My Best "Average" Work

  Reading back over all of the blog posts that I've done over the last sixteen weeks I beleive that there are three which stand out as being superior to the rest.  The first is the "Aesthetic of Imperfection" that I did in week 7.  This blog post is about the glorification of the imperfections in art, music and literature and their being the ideal rather than something to avoid as in the past.  I go on to make a connection between the growth in popularity to the "Aesthetic of Imperfection" and the rebellion, as a nation, against the idea of Nazi perfection.  The second blog post I picked is "I am a Trickster" posted in week 8.  In this blog post I refer to myself as a Trickster by looking at my past and analyzing where I fit that description.  I also go into explaining some of the methods and reasons of a Trickster.  I even mention some famous Tricksters as well and go over what makes them such.  My third pick is "Trickster's are Not Uncontrolled" posted in week 9.  On this blog I analyze the movie "Bamboozled" and try to determine the Trickster figure in it.  I picked Pierre as one of the Trickster figures and went over why he fit that position.
  I decided to select these three blog posts for several reasons.  The first is that these three are among my most detail-oriented of my blog posts.  The reason that these particular blog posts are my most detail-oriented is because two of them, "I am a Trickster" and "Trickster's are Not Uncontrolled", are about the thing I know the most about, myself.  These blog posts also, in my opinion, have the most valid main points from a comparison to the rest of my posts.  In other words they made the most amount of sense and I wasn't just trying to put 300 words together.
  I have never paid much attention to American Pop Culture throughout my life.  I basically ignore what song is popular (I only like Classic Rock), what fashion is in (I have my own fashion), and who is the the representative of any particular generation.  That has not changed very much, I do not think hip needs American Pop Culture but I now have a little more awareness of said hip in a very specific sense.  I've accepted the Trickster into my individuality but still don't accept American Pop Culture as being very valid.
  If I had to do an evaluation on my performance in class then I would say that I did about average.  I did not try to do more than was required within the context of this class.  As a writer and thinker my strengths lie in my ability to tell a story and make expanded opinions and ideas from very little information.  I can make a page of notes into several pages of writing.  As a writer and thinker my weaknesses are with ending any peice of writing.  I've always had difficulties writing endings.
  As I said in the last paragraph I have only done what was expected of me this entire semester.  In recognition of this fact I would have given myself around a B.  Throughout my past semester I have procrastinated and done things last minute, I havesn't given anything my "all" as of yet as none of the assignments have required me to work extraordinarily hard.
  Once again, I believe these three blog posts are the best out of the semesters work.  "Tricksters are Not Uncontrolled", "I am a Trickster" and "Aesthetic of Imperfection" are the best "average work I have done this semester.

Evolution of Myself as a Trickster

  First when the school semester started I didn't even consider hip as being anything more than an element of the heirarchy and as such something that wasn't worth my time.  As the semester went on my resentment continued but changed format with my hatred going towards the hip idea as being the personification of cool.  By my first essay though my hatred had died down to a flickering flame of dislike and my first essay started to address the rebellion against the orthodoxy and opposition to the norm within fashion and social interactions.  By the second essay my hatred was completely gone within the context of hip being used within the social structure of any civilizations.  I expressed my new beleif in my own hipness within the form of the Trickster, what I call the epitome of hip.  Now, while I still do not believe it to be a valid topic for an english class, I do not hold any resentment to the complete rejection of the orthodoxy in purist hipness.

Annotated Bib #2

  Once again, as in my last essay, I will be emphasizing the Trickster figure.  The individual I will be representing this time is Bill Gates, the owner of Microsoft.  I will be using three points to determine Bill Gates' effect on hip in the future.  First, I will be be examining his past to determine and express what makes him a Trickster, and therefore hip.  I will use the same basic points as outlined in my second essay with some modifications that I have since thought of.  Then, I will look through his express philosophy to show whether or not he is truly hip as I have outlined.  And last, I will express what I think he will contribute to hip in the future and how he will affect it.

Biography.com
"Bill Gates"

  My first source is a biography of Bill Gates on biography.com.  In examining his past I will be able to make an educated guess about his future contributions to the hip ideal.  The source is mostly useful to my first point but it also has some relevance for my second point.  It rates as one of my highest ranked sources and is extremely useful in constructing my idea of hip's future course.

The Feminine Hip?

