Week 4: timeless (2-1) vs. ZYG (2-1) \\ ZYG wins 6-0

[Certain]

http://i.imgur.com/uAJesXX.png

Season 3



The Basics | Read the full rules here (http://netcees.co/showthread.php?t=54688).

Verses are due Friday at 11:59 p.m. PT. THERE ARE NO EXTENSIONS.

Votes are due Sunday at 11:59 p.m. PT.

Verses may not exceed 48 lines or 650 words unless agreed upon by the opponent.

Voting on three battles is required. If you win and don't vote, you will receive a loss instead. If you lose and don't vote, you will receive a one-week suspension. Please post links to your three votes in this thread (http://netcees.co/showthread.php?t=59559).


Topic


http://i.imgur.com/ZuDi8qq.jpg


Good luck, timeless and ZYG.

[zygote]

GRAFFITI AS A METAPHOR FOR THE SOCIAL CONTRACT.

For Locke the fundamental state of nature –
is a blank slate. Tabula rasa, tracing paper.
Opaque, not engraved in stone, a changing wave of data,
Always delayed for later. A blank slate defined by the presence of actual life.
An expression of every beings inalienable and natural rights.
As state of cooperation for more. Not one of mine against yours.
And not formed into laws, but scrawled onto walls.

If Locke saw the natural state as a flash in the night.
Hobbes saw the natural state as the absence of light.
A state of nature “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Without the Leviathan, life would be a state of abuse and of war –
A life of tooth against tooth and fist against fist.
Individual rights are surrendered for protection against this.

Now compare each perspective with an expression of art -
Graffiti is the individual expression of thought at whatever the cost.
Every single “somebody was here” and quickly drawn image,
Sketches and quickly thrown up tags, it all represents a historical instant.
The prerogative of natural rights within the pursuit of happiness.
The right to be unobstructed while moving through challenges.
If individual natural rights are intrinsic to our very essence,
Then other rational rights are secondary every second.
But we hear the cries – “It’s not all up to you!”
A Hobbesian view, where walls are Waterloos.
Surrender the right of individual expression for social order.
Individuals rights become collective laws enforced by a sovereign father.
I’ve presented these two social contracts as set apart like foes,
But they’re not necessarily diametrically opposed.

See,

Young Johnny Locke grabbed his backpack filled with his special equipment.
Aerosol cans and markers, stencils and a sense of commitment.
His mind was working in width and in breadth, colors and hues and aspects of visual depth.
Going over different vignettes as he crawled under the turned up edge of the flimsy link fence.
And so Young Locked looked upon Hobbes Ye Olde Grocery Store,
He saw the ten foot tall pure white wall and was overcome with awe.
The shopkeeper Hobbes was smoking outside,
Young Locke never saw the cigarettes dim flicker of light.
Like a Leviathan Hobbes arose, stiff arthritic pains in his joints,
Sure he was old, but he still he still knew what he knew, all the salient points.
He said, “I own that wall, put that can down, I’ve got a shed round the side.
I’ve got a son round your age, and he’s painting inside.”
Young Locke would have run, but he was glued to the spot,
He and Hobbes walked to the shed and passed through the shop.
Hobbes had told the truth, inside a person was working on a large mural,
The wall piece read – MAXIMIZE GOOD FOR THE GREATEST GOOD OF ALL.
Hobbes said, “The artist is my son Bentham,”
The artist said, “Please call me Ben.”
The beautiful mural dissipated any potential tension.
So, Hobbes, Locke and Bentham all worked together to graffiti the wall.
In a state of nature that was not a one of constant war or one of simple natural law.
It was a state of nature where a representative consensus was fulfilled.
Where if graffiti is a social contract, then it is one of general will.

[timeless]

Dear Kyle,

“I just want to get my feet wet.” She said, dipping her toes in.
Water wasn’t too warm that day, neither was it frigid or frozen.
I could live for this moment, I could have kids with this woman,
until she tried to kill me on a couch for spilling a drink on the cushion.
She was frantic, “That sofa cost me four hundred dollars!
I should drown you in the abyss of the roughest waters.”
I told her the stain would come out, and to stop freaking out.
She told me to “shut the fuck up, it’s time for you to be bleeding now.”

Even in love, you can’t hide from what gets under your skin.
You can’t always help or fix what’s wrong in a flutter of wings.
You can’t paint over a situation, so what would make you think
that you could drown the world’s patience? It’s too late to sink.

Come out into the world my son, it’s been awaiting you.
Misplace the cues of shaded blues that erase your mood.
Street art is fine as long as you’re involved in architecture.
As long as you’re a vandal, there will be no intercessor.
I write you this letter as a request to stop the tagging,
the world is not your canvas, it’s just a box we’re trapped in.
If a city blacked out, there still wouldn’t be hiding places.
We’ll find you either way, see through your disguises and faces.
Many generations before you take pride in what they’ve built.
If you can’t appreciate it, let your mind climb uphill.
Why? I respect my surroundings and I will uphold the law.
Your rise to greatness is seen, but one thing’s left untold; the fall.
I’ll patrol the mall until I see your ugly mug again
rummaging through the dark, just know jail is your punishment.
I’m tired of driving to work and seeing your mess all over.
I enjoy what’s natural, not your edits sketched in boulders.
You are my son, what if I catch you in the act of this?
I can’t just let you go and write it off as some sort of accident.
There’s a reason I became a cop, whether you see it or not.
Stop hiding, being a vandal is just a weakness unlocked.
I been there, I was a kid once trying to have fun with some friends.
We got into bad shit too, we thought it would never end.
I hope this gives you inspiration to make more wise, future actions.
Because the track you’re on is slim and you’re losing traction.
Hope is all you could ever ask for, and it’s all you’ll ever get.
Your dream boat has a tie to it’s anchor, you just need to sever it.

