AOWL Week 8: Ink (3-1) VS. Vulgar (1-0) [VULGAR WINS, 7-4.]

[King Ra.]

16 lines minimum, 48 lines maximum. (if agreed upon by both participants, you may go beyond the limit at your own risk.)

Verses are due SATURDAY 4/6 at 11:59 PST.
Extensions are due SUNDAY 4/7 at 11:59 PST. (There is a 6 hour grace period following the end of the extension deadline. If you fail to post anything by the end of the grace period time, you will be given the no show loss.)

You must vote on at least 4 other battles and post links. For every absent link, you will be deducted ONE vote next week.
Voting ends TUESDAY 3/9 at 11:59 PST. (Unless otherwise it may be extended another day at the most.)

You MUST check in.

If you no-show, you will be removed from next week and have to sign back into the league.

http://www.rollingstonemagazine.it//img/9-movie-poster.jpg


TOPIC: "We had such potential, such promise. But we squandered our gifts, our intelligence. Our blind pursuit of technology only sped us quicker to our doom. Our world is ending. But life must go on." 9, 2009.


Good luck to both participants. Vulgar Ink

[Vulgar]

Checkbonanza.

[Ink]

oh damn...

check!

http://artofbattling.com/showthread.php?5622-AOWL-Week-8-Just-Write-(0-0)-VS-fenix-osiris-(0-0)-OPEN-FOR-VOTES!!!&p=44467&viewfull=1#post44467

[Vulgar]

"THE TREE OF LIFE NEEDS NO PENTHOUSE"

Embarked with the Cretans to the gardens of credence
The Baltic regimes - they targeted seedlings for monstrous reasons
On the coasts of the Galapagos with their karma chameleons
Nature was a technological feat, trees offered leaves & made apes strong
A ripe green Perrot composed fronds from date palms
human beings sat in their glasshouses, sold arms and napalm
Siddhartha Gotama’s novel was based on the meaning of existence
Lichens. They breed with such persistence with no easing or a litmus
The blood of utopia was a kiwi sea breeze bleeding from the fringes
Survival, a meeting of the fittest, competing as a business
But who’s leading the resistance? Whoever it is, dissipating in lapses
because a nimble fragrance reacted when the steam engine of life…
became syncopated in fragments, and the mechanics of the forest
tympanics in a chorus when the coroner’s given incubation attachment
The commoner’s children, dyed in the pigment of the omegas -
The old earth a cold, dark, underlying covenant
In the summertime the hoverflies buzzed with lime percussionists
It seems most men never bothered with the son Orion's troublings
Good luck dealing with corruption in monarch butterfly governments
Barbiturates leered amid a new Coniferous Period
Too much carp fishing and pyramid building left a carnivorous myriad
Marsupial kama sutra-suitable, the bark gives a boost in lieu
Don’t call em a tree hugger… the natural affection is not mutual.
Mapping legend, a catheter’s resting on March reeds that bloom in full
A troop of fools went to prehistoric Sardinia to part seas & cubic roots
Civilization always remained a half-heart beat, a grueling wound…
The invading fauna that consumed Brooklyn & Canarsie was beautiful
Rivers required no dams, and papyrus sedges bunkered in ocean mists
Before the Rosetta stones, there were roses and colorless lotuses
Before there were woodcutters, all lumber was onerous
No planetary resources were being summoned for ownership
Tranhumanist neuron pollen collectors, garlic and nectar
A gauntlet of moralist textures. Spawned from Kepler’s tonics and lectures
parabolic receptors in the tree branches grew Panasonic in texture
“Don’t you understand? The tree of life needs no penthouse.”
said the head architect to the landscape staff
In the city of the artificial vineyards where the mandrakes clash
Intellect had a mass appeal, intersecting with brass and steel
In the dead of winter, every microsecond would last until…
Somehow hope sprung from the wreckage of daffodils
"Humans, be warned, tampering with natural machina can birth a curse,
Heinlein said the moon was a harsh mistress...but the Earth is worse."

http://i563.photobucket.com/albums/ss75/siryder/EOW/EOW-168_siryder.jpg

[Ink]

To Die and Let Live

We've siphoned the soil of life and chewed away the sky
With these iron claws we've mined away the fruit off all her vines
The air sizzles of it's pain, frying beneath unfiltered light
From the sun, we've no buffer to blanket us from it's might
Dragging time across the ciggarette, watching the ashes fall

This is the end of everything, it's become nothing at all...

