Grunge did not die for this

So what is a hipster?
According to my buddy, Ren, who seems to know more about it than I do ("Because I hate hipsters." - My buddy, Ren) they are middle class kids who want to be different and cool like the grunge kids of the 90s, so they wear a lot of plaid.  And grow beards.  And play acoustic instruments.  Or something.  Except that at this point in the year of our Lord, 2015, hipster as a subculture has become so popular that it is no longer hip to be hipster.
Also according to my buddy, Ren, even though he is not a hipster, because he has interest in things that are not popular to mainstream audiences, he is probably more hipster than self-proclaimed hipsters are.  And then he went on a bit of a tirade about how hipsters say they like Twin Peaks but they do not really understand it.  (Which is a viable complaint when you are as passionate about Twin Peaks as my buddy, Ren.)
So I am going to classify hipsters in the style of my buddy, Ren.  Hipsters are people who want to be ahead of the curve, so they wear plaid and play acoustics and grow beards and wear fake glasses.  The dictionary definition is:
a person who follows the latest trends and fashions, especially those regarded as being outside the cultural mainstream.
-which is both less specific and less disdainful.  But it does still fit.

Now, I have difficulty with really explaining this with things that exemplify what hipsters really are.  And a large part of that comes from my confusion with the differences between hipster, alternative, and indie subcultures.  Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was one of the first works that came to mind, but although some of the characters featured in the universe of Scott Pilgrim might be hipsters, the story is largely one of the indie music scene.  And the film and comic series Scott Pilgrim itself has certainly gained enough popularity that it would be considered too mainstream to be hipster.

Hipster characters in a non-hipster work

Or maybe a show like Portlandia works, which is still probably too mainstream to be hipster, but nonetheless features many characters that would probably fall into the subculture.  With the coffee shops, underground music, and eccentric 20-somethings galore, the show itself sort of presents us with a bizarre, sometimes abstract world, that seems to be filled with people who might be considered hipsters.
Even though it might not be a hipster work in of itself, it is a show that regularly parodies hipsters.
In fact, here is a link to 15 Spot-on Hipster Parodies from Portlandia, which shows this quite well.

Battle of the Gentle Bands!

I am just grasping at straws, here.

According to this list of The Most Hipster Musicians and Groups, Neutral Milk Hotel is the most hipster band.  I know some NMH fans who would be offended by this assertion.  Nevertheless, Neutral Milk Hotel live at the Ottowa Folk Festival seems pretty damn hipster to me.
One of my favorite bands, Fleet Foxes, is #5, so here is one of their music videos (one of my favorite music videos) for good measure.

So hipster music, in contemporary terms, seems to have moved on from jazz to more folk-like songs to accentuate the sort of natural quality of hipster style.

Hipster in contemporary terms is such a broad style that it more than anything seems to be general mainstream youth style than an anti-mainstream subculture.  They have good music.  They have good coffee.  I can dig it.

Colorless World

What are the primary features of this world--spatial, cultural, biological, fantastic, cosmological? 

The world presented to us in Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki is a very interesting one due to its isolation, relationship with the spiritual, and relationship with the past.  We view the world largely from Tsukuru's perspective, and as he grows, the world seems to grow with him, spatially.  We begin in Tokyo where he works and attended school before we travel to where he grew up.  Tsukuru, a character that has made few travels in his life, is very connected with these places.  It is worth noting that Tsukuru realizes that although he spends all of his time in train stations, he never thinks to get on a train and travel.  And to that point, despite the fact that we know there is a world outside of the world that Tsukuru experiences, our world only broadens with him.  He finally travels to another country at the end of the story, pushing the boundaries of the world both Tsukuru and the readers experience.
The story takes place in Japan and thus Japanese cultural and social conventions are used throughout the story.  The connection to trains in particular has an interesting effect.  Public transport like trains are not used as widely in the US as they are in Japan, so it is likely that Japanese audiences are better able to relate to this aspect of the story.  Also important are naming conventions and the meanings behind those names.  Names in Japan tend to carry importance in regards to their meanings, and the idea of colored names would not have worked as well if the story had been in another country or culture.
The story deals with time in an interesting way.  Events that took place many years before the present day of the story are described in exquisite detail, which not only gives the readers perspective on who Tsukuru is, but how he is still impacted by the past.  The narrative is nonlinear and almost dream-like.  It feels as though we are traveling around with Tsukuru as he experiences not only the present world, but the world of his memories as he becomes lost in the emotions of his past traumas.  
Tsukuru's world is also one in which supernatural occurrences and dreams tend to carry importance.  There are moments when the events of the story are even scary, but like Tsukuru, the readers never really learn the truths behind these occurrences.  We never know if they are real or fabricated, but they carry weight within the story.  

