the gimmicks of american apparel vs. the gimmicks of urban outfitters
by Brandon Scott Gorrell (via his tumblr)
I’ve wondered what argument I’d be making if the situation were reversed, if a group of white kids had done the same to a black man without uttering a word. I doubt I’d be stepping into the public melee to say, ‘Wait a minute—maybe these kids were race neutral and they just happened to choose a black guy today.’ And that’s clearly racism on my part, an unwillingness to see everyone as equal.
—from an article by John Conroy in Chicago Magazine about his experience being mugged
Caring for Your Introvert
I almost wanted to think this article is a piece of satire, but given the way I could relate to it, I think it is, in fact, serious. A few choice quotes:
“[S]omeone you know, respect, and interact with every day is an introvert, and you are probably driving this person nuts.”
“[M]any actors, I’ve read, are introverts, and many introverts, when socializing, feel like actors.”
The rage and self-loathing associated with hipsters has become more annoying, more naive, and more artificial than hipsters could ever hope to be. […] [W]hat remains for artists and bohemians who are legitimately trying to be part of a counterculture? You get the sense that if Jimi Hendrix were to show up in Echo Park today, he’d be publicly mocked in a style section piece on blipsters for wearing a feathered fedora.
—from another (very good) article on hipsters
A few years ago the Mexican novelist Mario Bellatin attended one of those literary conferences here where writers are asked to talk about their own favorites. Unwilling to make a choice, he invented a Japanese author named Shiki Nagaoka and spoke with apparent conviction about how deeply Nagaoka had influenced him, fully expecting the prank to be unmasked during the question-and-answer period.
—from an article on Mario Bellatin
Facebook is the new AOL
Also see part two.
The trick was that Eminem made the performance of his own pop-cultural role the subject of his music. Instead of music about violence, he made music about our awkward, hypocritical relationship with violence. Instead of music with swear words, he made music about the moralizing around bad language. He summed this up best on ‘The Real Slim Shady,’ where he rapped, ‘Will Smith don’t gotta cuss in his raps to sell records / Well I do, so fuck him and fuck you, too.’
—from ‘Rhymes With Aguilera’ on n+1
‘The Catcher in the Rye,’ published in 1951, is still a staple of the high school curriculum, beloved by many teachers who read and reread it in their own youth. The trouble is today’s teenagers. Teachers say young readers just don’t like Holden as much as they used to. What once seemed like courageous truth-telling now strikes many of them as ‘weird,’ ‘whiny’ and ‘immature.’
—Kids don’t like The Catcher in the Rye anymore. I find that ‘weird,’ ‘whiny’ and ‘immature’.
As Van Meegeren produced more and more Vermeers, there were more and more Van Meegeren Vermeers to “authenticate” the new ones that came on the market. […] Forgeries used to authenticate other forgeries by the same forger, and in the case of Van Meegeren, forgeries that helped increase the sale price of later forgeries in the same style.
—from the article entitled ‘Bamboozling Ourselves’ by Errol Morris concerning art forger Han van Meegeren
One problem with the neighbourhood is that all the hipsters are very selective on their coffee. They all clutter in this tiny, trendy coffee shop, and then the other shops go out of business. So I think on one hand, the hipster should be a little bit more tolerant of his coffee, because he’s missing out on great places, and great mixture of culture. On the other hand, maybe some of the diners should buy an espresso machine.
—Michel Gondry on living in Brooklyn
