thinking is the new black

OK, so I’m rather late in the day with this little gem. I, like a lot of other people saw it only for the first time on Saturday night thanks to C4s rudetube. How’s that for postmodernism? Yoot make music and video using domestic technologies and post the video on an online social space, it gets pickup by TV show where your researcher heroine watches the full clip on YouTube, and then blogs about it. I’m just a networked knowledge worker swimming in the interweb of streams.

onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('a/uk.youtube.com');">watch?v=Q6pbZLiLt30

The song makes me smile, and I think there’s something really endearing about it. For all that has been said by sectors of the UK government and popular media, about young people, street crime, hoodies, knives, gangs etc etc it’s pretty spesh to see a group of young people, well, just being a bit silly really and having a laugh. They’re funny and they’re cool.

Apparently

An estimated 1,700 fried chicken joints, with their white, red and blue regalia, currently line UK high streets, tiny bones scattered over the pavements outside.

You can read all about the creators Red Hot Entertainment in an interview with them here. Thing is I know SFC. I used to go to the one on Hackney road when I lived there. It was always a bit of a treat. Fried chicken and chips is a big thing in the East end. I’m not sure why it’s so popular, but its a massive thing and especially amongst the afrocarribean community. Infact Texas chicken a rival fried chuck joint, use images of a black family and a group of teenage boys wearing hoodies in their marketing . Also according to Mintel the heaviest users of chicken bars are younger, less affluent consumers mainly from the D and C socioeconomic groups. Another comment I found from a Guardian article last year quoted Paul Ricketts a black comic who said

“All black areas have loads of fried chicken outlets. It is a socio-economic thing…”

So I suppose what I’m saying is that the junior spesh video is a representation of culture. In a sense it’s a piece of ethnographic film making. For me Junior spesh provides a neat case study for anyone interested in cultural identity, and or subculture. On the one hand Red Hot Ents are drawing on connotations of mainstream representations of urban youth and street style. Particularly with the genre of the song (grime) and the way they’re dressed -- sweats, grime t-shirts baseballs caps, which one might normally expect to be a reference gang culture. In the UK we’re more used to reading these signifiers as negative representations of youth either as the object of fear or as an under-class. But these guys have really played with signification whilst staying true to themselves, beliefs and values. The result is an uplifting reclaiming of ideology. If hegemony is always on going process and culture a site of resistance, then hurray for Red Hot Ents -- who have won a small battle here as far as I’m concerned.

And god it’s catchy

j j junior spesh junior spesh, one pound and fiddy pence

I’m very busy redrafting 3 chapters of my thesis, marking 2nd year essays and writing a proposal for IMACR 2009, but I had to take a few minutes out to report on something which IMHO is very wrong.

There have been whispers of the reintroduction of  harem pants ( also known as the drop pant) into polite society for some time. The trend is credited to French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld but since designers such as Armani and Chloe revealed their spring collections, the fashion press are all keyed up  for S/S this year.

I’m sure they’re incredibly comfortable, much more democratic than skinny jeans,  cover a multitude of sins etc etc, but how can anyone fail to make associations with MC Hammer?

There is something very infantile about them which deeply troubles me. I can understand people wearing them to make a statement about comfort over style.  ”The cut liberates one from the confines of fashion, Yah” etc. The garment is about the rejection of the restriction of the construction of contemporary style, but today the drop-pant, tomorrow the adult nappy. Worrying if you ask me. 

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I will do when I finally sit my viva and become Dr Peacock. What will life be like post PhD and what is next on my research agenda? 

I went to Cuba in 2007 to stay with a family in a casa particular in Verdado a nice suburb of Havana. It had been a major ambition of mine to visit the country and the trip was fantastic. But ever since I’ve been dying to get back and spend more time there, exploring the rest of the country.

Last  week I went to watch Che: Part I . Mainly because I’m a massive fan of Benicio del Toro. It’s an unusual film, not quite what I was expecting to be honest and if you have little or no prior knowledge of Che Guevara or the Cuban revolution, basically you’re f***ed. Coincidentally I heard  yesterday that one of the artists from Buena Vista Social Club, Eliades Ochoa – the one with the cowboy hat, is coming to

perform in Feb in my home town.

I’m so giddy. All roads are leading to Cuba. I see it in the dregs of my mojito – my future is in Cuba. 

