Libyan Hipsters

Lots of irony in these findings. Very funny. This one, courtesy Sebastian Meyer.

This one, which features the characteristic 'hipster kufiya,' I got through a Facebook friend. The source, I never found. Don't you love the 'ironic' bazooka? Puts a whole new spin on 'irony.'

Master Mimz, "Back Down Mubarak!"

Master Mimz, working on a master's from the LSE in London, born in Casablanca, did what right now is my favorite solidarity rap for the Egyptian revolution, "Back Down, Mubarak!" I posted on it earlier, but now I've found the lyrics, in this post from Davy D, on February 4th. Old school sound, timeless sentiments.

Welcome to the 3rd world streets
Where the heart beats in times like these
Days of our lives – we feel alive
Get outta here – it’s our time to shine.

Kufiya note: Egypt and CNN

Arwa Damon of CNN, broadcasting from Benghazi this morning (7 a.m. Cairo time), was wearing a black-and-white kufiya. She was speaking with Libyans in Arabic, which I found impressive--not something you see your US correspondents based in the US doing that often. 2-3 weeks ago, in the early days of the uprising, CNN's Ben Wedemann was wearing a black-and-white kufiya while he was broadcasting from Benghazi. In both cases, I think the kufiya was meant to send a subtle sign of sympathy for the rebels.

I checked out Arwa Damon on wikipedia, and learned these significant facts. Damon graduated from Roberts College in Istanbul. Her mother is Syrian. Her father, George H. Damon, is currently headmaster of the American Community School in Beirut. I met him last July at the ACS reunion in Austin, TX. (I'm an alumnus.)

On another note, I asked a friend about the wearing of kufiyas in Cairo and the revolution. He said that he thought that you see more kufiyas in Cairo now in the wake of the struggles on Tahrir from January 25-February 11. It's certainly true that you see a lot of people wearing them in Cairo this week, in all sorts of colors and on all sorts of people. On Sunday we ran into a demonstration of schoolchildren from outside Cairo, and their teachers on the Corniche, across the street from the Ministry of Information. Two teenaged boys in the group were wearing pink kufiyas.

My friend said there was a shop selling kufiyas at Tahrir during the period when it was occupied. He thought it signified an international symbol of revolution.

Hopefully in the next few days I'll take a photo or two of Cairo kufiya wearers and post it.

kufiyaspotting # I don't know how many: Big Boi (Outkast)

Atlanta rapper Big Boi, of Outkast, appearing in a preview for the forthcoming documentary from Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me), Pom Wonderful Presents the Greatest Movie Ever Sold. Why he appears in this furry kufiya, who knows. He probably did not get the idea from Ralph Nader, who also appears in the film. (Thanks to Wayne for the tip.)

More on Ramy Essam and Ahmad Fouad Negm

(Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

On February 9, which now seems so long ago, I wrote a post called "Music of the Egyptian Revolution." Included in it was the now famous youtube vid of Ramy Essam singing "Irhal" (Leave, or, Go Away). I also included a vid of a song about a donkey refusing to step down for a younger one, but I was unable at the time to identify either the lyrics or the singer.

Since then many have written about the music of Egypt's revolution, and I'm able to identify the song and the lyrics. It's Ramy Essam (again), and the lyrics are by the celebrated revolutionary poet Ahmad Fouad Negm, the lyricist for Egypt's beloved revolutionary singer Shaykh Imam.

An article in The Los Angeles Times about Essam gives the story of his performance of the song on Tahrir:

One song that he relished, and that late at night the crowd would want to hear again and again, was an ode written by well-known poet Ahmed Fouad Negm: "The Donkey and the Foal," which everyone knew to be a commentary on Mubarak and his son Gamal.

Essam had written the music and played it for himself alone at home before the revolution. And now everyone shouted for the scathing lyrics of the aging poet, who had been jailed under Mubarak's predecessor. He felt honored when the poet stood with him and recited the words.

The foal said to the donkey, "Father, hand me the cart. Father, you have aged and now it is my turn."

The donkey coughed too strongly and the passengers panicked.

"It isn't about health, son," the donkey said. " Even the bridle is too big for you, son. Think and don't be greedy, or the passengers will rise up."

Since Hosny Mubarak's resignation, Ramy Essam has received a great deal of media attention, and has become something of a celebrity. Featured in the article in The Los Angeles Times, mentioned above, celebrated by Mark Levine in The Huffington Post (Levine produced a remix of "Irhal" as well--I respectfully prefer the original), an featured in an article in The Guardian by respected Middle East music commentator Andy Morgan, who calls Essam the Billy Bragg of Tahrir Square.

Before you imagine that Ramy Essam has gone all rock star, check out this video. It shows Essam performing his song "Irhal" on Tahrir Square to a big crowd. Later that night, the crowd at Tahrir is attacked by Mubarak's thugs. The pro-democracy forces keep them at bay. The video then shows Ramy Essam on the following morning. He stayed the night, and was wounded on the head by the rocks hurled by the counter-revolutionary goons. As far as I can tell, this occurred on the night of February 4-5, 2011. I don't know many "rock stars" who have the street fighting cred and the courage of Ramy Essam. I don't know if I know of anyone, in fact. Below is a screen grab of Ramy with his head bandage, and then, the full video.

This video shows Essam singing "The Donkey and the Foal" before a small group, on Tahrir, and also performing "Irhal," on another occasion, before a large crowd at the square.

This vid is a full version of "The Donkey and the Foal."

Here's Negm's poem in Arabic:

الجحش قال للحمار *** يابا اديني الحنطور

يابا انت سنك كبر*** و وجب عليا الدور

كح الحمار كحة *** فزعت لها الركاب

مش يابني بالصحة *** ده كل شئ بحساب

وسواقة الحنطور *** محتاجة حد حكيم

وانت عينيك فارغة *** همك علي البرسيم

قوللي تسوق ازاي *** والتبن مالي عينيك

ده حتي حبل اللجام *** واسع يا ابني عليك

اعقل وبطل طمع *** لاتسخن الركاب

ما تجيش يا واد جنبهم *** لاتبقي ليلة هباب

دول صنف ناس جبار *** قادر مالوهش امان

يبان عليهم وهن *** لكنهم فرسان

يابا دا نومهم تقل *** وبقاله يابا سنين

كل البشر صحصحوا *** ولسه دول نايمين

يا جحش بطل هبل *** وبلاش تعيش مغرور

ركابنا مش اغبيا *** ولا عضمهم مكسور

بكرة حيصحولك *** ويزلزلوا الحنطور

وتلاقي في قفاك *** تمانين خازوق محشور

And you can find out more about Ramy Essam, and download some of his music (although not the songs discussed above) from his Facebook page.

