The Constorium of Greater Minds

On a quiet night the rhythmic pulse of the train reverberates off the hillside and is absorbed by the ocean below. There is a nearly full moon in the sky and I think of you. My thoughts are carried on the cool breeze of early summer and I feel soothed in the satisfying embrace of a melancholic evening spent alone. I am alone and as far as I know you are alone and as far as I know you are not alone. Breath deep the cool night air and let it comfort you in your solitude.

via paul mittleman on the honeyeeblog – i once read an entire book about the science and theory of memes, i think i understood 10% of it…

“These tastemakers surf the obscure niches of the culture market bringing back fashion-forward nuggets of coolness for their throngs of grateful disciples.

Second, in order to cement your status in the cultural elite, you want to be already sick of everything no one else has even heard of.”

Lord of the Memes
NY Times Op-Ed
Published: August 7, 2008
By DAVID BROOKS

All my life I’ve been a successful pseudo-intellectual, sprinkling quotations from Kafka, Epictetus and Derrida into my conversations, impressing dates and making my friends feel mentally inferior. But over the last few years, it’s stopped working. People just look at me blankly. My artificially inflated self-esteem is on the wane. What happened?

Existential in Exeter

Dear Existential,

It pains me to see so many people being pseudo-intellectual in the wrong way. It desecrates the memory of the great poseurs of the past. And it is all the more frustrating because your error is so simple and yet so fundamental.

You have failed to keep pace with the current code of intellectual one-upsmanship. You have failed to appreciate that over the past few years, there has been a tectonic shift in the basis of good taste.

You must remember that there have been three epochs of intellectual affectation. The first, lasting from approximately 1400 to 1965, was the great age of snobbery. Cultural artifacts existed in a hierarchy, with opera and fine art at the top, and stripping at the bottom. The social climbing pseud merely had to familiarize himself with the forms at the top of the hierarchy and febrile acolytes would perch at his feet.

In 1960, for example, he merely had to follow the code of high modernism. He would master some impenetrably difficult work of art from T.S. Eliot or Ezra Pound and then brood contemplatively at parties about Lionel Trilling’s misinterpretation of it. A successful date might consist of going to a reading of “The Waste Land,” contemplating the hollowness of the human condition and then going home to drink Russian vodka and suck on the gas pipe.

This code died sometime in the late 1960s and was replaced by the code of the Higher Eclectica. The old hierarchy of the arts was dismissed as hopelessly reactionary. Instead, any cultural artifact produced by a member of a colonially oppressed out-group was deemed artistically and intellectually superior.

During this period, status rewards went to the ostentatious cultural omnivores — those who could publicly savor an infinite range of historically hegemonized cultural products. It was necessary to have a record collection that contained “a little bit of everything” (except heavy metal): bluegrass, rap, world music, salsa and Gregorian chant. It was useful to decorate one’s living room with African or Thai religious totems — any religion so long as it was one you could not conceivably believe in.

But on or about June 29, 2007, human character changed. That, of course, was the release date of the first iPhone.

On that date, media displaced culture. As commenters on The American Scene blog have pointed out, the means of transmission replaced the content of culture as the center of historical excitement and as the marker of social status.

Now the global thought-leader is defined less by what culture he enjoys than by the smartphone, social bookmarking site, social network and e-mail provider he uses to store and transmit it. (In this era, MySpace is the new leisure suit and an AOL e-mail address is a scarlet letter of techno-shame.)

Today, Kindle can change the world, but nobody expects much from a mere novel. The brain overshadows the mind. Design overshadows art.

This transition has produced some new status rules. In the first place, prestige has shifted from the producer of art to the aggregator and the appraiser. Inventors, artists and writers come and go, but buzz is forever. Maximum status goes to the Gladwellian heroes who occupy the convergence points of the Internet infosystem — Web sites like Pitchfork for music, Gizmodo for gadgets, Bookforum for ideas, etc.

These tastemakers surf the obscure niches of the culture market bringing back fashion-forward nuggets of coolness for their throngs of grateful disciples.

Second, in order to cement your status in the cultural elite, you want to be already sick of everything no one else has even heard of.

