I REALLY DO LOVE SPAGHETTI THOUGH

This is really probably my favorite short story of all time. Its by Haruki Murakami, its retold (sort of) in his book "the wind up bird chronicles". Though frankly I like this version better.


To wit:



Nineteen-seventy-one was the Year of Spaghetti.

In 1971, I cooked spaghetti to live, and lived to cook spaghetti. Steam rising from the pot was my pride and joy, tomato sauce bubbling up in the saucepan my one great hope in life.

I went to a cooking specialty store and bought a kitchen timer and a huge aluminum pot, big enough to bathe a German shepherd in, then went around to all the supermarkets that catered to foreigners, gathering an assortment of odd-sounding spices. I picked up a pasta cookbook at the bookstore, and bought tomatoes by the dozen. I purchased every brand of spaghetti I could lay my hands on, simmered every sauce known to man. Fine particles of garlic, onion, and olive oil swirled in the air, forming a harmonious cloud that penetrated every corner of my tiny apartment, permeating the floor and the ceiling and the walls, my clothes, my books, my records, my tennis racquet, my bundles of old letters. It was a fragrance one might have smelled on ancient Roman aqueducts.

This is a story from the Year of Spaghetti, 1971 A.D.

As a rule, I cooked spaghetti, and ate it, by myself. I was convinced that spaghetti was a dish best enjoyed alone. I can't really explain why I felt that way, but there it is.

I always drank tea with my spaghetti and ate a simple lettuce-and-cucumber salad. Id make sure I had plenty of both. I laid everything out neatly on the table and enjoyed a leisurely meal, glancing at the paper as I ate. From Sunday to Saturday, one Spaghetti Day followed another. And each new Sunday started a brand-new Spaghetti Week.

Every time I sat down to a plate of spaghetti (especially on a rainy afternoon) I had the distinct feeling that somebody was about to knock on my door. The person who I imagined was about to visit me was different each time. Sometimes it was a stranger, sometimes someone I knew. Once, it was a girl with slim legs whom I'd dated in high school, and once it was myself, from a few years back, come to pay a visit. Another time, it was William Holden, with Jennifer Jones on his arm.

William Holden?

Not one of these people, however, actually ventured into my apartment. They hovered just outside the door, without knocking, like fragments of memory, and then slipped away.

Spring, summer, and fall, I cooked and cooked, as if cooking spaghetti were an act of revenge. Like a lonely, jilted girl throwing old love letters into the fireplace, I tossed one handful of spaghetti after another into the pot.

I'd gather up the trampled-down shadows of time, knead them into the shape of a German shepherd, toss them into the roiling water, and sprinkle them with salt. Then I'd hover over the pot, oversized chopsticks in hand, until the timer dinged its plaintive note.

Spaghetti strands are a crafty bunch, and I couldn't let them out of my sight. If I were to turn my back, they might well slip over the edge of the pot and vanish into the night. The night lay in silent ambush, hoping to waylay the prodigal strands.

Spaghetti alla parmigiana

Spaghetti alla napoletana

Spaghetti al cartoccio

Spaghetti aglio e olio

Spaghetti alla carbonara

Spaghetti della pina

And then there was the pitiful, nameless leftover spaghetti carelessly tossed into the fridge.

Born in heat, the strands of spaghetti washed down the river of 1971 and vanished.

I mourn them all -- all the spaghetti of the year 1971.

When the phone rang at 3:20 p.m. I was sprawled out on the tatami, staring at the ceiling. A pool of winter sunlight had formed in the place where I lay. Like a dead fly I lay there, vacant, in a December spotlight.

At first, I didn't recognize the sound as the phone ringing. It was more like an unfamiliar memory that had hesitantly slipped in between the layers of air. Finally, though, it began to take shape, and, in the end, a ringing phone was unmistakably what it was. It was one hundred per cent a phone ring in one-hundred-per-cent real air. Still sprawled out, I reached over and picked up the receiver.

On the other end was a girl, a girl so indistinct that, by four-thirty, she might very well have disappeared altogether. She was the ex-girlfriend of a friend of mine. Something had brought them together, this guy and this indistinct girl, and something had led them to break up. I had, I admit, reluctantly played a role in getting them together in the first place.

Sorry to bother you, she said, but do you know where he is now?

I looked at the phone, running my eyes along the length of the cord. The cord was, sure enough, attached to the phone. I managed a vague reply. There was something ominous in the girls voice, and whatever trouble was brewing I knew that I didn't want to get involved.

Nobody will tell me where he is, she said in a chilly tone. Everybody's pretending they don't know. But there's something important I have to tell him, so please tell me where he is. I promise I won't drag you into this. Where is he?

