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#1 2009-05-05 14:56:15
- chetmiles
- Member
- Posts: 1099
Modernism as a refuge from modernity
Dare we deny it? We tend to look back and inwards: back to when Brooks made a decent suit, inwards to what Coltrane is trying to tell us in 'A Love Supreme'. What is Modernism but a means of presenting theory to the world via clothes, music, art, architecture, design, literature, movies, places in which to eat and drink? We are forever trying to recapture something, some elusive spirit, which is why we spend so much time poring over Blue Note album covers, deploring the shitty turns Soho and Covent Garden have taken, discussing the nature of 'cool', idolising guys who were dead before we ever discovered we were 'mods' or 'modernists'. 'Modernity' is Starbucks, Subway and Gap. Modernism, thank God, is a gaggia hissing in Old Compton Street, salt beef from the deli and Haspel Wash N' Wear...
Among other things...
#2 2009-05-05 18:55:38
- Hard Bop Hank
- Ivy Soul Brother
- From: land of a 1000 dances
- Posts: 4923
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
... in way... of course... yes...
...and....
.........you could say the same about some "high modernist" literature of the 1920s...
.... and ....
“No Room For Squares”
”All political art is bad – all good art is political.”
"Would there be any freedom of press or speech if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid innocuous euphemisms?"
#3 2009-05-06 00:21:58
- Alex Roest
- Member
- From: The Hague, The Netherlands
- Posts: 2165
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
Undeniably true and also one of the reasons I never thought of myself as a Modernist. Interesting little places I think are always preferable over chain stores ( generally speaking ) but there's simply too much contemporary stuff I really aprreciate to seriously dig the mindset as described by chet. I do 'get it' of course but it's not my thing at all really...
#4 2009-05-06 00:44:50
- ray
- Member
- Posts: 43
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
What are you sayin', we're no better than them weirdoes over at the Fedora Lounge?
#5 2009-05-06 01:40:18
- Just Jim
- Member
- Posts: 1159
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
I'm a dull boy... I still insist that my interest in all this is all about design classics.
#6 2009-05-06 02:01:00
- Alex Roest
- Member
- From: The Hague, The Netherlands
- Posts: 2165
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
I'm into contemporary literature more than classic pages to be honest, soundwise it's the reverse but every era produced something of great interest I think, clotheswise it's modern classics next to whatever fits within that spectrum. Films I watch are a mix, art and architecture as well as design I know little of really....
Last edited by Alex Roest (2009-05-06 02:03:32)
#8 2009-05-06 02:45:42
- 1966
- 1,966% Ivy
- Posts: 2382
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
Funny how "modernism" as used above has the opposite of its original meaning: what once meant "rejecting the past" is now surrounded with conservative nostalgia.
#9 2009-05-06 02:55:43
- Alex Roest
- Member
- From: The Hague, The Netherlands
- Posts: 2165
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
Last edited by Alex Roest (2009-05-06 02:56:04)
#10 2009-05-06 03:05:11
- Prof Kelp
- Professor of Ivy
- Posts: 1033
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
Well "modernism" itself is now ironically an historical term, with its roots lying in the late nineteenth century!!
Maybe the "mods" should have really termed themselves post, post modernists then that could have been shortened to PoPoMod and we could avoid all this confusion with "modernism" in its original form.
Hank, Alex, Ray, Jim........good call's all of you! and 66.....its alright I'd written this over an hour ago and then went into a meeting before submitting, then others had replied!!!
Last edited by Prof Kelp (2009-05-06 03:33:11)
http://thetownoutside.tumblr.com
#11 2009-05-06 03:10:17
- 1966
- 1,966% Ivy
- Posts: 2382
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
A modernist of today, rejecting the past, would have to be some synthetic clad, walking twittering cyborg.
#12 2009-05-06 03:17:14
- Alex Roest
- Member
- From: The Hague, The Netherlands
- Posts: 2165
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
#13 2009-05-06 03:41:58
- Prof Kelp
- Professor of Ivy
- Posts: 1033
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
http://thetownoutside.tumblr.com
#14 2009-05-06 03:51:52
- The Beatnik
- Member
- Posts: 392
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
Ah, back to the days when Joe Orton, Kenny Williams and myself would have our gaggias hissed round Soho...
#15 2009-05-06 04:00:40
- Prof Kelp
- Professor of Ivy
- Posts: 1033
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
Ah Old Compton St, where you can wear your best batts and capello, and charper for a nice basket on an omi-polone.
http://thetownoutside.tumblr.com
#16 2009-05-06 08:38:42
- Suitedbooted2000
- Member
- Posts: 577
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
To me Modernism is a mix:
taken the best of the past into today be that Art,Music,Clothers ect
just now I'm enjoying listern to Rusty Bryant 'Night Train now' but I'M HERE, RIGHT NOW i'm not in 1957 or 1968 but 2009.
Last edited by Suitedbooted2000 (2009-05-06 08:55:19)
#18 2009-05-06 08:51:20
- Just Jim
- Member
- Posts: 1159
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
I keep writing cheques for 1999.. Lewis is ahead of me.
#19 2009-05-06 08:55:54
- Suitedbooted2000
- Member
- Posts: 577
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
damm I am stuck in a timewarp 
#20 2009-05-06 09:10:41
- The Beatnik
- Member
- Posts: 392
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
I like the idea of 66's 'walking, twittering cyborg' actually...
#22 2009-05-06 09:49:50
- chetmiles
- Member
- Posts: 1099
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
Okay so far, chaps? Keep up the good work.
#23 2009-05-06 10:02:43
- Brideshead
- Member
- Posts: 417
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
There is an irony about all of this, I think.
I almost started a thread once (I don't think I actually did) on AAAC which would have been called something like 'A man of style can never be happy living in the present - discuss!'
The mod or modernist was not happy with the present or recent gloomy past and sought to be forward looking and rejected all that had gone before.
The Regency Dandy as long ago as the very early 1800s was adopting the same attitude towards dress, seeking to finally cast off all vestiges of the Ancien Régime.
Other stylish men (in real life and in literature) have tended to live more in the past. In Brideshead Revisited when Julia and Charles meet on an Atlantic crossing in about 1934 they talk about things and people that 'only this ghastly age could produce'. Also it is clear throughout the book that Charles is in love with a way of life that could never be the same again after WW1.
In Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband the central male characters bemoan the current (19th) century for its vulgarity and its focus on business and money.
I freely admit to living very much in the past when it comes to my choice of clothes. I am more formal than most people around me but the sharpness that came with that brief spell of happiness in 1969/70 and remains with me still will ensure that I keep an edge - didn't JS say something a bit like that?
Anyway, that's my belief - you can be stylish or happy with the present. Not both.
#24 2009-05-06 10:16:51
- chetmiles
- Member
- Posts: 1099
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
Good call, Brideshead.
Ivy to me seems often rooted in nostalgia: and thus modernism - irony indeed. What other explanation can there be for liking Fair Isle or Argyle, brogues or bow-ties? This forms only a minor part of my beef with outlets like Uniqlo; but much Ivy apparel is steeped in historical significance.
#25 2009-05-06 10:24:57
- Just Jim
- Member
- Posts: 1159
Re: Modernism as a refuge from modernity
... I'm a dull boy... All I see are design classics... 
- A heritage, a present, a future -