It's time again for my New York City Hipster snapshot of the week:

Old Is The New Young — A Gallery somewhere in Soho, Oct. 1, 2002

A DJ friend of mine invited me to come see her spin at one of the all-too-common 'art' openings in Soho. The 'art' in this case seemed to consist, as far as I could tell, of a giant video screen playing assorted video clips of extreme highbrow-hipster relevance, and each one seemed to egg on a new cycle of buzzing art-talk among the tweedy bespectacled crowd of artsy fucks all squashing their limes, stirring their cosmos, and laughing like a band of starved hyenas. I don’t usually attend these preening parties but I knew there'd be an open bar and I thought, as I always seem to do in moments of after-work weakness, I might actually meet somebody worth a shit, might actually get a decent conversation, or a genuine moment of chuckling abandon. As it turned out, the 'art' actually consisted of a row of roughly postcard-sized 'pieces' lining the sterile walls, and all I could make out in the screen-lit dark was some poor handwriting over ghostly images of half-naked garter-clad women with hopelessly obtuse titles like "morning," and "42 index." Really, the most artistically compelling image in the whole damned place was the pale, breathing apple glowing out from the DJ's laptop, and I guess that's sort of 'found art' anyway. As I was wincing my way through the 1000-word artist's statement (I always thought the art was supposed to be the statement?) a guy approached me:
"You a Kubrick fan?" he asked.
"No, not really." I said.
"Hmm. Interesting." He crunched some ice from his plastic cocktail glass and sighed.
"And I suppose you are?"
"Oh, well, me … um, y'know, I'm sort of the fox in the henhouse on the whole Kubrick issue."

This was a breed of hipster that I don't come into contact with so much. Definitely not a Williamsburg breed, maybe not even a Villager, more like an Upper East Side cum East Village cum West Village cum Williamsburg hipster. It'd been some time since this wreck slummed with the bridge and tunnel crowd. Leather-elbowed sports blazer, delicate specs, bald spot, hairy legs, musky scent, cocaine nose, premature ejaculation, the occasional English substitute teacher gig, probably a taste for Lolitas, (never a taste of), married once, divorced once, maybe latent herpes ("It's harmless really, now about that martini …") Elvis Costello, Dr. Who, Victorian literature, crossword puzzles, no this guy isn't even a hipster, he's a HIPSTERATI. You can see these guys flicking croissant crumbs off their sweater bellies in front of the St. Mark's Poetry Project, twirling their umbrellas, smoking their long, shit-brown cigarettes.

"Don't get me started on the Kubrick issue," he continued. "You might just regret it, care for a drink?"
I should have run just then.
"It's a 007. Hope you like it dirty," he winked as he poked his way back through the crowd.
This is the kind of guy who gets a hardon just walking across the room in lenin slacks.
"Ever seen Barry Lyndon?"
"No."
"Oh, you really should, it's essential early Kubrick."
"Hmm."
"Quite opulent. Pastoral, quite beautiful, actually"
"Hmm."
He gestured broadly at the giant video screen; there were a couple of antelopes fucking.
"The reason I ask … about Kubrick I mean, is because they showed a clip from 2001 before and I saw you looking at it."
"Oh. I wasn't really looking at it."
"Interesting you should say that. I find, at least with Kubrick, that that's the way we absorb him, 'not really looking at it,' as you say. In a sense, this is the way he wanted the work to be viewed, as though we were seeing it out of the periphery of our eyes, but yet somehow, we still absorb him."
"Hmm."
"Yes, brilliant observation really. Yours I mean."
"Oh, thanks," I said.
"And I've heard a lot of them too," he said.
"I bet."
"Well, it's mostly because of this book I just finished editing. It's actually on Kubrick … his work I mean, not his life. Incidentally his life was quite fascinating though. Horrid student."
"Yeah?"
"Quite a paradox. He had a pilot's license, but he was afraid of flying."
"Hmm."
"Ever read Derrida?"
"Who?"
"Oh, he's a French philosopher, Jacques Derrida," he said.
"Maybe in college."
"Well I thought that what you said just now about not really looking at that 2001 clip sounded vaguely reminiscent of Deconstructionist thought."
"Oh, but I really wasn't looking at it."
"Of course. What's your name?"
"Aimee."
"Well, it's a pleasure Aimee, I'm Phillip."
"Hi."
His hand was hot and muggy and gave like some cartilaginous creature. He popped a breath mint from a little tin he kept in his breast pocket. Then he leaned over toward my ear.
"It's so smoky in here. What say we go out front for a cigarette?"
"Okay."
When we got out front he opened his umbrella and held it over my head, even though it wasn't really raining.
"Yep, just finished editing the book last week. Should hit the shelves, oh, by December we hope."
"Are you a filmmaker?" I asked.
"Oh, well, I dabble. I'm really more of a critic."
"Hmm."
"The weather reminds me of Balzac tonight," he said.
"Oh yeah?"
"Hey," he said and loosely laid his hairy claw around my waist. "I've got a great idea. Why don't you come over to my place and watch Barry Lyndon. You really must see it."
"I think you're too old for me," I said.
"Why?" he asked accusingly. "How old are you?"
"Twenty-four, how old are you?"
"Well, needless to say I'm older than you. Why don't we just leave it at that."
"Okay, but I'm not going with you."
"Why?" he asked again, sucking his gut, straightening his posture.
"Because, you're too old."
"But Aimee," he said, and I could smell his mealy breath penetrating my ear and his fingers wiggling like worms at the small of my back. "Haven't you heard? Old Is The New Young."