Hey I am gonna be real honest

I am a little confused about what is due because I thought there was another assignment, but if there was it is not on the class blog page.
Worldbuilding and hipster assignment coming your way.
Something else about that too, though.  I think my trouble with the hipster assignment is that I do not know what a hipster is.  I understand the word in a historical context, but the subculture in the contemporary use of the term is not something I ever grasped.  So to that point, I do not even know where to begin in regards to finding works that define said subculture.  I will do my best but my perspective will be very narrow.  Apologies.

I only figured out how to upload pictures as accents to posts today this is cool

Some In-Class Stuff From Ginsberg Day

I became aware for the first time that I feel unlovable.

Steaming coffee dreams of wooden tables

singeing  the edges of paper napkins

listening to dancing and coughing up

passions and passions.

Told of when a brain picked apart

in inches and clumps of coils

and piles of nerve endings.

Told of when images of angel figures

were dragged, unromantically

from the hands of rapists and abusers and

violent laced alcohol.

The shoreline was a moon, dark and quiet, and

the water got closer and closer and closer

and I felt shadows crawling through the sand.  Shadows

    of bushes and seashells and lifeguard posts.  Shadows of women creeping the wind blew winter air across the waves and into my shaking bones little dipper and big dipper and reflections from the city lights on glass, rippling and orange like fire. 

I do not care to get personal I am

bored with thinking about it.  I just got sick of the whole damn thing.

The shoreline was a moon

I love Buster Keaton

I love German expressionist movies

I love identity crises

I love loss of control

I love fate

I love unabashed passion

I love cheesecake

I love salmon and pasta

I love Kida Haze

I love Peter Lorre

I love Vincent Price

I love views from up high

I love grayscales and pastels

I love my mother and father

I love gold and red

These are a few of my favorite things

Lithromantic OR the experience of romantic attraction with no desire for reciprocation something of which I had been previously aware and forward in acknowledgement something that is warm and gentle and soft and nowhere near overwhelming something about which I am unbothered and open about if asked despite a disposition to the contrary something common in myself but uncommon in life there is very little human connection there is a rare sense of fondness there is a rare sense of wanting to be with another person ever for any reason I have been alone for years and it is no trouble no trouble at all but I enjoy having a place to go on a Friday night where subcultures are dancing to subculture music and that is a place with anyone but that anyone is fleeting and rare and nervous in headlights

Reporting from Oz

Edison's Light by Robert and Shana ParkHarrison

I cycled through the plains strapped into a contraption that can only be described as a wooden unicycle with a lightning rod haphazardly modeled together with wire and glue, even traces of bubblegum lining the metal framework.  A bolt of lightning struck a nearby hill.  Ridiculous, I thought.  That was the only word to describe how I looked, my legs tirelessly pedaling through the dried grass over branches and dandelions.  But Oscar Diggs, the long-exonerated Wizard of Oz himself, promised that his means was a straight path to Oz.  By his calculations, he attested, with enough electric energy, I would be catapulted straight to the Emerald City.  And I trusted him, maybe foolishly, but I had no other choice.
I was an honest American reporter, and I had a story to write.
Proving the existence of a thought-to-be mythical land was not what I had in mind when I said I wanted to launch my journalistic career, but any alternative was better than my miserable failures as a writer.
Any alternative.
Even death.
Another bolt of lightning, this time closer.  I braced myself.  Thunder echoed above me and shook the ground.  I thought of turning back.
It was too late.
I closed my eyes so I did not see the ball of white light as it struck me squarely, filling my body with electric needles that buzzed and clicked like insects.

