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[V-Adore]

I love the alt text; not only is it clever, but it's also true. I don't think I've ever encountered a Golden Retriever who didn't strike me as profoundly brain-damaged.

Anyway... this is a weird strip, but to me it's more genius than weird-out. C'est la vie.

[weareas1]

"It's very similar to an Fm."

Sounds the same to our ear, yes, and most people who play by ear or don't have theory training would hear that chord (or play it on their guitar) and call it an F minor.  Hell, that's what I'd call it if I was showing someone else what chord to play.  But in the key of C# (for instance), it would be improper to call it Fm -- you would call it E# minor, and you'd spell the chord as:  E#, G#, B#, not F, Ab, C, as you would spell an Fm.  Why?  Well, I'm glad that you asked, and to be honest, a bit surprised that you even care, but here it is:  It's because the diatonic major scale in the key of C# would be:  C#, D#, E#, F#, G#, A#, and B#.  Yep, 7 sharps, and you'd put all seven of them on the staff in your key signature when you're writing something out in C#.  Otherwise, you'd run the risk of confusing someone who was attempting to sight-read the piece (by calling notes and chords by their enharmonic names, i.e.  E# = "F", or  B# = "C"). 

It'll still be kinda confusing to them, though -- that's a lot of sharps to keep track of on the page and on your axe.  They'd probably be happier if you had written your piece out in Db, which would sound exactly the same, but have fewer accidentals to keep track of (Db has 5 flats, as opposed to C#'s 7 sharps).  In Db, it would be legal and proper to call that chord Fm.  BTW, the key of F# (six sharps) also contains the controversial and contentious E#.

Having said that, I'm guessing that Onstad referred to it as E#m just because he thought its oddness made for a mildly funny musical joke.  Or maybe he just likes the damn key of C#.

Great strip, BTW.  So very, very much to recommend about it. 

[mrdna1]

"It's very similar to an Fm."

Sounds the same to our ear, yes, and most people who play by ear or don't have theory training would hear that chord (or play it on their guitar) and call it an F minor.  Hell, that's what I'd call it if I was showing someone else what chord to play.  But in the key of C# (for instance), it would be improper to call it Fm -- you would call it E# minor, and you'd spell the chord as:  E#, G#, B#, not F, Ab, C, as you would spell an Fm.  Why?  Well, I'm glad that you asked, and to be honest, a bit surprised that you even care, but here it is:  It's because the diatonic major scale in the key of C# would be:  C#, D#, E#, F#, G#, A#, and B#.  Yep, 7 sharps, and you'd put all seven of them on the staff in your key signature when you're writing something out in C#.  Otherwise, you'd run the risk of confusing someone who was attempting to sight-read the piece (by calling notes and chords by their enharmonic names, i.e.  E# = "F", or  B# = "C"). 

It'll still be kinda confusing to them, though -- that's a lot of sharps to keep track of on the page and on your axe.  They'd probably be happier if you had written your piece out in Db, which would sound exactly the same, but have fewer accidentals to keep track of (Db has 5 flats, as opposed to C#'s 7 sharps).  In Db, it would be legal and proper to call that chord Fm.  BTW, the key of F# (six sharps) also contains the controversial and contentious E#.

Having said that, I'm guessing that Onstad referred to it as E#m just because he thought its oddness made for a mildly funny musical joke.  Or maybe he just likes the damn key of C#.

Great strip, BTW.  So very, very much to recommend about it. 

that, and technically an Fm and an E#m should sound different, at least if played in pure intonation. ah well, someday I'll learn to turn that sort of thing off and just enjoy the damn strips.

I dunno about Onstad's musical knowledge ... he did some pretty interesting/possibly stolen stuff with Ray's piano playing and (I think) what Téodor wrote for Click-Bot's funeral, but I also remember a strip or two involving more or less random musical notation. so ...

[theinevitable]

No... but it is supremely hip to ironically pose as one.

Hence all those douchebag blowdried actors and singer with the trucker hats a few years back.

So, in other words, it is supremely un-hip to pose as one? Or are we in such fast cycles now that doing something hip people were doing 3 years ago is retro?

[littlefallsmets]

Well, you need to remember:

Being hip is about the worst thing you can be in the world. Being hip is like not only having leperosy but also suffering from the delusion that leperosy is awesome and everyone likes being around a leper.

[theinevitable]

damn dude, I have to disagree with you there.

[littlefallsmets]

What's so good about being hip?

Even if you're hip because you're genuinely into the currently hip stuff, everyone else is glomming onto your shit and... eventually, you get addicted to the feeling of being hip and start liking the idea of being hip so much that you start chasing after the hipness and... everything goes to shit.

Nah, best to stay as unaware of what is and is not hip as possible.

