I’ve always been a wee bit obsessed by the concept of cool. The difference in perception between seemingly similar kinds of people of what’s cool and what’s dasai (a Japanese word which is more eloquent than just saying “uncool” and more cutting than “lame” – it just fits best for me!) never fails to amaze me.
Some say that the modern concept of cool as we know it came from jazz musicians in the 1940′s, and really took off with the creation of the “teenager” and the advent of rock’n'roll, but i’m sure that as a process it’s been around from the moment cavemen first dyed their furs a different colour (allright history pedants, i’m sure it didn’t happen like that, but don’t ruin my illusion!).
So, to the questions/quintet:
I love the fact that you can be cool without actually being any good at something; cool is all about attitude and presence and the way someone or something presents itself to the world and in my book, there is nothing cooler than being cool!
1. What’s YOUR definition of “cool”?
I know there are loads of 60′s and 70′s counterculture films that set the agenda for cool at the time and that look even cooler in retrospect, but for my generation, Tarantino is still one of the only directors to consciously incorporate cool into his films, so i’ll go for “True Romance” as a film that just oozes cool:
2. What’s the coolest film ever made?
I’ll break the rules here as usual, i’ve said it before, but i’ll say it again, for me San Francisco supposed-punks Crime are hands-down the coolest band there ever was (I won’t justify too much, i’m planning a post on them…erm….soon-ish). so:
3. Who are the coolest band ever (not necessarily the best)?
When I was a teenager, the epitome of cool for me was keeping your fags in the sleeve of your T-shirt like River Phoenix in Stand By Me and Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest…..and I have to say, it still looks pretty damn cool today too.
4. What thing/person/action etc was the epitome of cool for you when you were younger? Do you still think so?
Wicked, kakkoi, radical, radically rare…. erm…..help me out here…….:
5. What synonyms did/do you have for “cool” in your part of the world?
1. I think cool to me is being an individual and not giving a shit that you’re different. There’s some wish fulfilment in there…
2. Hm, coolest film. I’m sure I should say “A Bout de Souffle” or “Annie Hall” or something. I’m tempted to say “Heathers”. Or “Mean Girls”. Shows how cool I am!
3. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Unquestionably.
4. Ian McCulloch probably.
5. I believe the yoot round my way describes things they approve of as ‘sick’. Or, if said things are considered ultra-cool, ‘bear sick’.
My mistake: apparently it’s “bare”, not “bear” (as if the text generation would know how to spell it anyway, harrumph harrumph…):
Lexicon of teen speak
‘Bear-sick’ does call up a certain, unappealing, image.
I like Bear sick. I’m going to start using it and see if it catches on.
Lumpy; that’s the word for cool where my bears sick. Bony, is a kind of attitudinal sit up and beg sick.
Great post, Japanthersan. I’ve also always been fascinated by this concept. I think what’s fascinating about cool is that when something is sold to us as cool, it ceases to be cool – and that there’s a very fine line between being terminally uncool and outsider-cool – some geeky types are ubercool, while others are just geeks. Have I answered question 1 yet? I think it’s something to do with being different in a way that others admire.
2. Don’t Look Back – Bob Dylan in 1965 = nothing cooler
3. I think the status of cool that Jarvis Cocker attained epitomises my thoughts above. The coolest band I’ve seen live were maybe the Gotan Project (French cool = very cool), or K’Naan. But I think the coolest person in music history may be Angus MacLise, the Velvet Underground’s original drummer, who quit when the band accepted their first gig, on the grounds that they’d sold out. Absurdly cool.
4. I thought footballers with mullets were hugely cool. No, I don’t think that anymore, not even ironicaly.
5. Going off on a slight tangent… My colleagues and I usually communicate over Skype, and use “cool” all the time (e.g. “I’ll have the report over to you by 2pm”, “OK, that’s cool”). For variation/emphasis, this often becomes Kool and the Gang, Coolio, Kula Shakar. Any similar synonyms gratefully received.
Any similar synonyms gratefully received:
‘Cool Hand Luke’
would really fit in here wouldn’t it?
Nice one. I’ll try this out at the next editorial meeting.
1. I totally agree with Bishbosh. Do your own thing, man…..
2. For me, it’s still got to be “Rebel Without A Cause”, if only for the imagery. James Dean in the Jacket, T-shirt and Lee Riders (not Levi’s as the adverts used to infer!) And Natalie Wood! I was going to marry her!!! I saw this movie over 30 times in the 60s and now own it on DVD (sad, eh?)