He holds the doll gingerly, number 9 is on it's chest
The world? It's inheritance... it will succeed his breath

A stich in time can save from nine, but Nine is where my faith is placed
In a disgraced world unraveling, nothing less will survive our fate
I've suffered many pricks for this and licked the wounds my wife would kiss
If she were here to share the end, we'd lace our hands and she'd be Ten
Flip on the electricity, the lightbulbs glow, adjust settings
Secure the doll with fastenings, and now it's time for life to breed
*Sigh...*
So humanity has come to this... patchwork doll and an old man's last ditch
Will we see eye to button when you're filled with my sole eternal gift?
I run my fingers on it's cotton seams and ponder what the future brings
Of metallic beings and ancestry and the futility of what we've achieved
We drove and flew and sped right through the future, irresponsible
And lept and crept into the desk where God once sat and played his role
Is this to be the second flood? Is Nine the ark that I have won?
A vessel with which to carry on the legacy of song and drum?
This feeling... it's uncertainty... Can a numbered ragdoll truly breathe?
Or is this another monstrosity?! Oh, the vanity of human beings!
This doll was once my daughters friend, her confidant and guardian
Her Parthenon to revel in, when days were colored, nights were dim
Her partner when the music played, when bite sized hands begin to sway
Nine hasn't moved in recent days, lifeless since she passed away
Can I bastardize those memories to cling to fraying threads of grace?

No...
I switch the machine off... tears travel down canals that age dug
Looking out into the waste, air too harsh for my lungs
Congratulations machines, it appears that you've won
Fathers always were... surpassed by their sons....

[Adonis]

Ahhhh, very excited to read this battle...just letting you both know before I dig in that I don't see you guys meeting expectations...physically impossible.


Vulgar - Words galore borseph. A tale of trees and there evolution to outlast human evolution??? Similar to the film "The Happening"? I like the verse for what it is, I truly had to dig deep into understanding it because so many words I had to look up. Then I realized they were all words or references surrounding trees and natural plant life. I loved the visual section where you explained the plant re-claiming earth...The invading of Brooklyn, the trees taking place of man made dams... I liked the metaphor lines of "civilized heart beat and open wound, then monarch government" All in all, this verse was a lot to take in, as for the concept I think it's genius, rather good but the execution of the concept was genius. A very complex verse and that took away from the flow, but I see what you were doing with the flow, you did not sacrifice your wording for rhymes sake yet carefully worded lines to rhyme..."Lapses, reacted, fragments attachment". These were broken up, but it rhymed, just not in my face rhyme, it was swept under the rug for Meanings purpose, which is rare. Good read brother, very enjoyable to me. Side note afterthought: "Man made trees"...LOL, plant a seed bro.

Ink - I loved the flow in the entire middle section, zero complaints there but the first and last were either too simple (first) or just off (last). The first section was good writing though, the way you explained the atmosphere as deteriorated was very subtle and dope, (Not sure if "sizzling/frying" was intentional, if so ill way to concept "Earth is cooking"). You painted your character well; good enough to draw me a connection with him. From 9 being his son, to 10 potentially being his wife if alive meaning he was willing to give his soul to breathe life into 9 and hopefully give Earth another creature to rome, only not one who would destroy her again. All in all dope verse with wording that I enjoyed regardless of "fluidity of rhyme". Final read, was it maybe a suicide in the end? hated the wording of the "dug/Lung" bar as far as rhyme, but wrinkles described as canals was dope.


vote- Impossible...Both verse in my opinion are extremely good, but for two completely different reasons. Vulgar went with that almost "book"/knowledge drop yet weaved intricate rhyme structure very discreetly. While Ink had more of your traditional topical with solid flow and imagery while giving the poetic connection to a character. This is a very tough vote to me and in all honestly, I would not feel like a "cop-out" if I said tie, but I wont. So I will give each a read and drop a name with no further explanation. Great battle, both top notch verses and for what it's worth..Fuck you all!

