Film Noir Buff Style Forum / What Is 'Culture'? What Is 'Counter-Culture'?

steve mcqueen fan · 2012-02-05 15:07:10

Oo Bop Sh'bam · 2012-02-05 15:08:29

I certainly wouldn't let it be handle on here either.

Hard Bop Hank · 2012-02-07 04:30:28

Last edited by Hard Bop Hank (2012-02-07 07:59:26)

sonofstan · 2012-02-07 05:27:59

4F Hepcat · 2012-02-07 05:43:39

^That went right over everyone's head.

Moose Maclennan · 2012-02-07 05:46:45

I quite like a bit of Kant every now and then.

Oo Bop Sh'bam · 2012-02-07 05:54:19

I think that's bought it back down to my level Moose.

Hard Bop Hank · 2012-02-07 06:43:34

Last edited by Hard Bop Hank (2012-02-07 08:38:45)

Hard Bop Hank · 2012-02-07 06:56:22

sonofstan · 2012-02-07 09:15:02

Hard Bop Hank · 2012-02-07 09:51:56

Hard Bop Hank · 2022-07-23 03:10:15

Oh boy, some of my old bollocks is rather cringeworthy.

Once in a while, I suppose, I got some clues from Andy, John and some of the other more informed members of this forum.

Replying to Blucher: “‘Material culture' is the overall product of any given society, artefacts being social constructs related to a particular time and place. Displace it and you get - for want of a better word - a travesty, a pastiche.
....??
I'm not sure, if I can agree with that last part...

because I'm not exactly sure what you refer to?

The Ivy Shop... in England?

I don't think it was a pastiche.

First of all, not only because of Hollywood, by 1964 it was just fashion. In general. France, Italy, Scandinavia, Germany... it was all over the world. At least, global fashion was influenced by the Ivy Look since the mid 50s, I think...

American fashions had been popular in the UK since WWII. The GIs. Cecil Gee's American Look. Lou Austins. There were the musicians and the business men who went to the USA and brought clothes with them. Since the mid fifties these clothes were most likely in the Ivy Style...

It was not completely new in the UK when JS opened the Ivy Shop. There was, however, something new about the way he sold them. I think John Simons makes that point that the Americans took these clothes for granted...

Besides, there's the familar/unfamiliar aspect in the UK, because the Ivy Style is connected to British Style in its roots...

Hard Bop Hank · 2022-07-23 04:13:41

I reckon John Simons and his friends used to view jazz and modernism as some sort of counter culture, or rather they understood the whole modern movement and all these new ideas - mainly from the USA - as a counter culture in contrast to the classical European culture and to the Old World and all the stuffy things in the UK.

When JS talks about modernism he is on about so many different things. His ideas of modern includes Bauhaus architecture and design and the International/ Functionalist styles after that, Scandinavian plywood furniture, California Hard Edge and other abstract paintings from Kandinsky and Mondrian to André Bloc and Ellsworth Kelly, West Coast jazz from Gerry Mulligan and Stan Getz, bebop, hard bop, modal jazz as well as the sounds from the Schools of Stan Kenton and Lennie Tristano, Ivy League clothing, Americana and some Continental fashions, some of the better Hollywood films as well as a bit of European cinema, The Beats and the Angry Young Men and some other modern writers, in other words he is on about all these things that he witnessed when they were new and exciting.

When you see how other folks these days use the word “modernist?? , say on FB or IG, however, you get the impression that it’s just an excuse for some old moddy types or scooter boys to justify their obsession with the mod youth cult as adults, in other words it is an identity marker for them.

I’m waffling about again but these days the very idea of a mainstream culture and a counter culture opposed to the mainstream is impossible. There is a mainstream culture that has soaked up anything subversive, different and dissident via corporate diversity culture.

An Unseen Scene · 2022-07-23 05:17:57

Modernism is a historical term and while I appreciate lots of it in a non scene way, it is of no forward use to me now. It is static and rooted in an era...none of the wider modernism ever reached into Mod for anyone I knew. When I stopped identifying as Mod and started exploring, the world of modern culture opened up for me into art, design, architecture and Ivy seemed to connect in. But having left behind strict uniform, I wasn't going to do it that way again with Ivy.

That is also why I'm sensitive to JS becoming overly identified with Mod. I'm the same with Soul music, Northern Soul is becoming scene nostalgia in the popular media and some advocates. I'm about exploring onwards and still buying new music, so I don't describe myself as a Northern Soul person any more (even though that is at the root of much of my music interest).

I think we may over remember counterculture, most people in my early 80s era were not anything, just normal. They might try something for a week or two, but on the whole they weren't one thing or another. I may of gone through scenes but most dropped them at 15 or so.

There is lots of counterculture but it stays away. Go mooch around Bandcamp and it is exhilarating to see non-commercial, non-signed up Japanese grind, ultra fast cyber pop, Chip tunes, minimalist ambient, drone psych, Persian metal, Greek Chill Hop, new local jazz, regional folk, landscape composition, showgaze indie and so much more. The world of Japanese ambient and beyond was incredible to find in last few years- a whole world that takes modernist concepts and then does its own thing away from mainstream concerns.

You gotta go to them. They are at Bandcamp, reddit and others - keeping away from the commercial dilution.

My two young adults sons have their own circles, interests and sense - far more clued up than I or those around me were then.

The kids are alright.

Last edited by An Unseen Scene (2022-07-23 08:30:44)

#151 2012-02-05 15:07:10

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#152 2012-02-05 15:08:29

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#153 2012-02-07 04:30:28

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#154 2012-02-07 05:27:59

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#155 2012-02-07 05:43:39

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#156 2012-02-07 05:46:45

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#157 2012-02-07 05:54:19

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#158 2012-02-07 06:43:34

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#159 2012-02-07 06:56:22

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#160 2012-02-07 09:15:02

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#161 2012-02-07 09:51:56

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#162 2022-07-23 03:10:15

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#163 2022-07-23 04:13:41

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#164 2022-07-23 05:17:57

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