3. Two for me. Gene Vincent & The Bluecaps (well, he would say that) and Canned Heat.
4. Sonny Barger and, no I don’t still think so.
5. I can’t really remember. I know I NEVER said “Fab” or “Groovy”
Just remembered, we used the term “smart” a lot as in “that geezer’s motorbike is smart”. Also, by vocal inflection it could be used ironically to mean the opposite.
Also, isn’t the word “cool” now un-cool? It seems to be used by trendy vicars with guitars and “down-with-the-kids” middle class parents with impunity!
1. Never quite got cool – probably because I am ultimately not in the slightest bit cool – so had to be content with anti-cool.
I didn’t get the Mod revival (early 80′s when I grew up – what is cool about re-creating your parents?) personified by Paul Weller, a man I’ve always thought of as a ****… and the 80′s spawned ‘style’ a word in itself the antithesis of stylish/cool.
Cool is a blue note record sleeve, a Penguin book jacket.. simple and timeless.
2. Film – new wave cinema.. I like the idea of the French (I’ve met a few of them and even though they are just like me and you but with accents over their letters and in their speech – I still consider ‘the French’ cool) or Film Noir… (see more French)
but for me it would be Wim Wenders ‘Wings of Desire’ more from the designs of the posters and memory – I wont spoil it by watching again (and I know ‘Crime and the City Solution’ the band playing live in Berlin, weren’t as cool as the Bad Seeds.
the coolest idea in Film – in a Matter of Life and Death – Reversing the convention of The Wizard of Oz, the supernatural scenes are in black-and-white, while the ones on Earth are in Technicolor (made visually pearly)… down to limited film stock in 1946(?) – brilliantly conceived.
(has nothing to do with Heaven by the way – the Americans got the wrong end of the escalator when they re-named it Stairway to Heaven)
3. Coolest Band – The Specials were my idea of cool as a kid – but Pixies are so cool they don’t even have to look good to be special.
4. A 60′s chick with kohl eyeliner, beautiful lashes and pale lipstick – ‘Blow Up’ ish.. ruins my re-creating your parents thing… But being a bloke – I didn’t try this look out (even in the Goth years) so I’m safe.
5. gnarly – really I’m not cool enough to know.
The Pixies were cool. Agreed.
Argh just lost my answers.
1. Agree with Bish too, and I would add a notion of elegance, which doesn’t necessarily involve being smartly dressed.
2. My first thought was for QT, for the same reasons Panther explained, but I would go for Takeshi Kitano’s Hana-Bi, In The Heat Of The Night, and films with dialogues by Michel Audiard featuring the likes of Jean Gabin and Lino Ventura, even thought I’ve never seen one in its entirety.
3. Miles Davis
4. I guess I thought Method Man was very cool, or was it more a question of charisma?
5. I haven’t lived in France for a while, but we use the word “cool” as well, “clean” had its time, and much before there was “bath” like in the song by Ottawan, no idea how that happened though. We also had “chanmé”, which is verlan (a slang where you switch syllables) for “méchant” as in mean.
Shane, bottom line is: you’re cool.
Panther, are you aware of the yoruba concept of cool? You might find it interesting:
http://www.realitysandwich.com/blues_definition_cool
ANd I recently read this piece, which was kinda cool:
http://www.theroot.com/views/mad-men-miles-davis-and-aesthetics-cool
hmm…interesting pieces Ejay – especially liked the one on Miles……it’s difficult to think of any one individual that’s cooler…
1. Tricky one this and one my students often ask me. You try to give an example but you never get it quite right!
Cool and I inhabit opposite ends of the universe so that might be part of it. I’m in the bish camp regarding doing what you want, etc but I think you need to look good when doing it, too. There’s a sort of aura thing involved. I’m looking forward to seeing what others say on this one.
2. Key Largo. Bogart, what a guy! I was in San José Costa Rica a few times and there’s a bar there called Key Largo. apparently it was a Bogey haunt. When I went there it was just full of drunk tourists and hookers. Not my idea of cool.
3. See photo. Sit on it! I also found the whole idea of bucking the system cool and anyone who was openly (but humorously, even ironically – curious that) rebelious got my admiration.
4. Long list. i always found JJ Burnel’s karate kicking while playing the bass very cool. I still do, in fact – poor me!
5. There’s a word “guay” (pronounced why) which is close. My neices and nephews say “¡esto es la caña!” for things i would have called “cool” at their age.
Great questions. What is cool? An undefinable, slippery concept that changes according to the weather.
Of course, I’m not cool.
Never have been. Never will be.
1. As soon as something is proclaimed ‘cool’ in the mass media, it ceases to be so. Being cool involves taking a risk by aligning yourself with something new and (preferrably) radical and then moving on when it gets old. These new things need seeking out; something that is a lot easier in the Internet age than it used to be.