I honestly dont know, I told her. I haven't seen him in a long time. My voice didn't sound like my own. I was telling the truth about not having seen him for a long time, but not about the other part (I did know his address and phone number). Whenever I tell a lie, something weird happens to my voice.

No comment from her.

The phone was like a pillar of ice.

Then all the objects around me turned into pillars of ice, as if I were in a J. G. Ballard science-fiction story.

I really don't know, I repeated. He went away a long time ago, without saying a word.

The girl laughed. Give me a break. He's not that clever. We're talking about a guy who has to make a lot of noise no matter what he does.

She was right. The guy really was a bit of a dim bulb.

But I wasn't about to tell her where he was. Do that, and next I'd have him on the phone, giving me an earful. I was through with getting caught up in other peoples messes. I'd already dug a hole in the back yard and buried everything that needed to be buried in it. Nobody could ever dig it up again.

I'm sorry, I said.

You don't like me, do you? she said suddenly.

I had no idea what to say. I didn't particularly dislike her. I had no real impression of her at all. It's hard to have a bad impression of somebody you have no impression of.

I'm sorry, I said again. But I'm cooking spaghetti right now.

I'm sorry?

I said I'm cooking spaghetti, I lied. I had no idea why I said that. But the lie had already become a part of me -- so much so that, at that moment at least, it didn't feel like a lie at all.

I went ahead and filled an imaginary pot with imaginary water, lit an imaginary stove with an imaginary match.

So? she asked.

I sprinkled imaginary salt into the boiling water, gently lowered a handful of imaginary spaghetti into the imaginary pot, set the imaginary kitchen timer for eight minutes.

So I can't talk. The spaghetti will be ruined.

She didn't say anything.

I'm really sorry, but cooking spaghetti is a delicate operation.

The girl was silent. The phone in my hand began to freeze again.

So could you call me back? I added hurriedly.

Because youre in the middle of making spaghetti? she asked.

Yeah.

Are you making it for someone, or are you going to eat alone?

I'll eat it by myself, I said.

She held her breath for a long time, then slowly breathed out. Theres no way you could know this, but I'm really in trouble. I don't know what to do.

I'm sorry I can't help you, I said.

There's some money involved, too.

I see.

He owes me money, she said. I lent him some money. I shouldn't have, but I had to.

I was quiet for a minute, my thoughts drifting toward spaghetti. Im sorry, I said. But I've got the spaghetti going, so . . .

She gave a listless laugh. Goodbye, she said. Say hi to your spaghetti for me. I hope it turns out O.K.

Bye, I said.

When I hung up the phone, the circle of light on the floor had shifted an inch or two. I lay down again in that pool of light and resumed staring at the ceiling.

Thinking about spaghetti that boils eternally but is never done is a sad, sad thing.

Now I regret, a little, that I didn't tell the girl anything. Perhaps I should have. I mean, her ex-boyfriend wasn't much to start with -- an empty shell of a guy with artistic pretensions, a great talker whom nobody trusted. She sounded as if she really were strapped for money, and, no matter what the situation, you've got to pay back what you borrow.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to the girl -- the thought usually pops into my mind when I'm facing a steaming-hot plate of spaghetti. After she hung up the phone, did she disappear forever, sucked into the 4:30 p.m. shadows? Was I partly to blame?

I want you to understand my position, though. At the time, I didn't want to get involved with anyone. That's why I kept on cooking spaghetti, all by myself. In that huge pot, big enough to hold a German shepherd.

Durum semolina, golden wheat wafting in Italian fields.

Can you imagine how astonished the Italians would be if they knew that what they were exporting in 1971 was really *loneliness*?

I LOVE KANYE WEST

Did I mention that I fucking love kanye west? I fucking love kanye west.

ROCK THE HITLER STASH BRO, IT LOOKED GOOD ON HITLER

I had to embed this from ebaums instead of youtube because, well I dont know why but anyway.