I’ve recently been diagnosed with celiac disease which sounds much more dramatic and serious than it is, but one of the symptoms is an intolerance of wheat and gluten which has been making me feel very tired and nauseous.  This is an extreme blow , as one of my other passions in life is cake. I love it. Lemon drizzle, macaroons, fairy cakes, scones, you name it I can make it and eat it. Yessirree I take cake very seriously indeed. But you’ll know this already if you’re a regular to this blog and all about my future plans for a tea room called the Public Sphere after Habermas’ great work. I envisaged sparknotes on critical theorists and their key works on the menu, and a free weekly salon for debate on culture and life, in the Raymond Williams sense of the word. I suppose I could still do this and make all the cup cakes gluten free – but the wheat free flour doesn’t rise very well. No Cuba is where I’m headed in my dreams.

Since a lot of my research and growing expertise is in the field of identity formation and brands, I have been fantasizing about making an ethnographic film on such things.

One of the things which fascinated me so much during my 2007 trip to Cuba was the almost total lack of  marketing, and miniscule references in popular culture to consumer brands (Cuban or other) that we experience in The West.  Not suprising given  wages average about £15 a month and because of the embargos food and goods are rationed. Literally there isn’t anything to buy.

During my time in Cuba I recall seeing only a few billboards in Havana with government messages and political slogans, but no commercial advertising. I seem to remember there being 3 TV channels – all state owned. My land-lady made me watch universidad para todo every morning, which was on 1 of the 3 an educational channel. I saw one shop in the foyer of the hotel national selling palm olive soaps and some L’Oreal shampoo I think, and just one other store in a very smart touristy area of Havana selling trainers  There were definitely some real or fake Adidas and Nikes in amongst them, and that’s the only form of branded goods I recognized during my stay. However, I found something online which quoted

Business Week (August 6, 2001) ranked the top 100 global brands and stated that of these 64% were available in Cuba

So much of contemporary identity in the UK is signified through our relationship with consumption and engagement with the brands we choose. And yet Cubans have  a strong sense of identity that is both individual and group – national and local .To me a non cuban, this seemed to be in part constructed through music,family, baseball etc.

But Cuba is changing, and especially in light of Obamas’ hint at new policy on Cuba I feel this will alter soon. Who in Cuba will experience an increase in material culture if embargoes are lifted? Will this result in a a semiotic glut and how will this effect class relations?

So now I’m day dreaming about learning ethnographic film making techniques and looking for crash courses in Spanish…

It is very important if you blog to mention the credit crunch. Content is king and these two little words in combination are grande buzz wordos en el blogospheros. Credit crunch, credit crunch, credit crunch. That said, I would like to introduce the fashion practice of chiconomics and to tell you I’m on cardi-watch. In November last year my life changed forever when I was shopping with my big sis in Selfridges, and I tried on the Missoni Avorio wool cardigan coat. For a short while I was enveloped is soft, warm, designer loveliness beyond anything I can really describe. Sadly the coat was priced around £800 which is beyond the budget of a lowly symbolic analyst in waiting (sob). However, it matched my wooly raspberry Uggs so exquisitely that in lieu of actually buying it I thought I’d simply keep it on for a time, whilst I window shopped in the Dries Van Noten concession. Oh it was heaven for 10 long minutes – the cardi was mine. That is, until I had to put the shop assistant who was nervously trailing me around Selfridges 2nd floor out of her misery, and explain that I had no intension of buying the cardigan and not to worry I was neither a loon nor a shop lifter. She responded so graciously as I took it off and handed it over, by telling me that it really suited me. Bless her.

The next best thing to buying, is wearing a garment just for a bit. Much more satisfying than window shopping and cheaper than actually purchasing. I highly recommend it, and it’s my top tip for the credit crunch. I was in Harvey Nichols in Leeds on Saturday, and I did the same thing with one of this seasons Roberto Cavelli knock out dresses. There is no point buying such a thing unless you have a yatch in Portafino, which is the only accessory that will do for that sort of dress. Why waste £875? 

Back to cardi watch. I still really want it & I think about it all the time. It’s reached 30% off on net-a-porter, but I remain firm that I will not purchase it until the price drops a bit more, Missoni or not. It must reach a price that it still cheaper than going on a knitting course at Central St Martins and buying my own flock of sheep to make the wool.

But seriously, no seriously. WTF is going on with the shopping frenzy??!! Yes there are some amazing discounts to be had out there at the mo ( I found £600 off a Prada dress on Saturday) but aren’t we supposed to be in a recession? Burberry were almost giving away clothes on Regent street before Xmas and I heard Superdrug announce an online sale of 99% on Xmas day. That’s not a typo btw. I do mean ninety nine. As I bagan to trawl the retailers of Missoni last week, I can only describe scenes of utter madness something along the lines of a shoal of piranhas stripping the flesh off a plump calf having a paddle.