Given an earlier post on foodways and street culture, and an interest in reviewing cookbooks, the subject of this post should come as little surprise. At the onset of this blog, I mentioned how coverage of street culture – especially how it was handled through the lens of streetwear – often avoided certain components of culture. King Adz’s The Urban Cookbook challenges this thought, if only in the fact that it exists as published volume.

The concept is simple enough. Adz visits five major cities (New York, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, and London), interviews local “street culture” legends (25 of them), runs down the scene, and designates a recipes indicative of the place (50 of these). In the abstract, the idea is a strong one. In reality, the subjectivity of choice hampers the potential.

Let’s begin by outlining one of the chapters, for the sake of ease chapter 1 “New York.”  The chapter begins with an outline of hip-hop history and falls into a brief description of two neighborhoods – the Lower East Side and Coney Island. These are “real” places, agreed, but snippets of New York. Arthur Avenue, in the Bronx, for example retains a “real” sense of identity unhindered by gentrification. Yet, it is left out in favor of more street trendy tourist destinations. The choice of interviewees does generate a good cross section of those that contribute to New York’s urban culture. There’s Boogie, the Serbian-born photographer, Rodney Smith of Shut skateboards, and Marc and Sarah of Wooster Collective. Add a toy designer (Tristan Eaton) and graphic designer (Jon Setzen) and a set of strong voices emerge. Adz also contributes a quick guide to shops and cafes, which includes many of the usual suspects (aNYthing, Frank’s Chop Shop, Shake Shack, etc).

The scene is well set, and the interest in a specific vision of the city built. On to the food, and things get slightly muddled. A steak recipe (included because Yanks love steak) comes from a South African uncle. Two pasta based recipes are more gangster oriented than indicative of creative food finds. Chili con Carne, while American, doesn’t scream New York. If chapter 1 is a snap shot of the book (it is), then you’ll understand where subjectivity comes into play. There’s both a severe limitation to the travel guide element of the book and a laissez faire attitude to finding truly unique born and bred in NY recipes.

On food, Adz composes a rather strict definition of street food.

“Street food is anything that is cooked on BBQs, grills or braais, in cafes, diners, snack bars, chippies, takeaway, boots, cabins and food vans, and it has to be good, ethnically diverse and fresh, not ‘fast’ or ‘junk.’”

In short, not haute cuisine. And, the definition works. It speaks to vernacular cooking, styles and flavors built from the intermingling of culture allowed to blossom in the urban environment. Adz himself knows food. He trained, for a short period, as a chef, and this promotes some credibility. However, as noted above, his passion for food does not seem to extend to diving too deeply into a given places food history. As a foodways story, The Urban Cook Book fails.

As an indicator of the variety and depth of urban culture though it succeeds. The book really is comprised of three parts – the introduction to each city, the interviews, and the recipes. Reading the interviews (the strongest portion) one does get a more nuanced view of urban culture. The introductions expose a simplistic (or, more fairly, narrow) view of each city. And finally, the recipes express an interest in street food without an interest in true adventure within food.

The strength of Adz book, and what makes it worthwhile, is that he does succeed in bringing food into the “street culture” conversation. Unfortunately, for those of us with a strong interest in the subject, developing a true understanding of the workings of multi-ethnic urban space through the food is stifled.

Adz presents a view. It’s firm. And, it’s concise. The effort deserves some applauding. But, it also generates questions as to why certain things have been omitted and why a man so obviously talented and intrigued would happily perpetuate limited notions of urban life which are primarily driven by hip-hop eyes and cool guy aspirations.

In recent years, Team USA has suffered a few set backs in the core athletic venues. Hiccups in preparation for the basketball team led to embarrassing (though deserved) losses at past Olympic games and World Championships. Baseball too has seen increased global parity. On the world’s biggest stage, the soccer pitch (or football as some prefer), American’s remain nonplused. Success is applauded, but a loss remains to great extent meaningless. Mention of a loss in the press is fleeting. Analysis minimal.

The times are, however, changing. USA Soccer is building. The national team is beginning to show signs of true promise and potential on the world’s biggest stage is becoming more interesting.

This summer’s victory over Spain, during Confederations Cup was heralded as the biggest win in United States soccer history. The 1950 win over England, it must be said, is more myth than memory. Spain, beaten off US soil, was rightfully seen as a major development and boost to national interest in the sport.

Well before the USA upset Spain in South Africa, I had booked a trip to the USA v. Mexico World Cup qualifier at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. There is no doubt the boarder battle with Mexico is the one true American rivalry in Soccer. The rivalry, spurred by several 2-0 US wins over the years (most recently in February’s tie in Columbus, Ohio) and all the things that one could imagine, might make a Mexican fan’s blood boil.

But playing in Mexico City is an altogether different challenge. Azteca stadium is a place of footballing lore: it is the place of Maradona’s “hand of god” and cathedral to the game, seating close to 100,000 fans. As an American, no place is farther from home. Azteca is a battleground – and one where the stars and stripes rarely come out on top..

My experience as a sports’ fan has brought me to several “hostile” environments. I have cheered Georgetown basketball in almost every Big East Arena. I wore a Danny Ferry Spurs’ jersey to the 2003 NBA Finals at Continental Airlines (now Izod) Arena. In each venue I was met with suspicion, but ultimately only meek insults and weak taunts. I’d never truly been the enemy before.

I wanted that feeling. Azteca promised to fulfill the need.

Match day, Wednesday August 5, 2009.

