Greetings Culture-nauts! I have been quite busy of late working away at the copy edits for my next book which is a tough gig for me, as details are not my forte.
One of the exciting things about writing this book was being able to read a whole ton of stuff on the history of the interchangeable terms ‘hip’ and ‘cool’. Those hard to define concepts which carry an almost voodoo like power over huge swathes of global youth (and not so youth) culture.
One author I discovered as I read about the history of cool was John Leland. John Leland writes like I wish I could. His command of language and his understanding of pop culture is incredible. In one paragraph he will link 19th century poet Walt Whitman, French Situationist Guy Debord, Rapper Biggie Smalls, and then end by discussing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It is not just that Leland knows who and what is cool, it is that he understands that what we call hip is really about a whole new understanding of the human self. His book Hip the Historyis THE book on the history of the social ethic known as hipsterdom. It is not just a discussion of the latest trends but a complete social history of American popular culture.
You can read Leland discussing Hip here
