the hipsterization of global protest reporting
Maria came to the Kremlin demonstration wearing her designer eyeglasses. Does that explain why she protests? Many commentators have pointed out how after big American news media (many of them regularly accused of liberal bias) refused to report on Occupy Wall Street for several weeks, they then often sought to explain the movement by characterizing...
living the urban crisis at the new wave rent party
I recently downloaded the reissued Human Switchboard album, Who’s Landing in my Hangar? Anthology 1977-1984, which set me off again obsessing about a subgenre of new wave that I’ve never really seen recognized. I don’t even know how best to name this subgenre, although I’m convinced it has a musical coherence. I’ll call it new wave rent...
Pitchfork urbanism
The award for Fun Read of the Week goes to “On Pitchfork,” Richard Beck’s smart, caustic review of indie rock’s überblog Pitchfork. You can’t find this lengthy essay anywhere but the latest issue of n+1, an NYC-based journal of politics, literature and culture, and yeah it’s worth the $10 PDF download. (The issue also features a...
under the shadow of Woodstock: listening to the Hudson Valley
Another problem with the “Brooklynization of Hudson River Valley” thesis that I discussed in my last post is that the music in these parts isn’t very hip. That’s not a judgment, just a statement of fact if by “hip” we mean the product or embrace of 20-something hipsters who disproportionately reside in Brooklyn. However, the Hudson Valley...
looking for the Hudson Valley hipster
In the town where I live, there’s been a lot of chatter over a recent NY Times article which reports how Brooklynites (an apparent synonym for NYC’s mobile, creative types) are descending upon the Hudson Valley area some 75 miles north of the city to live, visit, consume, and generally do their Brooklyn thing. Local businesses,...
musical urbanism: statement of a scholarly project
It’s promotion review time for me, and in writing a research statement for the three anonymous sociologists evaluating my work, I’ve had the occasion to compile and synthesize my thinking on musical urbanism into a single essay. Think of this post as a users manual for understanding what I’ve been up to academically with this...
listening alone, together: a review of “Pop Music, Pop Culture” by Chris Rojek
British sociologist Chris Rojek has just published a major work in the social analysis of pop music. To say its argument isn’t completely satisfying doesn’t belittle the remarkable accomplishment of Pop Music, Pop Culture (Polity, 2011), which covers the gamut of musical production, content, and reception from the pre-historic oral tradition to today’s P2P networks. Most distinctively, Pop...
my guest blog on Social Shutter Re: Maryland Deathfest 2011
This week the visual urban sociology blog Social Shutter ran my photos and a new essay about Maryland Deathfest. If you didn’t see the post, I’ve reprinted it below. And do check out Social Shutter, where Georgia State University sociologist Deirdre Oakley and her students offer some compelling and provocative photoessays. Deathfest Posted by Leonard Nevarez, BALTIMORE, MD — The Maryland Deathfest...
just stay put: an alternative vision for arts-based urban revitalization
Here are some thoughts about a different way to think about arts-based urban revitalization, written in the form of a suspiciously confident manifesto. These ideas are completely pie-in-the-sky and fly in the face of the prevailing wisdom in this field, but I’m fine with that if it reveals some fallacies and unspoken assumptions of most...
shameless self-promotion: “Pursing Quality of Life”
I’m pleased to announce that my new book has finally been published: Pursuing Quality of Life: From the Affluent Society to the Consumer Society. Here’s the official blurb. From anxieties over work-life balance and entangling technologies, to celebrations of cool jobs and great places to live, quality of life frames the ways we enhance our lives...
out of the valley of the dolls
Since we’re talking about Legs McNeil and Gilliam McCain’s Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, one of the most colorful quotes in a book chock full of them comes from Peter Jordan, the oft-forgotten replacement for bassist Arthur Kane in the New York Dolls. Jordan describes the 1971-74 milieu in which Kane fell...