JAW ON THE FLOOR: Starbucks to Release Sonic Youth Celebrity Compilation (WTF)

I think his argument hinges on the last sentence you quoted, that said spaces (and starbucks) have all the semiotic value of an ampersand

Guys, Bob already explained that he's merely expressing a bunch of ridiculous opinions that he himself doesn't really believe, I don't know why you're still trying to engage him in any kind of debate. He's having an out-of-argument experience, floating above us all.

Alex, I'm killing time before leaving work.

Tom, that last sentence scans if you buy the sentence before it, which I do not.

social success vs. social failure here I think really boils down to whether you share a particular sort of optimism with regards to other people (that if you get to know them they're all okay, everybody should talk more) or don't (fuck people wtf I want to deal with them for) or alternatively whether you lean more towards walker percy or, like, foucault (which I certainly prefer the former but am generally not that naive when I'm in, for example, a starbucks)

is there anyone here who genuinely believes this is a "sellout" move on SY's part? (besides maybe sara sara sara?)

I have been reading some percy and trow and shit like that can you tell

LET THE LATTES HIT THE FLOOR, LET THE LATTES HIT THE FLOOR

lol

Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Starbucks

What you're talking about, HD, is functionality. I agree the spaces in question (hotel hallways, airport rest areas) are functional, practical, efficient. In that sense, even ideal. But I wasn't complaining about their functionality, or even calling them uncomfortable. I was talking about their vacancy on some level that I don't even have a word for. Spiritual? emotional? yes and no, less and more. Fact is, with regard to these spaces, that kind of vacancy is appropriate, even necessary. We want transitional spaces to be invisible, to simply facilitate the passage of thing one into another.

Problem, as I see it, is that this kind of emptiness is consuming more and more of the built landscape, and in turn, more and more of our lives. It's a kind of surrender. We give up actuality and human presence in the name of practicality, efficiency and comfort. In doing so we create a ghost world that superficially resembles something that people might inhabit, but is inimical to real human life. Best Buy, the Cheesecake Factory, Starbucks, Washington Mutual, The Gap, McDonald's, Ikea, malls, Irish-themed "pubs", most office suites and new-built condos. These places extend the lifeless, anaesthetic emptiness of transitional spaces into the non-transitional, supposedly meaningful parts of our lives. And they pith us, making us ghosts to match the decor.

I don't know what the alternative is. I mean, if you're living in an old-fashioned "failed city", a ton of shitty condos and a Niketown probably seem like a small price to pay for jobs, industry, culture and a reduction in crime. It's hard to argue with success, especially when you imagine that the only alternative is failure. But I don't think we have to look at this in either/or terms. I like to imagine that we can have functioning, healthy cities that don't depend on turning civic culture into a kind of outdoor shopping mall.

Guys, Bob already explained that he's merely expressing a bunch of ridiculous opinions that he himself doesn't really believe

Fuck, Alex, that's just childish. I wasn't doing that in the first place, and I'm certainly not doing it now.

I think his argument hinges on the last sentence you quoted, that said spaces (and starbucks) have all the semiotic value of an ampersand

Exactly, but also that they extend that semiotic emptiness into us, and in acclimating ourselves to it, we diminish ourselves.

Tombot: I am optimistic with regard to individuals, pessimistic with regard to people.

There are several Starbucks in the Boston area that are specifically targetted as being lounge-friendly; they have large floor plans with many couches and coffee tables and are staffed by people who exude friendliness. There is no practical difference between the Starbucks in Davis Square, for example, and the two independent coffee shop lounges within a block of it. In fact, even among the "get in/get out"-style Starbucks there is enough difference in terms of layout and staff disposition that each one feels like a unique store despite being part of the same monolithic chain with the same soundtrack and color palette. My experience doesn't jibe with the picture painted of Starbucks in this thread, which makes the whole thread read as reactionary and silly to me.

Also, I think that looking for spiritual enrichment in a hotel hallway is probably going to lead to disappointment 100 times out of 100. Is your life REALLY so devoid of meaning that you need for everything around you to feed you spirituality?

I would like to note for the benefit of J0hn D., Alfred, Cutty, and anyone else who's ever accused me of deliberately targeting them for mean-spirited rebuttals and zings, that that's what I'm doing to Bob Standard right now, not those other times.

I guess I shouldn't have said "specifically targetted"; my point is that there isn't a monolithic "this is what a Starbucks is" blueprint in terms of store size/layout/usage profile in the way that there is for MacDonald's/The Gap/(insert successful chain store with stronger layout controls here), so complaining that every Starbucks is the same makes me think either the ones outside of Boston must really suck or people like making lazy judgements.

My experience doesn't jibe with the picture painted of Starbucks in this thread, which makes the whole thread read as reactionary and silly to me.

