My humor posts tend to rank among the highest on the blog, but I’ve been lax about including humor regularly.
No more.
In the next few months I’ll add a bit of humor to your Fridays!
If you have the time, drop by and see what’s going on, or add a link with something that amused you recently.
Today’s feature wasn’t originally meant to be funny at all.
BACKGROUND:
This video is part of an extended series of educational videos from Mississippi State University in the early 1950s. Parts of them of still useful today, but only if you can get over the heavy-hand teaching method and the very antiquated feel. I can, but only barely.
Upside:
The goals should still be taught today: good manners, consideration of others, and socially pleasant behavior. It’s crazy though because it’s so far removed from our own time and ways of interacting that it seems like satire, (that’s why it’s a Funny Friday feature.)
• But seriously, it made me stop to consider how I might be more polite. (Gosh, Beaver, maybe good manners are important!)
• Most of these actors would have turned into anti-establishment, long-haired, sexually uninhibited hippies about a decade later. (So much for a cutting edge education delivery method with expected outcomes. HA!)
Downside:
• The angle seems poorly positioned at the beginning as “a way to get what you what” instead of how to be mature or enjoyable to be around.
• It has nothing about texting etiquette. Major oversight! ;)
• Is it about practicing pretenses and inauthenticity? A bit. BLECKkk!
VIEWING TIP:
Try to not be cynical when you watch this. It’s easy sometimes to disparage things from other eras. We live in a cynical time! if you can manage it, try to appreciate this as a “time-capsule” of another time and a culture removed from ours today (for better and for worse).
The next post will go live on Sunday. It starts a series I’m really interested in and, golly, I hope to see you soon! That would be swell!
Hey! One more thing! Try the new subscription app to get an update when posts go live.
Here is the much-anticipated interview with Brett McCracken, author of Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide. Thank you, Brett! This was fun.
Brett's face in the City
5 Questions for
Brett McCracken
1. Does the hipster Christian phenomenon pivot on the “Be in the world, but not of the World” Scriptural directive?
I think the hipster Christianity phenomenon is absolutely about this notion of how to be in the world but not of the world (with emphasis, perhaps, on the “being IN the world” part). Christian hipsters want, above all, to engage with the culture at large. They want to have a meaningful dialogue and cooperation with the wider world, rather than being cut-off or segregated from it. Rather than having a Christian music industry, a Christian movie industry, Christian this-that-and-the-other, these Christian hipsters long for a faith that is relevant in and among the culture. They don’t want to be set in opposition to the culture, but rather they want to be productively engaged with it. Their instincts tell them that if Christianity is true, it is not something meant to be separatist, overly legalistic, and anti-everything. Rather, it should be something that speaks into every aspect of life and illuminates the beauty and wonder of existence. They resonate with the famous C.S. Lewis quote that says, I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
2. If you could communicate one thing to your readers that they would remember forever (and in so doing, change them forever), what would it be?
Wow, that’s a big question! I guess I would want to communicate the notion that the “coolest” thing about Christianity has little to do with how trendy, cutting-edge, and “of the moment” it appears to the culture, but has everything to do with the transcendent truth of a Gospel that changes lives.
3. Every writer has “haters”, what do yours complain about? (Mine complain about nipples, but that’s a rather long story, and this interview is about YOU.)
A lot of the critics of the book suggest that I’m not giving enough due to the cultural context and “mode-of-delivery” through which the Gospel is communicated. They maintain, rightly, that the Gospel always has to be presented in ways that are embodied, formed, packaged, and specific to the context/audience in which it is being presented. I totally agree. I’m not suggesting that the Gospel is just some nebulous cloud of ideas or concepts that we can communicate apart from form. Of course we have to consider the medium, the context, etc. All I am saying is that form influences content, and we have to be careful that the various new strategies we are undertaking (placing tons of emphasis on looking cool, cutting-edge technology, etc) are not negatively impacting the content of the message or distracting us from making sure we are communicating a deep, rich, transformative message. At it’s core, my caution in the book is that we not get so preoccupied with hip/cool/attractive packaging that we forget what is actually rich and powerful about the message itself.