To get the full USA  “Away” experience, my travel companions and I chose to join an official support tour put together by Ole Ole. This provided drinks, food, and transport before and after the match.

It also made us an open and clear target to Mexican supporters.

Having grown up reading John King’ books (and here, “England Away”, is best reference), I longed for the camaraderie and pride associated with cheering on the national side.

Our group was intensely excited for the match. These were the rare USA fans who held stake in what transpires on the pitch. They had traveled before. They avidly support their local MLS team for the simple love of soccer.

Decked in jerseys and draped in flags, all together we filled two large coach busses, which with police escort, ferried us from hotel to stadium.

The ride to Azteca, from our hotel, took over an hour. As we approached, the sounds grew louder and the streets filled with men and women dressed in green adidas tops. With kick-off at 3pm, the scene was something akin to a most loved public holiday. Everyone was out and everyone was cheering for the home side.

Our group, excited as it was, appeared a bit ramshackle. They also reflect the odd amalgam of European and South American versions of fandom that infect the American terraces. The songs are mixed. Chants on one side (not unlike those in England) and beating drums on the other. Outfits too show the unease of being a true American fan. Jersey’s are common. So is face paint. One man had a USA tattoo on his neck (and skeletal tattoos on his hands… and a Taylor Swift shirt in his waist band). There’s little consistency in uniform.

The attempt, it seemed, was to put up a National front.

Success in this venture fell a bit flat.

Police found us at our bus parking point and swiftly moved us toward the stadium. The atmosphere was jovial as we traded “fuck yous” with the Mexicans. Nothing was hurled except insult. Once inside, this would change.

EIGHT minutes into the match Charlie Davies scored. The US section erupted. High fives delivered all round. For a brief moment the Stars and Stripes were on top. And then, subtle reminders that we were the away team.

Bottles. Beers. Pieces of plastic. These came fast and furious from all sides. It was the beginning of an onslaught that would follow in waves throughout the remainder of the 90 minutes.

While not terrifying, these moments were uncomfortable and constant reminders that we were, dressed in red and separated from the majority of the crowd, the minority. A small boy sat beside me, and I was genuinely concerned for his well being.

Mexican goals brought with them furious taunts and projectiles toward the US support. As the match neared end, the celebration focused on further insult to the Americans. Riot police surround the section, pulling us from Azteca and halting Mexican exit. Fans in Green spat on us from above.

The moving target marched from stadium to bus suffering worse than we had inside and much worse than we had on arrival. We were stuffed into the buses and told to close all the curtains. Once filled, the buses were whisked away by escort. The return trip to the hotel lasting just 15 minutes.

While fear of true harm never entered the mind, the notion that we were unwanted was clear. American fans away expected good treatment, expected to feel as they might going one state away for a baseball game. Instead, they found bottles and insults hurled their way. The ultimate insult – we’d been spit on.

To some, this was a reprehensible act.

For me, the type of thing that made being “America Away” true.

With various platforms and projects and spaces, maintaining any consistency in posting has (as anyone who actually reads) proven quite difficult. From the outset, we also wanted the site to be about words and the occasional idea. This means that posting requires some source of inspiration and falling into certain blogging traps is a basic no go.

There is a basic danger in running a blog that steadfastly avoids using any pictures. Most of the “good” blogs out there are image heavy, and often employ very few words. When it comes to style, the image is most important. While one can argue for ages the relative brilliance of one stitch type over another, seeing a garment fall beautifully in an image will render any “thinking” useless.

Yet, while the images are wonderful and gladly consumed, they raise questions rarely answered. Who took them? Why did they take them? What do they tell us of a period of time and a particular place?

For the most part, we are looking because an image is either cool or contains a ruthlessly attractive woman (thanks to everyone responsible for posting these images). The general idea seems to be – make this image part of your immediate moment.

There is little examination.

On trend that I’m sure all will have noticed is the joy people have found in posting images collected from the LIFE Magazine archives. As someone who spends hours a week trolling through the Library of Congresses image database, I can appreciated the ease LIFE allows users in accessing what is fairly an embarrassment of riches. The LIFE images have context and a back story, but I must admit to being slightly put off by open nature of the arrangement.

So easy is it to pull images through basic search that the potential of the archive to enrich an understanding of history, and even of editorial photography is lost. There are several bloggers who make it clear why they are posting images – a way of researching their own core interests. As they make no claims beyond this reasoning, I’m not bothered by the re-purposing.

Would I prefer a more critical use of the image? One that places each chosen view into context of the article that it ran with, the year it came to life, and the reason it was chosen for publication in 2009? Absolutely.

This preference, though, is more about what we’ve come to expect from the internet than what people are doing with the images. I’m not bothered by the average use of the LIFE archives simply because I don’t expect critical review of its use.

The opening of an archive is something that should be celebrated and shared. I’d argue LIFE has done the best job of utilizing social media to achieve widespread recognition.

Still, understanding of what LIFE was, is, and does might be woefully low.

The question then is really simple. Do we care about our sources? Or, are we simply content with beautiful images?

As discussed before, foodways are a vital component to the make up of a specific culture or community. The exploration of food, at a very surface level, has become rather popular, notably through FOOD NETWORK. Several of the shows are, to be honest, dull and traditional in their intent and outlook. However, there are programs like Alton Brown’s Feasting on Asphault that do a tremedous job of exploring history and culture through food.