…With Love, Your Dad.

[oats]

Zyg: I thought the whole premise of the verse was really interesting off the bat. This is the first instance I've come across where graffiti and enlightenment thinkers have been locked in a room together, and I think you did the metaphor justice in your explanations. I'm only marginally familiar with locke, hobbes, and bentham, so your syntheses were refreshing and provocative for me. It's hard to critique anything here - there were some couplets where the end rhymes flopped a bit for me (mural/all, order/father, etc), but those were minor in the big picture. Overall, this is the best verse I've read thus far this week.


Timeless: This was a strong showing. I liked the idea of hearing the "other side" of graffiti. Being on a hip hop forum, most of us probably share an appreciation of street art, but of course there is another angle to it, and you did well to present the shame and confusion of a street artist's father that didn't agree with it. The verse felt disjointed to me though. The first two stanzas seemed to set up a different story than was carried on. I connected it as those two stanzas created the reason for the son's foray into graffiti, while the rest was the father's response to it. But it felt, jumpy? Like there were gaps that should have been touched on/explained more.


Vote: This may be personal preference, but the metaphoric musings of Zygote just spoke to me more. Timeless has a lot of good elements in his verse, but they just didn't come together as well for me. Good shit to both.

[Mike Wrecka]

dope battle. BOTW potential

ZYG - sick fuckin verse. probably the best I have read this season from anybody. you finally went back to Zygote mode. the flow was godly. im in awe of how you could write something like this so quickly. being able to construct this in the short amount of time you did doesn't make sense tbh. but ya this was a walk through history with a modern perspective put on it. really enjoyed it. the waterloo referenced worked well. as did all the others. props


timeless - this is the best showing you have had on this site. you write a little differently than most here, you use a lot of rhymes in each line. sometimes that disrupts the flow a bit, but not here. this was a really well crafted verse. the problem with the verse is that the first half and second half really don't connect in any way. it is disjointed and I cant seem to make sense of it. the second half alone was the direction that I think you wanted to take. the perspective of someone trying to get their loved one to stop breaking the law by doing graffiti. interesting. if only you had made it cohesive thoughts. good showing none the less


vote -zygote

[Pinot Grij]

Zyg, this was a very ambitious take but connected with the source material perfectly. Kudos on that. I'm not going to go fact-checking and shit, but I feel like your application of the political ideas is maybe a bit sketchy.. and I don't agree with the extrapolation to graffiti because that gives graffiti way more credit than it deserves... nevertheless, I give you points for ambitiousness and technical execution.

Timeless, as a writer I prioritize the natural, free-flowing sue of dialogue - it needs to be realistic otherwise your verse loses all credibility to stand up as anything more than just rhyming words. That's why it was very irksome to read I should drown you in the abyss of the roughest waters.” aaaaaaand it's time for you to be bleeding now... that just sounds awful and really detracted from any storytelling you were trying to do. It was a really sharp turn for me too to see the verse go from a fiery relationship to a dad asking his son to stop doing graffiti. At first I thought I was going to really going to dig the direction of the verse, but it went somewhere that I couldn't relate to.

Vote -- zygote

[YDK]

Zyg you had a dope and original verse my dude. flowed amazingly and the philosopher references and storyline was a nice take on the topic.
Timeless you had an awesome flow as well along with a cool story but the one drawback was the quotes. It's always hard to write quotes in a verse that rhymes that sound like its something somebody would actually say, and I felt that you lacked in that department this week. everything other than that was awesome tho bro.
dope battle fellas but I gotta give my vote to zyg for the more polished verse

[Adonis]

Time, you wrote a decent enough verse,but I have no clue what the beginning was as you started off as a woman maybe kyle's mom, and then bang, your the father. The only plausible explanation would be you were the mom, son was kicked out and dad now wanted to arrest him. IDK bro, stretch in that front, too vague maybe, or just not a strong grasp on characters, or to many characters.

Ziggie you made an error. "he still knew he still knew", human after all my friend,proof. This verse, much like the other two I read this season, are subpar to your standards. The message was received though..... If all human share the same goals, I.e improvement of life, happiness, bettering the world in general while simply striving to be shining examples rather than what we are, then the common goal would be met easily, and easier if we all worked at it.


Vote. Ziggie.

[King Ra.]

Zygote, you have this uncanning ability to put together these incredible, metaphoric, well written pieces week in, week out. It's very rare that you slip up, and usually sometimes you can be so complex and deep that it goes over a lot of peoples heads. Here you mesh in great storytelling with such in-depth attention to detail. I read your piece multiple times and it just impresses with how tightly written it is. I feel this is one of the more creative pieces you've put together. Well done. Timeless, this is my first time getting the chance to vote on your match this season, but I've read your work and you continue to develop your skills gradually. This is your best piece thus far, and I liked the direction you went. Dialogue has to be the most difficult things to put together and for the most part you did well, though you had your share of hiccups. Compared to your opponents piece, this wasn't as creative direction wise, but I liked what you did though. You really excelled in the tone you set from beginning to end. Going up against an opponent like Zyg means really putting it all together, and I'd say you had some of that going for you but not quite enough.

Timeless did a solid job this week, with a much better written piece, but Zyg was just a bit too overwhelming here putting together one of my favorite reads this week. Could be considered VOTW imo.

MVGT: Zygote.