hipster or...ajumma?

did you read this article in the times about how everyone is now foraging for edible plants in new york city parks? when they say everyone, they mean it: But foragers today are an eclectic bunch, including downtown hipsters, recent immigrants, vegans and people who do not believe in paying for food.

y'know, this has been weighing on my mind for quite some time. there is SO much in common between hipsters and ajummas. who are ajummas, you, white person, may ask? well, in the blandest sense, it is a korean word that technically refers to a middle-age woman. it usually carries a pejorative connotation. you wouldn't call a sprightly, beautiful woman an "ajumma." because she will kill you. but to me, an ajumma is more of a state of mind than anything: she doesn't give a shit, she asserts her own needs, and she will have her say. she will negotiate for a discount without speaking a word of english, and put you in your place with just a look. here is a good definition, too.

but for purposes of this post, i'm going to examine some of the common traits between hipsters and ajummas:

- pasty skin (whether natural or hard-won)
- love of pickling
- saving and reusing jars, plastic bags, and take-out containers
- love of purchasing second-hand goods- unique sense of style

anyway, in my thegoogling of ajummas, i found this article about a 66-year old (!) korean woman who stood up to two armed robbers. hot damn, girl! two amazing quotes:

Somehow, Kim managed to push the man, grab on to the edge of the counter and brace herself, blocking his path. Kim recalled what she had learned from watching the television show "Cops."

Hadley, who probably won't be readily telling anyone he was chased down by a 4-foot-10, 100-pound Korean woman, was charged with armed robbery and is being held on $250,000 bond. My favorite part, after all that, is Ms. Kim's advice for her would-be robber: "He [should] study. Get out [of jail], he find a job. Don't go to school, no job."

and as the blogger notes: That's gangsta.

home

i went to nyc for less than 24 hours for the final lcd soundsystem show. i dunno, i don't have any real responsibilities, so why not.

even though i go back and forth between nyc and dc fairly frequently for my job, i am always glad and somewhat relieved to return to dc after each trip. maybe i'm too tired and this is why i'm sounding fairly sentimental, but this time, nyc was so...stimulating. i was standing outside in nolita for like 10 minutes, max, and i saw (a) a dude dressed like andy warhol, (b) that redheaded gay dude on modern family and his young-ish boyfriend, and (c) this random man with an asymmetrical haircut, a souped-up alpine sweater, and aqua jeans (i remember him well bc we ended up sitting at adjacent tables during dinner). it would take me years to see even one of those people in dc. yeah, i know. it's not like a, b, or c will pay my rent.

so here's the lowdown on the concert: yes, it was over 3 hours long. yes, there were guest stars, many of whom i didn't recognize (aside from arcade fire and some dude from hot chip). yes, i saw donald glover walking out of msg post-show. and yes, madison square garden is a terrible place to watch a show and has miserable acoustics.

but who the hell am i kidding?! it was a freaking blast.

when we first arrived we noticed that virtually every guy was dressed in some permutation of a james murphy outfit: black suit white shirt / white t-shirt white painters' pants / white jacket plus something else. all the girls were in black & white, too. i was really weirded out and thought people got costume-y because they are from out of town and they didn't know that new yorkers don't do that. or that chunky guys everywhere took one look at james murphy and thought they, too, can get away with an all-white outfit.

nope, the explanation is much simpler: i'm an asshole. the band specifically requested that people come in black and white. granted, i wear those colors by default (and also happened to do so for the show) since that's 90+% of my wardrobe, but why must i be such a buzzkill?

i sat next to this rather inebriated couple, one of whom managed to convey that (a) DC is sterile, (b) he saw LCD in 2005 at bowery ballroom, then quickly corrected himself for being that dick who points out that he saw a band way before they got super mainstream, and (c) like everyone else present, could not stop dancing.

anyway, i am super sad that i missed the LCD bandwagon until it was too late and that i got to see them live only twice. i adore and admire james murphy for all of his doughy world-weariness. also, have you noticed just how much their first album references the b-52s? pretty neat.

some other stuff.

this originally was intended to be a rumination on what home is, but i'm tired. no energy for deep thoughts. the above is a video by someone with much better tickets than moi.

killing hipsters

"no it's a right now coat."

only a minute long, and well worth it.

leslie nielsen RIP. the only way his obit could be more canadian is if he had a son named gordie.

superfluous and belated movie review of the month (and probably year): (500) days of summer

i fully expected to hate this movie and i highly doubt i would've even bothered to watch it were it not showing on my flight. so i suppose you have to take some of my positive impressions with a grain of salt, since i tend to have irrationally exuberant feelings about any movie watched on a plane. except the pianist--don't ever watch a movie about the holocaust before a vacation. it's a downer.