You might consider Heston Blumenthal Brown’s UK counterpart. Except, Blumenthal takes Brown’s interest in the science and history of food and in the words of Emeril (or now Martha Stewart after the buy out???) “kicks it up a notch.” More bluntly, Blumenthal’s approach is even more methodical, and his search for perfection more obsessive. His restaurant, The Fat Duck, was Michelin’s 2001 Restaurant of the Year, a testiment to his approach.

In Search of Perfection, the companion to Blumethal’s BBC series, finds the chef exploring the ins and outs of eight of Britain’s favorite dishes. Selected on the basis of the respective popularity and the strength of memories and associations generated by each meal, these are simply dishes any cook should know how to prepare. Roast chicken, steak, mashed potatoes. Simple foods that speak to tradition, family and comfort.

For each dish, Blumenthal investigates the origins and development of the key ingredients. The food the animals eat. The people that correctly butcher them. The chefs obsessesed with aging each cut to perfection. He travels to France to eat chickens, and eats steak in a NYC strip club (so awesome). These individual quests are coupled with accounts of experimentation with ingredients. What potato roasts best, for example, and why. The history and the science of food meld in easy prose.

Blumenthal doesn’t have the same flair for language or description as Anthony Bourdain, yet his conversational tone and passion for the subject keep the chapters humming along. In fact, it is possible to simply forget that the tome is, after all, a cookbook, and get lost in Heston’s search and the people and places he visits.

The journey brings the mundane of the chosen recipes to life. Puts a little adventure in the everyday, and reminds why special meals are not only simple, but full of exciting historical intrigue as well. Blumenthal manages to turn the cookbook into a tidy introduction to foodways.

Dr. Eduardo Pagan was gracious enough to let me email him some questions about zoot suits. He is the author of Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon: Zoot Suits, Race, and Riot in Wartime L.A (2003) and an associate professor at Arizona State University. Learn and enjoy. My questions are in bold, his answers in plain text.

What constitutes a zoot suit?

I’ll try my best to describe a zoot suit, but you really have to see one to appreciate it. The zoot suit looked like a regular man’s business suit on steroids. As a fashion, the suit jacket produced a very striking silhouette by exaggerating the upper male body with wide, padded shoulders. The jacket then tapered dramatically down to a tight waist that flared out again down to the knees. It looked like something between a formal day coat (if you’re familiar with men’s formal wear) and a tightly fitted overcoat. Men on the East Coast wore suits of garish colors like lime green or bright orange, or with very exaggerated patterns like enormous plaids or wide stripes. On the West Coast the colors and patterns were much more subtle, as was the cut.

It was a fashion that could be worn by either men or women (and its androgyny was part of the scandal behind it), but it was mostly worn by men. When men wore the zoot suit, they wore it with high-wasted, flowing, pleated pants that flared at the knees and then angled dramatically down to a very tight fit around the ankles. If you remember MC Hammer’s pants in the classic ‘80s music video “Can’t Touch This,” the pants kind of looked like his. Another name for the pants that went with the zoot suit was “Punjab pants,” so you kind of get the idea. When women wore the zoot suit, they wore it with pleated skirts that were considered “revealing” for their day in showing leg, although the skirt length looks quite tame by our standards.

The zoot suit was part of a larger complex of ideas and practices that most Americans of the middle class found threatening to social order. That complex of ideas was summed up by the word “jazz.” Jazz was to white Americans in the 1940s what rock and roll was in the 1950s and rap was in the 1980s. The very word itself was slang for a particular kind of sexual intercourse; jazz was originally pronounced “jass,” which was short for “jumpin’ ass,” so the very roots of jazz came from cultural soil far outside the mainstream.

The jazz world was far bigger than just the music. It was a performative art form that defied social conventions of the body through music, dance, clothing, and attitude. It was a powerful form of black expression and behavior that captured the frustrations and aspirations of a marginalized people. Through sound and movement, it gave power in its very ability to convey the substance of existence, however difficult or inglorious that existence might be. That power of expression appealed to a wide swath of people, particularly young working-class people.

It’s important to also note that although jazz originated among African Americans, it was an art form and a way of life that was not exclusively black. Many early jazz artists were Jewish or other races deemed “non-white” of the day, and race mixing on and off the stage and dance floor was common. Here’s a really important point to understanding how people responded to jazz and its symbols (which include the zoot suit): in the age of segregation, race mixing a violation of white supremacy was considered to be subversive and a social outrage. As a music, style, and behavior that spread among youth, many Americans perceived jazz as a social danger.

I think that leaves several strong avenues to follow. Firstly, the difference between East and West Coast styles of the zoot Suit. What do you think accounts for regional variation? Secondly, I’m interested in how the sizing relates to rationing or concerns of conserving resources?

I think there were to factors that contributed to the differences in East and West styles. It’s hard to know which was the more important, but the first difference would be in those who took to the fashion. The zoot suit was popular across the color line (white, black, Latino, and Asian), but it was initially popularized by and most often worn by African Americans on the East Coast. There has always been a certain expressiveness within African American popular culture that exceeds and defies white middle-class norms. Part of that flaunting of custom is what white kids found appealing in the style, and still do of African American popular cultural expressions like rap.

