Hipster Faire Report

The day began with a series of jokes about hipsters, as all days must. The Journalist and I have no sense of direction, despite inescapable natural landmarks to indicate certain compass points, so we accidentally got on the wrong bus, that is, one heading away from the place we intended. Fortunately, some girl heard us talk anxiously about whether we were heading either to or away from Obvious Natural Landmark Indicating West, and we only traveled two blocks before yanking on the chain and hopping back to our original meeting place, this time on the other side of the street. When in doubt, follow the hipsters. The problem is that in an up-and-coming trendy-ish neighborhood, they are everywhere. So we did not know which group of muss-haired, skinny-jeaned, Bedazzlered group to follow.

But we ended up following the right group of hipsters to big indoor pavilion on the edge of city, and The Journalist remarked that the teeming masses of young hip people was "Like Children of the Corn. Except they're not scary. And they're not children. And they're not killing anyone. Actually, this is nothing like Children of the Corn." I was like, "This is like a RenFaire, but with skinny people in just as weird clothes. Instead of gigantic turkey legs, we're eating roasted eggplant on foccacia, carrot-ginger soup, and a goat cheese and kale pizzaleta from a Zagat rated vegetarian restaurant." I could have also said "Actually this is a mob advert for American Apparel and Urban Outfitters." All statements were true, but none particularly astute. But anyway, if you make stuff, hipsters will come. And driving by their neighborhoods, you will notice some pretty attractive people assembling a table made from a plank of wood atop a base of two chairs. Hmm.

Hipster Faire was pretty awesome. I picked up a lot of letterpress stationary and some awesome birthday cards for HPL and TC, and a set of too-clever-by-half any occasion (literally) correspondence cards. I also bought a bird-in-flight ghetto gold (brass) necklace, although apparently the NYT has decreed that sparrows and owls, icons of the Hipster Revolutionary Movement, have been "out" for over a year now. Whev. They were everywhere. I could have bought my weight in avian/ornithological-themed things. And my necklace is quite attractive, in an insouciant way.

Later, I went back to the same trendy neighborhood with The Wolfman and we had six fancy schmancy drinks for the price of four. Friendly bartender. And by schmancy, I mean "plymouth gin, canton ginger liqueur, basil, orange" and "buffalo trace bourbon, creme de violette, blueberries, angostura bitters, lemon." Darn tasty, and I am shockingly not hungover. Also, there are two types of crepes places: awesome and bad. Only the awesome need apply, and we went to an awesome place.

So, all in all, my day of observing hipsters in their natural habitat for my new ethnography/cultural studies book (forthcoming, Williamsburg Press) "The Relatively Attractive and the Darned: Hipsters as the New Lost Generation" went well.