May 10, 2010
WHAT ABOUT STYLE
THAT AIN'T EVEN yr style
another styles of men
Friday night Pillow and I were talk talking about (gulp) that Tavi and her blogsite and (gulp gulp) those harpies at blogsite Jezebel who L.O.V.E. her serious. And, specifically, a weeks long interchange between Tavi and her fans (@Jezebel and stuff) about Sassy Magazine, her collection of Sassy Magazines, lots of scans. It is remarkable to observe women in their twenties and thirties embracing/celebrating the embrace/celebration of their own Youth Information by a starry-headed tween receiving it for the first time....it's really clarifying the butter for me----I'm getting flashes of Gestalt!
I have two memories of Sassy Magazine:
---About 8; dentist's office waiting room; someone has left the issue with Kurt and Courtney on the cover underneath their seat; I bring it home (it's not so transformative or special to me).
---About 9; my friend's hot older brother's girlfriend leaves an issue on their sun porch; I pick it up and leaf through it, but I can hardly recall its contents because we found a Penthouse Magazine under hot older brother's bed that same afternoon and its contents (stuff hot older brother thought was hot) left a greater mark...At the time, I had subscriptions to Seventeen and Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, and I liked to buy YM too. I watched Aarron Spelling shows and tons of network sitcoms and My So-Called Life and the full MTV. I listened to "alternative music station," 96X, and shopped for "grunge clothes, skull caps, baby tees, babydoll dresses, barrettes, body suits, mini-backpacks, body glitter, ankhs and sunflowers" at Contempo Casuals and The Limited Too (and [thrills!] Todd Oldham and Betsey Johnson, in moderation).....these were the popular choices, the choices that "might bring me in the range of older and sexy (??!!!)," that ranged from childish to child-tryin'-to-be-a-teen-ish.
Between 1990 and 1995 (Sassy was published between '88 and '96), Courtney Love and Brenda Walsh and Kurt Cobain and Taylor Dayne and Six LeMeure and Chloe Sev- and Donnie Wahlberg and Janet Jackson and Joey Lawrence and Snoop Dogg and Cher Horowitz and Axl Rose and Rayanne Graff and Perry Farrell and Whitley Gilbert (and and and) were, for me, as one---a lot of "grown" folk. I got to feel cool by absorbing and reflecting any of a conglomerated-"adult material," and by, in turn, rejecting kid stuff, being a kid.
As far as I can tell, Sassy was an (possible) origin point for some still-kicking Popular hipster-ism as conceived by Generation-X (like, Chloe Sev- and Spike Jonze were interns and there were DIY projects), a volume full of spunky angst and a load of anti-Pop/anti-Big80s sentiment, cynicism, some irony, 70s redux. The teens (and writing/editing 20-somethings) of Sassy got to feel cool by dividing up my conglomerated-"adult material" into columns/piles of YES and NO, indie/"hip" (YES) and commodified/canned (NO). This was the essential line of "still-kicking Popular hipster-ism as conceived by Generation-X."---REJECTION, REJECTION of Pop and everything. One might call hipter-ism rejection-ism with a complicated strand of ironic acceptance (that is really just more rejection). This ironic acceptance strand morphed/mushroomed until it became the foggy/unwieldy/apolitical and mean punto del hipster-ism in the Aughts.
So, maybe in this naturally occurring 90s redux (of which I have been a willing participant since 2006, in my hollow fashion), people young and older, are attempting a return to "purer" ideas of hipsterism/rejectionism, feminist political ones, indie/'zine/vegan ones. And good on them. But I'll never be able to draw out stuff that wasn't there to start with: anti-Establishment feeling (WE LOVE AN ESTABLISHMENT!).
WE LOVE LOVE LOVE AN ESTABLISHMENT.
See, Tavi (how random to even know who she is, Internets!) wrote this about Sassy,
So, in 1992 or 3, Birkenstocks and Uggs were in a magazine that focused on more obscure fashion for dorkier teenage girls. Nowadays, an outfit from Pink or Abercrombie is incomplete without either of these shoes, and a gold-plated iPhone whose memory is overloaded with Justin Bieber videos can commonly be found conveniently hidden inside an Ugg boot as part of texting-during-class strategies. Not quite sure what to make of this.