But the more important point is that the garish colors and patterns forced you to notice the wearer of the suit. You almost had no choice, and that power to command attention in public spaces was a visual challenge to the norms of segregation. To get an appreciation for the social and political impact of the zoot suit, you have to understand the unwritten norms of segregation. In order to do that, just tune into any one of the movies made in the ‘30s and ‘40s or take a look at old Life magazines and count how many times you see a person of color (and if you do see one, note the context). To put it another way, if I were a Martian who understood American life solely through popular media of the ‘30s and ‘40s, people of color appear so seldom that I would think that America was populated exclusively by whites. Of course it wasn’t, but the fact that white-controlled media outlets erased or ignored the presence of people of color gives you an appreciation for the norms of segregation. As a person of color in the age of segregation, you were supposed to be in the background, unseen and unheard. Calling attention to yourself only invited trouble. Refusing to bend to the norms of segregation was often followed up by violence. Most students of history today do not appreciate that up until the Watts Riot of 1965—race riots of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries were always whites rioting against people of color (most often African American). So the exaggerated cut of the zoot suit, coupled with garish colors or patterns, actively and visibly defied segregation by forcing attention on to the wearer. They refused to be what Ralph Ellison called “the invisible man.” It was if those who donned the zoot suit defiantly said: “You can’t erase me, and you can’t ignore me. You have to see me and deal with me on my own terms.”

The cut of the zoot suit caused the same sensation on the West Coast, but by the time that the fashion caught on, in the early ‘40s, material was already being rationed. So the difficulty in acquiring enough wool or cotton to make a zoot suit forced a more conservative cut. But I would also add that the cultural norms of those who wore the zoot suit on the West Coast also had a direct role in its transformation. Most youth who wore the fashion were Mexican-American, although an appreciable number of white, Asian, and black youth on the West Coast wore it too. Mexican customs, particularly for men, were far more reserved when it came to wearing garish colors. That was appropriate for women, but not for men (notice the preponderance of black or other dark colors on Mexican American men today at any popular gathering). Thus “the drape”—the more conservative version of the zoot suit—was more often made of darker and somber colors: browns, blacks, and grays. I haven’t seen many examples of exaggerated patterns on the West Coast.

There was some speculation that the visceral reaction to the zoot suit was over of the rationing of material, but I don’t buy that argument on the surface of it. Again, looking to Hollywood as one social barometer, high fashion didn’t suddenly take a nosedive. Women’s gowns were still showy and flowy and men’s formal wear didn’t change at all. One of the norms of segregation was that one did not overtly talk about racial attitudes, as in “I don’t like your color, please leave my presence.” You will hardly ever find overt, negative comments about race in the newspapers and popular journals of the day. Really, it’s as if people of color didn’t exist at all. Now there were always exceptions to how people reacted and what they said in certain situations, but a polite disregard for racialized people and their cultures was the standard practice for most middle-class Americans. So they would talk about race in circumspect ways, and criticizing the use of material for a youthful fad was one way of criticizing the deeper point: young people of color were refusing to conform to the expectations of racial privilege, and a good number of white kids were also following suit (no pun intended) in embracing the fashion and the practice of race mixing on the dance floor.

To put it another way, historically, most Americans tended to not react violently to a perceived defiance of rationing in previous wars. However, most Americans did react violently to the defiance of racialized privileges.

I wonder about the retail environment for zoot suits. Where did kids buy them? Were there specialist makers? What kind of individual stamps could be put on the full outfit? And, beyond was the shopping experience another venue for race mixing?

I know there were some stores in Boston, Chicago, and Atlanta that specialized in off-the-rack zoot suits, but how many I couldn’t say. Clearly kids had to mix together in going to such stores.

I do know that many kids had their zoot suits tailor-made, and on the West Coast young men seemed to either take their father’s suit and have it cut down to size (leaving the larger shoulders and jacket length), or they simply purchased larger suits and had them trimmed down to size. This may also be another reason for why “the drape” was more popular in the West. A regular men’s business suit wouldn’t be long enough to go down to the knee like the zoot suit, but the jacket would still look long on a teenager (falling to about mid-thigh).

There was some individuality in the different suits that young people wore, although many critics tried to argue that it was a countercultural uniform. I think there’s some truth to that, both in the sense of a counter-culture, and also in the sense of a uniform. If you think of most youth fashion, there’s a remarkable degree of uniformity to whatever look is popular.

Some youth accessorized the zoot suit by wearing a narrow-brimmed pork pie hat and others wore hats with much wider brims and a long ostrich feather. Some wore their suits with open collars; others wore short ties, string ties, or bolo ties. Most suit pants had narrow belts, like the ones that were popular in the 1980s. In the East kids tended to have thinned-soled Italian made shoes and in the West the kids tended to have very thick-soled shoes. Many critics of the fashion tried to characterize the thick-soled shoes as weapons while kicking, but most youth simply preferred the thick-soled shoes because they didn’t wear out as often as thin-soled shoes. Some kids had long watch chains that swooped down to the knee.

Speaking of the 1980s, there was an interesting revival of the zoot silhouette in the early Hugo Boss suits. The look was adopted by one of the ‘80s bands that I can’t remember off the top of my head (Depeche Mode?), and Janet Jackson shot a music video in zoot suit.

I can’t help but think, as we track trends so often, about early versus late adaptors to the zoot suit. Was there inner tension amongst wearers? Signs that someone was “faking the funk,” anything at all of that nature? Somewhat related, where is the oddest place you’ve found reference to a zoot suit being worn. Some town or city that made you think, wow this thing really spread?

That’s a very good question about any inner tensions. I haven’t detected any. Jazz was about chilling out from the rat race and enjoying life (through booze, drugs, sex, and music), so they tended to not factionalize—that is, that I know of. The only “tensions” I’ve come across were actually between some of the hardcore jazz musicians who smoked marijuana and those who preferred heroin. They tended to not associate with one another, but their preferences for getting high never translated into any sort of confrontation. Of course, this is not to say that all aficionados of jazz smoked pot. Some did, and some didn’t. It was probably harder to get in the ‘30s and ‘40s than it is now, and most kids got into jazz for the music, fashion, and dance.