"That whole obsession with hip is like collecting records or whatever.  It's more of a male thing." (Gordon, 239)  John Leland asserts that women have a small role in the evolution of hip in his book, "Hip: The History".  He tells us that Hip is a sexist, misogynistic and male-dominated playground but also asserts that the Hip ethos is decidedly feminine.  Put simply, the realm of Hip, in Leland's mind, is within the population of feminine males.  "The chronicles of hip, as told by men, often play like T.E. Lawrence's adventures in Arabia, in which the only female characters were the camels, or like Miles Davis's autobiography, which could be a how-to manual for aspiring misogynists." (Leland, 240)  He further states that females either are the angels of stories or the demons or don't exist at all within Hip's literature.
After some thought I've concluded that he is not completely wrong in his assertion of a sexist Hip but that he is too generalized in that same assumtion.  Throughout the book he assumes that race is the sole factor in hip and "Once Upon a Time" that may have been true but I believe in the past 30 years or so females have taken on a greater role within the evolution of Hip's persona.
That said, it is a fact that the hip ideal is the ideal of the rebel and women have, in the past, been unable to rebel in almost any way.  Gregory Corso said, when asked about the male clubhouse, "There were women, they were there, I knew them, their families put them in institutions, they were given electric shock." (Leland, 242)  This treatment in the past obviously would have made the emergence of hip women difficult but that is definetly no longer the case and hasn't been for several years.
In short, I'd conclude that in the past hip has been extremely sexist.  However it has gotten better in recent years and will continue to do so at a faster rate than the main stream.

Irony at it's Best

I consider myself to be pretty prideful.  Usually I think of myself as being outside of the system and somehow better than it.  At the beginning of this semester I thought exactly that when our teacher asked us if we were hip or not.  I couldn't fathom that I'd be judged by someone else's measuring system.  It is therefore extremely ironic and humorous to me that I now consider myself to be a Trickster which is like the "God of Hip".  This opinion, while not neccessarily untrue because I actually fit almost all of the requirements, was formed due to my pride.  My subconscious thought was that if I can't be outside of the system I must be at the top of it.

"All This and Rabbit Stew"

I watched all of the cartoons posted in Week 10's folder and was stuck between the banned Betty Boop cartoon, "Making Stars", and the Bugs Bunny cartoon, "All This and Rabbit Stew".  I have decided to use the Bugs Bunny cartoon because it is more relevant and I enjoyed it more than the Betty Boop episode.  This cartoon had strong manifestations of the white idea of black racial identity.
The black hunter in this cartoon is portrayed as lazy in the beginning of the episode.  He is dragging his feet and his speech is slightly slurred as if to portray his inability to speak clearly.  Later the cartoon's theme changes to represent the stereotype of black ignorance when Bugs Bunny first misdirects him purposefully by literally pointing him in the wrong direction.  The poor trickee, the hunter, is then shown as a "sucker" to further cement his portrayed ignorance.  Later Bugs Bunny tricks him while running away by taking the same route over and over again, through a hollow log, then rotating the log so that the end point off a cliff.  Bugs Bunny does this several times until the point that the hunter actually does fall.  The episode ends with Bugs Bunny tricking him into a dice game and taking all of his possessions.
I beleive that there is some love in these cartoons due to the fact that they poke fun at all groups of individuals.  I would definetely agree with Check Jones assertion that, "You must love what you caricature."  The assertion of the racial descriptions in cartoons as being crude stereotypes of racist origins, while true to some extent, no longer holds as much validity as it did in the past.  The characters were just designed to be amusing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P5jyyxCgIo

Trickster's are NOT Uncontrolled!

When we were first asked to analyze the Spike Lee movie Bamboozled and determine who the trickster in the movie is I thought that the manager was it.  After I thought about it for a little bit I came to the conclusion that both the manager and Pierre, the main character, are tricksters.
Pierre is a trickster in the beginning because his intent with the creation of the show was to make something so racist and bad that he'd be fired which was the only way to escape his contract.  He even attempted to guide his boss into hating it and firing him.  As the movie progressed and he started to become proud of his acheivement he started using information and words to control Mantan, actually named Manray, into continuing to work on the show by giving him information with his own spin on it.  He starts out in a positive light as someone trying to escape and turns down a darker path by using his skills to control others.  On Pierre's part the trickster is sort of like a poison which starts out as benign and harmless but turns the infected person into a corrupted shell as it spreads.
The manager, represented as Pierres boss, is a trickster the entire movie.  He uses words to manipulate Pierre's opinions and actions until he eventually completely corrupts and controls Pierre's personality.  It doesn't seem that he wanted Pierre to fall to the metaphysical dark side but more like it was a sort of accident or unintended consequence.  The manager was portrayed as "out of control" he didn't seem able to control his manipulative personality and it was more impulsive than thought out.  He seemed caught up in the moment for lack of a better phrase.
Spike Lee was representing the trickster as a compulsive and uncontrolled individual even as they control the people around them.  I strongly disagree with that assumption and take great insult with it as I am in almost complete control myself.  It was a strong hit to my pride in other words.  If I identify with anyone in that movie however it would be the manager but it would be a very loose connection with very little grounding.

