| Square
to be hip Bohemian
Manifesto |
|
Nobody can say John Leland lacks cred. There are even Public Enemy lyrics about him, yo—so says Chuck D according to Hip: The History’s dust-jacket author bio. Leland was once editor in chief of Details, a somewhat more dubious distinction, as well as a reporter for the New York Times. None of this quite explains the ponderous tone of this streetwise pedantry. What should be a sexy topic transmogrifies into tedium, with sentences to trip up the most dedicated scholar of hopheads and hip hop. There is much that sounds like this: “Within hip’s juggernaut is a quest for the real, a belief that enlightenment involved stripping away sophistication, not adding it... Hip promises truth received, not constructed. It belongs to the gnostic or visionary tradition.” Such sentiment will no doubt please the “bohemians, beboppers, action painters, hippies, punks, hip-hoppers, etc.” who want to fight the power over a couple of pints. Hip takes subculture very, very seriously, exploring drugs (“To peel the onion a little, there are hipsters who happen to use junk; people who use it to be hip; and people who live vicariously through the dope use of others.”), the digital world (which has roots, as does everything hip in the Leland scheme of things, in the jazz ensemble), and women in the hip life (there aren’t many—it’s tough going for the hipster woman). The book begins with slaves arriving in America and ends with a deconstruction of the wigga, and most of what happens in between has to do arguing against the stereotypical understanding between black “hipness” and white “appropriation.” It’s refreshing. The book is worth slogging through; the reporting is awe-inspiring and most of the arguments plausible as well as pleasantly counter-intuitive. The lack of humor seems intentional, as if even the smallest joke would betray the book as a discussion of nothing more than fashion. Of course there’s more to hipsterism than that—maybe you can even believe that it’s the quasi-spiritual quintessentially American philosophical movement Leland suggests. Further. On
the same topic but with an opposite approach, Laren Stover offers
Bohemianism Manifesto. This book also lacks humor—sadly, it’s
not for lack of trying. Who this book is for is anyone’s guess;
it’s presented as one of those guides to stereotypes, and
those are always fun, but this one’s gauzy watercolors of
fantastically attractive people wearing headscarves and turtlenecks
and creative facial hair seem to be designed to flatter. And given
the emphasis on “Bohemian hygiene” in the book—Bohemians,
you see, are casual about bathing, but when they do wash, they frequently
use Dr. Bronner’s soap and toothpaste with exotic names, which
they will forget. Insightful, right?—the example Bohemians’
prettiness is impressive indeed. There is much discussion of the
sort of car a Bohemian will drive (You guessed it, old Mini Coopers,
Citreons, Volvos. Not, sorry, a rusted Cavalier.) the food he or
she will eat (tofu, lobster, canned beans), the clothes to wear
(snooze). Bohemians are broken down into classifications—gypsy,
zen, nouveau, etc—but these lack punch. It all runs together
into a blur of frolicking, promiscuity, Baudelaire and cheap red
wine. What this book needs is malice. Stover previously write The
Bombshell Manual of Style, a frothy, harmless little thing. But
unlike Josh Aiello’s A Field Guide to the Urban Hipster (Broadway,
2003) it’s as though Stover can’t decide if she’s
mocking or envying “Bohemians,” and without some bite,
it’s like a playfully insulting drugstore Valentine—embarrassing,
confusing and not quite accurate.
|
|
 |
COLUMNS |
| MUSIC MOVIES BOOKS |
| PLUS: |