I guess for me, the oddest place that the zoot was worn was down in some rural towns in the South. Jazz tended to be more of an urban phenomenon, but its roots sink deep into R&B, which comes out of the rural areas of the South, so it’s no surprise that rural black kids got into it too. I just wonder where and when they wore the suit.

I think it worth mention major figures and how they promoted the style. How frequently was a zoot suit featured in the press? And, how what portion of that was positive or negative? I’m interested here in the roll of media to spread the style.

Nationwide, there was some mention of the zoot suit, but not much. The war was on and most newspapers cared far more for other issues than what working-class kids were doing. I read every issue of the Los Angles newspapers that I could get a hold of for the war period, and next to coverage of the war the newspapers were far more interested in Hollywood scandals and the goings on of socialites than they were about racialized people. I had mentioned earlier that if you were a Martian coming down from outer space and read the newspapers and magazines to understand life in the United States, you wouldn’t know that people of color existed at all. So there was very little coverage, overall, of jazz culture.

There were a few exceptions, of course, and every once in a while you would find an article here and there about the youth phenomenon. The coverage was usually told with a tone of bemused contempt. I wouldn’t call such coverage overtly negative, and it certainly wasn’t positive. It was largely with a tone of “what an odd thing those kids are doing.”

I don’t know that the media really played a roll in spreading the style. I’m not certain how often working-class kids read the newspapers. I do know that there were some early versions of music videos made of the zoot suit style, but to what extent those short films were seen by working class kids, I couldn’t say. I just don’t have any idea of what kind of distribution these few short clips had. I do know that swing jazz was played on the radio by stations specializing in what was called “race music” (i.e. black music). I also know that community dances were very popular, and that bands often toured, either regionally or nationally, and it was through touring bands that the music spread. And with the spread of the sound came the spread of the fashion.

Swing jazz offered a qualitatively different sound that what the mainstream radios were playing. Swing jazz had a faster beat and rhythm that was far more catchy than anything Bing Crosby was singing on the radio. Again, I would look at the grapevine spread of rap in much the same way; I don’t think the media had as much to do with its initial popularity (although it has certainly changed since rap became more mainstream).

Yes, it has been a while since the social consumer team blogged on this site. Yes, we, like the rest of the world, must occasionally deny our passions and work for a living. We’ve been pleased and overwhelmed by the continued interest in our words and thoughts. It is truly remarkable that in a time when common conception points to a need for consistent update that something that hasn’t moved since February still manages to generate interest.

Please believe that our drive and interest hasn’t waned during this brief sabbatical. Ideas have been flying to make the site both better and, also, a little fuller content wise. Over the next stretch a series of interviews will be added, and we’ll have a few guest book reviewers as well. Expect all this at our usual slow but steady pace.

Thanks again for your support, we are really flattered and grateful.

- The Social Consumers.

In elementary school, things were easy. Buy cards for everyone. Memory serving me poorly, this may have ment both boys and girls, but I am hoping it was just the sex of ones choice. I would write 20-30 Peanuts cards, droping each in a large envelop affixed to the given recipients chair. Low and behold, I would return to my desk to find roughly the same amount of cards addressed to me. How wonderful! The class was full of good cheer, hopped up on sugar from the teacher, and the notion that Valentine’s Day was complete shame far from the grasp of our one track minds.

Highschool came and my notion of the day changed ever so slightly — it is by far the loneliest day on the calender. The school had the grand tradition of senior kisses, where by you, or your friends, could purchase a peck on the cheek from some wanted upper classman. My freshman year I recieved a kiss from a hottie named Pleasance. Promptly after I rubbed one out in the science center lavatory. I also got a kiss from a large bussomed girl named Betsy. She was a junior, and being a sad young thing I suddenly imagined she liked me. Wrong. Betsy was just being nice. Subsequent years followed with more pity kisses and increasingly lowered esteem. My senior year was the final straw, not a single young lady bought a kiss from me.

What kind of Saint would wish such a thing?

Well, none really. There were, according newadvent.org, three St. Valentines, all martyrs and all had their feats on February 14. And thus we have a name and a date for the occasion, but are still lost as to where buying women gifts and celebrating love on the day comes from.

A little further research (wikipedia and newadvent) and we find that thanks to Chaucer, the feast of Valentine became associated with romance. Why? Damned if I know, my brother is the families Lit. scholar, not I. I do know that the Italian Renaissance was full of putti (fat cheribic creatures figuring in loads and loads of paintings), so that winged marksman of love adorning so many Hallmark’s has, at the very least, minor connections to the one of the Saint Valentines. As in, both spent some time (real or fictional) in Rome. This may also account for the belief many feckless men have that Italian dinners are incredibly romantic. Fictionalizing some account of the Saint, as Chaucer did, seems to have galvinized loads of people throughout time to woo women on February 14. And, while many people have also thought about going on a violent rampage on this day, a few people did in 1929.

Violence never once threatened my Valentine’s. Bodily harm, however, has been endured (thank you alcohol). In my college years, Valentines Day went much like any other. Wake up, consume bloody mary, attend class, resume drinking. Later I usually ask myself this question: I wonder if anyone is lonely enough to sleep with me? Answer: NO.