At university, I knew a guy who was into the Levellers before they released their first album. In fact, I think he chose Sussex at least in part because the band were based there. Quite how he was aware of them, I never fathomed. I basked a little in his reflected coolness; I listened to his records and went to gigs in the town’s pubs, and I bought the (signed) album before he did – but that, you see, was probably not cool (not least because I bought the record from the Virgin Megastore).
The cool kids at school were the ones who were ahead of the game. They weren’t slaves to fashion; they led the fashion. And they didn’t seem to try… cool should be effortless.
2. Umm…
@Bishbosh. It seems that we have similar tastes in films, as well as there being some bizarre transdimensional wormhole between our record collections… I was going to plump for “Heathers”, too.
But only because I like it. Christian Slater is some sort of cool in that movie. And so, I think, is Winona Ryder.
3. Bands can be cool to start with and then drop out of favour; how many people seriously think the Levellers are cool these days? Yet they were then. For a while. In Brighton.
A truly cool band has to remain outside of the mainstream, which probably means not making much money. Cool bands don’t have mega-huge hits with gentle ballads that they fail to mime on Top of the Pops.
I don’t think I know any cool bands. Were Curve cool? Lush, maybe?
4. The Levellers. No, not any more.
5. Dunno. My six year old says “Koo-el”.
Oh God, that All About Eve TOTP ‘performance’ still makes me cringe, Zalamanda. It was SO exciting that they had a huge hit and were on the Pops and then… that. Almost as excruciating as Five Star being asked on Saturday Superstore why they were so f***ing crap:
Except worse because I loved AAE. And Five Star were, let’s be honest, a bit crap.
I think AAE might have been cool before Martha.
Five Star were never cool.
Oh GOD no! They were atrocious. Even I was cooler than Five Star in the mid-80s. And I had teenage bumfluff and was dressed in C&A pastelwear.
At least AAE got invited back again the next week – and they got to do it live, too, I think.
Didn’t everyone wear C&A pastelwear in the mid 80s?
C&A was never a cool shop. I suppose it being a chain didn’t help. A cool shop is the little boutique in the low rent, difficult to find, part of town. The cool shops in Nottingham were all in Hockley. Most of the cool ones in Brighton were in the North Laine. Some were in The Lanes. The cool ones in Hull were … in Beverly?
I’d never seen that AAE clip before. Cringe.
It raises more interesting ideas about cool. Deliberately miming badly on TOTP has the potential to be cool. Looking a bit embarrassed about it definitely isn’t.
The cool-irnoy nexus is an interesting one. Cool demands total conviction and a certain hauteur. Equally, lacking self-awareness and taking yourself too seriously definitely isn’t cool.
(I thought Five Star were quite cool, but I was still at primary school)
Mr Z. says “Shiny” is a good synonym for cool. But probably best not applied to people. Geek-cool, I think.
Not a film, but how about cancelled sci-fi series “Firefly” for a cool audiovisual experience? Looks good, has the cachet of being too good to continue… We’re part way through a borrowed box set at the moment, and it is rather good.
Very good series, Z! I bought the boxset (on spec) for some ridiculous price like a fiver – how COOL is that?! The feature-film follow-up, “Serenity”, is worth a watch too.
Yeah, I think we’ve got that lined up, too.
GOod questions, Panthersan!
1. I think being cool is as much about what you don’t say or do as about what you do say or do. As long as when you do say or do something it’s the exact right thing. This is starting to sound like Dr. Seuss’s definition of cool! Also…this is something I’ve been thinking about since I had boys. (somebody once described Malcolm as intrinsically cool, by the way). I think that aloofness is sometimes seen as coolness, but Malcolm goes to school with much older kids (it’s 5-12) and I’ve always thought that the older kids that seemed coolest were the ones who were so not worried about looking cool that they weren’t afraid to interact with the little ones. In a cool way, of course.
2. Le Samourai, anything by Jim Jarmusch, The Big Sleep, Naked City…
3. Nina Simone, The Clash, RZA in anything by Jim Jarmusch
Back with more later… (I’m too cool to answer all the questions at the same time, see?)
I just bought an early Wailing Wailers album, and I have to add that Peter Tosh and Bob Marley were both cooler than cool in their own ways. Who feels it knows it.
Great quiz, Panthersan! Unfortunately for me, it requires more than 2 brain cells, so i’ll dash off some quickies, then refine when i’ve had a think.
1) Another dond for Bishbosh. By all of our answers, we have quite a collecting of dorks and nerds here on RR!