INK

[Xces]

I had to read this three times to really decide on who to vote for. I have no real strong feedback to give to either of you at this point in time given that I'm pretty tired but I have to give a vote here. If I come back an re-read an see things I can accent to help you boys grow I will.

As is I'll just drop a vote because Adonis kind've said it all up there ^

V/ Vulgar

Given that you both came as strong as you did, I had to go with the originality of the concept in execution as a determining factor of my final vote.
I like how INK used the story line of 9 (great fucking movie btw) and added his own little twists of tale to it, but over all Vulgar painted a more vivid picture well coming with a concept completely his own.

[zygote]

Vulgar, all the environment vocabulary was great. Enjoyed the personification you gave to the environment. Showing the emotion and intelligence of plant life. Also, it was good how you kept the writing/focus contained, with this topic it would have been easy to get carried away and write a lot about the "world is ending" part. By focusing less on the actual destruction and instead on the relationship between humans and environment it was a powerful perspective. Instead of showing the destruction, you are foreshadowing it and it makes the whole piece stronger when reading the end summary lines. Ending made me reflect on what you just wrote, so it was a very effective ending.

Ink, enjoyed the discussion on mistakes and the steps into ethics surrounding environment and sustainability. Metaphor of numbered dolls was really great and creative. However, perhaps it would have been stronger to continue with the same themes you had for the very first paragraph. Some things did not sit well, some of the language does not seem to fit. It is too melodramatic E.g., you are presenting this image of a bleak, grey environment ("this is the end of everything") but then using grand language like "my sole eternal gift" + "oh the vanity" + "cling to fraying threads of grace?" there feels like too much hope in this language considering everything is dead. Perhaps your writing could have been strengthened with more lines along " the futility of what we've achieved" more like that would have been more fitting. Another difference was the ending, it did not have a great reflective quality in comparison. Overall, voted for Vulgar.

[veritas]

I see alot of cats try to be overly abstract and complex amd come off looking like pompous sloppy fools. That being said...vulgars did not. Ink you had a dope piece, but the clarity and skill of the plethora of words vul used to elaborate a fascinating concept. Split did the same in our battle this week. Btw the monarch line was awesome I see what you did there. Vote vul

[Split]

Vulgarity.

Nature was a technological feat, trees offered leaves & made apes strong
A ripe green Perrot composed fronds from date palms
that's such a cool bar.

I don't think there's anyone better at imagery in written rap.

Tranhumanist neuron pollen collectors, garlic and nectar
A gauntlet of moralist textures. Spawned from Kepler’s tonics and lectures
parabolic receptors in the tree branches grew Panasonic in texture
“Don’t you understand? The tree of life needs no penthouse.”
wow.

awesome multis and good transitions, a little rough in spots because of the massive vocabulary, but for the most part the risk you took was way diminished by the reward you pulled. I like the consistent theme of the wordplay. Not excessively comprehensive, rather, sketches everything all at once, and then at the end fills in the heart with vivid color. See above quote. Cool verse. I like how the idea that "our world dies, but life goes on" implies that our world is not only superficial vegetation and animals, but also the Idea of nature and how it pertains to us, and this is what we ultimately lose


Ink. Another cool verse.

s this to be the second flood? Is Nine the ark that I have won?
A vessel with which to carry on the legacy of song and drum?
This feeling... it's uncertainty... Can a numbered ragdoll truly breathe?
Or is this another monstrosity?! Oh, the vanity of human beings!
This doll was once my daughters friend, her confidant and guardian
Her Parthenon to revel in, when days were colored, nights were dim

cool, that really summed up the verse for me. Strong schemes and a good story, and yet metaphorically vague. I havent seen the movie.


