tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10736511.post116478887198269440..comments2024-02-07T18:15:56.601+11:00Comments on Footpath Zeitgeist: The nostalgia of the streetMelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08987383983530564029noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10736511.post-12891343490923244812007-03-19T20:16:00.000+11:002007-03-19T20:16:00.000+11:00Hi Mel,Love reading your blog. It's very insightfu...Hi Mel,<BR/><BR/>Love reading your blog. It's very insightful. I linked you in a post I made on my blog, taitischia.com/blog. <BR/><BR/>Please keep updating, I'd very much like to hear more of your thoughts.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10736511.post-30597835524925931102006-12-31T15:50:00.000+11:002006-12-31T15:50:00.000+11:00It's interesting to read peoples take on your pers...It's interesting to read peoples take on your personality and motivation. It's funny how when you start to put yourself out there you become reduced to series of tags so people can slot you neatly into a pidgeon hole in their head. I also always love it when people let "buzz" affect their opinion on a band. I'm guilty of it too.<br /><br />Nice blog.<br /><br />Johnny, Children CollideAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10736511.post-1165111526547342272006-12-03T13:05:00.000+11:002006-12-03T13:05:00.000+11:00I'm still thinking about it, but for this particul...I'm still thinking about it, but for this particular paper I'm looking at the depoliticisation of the flashmob because I'm interested in debunking the common cultural-studies idea of the street as a radical space.Melhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08987383983530564029noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10736511.post-1165107534527545872006-12-03T11:58:00.000+11:002006-12-03T11:58:00.000+11:00Indeed. That Bill Wasik article is full of interes...Indeed. That Bill Wasik article is full of interesting stuff. I read it some time ago now and the discussion keeps coming back to me. I really like the point about hipster accretion around certain items/events/happennings/bands/books etc etc.<BR/><BR/>I'd be interested to know what you're saying about it and/or how you're using it, Mel.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10736511.post-1165042040210007192006-12-02T17:47:00.000+11:002006-12-02T17:47:00.000+11:00Children Collide are also really unimpressive live...Children Collide are also really unimpressive live. I was sure the drummer was speeding up as each song progressed. <BR/><BR/>Bill Wasik (whose writing on flashmobbing I've been returning to as I write this paper), has some <A HREF="http://www.harpers.org/MyCrowd_03.html" REL="nofollow">interesting thoughts</A> on hipster music:<BR/><BR/><I>Indeed, one could perceive something palpably different, something animal, in the hipster species when the Strokes came over the speakers; and it was, I think, the reckless, self-abnegating joy of this simple unanimity, of oneness for its own sake. The Strokes made a natural object of this unanimity because their sound — derivative candy, 1970s punk simplicity dressed up with some 1990s indie-rock aloofness — was an easy common denominator. They were no Pixies, no Fugazi, no Joy Division, no band to which pledging allegiance implied the endorsement of a principle. They were, moreover, easily discarded, and the top-band mantle has been passed many times since then, in rapid succession—to equally derivative groups possessing the required sheen of sophistication, such as Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, Bloc Party, and, as of this writing, an outfit called Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.</I>Melhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08987383983530564029noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10736511.post-1164975214775690292006-12-01T23:13:00.000+11:002006-12-01T23:13:00.000+11:00Way to get me all excited on a Friday night... My ...Way to get me all excited on a Friday night... My topic for a potential PhD (one doesn't like to presume things about availability of scholarships etc etc) is to do with political nostalgia in Germany and post-Soviet states. I'm also thinking of talking about the ALP, just for the hell of it.<BR/><BR/>Obviously that's of fairly little relevance here, so I'll move on to something more pertinent. I've been listening to the Children Collide CD and drumming up a review. To my shame, I've never seen the band even though (...or perhaps because?) I knew there was substantial buzz.<BR/><BR/>The CD has left me disappointed. I hear nothing but nostalgia and irony. The question of affect is interesting to me here because it's music. And one of the primary categories for me -- and a billion others -- in assessing music is the feeling one gets from a song. In Children Collide I hear some riffs and I hear some ham-fisted attempts at lyrics, but I don't hear any genuine emotion spilling out of either.<BR/><BR/>To give away the first line of my review, it sounds to me like two dudes -- and a substantial audience of hipsters -- recreating the days when "Recovery" was on the telly. So while there might be affect in the nostalgic component of this, when the music enters in, I think that sentiment becomes strangled and lost. The affect of the nostalgic feeling for this style of music is useless in creating affecting music – whatever the overflowing sentiment of the moment prior to turning amps on, hitting drums etc., the music made thereafter carries none of that or any other feeling. The music becomes a referent and a signpost for something else. It's a kind of cipher. Not meaningless, per se, but definitely emptied out of broader emotional resonance.<BR/><BR/>And then, of course, one looks at the press photos and sees that the grunge nostalgia only goes so far. These two hottt boys wouldn't be seen dead in flannies and ill-fitting jeans. I think they present an interesting example of bricolage -- quite consciously assembling an appealing package from a bunch of options. But also an example of the way, as you say, hipster fashion can take its cues from the past but always with an eye on the present.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10736511.post-1164925651323608452006-12-01T09:27:00.000+11:002006-12-01T09:27:00.000+11:00yo, i think this is excellent. in terms of the pap...yo, i think this is excellent. in terms of the paper I think you should leave it as is!! You are on the ball with your observations and relation to the present. <BR/><BR/>One tangent: The spatial versus meditatised nostalgia could also be read in terms of potential, close to what Jameson is talking about in terms of intensities. The street is a space of potentiality. The flyer is signaling a certain kind of qualitative potential, of something that is going to happen (ie an event for hipsters). Perhaps this is too much for a 20 min paper? I want to know how the potential of the street and the sign-posted potential of the flyer implicate bodies in action. What is the hipster action? You do it with the imagining, which may be a way in. There it is not so much "I am a hipster" but isn't it more a question of "I've got it going on" sort of thing? This 'going on' is both an action and an event (of belonging). I guess I am asking what are the events, how does the meaning of the nostalgia work within these events? Is it a seduction with peeps bumping flesh after sweaty nights of drinking?<BR/><BR/>In terms of the general question of recycled fashions i think there is a point to be made about the durability of clothing of actual 'vintage' versus the production of new 'vintage'. Isn't this a technology question that is of the technology of clothing durability versus clothing production?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com