Defining what’s hip and what’s not is one of the most enduring games of the last three quarters of a century. One of the things that made hip hip was that you had to be hip to get to decide what was hip, so it was, all of it, a completely inside game. Take blue jeans, for example. For well over a century, blue jeans were working men’s pants. It was the Levi Strauss company that in 1873 patented riveting the front and rear pockets to jeans, so when loaded with a thick wallet or a pair of pliers or a fistful of nails, they wouldn’t tear away from the rest of the fabric. Jeans were constructed of thick, dyed denim fabric, and people bought them so they could be worn to do any sort of heavy labor. They were nearly indestructible. The fabric didn’t easily rip, and it could take years for it to wear through.
Being hip was going to Dupont Circle with my 24 year old, way hip, Georgetown dwelling sister when I was 12 to buy the widest bottom, tightest leg pair of bellbottoms we could find, having my first few tokes, and going to Yellow Submarine on Wisconsin Avenue for a Saturday outing. Needless to say, the very fact that I remember all of it like it was yesterday is testamony to the fact that I was not then, nor ever hip. I tried. Really. Spent the next 4++ decades traveling the globe in the music industry surrounded by mondo hip people, trying to have just a wee bit of hipness rub off and coat my "American Septic" very existence. Total fail. But wait, like manna from above... When we have young people over for Thanksgiving, they ask, nay, demand, the tour jackets must come out, insist that they be regaled by the stories that roll off my tongue, each story always prefaced with the disclaimer "Believe what you wish"- and then they proclaim "you are hip" in their own way. I think it's all a show they put on just to make my aging, ailing brain feel good. Because I am very aware that I am not, and never will be, hip. And when they demand more, to bring them closer to the hip sources of the stories, I oblige. Or perhaps they simply want more wine.
Your experience reminds me of my own, Steve. As a young music obsessessive in my teens, I thought being a "rock critic" (ie. music journalist) was the epitome of hip. After going some 48 years of being one professionally, I long ago realized that rock critics are not hip.
But it has given me as well many good stories to regale the young 'uns with....
Memories of how goofy kids were. During one of his visits home, I stole my brother’s white jeans, had them taken in and wore them to every high school dance. That’s about as hip as I got.
Maybe, but hipness is a moveable feast, so your Trans-Atlantic cred would probably have made you automatically hip in the USA.
I suppose now some ultra-politically correct critics would complain that "exoticizes" you, no, really!
Opinion
France
I’m an outspoken Black woman in France – so a powerful man tried to silence me with the law
Rokhaya Diallo
"A celebrity targeted me online, but under a system that should protect all equally, I was the one charged with a criminal offence..." {{Lawfare is inherently unfair, if not carefully calibrated to try to remove the racist, sexist, classist and other biases already baked in, that's a given.}}
Wed 29 Nov 2023 02.00 EST
{{Diallo has a panoply of what look like completely righteous complaints and has been treated horribly, but it looks like she wants to push that all the way to demanding, along with reasonable retractions and cessation of despicable harassment by some neo-con kook, that anyone and everyone critical of any of her views offer a kind of "affirmative defense" that they don't "see her as `exotic,'" which frankly makes me marvel and then laugh out loud at the sheer self-aggrandizement packed into that.
But you know, if you can milk a righteous cause at all, some people will be unable to resist pushing the boundaries further and further. Her treatment is indeed something out of Kafka, though.}}
I read the article and it just infuriates - but does not surprise - me. I have a niece I love who is French so I’m not going to paint with too broad a bunch, but the entitlement of a French citizen (particularly a male) is hard to adequately describe.
(In NYC, I don’t think I was considered exotic - too many people were from different parts of the world in nyc - just as they still are.) why I still am at home there.
I’ve been that guy at one of those concerts. The second was the Temptations and the Four Tops at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre in the late 80s. Certainly felt like one of only about a dozen white people, and was just laughing inside at all of my white friends who were missing it.