More on Ahmed Basiony, Martyr of the Egyptian Revolution

Ahmed Basiony, Untitled

AfricanColours has published Ahmed Basiony's impressive Artistic C.V. with a few photos of some of his artwork. Basiony (or Bassiouni) died on January 28 at Tahrir, at the hands of Egypt's security forces. Above is a sample of his artwork.

Meanwhile, check out the music streaming on 100RadioStation, which features music dedicated to Basiony, as well as some of his live work. I really hope it will be available on album soon from 100 Copies.

Wisconsin/Tahrir (+kufiya)

Lots of evidence that demonstrators in Wisconsin against Gov. Walker's draconian anti-labor bill is inspired, in part, by recent events in Egypt. Check out this photo of a kufiya-clad demonstrator, from a fabulous video of the last three days of protests, with a stirring soundtrack from Arcade Fire.

Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill Protest from Matt Wisniewski on Vimeo.

Check out this headline from an article on Boing Boing: "Midwestern Tahrir: Workers refuse to leave Wisconsin capital over Tea Party labor law."

Protesters also evoked Egypt's democracy struggle, on their first day at the Capitol--I'll add those links when/if I can find them.

Splits in the Egyptian Opposition: Kufiyas vs. Suits

In the meeting, the difference between the two populations was obvious, with the younger, fresher-faced protesters wearing Palestinian-inspired keffiyehs and looking bored while the older opposition figures in suits and ties bickered about committees.

From an article ("Egypt's opposition fights itself as about emerging splits within Egypt's opposition," by Shashank Bengali -- McClatchy Newspapers) about the post-revolution political maneuvering. Here's the background to the above:

"The two-hour gathering at the offices of the Democratic Front party in a middle-class section of western Cairo was one of several such meetings that have been held by various opposition groupings over the past three days. It was called to nominate committees to open negotiations with the military — which the military hasn't explicitly asked for — but instead it demonstrated Egypt's polyglot opposition scene at its most disjointed and chaotic."

Meanwhile, labor is on the move: "The army Monday accused labor protesters of "disturbing and disrupting" the country with their demands for better salaries and called on them to return to their jobs. In Cairo, a protest of about 200 workers outside the state-controlled Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions devolved into window smashing and shoving."

“Hold your head up high, for you are an Egyptian.”

Yasmine El Rashidi's article, "Freedom," in the New York Review of Books, really captures the euphoric atmosphere at Tahrir Square at the moment of the end of Mubarak. And it ends with this:

As I write this, a youth pop group is giving a concert in Tahrir Square, singing: “its the beginning, the beginning of your life, the beginning of stability, the beginning of security, the beginning of your life, say yes yes, say yes yes.” The crowd is waving flags and singing back.

I hope I can find out more about this unidentified group, and come back to this in future. This serves as a place holder. (Someone please message me!)

Natacha Atlas, Egypt: Rise to Freedom Remix

The inimitable Natacha Atlas has released a remix of material her from most recent (and highly recommended) album Mounqaliba, in solidarity with the struggle of the people of Egypt. It's a wonderful remix, and the video footage, all from Tahrir, is quite stunning.

Please go to Natacha's webpage for an English translation of the lyrics.

Here's a sample:
Let us know there is a land
where words are the purveyors of truth,
heads are held high,
And human will is regarded above all.

I've posted about Natacha several times in the past. Here's my account of her performances in Chicago in 2006.

Singing/chanting on Tahrir Square

This is a wonderful video, because it is yet another example of the great creativity and humor unleashed by the Egyptian Revolution, and because it demonstrates quite dramatically that the revolution was not simply a revolution of young, hip, middle class tweeters. Check out the chants (I've cribbed these from Haithem, who posted them on Facebook):

"e7na meen ou huwwa meen.. e7na el 3amel wil falla7.. ou huwwa 7arami linfita7.."
Who are we and who is he?... we are the laborer and peasant.. and he is the thief of the Infitah [Egypt's 'opening' --economic reforms, structural adjustment, etc.)

"e7na meen ou huwwa meen.. huwwa byelbes akher modah.. ou e7na bneskon 3ashara b2ouda.."
Who are we and who is he.. he wears the latest fashion.. and we live 10 in a room.

Music of the Egyptian Revolution

It's been pouring out, released in a fury of creativity set off by the astonishing events in Egypt over the last 16 days. Tahrir Square itself is one center. Check out this amazing video, of a singer and guitar (not shown), singing some of the key slogans of the uprising, with the crowd chanting and singing along. [Added February 12: I've learned his name: Ramey Essaam.] What is remarkable and rather surprising is that the song resembles "unplugged" grunge. This particular video helpfully translates the lyrics into English. But it makes a mistake in the beginning. Re: Mubarak, it should read: "We want to make Hosni Mubarak hear our voices!"

The original video (here) has gone viral. 545,932 views as of this writing.

Numerous accounts suggest that this is typical of what is going on at Tahrir Square on a daily basis. A group of people gathered around a singer (injured in the fights against the security forces or the pro-Mubarak thugs in earlier days) and an 'ud player, singing along with a tune that they have just learned from these two men, "Expel Hosni Mubarak." The men resemble roaming troubadors. These lyrics are translated as well.

And chants are song throughout the day and night. Here are some comic ones (which someone will hopefully at some future moment translate).

The last of the Tahrir songs is this one. Accompanying himself on guitar, the singer sings a comic song about a donkey refusing to step down for a younger one--an allegory about the old man Mubarak.



One more thing to add is that, according to Angry Arab, it is the songs of Abdel Halim Hafez that are played most often over the soundsystems on Tahrir. My friend Gamal Eid has also remarked that one hears the songs of Egypt's most beloved and important revolutionary singer, Sheikh Imam, on Tahrir.

Then there are the solidarity songs from "outside." One of the most impressive is Mohamed Mounir's "Azzay? (Why?)." Mounir, an Egyptian Nubian, has been a huge star, of music, cinema and theater, since the mid-1970s. Clearly this song was recorded prior to the outbreak of the uprising, but the video is full of scenes of the revolt, and the lyrics, ostensibly those of a love song, can also be read as a kind of allegory about Egypt and its conditions. The song is slamming, the video very moving. The video opens with the words: To every Egyptian citizen who participated in January 25...or who didn't participate. (There's a rough translation to the song in the comments.)

