Hipster Colleges

Blair pointed me towards this pretty interesting article listing the 10 Most Hipster Colleges. Of course both her school, UC Santa Cruz, and mine, Portland State, make the cut.

Hipster culture is a definite guilty pleasure for most. It is completely ridiculous and yet you can't help but be completely fascinated. Fanny packs, grandma couture, chain smoking, indie rock, boys who look kind of like girls—I'll never understand my fascination, but I admit it exists.

More Hipster-Themed Sites
Hipster Runoff
The Cobra Snake
Look At This Fucking Hipster
Fuck Yeah Indie Boys
Fuck Yeah Indie Girls
Pitchfork

How To Buy Books

By Blair Stenvick


Bookstores can scare away a lot of people, because buying a book is kind of a big commitment. Most paperbacks cost around $15.00, which can easily mean a week’s worth of lunch for a lot of young adults. And don’t even mention hard covers — you may as well start negotiating a loan.

And books aren’t like albums or movies or really any other purchase you can make, because there’s always a chance you won’t even experience the book. Even with the worst of albums or movies, you can usually get through them at least once. But due to time and frustration and boredom, books can go permanently unfinished, which meant you will have devoted some money and time on a journey you never got to finish.

On top of that, the thought of someday having people over, them seeing a book on your shelf and exclaiming “I love this!” and having to sheepishly admit that you haven’t really read it is cringe-worthy enough to drive some people permanently away from the purchase counter.

But this really shouldn’t be the case, because owning books is awesome. They’re like a map of yourself; your different interests and sensibilities, the phases you went through, the people you tried to impress. Even the half-read books are great to have, because sitting right next to the books you’ve reread a few times, they serve as a contrast between how you see yourself and who you really are. Studying a bookshelf is a great way to address and come to terms with your true self, whatever that means.

Also, owning books means you get to lend them. If you’re lucky, you’ll someday have the experience of trading books with an acquaintance, and by the time you’re both finished and have traded back, you’ll have become friends. It’s almost impossible to read someone else’s dog-eared paperback copy of their favorite book and not fall a little bit in love with them, at least in a platonic way.

But even if you know all this, it can still be difficult to whip out a wallet to buy a book that you’re not getting paid or graded for reading. That’s totally understandable, so here’s a mental checklist to go through to ensure you won’t regret the purchase:

1. Even if it has a beautiful cover or an intelligent-sounding title, it should be something you’re more excited to read than to casually leave on your coffee table for people to see.

2. If it’s by an author you’ve never read before, make it on the short side. So yeah, the 1000+ page Infinite Jest looks cool, but maybe try reading something else by David Foster Wallace first so you can be sure you like his writing style.

3. Recommendations from friends are great, but your own intuition is better. Some books just feel better than others, and that’s not an instinct to be scoffed at or ignored.

4. Is it a recent bestseller or well-known classic? If so, put it down, text your friends, and ask if you can borrow it. I promise, someone has it.

Now you’ve bought a book, and hopefully one that you can be excited about. Go to the café next store, sip on some tea, start reading, and revel in your own quaintness.

Mash-Ups Somebody (But Definitely Not Me) Should Make

By Blair Stenvick

I have a former career as a mash-up DJ.

This career lasted about a week last summer, when I converted from PC to Mac and was thrilled to start exploring Garage Band. I took some tracks from my iTunes and did my best to mix them together, like Girl Talk would. The results weren’t at all refined or clean, but I still thought they were pretty sick.

The phase officially ended when I came back to school and started nonchalantly playing one of my creations when a friend was in my room. Without asking who it was, she said it was “pretty distorted.” I was so embarrassed that I muttered something about it being a friend of a friend’s work, and then swiftly deleted all the songs I’d been working on.

Moral of the story: I’m no good at execution, but I do still think I have good ideas for what songs could make good mash-ups. And so I present this list of a few ideas, with the hopes that someone more skilled than myself will get to work.

Joni Mitchell’s “California” and Tupac’s “California Love”
This song would be great to listen to during any road trip involving California, obviously. You know some great Facebook photo albums would come from such a trip.