Much to my disbelief, bars on Valentine’s Day were not swarming with women who were gasping for it. Just people equal to my levels of social awkwardness. Even when lubricated, a room full of shy and nervous people does not make a party. Life went on, the day past, all of us went home and woke to a common bedfellow, a hangover.

Post-college life was more fruitful. I celebrated proper Valentine’s days with gifts and meals. Partially for my own amusement and under the guise of archiving interesting objects of material culture I bought special edition air force ones and limited edition pendents, forcing them on my then partner. She accepted, and feigned interest, and we were, if for a fleeting moment, happy ever after. In the throws of love I didn’t once consider that my purchases, not being technically mine, would be a useless attempt at collecting as I would not have the items in perpetuity.

The conflation of romantic gifts and the concept of “forever” came from the marketing genius of De Beers in partnership with the advertising firm N.W. Ayer. Sometime in the 19th century diamond engagement rings had become de rigur, but like all fashions there remained the possibility that the trend would slow or fall completely. De Beers wanted to ensure that interest in diamonds as symbols of love would remain, and as such N.W. Ayer worked to change and mold social attitudes about diamonds. Engagement rings were shown more clearly in film, celebrities employed and the notion of bigger and clearer diamonds equally bigger and better love was born. The slogan “A Diamond is Forever,” came into play in 1948 and with it the cultural construction of the stones meaning was further solidified. Today, diamonds are not just for engagement (obviously), and every tick tack jeweler in the nation flogs diamond heart pendants, earings and bracelets for Valentine’s. Love, romance and the stone. Brilliant marketing from bottom to top really.

Diamonds are the best example of power of advertisers to push consumer perception and desire (in the Valentine’s day context). Our current hype market follows the belief that special editions are a way into consumers hearts. When the editions mark a special occasion, they must be doubly “special” right? They must perfectly articulate the love of an interest and the joy of sharing it. After all, how can you love someone who doesn’t at least understand your passions? It also must be special when the mecca of our hype market, MAGIC, falls around the same time as Valentine’s? A grand ode our infatuation with products and spending and looking good when looking for love. Undoubtedly, its just coincidence.

In fact, last year I was at MAGIC for Valentine’s. I went to PURE. A hooker told me I looked lonely. I was. She said she would do anything to make me happy. Like Betsy before, she was just being nice. I didn’t have enough to cover love’s tariff…

I participated in the Montgomery Prize during my second year, and chose NMAH before I had picked an object. They had the broadest mission of the three, and I thought I might be able to find something a little more exciting. My classmates focused on more or less traditional antiques (toys, handbills, tools, broadsheets, toasters, etc). I walked fifteen minutes from my apartment to my favorite Mom and Pop and picked up a pair of Adidas Mutombo’s for $35.

The rationale? Well, selfishness for one. The size available was the exact size I wore when the shoe originally came out. (How’s that for nostalgia?). And, I thought I could build a compelling story that would surely wow the judges.

Signature shoes, to me, are inherently interesting. Beginning with Chuck Taylor, the idea is so tied to basketball and shoe culture. With the Mutombo shoe, I saw the potential of weaving a rather interesting tale combining athletic, corporate and personal interests.

Logically, I began by giving the assembled audience a brief rundown of the history of signature shoes in basketball (and because I am lazy I will quote from my original paper):

“The Converse rubber company of Malden, Massachusetts developed what is considered the first Basketball shoe in 1917. After several years of limited success, a young amateur ball player from Akron, Ohio named Chuck Taylor was recruited to help sell the Converse product. In 1923 the shoe was revamped and the Converse all-star that is familiar to many of us was born. With Chuck as its spokesman the shoe, to use a great understatement, became quite successful. The idea of using Athletes to sell Athletic shoes solidified, every major and minor shoe corporation built a stable roster of stars (Pete Marovich with Pro-Keds, Dominique Wilkins with Brooks, and even coaching legend John Wooden with Wilson Bata) particularly in the basketball arena through the seventies and eighties.”

As we all know, by the nineties the signature shoe was really big business. Sports Illustrated ran a really nice tidy piece relating that fact, and thanks to Larry Johnson’s relationship to Converse, I had a clear link from Taylor to 1992. Also, with Larry edging Mutombo as rookie of the year, I had a great segue back to my object. Luckily, even the most out of touch intellectual is aware of Michael Jordan, and since Nike’s sales in the US for the years in question (1992 and 1993) averaged just under $2 billion, it was a rather simple task to outline who was boss in the sneaker world.

While Adidas had emerged the market leader in the U.S. during the 1970s, and got its hip-hop stripes via Run-DMC’s 1986 hit “MY ADIDAS,” things were looking rough in 1992. In February of 1993 they hired former Nike executive Robert J. Strasser, who was pictured in the New York Times holding a Mutombo sneaker, to head newly created Adidas America. The company hoped that basketball would spearhead a renaissance. Adidas developed a shoe that was built for the center position, bulky and stable, but also an indication of Mutombo’s personality, past, and the proposed future of basketball, the African continent. The geometric patterning on the sides and interior of the shoe share a distinct resemblance to the cut-pile raffia textiles of Mutombo’s homeland, Zaire. This design cue follows not only Mutombo’s personal history, but figures cleanly into a popular urban aesthetic of the time. Afrocentric imagery and patterning were popular, and of course, who can forget Cross Colors. Plus, the connection of Adidas and hip-hop was already so firmly in place.