It's the only way it doesn't end up ruining whatever you're into.

[theinevitable]

I don't know. I still have a feeling like these Hipsters everyone talks about are my friends, except the people like my friends that I don't know. The people my friends call hipsters are all really just kids who are English majors that are really into being Intellectual, which is not really what Hip means to me.
Really, the straw that broke my back or whatever was seeing this girl I dislike walk into a party that was all of my friends and start ripping it apart as "a bunch of drunk hipster douchebags" &c. That is the point where I decided that I hate the whole Hipster concept.

Also, based on her characterization, being a hipster means assiduously trying to avoid being classified as a hipster, and really liking rad music and art and stuff.

I don't know. I think I haven't lived anyplace with real "hipsters" either. When I see people wearing weird clothes, I assume that they are into things I like and will be interesting.

Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane were hip, and will be hip forever. That's all I need to tell me that you are wrong.

[littlefallsmets]

No no no, y'see... Coltrane and Davis were cool. Hendrix was awesome. Charlie Parker was a'ight.

MTV's Jesse Camp was "hip". Ashton Knudsen was "hip". Dave Matthews was "hip" and so was Bruce Springsteen. Paris Hilton and, like, Bo Bice were "hip". Pauly Shore was "hip". In the late 1800s, seances were "hip". Phish was "hip".

I... maybe this is something that only years of experience can distinguish, I dunno.

Hip is an ephemeral state of "in-ness" created not by the intrinsic radness of the item in question but by the fickle whims of the current zeitgeist and the often ironic decisions of whoever the tastemakers are at that moment.

Guns N Roses were awesome, Bon Jovi was hip.

I cannot explain it any more clearly than that.

[Golfhaus]

Guns N Roses were awesome, Bon Jovi was hip.

I cannot explain it any more clearly than that.

I have given you a can. I can't explain it any better than THAT.

[AugustWest]

In the late 1800s, seances were "hip". Phish was "hip".

Huh.  I didn't know Phish had been around that long. 

But seriously folks.  Being hip or a hipster or whatever the fuck you want to call it is a great thing to be -- at a certain point in your life.  Trying not to be patronizing here, but when you're in college is when you ought to be up on all the cultural latest and greatest.  Over-emphasize that past a certain point and well...

Also, it's important to draw the line between hipness and douchebaggery.  It's never wrong to like good things.  I will enjoy Theolonius Monk and Bob Dylan until the day I die.  The decline into douchebaggery occurs when we wear our vast cultural knowledge on our sleeves and believe our taste makes us superior creatures.

Finally, just because some insecure asshole at a party insults you doesn't make it true.

[littlefallsmets]

Oh, I'm not saying that this person at this party was right about your friends.

Your friends probably aren't hipsters, they're probably just people who like some things passionately.

I'm just saying... that which passes, passes like clouds, you know.

To get too knowledgable/to get too worked up about whisps in the sky that'll be there for five minutes... just because there are people running around, saying that you're supposed to be because oh man those clouds are so "now"...

Unhealthy path.

[wombat]

The decline into douchebaggery occurs when we wear our vast cultural knowledge on our sleeves and believe our taste makes us superior creatures.

It's a crying shame that that sentence is too long to make a good tshirt.

[jay-ell]

Why not just make a t-shirt with the words "VAST CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE" on the sleeve, and wear it ironically? 

[theinevitable]

The idea that Phish could ever have been hip is just... that is just a lie. Phish were popular maybe, but that is not at all the same as hip. Phish are too dorky to ever have been hip. Phish are for yuppies. Jazz musicians are the essence of hip, and to suggest otherwise is just silly. They goddamn invented hip.

The thing that really gets me is that... among my friends, at all the schools they've gone to, it's like a Hip Witch Hunt. Between music blogs and pitchfork and whatever else, everyone is incredibly aware of what is Hip, and they feel like they have to go to extraordinary links to prove that they are NOT HIP. And that is some straight-up bullshit. You get these people being all "yeah, I mean, I really like Vampire Weekend. They're a rad band. But, you know, I'm just waiting for the inevitable hipster backlash, hahahaha."
I've met lots of people who like things that are Hip, but never someone who wouldn't be incredibly offended to be called a hipster. That, quite frankly, is ridiculous.
I mean, when people at the radio station ask what I play on my show, and I say "indie rock," they give me Looks. What the hell is that? There's like a competition, it feels like, among the DJs to prove how UnHip they are. "I really like Michael Jackson! *scrutinizes my face to see any hint that I don't like Michael Jackson, so the kid can call me an elitist hipster*" Any time we penalize someone for playing, you know, Tori Amos or whatever, we get accused of being Elitists. And it's like... Yeah. We're a college radio station.