What Is Punk Now?
The Age of Insta-culture means you can counterfeit insider knowledge by searching Spotify
Hot Topic and H&M let Taylor Swift fans be ‘punk’
While the oldheads whine about CBGBs and apply purity tests, a new, more democratic sensibility is being born for kids who actually care about music
CBGB, as most insufferable oldheads will tell you, was the epitome of all musical culture in New York City, and therefore on the entire planet, especially punks. But since its demise in 2006, three years before I was born, the insufferable oldheads have seemingly switched their attitudes from, “That was the coolest place” to “All other places are fake and there is no real music subculture left anywhere on earth, so help me God.”
As a self-diagnosed punk, I can tell you that a “real” music subculture in NYC definitely still exists. Last Sunday, the Bowery Electric’s Hardcore Matinee, a free, all-ages monthly hardcore show, featured local bands such as Winter Wolf, The Give-Ups, Incendiary Device, and other local favorites. It seemed to contain everything that the oldheads didn’t want to hear: The same thing they’ve been fighting for in their “punk’s not dead” attitude for so many years, us youngins are …
Yes Virginia, the Bristol Casino Will Change Your Luck (for the Worse)
‘If people make stupid bets, how is that my problem?’
A casino is not so much a place as an absence of place, a transportation nexus from reality to its opposite
Coal-town gamblers battle depression in a state of ‘dark flow’ while politicians and developers steal their paychecks through legislated fraud
Jimmy and I are sitting at a plastic high-top table in the Bristol Casino bar. He’s wearing jeans, a faded Florida Gators hoodie, and a navy ball cap with an unfamiliar gray, triangular logo. It’s a Saturday night in Virginia, and some local bluesy act is playing too loud on the makeshift stage behind us.
“Do you know who Graham Betchart is?” Jimmy shouts over the licks. He doesn’t wait for my reply. “He’s a mental skills coach for the Sacramento Kings. He’s got this thing he says. He says, ‘Be where your feet are.’ Live for the moment. Don’t worry about yesterday or tomorrow. Be in the now. That’s how I live life.”
Jimmy rolled into town four days ago, and he’s been at the casino every night since. “I like this place,” he repeats for the third time, but always with a new qualifier. “It’s got good music, good energy. I don’t really believe in God, but I believe in energy.”
Six months ago, …
Wild Puppies
The lighthouse keeper didn’t eat enough rabbits. Now there are foxes.
There are also puppies, red ones, black ones, collapsing in furry heaps
If dogs are domesticated wolves, can foxes be far behind?
In the spring, wrote Alfred Lord Tennyson, “a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,” and this may oftentimes be true. But here, on a sometimes-blustery island in the Salish Sea, thoughts of love have long since been acted upon by the time spring comes around. On San Juan Island, spring is the season of wild puppies.
The foxes here come in two main styles — red and black — although all are members of the species Vulpes vulpes, which is commonly if confusingly known as the red fox, regardless of what color an individual actually is. When a San Juan Island fox has one red parent and one black parent, the result is a charming mixture of the two morphs, although they always have a white tip on their bushy tails. The foxes were introduced sometime in the mid-twentieth century, probably to control the rabbit population, who were in turn introduced some years before that, probably to …