2) Donding Saneshane, i’m a film noir lover, i generally don’t do heartwarming or uplifting. But Blade Runner was a seriously cool film.
3) Was trying to think of cool artists, and all of the usual suspects flashed up “poseur” instead. So then i thought Bowie. But then read comments, and find i have to dond Ejaydee who nailed it and go with Miles. Genuine talent is a prerequisite for true cool i think.
4) Same as #4, came up with poseurs till i thought of Cary Grant in Hitchcock films. And not much cooler than Sean Connery as Bond.
5) Well, after the 60′s, we started using the word cool and it’s synonyms ironically, so maybe why my idea of cool is retro. So groovy maybe, but again I’ll dond Saneshane and say gnarly also, which we used to excess (ironically) after Sean Penn’s performance in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. And still do. (Now Spiccoli was cool.)
headslapper #3 – Keith Richards was and still is totally fucking cool. So there.
Wow, #4 must have looked weird as i’m female, i thought i was posting who i thought was cool on screen. Hmm, who did i think was cool as a teen? Male lead singers and guitarists in makeup.
Oh God, panthersan, you’ve got me spending far too much time thinking about this (which is clearly desperately uncool of me – why am I not out ‘enjoying’ the Great British summer?). Thankfully, I have become less and less obsessed with received notions of cool as the years have gone by. Consequently, I can now, eg, enjoy music that moves me without worrying how I will be perceived.
Some of my favourite bands and musicians are terminally uncool. Sometimes, said bands have attempted cool. Everything But The Girl spring to mind with their embracing of drum and bass/electronica with “Walking Wounded”/”Temperamental”. Frankly, I prefer the ‘uncool’ personal truths of “Amplified Heart” (pre-Todd Terry remixes), which strike me as less try-hard and therefore, paradoxically, cooler.
Right, I really am off to get a life (or at least something for dinner) now.
Everything But The Girl sort of skirted the edge of cool when Tracey provided some vocals for Massive Attack. Then they realised that they could do that themselves, and lo, they could: but the coolness had moved on from drum ‘n’ bass and besides, EBTG had had their moment of cool around the time of Eden… maybe.
Off to the library with the kids.
Are libraries cool?
There was a time where we used to speak of ‘hot jazz’, Hotness was not related to volume or tempo nor necessarily to the arrangements, it was inherent in the music, you could feel it, it was ‘energy’. Another word, another way of looking at it was that it swung, And then along came Miles with ‘The Birth of the Cool’ and the energy was transformed, swing was no longer the key element, ‘coolness’ prevailed. And a dress style accompanied it also, suits, ties, hats were in. Frank Sinatra was the epitomy of coolness, he worked at it in every way possible, look at and listen to any of his 50′s albums, Miles similarly adopted a ‘cool’ persona. Listen to my 1950′s Count Basie post on earworms and then try to visualise how Miles would have played that same tune, ‘swing’ is the key element. Basie swings.
1. Dress well, stay calm, keep quiet, let them think you’re a little crazy. I also like the mod ethos of clean living in difficult circumstances.
2. Donds to shane for A Matter Of Life And Death – “Andy Marvell – what a marvel!” I get pulled in a number of directions when I think about cool in cinema, probably because I’d imagine most people’s conceptions of being cool would involve the feeling of being in some sort of film so I would ricochet happily between Godard’s Une Femme Est Une Femme (representing the compulsory nouvelle vague quotient and because if any of us were ever cool, we would be knocking around with Anna Karina instead of clutching our one-way tickets to Palookaville); Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It (especially for the jazzy colour dance sequence); An American In Paris (mainly for Gene Kelly’s flat); Swingers; Round Midnight; Car Wash; Praise Marx And Pass The Ammunition [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066236/ ]; La Haine; and Harold and Maude. But the aesthetic in A Matter Of… and in Vittoria di Sica’s Bicycle Thieves may well top the lot for supremely cool film-making.
3. Difficult to beat the Miles Davis Kind Of Blue group but Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra provide a different kind of cool as do Gary Bartz’s Ntu Troop.
4. John Peel, probably. Glenn Hoddle. Linton Kwesi Johnson, then as now. And on other levels, the Don Warrington character, Philip, in Rising Damp; and Hywel Bennett in Shelley (until the series jumped the shark and he came off the dole).
5. Round these parts, it’s kewl, proper, safe, sound. Even more locally, “groovy” works for me.
John Peel! Almost the epitome of cool.
D’you know who is cool? Tin with his ‘Comments off’ adios, that’s who. Don’t be too much of a stranger, tinny, y’hear?
