For many young adults, New Year’s Eve is a fun night out with friends filled with booze, cold hands and an anticlimactic countdown to midnight where they may or may not kiss a stranger under conveniently placed mistletoe. This year I spent my New Year’s Eve at home hanging out with my parents toasting in the new year with some sparkling apple juice and watching Kathy Griffin and Anderson Copper awkwardly interact on CNN with a morbid fascination. As my dad flipped through the channels we stumbled upon Idina Menzel’s performance of Frozen’s Let it go (for those of you who have not seen it watch the link below, the money note is at 0:16).

As I heard her struggle, I cringed. I know what it is like to be on stage and have a note not go your way, yet I tried my best to trust in her technique and waited for the epic Eb believing that she could recover from one or two bad notes. Unfortunately, that note didn’t go much better. In fact, it went much worse.

After my dad changed the channel I couldn’t help but wonder if I was simply being too critical or if everyone else would notice what I considered an egregious error, and if they did, I worried about what horrible things the internet would shortly be saying about the immensely talented Idina Menzel.

Of course the internet exploded with vicious comments and so on her Twitter account Idina Menzel posted the following response:

In one way, I agree with what she says. Yet in another, much bigger way, I have a huge problem with her definition of success.

Most musicians would agree that in a performance there are more important things than the pitches and rhythms that appear on the page, it’s about making music and connecting with the audience through what is written on the page by making it real. Yet, correct pitches and rhythms must be there, otherwise the audience is pulled out of the story as they cringe and turn to their friend asking “Did you hear that? What was that?”.

I recognize that the performance was not under ideal conditions, but she accepted the job knowing that it would be exceedingly cold and the danger of a major vocal flub on such a demanding piece. Still, I do not hold it against her. What bothers me is the percentage she used.

In live theatre, there will never be a perfect performance. Notes will be botched and you have to move on. If you are lucky, the audience doesn’t notice. If they do, by the end of the performance they will probably forget about it because you will have sung so many good notes throughout the show you will erase the unpleasant memory. While one or two, and maybe even ten or fifteen botched notes can be forgiven in a performance, using Idina Menzel’s math of 3 million notes in musical and success being getting 75% of them right she would consider getting 750,000 notes wrong a successful performance. To me, that is horrifying number.

In school 75% is a C. In the engineering world 75% accuracy in your calculations means your product will not work and someone could end up hurt or worse. I believe that in music it is the same way. One or two notes can be forgiven, but not 25% of them.

The notes Idina Menzel sang on New Year’s Eve were just a few of the millions of notes she will sing in her lifetime so we can, and will, forgive them as the memories are replaced by new, better ones in performances yet to come. But it is not right to pretend that her New Year’s Eve performance was a successful one – because if that is considered success in music, I may start avoiding live productions.

In the field of Art Criticism, a term called Ekphrasis is defined as a verbal description of art.

Dwell on this thought for a moment longer – why is Ekphrasis such an important concept that it gets this fancy word-name?

Because Ekphrasis is actually the process by which we translate a work of art like a painting into a verbal statement – it is the mental process through which the artist’s brushstrokes become words on the blank slate of the audience’s mind.

Ekphrasis has existed as long as art and language have coexisted. So this begs another question – across cultures with different values, religions, philosophies, social structures – has the Ekphrasis been fundamentally different? In other words, if an art critic from the Renaissance.

Were to discover a Modernist Frank Stella Sculpture from hundreds of years later, they’d write differently about Stella’s sculpture than Stella’s contemporaries not just due to differing cultural taste, but because their brain has not been wired to even comprehend what Stella is doing.

The word for this cognitive wiring is neural plasticity –

 

Cognitive scientists have discovered that action neurons in our brains are shaped (or plastered – and I do not the drinking kind, mind you) by our experiences. This is why consistent practice develops muscle memory, the ultimate evolution of an instinctive drive which replaces our need to consciously focus on the actions at hand.

For example, the first time you drive a car, you’re freaking out about signaling and making that left turn. Today, on the ump-teenth left turn of your driving career, you’re probably texting, blasting Big Sean, and not giving a fuck – all thanks to neural plasticity.

In fact, Art Historians, Linguists, and Cognitive Scientists have combined elements of their disciplines in order to develop a theory for the genesis of art in the caves of Lascaux and Altamira of Spain. The idea, explained by Art Historian John Onians, is that the inhabiting cavemen actually carved the likenesses as an attempt to communicate, but the first attempts at visual representation were crude and exaggerated.

