I read this article on Angie's blog and had to pirate it and bring it here.
Funny? Absurd? Offensive? You decide.
Start Article:
Punk knitting: Has youth culture gone mad?
Steven Wells reports on how alternative culture has ditched rebellion for cross-stitch patterns and bobble hats
Saturday June 14, 2008
guardian.co.uk
So this is how punk ends - not with a bang but with a jumper. Today, all over the world, thousands of punks, goths, emos and other ferociously tattooed, face-pierced miscreant bastard folk-devil scum will take to the streets to protest their disgust with war, oppression and bourgeois conformity by crocheting hideous green twat-hats with stupid ear flaps.
I'm talking about World Wide Knit in Public Day. Which, by its very name, suggests that knitting is a sordid and disgusting practice best done behind locked doors and drawn curtains. Which it is.
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On at least four continents muscular youths possessed of the sort of surly disposition and fashionable facial disfigurements that persuade old folks to cross the street, muttering under their mint-humbugged breath about the return of national service, will be sat in parks and on street corners, cheerfully nattering to one another and churning out skull-festooned jumpers that proclaim the need for anarchy. The sickening truth is that knitting is hip - and Western youth culture is knitting its own death shroud.
This decade's mods and rockers don't cluster at Brighton and Hastings for fisticuffs. Instead they mail each other patterns for socks. Which in some ways is obviously an improvement, granted. But, blow me, nobody's going to be making a movie about it in 20 years time. They even have their own knitting Woodstock, called (oh God oh God oh God) Woolfest.
In every bookshop in Christendom there are sections dedicated to the nauseating premise that arts and crafts are edgy and alternative. They are ram-packed with punk-chick adorned books with edgy titles like Stitch'n'Bitch and Anticraft (subtitled "Knitting, beading and stitching for the slightly sinister.")
We've gone from screaming for anarchy, rocking against racism, storming the US Embassy and picketing recruiting offices, tuning in and dropping out and rutting like pigs on Viagra to taking up the favourite hobby of senile old grannies everywhere and declaring it radical. Which was hilarious for about five seconds about five years ago.
The knitting craze is the death of both alternative culture and feminism. But it's even worse that that. Scratch a knitter - discover a Knit Nazi. Like the Nazis, alternative knitters have no sense of humour.
The last time I claimed in print that the concept of radical knitting is as absurd as radical dusting or radical toilet cleaning, I received hysterical and barely literate death threats from the ferocious, fanatical, froth-gobbed and swivel-eyed knit Nazi massive. This time I suspect I might not survive.
Nonetheless, the truth must be stated. Germaine Greer didn't articulate her disgust with women's oppression by knitting a lavender and yellow toilet-roll holder. Dr Martin Luther King Jr didn't say: "I have a dream ... set of place mats that I crocheted using a pattern I got from a magazine." Jimi Hendrix didn't take to the stage at Woodstock wearing a nice orange and puce cardigan (with a reindeer on it) that he made using a job-lot of wool he got at a jumble sale. And Sid Vicious didn't crotchet his own stupid mock-Tibetan hippy-dippy ear-flapped bobble hats. And neither should you. If you need a hobby, take up spitting.
Steven Wells reports on how alternative culture has ditched rebellion for cross-stitch patterns and bobble hats
Saturday June 14, 2008
guardian.co.uk
So this is how punk ends - not with a bang but with a jumper. Today, all over the world, thousands of punks, goths, emos and other ferociously tattooed, face-pierced miscreant bastard folk-devil scum will take to the streets to protest their disgust with war, oppression and bourgeois conformity by crocheting hideous green twat-hats with stupid ear flaps.
I'm talking about World Wide Knit in Public Day. Which, by its very name, suggests that knitting is a sordid and disgusting practice best done behind locked doors and drawn curtains. Which it is.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On at least four continents muscular youths possessed of the sort of surly disposition and fashionable facial disfigurements that persuade old folks to cross the street, muttering under their mint-humbugged breath about the return of national service, will be sat in parks and on street corners, cheerfully nattering to one another and churning out skull-festooned jumpers that proclaim the need for anarchy. The sickening truth is that knitting is hip - and Western youth culture is knitting its own death shroud.