The first was being one of only about a half dozen white people at a concert in Jacksonville in the mid 80s with Jimmy Witherspoon, Bobby “Blue” Bland, and B.B. King. That one was one of the greatest concert experiences of my life.
I am trying to locate the exact date in 1969 when a high school friend and I were, like you, several of only about a dozen white people at a James Brown and the Famous Flames concert, Veterans Memorial Coliseum in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. Looked at the concert lists they have posted but it's incomplete, anyway yeah, "one of the greatest concert experiences of my life" as well.
Survival strategies of the oppressed has something to do with it, the basic human love of great music helps. People who aren't religious sometimes love gospel music, for example.
I was pregnant when I outgrew my 13-button wide-leg wool sailor pants, and never got to wear them again. I’d kill for a pair now. Still wearing jeans almost every day, though.
As a teenager in the early sixties I went to see Nina Simone in Philadelphia. I was the only white person in the upper balcony. I didn’t feel I was hip then and I never became a hipster. But I’ve been to many fantastic jazz clubs and concerts. Recently my partner and I were at a club dancing to Brazilian jazz. A woman came up to us and told us we were such a cute couple. Maybe that’s better than being hip.
I just saw Judy Colllins in NYC and she's 84! She came out with a new album called Spellbound! I haven't downloaded it to my computer yet. I bought a CD autographed! It was a fun concert.
1970. As a student member of the brand new pants code for girls in school committee I sat through hours of talk about what sort of trousers might acceptably cover our nubile limbs.
The powers that be were tenaciously clear on one point: No. Jeans.
But the boys wear jeans.
No. Jeans.
But jeans are not sheer or frilly or stretchy.
No. Jeans.
But...why?
No. Jeans.
I still wonder if they thought we would all be swept away on a tide of hip.
Great description of being hip in a sophisticated way as opposed to being hip as a hippie for example "Especially in the 1960s) a person of unconventional appearance, typically having long hair, associated with a subculture involving a rejection of conventional values and the taking of hallucinogenic drugs."
Of course Sinatra was the personification of hip, but I never saw a pic of him wearing jeans :)
I do love Dylan. But I'm suspicious of the concept of hip. Allow me for a moment to be anti-hip. With the caveat that the attitudes expressed probably reflect my specific personality type.
To me hip implies a kind of group think that's counter to mainstream society's groupthink, but it's groupthink just the same. It's behavior, attitudes, style that defines a group that says this is us, not you. In that sense, what is hip can turn destructive and cruel. And in today's society, driven apart by media and social media, there are fragmented bubbles of hip. In some sense, MAGA attitudes and fascist hairstyles are also hip, to a particular bubble. I could argue that, beyond legitimate criticism of Israel, the problem of rising antisemitism is that, among a particular crowd of young, progressive people and people of color, it has become hip.
I don't think the truly hip, like Dylan, the real artistic and thought leaders, ever really think about being hip. They are what they are and do what they do and because of who they are it becomes hip, for others. As an ordinary person who has never been hip and has never been emulated by anybody except, maybe, my sister when she was a child and to her eternal embarrassment, my policy is to just do what feels comfortable to me, regardless. I do look around and try not to be too flagrantly unhip. But I also figure, that if I just wear the same type of clothes (I do wash them) and same haircut and listen to pretty much the same music every day of my life, like a stopped clock, every once in a while, someone will think I'm hip. And that's funny.
Norman Mailer's essay "The White Negro" is a cool primer on hip. "Freewheelin' was Bob's second album released in '63. His first album was simply called "Bob Dylan" released in '62. How do I know? My older sister had 'em and played them a LOT, she was hipper than hip. I was not ever hip and got scolded by my younger sister who said "You NEVER feel groovy."