It makes me a little sad. What does she mean by "obscure" and "dorkier" (I think these represent some of the Great Lies of hipster-ism), and why isn't she texting her friends in class?
Justin Bieber and decorative cell phone covers and passing notes in whatever form are GREAT. And klar-ly Tavi gets hers by feeling suspicious of and superior to "commodity culture cheerleaders"--the olde high school insider and high school outsider story--which is NOT ENLIGHTENED (and just runs and runs). It's anti-fun, anti-human, quite sinister, really.
She'd do best to understand both worlds, "inside" and "outside." In so doing, she would find there is little space between them (especially now)...that they don't even exist except in real-talk education and money matters (like, those are the only things that divide us, when they do). And that knowledge enough to navigate it ALL (while being ultimately self-reliant) is key...
(Anyhow, her "schoolyard outsider/dork pose" feels super disingenuous now that she's famous.)
Tavi throws around the word "subversive" when discussing Sassy Magazine. She thinks Generation X was subversive. She is wrong; Generation X was not subversive. They were all tragic about how they couldn't be subversive like their parents had been/done, about how the old subversive material had been consumed and rehashed so totally by "the Man," about how their parents had become "the Man."
OMG Whatever!
Subversion (how vague) without real socio-political ends (vaguer still, sorry) is subversion-as-style. And that's cool. But Tavi, being so young, and her nostalgic Gen-X fans at Jezebel, being so narrow, seem convinced that subversion-as-style is more meaningful and legit' than most other styles. And it just ISN'T.
THAT AIN'T EVEN yr style
another styles of men
Friday night Pillow and I were talk talking about (gulp) that Tavi and her blogsite and (gulp gulp) those harpies at blogsite Jezebel who L.O.V.E. her serious. And, specifically, a weeks long interchange between Tavi and her fans (@Jezebel and stuff) about Sassy Magazine, her collection of Sassy Magazines, lots of scans. It is remarkable to observe women in their twenties and thirties embracing/celebrating the embrace/celebration of their own Youth Information by a starry-headed tween receiving it for the first time....it's really clarifying the butter for me----I'm getting flashes of Gestalt!
I have two memories of Sassy Magazine:
---About 8; dentist's office waiting room; someone has left the issue with Kurt and Courtney on the cover underneath their seat; I bring it home (it's not so transformative or special to me).
---About 9; my friend's hot older brother's girlfriend leaves an issue on their sun porch; I pick it up and leaf through it, but I can hardly recall its contents because we found a Penthouse Magazine under hot older brother's bed that same afternoon and its contents (stuff hot older brother thought was hot) left a greater mark...At the time, I had subscriptions to Seventeen and Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, and I liked to buy YM too. I watched Aarron Spelling shows and tons of network sitcoms and My So-Called Life and the full MTV. I listened to "alternative music station," 96X, and shopped for "grunge clothes, skull caps, baby tees, babydoll dresses, barrettes, body suits, mini-backpacks, body glitter, ankhs and sunflowers" at Contempo Casuals and The Limited Too (and [thrills!] Todd Oldham and Betsey Johnson, in moderation).....these were the popular choices, the choices that "might bring me in the range of older and sexy (??!!!)," that ranged from childish to child-tryin'-to-be-a-teen-ish.
Between 1990 and 1995 (Sassy was published between '88 and '96), Courtney Love and Brenda Walsh and Kurt Cobain and Taylor Dayne and Six LeMeure and Chloe Sev- and Donnie Wahlberg and Janet Jackson and Joey Lawrence and Snoop Dogg and Cher Horowitz and Axl Rose and Rayanne Graff and Perry Farrell and Whitley Gilbert (and and and) were, for me, as one---a lot of "grown" folk. I got to feel cool by absorbing and reflecting any of a conglomerated-"adult material," and by, in turn, rejecting kid stuff, being a kid.
