Since the other thread is ongoing, you might wonder why this post wasn't just a comment in it.
Just commenting in the other thread would have been insufficiently hipster.
I actually switched over to making it a post after it seemed to be getting really long for a comment, which doesn't really make sense; there have been longer comments.
In regard to the actual content of this post, I think it's interesting to think about dog mushing in this context. (Today was the start of the Iditarod, so thinking about dog mushing in various contexts is something I've been doing a lot lately.) It was once used as a practical means of transportation in a lot of places, but it's long since been replaced by snowmobiles in almost all practical contexts. And yet, it's been maintained as a recreational activity by people who don't really need to do it, which puts it in a similar category to some of the other pursuits mentioned in the post.
And yet, in terms of social signifiers mushing doesn't really pattern with that stuff. It's largely a working-class thing; it's expensive, so mushers aren't poor, but they tend to come from working-class backgrounds and have day jobs as contractors and truck drivers and so forth. (There are also some doctors and other white-collar professionals, but relatively few.) It's also a hell of a lot of work, so the "no there there" thing doesn't come up much. You can't really be a dilettante musher.
Anyway, I don't have any real point to make here, but I found the comparison interesting.
To paraphrase Communization riffing on Walter Benjamin stealing from Oscar Wilde:
Only things (and people) liberated from use (utility) can cease to be commodities, because use-value is no longer distinguishable from exchange-value.
Pg 138 of Noys:"What is There in Uselessness to Cause You Distress?"
Capitalism has become immanent and immediate. You are, we are, I am a commodity creating commodities by means of commodities.
But this can also be re-framed as placing art in service of a 'higher' instrumentality, that of displacing and reconciling bourgeois contradictions. The Adornian complex of art as the absolute commodity captures this. The concept of the IP then could be read as a subversive affirmation of this: putting purposeless purpose to workDid this interest or inform you? Then I have failed in creating disutility.
Oh my God I won.I won the tickets.there is no jusTice in the world, clearly, but I just won the tickets. Jesus.
Only tickets to, like, the best band ever.
(I am pitifully jealous, as you can tell.)
These, I take it.
Congrats, in any case.
The only downside is that now my winning rendition of F.E.E.L.I.N.G. C.A.L.L.E.D. L.O.V.E. is going up on youtube. And it was really, really bad; that's sort of how I won. I missed every cue, didn't even try to hit the right key, just went full-on Jarvis Flair, hand-waving and hips and all the rest, trying to out-shameless the others. (And even there, I ought to have lost; a woman did a better job on that dimension, but IBTP I guess.) Ah well. Hopefully I can get them to keep my full name off it.
Totes expect that linked here when it goes up.
Okay, now I'm going to bed--too much damn caffeine--but here's a pic in the flickr group. It was taken after the contest ended, and so it's not really an accurate representation of how I performed, because, (1) jesus, I didn't look nearly that smug; (2) during the song I had my shirt tucked in, and was wearing $6 Walgreens aviator sunglasses; (3) just really, the look is totally off; shoegazey rather than creepily eye-contact making. Ah well. Still, I thought the composition of the photo made it worth sharing, what with me cupping the cut-out Jarvis' balls, while his hand almost grips my neck.
I've thought about learning how to make my own alterations in clothing, just because I find it awkward to take it to the cleaners, explain what I want done, etc. -- what a nightmare, interacting with other people! I like to think that it's totally hipster to actually do my own ironing, too.
I have recently taken up English paper piecing to make quilt tops and I guess when I finish will also have to learn to quilt by hand. My sewing has already improved significantly in the threeish weeks I've been working on this, plus we have three new pillows and 20% of a lap quilt. This is to give me something to do that's lighter than knitting and allows me to watch tv with Lee without losing my mind because I'm not multitasking but also keeps me from keeping up with you folks, which is deemed antisocial living room behavior. How much of a hipster am I?
And would spending an hour a day scraping wallpaper count as hipster? There are three hideous layers on the plaster in our bedroom and I got a 2-by-3 foot section done yesterday in maybe 20 minutes, but it would take me forever to do the whole room, not to mention the wallpapered ceiling, and I thi I'd be pretty much guaranteed to throw out my back. Still feels a little wasteful to pay professionals to do it, but I'm sure I will. Then I can go back to scraping the bathroom, except I won't do that either because I suspect one of the layers is lead paint and I don't want that dust on Mara's toothbrush. Blech.