Being hip was going to Dupont Circle with my 24 year old, way hip, Georgetown dwelling sister when I was 12 to buy the widest bottom, tightest leg pair of bellbottoms we could find, having my first few tokes, and going to Yellow Submarine on Wisconsin Avenue for a Saturday outing. Needless to say, the very fact that I remember all of it like it was yesterday is testamony to the fact that I was not then, nor ever hip. I tried. Really. Spent the next 4++ decades traveling the globe in the music industry surrounded by mondo hip people, trying to have just a wee bit of hipness rub off and coat my "American Septic" very existence. Total fail. But wait, like manna from above... When we have young people over for Thanksgiving, they ask, nay, demand, the tour jackets must come out, insist that they be regaled by the stories that roll off my tongue, each story always prefaced with the disclaimer "Believe what you wish"- and then they proclaim "you are hip" in their own way. I think it's all a show they put on just to make my aging, ailing brain feel good. Because I am very aware that I am not, and never will be, hip. And when they demand more, to bring them closer to the hip sources of the stories, I oblige. Or perhaps they simply want more wine.
Your experience reminds me of my own, Steve. As a young music obsessessive in my teens, I thought being a "rock critic" (ie. music journalist) was the epitome of hip. After going some 48 years of being one professionally, I long ago realized that rock critics are not hip.
But it has given me as well many good stories to regale the young 'uns with....
Lucian, I think YOU are hip!
Lucian is indeed the essence of hipness. And I should know.
Yes you should and do!
Bye the bye, how are your kittens doing. We miss the updates.
Stay tuned.
White Levis, Pink shirt, blue suede shoes.
1957 Chevy Bel Air Hartop.
And of course,
Zoot Suits since 1920.
Memories of how goofy kids were. During one of his visits home, I stole my brother’s white jeans, had them taken in and wore them to every high school dance. That’s about as hip as I got.
Maybe, but hipness is a moveable feast, so your Trans-Atlantic cred would probably have made you automatically hip in the USA.
I suppose now some ultra-politically correct critics would complain that "exoticizes" you, no, really!
Opinion
France
I’m an outspoken Black woman in France – so a powerful man tried to silence me with the law
Rokhaya Diallo
"A celebrity targeted me online, but under a system that should protect all equally, I was the one charged with a criminal offence..." {{Lawfare is inherently unfair, if not carefully calibrated to try to remove the racist, sexist, classist and other biases already baked in, that's a given.}}
Wed 29 Nov 2023 02.00 EST
{{Diallo has a panoply of what look like completely righteous complaints and has been treated horribly, but it looks like she wants to push that all the way to demanding, along with reasonable retractions and cessation of despicable harassment by some neo-con kook, that anyone and everyone critical of any of her views offer a kind of "affirmative defense" that they don't "see her as `exotic,'" which frankly makes me marvel and then laugh out loud at the sheer self-aggrandizement packed into that.
But you know, if you can milk a righteous cause at all, some people will be unable to resist pushing the boundaries further and further. Her treatment is indeed something out of Kafka, though.}}
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/29/france-black-woman-law-online-criminal
I read the article and it just infuriates - but does not surprise - me. I have a niece I love who is French so I’m not going to paint with too broad a bunch, but the entitlement of a French citizen (particularly a male) is hard to adequately describe.
(In NYC, I don’t think I was considered exotic - too many people were from different parts of the world in nyc - just as they still are.) why I still am at home there.
I’ve been that guy at one of those concerts. The second was the Temptations and the Four Tops at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre in the late 80s. Certainly felt like one of only about a dozen white people, and was just laughing inside at all of my white friends who were missing it.
The first was being one of only about a half dozen white people at a concert in Jacksonville in the mid 80s with Jimmy Witherspoon, Bobby “Blue” Bland, and B.B. King. That one was one of the greatest concert experiences of my life.
I am trying to locate the exact date in 1969 when a high school friend and I were, like you, several of only about a dozen white people at a James Brown and the Famous Flames concert, Veterans Memorial Coliseum in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. Looked at the concert lists they have posted but it's incomplete, anyway yeah, "one of the greatest concert experiences of my life" as well.
I got to see The Beatles in Toronto during their first North American tour. If you can imagine, BB King opened for them.