1. What’s YOUR definition of “cool”?
Cool is that aura that people give off when they know that they don’t have to try, because they are effortlessly secure in who they are.
2. What’s the coolest film ever made?
Film Noir has so much chic and cool that it is hard to get past that genre, all those sharp-suited private detectives and femmes fatales are the ultimate, and the big 50s musicals are also pretty cool, “Kiss Me Kate” is a huge favourite in that respect, I think, but I am going to go to Hitchcock, and the film has to be “To Catch a Thief” with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly.
3. Who are the coolest band ever (not necessarily the best)?
Gosh, that is a toughie. I think, on balance that it has to be The Clash.
4. What thing/person/action etc was the epitome of cool for you when you were younger? Do you still think so?
I always loved the whole 50s chic thing, even though I was a total hippy myself, so the style of 50s Hollywood female leads was the epitome of cool chic. Think Tippi Hedren in “The Birds”. I still think so, it is such a fabulous look and Joan Holloway in “Mad Men” has the same cool chic in buckets.
5. What synonyms did/do you have for “cool” in your part of the world?
Hmm, as a child of the 60s, “COOL” was the word, we accepted no imitations.
Obviously everyone here has their own definition of ‘cool’.
Another musical comment, Miles’ ‘Birth of… album was recorded in ’49, prior to that Charlie Parker had written and recorded ‘Cool Blues’, I don’t have a specific date for it but I’d guess ’46-47.
Cool Blues definitely isn’t musically ‘cool’, it’s a standard blues and is definitely ‘hot’, here ’tis:
And I must disagree with May re. Linton, he may fool you with his clothes but he’s definitely Hot! He’s passionate, there’s nothing ‘cool’ about his message.
Agreed about Linton’s passionate heat, GF, but my version of cool includes the sense of being unruffled even when you’re, y’know, ruffled – and that’s how I see LKJ.
I think hot and cool are two sides of the same coin. As I understand the terms in certain contexts.
Oh, and, meant to say…LKJ and Do the Right Thing, definitely two examples of blazing coolness.
wow! amazing answers everyone – just come back from the pub and am trying to digest them all…….what I do know is that all of the answers are far cooler than my own attempts….but that’s cool!
- as a Mod wannabe I love May1366′s answer to number one .
BB – I remember that 5 Star moment so vividly, it was the talk of the playground the next Monday
GF – I like the idea of whatever “swings” is cool – it’s just true
Zalamander – The Levellers at Brighton Centre was my first “big” concert, they were definitely cool in a dog-on-a-rope kinda way
aahh…Film Noir is way way too cool for me to get my crust around….but I love the idea of it
1. Cool’s a difficult one. You have to have poise but not be a poser. Swagger but not too much arrogance. Individuality but not forced quirkiness. The key, i think, is making whatever you choose to do look absolutely effortless, regardless of how contrived it might be.
2. Godard is the coolest director, picking a coolest film is hard though. It’s probably between Masculin Feminin, Two Or Three Things I Know About Her and La Chinoise.
3. It’s very tempting to say Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, there’s a strong argument for saying that Blixa Bargeld is one of the coolest men alive, but i might have to go for The Shangri Las. Everything about them, from the tough-girl attitude to the melancholy of the songs, was perfect. More recently, i have a lot of love for Tatu’s “us vs the world” mentality.
4. Bob Marley. I’ve been listening to him since i was in the cradle (my mother would play Buffalo Soldier to calm me down and get me to sleep) and he was an icon of cool throughout my childhood. He was a more complex figure than i knew at the time but still, very cool.
5. I love ‘nang’. It’s taken on a bit of a Nathan Barley edge in recent years but the idea of London’s multiracial youth using a loan-word from Bengali to describe something as cool is great.
I love Masculin/Feminin! I was thinking of Bande a Parte, too (not sure where the ‘e’s go. I think one of the things that’s appealing about the film is that Anna Karina’s character is supposed to be a bit uncool and hickish…but it’s Anna Karina!! So it just makes her sweeter and more cool than ever.
The madison is one of cinema’s coolest moments. And the poem on the metro. Sigh.
1. Attitude Originality x Confidence = Cool
2. Jean-Jacques Beineix – Diva. It’s those Frenchies again. Demonstrates the cool way to do jigsaw puzzles & make sandwiches, amongst other things.
3. The Birthday Party
4. William Burroughs, Serge Gainsbourg, Jim Morrison…….
5. Frosty
1. Effortless unflapabillity. Knowing exactly who you are & being comfortable with it.
2.There are way too may choices to be definitive so I’ll have to go with one from youth. The Long Hot Summer ’cause Paul Newman was way too cool to be true & Lee Remick was way to beautiful to be dancing on the balcony in her slip like that.