"Back Down Mubarak!" is a very lively, upbeat and oldschool sounding rap from Master Mimz, a Moroccan woman rapper, born in Casablanca, now based in England. The video features many shots of women who have participated in the protests.

There is also this rap, "#Jan25 Egypt," from Freeway, The Narcicyst, Omar Offendum, HBO Def Poet Amir Sulaiman, and Canadian R&B vocalist Ayah. Freeway's rap in particular is very compelling, at about 2:50.



In a quite different vein is this very beautiful chant from the Kuwaiti munshid, "Egypt Prayers." There is a rough translation into English in the comments.



There is "Long Live Egypt," by Scarabeuz and Omima. Scarabeuz's dad is Egyptian, his mother Dutch, and he was born in Berlin, where he is still based.

I at first thought the song was a little too sentimental and shlocky, but I came to like it more after listening to it all the way through. The images are quite moving, and the auto-tuned effects are endearing.

Finally, there's the free release, the Khalas Mixtape Vol. 1: Mish Ba'eed. With songs from rappers based in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and Libya. I particularly like the tracks from Tunisia's El Génèral and Algeria's Lutfi Double Kanon. Download it here.



Long live Egypt!

Kufiyas in the Egyptian revolution, cont'd.

This photo is from Jason Parkinson's riveting and disturbing video, Battle of the Interior Ministry, Jan. 29, 2011. View it here. Towards the beginning, we see a large crowd, marching through Tahrir Square. The man in the middle is holding up his kufiya, as if it were a flag or a symbol. There are other kufiyas in the footage too. And shots of men holding up spent cartridges, shot by the security forces, that say, Made in USA. And a deadly teargas canister, also from the USA.

Kufiya in action in Revolutionary Cairo

A protester carries an Egyptian flag and hangs it on the top of a traffic light post at

Tahrir Square in Cairo January 30, 2011. REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih

From a great collection of photos of the Egyptian revolution. (If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you'll notice the Che t-shirt.)

I've been asking friends who have lived in Cairo about the kufiya. In the early nineties, when I lived there, it was hardly to be seen. A friend of mine who was there at the same time says he only saw it among a small group of leftists, who put it on for revolutionary and Palestine-solidarity reasons. A friend who has been in Cairo the last couple years claims it is/was hipster garb. If the latter is (partially) true, then, these are very different hipsters from the US variety. These have been politicized and are important troops of the revolution.

See this, for instance. I think I see some kufiyas here. Even if not, this is the so-called "hipster" kufiya demographic. Now turned revolutionary. (Was that a Moz t-shirt I saw?)

Meet Egypt's Future Leaders

A run-down of the youthful leaders of the Egyptian Revolution, and much more, from Esam Al-Amin at Counterpunch.

Essential links on Egypt

Compiled by Seham, posted by Arabist. As of February 8.

The Egyptian Democracy Movement's Clear and Non-negotiable Demands

Here they are, clear and consistent. Let's circulate them widely and support them tenaciously. They were posted on a huge banner on Tahrir Square a few days ago. The movement is sticking to them.

Mubarak should step down from power immediately.

Dissolving of the national assembly and the senate.

Establish a “national salvation group” that includes all public and political personalities, intellectuals, constitutional and legal experts, and representatives of youth groups who called for the demonstrations on the 25th and 28th of January. This group is to be commissioned to form a transitional coalition government that is mandated to govern the country during a transitional period. The group should also form a transitional presidential council until the next presidential elections.

Drafting a new constitution that guarantees the principles of freedom and social justice.

Prosecute those responsible for the killing of hundreds of martyrs in Tahrir Square.

The immediate release of detainees.

This is from an absolutely essential article by Anthony Alessandrini, "Non-Negotiable," in Jadaliyya.

More on Ahmed Basiony

The article below, entitled "Fallen faces of the uprising: Ahmed Basiony" was published in Al-Masry Al-Youm today, and written by Mia Jancowicz.

I learn two key things from this is: (1) how gifted and talented and promising an artist Ahmed Basiony was. You also get this from his live videos, mentioned in my earlier post. You can download an mp3 of one of his live performances, "Abou Alaa aal Dish," here. One hopes the album he was working on will be released soon. Alas, the website for his label, 100copies, remains down as of this writing. (2) how brutal was his murder, presumably at the hands of the security forces. He was beaten, shot five times and run over. God rest his soul, and let us pray that the criminals responsible for his murder will be run out of power and brought to trial.

Ahmed Basiony, a Cairo-born artist, experimental musician and teacher in his early thirties, was killed while participating in the first week of the January 25 uprising. Basiony is a husband and the father of two children, four-year-old Adam and several months year old Selma. He taught at the Art Education College at Helwan University, where he was pursuing his doctoral studies in the field of interactive arts and open source technology.

Early in his career as an artist, he received several prizes for his participation at the annual Youth Salon since 2001; he was the recipient of the Grand and Salon prizes in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Basiony exhibited his work, which spans multi-media, installation, performance and sound, in various spaces including the Gezira Art Center and the Townhouse gallery in Cairo, most recently participating in the shows Invisible Presence and Cairo Documenta. In his musical capacity, he was developing a strong personal language, experimenting with popular forms to produce a visceral, charged energy. He performed at festivals such as 100live, and with musician Abou Asala was working on an album with the label 100copies.

His influence across creative fields was felt not only through his practice but through his intellectual and teaching contribution. Supplementary to his formal teaching work he organized educational workshops for digital, live and sound art, enabling numerous young musicians to enter the field. “What he was doing with his music, performances, artwork and discussion had resonance with others and opened up thought for others,” says artist and musician Hassan Khan. His close friend and artist Shady Noshokaty says “he was a brave, funny man with an independent intellect and crazy energy; he put so much into everything he did, in his practice, as a person and in his teaching. This is a huge loss.”

Basiony’s last Facebook post said: “I have a lot of hope if we stay like this. Riot police beat me a lot. Nevertheless I will go down again tomorrow. If they want war, we want peace. I am just trying to regain some of my nation’s dignity.”