I heard insects.  Insects and a voice.
"Are you alright?"
I opened my eyes.
The first thing I saw was a girl, no more than twelve.  Clouds passed above her, close overhead.  Close.  Her wild, golden hair twisted and intermingled with the white fog.
That was when I noticed we were hundreds of miles off the ground.
I admittedly let out something between a yelp and a shriek.  She held me up by the fragile wires of the contraption in her slender hands.
"Are you lost?"
I stupidly asked, "Is this The Emerald City?"
I could see the pitying concern on her face, but she politely informed me that, "No, you've aimed a little too high.  You looked distressed, so I caught you."
"Thanks.  Thank you.  Who are you?"
"I'm Polychrome."
"I'm a reporter."  I handed her my card and she looked at it, a little puzzled.  Both of her hands were occupied with the continuation of my fragile life.  I stuck the card back into my pocket and added, for good measure, "I'm a friend of Dorothy's."
"I see.  We don't get many of those."
"No?"
"Not up here."
"Maybe you could just... drop me off.  Leave me somewhere close to the City."  This would never do.  I, an honest American reporter, could not write a story about a land from the view hundreds of miles above it.
"I'm afraid I can't.  You would get hurt!  But my father can bring you down safely."
"Thank the heavens for that."  I heard giggles and whispers of You're welcome from the clouds around us.  Unbelievable.

I was lowered to the ground by a beam of brilliant colors and rolled onto the damp grass unceremoniously and a little airsick.  Polychrome waved to me as she rode the Bow back up into the sky, until she had melted into it and nothing but a faint arch of color remained.
Finally, I unstrapped myself from the uncomfortable machine that had brought me here.  It was cracked and broken in several places.  Useless.
I was sandwiched between a dark forest and a brilliant field of poppies stretching in a great expanse.  And beyond that, the Emerald City.  Diggs had warned me about the poppy field, so I needed to find a way around it.
The air was cool and fresh.  I followed the rustling trees along the side of the field.  Their trunks were a pure and sparkling white and cold to the touch, as though they were made of ice.
Something freezing fell on my head.
"Sorry, sorry."
I looked up and something long and shining flashed in the sunlight.  It curled around the branches and slithered towards me until its face was level with mine.
It had a body like smoke, translucent and changing, but its face was made of a shining, white mask.  On the mask was a crudely drawn expression: an unchanging half-smile.  Its voice was deep and emotional.  Vincent Price came to mind.
"I'm sorry if I've inconvenienced you, Mr..."
"I'm a reporter."  I handed him my card.  He looked at it for a moment before I put it back in my pocket.  He had no hands.  "And what exactly are you?"
"I'm a who, not a what.  It's a little rude of you to ask me in that manner."
"I guess we're even, then, since it's also a little rude to drop..." I looked on the ground.  At my feet in the grass lay a half-eaten ice cream cone.  I looked up into the trees and noticed for the first time that ice cream cones of all flavors were hanging from the branches.  
I remembered my camera.  Since we do not generally have ice cream trees back home in the good old United States of America, and since I am an honest American reporter, I decided to take a photograph.
"Right.  Still sorry.  Very sorry."
I took a picture of my whispy companion.  He showed up as a smudge on the lens.  He continued as I took a few more pictures.
"I am the wind that whispers between dark shadows at night.  I am a guardian of all that is evil and mystifying.  I was created by a dark, unmentionable force."
"You don't seem all that bad."
"I was created by the two-year-old son of a dark, unmentionable force."
"So it goes."
"And I was banished from their household.  I was not so good at my job.  While I was there, they called me Mortimer."
"How cliche."
"Truly.  And I want to go to the Emerald City to find honest work.  Singing songs or polishing jewels or cutting peoples' hair."
I looked again at his handless body.  "I am on my way there, now.  Come along with me, will you?"  His mask face nodded eagerly, "But first, please get me an ice cream cone."

The ice cream was rich and sweet and I finished it as we approached the Emerald City.  Time seemed to move quickly, I noticed.
The City was a shining bustling metropolis of towering buildings and fast-talking folks of all types dressed in extravagant, green clothes.  I felt a little out of place in my black jacket.  I could see that my companion felt the same as he curled himself shyly around my arm.
Shop windows filled with incredible displays lined the streets.  A small chorus passed, singing a song.

We all love our City, green!
Strong and safe and peachy keen
O what joy it is to be
In the Great Emerald City!

An anthem.  So it goes.
"Stress on the word safe," my companion muttered.  These characters have seen some wild things.


I must put down my notebook at this point, as we are approaching the castle and I hope to have an audience with Ozma, herself.  I will continue my story following my return.  Let it be known that my journey thus far has been a success and to those who doubted the existence of Oz: I have the pictures to prove it.  So it goes, as an honest American reporter and a friend of Dorothy's.