Cool!

[robertoart]

I find I say the word cool when I am being lazy and can't be bothered to speak. Or else find I use it to acknowledge what someone has said and move on or end the verbal exchange without appearing to be rude. I think I may have started noticing the word was back in vogue a few years ago, and I started using it again. Was the Fonz exclusively responsible for popularising its use in the late seventies. That's what I remember. BTW does anyone think The Big Bang Theory is really Happy Days for Gen Y. I mean the plot centres around 4 guys, with one Alpha male in each 4. Whereas The Fonz was cool, Sheldon is like the 'anti' Fonz. Richie is like Leonard. And then there are two other B-plot characters. Penny is the anomaly in this 'theory' though.

Edited June 16, 2012 by freelancer

[A Lark Ascending]

All understood, and agreed. But didn't Armstrong once say something like "All music is folk music...I never heard no horse play music"...or such.

Never mention that Armstrong quote on a folk music forum. It has been quoted so often you'll get torn to bits!

I recall 'cool' coming back into fashion round the 90s, and it doesn't seem to have gone away. I think it has a general use meaning just good. 'Can I have a new exercise book?' 'Of, course.' 'Cool!'.

The sense in that article seems to be that place where you're definitely not one of the masses but you are part of a sub group that just happens to have caught on to something worthwhile. It is ever changing because often (but not always) it gets appropriated by a larger audience in which case it's time to move on.

[cih]

All understood, and agreed. But didn't Armstrong once say something like "All music is folk music...I never heard no horse play music"...or such.

Big Bill Broonzy said that

http://d1n51d37v3y820.cloudfront.net/files/audio/21_this_train_-_spoken_introduction.mp3sound file from www.fretboardjournal.com

Penny = Mr & Mrs Cunningham?

Edited June 17, 2012 by cih

[A Lark Ascending]

I think there used to be a universal understanding that there was Music, and there was Pop -- the Kid's music. It was okay for Kids, and meant to be fleeting. But it was also understood that Kids would grow up and grasp Music. Since about the time of The Beatles, the Kids grew up but kept THEIR music, never accepting Music. And get off my lawn.

Perhaps amongst certain classes (or those aspiring to those classes). But the bulk of the population has always listened mainly to either contemporary popular music or the popular music of their youth that is soaked in memory (Dennis Potter knew that!).

My dad used to constantly flaunt his preference for 'the classics' - he was actually clueless, but did have a very genuine love of opera arias and big tunes from classical music. The desire to be seen as an appreciator of 'the classics' was part of his need to be seen as someone who had made something of himself, no longer a farm hand but someone with a house, some of the good things of life and the ability to provide comfort for his family.

He was very much of the opinion that I would grow out of Led Zeppelin and go on to listen to 'proper' music. He was right in one sense in that my musical interests widened considerably; he was wrong because I still love Led Zeppelin! I think that is a common experience of many of my generation - we ditched the idea that one type of music was 'better' than another (even if it might vary enormously in complexity, innovation, insight, technical command etc).

Edited June 17, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[mikeweil]

[JSngry]

[A Lark Ascending]

Jazz left cool behind in 1960...

(or maybe I've always read it wrong...maybe it means emerging from the cool rather than leaving it behind).

**************

I'm reminded of a kid who'd gone through school a loner but on one non-uniform day made up for it be arriving in perfect street gear - backwards baseball cap, hoody, personal stereo plugged conspicuously in his ears. The trouble was everything looked brand new, the backwards baseball cap was at 180 degrees and it was all so neat. Needless to say, he did not get welcomed into any of the in crowds.

The current strange fashion in my school is wearing large, D.J-style, headphones round your neck. I have a feeling this is one of those signs of cool that will date very badly.

Edited June 17, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[Ted O'Reilly]

I think there used to be a universal understanding that there was Music, and there was Pop -- the Kid's music. It was okay for Kids, and meant to be fleeting. But it was also understood that Kids would grow up and grasp Music. Since about the time of The Beatles, the Kids grew up but kept THEIR music, never accepting Music. And get off my lawn.

