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  • From: Dave Parker <davidp AT hesketh.com>
  • To: InterNetWorkers <internetworkers AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Decoding the Bobos -- two great books
  • Date: Fri, 08 Sep 2000 10:08:13 -0400


"Valli.Heather" wrote:
>
> Depending on where you move to, NC may or may not be an improvement.

The line at the bottom of my sig prompted someone from another list I'm
on to send me a lengthy passage from Brooks's book, with the question,
"You aspire to be a Bobo?"

Well, after I read the passage, I certainly do not aspire to such a
thing. I do enjoy strolling through Restoration Hardware and Williams
Sonoma, but no self-respecting Bohemian is going to spend $350 for a
toaster!

Perhaps the complaint Saundra and Heather have is that a certain group
of the Bourgeois co-opted the Bohemian esthetic, adapting it to their
own desires, and that the current Bobo lifestyle is just as empty as the
Bourgeois lifestyle that came before it.

For my part, I have always had a different definition of the two terms.
To me, the Bourgeois are the suburban, white-bread masses who like only
what they are told to like and what they see is accepted by the majority
(level of income having nothing to do with it). And Bohemians, of
course, are the opposite. I say I'm straddling the line between the two
because I live in a suburban cracker-box neighborhood where most of the
houses are white with maroon shutters, yet my house has a porch painted
green and purple, a fence made of old palettes, and the hall is lined
with oak boards taken from the sides of the drawers in a giant dresser
we bought at the Habitat for Humanity resale center. (All tastefully
done, by the way, but I'm sure the neighbors think we're weird.)

- Dave
------------------------------------------
Dave Parker 919.834.2552 x17
Interface Designer davidp AT hesketh.com
hesketh.com/inc.

Straddling the line between bohemian and bourgeois.




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