3.God lots of candidates. The Stones had great attitude but then Mick would try to dance & ruin the effect. Early Doors could work before Jim turned into a drunk. I guess I would have to say the original lineup of the Allman Brothers Band before Duane & Barry Oakley died. Those two could be playing the most full out rock jam imaginable & looked like they were in a zen trance.
4. When I was a teenager Steve McQueen without a doubt. And I thought surfing was the coolest thing that could be done. I still think it’s pretty cool.
5.As a teen it was “bitchin’” or “tough”. Too out of touch to say what it is now tho I’ve heard “clean” used.
1. Best observed than attained
2. ‘The Outsiders’ – Ralph Macchio, C Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Diane Lane and even Patrick Swayze. The cinematography reminiscent of ‘Rebel’ – cooooool!
3. The Cramps :
4. See above
5. dope, def, doo-doo …er that’s nice.
1. Being nice to everyone you meet.
2. The Music Box.
3. The Big Three.
4. Jimi Hendrix ‘s Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock. At the height of the Vietnam war, one of the biggest stars in the world made the most creative and subversive statement out of a conservative, patriotic and iconic anthem. He told us what it is. I’m surprised he didn’t get offed for it. And yes I still feel the same about it.
5. The gear.
1. If you can define it, it ain’t cool. If you have to ask, it still ain’t cool. Cool just is.
2. There are no cool films.
3. There are no cool bands.
4. 1st Roxy Music LP. Still cool, but in such a knowing way that it isn’t, really.
5. Cool.
I think it’s an amazingly misunderstood concept. Especially the antithesis, that things are somehow ‘not cool’. That used to mean squares who believed in marriage and a job. Now it means people who can actually write good songs. I’m personally not interested in the concept at all. It’s way too uncool to discuss frankly.
MAGICMAN – I thought my post was a paradigm of inverted coolosity, but bloody hell . . .
Like these questions but partly coz I cant get near the answers..which makes them ‘cool’, er.. n’est pas?
1) The objective definition is easier. I think possibly ‘Drimble Wedge and the Vegetations put it best when they said:
My own definition is probably somewhere in the line which goes ‘Im self-contained’ – although (to quote another chap who defined cool for me – Bob Dylan) ‘all these words have their own meanings’
2) Coolness of movie for me denpends so much on where my head is at at the time. Last week, for example, the coolest movie I could imagine was Mrs Miniver. A few week’s before that it was certain scenes from ‘Im not there’. Too tough to nail.
3) The Ramones, Television, Brett Smiley… aghh, too tough
4) From 5 – 10 years old – probably Brian Connelly of Sweet or Alvin Stardust..possibly The Ventures..
From 10 – 14.. I hate to admit this, but it was likely to have been Steve Howe from Yes..yikes!
From 14 – 16, I was probably trying to make it me
From 17, My world became Bob Dylan and the Velvets
From 20, Jonathan Richman and living in London or New
York
From 27, it was Tom Verlain or Mark Eitzel..
How far do you want me to go on?
5) The Hungarian words for ‘cool’ (in the definitive sense) include klassz and tőkjó – although heaven knows what they mean to Hungarians. The universal idea of ‘cool’ here is somehow missing..its a traditional society stuck in the past in many areas of its thinking..cool here surely relates to something very Hungarian indeed..beyond me in fact.. Cool in Russia (the last place I occupied) would almost certainly be an unreachable perfectionism. Painful in many ways.
1. Is there a single, transhistorical definition of cool, or is it redefined for every new decade? If it’s the former, it must have something to do with the effortless unflappability that Carole referred to; it always seems to involve a certain stillness and concentration in the moment – with the less attractive aspect of a fair amount of indifference to everything and everyone around. I can’t help feeling that cool people are basically closed in on themselves and and narcissistic, but then since I was never remotely in the same hemisphere as coolness that may be sour grapes.
2. Too many to list… Almost anything with Bogart in it, obviously, though I’d go for The Maltese Falcon where the entire cast seem to be trying to out-cool one another – Key Largo is fabulous, but for me it’s Lauren Bacall rather than Bogart who epitomises cool there. All the French New Wave stuff, with my vote going to Alphaville for the combination of Bogart-esque private eye cool, gleaming hi-tech future cool and the sheer effrontery of creating a gleaming hi-tech future without any special effects whatsoever.
3. Miles, obviously. The Velvet Underground, much as I dislike them. Bowie, at least some of the time (the Berlin period, definitely). And, erm, Kenickie.