A stich in time can save from nine, but Nine is where my faith is placed
In a disgraced world unraveling, nothing less will survive our fate
I've suffered many pricks for this and licked the wounds my wife would kiss
If she were here to share the end, we'd lace our hands and she'd be Ten
>>right here i wish you woulda explored the number naming concept more or characterize
Flip on the electricity, the lightbulbs glow, adjust settings
Secure the doll with fastenings, and now it's time for life to breed

the way the character was forming relationships with inanimate objects, i believe, was the main thing... when every real relationship has faded, the one that he neglected all along is the one that succeeds and triumphs over him.

the daughter's death left him not believing in the things that inspired her... youth is dead and only age remains... an awesome description of an "Old World" literally. its weird to me how you ended it, it seems the 'life' you were trying to display as an investment in symbols simultaneously dies and takes over... if it had been slightly differently built or foreshadowed/ developed differently i wouldve possibly given this to you

V/ Vulgar. enjoyed his verse a little more in terms of mechanics and also the controlled depth to his storytelling.

[fenix osiris]

first verse - i thought this was dope despite some metaphors going over my head. you had a good flow, and your use of multis, assonance and alliteration really came off nice and enjoyable. i thought overall your diction was pleasant, i enjoyed all the referencing you did, from indian culture, religion history, etc. it was really cool, i've always loved good referencing in rap lyrics and in topicals and i'm slowly trying to incorporate it into my own. interesting concept, overall great read.

second verse - i thought this was a cool story, simpler to comprehend than the first verse, less metaphors going over my head lol. this read smoothly, it was an interesting story that made it easier to read forward. you have a decent rhyme scheme, i can't complain about it, but it just didn't quite match the rhyme scheme of the first verse. there was use of great imagery to help the story along. cool piece overall.

vote - so i don't think the writing skill of each of these pieces were close, but the battle was close for me. i enjoyed reading the story of the second verse better, but in the first verse, i just enjoyed how well it was written, without being able to comprehend the full meaning of it. this is a tough vote because i prefer to vote for the piece i thought was written better, but i feel like a jerk off voting for a piece i didn't fully understand, so vote goes to the story i enjoyed that was outclassed by the technical aspects of it's opponent. i will definitely be on the look out for more in the future by the writer of the first verse.

second verse.

[Juxtaposition]

VUL -

I think you had a smart piece. It had creative connections of ideas and language that also conveyed your writers voice with an attitude. I feel it was trying to be poetic but with words that were more mechanical than natural and so it felt like it was going in two different directions and ended up somewhat bland as a whole. You made a lot of references, which if people get them all, I understand you can really make an impact... because 1 Word can give an Idea, but 1 Word can also make a whole movie picture pop into someone's head. But if you have some obscure references readers will balk.
There is a lot of good information in there, you have strong flow at points when it comes to rhymes, but as an entirety it unfolded choppily. I guess it was lacking transitions or there was just too many things you wanted to say.

"A troop of fools went to prehistoric Sardinia to part seas & cubic roots
Civilization always remained a half-heart beat, a grueling wound…
The invading fauna that consumed Brooklyn & Canarsie was beautiful
Rivers required no dams, and papyrus sedges bunkered in ocean mists
Before the Rosetta stones, there were roses and colorless lotuses"

Really enjoyed this. The creative rhymes, slant and perfect, the imagery, the wordplay, the irony, and just the overall feel and language of it.

INK- Okay I feel you man. There was not as many literary devices or intelligent rhetoric in your writing but man... you were talking to me. You told a story, created a character with your words, built an atmosphere, created drama, gave enough depth to the situation with details and human insight, and at the end you had like a double twist...

The character decides not to do it, so humanity dies... and then you say that the machines won, because fathers always surpass their sons.

You made me go HMMMMMMMMMMM.... at the end. Your words led me somewhere, and I travelled with you and was happy at the end that I made the trip.

But by deciding not to revive a doll his daughter used to love... he was actually Vindicating Humanity at the end, so maybe the machines didn't 'win.'

VOTE - INK

Vulgar should study what Ink did..

