Continue reading »]]> Since m1k3y just declared flâneur to be the word of the week and thinking on that very subject helped inspire me to quit Facebook, I thought I’d share another old essay that, once upon a time, helped define some of the sensibility of this blog.

Allow me to introduce, The Data Dandy.

The data dandy collects information to show off and not to transmit it.
He is well-, too-well, or even exaggeratedly well-informed. Pointed
questions are met with unwanted answers. He always comes up with
something different. The phenotype of the data dandy is as feared as was his historical predecessor, whose playground was the street and the
salon. The elegant extravagance with which he displays the most detailed trivia shocks the practical media user. The data dandy makes fun of the gauged consumption and the measured intake of current news and amusement, and doesn’t worry about an excess or overload of specialized knowledge. His carefully assembled information portfolio betrays no constructive motive. He goes to the greatest effort to appear as arbitrary as possible. One wonders: why did the data-head want to know all this stuff? He zaps not out of boredom, but out of unwillingness to keep abreast of current events and everybody else’s latest worries.

The screen is the mirror at which he performs his toilet. The buttoning
and unbuttoning of textile dandyism has found its successor in the
channel surfing of on/off decadence. Wrapped in the finest facts and the
most senseless gadgets, the new dandy deregulates the time economy of the info = money managers. He spends most of his computing time on the luxurious decoration of his hard disk and the creation of sophisticated circuits among thousands of heterogeneous software trinkets. The PowerBook as an ornament is the pride of many a salon digitalist. He derides actuality, hype and fashion; wherever he shows up, there briefly appears a self that is its own anchorperson.

You can read the rest here.

There’s more another (the same) essay on The Data Dandy here, though it requires some scrolling and yet another variation here.

Continue reading »]]> The Buddhist meditates on his breath and is thought deep. The dandy meditates on his cufflinks and is thought shallow.

From the Samurai Monk, Yamamoto Jocho:

Among the maxims on Lord Naoshige’s wall there was this one: “Matters of great concern should be treated lightly.” Master lttei commented, “Matters of small concern should be treated seriously.”

From the Victorian Dandy, Oscar Wilde:

“We should treat all the trivial things of life seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality.”

Martial arts concentrates not on big things but on small ones. Posture, breath, the placement of a foot and the most efficient route of a hand as expressed in a blow. The dandy’s art is similar in its focus. It pays attention to the details. The cut of the collar, the stitches and the most efficient use of cloth as expressed in the fit.

Just as the shaolin monks elevated movement to the level of meditation, the dandy elevates dressing to the level of kung fu.  And just as many people may keep a statue of the Buddha while ignoring his tenets, many may affect the clothing of the dandy without remotely resembling one.

It is these men, these poor beasts of fashion, which have garnered the dandy his reputation for shallowness. For yes, the dandy is shallow but not in the manner of some status-obsessed, label whore. He is shallow in the sense of the stoic who cautions against adding to their troubles with imagination. He may judge your clothes and your manners but not your soul. He will draw no conclusions. He may be vain but it is a vanity born from death. It is the understanding that all is in vain and nothing more so than beauty.

You may ask him for rules. You will receive none.

What makes a dandy a dandy? Certainly, the dandy wears his clothes “wisely and well.” On the other hand, anybody could do this without being a dandy. What is necessary is a certain artistic quality which needs to be firmly established in the dandy’s way of clothing and makes him of a “Poet of Cloth.” the dandy is a person who behaves like a dandy or simply has the dandy’s style. However, the biggest fault one could commit  is to believe the dandy is a dandy because he follows the rules of dandyism . . . It is possible to follow certain rules which constitute the being of dandyism but not everyone who does so is a dandy. Things are even more complex: One of the first rules of dandyism is to follow no rules at all.

Dandyism is the construction of self. What rules are there to follow? Who would make them? Who could?