4. Bogart, and more Bogart. Yes.
5. Absolutely no idea…
1. What’s YOUR definition of “cool”?
A complete indifference to social pressures and conventions. Cool people go their own way, do their own thing and don’t care whether anyone else likes or approves of it.
2. What’s the coolest film ever made?
French film noir has the edge here for me. Any other fans of Bob Le Flambeur?
3. Who are the coolest band ever (not necessarily the best)?
Liars
4. What thing/person/action etc was the epitome of cool for you when you were younger? Do you still think so?
Bob Dylan from the moment I first heard him in 1962. Not the epitome anymore, perhaps, but he’s still pretty cool.
5. What synonyms did/do you have for “cool” in your part of the world?
I’m with Carole on this. Cool all the way.
Liars are definitely cool. they may hang with the hip and clueless (actually it’s more like the other way round) but they do it their own way…much respect
It’s taken me a long time to get my head around this: so long that no-one will even read it….
My two certainties are a) that black & white film noir and fifties jazz clubs are, without doubt, cool, and b) that I have never been. A lot of you have similar perceptions.
I think the earlier usage of the word contained a certain je-ne-sais-quoi that people could aspire to without having the expectation that they’d get it. The ‘not-cool’ people were just an audience for the ‘cool’. But something has happened to the word and the concept over time (and I think I’ll blame the Thatcher-Reagan years for their worship of the individual over society) so that its latent cruelty has come to the fore. Along with the rise of celebrity worship, ‘cool’ has become something that people are encouraged to envy and spend money to achieve. And those that don’t now achieve ‘coolness’ because they don’t have the right gadget, bag, shoes, top, culottes (?!), are made to feel inadequate. There always was an insouciance about the word but it was only a cruel disregard for others’ opinions (a core part of any definition of the word, surely?) and not a put-down. Nowadays, it seems to be an almost wholly destructive concept as those who aren’t ‘cool’ (and are not willing to put in the effort/money to become ‘cool’) are not playing the social game and so are worthless.
The way that ‘geeks’ have become cool is, at first sight, a contradiction. But, when you put it in the context of capitalism, it’s just a way for money to be made from selling gadgets by portraying those with an enthusiasm for them as ‘cool’. And, once that step has been taken, products can be sold to us that are ‘ironic’ or ‘retro’ and so ‘cool’.
It is a word that used to imply something rather admirable and brave. It has become a word to use as a weapon, a double-edged sword, if you like. Pity.
Chris. I totally agree. My point is that the word is now un-cool in itself. If you want to hear the word overused to extremity, go to any Early Learning Centre where ‘right-on’ middle class parents are shouting things like “Oh look Toby, this book is key stage 4 – you did this last year, isn’t it cool” whilst rattling Toby’s buggy.
Once a word gets into common usage it loses its edge. I recall the words “Hep” and “Square”(meaning un-hep) being done to death by Hollywood movies and once saw a magazine article in about 1962 which was headlined “If you’re hip, don’t say hep”.
….that’s some deep stuff Chris! and I have to say it’s a a pretty solid argument, “cool” really has been commodified and worse still legitimised, by society. and I agree that it’s a destructive concept, …..that said, I still can’t help but be taken with the concept….taken at a distance of course…
I can’t help thinking about the question that wasn’t asked, namely, what’s the coolest book to be seen reading? The obvious reason is that, for most people and for most of modern popular culture, books are by definition uncool; but I imagine that those of us at the geeky intellectual end of things do, secretly or not, suffer from the delusion that certain books will make us look effortlessly intellectual and interesting. And if you don’t believe me, read Julian Barnes’ Metroland, which captures this perfectly (and painfully).
Naturally most of my choices would look best in the original, regardless of how well I can actually read them: Sartre’s L’age de raison, Baudelaire’s Les fleurs du mal, Perec’s Les choses. Not sure that German literature actually cuts it in the coolness stakes; maybe Sebald’s Schwindel. Gefuehle. For English lit, early J.G. Ballard short stories, or Paul Auster.
Oh, how you must have missed me…
Herman Hesse
even transcends a band naming themselves Steppenwolf -
think Siddhartha..
think Demian
think Glass Bead Game… even lending itself to:
‘the Glass Bead Shane’ – producing an outright Rock and Roll experience when the recording of a musical project i’d been dragged in to make, imploded on the second morning, when the sampler and lyrics where vomited over after 36 hours of drinking and – ahem – stuff, by a brilliant keyboard player, who clearly wasn’t capable of keeping up with me and my pals. (the music was *interesting* (the streets nicked our ideas a decade later)) but I took full advantage of 5 days none stop partying and that, as they say, is all that matters. ACES.
are we on seriously cool books?
bollox.
