a tragic, and terminal, case of hipness

I love this city where I live. As a former Northern Californian (and still really one at heart), I think I used to silently but snidely dismiss this whole place as artificial, plastic, too manicured, suburban sprawlish and annoying, a place I would never deign to live if I had the choice. When I actually spent some time here and realized that there are lots of really neat people in my faith who live here, plus really cute neighborhoods, restaurants, cute little streets with thrift shops full of clothes cooler than my firsthand ones, cafes, an extremely generous dose of funkiness, and a lot of immigrants from various continents, I dramatically revised my view.

One of the things this fair place suffers from, though, is a tragic, and terminal, case of hipness. It's not true of everyone - in fact, there are sections of the population that are so far deliciously unscathed -- but oh my stars, would it be possible for some of these big glasses/tight jeansy/pointy-gelly hair people to be any more convinced of their devastating, catastrophic, excruciatingly lethal coolness? It seems unlikely.

The other night we witnessed some fairly advanced manifestations of the disease (I'll describe only one of them here, but there were others) at a cool, funky tapas place that actually has some really good food for pretty good prices. The atmosphere is pretty cool. It’s like luxury island décor, all sort of reddishly glowing in a good way, and when you dine outside, if you are lucky you sit in these little cabana-like semi-private booth areas with curtains that are permanently tied back but make you feel like you’re in some sort of tropical VIP room, and the table is low, like a circular coffee table, so you feel like you're hanging out in someone cool's living room. There is track lighting with black light and heat lamps for chilly nights.

It was one such night and there we were, minding our own business and reading our menus, in the dimness, when one of us reached up and pulled the string on the ceiling fan light to illuminate the situation a little bit. About 38 seconds later, the hipster host/important guy who glides around trying to looking indispensable, in Versace that you wonder how he can possibly afford while working in a restaurant,* comes right into our booth. He says, “Hey, can I turn off the light here, it’s messing up our ambiance,” with the inflection that would have been appropriate had we decided to stick our fingers in our noses and leave them there, and then he does so, not waiting for an answer, before sashaying away, exuding “I am superior and you are embarrassing to yourselves” vibes.

At first we were taken in, and actually felt bad, and stupid that we had dared to do something so unforgivable as to turn on a light, at night, when it was dark, when we were trying to read our menus. But then we realized that 1) when, exactly, would it be appropriate to use the provided lights on a provided ceiling fan, if not at night? and 2) it was just the disease. Nothing is more sacred than sophistication, nothing more essential to an evening dining experience than collective, communistic ambiance, and nothing so satisfying as proving one’s own magnificence, general flawlessness, and overall superiority to others, and most especially, to YOU. I don’t think there will ever be a cure.


*like I know how to tell if he’s in Versace