Safety pins
Sep. 13th, 2005 09:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistI don't really like Urbis. Perhaps because it purports to "explore" "urban culture" and not only am I not sure what that means, but I think they're not sure either. Perhaps because, though I know other people seem to like it, I think the building is a huge and ugly blemish upon otherwise-reasonable scenery (though the area does seem overrun with skateboarders these days). Perhaps because its website warns you need Flash, Adobe Reader, and QuickTime to view it.
I think the reason for my dislike is a combination of many such things: the place is all style and no substance. Or if there is any substance it's hidden in the one bit you have to pay to get into, which is enough to make me go "hmph!" and avoid it on principle (or at least in the certain knowledge that the exhibits there are stupid).
Having said all that, I really enjoyed going there on Sunday with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sablin1975 and his friend (who may have a LiveJournal but if he does I don't know about it) to see the exhibit about punk and the Sex Pistols.
I could be snobby and point out the absurdity inherent in the mere premise of visiting a fancy building and paying a special fee to see artefacts left by people who were not just uninterested in but philosophically opposed to looking nice or spending money on anything other than sex, drugs, or rock & roll. But mostly I managed to avoid being a crabby intellectual and remained merely an awestruck tourist.
Punk is a strange land to me. It's older than I am; all the interesting stuff seems to have happened before I was alive, after which the superficial style of it--simple chords and never combing one's hair and trying to figure out how to shock people just for the sake of being shocking--were more easily and frequently replicated than ... well, than whatever it is that made punk cool in the first place.
I don't know what that is. I don't know if there's really some underlying secret that the imitators don't get or if the whole point really is that there's no point. I'm a foreigner, and not much of a correspondent, when it comes to Punk.
As when I think about the Beatles or Elvis or Robert Johnson, I have to carefully remind myself that context is important. This was really weird at the time. Even so, that's only intellectual knowledge; I never really feel it, which is why I feel like a foreign visitor, and so I probably don't appreciate it as much as a native would.
I wished Andrew'd been there, as I'm sure he'd have a bunch of knowledge to impart upon me in an only-slightly patronising way.sablin1975 did tell me about a few things: a guy I've never heard of but might like, a club that's still there. I like that sort of thing.
I looked at the gig posters and thought about them being photocopied or mimeographed or whatever the hell they were stuck with before Photoshop and the Internet. I looked at the inexpertly-screenprinted t-shirts and thought about kids with ink-stained hands concentrating on their creations. I looked at this picture and finally felt like I almost got that safety-pin thing.
What I'm used to seeing as an overpriced fashion accessory these days now seemed simply a matter of using whatever's rattling around your house, whatever's in arm's reach, to stitch together your new ideas, fragments of old things coming together in a way that won't wait for glue or scissors and thus is ragged and just barely held together. Safety pins are for improvising. Safety pins are all function and no aesthetic, the opposite of the building in which I came to this epiphany. Safety pins are for temporary things, for holding your jeans together when the button suddenly pops off.
Nah. I probably just made all that stuff up. But I still love the idea. I love the DIY-everything culture that it seems to represent, at least in my head, at least for now.
I still don't claim to have anything figured out. I just wanted to say I had a good time.
I think the reason for my dislike is a combination of many such things: the place is all style and no substance. Or if there is any substance it's hidden in the one bit you have to pay to get into, which is enough to make me go "hmph!" and avoid it on principle (or at least in the certain knowledge that the exhibits there are stupid).
Having said all that, I really enjoyed going there on Sunday with
sablin1975 and his friend (who may have a LiveJournal but if he does I don't know about it) to see the exhibit about punk and the Sex Pistols.I could be snobby and point out the absurdity inherent in the mere premise of visiting a fancy building and paying a special fee to see artefacts left by people who were not just uninterested in but philosophically opposed to looking nice or spending money on anything other than sex, drugs, or rock & roll. But mostly I managed to avoid being a crabby intellectual and remained merely an awestruck tourist.
Punk is a strange land to me. It's older than I am; all the interesting stuff seems to have happened before I was alive, after which the superficial style of it--simple chords and never combing one's hair and trying to figure out how to shock people just for the sake of being shocking--were more easily and frequently replicated than ... well, than whatever it is that made punk cool in the first place.
I don't know what that is. I don't know if there's really some underlying secret that the imitators don't get or if the whole point really is that there's no point. I'm a foreigner, and not much of a correspondent, when it comes to Punk.
As when I think about the Beatles or Elvis or Robert Johnson, I have to carefully remind myself that context is important. This was really weird at the time. Even so, that's only intellectual knowledge; I never really feel it, which is why I feel like a foreign visitor, and so I probably don't appreciate it as much as a native would.
I wished Andrew'd been there, as I'm sure he'd have a bunch of knowledge to impart upon me in an only-slightly patronising way.
sablin1975 did tell me about a few things: a guy I've never heard of but might like, a club that's still there. I like that sort of thing.I looked at the gig posters and thought about them being photocopied or mimeographed or whatever the hell they were stuck with before Photoshop and the Internet. I looked at the inexpertly-screenprinted t-shirts and thought about kids with ink-stained hands concentrating on their creations. I looked at this picture and finally felt like I almost got that safety-pin thing.What I'm used to seeing as an overpriced fashion accessory these days now seemed simply a matter of using whatever's rattling around your house, whatever's in arm's reach, to stitch together your new ideas, fragments of old things coming together in a way that won't wait for glue or scissors and thus is ragged and just barely held together. Safety pins are for improvising. Safety pins are all function and no aesthetic, the opposite of the building in which I came to this epiphany. Safety pins are for temporary things, for holding your jeans together when the button suddenly pops off.
Nah. I probably just made all that stuff up. But I still love the idea. I love the DIY-everything culture that it seems to represent, at least in my head, at least for now.
I still don't claim to have anything figured out. I just wanted to say I had a good time.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-13 08:57 pm (UTC)Safety pins are damned useful, and that's all I really need to know about them. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-13 09:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-13 09:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2005-09-14 08:07 am (UTC)Rob even said hi to me after the quiz. He said "Good job," perhaps because we ended up in second place, but walked away before I had a chance to tell him that it hadn't been my doing; the only thing I'd contributed was the name of the movie where Jeremy Irons plays Matthew Broderick's uncle.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-13 09:54 pm (UTC)To give you a taste of the cultural atmosphere of the Seventies (which wasn't all bad, of course): The Ford White House hosted a reception for Queen Elizabeth II, with The Captain and Tennille providing entertainment. It was televised.
The nadir was their rendition of "Muskrat Love", complete with rodent-orgasm sounds produced electronically. We were aghast. I've never been more ashamed to be an American . . .
Blue Spark
Date: 2005-09-14 01:39 am (UTC)Re: Blue Spark
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Date: 2005-09-13 10:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-14 07:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-14 08:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-14 08:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-15 02:42 pm (UTC)