When you first come across some obscure cultural artifact — an unknown indie band, organic skate sneakers or wireless headphones from Finland — you will want to erupt with ecstatic enthusiasm. This will highlight the importance of your cultural discovery, the fineness of your discerning taste, and your early adopter insiderness for having found it before anyone else.

Then, a few weeks later, after the object is slightly better known, you will dismiss all the hype with a gesture of putrid disgust. This will demonstrate your lofty superiority to the sluggish masses. It will show how far ahead of the crowd you are and how distantly you have already ventured into the future.

If you can do this, becoming not only an early adopter, but an early discarder, you will realize greater status rewards than you ever imagined. Remember, cultural epochs come and go, but one-upsmanship is forever.

Double post for today. This one will be more visual than lyrical. From June 18th to July 17th, I called Omiya, Saitama in Japan my home. Let me satiate your pupils for a hot second. A month long stay overseas can’t really be broke down into one post, so I’ll let it marinate over a few entries.

The Smoking Section reminds us of ’98

My favorite hip hop blog just finished off a week of articles and album reviews of one of the great years of hip hop – 1998.

Then..

I turned 12 that year, and just finished 6th grade as the new kid in my middle school. I met one of my best friends, who I’m sharing a house with 10 years later. We had uniforms at my school, but every month we had ‘free dress’ days. Everyone else would be dressed in Abercrombie, I was the only one rocking Ecko, Fubu, and anything else I could get at Mr. Rags (Urban Warfare brand for the win). I remember throwing on the Love Movement in my 5th or 6th period art class and no one feeling it while I ran through the ‘Find A Way’ lyrics in my head. Jigga and DMX killed it on my portable CD player, eating up double A batteries. Redman’s ‘I’ll Bee Dat’ got put on repeat when I wanted to go crazy in my room. I was introduced to the Wu through Outkast’s ‘Skew It On the Bar-B’ with Raekwon. I listened to ‘Rosa Parks’ over and over to figure out Three Stacks’ verse. I’m pretty sure this is the first year I got shut down by a shorty too. My dad bought DJ Quik’s Rhythm-Al-Ism and Big Pun’s Capital Punishment for… himself after I put him on ‘Hand In Hand’ & ‘Still Not A Player.”

Now…

I just wish I could tell my 12-year old self, ‘you’ll do alright, kid’ and end up with stories that you never thought you’d ever have the luck of telling.

When…

In 2018 I’ll be 32, but I’ll look like I’m 24, so it will be alright. I got carded for a rated R movie a couple weeks ago and some old lady thought I was still in high school at a dinner party. Hopefully I’ll be married or engaged by then and be doing something crazy ill with design. I should be on my second or third trip to Japan by then too. Other than that, who knows, it never works out as you planned does it?

Peace from ’08 ’til Infinity.

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it’s the top of the summer – time for some of the classic tracks of yore to get you through the second half.

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fresh prince and jazzy jeff – summertime

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lost boyz – summertime

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Basically weather over here in Sea-Town has been nuts. Clear skies, a light breeze, and that thing we call the sun. However, the one day that we plan a barbecue, it grays up and starts raining. We had 25 forties, a bunch of meat, and homies coming over. Thank god for covered car ports. Thanks to everyone who came out, and yes there will be a sequel. Perhaps with sangria and seafood, but probably not because that shit is expensive.

the virgins – rich girls
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As the new draft pick for the Consortium team, I bring to you my first post. Let’s make it an introduction since many of you might not know me.

I was born a Gemini on Friday the 13th in the Pacific Northwest. I spent my youth mostly in Seattle and it’s Northern regions with half of my summers up in Richmond/Vancouver Canada. I just graduated the University of Washington, which is where I met Alex and then Nick when he visited a year or so ago.

What will I be dropping on you?

Life in the Emerald (City) no doubt. Streetwear/shoe criticisms, maybe. A lot of reminiscing (word to Pete & CL) and thoughts of young man trying to make it in his field (industrial design). and Hip Hop. I’ll be talking about that a lot, and referring to it even more. I already did in this post.

Let me end quick like, so pump up the volume like Rakim and dream of the Sesame Street I wish I had when I was a kid.

bert & ernie – ante up
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