It amazes me how much of what is hip came out of Black culture.
Oppressed people generate a kind of hipness out of sheer rebelliousness and tenacity to endure and survive.
Zeno, no surprise there.
Survival strategies of the oppressed has something to do with it, the basic human love of great music helps. People who aren't religious sometimes love gospel music, for example.
Most of it I think. Let’s face facts.
I was pregnant when I outgrew my 13-button wide-leg wool sailor pants, and never got to wear them again. I’d kill for a pair now. Still wearing jeans almost every day, though.
Oh, how I loved my 13-button sailor pants! The BEST!
As a teenager in the early sixties I went to see Nina Simone in Philadelphia. I was the only white person in the upper balcony. I didn’t feel I was hip then and I never became a hipster. But I’ve been to many fantastic jazz clubs and concerts. Recently my partner and I were at a club dancing to Brazilian jazz. A woman came up to us and told us we were such a cute couple. Maybe that’s better than being hip.
I just saw Judy Colllins in NYC and she's 84! She came out with a new album called Spellbound! I haven't downloaded it to my computer yet. I bought a CD autographed! It was a fun concert.
1970. As a student member of the brand new pants code for girls in school committee I sat through hours of talk about what sort of trousers might acceptably cover our nubile limbs.
The powers that be were tenaciously clear on one point: No. Jeans.
But the boys wear jeans.
No. Jeans.
But jeans are not sheer or frilly or stretchy.
No. Jeans.
But...why?
No. Jeans.
I still wonder if they thought we would all be swept away on a tide of hip.
You all might have been swept away. Maybe they subconsciously feared being left behind.
lol. I was never quite hip or cool. But I was aware
I tried so sooooo hard to be hip. Lucian has IT! Others of us admired from afar and wished to have “it” but fell short.
Great description of being hip in a sophisticated way as opposed to being hip as a hippie for example "Especially in the 1960s) a person of unconventional appearance, typically having long hair, associated with a subculture involving a rejection of conventional values and the taking of hallucinogenic drugs."
Of course Sinatra was the personification of hip, but I never saw a pic of him wearing jeans :)
https://youtu.be/EMB5CzzWXMQ
Blossom Dearie singing Bob Dorough and Dave Frishberg’s fabulous “I’m Hip.” :)
The absolute essence.
Blossom Dearie, indeed!
I do love Dylan. But I'm suspicious of the concept of hip. Allow me for a moment to be anti-hip. With the caveat that the attitudes expressed probably reflect my specific personality type.
To me hip implies a kind of group think that's counter to mainstream society's groupthink, but it's groupthink just the same. It's behavior, attitudes, style that defines a group that says this is us, not you. In that sense, what is hip can turn destructive and cruel. And in today's society, driven apart by media and social media, there are fragmented bubbles of hip. In some sense, MAGA attitudes and fascist hairstyles are also hip, to a particular bubble. I could argue that, beyond legitimate criticism of Israel, the problem of rising antisemitism is that, among a particular crowd of young, progressive people and people of color, it has become hip.
I don't think the truly hip, like Dylan, the real artistic and thought leaders, ever really think about being hip. They are what they are and do what they do and because of who they are it becomes hip, for others. As an ordinary person who has never been hip and has never been emulated by anybody except, maybe, my sister when she was a child and to her eternal embarrassment, my policy is to just do what feels comfortable to me, regardless. I do look around and try not to be too flagrantly unhip. But I also figure, that if I just wear the same type of clothes (I do wash them) and same haircut and listen to pretty much the same music every day of my life, like a stopped clock, every once in a while, someone will think I'm hip. And that's funny.
Norman Mailer's essay "The White Negro" is a cool primer on hip. "Freewheelin' was Bob's second album released in '63. His first album was simply called "Bob Dylan" released in '62. How do I know? My older sister had 'em and played them a LOT, she was hipper than hip. I was not ever hip and got scolded by my younger sister who said "You NEVER feel groovy."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Negro