Consider this:

Of interest to Foucault is less Baudelaire as a poet than as archetypal dandy—one who makes of “his body, his behaviour, his feelings and his passions, his very existence, a work of art” (McNay 88). Baudelaire epitomizes, in some sense, the modern imperative of an ascetic reinvention of the self — “to take oneself as an object of complex and difficult elaboration.” Somewhat surprisingly, Charles Taylor makes a connection between Baudelaire’s dandy and the Stoic hero, who share an ethic of self-elaboration through rules and practices, not as imposed moral imperatives but rather as selfstyled principles of thought and action. Echoing not only Pater and Wilde but also the young Marx—a coupling which itself speaks volumes about the tensions in Foucault’s work— Foucault laments the specialization of art in modern society. “What strikes me,” he relates, “is the fact that in our society art has become something which is related only to objects and not to individuals, or to life, that art is something which is specialized or which is done by experts who are artists”

And contrast:

As we have seen, the Foucaultian self is nonessentialist—an amalgam, as it were, of possibilities. Similarly, within Buddhist tradition and Chan/Zen more specifically, the self may be best considered “a storehouse of creative possibilities.” According to at least one understanding of Zen, humanity’s “fallen” condition, its ignorance and its finitude, do not stem from an intellectual error to be rectified by the knowledge of certain deeper truths, but from an “error” in being itself. To overcome this “error”one must overcome one’s self as is usually understood, awakening to a new provisional or pragmatic “self”—rooted in a deep awareness and experience (i.e., “realization” in both senses) of its own ultimate “emptiness.” Put otherwise, this new “self” is nothing less than the principle of awakening (Jp.satori) in every human being, the so-called “Buddha-nature” that frees a person from the limitations of the fictive subjectivity that we commonly take for granted as being essential, stable, and even immortal.

Only those who know death can walk this path. The way of the dandy is death.

Life is a vanity. A ritual. Meaningless, futile yet capable of beauty. We all stand upon the deck of Titanic. While other men panic, while they try to escape or do one great final thing, the dandy puts on his best suit. It is ridiculous. What isn’t? Every day we face death. As men. Absurd.

There is no me. There is no such thing as dandyism. If you meet Buddha in the road, kill him.

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Toronto Life decided that I’m one of the city’s twelve most stylish people. The wife still can’t believe they didn’t go with the pic of me eating tacos in my underwear.

I can’t believe they actually got a usable photo. I’m pretty stiff in front of a camera and don’t like being told what to do.

Anyway, if you’re coming over from that article: Hi. I’m Ryan. Please take some time to be offended by the archives.

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I first heard of Jacques de Bascher when a friend lent me a copy of The Beautiful Fall: Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris.

I never finished that book. It bored me stupid, actually.

Lurking.

But the character of Jacques de Bascher caught my attention.

On the far right.

Insofar as being a muse can be called a function, he functioned as a muse to Karl Lagerfeld. He follows a certain dandyish template that I like — let’s call it the charming satanist– and, according to Agenda Inc. the “notorious Moratoire Noir party organized by Jacques de Bascher which introduced the fashion world – for the first time – to the darker edges of the Parisian suburbs and Mapplethorpian quantities of leather.”

I did find his pretensions to French aristocracy to be, well, pretensions to French aristocracy.

Like most people in the book, he’s fairly disagreeable but what he lacks in character is mitigated by what he lacked in good intentions. (One can forgive anything except meaning well.) Pictures do him less justice than words, which, in this case, is a good thing. My favorite is below.

Continue reading »]]> A fairly decent short news report on Chappism, which has spread to France.

While I don’t consider myself a chap and chaps don’t consider me a chap, I do feel a certain affinity with this group and view them as friendlies. We share many common points. (Both in insurrectionist methodology and style.) I suspect that we’re all the seed-bearing fruit dropped from the tree of punk.

I just don’t like movements very much.

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Yesterday, when Mubarak finally resigned, I was at my tailor.

Dandyism and revolution have long made strange bedfellows. Eons before the British mocked the American revolutionaries with their song of Yankee Doodle Dandy some of our better dressed people have done much to overthrow the powers that be in politics and culture.

If a camera phone is now a molotov cocktail then dressing well can surely be considered a barricade. One to be erected and breeched. It often has been considered just that. By dandies of both the proletariat and elite.

In some respects, dandyism can best be understood as revolt against the daily mundane.  Against the dominant value system of the day.

In his 1863 essay The Dandy Baudelaire wrote:

Fastidious, unbelievables, beaux, lions or dandies: whichever label these men claim for themselves, one and all stem from the same origin, all share the same characteristic of opposition and revolt; all are representatives of what is best in human pride, of that need, which is too rare in the modern generation, to combat and destroy triviality. That is the source, in your dandy, of that haughty, patrician attitude, aggressive even in its coldness. Dandyism appears especially in those periods of transition when democracy has not yet become all-powerful, and when aristocracy is only partially weakened and discredited. In the confusion of such times, a certain number of men, disenchanted and leisured ‘outsiders’, but all of them richly endowed with native energy, may conceive the idea of establishing a new kind of aristocracy, all the more difficult to break down because established on the most precious, the most indestructible faculties, on the divine gifts that neither work nor money can give.

