The powerful thing about STYLE is that when it’s approached consciously by the style leaders — i.e. with the understanding that it can and will be co-opted by corporatism at any opporunity — it can become a powerful tool for subversion. (In fact that’s how corporations do it, but I’m not going into that specifically.)

Style is not just SEEMING; it is also DOING. Humans have this interesting capacity for deciphering fakes and phonies from doers and believers. Something “feels wrong”, and it’s in that moment — a micromoment that happens all over the world a hundred times a second — that a choice is made: is part of this style an irony that encompasses NOT-doing (and so is fair-game for collection into the vast consumptive morass), or is this style one that must necessarily contain DOING?

The answer to this question comes from exemplars.

Why do we exhort our teenagers to be better examples for their younger siblings? Why do we chide fathers for not practicing what they preach? Why do we consider it the ultimate punk rock betrayal to “sell out” — i.e. to apparently give in to the commercialism that punk-ism alleged to intend to short-circuit?

Because the way you protect a style that incorporates a sort of DOING that you want to encourage is to make sure there are enough enviable persons being visible in that style and incorporating that DOING.

To bring it back to ground level, the point I’m making here is that Punk’s Not Dead, not fully dead, unless you proclaim that it’s dead and there’s no way you can be an exemplar of true punk.

So if punkness is to embody a certain DOING and not simply an ironic sort of SEEMING: take back the style.

In other words: I want to see librarians wearing spikes and sporting mohawks.

…Or flannel and ripped jeans. Or cat-eye glasses and leopard print dresses.

…Or none of the above. Because just saying “fuck off I’m a librarian” is pretty punk too.

Technorati Tags: aesthetics, corporatism, culture, libraries, philosophy, punk rock, style, theory

Hrm.  At least they have wifi.

The co-owner of the shop remembered I had been in Japan and asked me how my matcha latte was, which I had taken about 2 sips of by that point.  I said, “it’s pretty good…”  Then I realized I’m in America again, and my subtle intimation of “bleh” doesn’t really hit home the way it does in Japan.  “It’s a bit too sweet for my tastes, actually.”  It was honestly like drinking gummy heated ice cream sweetened with corn syrup, which I’m guessing is exactly what the mix is.

So the lady proceeds to show me a little can of matcha with no sweetener, which she says she and the staff drink.  It’s from Japan, in fact.  SOUSENCHA, it says on the label in hiragana.  She says the can is expired so she can’t sell it to customers.  Wait… so you have this stuff and you drink it, but you’re not going to update your supply and sell it…?

It frustrates me that what’s on offer to buy at cafes is basically candy, and if you want something different, you have to finagle for it or do without.

International travel has definitely heightened my awareness of the state of the American food supply with respect to demand.  Case in point: the difference between the American and Japanese palates when it comes to junk food.  Japanese can’t get enough salt; Americans love to load up on sugar.

In Japan, a “matcha latte” is a slightly bitter (like tea), slightly grainy (like powder) sort of affair.  Starbucks serves them kinda sweet, but Tully’s makes a version with little to no added sugar, which is delicious.  The soy milk in Japan is unsweetened and also actually tastes like soy, which is a pleasant flavor, not an “off” taste as the Western palate so frequently condemns it.  Whatever soy milk they’re using there, it’s not a brand I’ve ever seen in the U.S.

Furthermore, Japanese people don’t seem to go to cafes with the intention of drinking something.  Rather, they’re there to meet someone and talk for a while, or rest between shopping sprees, or possibly have a private English lesson (quite a popular activity).  If they have to order a beverage to sit down, so be it.  They mostly order the smallest, cheapest beverage they can, and then hog a table for an hour.

Cafes are almost always crowded and busy in Tokyo, Fujisawa, Matsumoto, Kyoto, and lots of other cities, so I don’t think going to a cafe is a “treat” for the Japanese.  I had two interviews in cafes — they are like cheap offices.  The coffee is universally bad (except in certain boutique cafes that are hard to find), and everybody orders it regardless.  It seems to me that Japanese cafes have no real impetus for becoming “hot ice cream” shops.

I’m not sure there’s anything I can do with this information other than write about it.  So, I guess, NYAH.

Damn, I just realized I didn’t fill up my Tully’s POINTO-CAADO (points card).  I have stamps on that thing from Matsumoto, Kofu, Nara, Kyoto, and Tokyo.  (Go me.)

Technorati Tags: america, cafe, culture, japan, matcha latte, sugar