Child
Child
Placenta drips a slow three four
one two, under an exhaled three four
one two, and an inhaled
second let go for a second
three four, unhindered.
The mother in a bin, cumulus done,
sharp shark gills puffing out
and reading back in, an
exalted three four, to a drum,
baiting him in like kicking
against the naval one two,
commanding the rain outside
in. Smacking a smack one hundred
times three four,
on a wet pane to bring
him soft beat and mushy rice
from a small paddy on steps,
or a little office of cubes,
down in the grove of willows.
They swing with the cold gale,
but scrape up helpless as if a
cliff were giving out or crying out,
giving one to Waterhouse’s implicit,
the necessary but unfortunate.
Treble trembles under, and
a high string guts through the
man as placenta drips from his brow
and an unwieldy growth from his
belly, four four, threatens all
for the wave one two, could
take, beyond the wings
of a sprightly lemon lady.
Boojum or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Burrito
“Em, could I, em, could I get a burrito please, with no sour cream?” I’m desperately nervous. This process seems so easy for the people ahead of me in the line, yet I’m stumbling over my words, flapping the menu card about in my hands like a lunatic. I want a burrito with chicken and mild tomato salsa, no sour cream. I think that’s all the options covered. For some reason though, I’m finding it very difficult to say.
“Sorry.” I’m very embarrassed but the lady behind the counter could hardly be any nicer. If we were not separated by wells of exotic Mexican flavours, I can only assume that she would have given me a hug.
“First time?” She smiles in the most comforting way. “It isn’t that hard. Listen, I’ll help you. Would you like pinto beans or black beans?”
“Em…” I hadn’t picked a bean when I previously scanned the menu.
“The pinto beans have a juicy texture and a smooth, smoky flavour. They’re really delicious. The black beans are a bit different. They’re more…”
I’m amazed at how nice the people at Boojum are. Five minutes ago I jumped off the Luas at Jervis wondering why the burrito had taken over Dublin city, why I was now going for one, and why I was so nervous. I was late to the burrito party, really late, and it was pretty uncool. Making my way around to Millenium Walkway, I feel like everybody knows that I’m here to lose my burrito virginity. Everybody is cool here; they’re all eating burritos. Right now, it doesn’t matter that I know about obscure hip hop from the early nineties, because I don’t know the difference between pinto beans and black beans.
“Pinto sounds good. Could I have some pinto beans please?” I am aware that I sound like a simpleton. I never ask for directions, I never read the instruction manual and I never ever let on that I don’t know what I’m doing. However, right now I am unable to bluff. I need to learn.
- Fig 25.1: Boojum, Millenium Walkway.
“Good stuff. See, it isn’t hard at all. Any meat?”
“Chicken please.” I had decided this earlier when I checked out the Boojum website. Their menu is online, along with lots of information about them and the food. When the burrito was invented in 2008, or whenever, the internet became its godfather. Burritos & Blues, Wexford Street, tweeted me only a few days ago to tell me that they’d be delighted if they could introduce me to Mexican food. Pablo Picanté, with a Baggot Street ‘casa’ and another on Clarendon Market, nearly got me with their website alone. All of these places have an internet presence, which is probably someway responsible for the burrito’s popularity with a middle-class ‘alt’ audience. Boojum won because one of my mates said that it was his favourite. I suppose nothing spreads popularity like some old-fashioned word of mouth.
Two more ladies help me in the process, each as lovely as the first. The food conveyor belt eventually leaves me with a chicken burrito with pinto beans, tomato salsa and grated cheese. No sour cream for me. With a bottle of soft drink, I get decent change from my tenner and, finally, it is dinner time.
Sitting outside on the terrace of Millenium Walkway, I marvel at the size of what I’m about to eat. This really is a meal. I would like a weighing-scales right now. It is a giant package of food, food that I can only assume is relatively good for you. This is not only cheaper than a Burger King meal; it won’t leave me contemplating an hour in the gym as penance. And then you eat.
My mind is blown. Where have you been, Mr Burrito? Or, where have I been? For a second I feel a mild regret that I waited so long, but it vanishes because now I know. I suddenly understand everything. It all makes so much sense. This is amazing. I can only imagine that this is how the quiet girl in class felt when, for the very first time, she got scaldy drunk and danced like her hair was on fire. There was no going back for her then.
All that flavour is perfect. The subtly smoky pinto beans compliment the grilled chicken; sautéed peppers and onions mesh with the tomato salsa and rice as the cheese melts into everything else. Everything here has a place, it all fits. Every single bite gives a little kick because each individual ingredient has a purpose. The chicken, for example, is seasoned and cooked in its own special way. So when you take a bite of your burrito, you experience that. Similarly, the tomato salsa, the mildest option according to the staff at Boojum, is not just level one salsa, sauce for beginners; it is a delight of flavour in its own right. So when it all comes together in this genius package, you get it all. Any single bite is guaranteed to be interesting, to give you something.
I force myself to finish it. I’m completely stuffed, which is quite a feat. Leaning back, I take a deep breath and treasure all the goodness in my belly. I feel cool now, in a very gluttonous way. Or less uncool.
“So?” My company for the evening, an experienced burrito man, looks for a reaction. He smiles. He knew all along. I stopped talking after my first bite and haven’t said anything since. Thanks, Boojum.
The Hipster is much maligned
- I started writing this a while ago and then The Hipsters vanished, so I stopped.
The Hipster is much maligned, but who is he?