It often parodies the uniforms of the dominant power and undercuts them.

Monica Miller, who wrote Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of the Black Disaporic Identity says:

Although dandyism is often considered a mode of extremely frivolous behavior attentive only to surfaces or facades and a practice of the white, European elite and effete, I argue that it is a creative and subtle mode of critique, regardless of who is deploying it. Though often considered fools, hopelessly caught up in the world of fashion, dandies actually appear in periods of social, political and cultural transition, telling us much about cultural politics through their attitude and appearance. Particularly during times when social mores shift, style and charisma allow these primarily male figures to distinguish themselves when previously established privileges of birth and wealth, or ways of measuring social standing might be absent or uncertain. Style—both sartorial and behavioral— affords dandies the ability and power to set new fashions, to create or imagine worlds more suited to their often avant-garde tastes. Dandyism is thus not just a practice of dress, but also a visible form of investigating and questioning cultural realities.

Yesterday, while I was at my tailor a dictator fell. I wore a pink suit and was being filmed by Jamie Woo for a series on Toronto’s most stylish men. Not sayin’ I had anything to do with Mubarak’s resignation but, c’mon, just look at this thing.

It took a pink suit for me to notice that almost everyone in snowbound Toronto dresses in brown, grey, navy blue or black. You might see the odd flash of a red scarf. The only things on the street as colorful as me are the advertisements and store signs. Humans seem to cower before these neon displays with monkish humility.

This does not mean I should be confused with an advertisement. I am not that.

Not usually, at least.

But I find it fascinating that a bright suit feels like a revolution against the dominant consumerism. A declaration of human independence from and equality with the glowing strip-club sign. And I find it interesting that so many people are offended by such a display and that so many more are afraid of offending them.

Indeed, people who like my clothing often congratulate me on my bravery.

It’s fucking absurd.

As is equating dandyism with revolution.

But could anyone ever seriously claim that our world has been stripped clean of absurdity? That absurdity is not an exception but the rule? To make such a claim would be simply  . . .

The only claim that I am trying to make here is that dandyism is more often than not a force that springs from the same souce as revolution. While it is often associated with social climbers or members of the elite, these are the rarities. Much more common than the Beau Brummels are the Baudelaires, the Wildes and the Félix Fénéons.

Most recently added to this tradition, is The Worker Dandyist International and their manifesto.

Though I loathe labels and manifestos and dandyism is notoriously resistant to them, I believe this one is worth a look.

If only to counterbalance the common assumption that dandyism is the playground of the elites. That the tradition of teddy boys, punks, artists, authors, sapes and the dispossessed is somehow less worthy than the tradition of swanky nobles, fascist stormtroopers like James Bond and celebrities. That money is more important than creativity.

It’s not.

It never will be.

And neither will ever be as important as buttons that actually work.

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As I child, I’d watch Blue Jays games with Dad. The bat cracked, the ball sent on a line into a gap for a sure double. We’d hold our breath.

Devon White loped towards it. Then, somehow, he’s there. Waiting.

Never seemed to speed up. Always seemed to jog. But his glove always found the the ball. I even remember how he caught them. Chest high. Two hands. Textbook. No problem.

Dad always said the same thing: “He makes it look easy.”

And he did. Even when he made the greatest world series catch since Willie Mays in 1954, he still made it look easy. Then he said: “It came easy. Pretty much. It looked a lot harder. To me, I thought, the ball’s in the park. I gotta make that play.” But does anyone actually think that was easy? Does he?

There is a word for this:  Sprezzatura.

As Count Ludovico says in Castiglione’s “Book of the Courtier,” sprezzatura “is an art which does not seem to be an art. One must avoid affectation and practice in all things a certain sprezzatura, disdain or carelessness, so as to conceal art, and make whatever is done or said appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it. Obvious effort is the antithesis of grace.”

This concept exists in all things that require effort. Sports, dressing and the arts. It’s making it look easy. Making the impossible appear natural.

Dad would also say: “The great ones always make it look easy.”

In prose, I can think of no better example than Oscar Wilde. His epigrams sound obvious and inevitable. “The only worse than being talked about is not being talked about.” They’re so casual and to the point that one easily misses his balance of words. One hears the sharpness but, perhaps, fails to notice than any word added or taken away would destroy the wit.