Madison Smartt Bell – you don’t have to read it, just drop the authors name into the comments ‘cos he sounds like he knows how to brandish a quill.
hey ya Abahachi, nice to have you back.
Well, I just read the new Le Carre before it was published. That might be cool. Possibly, reading it in a tent in Normandy might not be.
welcome back Aba (your eloquence was much needed (by me!) to help defend Cecil Taylor!!)
“coolest book to be seen with” – that’s a good one which I should have thought of……it has to be French or Russian surely?
Ooh, I like the book addition to the Qs. As an undergrad, I thought I was oh-so-cool reading “A la recherche du temps perdu” in the original (well, the first and last volumes anyway). Of course I wasn’t. All the really cool kids blagged it by reading the Penguin translation. If it’s Russian, it’s probably “The Master and Margarita”. Couldn’t get through it myself.
Chris you are absolutely spot-on there me old china plate. Cool is bullshit.
It’s horribly competitive and cruel. The In-Crowd is a good song about it all. But become completely meaningless marketing tool like so much of our existence. I scarcely watch TV now for fear of mental pollution, that I’ll start to become the same as everyone else with the same pre-occupations and gossip.
I’m way too cool for TV.
Cool books = graphic novels, the new way to make money out of young men
not that new obviously
Great questions around a very hazy concept and very much enjoyed reading the answers. In for a penny before I bugger off to try and make a carrot cake in a land bereft of self raising flour….
1. What’s YOUR definition of “cool”?
Being ostensibly outside mainstream culture, being totally and innately at ease with this ‘outsiderness’ so much so that you cast doubt on mainstream culture and make people think that the masses have got it all wrong… That do ya?
2. What’s the coolest film ever made?
Losey’s The Servant. No brainer. Music by Dankworth. Sixties tailoring and Dirk at his best. Not cool – glacial.
3. Who are the coolest band ever (not necessarily the best)?
The Kinks. Nick Cave and all his Bad Seeds. The Velvets.
4. What thing/person/action etc was the epitome of cool for you when you were younger? Do you still think so?
The Fonz. Yes, actually.
5. What synonyms did/do you have for “cool” in your part of the world?
Um.. Cool !
One who knows themselves enough to realize that they need not change anything about the fact. Someone who will say a piece of their mind on any given subject if called for in pure unadulterated honesty. Someone who isn’t afraid to flip a bird to the ‘in-crowd’ of their generation, not just for the sake of being the ‘outsider’, for they would realize the asininity of wearing a category/stereotype on their sleeve, but rather, flip ‘em the bird when they know & see that something’s just not real. They’re respectful when they’re supposed to be, got an attitude towards those who deserve it, got the romance of a dead 19th century libertine & the intelligence to back it up. Those who are ‘cool’ don’t entirely agree with being pigeonholed into the terminology of such. It’s too narrow-minded.
1. What’s YOUR definition of “cool”?
I’ll have to put down some multiple titles here.
Not in any specified ‘order of coolness-level’, for all these flicks kick some ass in their own ways.
Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas
Sherlock Holmes (yes the newest one, Robert Downey Jr. is the shit)
Don’t Look Back (I’ll have to agree with barbryn on that one)
Donnie Darko
amongst some others I’ll end up thinking of later..
2. What’s the coolest film ever made?
Hah! damn, that’s a tough one. Once again I’ll have to state some multiple answers, since I’m an avid listener of over 4000 bands & counting.. (not in order, again)
Pink Floyd (strictly the Barrett era)
Syd Barrett
The Velvet Underground
The Doors
The 13th Floor Elevators
Miles Davis
The Residents
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
The Mystic Tide
The Dead Weather
The Stooges
Robert Johnson
Anomalyensemble
I could go on & on..
3. Who are the coolest band ever (not necessarily the best)?
Arthur Rimbaud, definitely number 1, since he changed the course of consciousness for generations upon generations of juvenile delinquency, y’know.
Jack Kerouc!
Jim Morrison with his recklessness.
Syd Barrett with his artistic prowess.
Bob Dylan, just because he is.
Ville Valo (but NOT his music so much.)
Richie Manic
Ian Mcculloch
Jack White (indeed)
Alison Mosshart
I think a sort of controlled, specifically aimed revolt.
An intelligent motive with the street-punk moxie of a greaser. A touch of adequate sarcasm doesn’t hurt either.
4. What thing/person/action etc was the epitome of cool for you when you were younger? Do you still think so?
just cool, man.
5. What synonyms did/do you have for “cool” in your part of the world?