Ahmed Basiony died on January 28, the Friday of Anger. It is reported that the day prior to his death, he was severely beaten by Central Security Forces: he had been carrying a video camera. The day he died, he was separated from his friends at around 7PM. Several days later his body was found at the Um Al Masreyeen hospital in Giza. Hospital reports indicate he was shot five times, and run over by a vehicle. A Facebook “kolna Ahmed Basiony” has become a virtual memorial, where students, colleagues, friends, family and mentors share memories, anecdotes and prayers for him and his family.

Asian Dub Foundation, "History of Now" video: Tunisia and Egypt

Great song, great images of the struggles in Egypt and Tunisia



Here are the lyrics:

I give up I live up I fill up
Gotta keep my mind in motion
Gotta keep motion in my mind
Cut it out Leave it out take it out
All the things that make confusion
And diversions in these times
Breathing out Hold it out hold it down
buttoning down frustration out of neutral into drive
ray of hope keep afloat take a note
Need another survival strategy just to keep myself alive
Too many ideas buzzin round inside my brain
Live in the history of now
And I'm feelin like there's
Nothing left that I can really explain l
Live in the history Live in the history Of now
In a maze In a haze In a rage
Can't tell the difference between
My TV internet or me
Who is that Who is this Who said that
America's next top strictly dancing ghost celebrity
And I'm always phasing between blinding lights and the deafening sound
And I can't even make out the words
Or make them match up with the mouths
Too many ideas buzzing round inside my brain
Live in the history of now
And I'm feeling like there's nothing left that
I can really explain
Live in the history
Live in the history Of now

Eye to Eye
Gotta get back to the desert
Gotta get right back to my soul
Burning sky
Where every drop of rain Is a blessing to behold
Cos I can't be be a relay
On an expanding circuit board
My mind won't fit on a server somewhere I could never afford
You can't download the sun
You can't download the sea
You can't download the sun
You'll never download me
Too many ideas buzzin round inside my brain
Live in the history of now
And I'm feelin like there's
Nothing left that I can really explain l
Live in the history
Live in the history of Now

Cross and Qur'an at Tahrir Square

This is one of many incredible photos from a wonderful gallery published by The Guardian. Very significant.

Here's the caption:
Protesters hold a Christian coptic cross and copies of the Qur'an as they take part in 'Sunday of the martyrs'. Photo: Amel Pain/EPA

Adam Shatz names the elephant(s) in the (Egyptian) room: Israel, the US imperium

Invaluable article from the estimable Adam Shatz, in London Review of Books. Read it here. Key extract:

The men and women congregating in Tahrir Square have the misfortune to live in a country that shares a border with Israel, and to be fighting a regime that for the last three decades has provided indispensable services to the US. They are well aware of this. They know that if the West allows the Egyptian movement to be crushed, it will be, in part, because of the conviction that ‘we are not them,’ and that we can’t allow them to have what we have. Despite the enormous odds, they continue to fight.

Tweets from Gamal Eid

If you're on twitter and read Arabic, follow him. An old friend. He also puts out some tweets in English. He's a lawyer and a tireless democracy activist.

Elliott translates one of them: 'Scene from Tahrir: A small boy says, "I'm a poor street kid who doesn't know a lot of things, but I have my pride. My pants might be falling off me, but we just made a revolution. What have you done?"'

Here's what Gamal looked like almost 20 years ago.

Essential reading on the Egyptian Uprising

Issandr El Amrani, writing in the London Review of Books.

There has been a lot of great analysis of this ongoing intifada, but this is one of the best.

Did you know that the recently cashiered minister of interior, Habib al-Adly, had received FBI training. Good job, G-men! This is the guy that unleashed the thugs and opened the prisons to inflict chaos on the democracy movement and the Egyptian people.

Here's the conclusion:

When Ben-Ali fled from Tunis, he created a vacuum at the top of the state that was imperfectly but quickly filled. The initial interim government did not please many, but a sense of civic duty appears for now to have stabilised the situation without a resort to authoritarianism. Mubarak, on the other hand, created a security vacuum in order to spread panic. In agreeing to step down, he tried to ensure that the regime would survive. Egypt is not Tunisia, at least not yet.

Ahmed Basiony, Tahrir Square martyr, electronics musician

Ahmed Basiony was a brilliant Egyptian electronics musician.

Ahmed at Tahrir Square, Jan. 25, 2011

Please check out these videos of Basiony live in concert.

Ahmed basiony & Abou Asala - "Abou Asala aal Dish". from Basiony on Vimeo.

EL KHATIA - remix from Basiony on Vimeo.

Ahmed, 31, taught in the Art Education, Painting and Drawing department at Helwan University. He was the father of two children. He was killed on Friday January 25 at Tahrir Square, while participating in the pro-democracy demonstrations. Cause of death: asphyxiation from tear gas. Source of tear gas: USA.

There are facebook pagse dedicated to him here and here. And here's a tribute to him at the blog disquiet.

You can also find videos of him performing on youtube. I think the ones from Vimeo, above, are the best ones.

Basiony was a collaborator with experimentalist Mahmoud Refat, founder of the label 100 copies. The site (100copies.com) has been offline since the uprising. I hope this changes soon.

RIP. الله يرحمه

More kufiyas from the Tahrir Commune

The first two photos are from a wonderful photo gallery, courtesy Time Magazine, "A Night at Tahrir Square," photos by Jacopo Quaranta.

The caption reads: "Tahrir Square, February 3. After two days of clashes with pro-Mubarak groups, demonstrators calling for the end of the regime of Hosni Mubarak remained on Tahrir Square. This woman, a former television journalist, occupied a checkpoint on the square, where she checked women who wished to enter."

I love how stylish her kufiya is, and I want to know where to get one like this!

This photo, from the same photogallery, reads: "Headrest. A demonstrator sleeps on the truck [a burned-out police truck]."

This is a screensave from tonight's Parker Spitzer show on CNN, during the segment where they interviewed the well-known Egyptian blogger and tweeter Sandmonkey. It was a phone interview, so CNN rolled some images, and they showed some good ones. This shot is of two demonstrators on Tahrir Square, bandaged up from wounds incurred from the attacks of thugs sent after the democracy forces by the Egyptian government. Upwards of 500 were wounded in the attacks of the night of February 1-2, which the democracy forces successfully repelled. You can read a good account of it here, by Hani Shukrallah.

The comparison of the democracy forces on Tahrir Square to the Paris Commune of 1871 comes from an essay posted today on Jadaliyya by Sinan Antoon.

No You Can't

(I got this through Beth, on Facebook. Not sure of the provenance, other than AFP.)