Perhaps amongst certain classes (or those aspiring to those classes). But the bulk of the population has always listened mainly to either contemporary popular music or the popular music of their youth that is soaked in memory (Dennis Potter knew that!).

My dad used to constantly flaunt his preference for 'the classics' - he was actually clueless, but did have a very genuine love of opera arias and big tunes from classical music. The desire to be seen as an appreciator of 'the classics' was part of his need to be seen as someone who had made something of himself, no longer a farm hand but someone with a house, some of the good things of life and the ability to provide comfort for his family.

He was very much of the opinion that I would grow out of Led Zeppelin and go on to listen to 'proper' music. He was right in one sense in that my musical interests widened considerably; he was wrong because I still love Led Zeppelin! I think that is a common experience of many of my generation - we ditched the idea that one type of music was 'better' than another (even if it might vary enormously in complexity, innovation, insight, technical command etc).

There may be a "Tale Of Two Countries" element here, with our 'no-class' Canadian culture a part of it, as opposed to the UK's... I never felt that 'music choice equals status' thing. And

Also, perhaps I'm that much older than you, in that Led Zep (pretty much all pop stuff post-'63ish) means little to me, since my tastes had been guided before that, and my music-time was spent keeping up with, and learning more about jazz. You remark "that is a common experience of many of my generation", but I don't think MY genereation had that kind of common experience.

The difference may be the kind of radio (the primary source of music entertainment available to me) was wide ranging in the 1940s and '50s when I was being 'formed'. Since there was only one radio in the house, the listening was shared around a 3-generation family, and you heard everything. Lux Radio Theatre for dramas, live hockey broadcasts, soap operas, comedy shows, etc.

Pre-Top 40 radio you would hear a variety of music -- everything from big band remotes to the NBC Symphony to the Hartz Mountain Canaries singing, to Sunday church broadcasts from black parishes (exciting to one used to Catholic Gegorian chants services in latin), to well, you name it.

And the pop music of the time was quite pallid -- "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window", "If I Knew You Were Coming I'd Have Baked A Cake", "I'm My Own Grandpa" and Mitch Miller's idea of good stuff -- so it wasn't much to dispose of it in favour of (for lack of a better term) Adult Music. One sort of music wasn't dominant in/on the air, as it is today, so there were more chances to hear something different.

Dialing across a radio in today's Toronto finds 95% varieties of 'rock', classics or current. I will admit that some of my youth-music sticks with a smile: I heard "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" in a shop the other day, and was surprised that I remembered all the lyrics.

Edited June 18, 2012 by Ted O'Reilly

[seeline]

Going back to the original post... I got a chuckle out of the fRoot's columnist's photo. For someone who claims he has no interest in being cool, he certainly *does* have an investment in maintaining a spiked, semi-hipster hairstyle.

Edited June 18, 2012 by seeline

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Going back to the original post... I got a chuckle out of the fRoot's columnist's photo. For someone who claims he has no interest in being cool, he certainly *does* have an investment in maintaining a spiked, semi-hipster hairstyle.

Not cool - very old fashioned over here.

MG

[A Lark Ascending]

Going back to the original post... I got a chuckle out of the fRoot's columnist's photo. For someone who claims he has no interest in being cool, he certainly *does* have an investment in maintaining a spiked, semi-hipster hairstyle.

Not cool - very old fashioned over here.

MG

It's actually a traditional English plough boy look. The quiff is caused by all that time in the slipstream of the oxen.

Edited June 19, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Going back to the original post... I got a chuckle out of the fRoot's columnist's photo. For someone who claims he has no interest in being cool, he certainly *does* have an investment in maintaining a spiked, semi-hipster hairstyle.

Not cool - very old fashioned over here.

MG

It's actually a traditional English plough boy look. The quiff is caused by all that time in the slipstream of the oxen.

mg

[seeline]

And extremely liberal doses of hair gel...