Hip: The History
Posted on February 16, 2005
I had John Leland's Hip: The History in my hand right up until the sales clerk pointed out that I was looking at the price in American dollars, and with tax it would have come out to more than $45 Canadian. After rolling my eyes back to their previous position I politely informed the clerk that I had changed my mind, leaving the book on a stack of marked-down Atkins material. Every book shop I walked into in Canada had the same outrageous prices, which is a shame as I enjoy browsing the shelves of brick and mortar shops as apposed to Amazon or other online book retailers. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be the guy that supports local shops but when Amazon can sell me the same book for almost half the price there's not a lot of debating going on in my head.
Leland's website has plenty of great information including a series of top ten lists like, Hipsters We Could Imagine Hanging With and People Who Don't Seem Hip But Probably Are (Karl Rove? Maybe it's cool, or rather hip to say to a guy like Rove is hip when in fact he's the furthest thing from it). The Hip timeline is also worth checking. Currently, as Leland puts it, we're in the sixth hip convergence.
2001-present --- post-hip. When everybody is hip -- correctly countercultural, indie, ironic and has seen it all -- what does it mean to be hip? The same thing it always did: to see, to open one's eyes. In the 21st century, the enlightenment of hip -- of hepi or hipi -- means more than ever.
As the product description says, without these hipsters (pimps, hustlers, outlaws, junkies, scoundrels, white negroes, Beats, geeks, beboppers and others) we might all be listening to show tunes.
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