I'm Back

Finally got the internet to work at my apartment. Get ready cause I'm gonna make it fucking rain posts on this blogosphere.

Kid Cudi - Man on the Moon: The End of the Day

All the talk of a genre forming around this and 808s and Heartbreak is bullshit. Kid Cudi was involved with both, and he's got distinctive style. End of story. Even if Kanye made it work a tad better.

Man on the Moon is a concept album–ignore it–held together by consistently amazing production. Excepting the enjoyably silly Lady Gaga/Kanye collaboration (what does it portend?!) the album is wrapped in a narcotic haze where atmosphere equals substance. Kid Cudi's lazy raps don't show an outright contempt for wordplay (ie. The Knux–teehee), but his direct, plainspoken delivery isn't half as captivating as, say, Lou Reed. More impressive than his lyrics is his conceptual vision, you know, like Thom Yorke.

The strength and unity of this minor masterpiece make me wonder if Cudi has any room to grow: another album of this shtick would be as tiresome as a sequel to 808s and Heartbreak. If there's nowhere to go from here, this lesser companion piece is a great relic to leave behind. Then again, maybe he'll mature in ways no one could predict, you know, like Thom Yorke.

Best track: "Solo Dolo (Nightmare)" four-and-a-half minutes of creepy nonsense. With nary a drum.

Also Ratatat and MGMT show up for maximum blogability. My tags prove this.

Hot Vid

Have you seen this video? It's really good. One of the best.

What I Like

Television. I will write in this space more when I stop with the Hulu and the fall premieres already. Also I have a job now.

And a final note on Infinite Jest: instead of clarifying my thoughts (it "suuuuucked"), I found a link to the original NYT book review. The review ends with a fair summation of my feelings about the book [spoiler alrert?]:

At the end, that word machine is simply turned off, leaving the reader - at least the old-fashioned reader who harbors the vaguest expectations of narrative connections and beginnings, middles and ends - suspended in midair and reeling from the random muchness of detail and incident that is "Infinite Jest."

Somewhere in the mess, the reader suspects, are the outlines of a splendid novel, but as it stands the book feels like one of those unfinished Michelangelo sculptures: you can see a godly creature trying to fight its way out of the marble, but it's stuck there, half excavated, unable to break completely free.

Bringing it all back home: Did you know this weblog post is, like, unified and shit? Well it is. John Krasinski, star of The Office, has a new job as the director/scriptwriter of the screen adaptation of DFW's short story collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. Filmed before the dude up and demapped himself, the film is already out, apparently. As soon as I know where it is playing I will see it.

Judas!

The funniest Kanye/Joe Wilson comparison I have seen. So far.

By the way

Infinite Jest suuuuucked.

Stick to essays, asshole.

"Hipster" Reclamation

Hello blogosphere. I have missed you. I apologize for my semi-prolonged sort-of absence. I have been semi-busy sort-of finding employment. I have been considering important matters.

In August I read this article from the DC Onion AV Club. The author, Matthew Borlik, argues that the word "hipster" is all but meaningless in 2009, and its usage in the Washington Post style section was silly and misguided. Borlik writes:

["Hipster" is] a word that, in the last decade, has been used and misused so often that any concrete definition has been lost in a sea of skinny jeans, Miller High Life jokes, and a complete lack of understanding regarding the concept of irony. Sure, select groups of norms will probably direct hipster comments at anyone wearing a tight T-shirt until the day they die, but you’d think that any person with even the slightest bit of culture in their lives would know better than to commit such an act of ignorance.

Soon after reading this article, I began to notice something of an anti-hipster backlash: various commentators and commenters showing little patience for hipster-bashing warhorses like "Stuff White People Like" or "Look at this F***ing Hipster"*. The easy humor of these sites being invalidated by the obvious fact that the content and page-views come exclusively from the more narcissistic members of the hipster community.

But I digress. I believe the backlash stems from what Borlik sees as the word's overuse and subsequently imprecise definition. From my conversations with friends, I approximate "hipster" in 2009 to have roughly the same meaning as "poser" did about a decade ago. That is: someone outside of a particular subculture or group who (somewhat undeservedly, and definitely inauthentically) appropriates its dress, style, or interests of the group. In the mall in 1999, I was called a "poser" for wearing Vans but not being a skater. In a record store in 2009, I would be called a "hipster" for what? Something like dressing like a bohemian/artist/creative type but not being subsequently bohemian/arty/creative?

Clearly, this would be a silly insult. But even sillier, if "hipster" as derogatory term refers not to those who "falsely" appropriate culture, but to anyone who seems to have any sort of interest in culture**. Like calling a kid in band a nerd.

My point is, as a (mostly harmless) derogatory term, "hipster" is essentially meaningless. So I say we reclaim it. Let's face it, as Borlik points out, to a certain segment of the population (ie. a lot of it) you already are a preening, self-involved hipster. So, like, go with it man. Don't deny it. Accept yourself. You're no better than that jackass with the asymmetrical haircut and the Pavement tee in the record store. Turn a negative into a positive. Reclaim the word. I hear this sort of thing works all the time.

450 words, boy am I pooped!


*(F***ing=Fucking)

**Forgive my confusing/imprecise shift in usage of culture meaning group to culture meaning like art or whatever.