At his leisure?

His books, plays and poems all have the same nonchalant air. One can imagine him dashing off  ”The Importance of Being Earnest” in an afternoon. This illusion of ease was purposeful. He carefully cultivated this lie of “genius” for years. He hid his long hours of work then performed his intelligence like a parlor trick.

One wonders if such deception is even possible today. Given the amount of low-grade, social contact we have, through facebook, twitter and the like, interested parties would surely detect that Oscar was awake at all hours or discover, through his absence, that he must actually be working.

He thought long and hard on how to wear the watch that made it look like he wasn't thinking at all.

The difficulty of achieving sprezzatura has led to its exact opposite. People now publicly wallow in their work. There is no decision or thought tool little to agonize over. Showing effort has become a good thing. And unlike most good things, it has also become desirable.

There is, of course, a benefit to this. Sprezzatura has always had an element of cowardice. If this doesn’t work out, well, it doesn’t matter very much because I didn’t really try. When properly cultivated, it is a perfect defense. Sprezzatura suggests someone walking away from a failed romantic encounter and saying: I never liked you anyway or playing hard to get just to defend their heart from the difficulties of love. Often, it’s much safer to avoid committing yourself.

Taken to its logical extreme sprezzatura is the sweatpants of life.

An ostentatious display of comfort.

And by revealing the work, one makes it easier for others to follow. You cannot ape genius or talent or any god-given, mysterious nonsense but you can work hard. Anyone can hustle. By being frank about the work, we open art to imitators. This is what most people call democratization. It’s what I call bollocks.

Because, even here, sprezzatura rears its head.

Now, instead of exalting a talent for something, we exalt the work ethic behind it. When we talk of a Roy Halladay we do not so much discuss his talent for pitching as we do his amazing talent for showing up early and working out. Drudgery has become the new hero. We worship push-ups instead of perfect games.

Frankly, I prefer to worship perfect games.

But I council moderation.

One should be frank and open. One should never be afraid to say they tried just to hedge their ego against failure.

But even if we forget to make the difficult look easy, we should certainly avoid making the easy look difficult. By placing too high a value on work, we risk losing any benefit from showing the effort. The benefit is not about us but about those people who would follow us. Talent is a mysterious and desirable lure. More push-ups are just that.

There is no glamor or grace here.

As a child, I wanted to catch the ball like Devon White. I did not want to perform his work out regime.

As an adult I know that even if I had of performed his work out regime, I still never would have caught the ball like that.

I also know that I value magic higher than drudgery. Luckily, the choice is not between them. The best choice is the most moderate and the most difficult. To avoid wallowing in either while celebrating both. To understand that without the work, the magic would be impossible and without the magic, the work would be pointless.

We must simply avoid thinking that there’s anything magic about work.

There’s not.

Continue reading »]]> I wanted a simple grey suit. Something dark and conservative. A counterbalance to my more outlandish choices.

It is a classic choice and a male style staple. This potato of suits looks good. I have not given up on the idea. But I have slightly delayed it.

Because, when I entered my tailor’s shop and had a look through the library of cloth, at the various patterns and weights, my ideas of simplicity crawled to a room in the back of my mind and curled up in a ball.  Hearing them whimper, I rubbed my forehead and sighed. Fuck it, I thought. You can’t fight against your nature.

I chose this instead.

So much for grey.

Until Thursday, that is, when I will be picking some grey cloth.

My first choice was the outlandish one. While there are a myriad of reasons to dress like an accountant at a funeral, there is only one reason not to: Because your nature demands otherwise. At least, until Thursday. Then the sedate, classic choice is the correct one.

A suit like this will not encourage the bank to lend me money or make a good impression on anyone. Indeed, it’s a bit of a “fuck you” to the world and, as such, increases the chances of violence being worked on my person. It’s impractical.

But, I was a practical man, I would spend my money at the bar rather than the tailor. I would spend my free time in hobbies more fruitful and profitable than writing science fiction novels. I would look for spiritual guidance in a church rather than on a baseball diamond and I would probably have amassed a small fortune by now.

Sometimes, I look in the mirror and think I should do all that. Buckle down, be sensible, upright and a well respected man rather than a dedicated follower of fashion on a dead end street. But I don’t think it for very long. After all, I am looking in the mirror and my tie probably needs straightening. And that, at least, is a problem I can handle.

Because as much as I am stuck being me, I can still change my clothes.