I really loved the TV show "Generation Kill" and really enjoyed Evan Wrights book by the same name. Everyone should see it because it is good and it is good to see good things so just to get that out of the way. Anyway on to this ridiculous video:

   I remember back when I was, I dont know 16 or so when the columbine shootings happened. I was sitting watching cnn in the living room when the story broke (why the hell was I home?). I remember, I think it was wolf blitzer, after running down the list of facts concerning the story and coming back from commercial. He had a moment to sort of reflect on these facts, just moments after we had all found out about it. He uttered this absolutely absurd line, something to the effect of "This is inconceivable, how could anyone do something like this? We cannot understand why this would occur." Being 16, in high school, watching this on television it immediately, to me, made complete sense. The inability of the talking heads on television, immediately afterward but also in the weeks and months afterward to comprehend this event thoroughly confused me. Again and again I heard this ridiculous rejoinder "We cannot understand". There seemed to be then, and now, as displayed in the video at the beginning of this post, this complete inability to sympathize or even attempt to sympathize with the subjects of the discussion. It struck me again when 9/11 happened. The same story. Watching television, CNN, Wolf Blitzer, terror, "We cannot understand". It seemed, again, obvious to me why people would commit acts of terror and almost inconceivable that anyone couldnt understand. Thinking about this now, and then, I realized that there was not actually any attempt to understand. I had misunderstood the statement, assuming it was some kind of searching question when it was in fact not a question but a statement of ideology, "we cannot understand", a statement of affirmation, "we will refuse to understand" refuse to even attempt to come to understanding.

   It was then, and now, an obvious line in the sand. It reminds me of the (completely fallacious) quote from Marie Antoinette "let them eat cake". It, though fictitious, illustrates this willingly ignorant stance. As if wolf Blitzer was drawing this line between himself, the columbine shooters, the "terrorists" and saying, "I cannot understand them, I refuse the validity of their ideology by not even acknowledging its existence"

   We see this same kind of willful ignorance in the report above. The reporters strongly segregate themselves from the soldiers in the piece. Stereotyping and pigeon holing them as a "digital media generation at war". They are digital, I am analog, they seem to say, completely incongruous mechanisms of communication. The best line though is the one by Even Wright "One thing about them is they kill very well in Iraq." What a completely ridiculous revision of history. The war in iraq has been one of the lowest "intensity" conflicts the united states has ever been a part of. Never mind the atom bombs of old, the my lai massacre, these kids listen to RAP and HEAVY METAL, they are inhuman! Complete animals! They listen to music about violence and this is apparently enough to condemn them as "An ultra-violent culture" "generation kill" etc. etc.. I suppose it was the 18yr old listening to drowning pool that fabricated the weapons of mass destruction as well? I suppose if they wrote "PEACE" on the lower receiver of their m4s it would somehow humanize them? I suppose the private military in the US was opposed to the war in vietnam? I suppose that in the lead up to the war in vietnam there where nationwide protests? There where of course no protests, only untill the end and some of the worst fighting had occurred, only then did anyone protest the war in vietnam. "Generation Kill" (my generation) actually started protesting the war in iraq before it even began. I would argue we had a greater show of pacifism than before any other war in american history (to my knowledge). Even the ideas of pacifism and "anti-war" is more common and more alive than it ever has been. The idea that no war is a just war is in fact so common it is almost a parody, almost empty rhetoric. But of course these mindless journalists are completely out of touch with the greater american reality, living in their magnificent fantasy lands of NPR, Gap sweaters, toyota priusis and thinly veiled class-ism. Because of intensified communication technologies we are hyper aware of violence, in any form in our society and it juts out uncomfortably, but taking this awareness as a pandemic reality is completely naive. I love rap and used to listen to Pantera when I was 16 but this is the same sort of ridiculous accusations that where made after columbine "Marylin Manson and DOOM caused columbine" or whatever nonsense. Im not saying media doesnt influence behavior (I quite emphatically agree that it does) but tupac and the battle of fallujah are completely coincidental.

   It is not the lyrics or aesthetic of the music, or the violence of video games, or the anonymity of the internet we should really be concerned with, though they are infinitely interesting. It is again, not the message but the medium itself that is the message. This intellectual "walling off" is a weak attempt to segregate the messages within a medium (and their effects) from one another. The intention is, for me, obvious. The intention is to show that the reporters, or writers or whatever, are not like these "killers" or "terrorists". And this intention is manifest specifically because these reporters are just like the people they are reporting on. They are the terrorist. They are "killers". "It's the ultimate rush -- you're going into the fight with a good song playing in the background," Do you think a reporter would have anything different to say riding into "battle"? Sure he might listen to the doors instead of ice-cube but it is really the same difference.

   In fact I would argue that this defense mechanism "we cannot understand" is part of the very ideology, the same very defense mechanism, at play in columbine and 9/11 and the war on terror itself. So by way of example: these bullies refuse to understand or sympathize with these weird kids who like DOOM or whatever and so they pick on them ("Trench coat mafia? Thats fucking GAY!"). So then these kids getting picked on respond in turn: "Oh everyone belittles me and denies my humanity so I will deny theirs and shoot them". So then they shoot up the school or whatever. Then Wolf Blitzer again "we cannot understand this!" denying again, the humanity of all of the students. "I cannot imagine what it would of been like to go through that" they say. "I cannot even imagine your humanity".

