Hipsters

This was an article that a friend sent me after I told her the indie movement wasn't total bullshit (although with plenty of bullshit).

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html

This was my response:

It’s a really good article – I remember reading it a few months ago. Though I think Atherton has a tendency to romanticise past counter-culture movements while unrealistically criticizing of “hipsters.” He notes that all the other movements began with a challenge to the status-quo, which they did, but the indie scene, at its beginning also had ideals – it was not merely a mirror of the “shallowness of mainstream society.”

It stressed the importance of individuality, clothing yourself not with brand name clothes but value-village clothes that reflected who you were as a person. This carried tones of anti-consumerism, which is also present in the culture’s defining embrace of indie music and films – the idea that the best comes straight from people, not what’s been perverted by a corporate filter and packaged with the sole motivation of selling copies. There also has always been an interest and respect of art, and all its forms associated with the indie movement.

I couldn’t agree more with George Atherton, so much of the indie scene is pretentious, disingenuous, and outright self-absorbed. This, however, is not exclusive to the indie movement as he has suggested. Every counter-culture movement has been populated by many who sorrily missed the point - flaunted the style but forgot the philosophy.

The ‘hippies’ in the 1960’s began as a very intelligent movement of social change. They railed against war, the military-industrial complex, and screamed civil-rights, love and peace. Yet, there were many who mindlessly piggy-backed on this movement, merely growing long hair and smoking weed.

Also, of course people realized they could make profit by selling the indie image, like American Apparel.  This is just a natural function of our society. This reality, however, has had a more devastating effect on the indie movement than past counter-cultural movements. Because it built itself on individuality and anti-consumerism, this reality makes much of the indie movement hypocritical to its core.

It’s no better, or no worse than other movements. Of course there are posers who miss the point, but, after all, it’s just a trend. By no means, is it “the dead end of Western Civilization.”

 -Noah out

MAGDANCE

http://www.jschool.ca//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=342&Itemid=44

Here is another piece that I wrote for Ink. It’s a look at MAGDANCE, a collaboration between the MacKenzie Art Gallery and New Dance Horizons. Bringing dance into the gallery space, blurring the lines between performance and visual art, is something that doesn’t have a lot of precedence – it’s very interesting to see, especially in Regina.

Putting together the MAGDANCE story was a stressful process. In addition to the usual headache of interviewing and writing, I crashed my car (for the first time ever) on the way to the MacKenzie to meet Timothy Long. On top of this, though I didn’t realize it at the time, I was coming down with the flu. Needless to say, I was pretty glad when I finally got it filed.

The MAGDANCE story wasn't my original plan. At the January Combat Improv show, there was a presentation about the new Creative City Centre. The project really caught my interest, and I wanted to explore it further in the form of a story. But, while doing background research, I found a feature that The Carillon had published last week. I really wasn’t sure whether to abandon the idea or to move forward. On one hand, after reading The Carillon story, I felt that, despite being 1200 words long, the story had very little tangible information. On the other hand, it was written only last week and there is no shortage of good art stories in Regina. Redundancy really is unnecessary. I finally opted to find a story elsewhere, and I’m glad I did –MAGDANCE turned out to be really neat.

-Noah out