As was prescribed
by my hipster consultant Zevon, I lay in a bathtub of freezing water for two
hours wearing a brand new pair of $200 “Ralf Dry Selvage” Nudie jeans. This
baptism was essential, Zevon said, to show that I was serious about making sure
my Nudie jeans contoured my thighs and buttocks optimally. Lying in the cold bath
and listening to NPR reports about the persecution of educated women in Tehran
and starving children in the Sudan, my conscience painfully pricked me because
all this time I was spending “personalizing” my Nudie jeans, I was questioning
Zevon’s expertise: He prescribed the cold bath method, but I had read on a
Nudie message board that an overnight soak in hot water was actually better.
As I contemplated
the hipster subculture sitting in front of their Apple computers and scouring
the Nudie jeans message boards, I recognized a painful hipster paradox: To be
cool requires vanity, self-absorption, and a ferocious attention to fashion
detail on one hand. On the other hand, the hipster must show a superior social
conscience by leaving a small carbon footprint, by patronizing local organic
produce sellers, by boycotting companies on the hipster hit list and by making
an annual pilgrimage to an impoverished locale where he and other hearty souls
build houses for the homeless. The gulf between customizing a pair of $200 jeans and writing a $500 check to my local
animal rescue was a huge one and I felt that the attempt to reconcile these
opposite hipster impulses to be a feeble one. From the freezing tub, I called
Zevon and described to him my dilemma.
“There is no
dilemma or conflict between style and social conscience,” Zevon explained to me
over his iPhone. “They exist in a happy marriage. And if you doubt me, may I
refer you to hipster extraordinaire, Bernard-Henri Levi.” This French
spokesman, activist, humanitarian, contrarian, and best-selling author was the
consummate hipster. Well dressed, articulate, mediatique, he had
through his writings and speeches exposed the evils of the world while his
sartorial insouciance was an implicit admonishment of the barbarian hordes.
“Don’t you see?”
Zevon continued. “Bernard-Henri Levi and our new President both have a lot in
common. Exquisite in fashion and using their social conscience to call upon our
higher angels.”
I told Zevon I had
to get off the phone. My thighs were beginning to chafe and the cold bath
seemed to have given me a case of the sniffles or something worse. All this
time in an ice cold bathtub had rendered my “higher angels” comatose inside
some deep freeze. I needed to thaw.
Hah. I was called "deck" by some hipster friend of mine a few days ago. I'm still not sure what it means, or if I should take it as an insult or compliment. Does your hipster friend have any suggestions on where I can find a good, semi-cheap sports jacket?
Posted by: Jesse Menn | October 25, 2008 at 05:52 PM
Deck is hipster speak for cool, or at least according to The Hipster Handbook by Robert Lanham.
I'll look into the sport jacket issue.
Posted by: jeffrey McMahon | October 25, 2008 at 05:54 PM
You've got to love a blog that pokes a bit of fun at ol' BHL all the way from California.
Hope Zevon did not force you to read through the complete works of the "new philosopher" though.
I'm slightly puzzled by the "was the consummate hipster", though. Anything I missed in the news lately? Or is he now past the hipster stage maybe?
Posted by: Cyril | October 27, 2008 at 02:01 PM
Today's hipster is a different animal from the one Norman Mailer described decades ago.
Posted by: jeffrey McMahon | October 27, 2008 at 02:50 PM