As far as I can tell, Sassy was an (possible) origin point for some still-kicking Popular hipster-ism as conceived by Generation-X (like, Chloe Sev- and Spike Jonze were interns and there were DIY projects), a volume full of spunky angst and a load of anti-Pop/anti-Big80s sentiment, cynicism, some irony, 70s redux. The teens (and writing/editing 20-somethings) of Sassy got to feel cool by dividing up my conglomerated-"adult material" into columns/piles of YES and NO, indie/"hip" (YES) and commodified/canned (NO). This was the essential line of "still-kicking Popular hipster-ism as conceived by Generation-X."---REJECTION, REJECTION of Pop and everything. One might call hipter-ism rejection-ism with a complicated strand of ironic acceptance (that is really just more rejection). This ironic acceptance strand morphed/mushroomed until it became the foggy/unwieldy/apolitical and mean punto del hipster-ism in the Aughts.
So, maybe in this naturally occurring 90s redux (of which I have been a willing participant since 2006, in my hollow fashion), people young and older, are attempting a return to "purer" ideas of hipsterism/rejectionism, feminist political ones, indie/'zine/vegan ones. And good on them. But I'll never be able to draw out stuff that wasn't there to start with: anti-Establishment feeling (WE LOVE AN ESTABLISHMENT!).
WE LOVE LOVE LOVE AN ESTABLISHMENT.
See, Tavi (how random to even know who she is, Internets!) wrote this about Sassy,
So, in 1992 or 3, Birkenstocks and Uggs were in a magazine that focused on more obscure fashion for dorkier teenage girls. Nowadays, an outfit from Pink or Abercrombie is incomplete without either of these shoes, and a gold-plated iPhone whose memory is overloaded with Justin Bieber videos can commonly be found conveniently hidden inside an Ugg boot as part of texting-during-class strategies. Not quite sure what to make of this.
It makes me a little sad. What does she mean by "obscure" and "dorkier" (I think these represent some of the Great Lies of hipster-ism), and why isn't she texting her friends in class?
Justin Bieber and decorative cell phone covers and passing notes in whatever form are GREAT. And klar-ly Tavi gets hers by feeling suspicious of and superior to "commodity culture cheerleaders"--the olde high school insider and high school outsider story--which is NOT ENLIGHTENED (and just runs and runs). It's anti-fun, anti-human, quite sinister, really.
She'd do best to understand both worlds, "inside" and "outside." In so doing, she would find there is little space between them (especially now)...that they don't even exist except in real-talk education and money matters (like, those are the only things that divide us, when they do). And that knowledge enough to navigate it ALL (while being ultimately self-reliant) is key...
(Anyhow, her "schoolyard outsider/dork pose" feels super disingenuous now that she's famous.)
Tavi throws around the word "subversive" when discussing Sassy Magazine. She thinks Generation X was subversive. She is wrong; Generation X was not subversive. They were all tragic about how they couldn't be subversive like their parents had been/done, about how the old subversive material had been consumed and rehashed so totally by "the Man," about how their parents had become "the Man."
OMG Whatever!
Subversion (how vague) without real socio-political ends (vaguer still, sorry) is subversion-as-style. And that's cool. But Tavi, being so young, and her nostalgic Gen-X fans at Jezebel, being so narrow, seem convinced that subversion-as-style is more meaningful and legit' than most other styles. And it just ISN'T.
"It mortifies the soul."
...That's a phrase Abigail Adams used (so say the HBO mini-series about her hombre). A nice, funny Yankee phrase, deeply felt. And I'm not sure what part of me these pictures of Lady Gaga in Sweden mortify, but OH how they do! I get that she's in the midst of her protracted "Monster phase," but...
Lot Description
A PAIR OF GEORGE III BEAD-EDGED SILVER SALTS
MARK OF ROBERT HENNELL, LONDON, 1781
Also a pair of wine coasters in the George III style, sides pierced with intersecting arches, 1986; a pair of Armada dishes, 1966; and a third Armada dish with Tudor rose, 1969
The salts, 2¼ in. (5.7 cm.) high
16 oz. (496 gr.) (7)
Estimate
£500 - £700 ($735 - $1,029)
A PAIR OF GEORGE III BEAD-EDGED SILVER SALTS
MARK OF ROBERT HENNELL, LONDON, 1781
Also a pair of wine coasters in the George III style, sides pierced with intersecting arches, 1986; a pair of Armada dishes, 1966; and a third Armada dish with Tudor rose, 1969
The salts, 2¼ in. (5.7 cm.) high
16 oz. (496 gr.) (7)
Estimate
£500 - £700 ($735 - $1,029)
Lot Description
Albert Williams (b. 1922)
A summer bouquet
signed 'Albert Williams' (lower centre)
oil on board
14¼ x 18 in. (36.2 x 45.8 cm.)
