Ann Powers’ Bohemia for Dummies

Now why exactly would my
colleagues be so eager to review this thing? Unlike myself—I approach this
kind of task with the utmost of critical meticulousness and scholarly honor—maybe
they wanted an easy gig, a check with almost no effort. Who can blame them?
It’s difficult not to wonder whether Powers did the same. The gist of the
book: brave Powers drops acid, meets a couple dominatrixes, lives in a house
with a bunch of folks, works in a record store, sees The Rocky Horror Picture
Show and fucks a guy named Jed. I shit you not. Clearly Powers isn’t
allergic to working for a living—witness the endless interviewing of people
she worked in a record store with—but when I read the quote “‘Of course
you’re a bohemian!’ shouted Bob and Carola, who live…just down Second
Avenue from Evelyn,” and I realized she’s talking about Christgau, Dibbell
and McDonnell, respectively—all Voice compadres of hers—it
didn’t exactly convince me that she scaled peaks to get this shit down
on paper.

Powers is too smart to try
to sell us swampland as beach property—self-deprecating remarks acknowledging
her extreme subjectivity pop up here and there—but what’s a thumbsucker
without a little fudged glory? “I declare bohemia disgustingly dead,” she announces
on page 23. Apparently something rather momentous occurs soon thereafter—yet,
search though I did, I couldn’t figure out exactly what—for on page
28, she says, “I declare ‘bohemia’ resurrected.” Maybe it’s the
quotes. She announces “the profound work” of “alternative culture” to be confronting
the questions: “What constitutes a family? What is the worth of work? What are
the parameters of…love itself?” In fact, it’s a lot more than mere profundity.
It’s “the historical prerogative of bohemians.”

I can’t front; I’ve
held the same faith in the importance of my own youth. (I’d like to think
I’m a little past it, but then, who’s banging out a review of this
bullshit like he’s ripping off the blindfold of the people?) And that’s
exactly what she’s talking about—though, incredibly, she doesn’t
know it: youth. Fact is, young people have shitty jobs and steal stuff
from their employers, live with a whole bunch of friends and successfully project
the image of their earlier family life and familial conflicts upon them, puzzle
over the mysterious rumblings in their loins and, above all, get shitfaced.
Dude, I was soooooo wasted! The belief that one’s youth was a bold
stand against the forces of darkness is just about as common as, and just a
hair less dumb than, a boomer’s belief that she stopped the war in Vietnam.
Are any of these struggles for consciousness not being struggled in frat
houses right now?

I sure wish she were better
with the drugs. “Cocaine just isn’t around anymore,” she writes, “although
reports from high society say it’s made a comeback in fancier apartments
than mine.” Yeah, pal, in the stateliest mansions in Washington Heights. She
assesses that heroin addiction is, in fact, a decision. “What appears to be
a lack of will is in fact a serious commitment to the downward spiral,” she
says. It’s not like heroin, you know, takes away your problems or anything;
after all, most folks want to hate themselves for the bulk of life and
save their false sense of safety for the weekend. Yeah, man, that’s human
nature—people really enjoy their crappy existences. What a shame they torture
themselves with escapism they’d admit to hating if they weren’t too
cool to admit it.

The two hits of LSD that
start the book were downed by Powers in 1980. In that light it’s very difficult
to tell who she thinks she’s writing the book for; she is super-Times-writer
formal about making sure none of the references zip by anybody’s head.
She mentions “R.E.M., an indie-born band named after the active dream state.”
She cites “body doubles, that elite club…whose…gym-formed physiques let
imperfect celebrities off the hook.” Hustler “publishes pointedly transgressive
material.” A “‘top’ is the scene’s doer, while the ‘bottom’
is the one done to.” If anybody out there has missed this much of pop culture
and still is tantalized by the word “bohemian” enough to buy this book,
I sure hope they’re stoked that Powers’ editor is showing them this
much love.

The real audience for this
geezerly reminiscence is kids in small towns too far away from college towns
to catch the radio signals. Except the last time a kid yearning to reinvent
herself needed a radio—not a computer and a phone jack—to access the
far-off world of hipsterism was like 1993. But I’m willing to assume the
existence of fresh-faced proto-bohos who stumble upon this at the Barnes &
Noble in the mall and quench their thirst for knowledge of the dangerous life.
I just wish there were something on the shelves better than this: a how-to manual
for an antiquated paradigm.

An amazing thing has been
going on since last Wednesday. The Backstreet Boys have been coming in second
to ‘N Sync on TRL. ‘N Sync, ever the second best in the boy
band game, who work their asses off on every promotional opportunity thrown
them while BSB coolly choose to blow off hosting TRL or judging Say
What? Karaoke, only to clinch, week after week, the number one spot on the
countdown.

My theory was always that
in doing everything they were asked to do, ‘N Sync were playing themselves.
Looks like I was wrong—or finally the BSB train is losing its momentum,
being that their record Millennium is on its third single. Look, I have
nothing but sympathy for ‘N Sync—who wouldn’t? They’ve got
a ratio of three ugly guys to two heartthrobs in their lineup—but who can’t
love the nonsense of the title to the BSB single, “Show Me the Meaning of Being
Lonely”? Let’s try to apply this to a real-life situation: Are the BSB
asking some girl, look, we want you to dump us—show us the meaning of being
lonely, willya? Or is it, look, maybe before we dump you, you should show us
the meaning of being lonely so we know what we’re getting into here?

It’s just absolute
gibberish. And that’s not surprising, written, as it is, by Swedish pop
super-producer Max Martin (formerly collaborator with the late Denniz Pop—in
the video, BSB’s A.J. rides a bus placarded “Denniz Street”)—who’s
been the state of the art in guilty pleasure since Ace of Base, through Robyn’s
“Show Me Love,” and has written all the best of the teen-pop songs, including
Britney’s “Crazy” and ‘N Sync’s “I Want You Back.” This is just
completely beautiful to me. The Swedes own the airwaves. “Show Me Ze Meanink
uff Beink Lawn-lee”? That’s so Swedish.