All this working together, I played up another point that museums love as well: Collectors. Few would probably argue against the hypothesis that, to an extent, hip-hop and street basketball play a major roll in forging a generation of sneaker collectors. Mentioning the proliferation and steady growth of periodical and web literature catering to collectors, as well as a few books, I hoped to hammer down the point that a ready made audience existed for museum interpretation of the shoe. It seemed supremely appropriate for the popular culture galleries at NMAH, reflecting clearly the aesthetic of the era, Adidas corporate history, and allowing entry into a longer trend of signature footwear.

Not surprisingly, I didn’t win.

I did, however, continue to think a lot about signature shoes. Growing into sneaker culture during an era heavy with athlete driven models, I remember fondly Grant Hill’s time with Fila and the battles waged on the tennis court between several members of the Nike family. You were not a star unless you had a shoe, and most importantly, people wanted to wear those shoes.

In 1992 I was swayed by Reebok’s ill fated Dan vs. Dan campaign, the first time in my memory personalities were really pushed to sell a non-signature model. I regard this as interesting because I think it connects to trends in current iterations of the signature shoe.

During countless hours of college and NBA basketball this past holiday season, my interest in the signature shoe was reinvigorated by Nike’s new House of Hoops commercial. It states something to the effect of people wanting to wear an athlete’s foot on theirs. Get a taste of the glory, and not just live vicariously, but FEEL as well what the athletes have (at least technology wise). The idea of the commercial is great, but seems a few years out of date.

The cache granted athletes in the market has certainly dwindled (at least in traditional sports, as signature models for skate seem vibrant still), and attention granted to a new celebrity endorser passes with little enthusiasm. However, I have begun to consider shop model shoes in the same vain that I view athlete pro models. They are designed to appeal because of connection to personalities, spaces and places, and linked to the elusive notion of cool. Athletics is about performance more than ever, but off the field cool, and the connection to cool sells as well as ever. Linking back to Dan and Dan, the shop signature shoes are simply stamps on existing general models, just kicked up and (to use the most dreaded word in our common vocabulary) hyped up.

When done most effectively, these shoes can tell a story just as broad and exciting as the Mutombo can. Huf’s Air Trainer 1 designed by Benny Gold, in my view, is an exceptional articulation of place and space. From the theme to the materials, it is easily read in the material culture/art history vein, and smoothly fits into a discussion current marketing trends.

To be honest, a great number of the many boutique designed shoes are useful as a starting point in a material culture analysis of contemporary trends. Naming some over others is a tad unfair, and my picks for those that are good, better or best are no more than examples of my subjective taste. What I really want to impart is my firm belief that these types of collaborations are significant in the overall history of the signature shoe. They have breathed a breath of life into catalog models and resuscitated interest in sneakers. They are what the kids are driven by, and if they are not buying them, they are buying things that are in essence cheap imitations. The beauty of this? Whereas I might have been called out for wearing the mid-price model based on a popular signature shoe, some kids will be lauded for their colorful GR dunk that bares passing resemblance to the UNDFTD clerks pack.

Cheaper. Easier. Cooler. Shop signature shoes are a great boon to the industry. They also privilege the perceived expert in a way unseen in traditional signature shoes. Sure, some nerds know Tinker Hatfield designed the Air Trainer 1, and give a nod of respect to HUF for using that canvas. But, for the most part, the “connoisseur” supersedes the true designer and is lauded for the extreme coolness of their color schemes.

Occasionally this backfires. The High Hair dunk, for example, was a brilliant concept that was lost for, perhaps, being too subtle aesthetically. The shoe fit an idea, captured regional identity, and was playful in articulation. Perhaps lacking a link to a major personality or shop killed off the potential of mega hype. As with sports stars, not all cool guy leaders are appreciated.

In total, these releases indicate the conflation of consumerism and culture that calls into question authentic interest and participation. Steven Vogel’s recent interview with Ian MacKaye relays this point very nicely, especially in regards to NIKE SB. Streetculture exists in a rare balancing act between, what I will call here the vernacular, and the corporate iteration. There is a good amount of leverage generated for the key players, enough to not completely water down the end product, but often enough those who have INFLUENCED the players are thrown unwillingly into the fray. Sadly, this leads to a lot of pretending.

Part of the issue remains with the over reliance on nostalgia to push numbers.

I find myself wondering how a shift back to athlete driven sneaker culture is possible. Not in the sense of Nike SB, for only the P. Rod shoe actually pushes sneakers toward newness, but outside of sports that still hold that cache of difference and cool (and, yeah, cool is overused in the last few pages). Adidas’ plan for Gilbert seemed to fuse the limited and superstar molds that independently work to sell sneakers. Nike has tried with Lebron, and to be honest, who can truly say that those limited editions were either exciting, or genuinely generated interest. (Let’s face it; they are a product of the disgusting cult of sole collector magazine).

Thankfully, there are several footwear companies emerging that go back to basics. Thrill with material choice, and avoid the problematic world of collaborations and signature models altogether. They won’t ever rule the sneaker world, for signature and sponsored products will likely always be with us, but they provide something for those of us wanting to cut through the crap, and will grow into a historic foil for the signature shoe for later generations of interested consumers/scholars.

Like graffiti, break dancing is steadily making inroads into the institutional art world. Not new, just as street based arts have been in and out of favor with the art world for some decades, but stronger than ever, the notion that this art must be validated and understood outside the core culture building. Desire for institutional validation of American vernacular arts has plenty of precedents. Eric Porter beautifully describes Wynton Marsalis’ work with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra in this context in his book What is This Thing Called Jazz. There is a clear avenue for advancement (institutionally) with Marsalis, elevate jazz to the same status as classical music.   