Postscript: I did not go home with this piece of fucking Hipsterati shit.

For those of you who don't know about the Greenpoint Tavern, known across the hipster kingdom as the "GPT," I'll try to paint a little picture. It's really quite miraculous that the place is still apparently owned and run by some old folks, although I wouldn't put it past a couple a enterprising hipsters to get daddy's investors to buy the place out then hire the old staff in order to keep it 'kitschy.' But as it stands, there's a stately old dame manning (womanning?) the house in her fall-themed pumpkin sweatshirt and orange sweats, along with a couple of wrinkled gents hooting and farting away in one of the booths near the front. The decor is decidedly seasonal; it's oppressively seasonal. In fact it looks like the fucking harvest festival sale at Target: Glowing plastic jack-o-lanterns, pastry paper acorns dangling from the ceiling, wicked-witch-on-broomstick, etc. And ostensibly at least this is not the work of a hipster's plot to make the place seem 'authentic.' Like I said, miraculous.

But maybe not, because when you take a look at old Connie whippin' up those $3 styrofoam buds around midnight, her smiling face lit by the refraction of 100 pairs of Weezer specs, it might occur to you that the Greenpoint Tavern has figured out the hipster formula, at least for a select few slithering species. I can hear Connie's strategy meeting right now: "Sure, let em have the goddamned jukebox, the little bastards, but the tap beer and the decor is mine." And really, the tap beer and decor is the same: Golden. Connie and those two old boobs really are running to show if for no other reason than this: The formula is way too fucking simple for a couple a hipsters to manage. They'd have their buddies' shitty paintings sprawled above the bar inside a month. Most bars think they need to get some tight bitch in hotpants behind the bar, poppin tops with her cootchie, that kind of thing, to attract the hipster crowd. And sure, that would work if we were talking about your average crowd. But we're not. We're talking about the kind of dude who walks in, sees old Connie there yankin' that tap, sets his scrawny little flannel-clad elbow on the bar, a $20 perched in his claw, and thinks to himself, "This is so authentic!" Next thing you know, he's got half a dozen syrofoam cups stacked in front of him and Connie's counting her dough, figuring out how many wisemen to buy for the nativity scene this year. Christmas is coming, after all. And I personally think old Connie must have stumbled on this fucking thing by accident. Hell, she's got flair! And she's no dummy. She saw the goofy fucking look on those faces when the first few hipsters popped in on the way to their lofts, she knew when they started asking where she got her sweatshirts, the plastic reindeer, the strings of chili pepper lights, little smartasses. But she can take their snide questions because she knew the formula, and she knew she was in a unique position to push it forward simply because she was not one of them, she was authentic, which is their trap. So instead of turning the place into a bistro she just kicked up the price of beer by a dollar and threw up another neon light in the window. And walla!

Next Time: There are lots of different kinds of hipsters. This is something you and I know already, but I'll try and flesh out some of the different hipster species. And what better place to do this than the Greenpoint Tavern on a Friday night?