Lady Gaga’s “The Fame” and Simon and Garfunkel’s “America”
Ok, I’m not really sure how this would work given the vastly different tempos, but if someone figured it out, you know it would make for outstanding social commentary. Gaga singing about “television and hot blondes in odd position” while Paul Simon croons that he’s “empty and aching and I don’t know why” would probably be enough to send your sociology professor into a permanent state of bliss.

The White Stripe’s “Denial Twist” and Kanye West’s “Blame Game”
It’s time these two masterminds crossed paths. I can’t think of a better combination to bridge the gap between love and hate, where betrayal often resides.

Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness” and Bob Dylan’s “Knocking On Heaven’s Door”
You could listen to this when you’re being all contemplative with your life. Or when you’re stoned. Or bot.h


Since Mash-ups are the new black, here are a few you can download for free! The first is more danceable and the second is what could be classified as more easy-listening. Mash-ups are great when you have people over and no one wants to take time to be DJ and/or you don't want your iPod to reveal your guiltiest pleasures while on shuffle.
All Day - Girl Talk
Be Honest - Will Bryant

The Cover Letter I Wish I Could Send

By Blair Stenvick


To Whom It May Concern (cause I’m classy like that):

I’m extremely interested in this position. That’s mostly because I need money, but I’ll lie and tell you that I’m extremely passionate about the restaurant business/ filing and paperwork/ customer service/ being your bitch.

Oh, and when I say I need money, what I actually mean is that I want money, so that I can buy concert tickets and more sweaters I don’t need and pay rent to stay in Santa Cruz this summer instead of being bored at home in Sacramento. I’m not some young single mother trying to feed her kids, and if that’s whom I’m competing with, then you really shouldn’t give me this job. But I still hope you do.

If you look at my resume, you’ll see that I’m a privileged white girl who has never had a paying job — only an internship. In that internship, I learned the art of pretending to look like I knew what I was doing at meetings. I also wrote some articles, but nobody wants to hire a nineteen-year-old college student for a part time job based on her writing skills, so I’ll tell you I learned things like “data input” and “professionalism.”

I’m currently a college sophomore, majoring in American Studies. You might have never heard of that major, and if you have you probably don’t know what it means. Here’s a secret: I’m not even sure what it means. We talk a lot about hegemony and culture, which is fascinating stuff for me, but probably not anything that is going to help me secure a minimum-wage job.

Here’s something that’s completely true: I’m very punctual, and I know how to treat people in a polite yet not overly formal manner. But how do you know that I’m telling the truth in a cover letter? Answer: you don’t. And because I’m a woman, I’ve been taught not to toot my own horn too much, so just typing these attributes feels weird to me. Isn’t it funny that the most honest part of this letter is the most suspect, both for you to read and for me to write?

I look forward to hearing back from you, though I don’t really expect it at this point.

Thanks (for nothing, most likely),
Blair Stenvick

Pog Lovin'

By Blair Stenvick

Remember pogs? Those cardboard circles with different designs, characters, teams, et cetera on them that were huge in the nineties? Yeah, I loved pogs, and if you’re over eighteen, chances are you did too.

But let’s be honest here: they were completely useless. Apparently there was some sort of game that went along with them, but I never played it, and I don’t remember anyone else playing either. The thrill was purely in collecting them. And unlike Pokemon or baseball cards, which at least had some sort of clear ranking system, all pogs were created equal. I didn’t care what was on them, I just liked having a lot of them. Pogs served absolutely no function beyond being something to own. They were the most purely capitalistic fad I can think of.

So why were they so fucking inescapable in 1995? According to Wikipedia, President Bill Clinton was even in on the “fun” that came with these little pieces of cardboard. I tried thinking of some modern-day equivalent to pogs, and the closest I could get was Silly Bands, but at least you can wear those.

But then, Pogs aren’t that different from any other cheap collectible, from sticker books to movie ticket stubs. But why do we like to collect so much? I love to sometimes just sit and look at my record and book and sweater collections, especially when there are new additions. Material things offer a special kind of comfort that I can’t imagine giving up. And even things like pogs, devoid of any emotional or intellectual meaning, can be reassuring exactly because of their lack of practicality. Absolute novelty is sometimes needed, and if we’re going to indulge, I’d rather it be in pieces of cardboard than in diamonds.

Pogs: the Middle Class’ version of gold-plated toothpicks. Being excessive, on a budget. Don’t think; just pog.