A post on Brittany's blog pointed me to this article about a Tweed Ride in DC, an event where everyone dresses old timey and civilized and rides bicycles. I'm fine with that, I've always wanted to get older and wear more tweed.
But then, in that article, I read this quote and nearly punched my monitor:
Hillary Gochard, 24, sits astride her silver '71 or '72 Gitane cruiser, wearing a cardigan, tweed knickers and a flapperish hat. She says our hyper, sloppy, postmodern society has begotten a longing for the classic elements of any era, for purposeful fashion and polished behavior.
This bike ride is an antidote to our "postmodern society"?! You animal! Do you have any idea what the words you use mean? A bunch of youngsters in the year 2009 dressing up in century-old clothes to ride their bicycles around in a group, rejoicing in the knowing throwbacking that they're deeply all so deeply engaged in? That's the dictionary definition of postmodernism! Especially in the dictionary I wrote! You savages! Take care with your buzzwords.
Listen, okay, this is what postmodernism is: An accute self-consciousness rooted in an awareness of one's (or one's work's) relation with their/its influences. Postmodernism, by definition, is a reaction to modernism (so, in my opinion, can only officially exist after the modernist movement) which was a rejection of past influences, conventions, and values. It's a looking back at those rejected influences, a reassessing, a relating, a positioning, and it's basically all anyone ever does anymore. It is very much something that exists as a relationship that is related to itself by itself.
This has happened before.
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7 comments:
Yes. Get 'em.
i'm happy to say that i knew exactly what made you nearly punch your monitor before you said what it was.
but i still think even by your definition hamlet can and should be classed as a a post-modern progenitor.
I love the thought of you at work restraining yourself from punching the monitor
That's the most emotion I've ever seen from you B.
Ask me how I feel about the Transformers movies sometime.
Yeah. Lots of people in DC think they are smarter than they really are.
i love your postmodernism posts. let's read some theory together at our next sleepover...and watch FNL (i finally went and got addicted last night at cindy's! clear eyes full hearts can't lose!!!)
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