HAGS
In which I confess to having a vintage typewriter
Dear Reader,
Happy summer. In my experience summer in stories usually goes a few ways: bright sun with dark underbelly (see: Midsommar, Rebecca, L’Avventura, that one scene in Zodiac) or frothy fun, fleeting summer romance (Roman Holiday, “Summer Loving” in Grease, etc.). But my summer — or at least this summer has been a lot about getting over myself.
What do I mean? I was a comparative literature major at Berkeley, a college known for many things including, naturally, a certain literary snobbishness/pretentiousness. When I went there I was terrified of being pretentious – still am, possibly to an insane degree.
This fear of pretentiousness scared me away from even thinking about reading Kafka or Nietszche for years because of the people I encountered who loved them – I’m thinking about one guy in one class in particular, who I called Nietzsche Boy in my head because he literally could not make a single comment without somehow working Nietzsche in. And it was almost always so he could struggle his way through pronouncing Thus Spake Zarathustra.1 (This man is probably a banker now.)
Anyway, I went to college from 2009-2012, which was, for those who remember, the era of Peak Hipster. And hipster(ism?) and pretentiousness go together like peanut butter and jelly, so naturally I was also terrified of being a hipster.2 I wanted to be an individual and being an individual at Berkeley (in my mind, at least) meant not being a pretentious hipster but instead being … something else. Ill-defined even in my own head, mostly just Not A Pretentious Hipster.
But I always loved a lot of the things pretentious hipsters loved. (Except scarves. Never scarves.) And as I got older I realized that I’d actually kept myself away from hobbies or interests because of this fear of being pretentious. (Which, let’s face it, is very similar to the fear of not being cultured enough or cool enough to fit in with the reigning hipsters themselves — two sides of the same coin, Batman and the Joker, etc.) So (finally) to my point: this summer I’m embracing all the “pretentious” “hipster” hobbies I probably wouldn’t have indulged, and I am LOVING it.
To wit:
Black and white photography
A vintage typewriter and a sketch I made of said vintage typewriter3
Reading big, weird books
And I’m having a great time. Remember when someone would sign your yearbook HAGS which seemed like a slur but was actually a time-saving “Have a great summer”? I am HAGS (having a great summer). And you can, too! Be as “pretentious” as you want! No one actually gives a fuck.
HAGS!
Cassandra
P.S. I don’t think hipster is really a thing anymore? Gen Z, please write in.
Fake news corner: The real tyrants.
Real news corner: This guy is kind of the real-life “The Bear.”
Quote of the month: “You know what they say about these waters? If these Jamaican pirates don’t get you it’ll be the cold embrace of the sea. And that’s no lover’s kiss.”
– From the lightly terrible but pretty fun movie The Deep
To be fair, I can’t say it either.
Do you see a pattern?
I know….