Jim O'Bryan wrote:russell dunn wrote:I might have missed this article had it not been referenced here, and I confess to
having stuck with it through the positive and upbeat finish. Thanks to that guy from
Russia Times, or wherever, that provided the link.
Спасибо гражданина
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For those that cannot read Cyrillic, which is a very cool thing to do, this says,
"Thank you citizen."
Michael said:
"all that has been broadly recognized as cool, even by people who never had an original thought in their lives."
And there is the crux of the problem. "It's cool" always followed by whatever that person deems as cool. Look at your list, it is what Michael Gill does, hence, it must be cool, and therefore it must be cool for others, after all, it is cool, look I do it.
I could talk to your kids, and because kids know parents are not "cool" they would probably list something else as "cool." Or they might mention what their friends have deemed as "cool," and then use peer pressure to make sure their friends know it is "cool" for them. And of course it works in reverse. Take a single person that has "cool" factor and piss them off, and tell them they are not "cool" and instantly they will decide that whatever it is that they can't do to is un"cool."
"Cool" is not a brand, it is not a description, it is a pitiful crutch that weak people, generally uncool, desperately search after like a shiny object, and as soon as something else is described as "cool" off the weak-minded go to the next shiny object. "Cool" is not solid, nor anything worth building a community on. Generally, to quote my old friend Kenneth Warren, the moment something is described as "cool," it is not. Then he would smile and say, "But Jim you are one 'cool' cat." It's like the Higgs Boson, so fleeting and hard to "catch" that it never really exists in real life. Matter of fact because it is so subjective on such a personal level that it become meaningless unless your job is to manufacture it. Like Mundo, Backstreet Boys, My Little Pony, beer bongs, polyester pant suits, wide ties, no narrow ties, I mean wide ties.
What I took from the story is that it is pitiful, not to have the microbrew but to homogenize community after community until they all look the same, not in an effort to have sustainability, not in an effort to use common sense, but in an effort to catch "cool" in a bottle as a way to move a community forward, and this is where I think you get confused. Food security, something I believe in, locally-owned, something I believe in, green, something I believe in, because they are real, not because they are "cool." Makes sense, so yes the locally owned micro-brewery can be great for a community especially if sustainable. But is the multinational chain of micro-brews that aim to put the local micro brewers out of business "cool?" I mean using your examples, a small locally-grown media project would be the coolest thing in America, especially after competing with a large mutli-billion dollar media empire designed to shut them down and trick the consumer into thinking they are the real locals, while monetizing local news for their own pockets out of the city, with no regard to the community. Right?
But here is the problem Jim sees with all of this. Organic = sustainable, non-organic = not-so-sustainable. Organic, grown from the ground up to serve a need, and the issues of a person, a street, a community, a county, state or country = sustainable. Non-organic, designed from the top down designed to fool, fleece with NO REGARD for the community, only its bottom line = not sustainable. Which is more important for a community, which is really "cool?"
Ask any "Hipster," their grandparents are not cool, though they are real hipsters. How faux, how sad, how pitiful. Parents spend a lifetime teaching their kids to be themselves, only for them to see their parents and their city worry if they are "cool," or just like every other city. No wonder they are all medicated. (Parents and kids.)
Again what I took from the story, is a microbrew "cool?" Possibly. Is it "cool" for a city to think it will help their brand as "cool?" To quote Mad Magazine, something I always thought was "cool" as an adolescent, "YEEEEECH!"
But hey, that's just me, and I never sought out "cool." Only what appealed to me. I never wanted to be like every other city in America. I just wanted to live in a community that was so sure of themselves they did not desperately have to chase after the Higgs Boson day after day after day to feel good about themselves.
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