HOW 2 COP THIS?

NO ONE MAN SHOULD HAVE ALL THIS POWER

KEEPING UP WITH THE HIPSTERS

Im rewriting this one sometimes in the future . . .

   I would like to talk about what a "hipster" is or what is "hipster". Everyone disavows any knowledge or ownership of the term. "The hipster" or "hipster" is always "the other" or something far removed from the self. We run into some of the same problems when trying to define any aspect of culture. You might say "oh we can define X as "hipster"" like say for instance you drink pabst blue ribbon beer, then you are a fucking hipster. But then lets be honest we all saw "Gran Torino" and in it Clint Eastwoods character drinks pabst blue ribbon and obviously Clint Eastwood is not a "hipster". And anyway if we look at any culture we find it impossible to point to any one, or any collection of specific behaviors or items that emerge solely from that culture. So say for instance you take the british. What is most british? Tea, tweed, the queen and so on. But tea is from china. Tweed is scotish. The genealogy of the queen proves most conclusively that she is not british. So if we seek to understand "hipster" it is impossible to pay attention strictly to the "empirical data". We cannot quantify "hipster" as a series of behaviors or objects consumed. We cannot reduce it to any one or any collection of signifiers. I should say also, though I will not write at length about it (because well, its boring), that the entomology of the term hipster has a lineage that had or has, I believe, almost nothing to do with the contemporary term.

   The fact that empirical measurement has met its limitation in defining the hipster is a jumping off point. It lets you know that we have left the realm of science and “the real” .We are starting to reach the upper atmosphere of reason. We are swiftly making our way through this atmosphere and heading towards metaphysics and ideology. Lets see how high we can get, shall we?

   The definition of "hipster" as an aesthetic or culture or even verb or adjective is of the immaterial. What then is definitive of the ideology or metaphysics of "hipster"? I would posit that it is this: Irony and the postmodern symbol reversal. Lets take an example, though do not get confused thinking the example is a concrete depiction:

   Take your generic "wolf shit". A wolf shirt is just a bad tacky item low class people wear, mostly people who live in the mountains and so on. Ok so then this person who has this hipster ideology or sense of irony comes along and thinks "oh that shirt is so hilariously bad its good and now I want one". So then he gets his own wolf shirt and wears it and it is ironic. He has took the old symbol value, a genuine admiration for wolves as depicted on a screen printed t shirt and he has worn it knowingly. Like, with a wink and a nudge, he is poking fun at americana and wolves and in a broader sense even he is poking fun at screen printed t shirts. Even poking fun at the idea that you should have anything at all printed on a shirt. Its like he is saying "its absurd to have anything on this shirt and im afraid of making any statement in seriousness so I will make this absurd statement of negation instead". In doing so he is defining his ideology by its negative, specifically because defining by the positive ("I really like wolves" or whatever) would open him up to the same kind of snide criticism he has for the other people who, without irony, wear wolf shirts. Understand as well that this criticism began with criticism of himself first, not the other. The cynicism is seen first in the self critical evaluation of his own narrative and then reflected onto society as a whole. So this narrative of incredulity and insincerity is not a criticism of society so much as a criticism of his own sincerity (or lack thereof). So that in this postmodern milieu of relativity and reversal it is impossible or at least very dangerous to make any objective, sincere statement of ideology or narrative lest it be undermined or reversed.

   It does not however stop there. Things get far more confusing. "Hipster" intertwines with otherwise non "hipster" ideologies, the sorts of ideologies even non "hipsters" profess or unknowingly follow. There is with "hipsters" an element of fashion or appropriation of "cool". This drive to take up the latest fashions is not dependent on the "hipster" or modernity. Somehow or other, I suppose sociologists will explain this one day, or perhaps neuroscience, somehow it has always been an aspect of human culture to appropriate exotic things as "fashionable" and not too long after to throw them out. This pattern of behavior however is subjected to some changes by the "hipster". No longer is it enough to adopt the latest things, this would be "trendy" behavior. "hipsters" either insist that they in fact have been appropriating these things all along "Oh yeah I used to ride my bike all the time as a kid." Insisting that they had a sincere interest in this "thing" before it became fashionable or cool. An attempt to get out in front of fashion. Undermining it by preemption. Or they move in the other direction. Consume the object, modify its symbolic value and in doing so take part in the value while simultaneously rejecting it.. As in the wolf shirt example. To take a line from zizek completely out of context, “the first is caught up in it, the second undermines it by way of interpretive analysis”. It might appear that “hipster” ideology is more destructive than constructive but this is not necessarily the case. There is after all nothing “lost” in the symbolic revision of value but the intangible symbolic value. This is not a market value and as such is not recognized as value by the “hipster”.