Annotated Bibliography

  I have four points to follow when determining what is and isn't "hip" in my mind. I used these points as a guideline to choosing my peices of literature. The first point in anonymity, the individuals identity is blurred and not clear.  This helps them to blend into the crowd while remaining separate and elavated.  The second point is the "eternal present",  in this point an emphasis is put on time being uncertain and ever changing.  There is knowledge of past and future but they both have almost no meaning.  The third and most important point is the Tricksters.  Tricksters are the "Gods" of the hip world and use societies undercurrents as a sort of conduit.  Situational knowledge is extremely important to a Trickster, how to apply what, to where and at what time?  They use words and information to manipulate as well as the illusion of power or weakness.  My fourth point is the "Love of Thyself", it's exactly what it sounds like, Narcissim plain and simple.  The individual will value themselves over others and balance the "mask" of society and these tendencies.

Ernest Hemingway
"The Killers"

  My first source is Ernest Hemingway's, "The Killers".  This work is about two contract killers who have come to a small town in search of their target.  They seem very well informed and one of them is not very concerned with witnesses.  The peice moves forward with the contract killers giving the target increasing amounts of time to live then they just leave and the work sort of ends without a conclusion.  This source is extremely useful to my first and second points and slightly useful to my third.  It rates very high on the scale with my other sources.  This source contains heavy anonymity throughout as well as an "eternal present".  These two elements work together to loosely influence my third point but not by much.

Ralph Ellison
"Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke"

  My second source is Ralph Ellison's, "Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke".  This work is about the relationship between African-Americans and White Americans and the way "hip" interacts between them to make a Trickster figure.  This source is my highest rated on the importance scale of all my literature.  This source is almost eclusively about the Trickster and makes references throughout.

Walt Whitman
"Song of Myself"

  My third source is Walt Whitman's, "Song of Myself".  This peice of literature is mostly about valueing yourself as an individual with strong references to anonymity.  This is one of my lowest rated sources just above my fourth source.  I will use this source to show the interaction of narcissism and the Trickster.

Rush
"Limelight"

My fourth source is a song played by Rush called, "Limelight".  This song is only about anonymity and it will be used to clarify that point.  It is the least useful of my sources and I don't expect to use it very much.

I am a Trickster

I spent a little bit of time trying to think of a simple subject to represent as a trickster.  After a while I ended up with someone closer than I had expected.  As I looked back though my life I realized that I was a trickster.  I have been powerless basically my entire life.  Throughout my childhood I was picked on and my parents did not allow freedom.  Within this time period, around the age of 7, I think I first started showing signs of being a trickster.  I hace been using words to get out of fights ever since that time or using them to intice people to follow and protect me.  A couple of times I'd get out of fights by causing chaos with the bully's group until they started fighting each other instead of picking on me.  I've also used false information to get out of difficult situations several times.  False information is not always the smartest option so being a trickster requires the use of one's brain.  Often truthful information with a spin on it is more effective than a lie.  Humor is extremely effective towards protecting oneself.  Often a well placed remark can diffuse a volitile situation easily and quickly.  Humor can also be used to increase aggression from and towards others.  Sarcasm and Irony are especially useful towards that end.  I did everything thoughout my life to protect myself, whether or not it is wrong is up for debate.
I have chosen three subjects for being some of the most popular modern tricksters.  They are Conan O' Brian, Jay Leno and Colbert from the Colbert Report.  They are all political comedians and make fun of political figures in relevant ways.  All three of these individuals create chaos, through humor, to inform the viewers of current events.  These comedians try to approach topics from different angles and benefit the viewer by linking original thought to humor.

Hip, A Recap

As has been stated in several of my previous blogs, I do not like the concept of hip very much and am extremely resistant towards it.  As my class has progressed my opinion has had very little change.  However, I will now admit that some of the "hip" things we talk about in class aren't horrible manifestations of evil.  That being said I still have an extremely poor opinion of "hip" as a whole and with no indications of that changing significantly I am confident with my negative stance.

Aesthetic of Imperfection

Imperfection is an inevitability, especially for young artists, musicians and poets just out of school.  In order to compensate for the possibility of failure they changed the connotative meaning of imperfection to be a positive thing.  Since living in the present tense is an integral part of "hip" this idea was integrated into the "hip" design.  The way that the "eternal present" influences the aesthetic of imperfection in that imperfection is literally only a present tense idea.  Perfection exists in past tense in that it is something to idealize or strive for but not something that is neccessarily obtained.
If you make a peice of art (music, painting, etc.) that is nearly perfect then the imperfection stands out all that much more.  If, however, the art is full of potential imperfection then, depending on the way the imperfections are used, it may work in it's own favor.  Because of the communist scare with the Russian and Nazi perfectionism, the idea of imperfection being a good thing is expected to spread very quickly.  In this time period the whole "Our way or the Highway" mentalism was highly accepted by the general populace which made imperfection all the more desirable by the "hip" community.
Modern art is a bunch of crock in my opinion due to the fact that it is too imperfect.  For instance the sensation that has taken over the music industry, Rap.  Rap is imperfect in that the lyrics are unintelligible, the beat is offsetting and the words are offensive.  I have also read several modern peices of literature and have an extremely poor opinion of it.  Literature these days is too childish to appeal to the layman, the average Joe.  As a whole I think the quality of any type of art has gone down considerably.