[PS, Feb. 4, 10:30 PM. Beth got it from BBC, thinks it's a photo of a demo in Turkey]

Headgear of the Egyptian Pro-Democracy Demonstrators at Tahrir Square

(Mohammed Abed, AFP/Getty Images / February 3, 2011)

The demonstrators for democracy at Tahrir Square, as you no doubt know, have been the targets of heavy violence at the hands of government thugs, the baltagiya, violence that was launched on Tuesday February 1st. They've been the targets of rocks, concrete blocks, molotov cocktails...some of them thrown from the tops of buildings that the government-sponsored hooligans (and security forces in civilian clothes) had occupied. To protect themselves, they have erected barriers, thrown stones back at their attackers, and, we learn from The Guardian, improvised a variety of headgear to protect their heads. (100's have been injured by the flying debris.) Today The Guardian featured a photo gallery of their ingenious forms of head protection. I of course particularly liked this one, featuring a kufiya, which helps hold in place what appears to be the bottom of an oil drum, re-jigerred as a kind of wok. Robin, who suggested this, saw one used by a Bedouin woman in Sinai who was cooking fish by the side of the road.

Long live the ingenuity of the Egyptian people!

The Egyptian Revolution: Cleansing the Country

Check out this amazing and heartwarming video about a wave of national pride in revolutionary Egypt. Teams of volunteers cleaning up the streets around Tahrir Square.

Here's a kufiya clad volunteer street cleaner.

Free medical care offered by health professionals. Passing out food.

This really is something to be scared of: people power.

Al-Thawra's "Wine of Power"--in tribute to wave of Arab revolutions

Free and timely download from the doom-crust punk band Al-Thawra, out of Chicago.

Al-Thawra says on their blog: "In celebration of the wave of revolutions spreading rapidly across the Middle East, we're proud to be giving away our song, "Wine of Power" for free download. We hope that song's lyrics of self-empowerment are something that everyone, everywhere can relate to, and hopefully something that everyone can also take inspiration from. In some ways, its anger and passion are a sign of the times..."

Get it here.

And check out their blog here. Al-Thawra is sometimes linked to the taqwacore scene. I really like their music. They are very fond of kufiyas.

Kufiyas in the Egyptian Intifada

This is a footnote to the bigger story going on. Or maybe it's not just a footnote. I never saw many kufiyas when I lived in Cairo, between 1992-1996. Checking out footage on Al Jazeera, the youtube videos, and the photos, of the ongoing Egyptian Uprising against the Mubarak regime over the last several days, I've spotted many, many kufiyas. So many that I've not even bothered to try to put together a collection.

What do they signify? Solidarity with Palestinians? The influence of Western hipster fashion? A resurgence of secular pan-Arab identity, that several observers have noted? I think it's all three, and probably others that I can't think of right now.

In any case, here's a photo that I very much like, from a post on the blog of The Economist. (It's not credited to any photographer.) It seems particularly iconic. A young Egyptian male (the youth have played a critical role in organizing and activizing the uprising--although all segments of society have participated). He's carrying an Egyptian flag (signs of nationalism have prevailed over assertions of religious identity in this intifada). A cellphone is in his right hand (mobile phones & tweets & text messages have played a significant part in the movement, so critical in fact that the Egyptian government cut all cell service on February 27). He is walking in Tahrir (Liberation) Square, the focal point of the movement (although significant mobilizations have occurred all over the country, Tahrir, for all kinds of historical, cultural, and spatial reasons, remains very critical). The Nile River (Egypt's lifeblood) and the Egyptian Museum (the repository of the country's antiquities) are in the background.

And a black-and-white kufiya is draped around his neck, sign of global style, Palestine solidarity, and pan-Arabism.

Long live Egypt and its courageous and humane people.

Still stylish!

Yes, the kufiya. Check out Bill Cunningham's "On the Street" piece in today's Sunday Times, his report on men's fashion on the move, in winter, in Manhattan.

Very stylish, don't you think?

And still very available for wear on the Arab street, in protests in Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia.

Tunisian rapper Hamada Ben Amor (El Général) arrested for releasing song online critical of Tunisian president

View El Géneral's powerful video here:

As Charles, who alerted me to this, remarked: if this were Iran, the US and European media would be all over the story.

Here's what Reuters writes about the story (via al-Arabiya), Friday, Jan. 7:

TUNIS (Reuters)

Tunisian police have arrested a rap singer who released a song critical of government policies as protests against President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali's rule shook the North African nation, his brother said on Friday.

Police arrested 22-year-old Hamada Ben-Amor late on Thursday in the Mediterranean Sea coast city of Sfax, Hamdi Ben-Amor told Reuters.

"Some 30 plainclothes policemen came to our house to arrest Hamada and took him away without ever telling us where to. When we asked why they were arresting him, they said 'he knows why'," he said.

Ben-Amor is known to fans as The General. Last week he released a song on the internet titled 'President, your people are dying' that talks about the problems of the youth and unemployment.

The song came out as students, professionals and youths mounted a series of protests over a shortage of jobs and restrictions on public freedoms.

The protests have grown into the most widespread and violent flare-up of dissent of Ben Ali's 23-year rule.

Tunisian authorities on Thursday also arrested Aziz Amami, a well-known blogger, opposition militant Sofiene Chourabi said.

Security technology company Sophos said on Monday that "hacktivists" from a group calling itself 'Anonymous' had struck some official Tunisian websites, including those of Ben Ali, the government and the Tunisian stock exchange.

Tunisian officials had no immediate comment on either arrest.

I've only just been turned onto this website, featuring rap music from the Tunisian city of Bizerte. Check it out.

And here is more on El Général's arrest here, from al-Jazeera.

And...here is a translation of the opening of the song, courtesy this post.

“Mr President, today I speak to you in my name and in the name of all the people who live in suffering and pain. This is 2011 and yet, there are people who die in hunger, while others still look for a job to survive. But their voices are unheard…”

Kufiyas (and other pop Orientalisms) in SPIN's 20 Best Videos of 2010

SPIN Magazine's list of the 20 Best Videos of 2010 was recently published. The kufiya makes appearances in two of the top 20.

At number 20: MIA's "Born Free." You read about it on hawblawg here.

At number 7, Superchunk's "Digging for Something." You read about it on hawgblawg here.

Superchunk - Digging For Something from Merge Records on Vimeo.

