The Unbelievably Bad Metaphors in Esquire's Profile of Jay-Z

John Swansburg in Slate:

1. "Jay-Z walks into a gracious chamber at Manhattan's Plaza Hotel. It's the same room where, thousands of years ago, crown moldings were born."

2. "He sits down in his hard-backed chair and the reporters collect around him in a buttery little square. But Jay-Z doesn't really sit. What he actually does is slalom down in his chair, real low like it's a water slide. Seventy-three inches of all-black everything, laid out like a ramp."

3. "Jay-Z is a half-dangerous rapper who grew up in the gat-happy projects of the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. He sold crack on feral corners and shot his brother for stealing his ring. Badass, for real."

4. "Look up, left, and listen. Jay-Z's vamping scowl is paraded everywhere, his presence vibrates from sound systems and is woven into the fabrics."

5. "Short and bald with a body type that plugs his surname, Steve Stoute is the underfamous but ubiquitous guy in all the celebrity pictures."

6. "He's black and also liquid-shiny like the mimetic shape-shifting bad guy in Terminator 2. He's real deal-eyed, and what first comes off as arrogance you realize later is sentience, with an extra side of arrogance. He's wily as hell, plus hyper-protective and defensive of his products, both intellectual and carbon-based."

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