Instead of using the historic word “commonplacing”, Eminem uses the fantastic euphemism “stacking ammo”. Given his use of his words and lyrics collection in battle rap, this seems very apropos.
Cooper analogizes the collection as the scrawlings of a crazy person. In some sense, this may be because there is no traditional order, head words, or indexing system with what otherwise looks like a box of random pages and ideas. One might argue that the multitude of notebooks, papers, colors, sizes, etc. provides a sort of context which Eminem could use as a method of loci for remembering where to find particular ideas, thus making the need for an indexing system feel superfluous to him. This is even more likely if he’s regularly using, maintaining, and mining his material for daily work.
ᔥ in Eminem has his own version of commonplace system containing words that rhyme. : commonplacebook ()
@chrisaldrich i’m seeing an artist tonight who’s reported to have beaten Em in a battle rap. I’ll try find out whether he collates like that too | for what it’s worth, for my music I use messy notebooks for early scribbles, but more quickly digitise: first Apple Notes, then on AirTable whose community found pleasingly original
If Eminem used an index to organize all of his thoughts/ideas/rhymes, he would be able to produce so much more. He is a lyrical genius!
There’s something incredibly important to learn in studying two very similar photographs of Mortimer J. Adler from the middle of the last century. I’ll present…