Other cavemen not only read the visual representations, but also interpreted the exaggerations, continuing to reproduce this mistake and create a second system of visual representation – an artistic one that evolved alongside pictorial, symbolic communication as a more visual, metaphorical means of communicating thoughts.

When Art critics engage in ekphrasis, they’re describing how a painting works – using literary terms such as irony, metaphor, metonymy, as well as cognitive concepts, such as spacial relationships, logical inclusion, and so on. Ekphrasis is therefore a powerful mental tool that allows an individual to become more self-aware of how their own life experiences and interaction with a larger culture have shaped their mind to form a unique visual logic.

With this post I hope to emphasize the value of Art History, a subject which allows us to expand our visual logic and interact with cultures beyond our own – both today and throughout history – by learning their cultural contingencies in order to understand how and why they produced the art they did.

This post was inspired by a class I took 2 years ago with Martin Powers – HA 393 – Art Language, and the Language of Art – one of the best educational experiences of my life – Take it!!!

I’ve been studying the notion of postmodern art for a television history class (taught by Candace Moore, take a class with her if you want to learn awesome things about TV!)

Postmodernism is characterized by an extreme interest in style as a means of making a statement, disinterest in any traditional form, and the conscious decision to take a variety of historical aesthetics out of context to create a mosaic aesthetic which defies the logic of consumer culture.

I want to suggest the possibility that hipster culture is inherently postmodern. Let’s note some parallels:

Style as a form of statement:

hipsters are flashy and aware that every aspect of their grooming and clothing choice stand out from “the mainstream”. Hence, rad haircuts,

super thick rimmed glasses,

ironic t-shirts.

All of these clothing items not only demand attention, but call into question why these clothings are designed and worn the way they are. In other words, using the symbolic nature of clothing to get rid of the consumer agenda hidden behind the fabric.

Pastiche (empty cultural references):

in other words, taking visual elements of other cultures and using them to create a new, mosaic-like aesthetic which is unlike any existing tradition. For example,

t-shirts with tiny buddhas on them are not an attempt to push Hinduism/Buddhism’s ideals, they’re merely using Buddha because he looks funny, different, and distinguish the hipster’s wardrobe as anti-mainstream.

That’s like…so mainstream:

The decision to parody marketing tactics through actively rejecting the mainstream. Hipsters have distinguished hair styles and clothing trends which are anti-establishment. This smorgasbord approach to aesthetics rejects traditional consumer logic (capitalist hegemony).

I want to point out something here. Hipster culture ultimately forms its own mainstream – stores and salons have started to market the hipster look. Moreover, the decision to “distinguish” oneself from mainstream consumerism requires the social resources to pursue education, which some people plagued by consumerism do not have access to.

Hence, hipsters ultimately create their own brand of consumer logic. Their contribution to the anti-mainstream, however, is still relevant. By overemphasizing style and aesthetic marketing strategy, hipsters create awareness that style can be manipulated.

This post is meant neither to hipster bash nor hipster glorify, but rather to explore the postmodern aesthetic strategies hipsters have employed, and how those crazy concepts we’ve learned in school (Jean Baudrillard’s postmodern theories of hyperreality, Pierre Bourdieu’s critique of taste and social capital) actually apply to modern day fads.

I love How I Met Your Mother, I really do. The fact that it’s one of the few shows that can actually make me laugh out loud, the characters are all fantastic, and its constant ability to totally cross the line in a way that produces just the right effect are all qualities I really admire. However, I have one huge issue with the show: it’s basically all white people. I’m actually extremely disappointed in myself for not noticing this sooner, but as I continued to watch I noticed a major absence of color in the show. I still haven’t finished the series, but being most of the way through season 7 (out of nine total seasons), it’s really disappointing that this season was the first to have more than a couple sporadic appearances by people of color. I think maybe the writers realized this lack somewhere in season 7 because Robin and Barney both begin dating non-white characters, but it’s really unfortunate that it took until the show was 2/3 of the way over to change this. The only people of color in the previous six seasons were Barney’s brother, who only appeared a handful of times, the gang’s favorite cab driver Ranjit, Lily’s black best friend, Robin’s old singing partner, and some women who appeared in the montages of Barney and Ted’s ex flings. Other than this, no person of color received a sustained regular role on the show until season 7.