Yeah, but see, my experiences don't jibe with yours. Doesn't make me think any less of you or your opinions.

Also, I think that looking for spiritual enrichment in a hotel hallway is probably going to lead to disappointment 100 times out of 100. Is your life REALLY so devoid of meaning that you need for everything around you to feed you spirituality?

Gah. Again, I think it's appropriate and GOOD that hotel hallways are spiritually empty. I think it's sad, on the other hand, that we seem to want to extend that emptiness into so many other parts of the world.

P.S. Lowering this to the level of "is your life so devoid of meaning that..." just totally sucks.

"no starbucks" could be the indie rock "no homo"

HD: I do think that all Starbucks feel more or less the same. Some more grubby, some immaculate. Some harried, some leisurely. Some expansive, some cramped. Yes, but all variations on a theme. And the variations don't make the corpse seem any more animate.

If you think it's good that hallways are spiritually empty, why did you use them as an example of a public space that is leeching the spirituality out of our society?

Arguments like this are exactly why people need religion.

(By which I mean, the absence of religion creates the need for people to look for meaning in all kinds of bizarre places, like for example airport lounges.)

CAN O WORMS RIGHT HERE

GETCHA LIVE BAIT

^_^

Ha, Dan, I find it hard to believe you're quite as mystified by "nonsensical" doubts about airport-like public space as you're claiming here

It's not so much that as much as it is the idea that an airport lounge is a space where people should be enriched spiritually. Or, for that matter, that a coffee shop is a place where people should be enriched spiritually; a coffee shop is a place where people should be able to buy some coffee.

I used hotels hallways as a template example of a kind of emptiness that is being exported into other parts of the built environment. When I first talked about this, I said, "Problem is that this kind of emptiness is conducive to certain kinds of financial transactions, too. And it's cheap. And it offends no one. So it grows."

So the roblem isn't that transitional spaces are themselves soulless, but that they're a kind of self-replicating machine that's growing to eclipse the rest of the world. Like JG Ballard's planet that consisted of an endless airport lounge.

"Spiritual enrichment" frames it in overreaching terms -- we could spend all day just figuring out what the spirit it, leave alone what enriches it. But point being there's a regimented and anti-social atmosphere that comes with these kinds of spaces, one in which massive amounts of industrial psychology are being deployed to make large groups of humans use the spaces profitably and efficiently and quietly, etc. -- it's not at all nonsensical to compare these kinds of environments to ones that have specific personal influences on them, spaces that are not somewhat industrial and impermanent and modular!

Starbucks is a bad example in that comparison, because most customers desire to use it in an efficient, industrial sense -- purchase coffee and move along. But as a greater issue, umm ... I don't think it's at all strange or bullshitty or mystical to worry that the atmosphere and social effects of spaces like the airport food court might expand farther than makes many people happy.

The thing is, the emptiness/meaninglessness isn't intrinsic to the built environment as much as it is the overpopulation of the built spaces and the need to supply as much service to as many people as possible with the highest margins. We could be having this same kind of discussion on ILE if we were a bunch of Londoners complaining about chain pubs. Or replace Dan with Laurel and the rest of us are beer enthusiasts who despise anheuser busch products.

I think the worst thing about starbucks is no different than the problems with all suburban shopping centers, and that's not starbucks' problem, it's an urban planning one. An urban planning problem caused by overpopulation that began two generations ago. *wrings hands, shakes head, etc*

Tombot OTM. Nabisco OTMOTM.

HD: It's not that I want all coffee shops to be pregnant with spiritual possibility, but that I am bothered the fact that the efficiency of our production (production of ideas, objects, values, spaces, etc.) often seems to be directly proportional to the essential vacancy of the things we produce. Meanwhile, population density, the profit motive and resource depletion all seem to demand ever greater efficiency. Nowhere to go but up, right?

Agree w/ Nabisco that Starbucks is often a transitional space, so it's emptiness isn't necessarily a failure. The failure, as I see it, is how how successful we've been in marketing transitional emptiness as desireable, fun, distinctive and meaningful.

it's != its

Agree w/ Nabisco that Starbucks is often a transitional space, so it's emptiness isn't necessarily a failure. The failure, as I see it, is how how successful we've been in marketing transitional emptiness as desireable, fun, distinctive and meaningful.

wtf are you talking about here? Pop music?

Pizza Hut

i like drinking coffee.

I want to know where transitional emptiness is being marketed as meaningful. From what I've seen of modern society, NOTHINg is being marketed as meaningful and that's kind of the point; "meaning" is practically a dirty word on par with "hypocrisy" and the resultant cognative dissonance is slowly turning everyone's minds to mush.

wtf are you talking about here? Pop music?

Not so much, though I guess an argument could be made (by somebody else). I'm talking primarily about the built environment, but also about how we construct corporate, civic and individual identity. I mean, the "emptiness" that I'm talking about isn't a physical absence.