Too bad x. wasn't performing Set the Controls for the Heart of the Pelvis.
The diagram in that link led me to a wikipedia article informing me that "the sacral promontory … marks part of the border of the pelvic inlet."
I believe it!
I've actually read some of the links in the OP: I see that Ben is accused (in the penultimate link) of engaging in "too much scrutiny".
And would spending an hour a day scraping wallpaper count as hipster?
Certainly, if you're doing it as part of turning one kind of building into another kind (say, an old rectory into a bike store or a failed hotel into your residence) or reclaiming a long-neglected building in some place you don't already live (way out in the woods or in a burned-out block in Detroit, maybe), and are lovingly documenting the project online with dreamy, artfully composed photographs.
24: Nope, turning a really hideous bedroom with nicotine-stained wallpaper into a really awesome bedroom, I hope, but nothing more. I have halfway thought about house-blogging a bit, but I don't know which identity to use and it's not as if I keep up with the blog I have, so there's probably no reason to. It's such a cool house, though! We're not doing a whole lot to make it cooler, just scraping off grime.
Computer, please remember my personal info. Deal?
Nothing prevents hipsters in Williamsburg from wearing hats from the Iditarod.
A friend of mine was in the race 4 or 5 years ago. As a fund raiser, the organizers auction off seats in the sleds for the stretch beginning at the ceremonial start downtown. My friend was assigned as a rider a man who'd completely lost both legs in the Iraq war; the story of a wreck on the sled (because the dogs were unfamiliar with the underpass on the course) and having the passenger roll out, to the shock of the watching crowds, can only really be told by my friend, who has a great understated deadpan as his usual speaking manner. (He's a machinist from Switzerland, and first arrived in MT on horseback (from CO) in 1980 or so -- not a hipster). The rider was uninjured, and showed great humor throughout.
Nothing prevents hipsters in Williamsburg from wearing hats from the Iditarod.
Hm, I bet those hats are cheaper this week than they were last week. I should check some of the souvenir shops.
As a fund raiser, the organizers auction off seats in the sleds for the stretch beginning at the ceremonial start downtown.
Ah, so that's who those people riding the sleds were. I was wondering.
And, what do you know, there are pictures of my friend Martin and his rider on the internet: http://iditarodphotos.com/scripts/ImageFolio42/imageFolio.cgi?action=view&link=_Iditarider_2008&image=_MG_0466_FM5D.jpg&img=100&search=Martin&cat=all&tt=&bool=phrase
the story of a wreck on the sled (because the dogs were unfamiliar with the underpass on the course) and having the passenger roll out
This sort of thing apparently happens with some frequency in the Anchorage part of the course, especially at the first turn, which some teams take too fast. That's a popular place for spectators, and there were certainly a lot there this year. The snowbanks were high enough that you could get a very good view. No one wiped out while I was there, though.
But I really do think the primary axes of dislike of the hipster are the thoughts that there's no there there, and that what there there there is has primarily to do with organizing the right signs of there-ness about oneself.
I think there's also a suspicion of the combination of all the elements: you're not just doing the facial hair and the fixie, but you're also raising chickens and instagram-ing and whatever else. It's one thing to see others doing something retro/distinctive that you want to try for yourself, it's another to envelope yourself in an entire persona.
I love to see people doing insane, idiosyncratic, impractical things; the best thing Art Garfunkel ever did IMO is to walk across the country with no purpose in mind (and no book, no photo documentation, not even a song). Whenever I see someone doing something that they're totally into that's kind of crazy, it makes me feel better about people. But hipsterdom (of the 1890s type, anyway) seems to be about a very conformist pursuit of idiosyncrasy. "We're all individuals." "I'm not." "Shhh!" I don't think it's the worst thing in the world, but that makes it easy to dismiss.
To follow up on 28.1, I stopped by the Iditarod Store on my lunch break to see if the hats had been marked down. They had not, and were in fact remarkably expensive.
I guess I might have to wait until the race actually ends.