(500) days of summer begins with a despondent joseph gordon-levitt (aka that kid from 3rd rock from the sun), lamenting to his friends about the demise of his relationship with zooey deschanel. not exactly a spoiler to disclose that, i don't think. then the movie backtracks to follow--rather jaggedly--the arc of their relationship. i enjoyed this movie--it was light, very entertaining and just clever/gimmicky enough. the "falling in love" montage was one of the better i've seen in, urgh, a romantic comedy. the movie does justice to the absurd highs and equally ridonculous lows of infatuation and the mental shuffle we all engage in postmortem.

a few reviewers complained about how thinly drawn zooey deschanel's character was and how she barely seemed worthy of all this devotion. but isn't that always the case in movies? like who knows why lloyd dobler was so obsessed with diane court, aside from the fact that she's the valedictorian "trapped in the body of a game show hostess?" she didn't have much of a personality, as far as anyone could tell. i didn't know anyone like diane court, but i definitely knew girls like summer--irrepressibly cute, looks good in wide-legged and high-waisted pants (a lethal combo for most anyone over 100 lbs), just hot enough to draw guys in and just cold enough to keep them wanting more, emotionally detached, inscrutable, etc. in other words, every emaciated hipster dude's dream girl.

in summary, if this movie happens to be offered on your flight somewhere and you have 90 minutes to kill (which you presumably do if you're flying), i recommend you watch it. you won't regret it!

[will try to post a photo laterz...]

britunes!

aside from being like the most uncomfortably/ridonculously handsome and disarmingly witty tv anchor ever, brian williams apparently is super informed about indie rock. wha?

an interview about his foray into indierockbloggerdom here.

Music Video of the Day: Matt & Kim, "Lessons Learned"

Many years ago I had a very taxing job. I was a school teacher, which means I spent my days getting mad at small children. When I'd come home my favorite thing to do was to watch music videos, usually on BET because, well, that was the only place where you could watch music videos in those days. Anyway, the art form, as we know, has more or less died, or at least the medium has, so it's with a heavy dollop of nostalgia that I continue to post videos on this site. Still, it is curious that Matt & Kim insist on making really awesome videos, in addition to just being awesome themselves.

Look At This Fucking Hipster

I don't know if this website is already passe or what, but I have one thought about lookatthisfuckinghipster I want on the record: How many of these shots were taken by Iphone cameras, presumably by other hipsters, in Brooklyn subway stations or in trains traversing the rails in, around and beneath Brooklyn? I say a lot, so that means hipsters are selling out hipsters. Damn. End times.

stop making sense - part 2 : Grody to the Max Edition

Blogger E, Usually I would just comment on your post, but I found it so interesting that I am inspired to post in response. You see, I have been waging a long and arduous linguistic battle myself, though this one with hipsters, taste-makers, cultural elites--you know, the bourgeoisie. As our silent partner sugarpockets knows, what I want is to reinfuse our common idiom with my favorite phrase/exclamation of the 1980's: "Grody to the max!!!" Much to my chagrin though, this campaign has been in vain. I had expected to find my cause championed by the likes of Noam Chomsky and William Buckley, but no such luck. So, here's to you, Punky Brewster (pictured). You might have grown into a fetching and buxom young woman (pictured), but in my heart, you will always be the cute, befreckled kid with the mismatched socks whose friend accidentally got locked in a refrigerator. Next time I see a rat crawling on the subway platform at East Broadway, in your honor I will proclaim, "Grody to the max!!!"

rawyer renga

a friend of mine recently introduced me to the renga, a collaborative poem. the first person composes the 5-7-5, then another adds 7-7.

thanks to a slow week at work, my friends and i managed to compose the following masterpieces:

1) i created this one before i realized the poem was supposed to be collaborative:

[my 2 syllable monikered friend]-san gave me
newly composed renga poem

extra two stanzas
haiku amateurs ashamed
hiding under trapper hats

2) this one was done properly:

gawker recent post
what's up with: white converse sneaks?
shame spiral ensued

console myself by saying
they are comfy so suck it.

3) then we stopped here because we surpassed our low expectations:

Ironic beards found
On b-burg dudes' white faces
Super gay not butch

good thing i always wear my
chunky bike chain on the L