I posit that the metaphysical absence you are talking about has existed since time began in practically every building ever built that wasn't a palace, cathedral or landmark skyscraper.

or the Big Hunt

I said "practically" for a reason, Tom!

From what I've seen of modern society, NOTHINg is being marketed as meaningful and that's kind of the point; "meaning" is practically a dirty word on par with "hypocrisy" and the resultant cognative dissonance is slowly turning everyone's minds to mush.

I agree entirely. But I think that we're also being indoctinated with a new, debased kind of "meaning". We're told that things are meaningful to the extent that we desire them, and that we should desire things to the extent that they make us happy. In this context, our purchasing decisions become arbiters of meaning in our lives.

"meaning" is practically a dirty word on par with "hypocrisy"

you mean this to be like a current cultural conceit, right?

we should desire things to the extent that they make us happy

Why else should we desire things?

I posit that the metaphysical absence you are talking about has existed since time began in practically every building ever built that wasn't a palace, cathedral or landmark skyscraper.

Dunno about the beginning of time, but I agree about the 20th century. I'm concerned about degrees and increase.

Why else should we desire things?

The quote yr responding to was predicated on this: "things are meaningful to the extent that we desire them." But I don't know that desire and satisfaction are the only way to construct meaning. We can base meaning on the desires of some diety. Or on the dictates of absolute truth and justice. Or as the product of the intrinsic beauty of the universe. Etc. There are lots of ways to construct meaning.

Last one to Euler.

From what I've seen of modern society, NOTHINg is being marketed as meaningful

I disagree with this entirely, good lord: every single thing you do or buy is totally coded with cultural meaning, on levels that even aspire to the spiritual! You can't even pick up a furniture catalog without it saying "it's not furniture, it's a LIFESTYLE, it's a WAY OF BEING" -- this is everywhere. And it's completely off to imagine that even the people who just want to grab coffee and go do not view the Starbucks purchase as having cultural meaning; the place's rep has blanded out a bit for sure, and Britney Spears is not helping, but there is still a coding of urbanity and sophistication that goes with getting a half-caf latte and scone (vs. a McMuffin!), and that kind of thing is precisely the sort of meaning that people piece their lives together out of.

and that kind of thing is precisely the sort of meaning that people piece their lives together out of.

Or at least seem to. That's what I'm wringing my hands over here. Again, thanks for sorting and saying it so clearly.

(In fact another efficient marketing success for Starbucks has been to put VALUE on being a grab-and-go store user: "You are an awesome sophisticated go-go-go-getter, and you need your morning cappucino to feel vigorous and businesslike.")

(xpost - This is not some kind of grand lie, either: I can certainly remember getting my first office job and having the morning coffee pick-up become an awesome-feeling routine that signified I was no longer a post-collegiate slacker record-store clerk but now a clever active worker in nice slacks. I consider that kind of thing meaningful, yeah; it's the bits of the tenor of your life that you piece together into feeling and narrative, you know? I think those things are terrifically important, which is part of why I do think there's significance in whatever we're calling the airportification of space.)

you mean this to be like a current cultural conceit, right?

I suppose so, insomuch that I studied computers instead of history and can't off the top of my head point at specific examples in ages past that show that this, too, is a fact of life on Earth rather than a social construct that's arisen as a side-effect of modern life.

I disagree with this entirely, good lord: every single thing you do or buy is totally coded with cultural meaning, on levels that even aspire to the spiritual!

That's kind of my point, Nabisco; if everything is laden with "meaning", nothing is actually meaningful.

And it's completely off to imagine that even the people who just want to grab coffee and go do not view the Starbucks purchase as having cultural meaning; the place's rep has blanded out a bit for sure, and Britney Spears is not helping, but there is still a coding of urbanity and sophistication that goes with getting a half-caf latte and scone (vs. a McMuffin!), and that kind of thing is precisely the sort of meaning that people piece their lives together out of.

This is really reaching. I'm willing to wager that more people go to Starbucks because it's the ubiquitous coffee place rather than it's the ubiquitous coffee place; in fact, the people I know who actually care about that kind of thing specifically avoid Starbucks in favor of independantly-owned clones precisely because everyone else goes to Starbucks.

right, nabisco, so one way to understand Bob is that he wants people to stop desiring what's coded as urbane and sophisticated but isn't really, and instead to desire what really is urbane and sophisticated; another way to understand him is that he wants people to start desiring things coded with other meanings (something "more lasting", I guess, here I don't know what the view is); or else he's saying that the problem is that desire and meaning are linked at all. I am not following the view very well though.

ARGH.

"I'm willing to wager that more people go to Starbucks because it's the ubiquitous coffee place rather than it's the POSH coffee place;..."

Everybody go read LOST IN THE COSMOS

Um, no.