Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Richard's Hipster Pick of the Day (combined with an episode of "Is It Art, Or Isn't It?" / Plus, The Boys Consider Current Trends: Martini Nights

Local hipsters love Wonder Fair Art Gallery because admission prices to its occasional music/art events often get you a free PBR to enjoy during the show. Tonight, brings a performance by Fourth of July side-project 1,000,000 Light Years(accompanied by a video piece). But the real reason to go may be for the current exhibition of paintings by Ilenia Madel.ire, which Range Life Records website describes as "intensely-colored, straight to the heart, psychological-drama illustrations." (click to enlarge).

















Chip: "Note that the people are faceless, and mostly black-and-white, suggesting the simplistic worldview of a society where we use anyone different as a footrest (the red socks of the woman on the floor suggest non-conformity, and the red curtain behind the folks on the couch suggest a wider world that they are blind to). Still, I find the work dull. Not art."

Richard: "Chip forgot to note that the open curtains suggest the possiblity of change. This is a bleak work, but not without hope. Art!"

---

"The first time I discovered the Eldridge Hotel's 1/2-price martini-night, I took one look at the young sorority ladies dressed to the nines in little black and red cocktail dresses, looking like Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker, and I says to Richard, I says: "We've found something really special here." --Chip

Hipsters have their PBR and well-dressed young professionals (along with well-dressed young women out emulating Sex and the City) have their martini nights. In Larryville, that night is Thursday, and although the Eldridge is no doubt "the place to be," other bars have followed suit with martini specials of their own. It's an interesting phenomenon, and there's perhaps more to it than meets the eye. Sure, for a lot of the women clustered together, it's just a chance to get away from men for a night and discuss their favorite vibrators, but is there a deeper cultural longing at work here, a desire for a kind of vanished "Old Hollywood" society of fashion and cocktails that's a far cry from today's persistent worries over financial meltdowns?

Richard: "This current crop of fruit-flavored vodka martinis are about as far from a real martini as a PBR is to a real beer, but I have to admit that on the occasions I've ordered a Hollywood (which is bright green and has rum in it), I feel like Cary Grant. I feel powerful enough to swoop down on a bevy of these sorostitutes, take them home, and remove their cocktail dresses...with my teeth. And therein lies the popularity of martini-nights--through a simple combination of retro cocktails and fashion sense, people are rediscovering a sense of self-worth that modern culture denies them."

Chip: "I think it's mostly just a bunch of women out discussing their favorite vibrators."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

do you two yutzes have any idea how much waitress rail I have picked up (in, the before times...) at classy joints called The Velvet Lounge and the Retro Room... where drinking these cocktails destroyed young nubiles women's defenses and made them give into their raw impulses to such a whiff off a man's stoggie?!?

--Cultural Anthropologists, indeed! You fools need to taste the king of drinks: Mr Martini! (and listen to some damn Rat Pack while yer at it!)

Anonymous said...

Waitress "rail?"

Anonymous said...

My favorite is the Rabbit: Small and sleek and gets the job done. Right.

Anonymous said...

Ladies, we'd be pleased to read any and all vibrator stories you wish to send in.

(but we don't want Dr. X posing as a lady!).