Some well-known kufiya wearers show up in other vids. Das Racist's "Who's That Brown?" is #6.



Das Racist don't wear kufiyas in the vid, but they have been spotted wearing them on other occasions. (The t-shirt, worn by Victor Vazquez, says Coca Cola in Arabic.)


?uestlove of The Roots shows up in Duck Sauce's "Barbara Streisand" video (# 9), at about 0:27. As hawgblawg readers now, he too is a sometime kufiya wearer. (The photo below looks better than the one on the original post.)


Other pop Orientalisms:

Fez alert! Armand Van Helden of Duck Soup is shown wearing a Shiner's Fez in the "Barbara Streisand" video (#9) at 0:36. This puts him in very good company, as you know from reading hawblawg's previous fez alerts.

And RZA of the Wu Tang Clan shows up throughout the Vampire Weekend "Giving Up the Gun" video (#4) as the tennis umpire. RZA is a member of the Nation of Gods and Earths (Five Percenters). You've read my article about the Five Percenters here. And I've told you about THE book about the Nation, by Michael Muhammad Knight's The Five Percenters: Islam, Hip-hop, and the Gods of New York.

RZA and the rest of the Wu Tang are from Shaolin (Staten Island). I was born there too. That about ties it all together.

Happy New Year!

Kufiyas in the mainstream: "Glee," "Running Wilde," and Superchunk's "Digging for Something"

The kufiya, it seems, is now securely lodged in mainstream US cultural discourse. Like all signifiers, its meanings are not fixed, but are polyvalent. Here are three recent examples of the kufiya's appearance in US pop culture, which I attempt to decode.

1. Mercedes in Glee, Season 1, Episode 21 (broadcast June 1, 2010).

You know, of course, that Glee is a wildly popular and successful TV show. Mercedes is not one of the major characters, but she is an important element. She is, for the most part, a sympathetic character, who is also fashion-conscious. In this episode, "Funk," Mercedes appears wearing a kufiya in a scene where she is talking to the pregnant Quinn, soon to be an unwed teenage mom. Mercedes sympathizes with her plight and invites Quinn to move in with her. At the end of the conversation, having come to an agreement of the minds, Mercedes and Quinn bump fists.

What's the kufiya doing here? I think it's a signifier of Mercedes' fashion sense, a fashion sense that is at least in part "street," given the fact that the kufiya remains an important accessory in African-American urban communities. It's significant that it shows up in a scene where Mercedes is shown to be sympathetic to the white girl Quinn, in a scene of cross-racial solidarity, of Mercedes and Quinn making an alliance based on a sense of shared social marginalization--Mercedes as black, Quinn as pregnant.

2. Andy (David Cross) the environmental activist, Running Wilde, Season 1, Episode 3 (broadcast Oct. 5, 2010)

By contrast to Glee, Running Wilde was a flop. Launched by Fox in September 2010, its demise was announced in late November.

The show starred Will Arnett as Steve Wilde, a billionaire in love with Emmy Kadubic (Kerri Russell, who is engaged to Andy (David Cross), a radical environmentalist. (Cross and Wilde were also both in the terrific Arrested Development. Running Wilde is as lame as Arrested Development was brilliant.)

In episode 3 ("Oil and Water"), Steve gets rid of Andy by getting him to go to Alaska to fight a secret Wilde Oil plan to drill for oil on Inuit land and pollute their waterways. (It seems there is no such plan, but Andy, who Steve describes asa "stupid eco-terrorist/save-the-world nut job," wants Andy gone so he can continue his efforts to win over Emmy.)

Andy, who wears a red kufiya throughout the episode, is portrayed as a rather ridiculous figure. He worries that Emmy is losing respect and interest in him, remarking at one point, "She doesn't want to listen to my conspiracy theories any more." And Emmy tells Steve that Andy acts like he wants to start the French Revolution but usually just ends up calling up Larry King to rant. Part of Andy's motivation for going to Alaska to "save" the Inuit is to impress Emmy.

Meanwhile Emmy is trying to get Steve to "quit" Wilde Oil in order to prove his good character. (She may be rather disaffected with Andy but she is a committed environmentalist.) Steve goes to the office to quit (he just receives checks from Wilde, has never worked there, but for some reason Emmy is under the impression that he has a real "job"), together with Emmy. Andy calls Wilde to complain about the corporation, and Emmy happens to pick up the phone. Andy is looking for inside information about Wilde's plans in Alaska. Emmy decides that it would be better if Steve stayed at Wilde so that she could find out, through him, what Wilde was up to there.

Eventually, Steve does decide to quit. Meanwhile, in the last scene, Andy is shown helping to organize an Inuit demonstration against Wilde Oil. (It's unclear what Wilde really is doing in Alaska.) A Wilde Oil truck shows up, and the employees get out and address Andy as if he is a Wilde Oil employee. They do so because he's wearing (unbeknownest to him) a coat with Wilde Oil logo, that Steve had loaned him for the Alaska trip. The Inuit, who think they have uncovered a spy, take Andy off to administer a beating. Emmy's daughter Puddle, who narrates the episode, says, "and when they caught him, he cried like a little girl."

The kufiya serves the function of marking Andy as a political activist. Emma is political too, but more sensible and even-keeled. Andy is a blowhard, ineffectual in practice. And so clueless that he never notices that he is wearing a coat with a Wilde Oil logo, the log of the company against whose evils he is ostensibly fighting. The kufiya, in this episode of Running Wilde, is clearly a marker of progressive politics, but at the same time, by being worn by someone like Andy, the kufiya itself seems to be tarnished with a brand of left politics that is presented as at once extremist and ludicrous.

3. Superchunk, video for "Digging for Something" (from the album, Majesty Shredding)

Superchunk, for those of you not in-the-know, is an indie rock band from Chapel Hill, NC. According to allmusic.com, [p]erhaps no band was more emblematic of the true spirit of American indie rock during the 1990s than Superchunk." While Superchunk remained active during the aughts, there was a gap of nine years between the release of album 8 (Here's to Shutting Up, 2001), and this year's Majesty Shredding.

Superchunk's song, "Digging for Something," made it onto Spin magazine's list of the Best 20 Songs of 2010, landing at #13. (The album Majesty Shredding was Other Music's #22 on its 25 Best Albums of 2010 list, and of course there are more best of lists to come...) The video for the song (the youtube video is linked to in Spin's article) reflects humorously on the sort of "return" that Majesty Shredding represents for the band, which had been around, but not nearly so much in the spotlight during the aughts as in the nineties. What does it mean for the members of a hot band in the nineties to get back on the stage after they have "aged"?

