So here we are, dear friends, at the end of another term; at last, I, the art snob, can pack away my vintage typewriter and begin hacking away at the 143-item summer reading list I’ve prepared. Ahead of you, however, are five months of emptiness, devoid of my cultural expertise and stunning wit, and who knows, by the time the fall comes around I might be so incredibly indie that I will be unable to write for Imprint and forced to start some sort of ‘zine’. In that case, I feel obliged to prepare you for the intellectual Dark Age that will undoubtedly follow my passing.
I was going to write up a detailed how-to manual including various music blogs, literary quarterlies, fine arts journals, etc. for you to study during these summer months, just so you don’t fall behind, but I feel that such a thing may be too valuable, akin to a magician giving away his secrets. Snobbery is a delicate art; as much as someone may wish to have an intellectual equal, they must realize that the more of them there are the less cool they become.
In the spirit of a modern dance-punk band covering their favourite new wave act from the 80s, however, I will direct you to the source of much of my infinite wisdom and awesomeness. Yes, dear readers, since June 2006 I have been following a group of four hipsters (and one stockbroker) around their daily lives in an anthropological experiment to determine the source of “artiness.”
This is not as stalker-ish as it sounds, and I assure you it has nothing to do with that wretched device known as “Facebook” (Friendster way more indie, anyway). These five bright, young subjects of my study do exist on the Interweb, it is true, but they call www.theburg.tv their home.
For those of you who have not yet come across this delightful Internet sitcom, I would like to endorse it as the perfect solution to the inevitable malaise you will feel once I stop writing my column for the summer. In fact, a familiarity with this fine piece of online television will increase your cred exponentially; the very first episode, in fact, is called just that: “Cred”.
The Burg charts the urban drama that comes with being a twenty something artist in Williamsburg, a neighbourhood in Brooklyn, New York renowned for its creative community. Its main characters span the spectrum of hipsterdom: Xander is a struggling filmmaker, Jed a struggling musician, Courtney a struggling actress, and Spring a struggling political and environmental activist. Ryan, the stockbroker, is the loveable odd man out, and many of you aspiring art snobs may be able to relate to his struggle to fit in with the “scene”.
The brainchild of two Brooklyn natives, The Burg spans eleven episodes and a number of shorts, all available for viewing on the website. I wholeheartedly suggest viewing them in order to fully benefit from their message. It should be noted that some critics have called the show a satire of hipster culture, but I can’t see how anything that deals with such important topics as indecipherable noise punk and early 90s fashion could not be taken seriously
The Burg emphasizes the virtue of drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon from a can, the necessity for girls to be “cute and political”, and the ironic value of having My Humps as the ring tone on your cell phone. As an added bonus, each show features a local Brooklyn band that you can subsequently claim to have “discovered” to all you friends.
Essentially, The Burg will provide for you in 15 minute masterpieces all the joy I usually bring you in my six hundred word opuses. When you find yourself unable to sleep in my absence this summer, visit www.theburg.tv and remember what its like to be better than everyone else. Godspeed, friends.
Close your eyes, dear readers, and think of the golden spires of Oxford. Breath in the air of immaculate academia, where students divide their time between exams and oil paintings, where clubs take not the form of Beer Pong Teams, but rather writer collectives, such as the one forged by Tolkein and Lewis at the Eagle and Child. You may notice students on the main street being literally knocked over with inspiration, scrambling to find their notebook in which they can house this berth of ideas.
Now wake up. Welcome back to UW, where you will find ivy-covered cathedrals replaced by monolithic monuments to mathematics. Here, the students trudge through campus, drones serving the Gods of Engineering and Business, wary of an open mind in case inspiration may send them reeling into a puddle and ruin their Co-Op suit. At UW, an admiration for Gray’s Anatomy is replaced by a fixation with Grey’s Anatomy, and an appreciation for the Classics is diluted by an unfortunate association with “Classic Rock.”
Shame on you, students of Waterloo. How dare you neglect your creative obligations in the face of exams, essays, tutorials, policy reviews, critical analyses, weekly assessments, novel studies, laboratory assignments, mid-terms, quizzes, workshops, debates, and part-time jobs. What happened to our (my) dream of making this University a bastion of artistic energy? Another year lost, friends, and my spirit grows weak.
Next year, I want you all to resume classes with David Tubbs in your minds. David Tubbs, you ask? Don’t I know him as a 3rd year History major at UW with a minor in Religious Studies, you say? Surely he is as bound to the same torturous chains of University life as I, you whine.
Indeed he is, I answer, but David Tubbs has something the rest of your pitiful lot do not: priorities. At the beginning of the 2006 Winter Term, Mr. Tubbs embraced his creative passions and embarked on a project that would fill every waking moment he had in between classes and assignments. A year later, his labour has come to fruition in the form of a novel: at the beginning of March, Tubbs’ Three Days to Moriah was published.
While the rest of you complain about not having time to eat or sleep between research and reading, David Tubbs is represented on Amazon.com. For shame.
Sitting in Dr. James Diamond’s class on ‘Great Texts in the Jewish Tradition’ last year, Tubbs was struck by the imprecise nature of the Isaac narrative, in which God asks Abraham to sacrifice his own son on MountMoriah. This passage is perhaps one of the most troubling, challenging stories in the Bible, and while it is a fundamental part of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, it is remarkably absent of detail. Inspired by the intensity of this ancient human drama, Tubbs set out to fill in the blanks.
The resulting piece of Biblical Fiction attempts to illuminate the three days that stood between God’s request and the moment an angel appeared to intervene on the Mount. Imagining a narrative full of torment, trauma, and struggle, Tubbs filled in his vision by researching different rabbinical interpretations and giving new relevance to certain characters, such as Abraham’s wife Sarah.
So, here we have a full-time student who has found the time to be a published author. Surely our valiant Mr. Tubbs will have something to say about the wretched state of art at our school: “I actually think it is very prosperous, especially in the theatre department…”
Right. Well then, I ask Mr. Tubbs, if it’s so prosperous, why did you have to have a U of T student edit your work? “Well,” Tubbs intones, “Jill McCullough is an old friend of mine…” Bollocks. Obviously, David is reluctant to admit that UW students are useless, despite my protests that they need the motivation. After much pushing, however, I discover the author’s disappointment: “I would like to find another writer who at least has the ambition to be published. There are too many writers out there who have written a good book, but don’t feel that they should do anything about it.”
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen; it’s time to get off your arses. For inspiration, check out Three Days to Moriah on Amazon.com. It may also be helpful to note that Tubbs shares an affinity for the work of C.S. Lewis, an Oxford man of the highest class. Just goes to prove my theory: when in doubt, close your eyes, and think of Oxford. Godspeed on your creative endeavors.