Progressive dance companies have occasionally mixed breakin’ in to spice up some pieces, but the flowering of purely hip-hop driven troupes in the past decade pushes the folk form more solidly into the academy. Philadelphia is a hot bed for hip-hop dance companies, most famously Renne Harris’ Pure Movement. Over the years I’ve seen a good number of them, mostly at Washington DC‘s Dance Place, which next week will host its annual hip-hop dance festival. They kicked off a little early this year inviting olive Dance Theater in for a one week residence.

The mission of the theater is “validate indigenous American hip-hop dance forms, specifically Breakin’, through the creation and performance of new dance theater works.” Unfortunately, in offering authentic breakin’ AND poignant interpretive pieces the aim is stunted. Director Jaime stresses that breaking is the sole dance form employed by Olive. Certainly true, however the interpretation of breaking within the frame of contemporary dance minimizes the pace, pulse and power of break dancing. Isolating movements also works to limit the potential of the dancers to express a confident identity. 

olive undeniably is about breaking. The most powerful piece of the performance wasn’t even live. The film presentation “’83″ nicely discussed the nature of community through mentoring, as well as opening my eyes to a new connection. Raphael Xavier, Olive’s lead dancer, also rides flat land. Moving between his riding and dancing, similarities in movement are apparent, and the linkage fascinating. In the film, the company best relays the power of street arts to combat social ills, and only here does the company really push the original intent of the hip-hop movement. 

In the more “serious” pieces, olive faces tension between salient points and actually doing great dance. There are moments of excitement and flow in each, but they never quite hit a stride. Ultimately, the attempts at validation are overly focused and sadly miss the proper fusion of vernacular and high art. 

I am reminded of Donte Ross’ review of the recent Banksy instillation in my thinking about olive. The New York show raised similar questions about intent. The small scale pieces presented in NY divorce Banksy from the interactive power of the street paintings and his large scale instillations. The connection is limited, however, in that olive minimizes their own mission in the work, whereas Banksy falls to the hands of outside curators. 

What does build in both is the difficulty of bringing new forms of folk art to traditional audiences. Balancing expectation and authenticity has pitfalls. Certainly, as I mentioned above, street arts have taken the fancy of the art world before. Basquiat is the prime example. But, street arts now have more cultural and economic capital, and I would argue there is more at stake with current moves toward validation. The core purveyors of the culture have more power to ease the entry, and have opportunities to positively push agendas. 

With olive, I was bothered by the overall feel of the product. They have an ambitious mission, but have a long road ahead in pulling it off the right way. Break dancing needs passion. There is a need to react, to the music or to fellow dancers. Formalizing the movements, while an interesting exercise, removes the EXCITEMENT. The dancers faces showed just that and the audience could feel it. They had come to be enthralled, and left (at least in my case) uninspired and a little let down.   

I was introduced to my greatest guilty pleasure as an eighth grader. After graduating from a rather childish series of books, I discovered the work of Clive Cussler. They appealed to my interest in history, vague sense of adventure and desire to be a bon vivant. Dirk Pitt and later Kurt Austin, Cussler’s two all-American heroes, are cut from the same cloth as Indiana Jones. Except, they exist in the present and are sadly represented (at least Pitt) on screen by the hapless Matthew McConaughy and not my friend Jed’s favorite male lead, Harrison Ford.

Over the years, even as I have dispensed of most reading material I deem crap (maxim, vibe, the source, and countless others), Cussler has stuck with me. Paint by numbers novels appear with frightening frequency, and hold my interest without fail for the day or so it takes me to get through them. When Sahara hit the silver screen, I was dreadfully disappointed, perhaps thinking that had the movie been excellent, my pleasure would have been marginally validated.

Last week, I read The Navigator. The writing was weak, and the editing worse than my own, but still I turned each page as quickly as the last, and felt momentarily lost in Cussler’s world. I passed it on to my newly teenage cousin, hoping that at the very least, the NUMA adventures would make him fall in love with books as I have.

Customarily, Cussler has provided an escape from an ever growing list of books that I must read. I often wonder- do other people avoid reading by reading? Perhaps so. In any event, I have returned to my stack and am catching up on some much overdue tattoo reading.

Half way through Sarah Hall’s The Electric Michelangelo and I am enormously pleased with her treatment of the tattoo trade. I shouldn’t really be surprised, the book, after all, was a Booker Prize finalist (note: in reading this book, I have decided that I will not review fiction, and rather reflect on it in rambling entries like this instead). The first third of the book cleanly captures the tensions of the apprenticeship system, and even better the unmitigated attraction some men (and women) have to the art.

The appearance of tattooing in fiction has always been a real point of excitement for me. Hall’s book marks a nice change too; it’s well researched and hinges more on human passions than sensation. Hers is a perceptive handling, great fiction, encompassing a contemporary and reverential view of tattooing.

The only thread linking my two recent reads is an emphasis on historical record to drive plot. On the one hand, Cussler’s wild tales heightens the sense of adventure, whereas Hall’s precision underlies her brilliance. In essence, the methods define the divide between guilty and absolute pleasure.

There remains minor anxiety though, as I don’t wish to dismiss the guilty as a blip in my consumer history. Despite less artistic and historic merit, books like Cussler’s are strong signifiers of what punters want, and how they choose to be entertained. As I am a proponent in pushing the value of any item of the past as valued historical marker, I’ve hit a road block. If I privilege some items in my life over others, am I bound to ignore interesting documents in my work?

This will likely be a never ending question of both my intellectual interest and integrity.