It's been more than a week now since I've been able to listen to music in my usual manner.1 Listening to as many as two songs in a row has mostly been beyond me, and even my internal jukebox has been largely silent.
I'll come back to that.
There don't seem to be any particularly nasty -isms that one falls prey to by ragging on hipsters,2 and as they are such an easy target I find myself doing so quite frequently. And why not? Such studied coolness, rooted only in the performance of being cool, cannot be anything but ludicrous in my eyes. Hipsterism is the subcultural equivalent of celebrities who are only famous for being famous.3
Last Friday I went to a funeral. I arrived early and alone, and found myself intimidated by the clusters of people standing around outside. "A hipster funeral?" I thought, although maybe that was some kind of emotional self-defence and I'm pretty sure it was in poor taste. It didn't help that they seemed to consider themselves at an everyday social event when all my instincts were demanding sombre looks and hushed tones.4
I find myself unable to write much about the funeral itself or my personal experience just yet; by maintaining a strict emotional distance from it I carry on with the ten thousand things that keep my days ticking over, but the cost of that is an inability to express what I would like to express. It will come in time. (Unless it doesn't.)
What I am coming around to, in my distractable and roundabout way, is that seeing all those hipsters stick together in their grief, including young men who cried and hugged each other without irony or awkwardness, reminded me that phoney affectations and asymmetrical haircuts often just camouflage human beings who think about things and care for each other. And a lot of things that are often seen as important - even essential or "identity"-defining - turn out to be pretty irrelevant when something happens that really matters.
Over the last week or so I have been gently coaxing my desire for music back out into the open. Old favourites have proven to be poor bait, laden as they are with history that I am trying to leave alone. The occasional mood-encapsulating song has only led back into silence instead of the usual daisy-chain of associations. Today, though, I have found my way thanks to a sunshiney, shoegazey, post-punk/dream-pop band called Moscow Olympics (Myspace), who have come out of nowhere to lend me some much-needed momentum.
It is easier to be sad with a soundtrack, and also easier to be happy. It is easier to be anything at all.
- That is, listening to album after album for as much of my waking day as is physically possible. [↩]
- The hipster concept in general, rather than specific individuals, although being only human I do stray from the righteous path on occasion. [↩]
- That being said, I recently saw Paris Hilton in a TV pilot. She sent herself up marvellously and was extremely funny. Let that me a lesson to me. [↩]
- If you were to ask me, I would tell you that I have no problem whatsoever with people reacting to events in whatever manner comes naturally to them. But faced with jarring behaviour in trying times, my gut rebels. [↩]