So the narrative of the hipster then is: "This is the symbol or the meaning, I have reversed the meaning through a subversive reuse (warhols brillo pad boxes etc.) of this object." And this would be like a classic sort of postmodern narrative. A pop art mentality you might say. But this dialectic on americana (or whatever they are reusing, whatever is "retro") this dialectic hits a logical dead end. This paradigm shift was I think best described by john waters. He told this story on NPR a few years back, I will try to paraphrase it here:

   So at some point in the 1950s or 1960s they were making these horror movies. Very low budget so they had to use lots of miniatures and bad special effects and the costumes where made out of stuff you buy at the hardware store and so on. So they where making these horror movies, doing a very bad job. Now, these movies where genuinely meant to be horrifying and scary to people but because of lack of budget or talent etc., they failed miserably to achieve this goal. Then a little later there where these fans of cinema, like john waters, who where watching these films and far from being horrified or frightened while viewing them they found them hilarious. The production was so bad. The acting so bad. The dialog so bad. The entire thing was like watching someone slip and slide and fall down a bowling alley lane. It was like a prank or a gag. So these films then gained notoriety after this. Now keep in mind the transition. Horror films with the explicit cause to horrify. These horror films fail at the cause. The failure is then appreciated itself because it is such a spectacular failure. John waters described this as the transition between "good" (actual good horror film) "bad" (bad horror films inspired by good films but failing) and "bad good" (those "bad" films failing to be "good" and succeeding in being "bad good")

This is a profound series of transitions, do not take it lightly.

   So then there was this "underground" or "cult" following of "bad good" films and a genuine and sincere appreciation for the failure of a genuine and sincere attempt to make good films. At some point however, in the 80s and 90s, this whole paradigm flips again. "Bad good" becomes recognized as an aesthetic or ideology in its own right. People start making horror films with the intention of making them "bad good". They produced them badly and did not take them seriously and any errors or problems in production was just "oh that looks so cheesy, but we are making one of those "so bad its good" movies so its ok." These films however where horrible and genuinely "bad". Everyone, as john waters says, was "in on the joke". You cant try to make a "bad good" film ironically because the "bad good" films genuinely had the intent of being good. You have changed the meaning of the thing itself by reproduction and imitation of it. You have reversed the symbol and in doing so completely destroyed the value of the symbol itself. Even the idea of the film no longer had any meaningful context. After this point, john waters contends, after "bad good", an aesthetic and ideological line had been transgressed. "Bad good" no longer could happen without a knowing irony or sarcasm which destroyed the entire notion of "bad good" itself. It became just "bad" again. After this point, someplace in the late 90s, it became imperative that horror movies actually horrify and shock you. The intentions of the horror film was reconsidered. Horror became about shock, jump cuts, actual horror, instilling actual fear in the audience and being "good" at it.

   Now, in reading this, dont judge too harshly. This is not anthropological research into the history of horror cinema. It should also be said that this is not an aesthetic swinging pendulum or anything like that. This is a series of aesthetic and ideological progression in a linear sense. Surely you can find films that contradict these trends but dont get lost in the analogy is my point.

   So, then, I would say, this series of symbolic or aesthetic transgressions is where we can find our ideology of "hipster". Laden in this example is the a priori element of the "hipster". It was at that crucial moment in which "bad good" is recognized that we have some idea of the beginning of our current notion of "hipster". It is this specific aesthetic shift, this shift in the simulacra that is the essence of "hipster". At the point that the symbol (the film) reflects a profound reality (horror) we are at the first level of simulacra. Then the inaccurate symbol is created (the bad film) this denatures and devalues a profound reality (horror). As the bad film ineffectively communicates horror. Then the next symbol transition, the "bad good" film. The "bad good" film has no reference to anything of the real. It is an imitation of a symbolic form that had already lost its connection to reality. If the symbol (the trucker hat, as example) is not worn by truckers it losses all symbolic value and in doing so losses its legitimacy. It is then just a hat or mere aesthetic. Thus the search for the new aesthetic, the next "thing". But once the next "thing" is found its consumption denatures its reality and eliminates its legitimacy. Thus this ideology begins the cycle again. This also address the concern of a priori knowledge. If you have "grasped" (shall we say) the symbolic value (a musician for instance) before it is consumed and denatured you can (or attempt) to stave off or even eliminate its loss of legitimacy. Or putting it another way "Oh yeah thats cool, I was into that last year." "Yeah but did you read the book? The book is so much better."

