[Intrepid Homoludens]

Clockwise from top left: Imogen Heap, Disney Concert Hall, Bloc Party, Sofia Coppola,
The XIVth Dalai Lama, Geometry Wars, Maurice Sendak.


Happy New Year.

Firstly, check out part 1. Secondly, read my personal manifesto below.

Originally Posted by Trep

'Cool' is a state of mind, a distillation of one's own essence worn like a one-of-a-kind fragrance. 'Cool' can be shared, but never shown off. 'Cool' is zen, thus zen is 'cool'.

'Cool' has nothing to do with following an ideal, but it has a lot to do with ideas. 'Cool' inspires and transpires, but unlike trends it never expires. 'Cool' does not have a shelf life.

To proclaim that you are 'cool' is a dead giveaway that you are not. To flaunt to others that you belong to the 'cool' crowd betrays that that crowd is anything but 'cool'. The fashionable are not 'cool', they are merely fashionable. You'll not impress anyone if you attempt to be 'cool'. That is not what 'cool' is.

'Cool' may often exude an atmosphere of dissonance, but the dissonance itself does not equate 'cool', it is merely an effect of it. 'Cool' operates above, below, and off to the side of the primary frequency.

'Cool' can be elusive, but you know 'cool' when you see, hear, touch, taste, or smell it. When 'cool' walks into a room it transforms the space and wafts around us. When 'cool' leaves a room it lingers with us.

At its most heightened, 'cool' is unaware, free, expansive, yet still private and contained. That it is so expressive is just incidental. 'Cool' can be contradictory - it is a public intimation.

'Cool' is of you, me, him, and her.....unhindered.

Thirdly: what is 'cool' by you?

[lumi]

One aspect of cool is the ability to take something that could very easily be dumb looking, and making it something people want. Certain styles of dancing or fashion for instance.

Not cool is looking at old posts and seeing that you made a dumb mistake in it. Let me try it again: Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield are two hep cats.

[Fairygdmther]

I had a friend up north who had decided to go into doing her stand-up comedy routine full time, when a bunch of us went to see her. She is a short chunky fat Irish lady with a gorgeous head of auburn/dk brown hair - definitely her best feature. She isn't ugly, but she definitely isn't pretty.

When she came in to do her first set, many of the bar patrons were looking at each other, like 'what did we get into here?' She just smirked at them and began her set. She did her 'cool' routine. She lightning cracked her way through several minutes of total hilarity, and had everyone rolling on the floor laughing. She had all her own material, from her own observations, and, 'wow' was she good.

Then she sat on a stool and talked to us. 'Cool' she said, was in all of us, but we don't always let it show. If you've copied it, it isn't cool - cool is only original, and individual. Sometimes you have to look beneath the surface to see it. She picked out 5-6 people in the audience and told us about them, and why they were cool - and none of them were 'cool' to look at, but she must be psychic, because she pegged every one of them. Their friends were asking if they knew her, but none did. She would 'read' them and say things like 'even though you just broke up with your girlfriend, you still miss her but know that she was never right for you - she was too possessive, and the relationship was stifling for you. You need the freedom to flower, and she was holding you back.' Then she went on to others, one by one, telling them what they needed to do, and why they weren't doing it. Being 'cool' was being who you are, and being true to yourself.

This fat lady who didn't look 'cool' was being true to herself and being cool. At the end of her first set - they came up and surrounded her, each wanting a piece of this amazing lady. She joined us for a drink, and they wouldn't leave her alone the entire time. No one saw her 'fat', they saw her inner self. When they left for the night, everyone knew they were richer for hearing her.

FGM

[Squinky]

I'm so not cool. I'm a total square and proud of it.

Also, I see Trep's back in Chit Chat Land. Interesting.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Fairygdmther

I had a friend up north who had decided to go into doing her stand-up comedy routine full time, when a bunch of us went to see her....

I would, of course, have loved to meet her.

[omloflump]

Cool is in the eye of the beholder, and thus nigh impossible to define. Most of the people whom are perceived to be cool have a common thread of faux nonchalance and a defiant I-don't-care-what-anybody-thinks individuality (which is seldom the reality). By this definition, self-consciousness is the enemy of cool — at least until the ironists get their hands on it. In common usage, however, the term is either a fickle synonym for "good" or a crude affirmation, neither of which have much to do with the pseudo fashionability in question (let's face it, it is just fashion; what most people would refer to as cool is what the discerning refer to as fad — who's to say who's right?).

The majority of what is classified as cool within the current alternative music circles, for instance, is nothing more than This Week's Model (usually the fault of NME's premature idolising). Apparently classicist postpunk postmodernism is cool, regardless of talent. (Personally, I don't find an ounce of coolness between them, be they Bloc Party (since they're featured above), The Strokes (who fare slightly better than the rest due to the presence of a solid melodicism to offset the rhythmic posturing on their debut), or Franz Ferdinand.) But that's just my no-more-valid opinion. Let's just dub everyone daggy and go home.

[Fairygdmther]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

I would, of course, have loved to meet her.

Can't introduce her, but here's her website -

Carol O'Shaugnessy

FGM

[Tiocfaidh]

Yeah, BLOC PARTY is cool !

I´m eagerly awaiting their second album

[Jazhara7]

That reminds me of that one time in Social studies (Sozialkunde) where we were discussing what "cool" is. We got some definitions too, and after reading them the other students said "Well, in that case, Jessica is the only cool one of us!".

I wasn't he most popular student (certainly not part of the "cool" crowd), and also quite shy. But that comment made me smile.



-

[rlpw]

Treppie!!!

What's cool... hmmmmmmmm
Neil Gaiman

[Dasilva]

Imogen Heap? How does she fit into this conversation? No doubt shes the coolest!

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by omloflump

Cool is in the eye of the beholder, and thus nigh impossible to define. Most of the people whom are perceived to be cool have a common thread of faux nonchalance and a defiant I-don't-care-what-anybody-thinks individuality (which is seldom the reality). By this definition, self-consciousness is the enemy of cool — at least until the ironists get their hands on it. In common usage, however, the term is either a fickle synonym for "good" or a crude affirmation, neither of which have much to do with the pseudo fashionability in question (let's face it, it is just fashion; what most people would refer to as cool is what the discerning refer to as fad — who's to say who's right?).

The majority of what is classified as cool within the current alternative music circles, for instance, is nothing more than This Week's Model (usually the fault of NME's premature idolising). Apparently classicist postpunk postmodernism is cool, regardless of talent. (Personally, I don't find an ounce of coolness between them, be they Bloc Party (since they're featured above), The Strokes (who fare slightly better than the rest due to the presence of a solid melodicism to offset the rhythmic posturing on their debut), or Franz Ferdinand.) But that's just my no-more-valid opinion. Let's just dub everyone daggy and go home.

I agree, if only conditionally. But don't you think that sometimes our perspective on 'cool' is filtered through our own [collective] societal yearnings, insecurities, angst, and doubts? Isn't how we feel or don't feel about ourselves part of the process in how we delineate someone or something perceived as 'cool' (by popular culture, whose definition itself may be subject to scrutiny; by arbiters who, by the very fact that they deem the subject 'cool' or not could be undermining some 'sanctified' essence of what 'cool' must be, which itself may be elusive anyhow, etc.)?

On that note, more of what I personally think is cool...



Clockwise from top left: author Anatole Broyard, Coco Chanel circa 1915-1930, photographer Louise Dahl-Wolf,
sartorial conceptual artist Chalayan Hussein, athlete Dean Karnazes.