For being such a progressive and intelligent show, I really expected more diversity. As a long running show, HIMYM has sustained many subplots and brought in many new long term characters, almost all of which have been white. In other words, there were plenty of minor longer-term characters that could have been played by non-white actors, but this was never the case until season 7. Unfortunately, this has put a bitter taste in my mouth toward the show. Popular television is still largely dominated by white actors and actresses and in a show with constant additions of new characters in the extremely diverse landscape of NYC, the show had the opportunity to break the mold. Every day life is not a white-washed experience, every member of this society is vital and what we see on TV needs to reflect this. As viewers, it’s our job to demand to see more diversity on our favorite shows. As shows like Scandal and Orange is the New Black have proved, this can only enhance the quality and honesty of the show. If people want to argue that we are living in a post-discriminatory world, it’s high time to prove it. I’m glad HIMYM finally decided to diversify the cast of characters, but I can’t shake the disappointment that it took them 7 seasons to get there.

People consume media like water. With the constant streaming of shows, movies, and music, it’s important that what people are seeing matches the progressive thinking we are trying to possess as a nation. Each show has a social responsibility because people of all ages are watching and learning from what they see. Not another day should go by where individuals find they can’t identify with any characters from their favorite shows. So, this is my demand to television, especially predominantly white sitcom culture: step up your game.

Gangster rap is often cast aside as a commercial project, an advertisement which exploits urban violence and societal drug problems in order to create the image of the gangster, a figure condoning overconsumption and violence. I would like to analyze the lyricism and aesthetic of the lone gangster rapper figure as a poet. Although gangster rap certainly glamorizes violence and monetary excess, perhaps this glamorization calls to attention greater systemic problems within the community from which this figure originates.

One of the most infamous figures in the ganster rap tradition is the Notorious B.I.G. aka Biggie Smalls. Biggie died at the age of 24 in a drive-by shooting. Biggie was known for affiliations with east coast gangs and his rise to fame and wealth are often associated with these dubious allegiances. Biggie’s death marked an opportunity for media to condemn the event as the crystallization of a music culture which glorified the accumulation of wealth at any cost. But Biggie’s image and his music treat his socioeconomic background with far more nuance than critics credit him. I believe Biggie is quite self aware of his media image, which his label coopted to glorify a lifestyle of overconsumption in order to gloss over larger social problems. His lyrics reference his relationship to the drug scene and also situate his image in relationship to a broader cultural tradition of the crime lord figure.

His song, “You’re Nobody (Till Somebody Kills You)”, ironically released posthumously, exemplifies Biggie’s dialogue not only with media criticisms of the contemporary gangster rap image, but with broader historical social structures of capitalist oppression and the cultural tradition of crime as the manifestation of underlying structural violence.

The song begins with a reference to Christ’s 23rd Psalm:

“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I will fear no evil — for you are with me
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me
You prepare a table for me, in the presence of my enemies
You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows
Surely goodness and love will follow me — all the days of my life
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever”

Biggie references Biblical morality and complicates this moral compass by positioning the gangster as the figure seeking spiritual absolution. The question implicit to this formulation is: can criminals who have forsaken the law of the land still have access to its mercy? Is a figure outside the law of the land forsaken of its justice? Moreover, if the law of the land is exclusionary, if a figure born of this oppressive exclusion actively defies the law, is it not their social marginalization the real sin, and not the vile acts the criminal commits?

In the next verse, Biggie establishes the gangster as a figure caught between two opposing worlds: a life of socioeconomic exclusion which push the impoverished criminals into a life of violence, and a legal system ready to kill gangsters without considering the circumstances that have caused them to act outside of the law. As Biggie notes, “Strictly gun testing, coke measuring…/Shit’s official, only, the Feds I fear”. Gangster have created an alternative system of existence to support themselves in the face of economic subjugation, an official system outside the law. Paradoxically, any attempt to create a legitimate system outside of the law is necessarily illegitimate. There is no escape from economic subjugation, because any attempt to form resistance can only be done so with reference to the dominant oppressive system – it’s a catch 22.

Biggie goes on to demonstrate an awareness of the cultural tradition of criminal alterity: “Watch Casino, I’m the hip hop version of Nicky Tarantino”, draws reference to the cinematic tradition of the Italian-American gangster. Cinema studies notes the formation of the Italian-American gangster figure as an explicit critique of exclusionary legal and social structures. Driven outside society, the gangster is left with few options other than to commit to a life of crime in order to survive. Biggie notes a cultural parallel between this cinematic tradition and the contemporary state of gangster rap music.