   Nowhere in here you will notice is an actual sincere appreciation shown. A sincere appreciation would violate the ideology of the hipster and by definition would undermine the status of "cool" (or whatever). Even the preemptive appropriation of their own childhoods is in a way ironic. Never are these appropriations of ideology or culture. “Hipsters” largely regurgitate symbols and appropriate fashions independent of context and culture. The keffiyeh scarf (for fun just google the term "hipster scarf"), native-american headband and feather wearing, horribly offensive to some but appropriated independent of context and cultural meaning nonetheless. I am struck by the way a cellphone call comes into, and out of, contextually obscure space. The "hipster" ideology reflects the structure of their own reality of course. Rarely is any attention paid to context, the physical surface of the object itself carries the vast majority of its value. It is this sort of "market value” that leads quite naturally to the "hipsters" endless consumption of material goods. And largely, when we imagine the "hipster" we imagine material goods. The gravity of the consumption is in fact so incredible it almost (completely for some) erodes any notion that "hipster" could be anything at all. "Hipster" they argue, is just another term for the latest varieties of conspicuous consumption. This culture of consumption of course is part of the larger culture of consumption going on in all first world nations in the 21st century. We should not however, as I said earlier, be confused by this seeming similarity, this endless consumption of context-less objects, as it is more a symptom of our current nationwide ideology than any ideology of the "hipster".

   I believe this disregard for meaningful context and emphasis on the "surface" of objects and behaviors is where some of the use of the term "hipster" as an epithet begins. The transgression of the "hipster" assimilates both object and symbol into mere aesthetic. This kind of depersonalized empiricism is quite rational and yet leads to a wholly anti-social set of attitudes. The emphasis on surface and aesthetic disregards the "depth" of context, denatures the symbolic value, and realigns the symbol with a culture more transitory and inane than anyone would concisely want to be a part of. A vaguely nuanced nouvea rich attitude. "I think skinny pants and vans look cool but if I wear them people will call me a hipster." etc. etc. The appropriation itself is insincere and devalues the objects and behaviors. It is the this very insincerity, this emphasis on empirical meaning and no meaning beyond that (contextual or otherwise) that opens up the hipster to the accusation of inauthenticity. It is an intractable flaw in the ideology of the "hipster". If everything is open to ridicule and derisive ironic humor or parody, than no sincere statement can be made without being attacked, and so it follows no sincere statement is made. An end-run attempt to make the "hipster" intellectually unassailable. But this same ideology of symbol transgression and irony obviously opens the "hipster" up to the accusation of insincerity and inauthenticity. This ideology is amorphous and fleeting, like asymmetric warfare. The instability of the "hipster" hides behind this ideology. Nothing is certain, everything is amorphous, nobody cares, there is no meaning or context, only surface and mutability. This very ideology violates the "hipsters" own sense of self worth. This is of course why the term "hipster" is used so commonly as an epithet by other "hipsters". They are hyper aware of the intractable structural flaws within their own ideology (even if only subconsciously) and use the term with a pathological disdain born only of the most intimate familiarity. "I know what you are but what am I?" they say to themselves.

   another element in this "hipster" ideology which I cannot quite frankly understand is this way in which they are completely seduced by their own childhoods. I dont know if this is just surface ornament to the "hipster" or something pathological, much deeper and more profound. Many of the things "hipsters" appropriate seem to emerge from a sort of hallucinatory, dream like childhood. Video games, pizza parties, kick ball games, bicycles and so on. Every day is halloween. All of these journeys are second childhoods, no responsibilities. As if adult life was just a reliving of childhood experiences. Or, put another way, as if childhood was just a reliving of adult experiences (???). I dare not tread too heavily on this subject. I dont have any particularly faith in pop psychology and surely you can hazard your own guesses about whatever repressions or libidinal conflicts or whatever this may really represent. I will say however I believe this is something larger than our ideology of the "hipster" and that it in fact pervades all elements of our american culture. Disney cartoons are made to appeal to adults, college kids watch sponge bob, etc. etc.