4. To you, is “cool” more of a state of mind than anything? Why or why not?
Hmm, that’s an interesting question, because I think it is and it isn’t a state of mind. In the sense that the pursuit of “cool” is very self-conscious and a sort of existential endeavor to be “in the know,” I definitely think it is a state of mind. But then again I think that there are plenty of “naturally cool” people who never really think about or try to be cool. It’s not something they consciously strive for as much as it is just a side-effect of them truly liking certain bits of culture that happen to be fashionable or appear cool in a given cultural context.
These days, it’s hard to tell where “cool as a self-conscious state-of-mind” ends and “cool as a natural outgrowth of who one is” begins. The problem is complicated by the fact that cool today (as in, “hipster” cool) is largely defined on the superficial “how one dresses” level, so you have “true” hipsters who dress in a certain way but then you have the “I want to be cool” hipsters who can simply purchase the exact same look at American Apparel or Urban Outfitters. On a phenomenological level, there is no difference between the two. Both types signify “cool,” which we take to mean “elitist/snobby/annoying.” So whether one actually IS elitist/snobby/annoying doesn’t matter, because “the look” communicates this regardless.
5. Have you ever considered offering McDonalds a signature menu item? (For instance, like the McCracken Sandwich: 8 crispy strips of bacon, melted sharp cheddar cheese, and sweet horseradish sauce on crispy, lightly toasted Sourdough bread pocket.) [Seriously, that whole thing came to me in one package like that. It must be a God thing.] If you have not, this could plague your mind, and I’m sorry about that. I too am feeling hungry.
If I were to have a McDonalds signature item, it would probably include arugula, grass-fed beef and raw goat cheese, just to cover my hipster bases.
I had a dream that I was in a candy store, and I was incredibly popular and exquisitely hip, and then I ate a enormous marshmallow.
When I woke up, my pillow was gone.
It all stems from a deprived childhood. Even if I wanted to be trendy, and I tried, I’d fail, miserably. Middle school and high school found me so often in thrift stores, it was downright scandalous. In an era of Benetton, and Jordache, it was social suicide. Oh sure, I tried to hide it. I went to Gabrielle Brothers, where clothing goes to die. I’d pick through the cast-offs to scavenge some name brands, so the girls in gym class wouldn’t give me the “stink eye,” or worse. But, inside I knew it was the shred of facade keeping me from being found out as a trendy fashion horse phony. Only hand-me-downs from a few rich kids could throw them off the scent once in a while. A saving grace perhaps.
No, I couldn’t cope with continual failure, so, I gave that up. Art Majors have a bit of an advantage here. You won’t find that I’m cutting edge. I’m not hip. Tragically or otherwise. Quirky doesn’t cut as hip. But at a mad hatter’s tea party, I’d fit right in.
The Oscars are on tonight, and it’s very important to be cool, hip, fashionable, and cutting edge. But not to be the fool. The pre-Oscar hoopla begins days in advance on television now. Oprah pimped herself to promote the nominees last night on a special show. HYPE HYPE HYPE
It all emphasizes how off beat I am, and maybe I’m not alone. Or…perhaps I am.
I realize people won’t read this blog because I know the latest on Justin Beiber, or because I’m in-like-flin with Glen Beck, (ugh) or because I just got the iPhone S, and I’m a ball of awesome coolness, because I have a app for that.
It might take a while to know what things are about here at this site. Maybe, it’ll be a while, before people can separate the goofiness, from the incised gaze at deeper being; or apprehend how those two realms can, and do intertwine.
Blogs-to be widely read-are supposed to be on the latest news, and on top of everything. They are to be authored by incredibly hip people on their way up in the world.
I apologize about that.
As a consolation, I can still guarantee there are lots of surprises and lateral, creative thinking around here. I hope that helps to soothe the pain.
My humor posts tend to rank among the highest on the blog, but I’ve been lax about including humor regularly.
