Saturday Photo Blog / Guest Column: The Unknown Hipster Reviews Campus Art!

Just how important WAS the Das Racist/local hip-hop showcase this week? It was so important that A. Ruscin showed up and took pictures of it. The demographic seems to have skewed about as white and nerdy as expected (this fellow even has the classic taped-up glasses look). Identify this adorable couple and win a beer (and check out Ruscin's full spread at L.com):
















Rumors have long been circulating about the return of Vermont Street BBQ, Larryville's much-missed scenester barbecue joint. The rumors seem to be true, as we've now spotted with our own eyes a menu posted on the door of the former Joe College t-shirt shop (which was, as we all know, driven into exile due to The Man, who couldn't tolerate Joe's hilarious infringement on Jayhawk rights). Take a look at the Monday special at the new Vermont Street:















A bunch of townies: "Decent, but not enough to lure us away from Monday nights at Free State."

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We love artists who devote themselves fully to their work, such as KU textiles major Neil Goss (photo below), who will spend the rest of the semester working from inside a “truncated, inverted teepee...constructed entirely from foraged tree limbs and materials" and located in the wooded area near Lindley Hall (www.ku.edu).

Chip: "I think this guy is some sort of hobbit."

"While in the studio he’ll be doing his ceramic, dyeing and weaving work that he would have done indoors...Goss will post signs outside the studio explaining the work and will invite interested parties inside to learn more. He has scheduled a series of performances to demonstrate various natural techniques...On Earth Day, April 22, he will collaborate with dance students Jennifer Walker and Raylene Gutierrez for “The Earth Dance.” (www.ku.edu).

We're very pleased that our friend The Unknown Hipster saw fit to send us a guest column with his/her thoughts on the matter. We're pretty sure this piece uses the word "hipster" a record number of times for a single post, and that's saying something! Enjoy.

Your friendly local Unknown Hipster files the following report from the field: I don't normally like things. I especially don't normally like hipsters, as it is hip not to like hipsters. And because most of my friends are hipsters, naturally. And when I say "naturally," I mean that it's because Lawrence is one Midwestern natural habitat of hipsters and there's no avoiding those fuckers. But I like my friend Neil, who is either the ultimate hipster-cum-hippie or the antithesis of a hipster. You be the judge...

Neil was recently featured as an artist [10 hipster points; to be a hipster, you have to be an artist or wish you were an artist or be regularly boning an artist] on the KU Homepage [-5 points; decidedly too much mainstream, non-hipster attention]. The feature wasn't so much about his art as his art process [2 hipster points, for being recognized as an artist without being recognized for the art itself] as his art studio, which he describes as a "truncated, inverted teepee" [2 hipster points; Native Americans are in]. This teepee isn't really anything like a teepee in shape and form; it's more like a wrap-around cloth fence. Multicolor cloth [1 hipster point; black or multicolor are the only appropriate hipster color palates]. The posts of this fence are made from foraged tree limbs [10 hipster points for being eco-friendly; but -3 hipster points because Neil doesn't have an ounce of "eco-friendly is better than you" in his body, believe it or not], and the dye is all-natural. I know how the dye was made, but Neil's not saying, so I'm not saying. The posts are buried in the ground, and according to the Homepage [-1 hipster points, again] article, Neil will be doing all his all-natural textiles art [5 hipster points for using cloth as art... all-natural, hand-made, self-dyed cloth art!] in this all-natural [1 hipster point, again] "Earthway studio" for the rest of the semester [-5 hipster points for being willing to get dirty and cold for the sake of art]. This, as Neil clarifies, is a traditional Native American way of preparing textiles, and Neil wants to preserve and explore this approach to textiles.

Neil is also the costumer for local hipster-folk phenoms Mammoth Life [30 hipster points]. His latest collection moved the band away from proto-pirate/17th-century French aristocracy (according to this hipster's sartorial interpretation) toward mid-20th-century prairie homesteaders. Whether Neil will be creating any new Mammoth Life costumes in the Earthway studio remained unclear from the article, which you can read here So, although Neil's hipster points total 47, keep in mind that even from this total hipster asshole's point of view, Neil's a really nice dude [-47 hipster points] who's got his head on straight about art. If you're on campus, I encourage you to look lovingly upon his Earthway studio.