In the video, they "return" with only one "original" member, singer/guitarist Mac McCaughan. McCaughan is backed by a group of younger artists, dressed in outfits that looks to me like repurposed 80s gear, which I guess is the nostalgia period of choice for the current twenty-somethings. The gear is worn, of course, ironically. McGaughan, in order to make himself appear au courant, and to fit in with his younger bandmembers of Superchunk 2.0, wears Devo style shades, a black-and-red plaid t-shirt, black Converse sneakers, and a black-and-white kufiya around his neck, triangle in front.

The old band members, meanwhile, are variously working as a dentist (Jon Wurster), a potter selling her wares at craft fairs (Laura Ballance), and a professional Buddhist meditator (Jim Wilbur). The three see a flyer for the Superchunk 2.0 concert, join forces, storm the stage, drive off the youngsters, and rejoin McGaughan to finish the song. Unlike the young upstarts, the three originals just wear normal, non-stylish, regular clothing. Unlike the fashionistas of Superchunk 2.0, the originals are "real." As the song ends, McCaughan, as if to indicate his embracing of his "real" indie roots, throws the kufiya onto the ground and tosses away his dark glasses. He has dispensed with the trivial fashions of the moment and reclaims the authentic, anti-style style of original indie.

In this video, then, the kufiya functions as a key signifier of the pop fluff of contemporary fashion. Real indie isn't concerned with such inconsequential accessories of musical performers who are all show and no go. Real indie is just about the music.

Stay tuned. Friends keep sending me their kufiya sightings, and I'm behind in my reporting, so there is always more to come. (Many thanks to David for item #1, Noat for item #2, to Kamran for item #3.)

Hipsters

Among the many things I've learned while tracking kufiyas is that (a) kufiyas are stereotypically associated with hipsters and (b) kufiyas have emerged as a convenient stick to beat hipsters with.

Here's what I said about the hipster/kufiya connection in my most recent talk about kufiyas, which I gave at the University of Louisville last month:

Hipsters have also [in addition to celebrities] been a focus of criticism due to their fondness for kufiyas. For some reason, over the past few years the kufiya style has become synonymous with stereotypes of the hipster. The New Oxford American dictionary definition of the hipster--“a person who follows the latest trends in fashion”--captures the social type's ambiguous character: hipsters are up-to-date and cool, but at the same time they are followers, rather than the trendsetters. They try to live on the cutting edge, but constantly on the lookout for the latest thing, they will abandon an “old” trend for a new one at a moment's notice. Perhaps it is because hipsters, or as some have called them, the hipsterati, are so “trend” conscious that they can so readily serve as an example of the degraded status of the kufiya in the US. Standing as the quintessential example of the apparent emptiness of the search for coolness, the hipster is a convenient lightning rod, and so a popular and widespread spectator sport of mocking hipsters has developed.

I then go on to cite several examples, most of which I have blogged about previously.

I'm therefore very keen to get my hands on a new book (which I've just ordered), called What Was The Hipster?: A Sociological Investigation (n+1 Foundation, 2010). Today's New York Times has a great essay from Mark Greif, one of the contributors to the volume. Greif uses Bourdieu's book Distinctions to make sense of hipsters and the struggles over "taste." Here's the observation that, I think, really sums up hipsterdom, and helps make sense of all the mocking of hipster kufiya-wearing:

All hipsters play at being the inventors or first adopters of novelties: pride comes from knowing, and deciding, what’s cool in advance of the rest of the world. Yet the habits of hatred and accusation are endemic to hipsters because they feel the weakness of everyone’s position — including their own. Proving that someone is trying desperately to boost himself instantly undoes him as an opponent. He’s a fake, while you are a natural aristocrat of taste. That’s why “He’s not for real, he’s just a hipster” is a potent insult among all the people identifiable as hipsters themselves.

The spectator sport of hipster mocking, according to Greif, is just hipsters mocking other hipsters. His piece is accompanied by this graphic. The scarf is meant to evoke the kufiya, but given the absence of the kufiya pattern, it lacks authenticity. The kufiya pattern would give the stereotype a harder bite, I mean.

Greif has published a longer piece in New York Magazine (October 24) that is even more illuminating. I quote some of my favorite bits below (kufiyas of course make their appearance):

"The hipster is that person, overlapping with the intentional dropout or the unintentionally declassed individual—the neo-bohemian, the vegan or bicyclist or skatepunk, the would-be blue-collar or postracial twentysomething, the starving artist or graduate student—who in fact aligns himself both with rebel subculture and with the dominant class, and thus opens up a poisonous conduit between the two...

The hipster...was a black subcultural figure of the late forties, best anatomized by Anatole Broyard in an essay for the Partisan Review called “A Portrait of the Hipster.” A decade later, the hipster had evolved into a white subcultural figure. This hipster—and the reference here is to Norman Mailer’s “The White Negro” essay for Dissent in 1957—was explicitly defined by the desire of a white avant-garde to disaffiliate itself from whiteness, with its stain of Eisenhower, the bomb, and the corporation, and achieve the “cool” knowledge and exoticized energy, lust, and violence of black Americans...

The hipster, in both black and white incarnations, in his essence had been about superior knowledge—what Broyard called “a priorism.” He insisted that hipsterism was developed from a sense that minorities in America were subject to decisions made about their lives by conspiracies of power they could never possibly know. The hip reaction was to insist, purely symbolically, on forms of knowledge that they possessed before anyone else, indeed before the creation of positive knowledge—a priori. Broyard focused on the password language of hip slang.

The return of the term after 1999 reframed the knowledge question. Hipster, in its revival, referred to an air of knowing about exclusive things before anyone else. The new young strangers acted, as people said then, “hipper than thou.” At first their look may also have overlapped enough with a short-lived moment of neo-Beat and fifties nostalgia (goatees, fedoras, Swingers-style duds) to help call up the term. But these hipsters were white, and singularly unmoved by race and racial integration.

Indeed, the White Hipster—the style that suddenly emerged in 1999—inverted Broyard’s model to particularly unpleasant effect. Let me recall a string of keywords: trucker hats; undershirts called “wifebeaters,” worn alone; the aesthetic of basement rec-room pornography, flash-lit Polaroids, and fake-wood paneling; Pabst Blue Ribbon; “porno” or “pedophile” mustaches; aviator glasses; Americana T-shirts from church socials and pig roasts; tube socks; the late albums of Johnny Cash; tattoos...

