

Right on


You see this cat Shaft is a bad mother (Shut your mouth)

But I'm talkin' about Shaft (Then we can dig it)


He's a complicated man but no one understands him but his woman (John Shaft)

On Thu, Nov 25, 2021 at 8:21 AM David Elliott via Pynchon-l <
pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

>  “I’m the Man.” I also used to hear that boast. Someone pulls out a bag of
> coke... “I’m the Man.” “You the Man.” “The Man” was often the person with
> the dope instead of the person busting you for the dope. One “The Man”
> would bust the other “The Man.”
>     On Thursday, November 25, 2021, 12:13:38 AM EST, Michael Bailey <
> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  The toilet episode & the Schwarzkommando point to consideration of Black
> culture.
>
> I think of “The Man” as a phrase coming from Black slang. And meaning
> “abusive authority” - back in the 60s it was always the Man arresting
> people. It made its way into hipster and Movement slang but wasn’t it first
> Black?
>
> And then sometime in the 80s or even earlier, maybe even synchronously with
> the “abusive authority” usage, people started (over)using the Man as a
> compliment - the verbless “you the Man” meaning meritorious authority.
>
> This complements rather than contradicts the Freudian paradigm - the id is
> capable of meritorious actions as well as abuse.
>
> It did surprise me to some extent that the Man wasn’t assigned to the
> superego, but I’m flexible in my theory.
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>