Lackey's Ramblin's

For something that is by definition subjective, hip is astoundingly uniform across the population. It is the beatitude of Thelonious Monk at the piano, or the stoic brutality of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, performing songs of drugs and sadomasochism as a projector flashed Andy Warhol's films on their black turtlenecks. It is the flow of Jack Kerouac's "bop prosody" or Lenny Bruce's jazzed-out satire, or the rat-a-tat tattoo of James Ellroy's elevated pulp lit. Walt Whitman was hip; Lord Buckley was hip; Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is too hip for her own good. Hip is the way Miles Davis talked, dressed, played or just stood - and the way Bob Dylan, after his own style, followed in kind (though both men strayed into injudicious leather in the 1980s). The streets of Williamsburg in Brooklyn or Silver Lake in Los Angeles comprise a theme park in the key of hip. Its gaze is the knowing, raised eyebrow of Dawn Powell or Kim Gordon, bassist in the downtown band Sonic Youth - skeptical but not unkind.
From HIP: THE HISTORY, By John Leland
Newsweeek Sept 27, 2004

Posted by David at 06:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For something that is by definition subjective, hip is astoundingly uniform across the population. It is the beatitude of Thelonious Monk at the piano, or the stoic brutality of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, performing songs of drugs and sadomasochism as a projector flashed Andy Warhol's films on their black turtlenecks. It is the flow of Jack Kerouac's "bop prosody" or Lenny Bruce's jazzed-out satire, or the rat-a-tat tattoo of James Ellroy's elevated pulp lit. Walt Whitman was hip; Lord Buckley was hip; Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is too hip for her own good. Hip is the way Miles Davis talked, dressed, played or just stood - and the way Bob Dylan, after his own style, followed in kind (though both men strayed into injudicious leather in the 1980s). The streets of Williamsburg in Brooklyn or Silver Lake in Los Angeles comprise a theme park in the key of hip. Its gaze is the knowing, raised eyebrow of Dawn Powell or Kim Gordon, bassist in the downtown band Sonic Youth - skeptical but not unkind.
From HIP: THE HISTORY, By John Leland
Newsweeek Sept 27, 2004

Posted by David at 06:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Wired News: Straight Dope on the IPod's Birth

"Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like," Jobs told the Times. "That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."

Posted by David at 02:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)