The Road Between Anonymity and Impressions

If you look at the amount of empty space on this side of the continent you will realize that almost the entire west coast area is full of absolutely nothing.  It can take up to 8 hours to get from one city to another easily, this fact will of course spark your imagination.  I've heard from several people that regularly go on long road trips that when it is late at night in the middle of nowhere your imagination can make you paranoid very quickly.  Los Angeles is also in the middle of nowhere if you think about it cause it is surrounded by desert and is so large that cops can't effectively control the whole city so it makes newcomers a little apprehensive.  This large city atmosphere mixed with the isolation of the city itself has probably sparked the imaginations of the more morbid of the directors at Hollywood making this area one of the prime pulp fiction hotspots.  Both the anonymity of the big city and the vast nothingness are the breeding grounds for movies of this type.

The Big Apple

I have thought about whether "hipness" is something that starts in the city and moves outward toward the rural and suburb areas.  I am planning on having several paragraphs dedicated to it in my essay on my cousin's "hipness".  Since this is not that forum I will sum it up in one sentence.  In my opinion I think that "hipness" is definetely an urban phenome, otherwise it would have also manifested at least a little in some of the richer rural countries where survival is not the only concern.  From what I have observed, "hipness" seems to manifest in the cities, usually bigger cities, then move outward and become cool as it moves.  I have three examples of things that began in urban areas and moved outward: Yoga, Rap and Technology of any kind.  Yoga especially was a big city phenome and then it became nationally recognized.  Rap was almost literally born in the big cities from places like New York and this supposed "hood".  As for technology, the people who are inventing new, hip, technology usually live near a lot of people to get inspiration and most big companies are based in urban areas.  Basically to sum it up, the idea of "hip" is born in cities then moves to the people outside of them.

About Our Essays...

As most people reading this post know, we were asked to write an essay on a "hip" person we know.  I found this both difficult and ironic in the end as the person I picked is someone I greatly admire as well as being "hip".  As my views on "hipness" are less than exemplarary I was a little suprised, not much but a little, that I thought of this person as being "hip" as well.  The person I am going to write and am already writing about is my cousin, David Darby.  David is one of the coolest people I know and he's also one of the people I get alot of clothing ideas to integrate into my own style.  While I don't copy him I do use his style to come up with ideas of my own.  The disconcerting part is that this role-model is a supposedely "hip" person, but I can deal with it.

A Little Self-Loving I Know

This is what you shall do:  live with others and participate in their more sensible ideas while guiding them away from their less sensible ones, integrate ideas from others into your beleifs when they benefit you, cultivate connections that lead to your own flourishing and cut connections that lead to your own withering, value property, knowledge and your important people, scorn rude and those who are generally unpleasant, act by your own personal standards and beleifs, and even if others tell you to follow the norm and try to fit in with the majority you will ignore them and will question everything...

My views on "hipness" whether you like them or not...

I've always considered the idea of "hip", or cool taken alternately, to be an overrated concept designed, unconsiously or not, by the top dogs to keep those currently in power at the top of the heirarchy.  Whether it is applied to minor heirarchies such as a high school popularity system or more inclusive heirarchies such as the American Government or just plain popularity systems around the country.  The "hip" keep power by making their views the ideal or the pinnacle of life's acheivements making the "non-hip" work that much harder to be accepted into the group.  Of course given these statements I obviously consider myself outside or at least as small of a part as possible of the "hip heirarchy".

"What is a Hipster"

"hipster"  A hipster is an individual, in any given culture or region, that follows the ideal of being cool as is defined in the specified group.  Since hipsters only appear in cultures with enough essentials to focus on social needs they are most prevelent in European and especially in the United States.  In fact most other countries, such as Japan, try to emulate the American "hipster".  Because the definition of a "hipster" is so loose it's major attributes is subject to major changes depending on the region and/or time period.  Hipsters are obvious to others of the same group, as such when a hipster is in your presence he or she is usually instantly recognizable as a hipster or as a poser.  Personally I do not beleive in the eternal hipster but that's just an opinion.  Lastly, if you think your hip you are, if you think you're not look in the mirror...