This decade's mods and rockers don't cluster at Brighton and Hastings for fisticuffs. Instead they mail each other patterns for socks. Which in some ways is obviously an improvement, granted. But, blow me, nobody's going to be making a movie about it in 20 years time. They even have their own knitting Woodstock, called (oh God oh God oh God) Woolfest.
In every bookshop in Christendom there are sections dedicated to the nauseating premise that arts and crafts are edgy and alternative. They are ram-packed with punk-chick adorned books with edgy titles like Stitch'n'Bitch and Anticraft (subtitled "Knitting, beading and stitching for the slightly sinister.")
We've gone from screaming for anarchy, rocking against racism, storming the US Embassy and picketing recruiting offices, tuning in and dropping out and rutting like pigs on Viagra to taking up the favourite hobby of senile old grannies everywhere and declaring it radical. Which was hilarious for about five seconds about five years ago.
The knitting craze is the death of both alternative culture and feminism. But it's even worse that that. Scratch a knitter - discover a Knit Nazi. Like the Nazis, alternative knitters have no sense of humour.
The last time I claimed in print that the concept of radical knitting is as absurd as radical dusting or radical toilet cleaning, I received hysterical and barely literate death threats from the ferocious, fanatical, froth-gobbed and swivel-eyed knit Nazi massive. This time I suspect I might not survive.
Nonetheless, the truth must be stated. Germaine Greer didn't articulate her disgust with women's oppression by knitting a lavender and yellow toilet-roll holder. Dr Martin Luther King Jr didn't say: "I have a dream ... set of place mats that I crocheted using a pattern I got from a magazine." Jimi Hendrix didn't take to the stage at Woodstock wearing a nice orange and puce cardigan (with a reindeer on it) that he made using a job-lot of wool he got at a jumble sale. And Sid Vicious didn't crotchet his own stupid mock-Tibetan hippy-dippy ear-flapped bobble hats. And neither should you. If you need a hobby, take up spitting.
End Article.
And then, for a lark, I googled and found these books.
5 comments:
ok, I thought it hilarious. not actually something to take to heart, obviously, I mean, seriously... surely it's a joke. gotta be a joke. a spoof. right? :^)
Because plainly he's missed the boat.
Cool! Was very into the whole punk thing when I was in art school :) Wish they had cool knitting back then, it was mostly Grandma's that were knitting if I remember correctly (you know, back in the dark ages and all).
I have to have that hat !! He says the same about the attempt to "Radicalise" golf ..sorry but it's just as funny!! I hate golf , love knitting. I fear that like me he's been on the end of some pretty vile and humourless folks. Maybe we should mention that knitting won't change the World but it's a very worthy way to spend your time. He means to "rag" people of course but there is truth too.
Lara the so called radical designers like Westwood and Mc Claren ( very in during my punk days) missed the whole point of it being a radical movement . I guess using re-cycled yarn is radical i:e it helps the planet and those designers don't make a fortune. To say they sold out is wrong they were never in. Anyone remember Rowan's re-cycled tweed ? I must buy some Peace Fleece because that is the sort of radical I love.
Me again ..Anarchy cushions !! It's just like the fashion shop here called "Che" . I don't think you could have found a bigger insult to the man than turning him into a fashion icon. I know I go on about the film "Eating Raoul" but there's scene in it in which Raoul ( a Chicano) sits on a sofa covered in cushions with swastikas on .It's complcated to explain but it's a very funny film and not shocking like it sounds. Having a cushion with anarchy on is about as useful as Punk probably turned out to be . I do have to admit to a half finished needlepoint Che cushion though . Unlike him I just don't have the courage to get shot at ..you know what Woody would say "I'm allergic to bullets".
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