The Birth of Cool

As a young man growing up, there was one status level I never achieved. That was to be cool.

Back in the day, when appearances meant everything, there was a plethora of quirky and colorful characters who defined their lives and occupied ours by their dress, style, mannerisms and diction. It was a world of first images that held tight behind a façade of individuality, which, of course, it never really was.

There were the hard guys with their slick hairstyles and choppers and hot rods. The jocks with their letter jackets. The Brains hid out in the library with their books and slide rulers. And every school had its cache of rich bitches (male and female) with their parent’s money and cars. These cool kids had it all in one form or another. They were all ‘with it’, except maybe the Brains. Everybody envied the Brains because they were going to be our bosses sometime in the future.

In high school and even college, the rest of us were merely background distractions for those crowds of easily identifiable clichés. We were simply invisible fill-in wallpaper to their active lives.

Reflecting back, there were many reasons why I was never cool in the carefully coffered commercial way we thought of it back then. Born and raised in the Midwest may have had something to do with it. So many of those icons of cool came from California and California Cool, I wasn’t.

I recently bought a book which was published as part of an exposition on the birth of cool in Southern California. It helped me understand a little better why the West Coast always had such a draw on my uncaged imagination.

After World War Two, there was a migration of artist types to the West Coast, primarily California. Coupled with a burgeoning economy, thriving new industries and glorious weather, the West Coast became a mecca for the average Joe as well as his beatnik cousins.

‘Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture of Midcentury’ was one of the most ambitious exhibitions ever organized on this seminal period, encompassing the painting, architecture, furniture design, decorative and graphic arts, film, and music that launched mid-century modernism in the United States and established Los Angeles as a major American cultural center.

This coolness was reflected in the arts, architecture, music, film, and dozens of other esoteric cerebral ventures of commerce. It was all images and icons for hungry eyes like mine to take in. One of the major purveyors of that message was established in old Cow Town, center point of the country, when a young editor started up his own magazine to herald and embellish this new  scene for the hip cool set.

That illusion was only embellished, relished, and enriched by the monthly droppings of Playbook centerfolds, cool cars, hot bachelor pads, and jazz. I never understand that among the hip knowledgeable crowd, jazz spoke a language only they understood. I was a more folkie type.

I came of age (but never broken through) back in the Sixties when all the cool music, cool chicks and cool cars were emanating from Southern California. It was a mecca for immature, wonder-ing wandering minds like mine. The Beach Boys painted musical pictures that wetted my appetite for sand under foot and bikinis in sight.  Annette Funichello and Franky Avalon showed me what beachcomber life was all about, Hollywood style.

This culture of innovation, counter-culture living, and thinking outside-of-the-box continues on today in hotspots like Palm Springs. Blossoming solar panels and Modernism Week are but a couple of the many nodes to the storied and treasured practice of embracing California’s cultural past while looking to the future.

As cool as it is to think that one is cool, the concept can be a slippery slope, easy to feel but tough to grasp. It’s evolution in midcentury America now seems but a series of willful misunderstandings. It started out as black style but became white style. It was a response to alienation but became a mark of belonging. It came from the language of outsiders, but it became associated with very old ideas of about aristocracy and good taste.

In retrospect, I think my granddaughters have shown me the way of cool. Maya, age 17, Samantha, age 15 and Charlotte, age 12, have all embraced the style of mixing and matching vintage clothing with something new and modern. They create their own style and own it. They’re cool because they have become masters of their own fashion sense. Perhaps, doing your own thing is the cool thing to do. Follow no one but your own heart and desire. My tiny storefront in the desert is the perfect place for me to hide away and create stories of my own liking.

It’s the birthplace of Waleed and Sweetpea and numerous other imaginative retreats into my imagination. Minnesota is another place of vernacular worship for me but somehow it doesn’t have the same ambiance of colorful characters, coyotes in my backyard and Chocolate Mountains over my shoulders.

Past symbols of ‘cool’ are now old enough that they’re coming back in a strange amalgamation of form and style. The younger set sees them as new and trendy. Veterans of the movement see a resurgence of a colorful past. Me, I see form and function but little else.

Sadly, even now that I know what cool is, I don’t think I’m there yet and probably never will be.

Desert Modern on Parade

 The Coachella Valley and Palm Springs in particular, have a storied history behind it. Since the early 1920s, Hollywood’s elite and famous hangers-on have been coming to this desert playground for fun and mischief.

 Beginning in the mid-40s, architects originated a design movement specific to the greater Palm Springs area. It became known as Desert Modern or McM (Mid-Century Modern.) Their buildings featured ground-breaking techniques such as post-and-beam supports, floor-to-ceiling glass walls and a wide array of colors to match the surrounding mountains and desert. Now famous architects such as William Krisel, E. Stewart Williams, Albert Frey, William F. Cody, Richard Neutra, and Donald Wexler were among the masters of this design.

Although that Hollywood of old has long since passed away and new tinsel town residents tend to hide in their hideaways Down Valley, Palm Springs has found a way to continue its celebration of that colorful, artful, self-indulgent rite of passage. It’s called Modernism Week.

Modernism Week is a signature event held every February in Palm Springs. This year, it attracted over 120,000 modern architecture lovers from all over the country and the world. There were a host of events to showcase and highlight the very best of modernism designs and trends. There are art fairs, a modernism yard sale, vintage car show, lectures and films on historical Palm Springs architecture, as well as many events at the convention center. One of the highlights of the Week was the neighborhood home tours. Our Indian Canyon neighborhood was included in one of this year’s home tours.

In years past, Sharon and I have volunteered to be docents for these neighborhood visits.

It’s always a great opportunity to meet more of our neighbors and peek in on the lives of the design-conscious, artsy-types who created these one-of-a-kind homes. Those homes are as much a statement as anything else. They speak of great taste in design, opulence, class, and status.

A couple of years ago, we were docents at a home that was built around the allure of the Gabor Sisters.  Over time the tales of its past residents have only grown and become more embellished with each new owner. Famously known as the ‘Gabor House’ this house carries its own colorful banner of ‘Old Palm Springs’ and its connection to the golden era of old Hollywood.

Explaining the Gabor sisters to our younger visitors was like comparing them to the present-day celebrity sensations The Kardashians. No talent, no chemistry, no discernable reason why anyone would care but somehow fans do care about the Kardashians. The Gabor sisters had that same aura about them back then.

The house had been totally remodeled and was stunning in its décor. It’s a fitting tribute to the glitz and glamor that was old Hollywood. Older visitors seemed genuinely interested in the tales of its past occupants. The newer ones just liked the mid-century design. So it goes in the land of fact and fiction, rumor and innuendo but always a good story to tell.

We also had a chance to visit the West Elm house designed specifically for this year’s Modernism Week. West Elm (a branch of William-Sonoma) offered a home tour of a vacation rental property that had been entirely decorated with West Elm furniture and dressings. They called it The Seven Eighty and it was fun to explore.

It was fascinating to see what had been done to one of these retro houses and how the other half lives. Most of these homes were owned by interior designers…no surprise there. Each was a designer’s delight. Interesting is a safe word to describe some of those settings.

Fortunately, my taste doesn’t lean toward mid-century modern architecture or eclectic furnishings. I’m too old-fashioned for a $10,000 sofa designed by some ancient Italian or a chair made out of Plexiglas. Give me a comfortable chair, a cup of coffee and the mountains as my backdrop. That’s all I need.

But still, it’s fun to look.