[Aesthetic]

Vulgar


What I seen best:

A ripe green Perrot composed fronds from date palms
human beings sat in their glasshouses, sold arms and napalm

Lichens. They breed with such persistence with no easing or a litmus
The blood of utopia was a kiwi sea breeze bleeding from the fringes

“Don’t you understand? The tree of life needs no penthouse.”
said the head architect to the landscape staff

In the dead of winter, every microsecond would last until…
Somehow hope sprung from the wreckage of daffodils

All I gotta say is work on being more direct; and address what your saying rather then like soooo abstract with big words, when those 2 mix its like

WHAAAATTT THEEE FUCCCK?



Ink


What I seen best:

We've siphoned the soil of life and chewed away the sky
With these iron claws we've mined away the fruit off all her vine

I run my fingers on it's cotton seams and ponder what the future brings
Of metallic beings and ancestry and the futility of what we've achieved


Really dope movie; I like the picture you painted but I feel like it reminded me wayyy too much of the film. I like what you did through the mans eyes though pretty cool idea.

V/Vulgar

[Red glare]

Vulgar, Intoxicatingly immersive; Very centered in your focus; a buzzing stream line of bugged out rhymes. You too roamed into the forrest and really pulled from the souls hazy habitat of creativity. I thought that your verse followed a certain formula; was a lot less dense then last week; but also more on the ball in terms of cohesion. This piece had a eerie honey I shrunk the kids setting in the grass blades happening. The ending really gave this piece some credibility; truly caught the vibe and tied it all together. A very contained wonderment. A real life Ant Farm
Ink,Nice poetic cadence. Flow was first thing that I noticed; a steady beat of expression. Some good writing. I feel the beginning you set was strong enough to let the middle wand a little and then sort of regain consciousness towards the end where you sum it all up. Good journey. Another strong closer.
Votes goes to Vulgar. I wanted to vote for Ink; but he just didn't make the doll come alive in the end; a route I wish he had ventured in.

Thank you for the read

[Mike Wrecka]

ya very cool battle. thanks for the reads.

vulgar - sick imagery and word selection. your shit reads like a scholar wrote it. its next level in that regard. and its rather philosophic. I really enjoyed the fuck out of the verse. you used this rhyme scheme

1
1
1
2
2
2
3
3
3
3

not many people can make that work. im usually very against an odd number of lines with the same end rhyme but you pull it off. only thing I wish you did more often was continue your end rhymes to the beginning of the next line more often. you do it here and there and it adds to the flow if you ask me. very good verse


ink- very strong opening. I was impressed. then I noticed that you were just straight re telling the movie and I was disappointed. but as I read on you really highlighted a part of the movie that we didn't get to see. and added a fuck load of emotion. it read very smooth while still seeming complex and I applaud that. one complaint is the briefness. you needed to make it longer. I don't know if you hit the line limit but if you didn't it seemed like you needed more lines to finish up.

very tough battle to decide on. both sick verses. but im a go with the one I enjoyed slightly more and that's

vote- Ink

[Objective]

Vulgar: As usual you present another beautiful piece rich of great imagery, metaphores and interesting ideas. The story was fluent and on point for me, the final lines of your piece really put a great closure to your verse. Didn't really like that your rhymes ended after 3 lines here and there, kinda stopped the ''natural'' flow a little bit for me. Beside of that I thought it was a magnificent verse.

Ink: Dude, punctuation man. No periods made me feel like I read on and on and on until I finally could catch a moment of breath before I died of asphyxiation. I'm exaggerating of course, but when there's a lack of punctuation I kinda end up reading along trying to get a flow that isn't there. I have to create my own flow and put commas, periods and shit here and there on my own, doing YOUR job.

Beside of that little thing wich kind of evens out Vulgars 3 line rhymes I find that you both are at a draw for the time being. But the more I read your verse I felt something was lacking but I can't exactly put my finger on it, whereas Vulgars verse seemed to give me something new I didn't give enough attention to during the first read-through.

Either way, both of you wrote a piece that was interesting enough to read twice or more. But the more I read each verse the more I felt the pieces were drifting apart from eachother making the final vote easier to do. As much as I'd like to see you go to a OT I realize that this isn't Grindtime nor a regular text-battle, and I have to pick a winner based on what I got.

And the final vote ended up going to Vulgar. Well done to both of you. Entertaining battle.

[King Ra.]

VULGAR WINS, 7-4.