   So the ideology of "hipster" then is not just an independent manifestation. It coalesces at its edges with a larger "american" ideology. This realization might help to explain the difficulty of defining it. You might as effectively define it by its "negative" or "affirmative", as surely if we wait long enough it will come to embody its negative ("X is cool again" etc. etc.). This line of thought however, would lead us to a place I am substantially opposed to. The sort of thinking that says "oh, hipster is something that cannot be defined" (this whole notion is the sort of thing a hipster would say anyway). I reject this idea of "no narrative". This "end of culture" narrative. This is purely a mystification of the term "hipster" and is the worst kind of obscurantism. “No ideology” is in fact an ideology. Yet another example of ideology blinding its holder to its own subjective existence (what else is ideology good for if not that?). The fact that everyone has differing opinions as to the nature of “hipster” seems to as well undermine this notion. A whole myriad of narratives on an ideology suffused with the negation of narrative. We have such a variety of narratives specifically because, "everyone is in on the joke" and “hipsters” are the punch line. If everyone is in on the joke then this ideology must be ending or coming to a substantial shift.. So an example, fixed gear bikes used to be hipster, now they are just mainstream and 12 year olds ride them. The conclusion of that whole "fixed gear thing". Everyone is in on it now.

   The "hipster" then might be called our canary in the coalmine. It is one of the most extreme aberrations of american culture and contemporary (left wing) american ideology. If the "hipster" is a fading phenomenon then we must assume they represent a greater and more substantive shift in the common american ideological milieu. What is "ending" this "hipster" ideology then? What circumvents this "hipster" ideology? This is obvious for me, technology .Technology is the solvent of culture. What technology you ask? Web 2.0 of course. Web 2.0 has caused such a profound shift in american culture it almost cannot be overestimated. All of the appropriation and symbol revision that defined the "hipster" ideology was undermined by the internet. Previously the obscure musical styling of yiddish folk singers was just that, obscure musical styling. The internet however explodes this xenophobic bohemian tradition. Now everyone is "in on it" and by extension, everyone is kind of a hipster. It follows then that if everyone is a "hipster" that "hipster" ideology itself has become denatured, fallen to its own reversal. Now, your mom wears a keffiyeh. She saw it on one of her friends blogs and thought it looked really "cool". Oprah hosts kimya dawson. "Indie" films open nation wide. Everyone knows about the next big thing. The counter-culture is countered. In the words of jay-z, "you cant bring the future back".

WHAT ARE YOU DOING AFTER THE ORGY

 
   This picture doesnt actually belong here or anything but it provides a visual "line break" between the blog posts and also people love looking at pictures. It caught your eye didnt it? Anyway, on we go:

   "throughout the "civilized" world the construction of stockpiles of objects has brought with it the complementary process of stockpiles of people - the line, waiting, traffic jams, concentration, the camp. That is "mass production," not in the sense of a massive production or for use by the masses, but the production of the masses. The masses as the final product of all sociality, and, at the same time, as putting an end to sociality, because these masses that one wants us to believe are the social, are on the contrary the site of the implosion of the social. The masses are the increasingly dense sphere in which the whole social comes to be imploded, and to be devoured in an uninterrupted process of simulation."

   Jean Baudrillard there again. Ok so, an explosion/implosion paradigm, like a stars death, a natural process, radiating at one point, then at a later time, imploding and absorbing radiation. Socialism simulates the social or is an order of simulacrum of the social (it masks the absence of a profound reality). Socialism is the black hole to the social that has/is imploding. The vacuum left by the absence of the social is filled with its implosion. We no longer care for the elderly in our own home, the emptiness is the vacuum. It is filled by the black hole, the retirement community, the implosion of the elderly. The elderly, with the collapse of the social and consequent implosion, are no longer home to care for the children while the parents work. The child vacuum of child care, day care centers, the implosion of child care. Parents once worked and produced, "Absorbed and ejected at fixed times by their work place" now however "the real of production, has disappeared."  Parents "work" and like the fission of a star or the weak force of gravity the implosion continues inexorably, the return arc of a parabola. The vacuum of work, the absence of parenthood, the simulacra of sex education (it masks and denatures a profound reality)  a natural extension of institutionalised day care and the subsequent "public" education. The implosion of parenting. The school system absorbing the radiation loosed by parents decades ago (the antiquated behavior of parents, mock outrage at sex ed classes etc.) Abstinence as a rule. The collapse of motherhood, motherhood vacuum, the instructional panel on a tampon package, the inhumanity of nature laid bare. The implosion bending light and time, accelerated and phase shifted. The very notion of it is absurd and yet it indisputably does occur. The reels of a movie changing over seamlessly and no one in the audience notices. A yawning gulf. The entropy of society. A complete recontextualization of every social concept. Accelerated implosion of energy. But where does it go? To a point. Incredible density. Mass density, mass production, mass population, mass culture, mass consumption, incredible mass. You cannot even purchase individual products anymore, it is all "synergy", you consume an entire lifestyle or brand. "Whole" foods, organic coffee, harm free textiles, "family" size, entire ideologies are purchased simultaneously. Like the frequencies in a beam of light simultaneous and invisible to the naked eye. The entire knowledge of the universe compressed into a microchip. Mass information. Your entire life experience, date of death and cause, compressed into your DNA, a indefatigable speed limit on your own ambition, compressed into inert amino acids. The vacuum decoded the human genome. The whole of "potential energy", every living thing on the planet fits on the head of a pin, science doing theology one better, yet again.