Estimate
£1,000 - £1,500 ($1,470 - $2,205)
Albert Williams (b. 1922)
A summer bouquet
signed 'Albert Williams' (lower centre)
oil on board
14¼ x 18 in. (36.2 x 45.8 cm.)
Estimate
£1,000 - £1,500 ($1,470 - $2,205)
Verses
"Letter to N.Y."
Elizabeth Bishop
(1950?)
{first lines redacted!}
For Louise Crane
Where the road goes round and round the Park
and the meter glares like a moral owl,
and the trees look so queer and green
standing alone in big black caves
and suddenly you're in a different place
where everything seems to happen in waves,
and most of the jokes you just can't catch,
like dirty words rubbed off a slate,
and the songs are loud but somehow dim
and it gets so terribly late,
and coming out of the brownstone house
to the gray sidewalk, the watered street,
one side of the buildings rises with the sun
like a glistening field of wheat.
--Wheat, not oats, dear. I'm afraid
if it's wheat it's none of your sowing,
nevertheless I'd like to know
what you are doing and where you are going.
Elizabeth Bishop
(1950?)
{first lines redacted!}
For Louise Crane
Where the road goes round and round the Park
and the meter glares like a moral owl,
and the trees look so queer and green
standing alone in big black caves
and suddenly you're in a different place
where everything seems to happen in waves,
and most of the jokes you just can't catch,
like dirty words rubbed off a slate,
and the songs are loud but somehow dim
and it gets so terribly late,
and coming out of the brownstone house
to the gray sidewalk, the watered street,
one side of the buildings rises with the sun
like a glistening field of wheat.
--Wheat, not oats, dear. I'm afraid
if it's wheat it's none of your sowing,
nevertheless I'd like to know
what you are doing and where you are going.
Love In This Club
Alpha works in a restaurant--a rather popular restaurant in the M-town. This is important to bring up if you're not a fellow staffer reading this (I forget whether we have an outside appeal).
...To say Mother's Day brunch was the Spirit Rape of the Century is an understatement. God love all those who decided to come out today IN THIS ECONOMY...
In any event, my afternoon was mostly filled with drinking on the company dime, then drinking some more while seeing Iron Man 2 (ScarJo sucks dicks in hell), and then drinking a little bit more (so close to being a mafia wife minus any real mafia connections!). Lotta drinking, you see...
Then, while rounding out my drunken routine (McDonalds #2 with a diet coke, thank you), this song came on. Mind you, Memphis has a new "Generation X" station, which is extremely hit or miss (sometimes you hear Color Me Badd, mostly you hear Barenaked Ladies), but I had yet to hear this track. In years. And it sort of, for a whole four minutes, brought me back to earth.
Cuz sometimes your mom's dying on Mother's Day, and you're overworked and waaay underpaid, and guys that broke your face (and guys that threatened to break your face) just keeping showing up, but still, y'know what? It's all okay. I actually pulled the car over by Pillow's house (it's on the way) to stop and sing along (I still know all the words, after 15 years). Please do enjoy...
...To say Mother's Day brunch was the Spirit Rape of the Century is an understatement. God love all those who decided to come out today IN THIS ECONOMY...
In any event, my afternoon was mostly filled with drinking on the company dime, then drinking some more while seeing Iron Man 2 (ScarJo sucks dicks in hell), and then drinking a little bit more (so close to being a mafia wife minus any real mafia connections!). Lotta drinking, you see...
Then, while rounding out my drunken routine (McDonalds #2 with a diet coke, thank you), this song came on. Mind you, Memphis has a new "Generation X" station, which is extremely hit or miss (sometimes you hear Color Me Badd, mostly you hear Barenaked Ladies), but I had yet to hear this track. In years. And it sort of, for a whole four minutes, brought me back to earth.
Cuz sometimes your mom's dying on Mother's Day, and you're overworked and waaay underpaid, and guys that broke your face (and guys that threatened to break your face) just keeping showing up, but still, y'know what? It's all okay. I actually pulled the car over by Pillow's house (it's on the way) to stop and sing along (I still know all the words, after 15 years). Please do enjoy...
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