The Hipster is much maligned. He can feel it as he walks. He knows that at this stitch in time, his popular culture has turned on him. He is designated as socially redundant, almost evil, by an essentially similar other that is in the ascendency of print media for that demographic, The Aware. Acknowledgement of the excess of the popular alternative social direction now marks the cut where The Hipster is relegated to the position of laughing-stock and silent receptacle of the scoff, whereas The Aware – as a new social splinter category unto themselves – maintain a grasp upon self-deprecating irony that evades The Hipster. Alignment with that group, The Aware, has been en masse. The Hipster disappears to the shadows of the amusingly easy to castrate hate figure.
Via the emergent juxtaposition of The Aware and The Hipster, one might proffer the observance that popular alternative culture as we know it has encountered a juncture where it must split and divide. Rather than the continuous evolution through alternative cultural phases that has been the case over recent years, alternative or indie culture is now shedding itself.
Fig 20.1: What is a Hipster?
This leaves the Hipster, The Unaware, as a fold. He stands in drainpipes and leather, rolling his cigarette and listening to Galaxie 500 on comedy headphones. The self-designated counterpoint that now exists broadly is the anti-Hipster, the alternatively aware who has rejected the allegedly superficial foray deeper into alternative culture as too alternative for the sake of that movement. This anti-Hipster probably is coated in leather, atop drainpipes, rolling a tobacco tampon to smoke, creating a haze to enjoy his Galaxie 500 in. He vehemently rejects the allure of an indulgence that is merely a postmodern simulacra of cultural engagement. The Hipster existed, or does still exist, for the all elusive, a seemingly hollow alternative element that is now vilified as too much.
But this is self-regulation. There is no Aware or Unaware as separate social groups; The Hipster never existed as a person. The Hipster is a creation of those who wished to denigrate, yet was appropriated as a viable means of reaffirmation by the social group for which the jestingly derogatory term was originally coined. I am not a Hipster, but look at those stupid Hipsters, so shallow, in pursuit of credibility. What ho, credibility is thus attained, but not for The Hipster, for The Aware, which is every single self-consciously possible-Hipster. That is, every individual who could accuse themselves with genuine introspection of that undesirable status. That pursuit of the all elusive alternative is vindicated once more, as The Hipster is cast away, and everybody is clean.
Working Class Chic: Scarf Story
The Green Forest Blues series will have to wait for a while. This is about as close to fashion journalism as I’ll ever get.
Wearing a Scarf
I stood on the ramp outside the arts block in Trinity College, Dublin. A bloke approached me.
“Ah, a football scarf! That’s cool, working class chic.”
And so I was alerted to the fact that my scarf had been assimilated into some sort of alternative fashion culture. My Liverpool scarf was cool. The complete stranger who approached me and commented on my neck apparel was all smiles and, in my eyes, seemed to mean what he said in the nicest way. I couldn’t help but think that it was ridiculous.
“What do you mean, working class chic? What is that?”
I knew perfectly well what working class chic meant. Or rather, I knew that it was some sort of bullshit pretence exuded by a person via their clothes or a false accent or something. So no, I didn’t really know what working class chic was exactly, but I knew enough to get a bit hot under the scarf about it. So, when this person looked at me in some sort of blank amazement, I took the opportunity to go on.
“How shallow a perception is it to see a person wearing a football scarf and then think that it is just a lovely fashion statement? The working classes are ‘in’ now are they? Well that makes me sick. Of all of the things that can be taken from my choice of scarf, you seem to have drawn from the very top layer. What does my love of football and my choice to display that love through my scarf say about me, other than that I might want to put across a ‘cool’ working class vibe?
“In the first instance, I’ll tell you this, being working class is not cool. It’s a slog. It says something that the fashion of the working classes seems to strike you more than their plight. Where do people get off appropriating what they see as some sort of appealing kitsch value in the lower rungs of society and making it into ‘working class chic,’ a style for consumption?
“And, with that in mind, why are working class people seen so stereotypically? Is football just a game for the working classes, or is that only the working classes would invest themselves emotionally in such folly? And, from a middle class perch, it is all just football isn’t it? There’s no distinction made between teams, no? Considering the fact that you are so happy to cast aspersions of class and buy into some sort of stereotype that provides the raw material for this ‘working class chic’ look, why won’t you go any further with it? Maybe my Liverpool scarf says something truthful about my personality? The fact that I support Liverpool so outwardly probably means I venerate tradition, have a genuine working class background – even if I am standing at the entrance to Trinity College’s arts building right now – and that I don’t wish to be assimilated into poxy working class fucking chic?”
Panting, I stepped away and broke my engagement with the now dejected eyes of this stranger. I walked away defiantly with my chin up.
“Here, mate. Hold on a second.” I stopped and turned.
“Sorry. I, you know, didn’t mean to, well –“
“It’s alright, brother. I know. Don’t worry about it.”
With that, I took my leave of him. Or, I would have done, had any of this been true. Well, some of it is true. I’ll start again.
“Ah, a football scarf! That’s cool, working class chic.”
I was a little uncomfortable that my scarf actually meant anything other than that I was cold and supported Liverpool. All the same, the bloke who said it to me seemed very nice, genuine in what I could only assume was a compliment. He smiled and I smiled back, although a little uncomfortably.
“Cheers mate. Come on the ‘Pool, you know!”
That’s basically what happened. I wish I had of a) thought the other stuff at the time and b) been a big enough dickhead to say it.
Figure 13.1 : Robbie Fowler. God. This is related.