As the White Negro had once fetishized blackness, the White Hipster fetishized the violence, instinctiveness, and rebelliousness of lower-middle-class “white trash"...

It would be too limited, however, to understand the contemporary hipster as simply someone concerned with a priori knowledge as a means of social dominance. In larger manifestations, in private as well as on the street, contemporary hipsterism has been defined by an obsessive interest in the conflict between knowingness and naïveté, guilty self-awareness and absolved self-absorption...

By 2003...an overwhelming feeling of an end to hipsterism permeated the subculture. It seems possible that the White Hipster was born in part as a reaction to the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle—the emboldened anti-capitalism that was the signal youth rebellion of the century’s end. But 2003 spelled the beginning of the Iraq invasion, and a pivot in the national mood from post-9/11 mourning to patriotic aggression and violence. The wifebeater-wearer’s machismo no longer felt subversive...

Suddenly, the hipster transformed. Most succinctly—though this is too simple—it began to seem that a “green” hipster had succeeded the white...

In culture, the Hipster Primitive moment recovered the sound and symbols of pastoral innocence with an irony so fused into the artworks it was no longer visible...

Where the White Hipster was relentlessly male, crowding out women from public view (except as Polaroid muses or SuicideGirls), the Hipster Primitive feminized hipster markers; one spoke now of headdresses and Sally Jessy Raphael glasses, not just male facial hair. Women took up cowboy boots, then dark-green rubber Wellingtons, like country squiresses off to visit the stables. Men gave up the porno mustache for the hermit or lumberjack beard. Flannel returned, as did hunting jackets in red-and-black check. Scarves proliferated unnecessarily, conjuring a cold woodland night (if wool) or a desert encampment (if a kaffiyeh [emphasis added]). Then scarves were worn as bandannas, as when Mary-Kate Olsen sported one, like a cannibal Pocahontas, hungry enough to eat your arm...

The most advanced hipster youth even deprived their bikes of gears. The fixed-gear bike now ranks as the second-most-visible urban marker of hip, and not the least of its satisfactions is its simple mechanism...

Above all, the post-2004 hipster could be identified by one stylistic marker that transcended fashion to be something as fundamental as a cultural password: jeans that were tight to the calves and ankles. As much as I’ve investigated this, I can’t say I understand the origin of the skinny jean. ..

Through both phases of the contemporary hipster, and no matter where he identifies himself on the knowingness spectrum, there exists a common element essential to his identity, and that is his relationship to consumption. The hipster, in this framework, is continuous with a cultural type identified in the nineties by the social critic Thomas Frank, who traced it back to Madison Avenue’s absorption of a countercultural ethos in the late sixties. This type he called the “rebel consumer.”

The rebel consumer is the person who, adopting the rhetoric but not the politics of the counterculture, convinces himself that buying the right mass products individualizes him as transgressive. Purchasing the products of authority is thus reimagined as a defiance of authority...The hipster is a savant at picking up the tiny changes of rapidly cycling consumer distinction.

This in-group competition, more than anything else, is why the term hipster is primarily a pejorative—an insult that belongs to the family of poseur, faker, phony, scenester, and hanger-on. The challenge does not clarify whether the challenger rejects values in common with the hipster—of style, savoir vivre, cool, etc. It just asserts that its target adopts them with the wrong motives. He does not earn them.

It has long been noticed that the majority of people who frequent any traditional bohemia are hangers-on. Somewhere, at the center, will be a very small number of hardworking writers, artists, or politicos, from whom the hangers-on draw their feelings of authenticity. Hipsterdom at its darkest, however, is something like bohemia without the revolutionary core...

One could say, exaggerating only slightly, that the hipster moment did not produce artists, but tattoo artists, who gained an entire generation’s arms, sternums, napes, ankles, and lower backs as their canvas. It did not produce photographers, but snapshot and party photographers: Last Night’s Party, Terry Richardson, the Cobra Snake. It did not produce painters, but graphic designers. It did not yield a great literature, but it made good use of fonts. And hipsterism did not make an avant-garde; it made communities of early adopters...

The most confounding element of the hipster is that, because of the geography of the gentrified city and the demography of youth, this “rebel consumer” hipster culture shares space and frequently steals motifs from truly anti-authoritarian youth countercultures. Thus, baby-boomers and preteens tend to look at everyone between them and say: Isn’t this hipsterism just youth culture? To which folks age 19 to 29 protest, No, these people are worse. But there is something in this confusion that suggests a window into the hipster’s possible mortality.

True countercultures may wax and wane in numbers, but a level of youth hostility to the American official compromise has been continuous since World War II. Over the past decade, hipsters have mixed with particular elements of anarchist, free, vegan, environmentalist, punk, and even anti-capitalist communities. One glimpses behind them the bike messengers, straight-edge skaters, Lesbian Avengers, freegans, enviro-anarchists, and interracial hip-hoppers who live as they please, with a spiritual middle finger always raised...

And hipster motifs and styles, when you dig into them, are often directly taken from these adjacent countercultures...[kufiyas from Palestine and anti-war activists?]

Can the hipster, by virtue of proximity if nothing else, be woken up? One can’t expect political efflorescence from an anti-political group. Yet the mainstreaming of hipsterism to the suburbs and the mall portends hipster self-disgust. (Why bother with a lifestyle that everyone now knows?) More important, it guarantees the pollination of a vast audience with seeds stolen from the counterculture. [so, is there something inherently hopeful about massive kufiya wearing?]...

Something was already occurring in the revivification that transpired in 2003. The White Hipster was truly grotesque, whereas within the Hipster Primitive there emerged a glimmer of an idea of refusal. In the U.K., American-patterned hipsters in Hackney and Shoreditch are said to be turning more toward an ethos of androgyny, drag, the queer. In recent hipster art, Animal Collective’s best-known lyric is this: “I don’t mean to seem like I / Care about material things, like our social stats / I just want four walls and / Adobe slats for my girls.” The band members masked their faces to avoid showing themselves to the culture of idolators. If a hundred thousand Americans discovered that they, too, hated the compromised culture, they might not look entirely unlike the Hipster Primitive. Just no longer hip."

And you thought Lady Gaga was kinky...

Devendra Banhart. Not for the fainthearted. (Note: Jack Smith is the deep source.)