FEELING FUKUY?

First Kanye, then Fukuyama. Its like a meta-narrative diptych!:

   "Hegel maintained that all human consciousness was limited by the particular social and cultural conditions of man's surrounding environment—or as we say, by "the times." Past thought, whether of ordinary people or great philosophers and scientists, was not true absolutely or "objectively," but only relative to the historical or cultural horizon within which that person lived. Human history must therefore be seen not only as a succession of different civilizations and levels of material accomplishment, but more importantly as a succession of different forms of consciousness. Consciousness—the way in which human beings think about fundamental questions of right and wrong, the activities they find satisfying, their beliefs about the gods, even the way in which they perceive the world—has changed fundamentally over time. And since these perspectives were mutually contradictory, it follows that the vast majority of them were wrong, or forms of "false consciousness" to be unmasked by subsequent history . . .

. . . The radical nature of Hegelian historicism is hard to perceive today because it is so much a part of our own intellectual horizon. We assume that there is an historical "perspectivism" to thought and share a general prejudice against ways of thinking that are not "up to date." Historicism is implicit in the position of the contemporary feminist who regards her mother's or grandmother's devotion to family and home as a quaint holdover from an earlier age. Much as that progenitor's voluntary submission to a male-dominated culture might have been right "for her time" and may even have made her happy, it is no longer acceptable and constitutes a form of "false consciousness." Historicism is also implicit in the attitude of a black who denies that it is possible for a white person to ever understand what it means to be black. For though the consciousness of blacks and whites is not necessarily separated by historical time, they are held to be separated by the horizon of culture and experience within which each was nurtured, and across which there is only the most limited of communication."

   "Thus the nature of human desire, according to Hegel, is not given for all time, but changes between historical periods and cultures. To take one example, an inhabitant of contemporary America or France or Japan spends the greater part of his or her energies in pursuit of things—a certain type of car or athletic shoes or designer gown—or of status—the right neighborhood or school or job. Most of these objects of desire did not even exist and therefore could not have been desired in earlier times, and would probably not be desired by a present-day resident of an impoverished Third World country, whose time would be spent in search of more basic needs like security or food. Consumerism and the science of marketing that caters to it refer to desires that have literally been created by man himself, and which will give way to others in the future . Our present desires are conditioned by our social milieu, which in turn is the product of the entirety of our historical past. And the specific objects of desire are only one of the aspects of "human nature" that have changed over time; the importance of desire in relation to the other elements of human character has also evolved. Hegel's Universal History therefore gives an account not only of the progress of knowledge and institutions, but of the changing nature of man himself. For it is human nature to have no fixed nature, not to be but to become something other than it once was."

FEELING FUKUY!

This is pretty much the face I make every time I read the term "meta-narrative"

Anyway so I finally started reading "The end of history and the last man" by Francis Fukuyama. Im only like 30 pages in but its already really fucking good. I guess everyone already knows he is brilliant but anyway here is an excerpt:


"The unfolding of modern natural science has had a uniform effect on all societies that have experienced it, for two reasons. In the first place, technology confers decisive military advantages on those countries that possess it, and given the continuing possibility of war in the international system of states, no state that values its independence can ignore the need for defensive modernization. Second, modern natural science establishes a uniform horizon of economic production possibilities. Technology makes possible the limitless accumulation of wealth, and thus the satisfaction of an ever-expanding set of human desires. This process guarantees an increasing homogenizatioq of all human societies, regardless of their historical origins or cultural inheritances. All countries undergoing economic modernization must increasingly resemble one another: they must unify nationally on the basis of a centralized state, urbanize, replace traditional forms of social organization like tribe, sect, and family with economically rational ones based on function and efficiency, and provide for the universal education of their citizens. Such societies have become increasingly linked with one another through global markets and the spread of a universal consumer culture. Moreover, the logic of modern natural science would seem to dictate a universal evolution in the direction of capitalism. The experiences of the Soviet Union, China, and other socialist countries indicate that while highly centralized economies are sufficient to reach the level of industrialization represented by Europe in the 1950s, they are woefully inadequate in creating what have been termed complex "post-industrial" economies in which information and technological innovation play a much larger role."