.
updated December 1, 2012
the story of kweejibo clothing co., a men's shirtmaker and shop, all locally manufactured
articles author art journal museum gallery exhibit Book Murakami south east Asia Bangkok crafts ceramics clothing designer film review movie director actress
this is part of a weekly series :
Europe France French Paris street-life fashion photographer show mode models graffiti Haight Japan local magazine manufacture icon literature Group music news performance San Francisco Reading writing style short story-ies seventies small business micro travel Thailand underground voyage video
"the earthquake of 1998" (not 1989)
the new style of “seismic disturbance” : in the early Nineties, San Francisco is the poor artists' town, where tourism has long been practically the only major industry. but the technology industry turns this little world upside-down. no more starving artists, sharing a rent-controlled flat or even a house, paying three to four hundred dollars per person.
San Francisco has been a place where artists get their start and then go to Los Angeles or New York to get serious. now, this no longer the eternal little city, the original home of aspiring painters, singers, dancers. this place has become too serious, no longer the playground where people used to come to explore, "to find themselves".
articles author art journal museum gallery exhibit Book Murakami south east Asia Bangkok crafts ceramics clothing designer film review movie director actress actor Europe France French Paris street-life fashion photographer show mode models graffiti Haight Japan local magazine manufacture icon literature Group music news performance San Francisco Reading writing style short story-ies seventies small business micro travel Thailand underground voyage video
"the under twenty-fives"
in 1998, 1999, so many of those who have seen more than twenty-five summers, those who are adults, are on the quest of the ideal dot-com life. they work in some sort of graphic design, web design, photo layout position, all high-paying internet dreams. Many people of this age are making a hundred thousand a year at a time when that actually was a substantial some. or at the very least, they are waitresses and bartenders in some hip place, who can buy expensive clothing with their tips, which they place on our counter in stacks. more modestly so than my client of new year's eve, not so many fifties and hundreds in a backpack with a pacifier attached. more likely stacks of fives...
articles author art journal museum gallery exhibit Book Murakami south east Asia Bangkok crafts ceramics clothing designer film review movie director actress actor Europe France French Paris street-life fashion photographer show mode models graffiti Haight Japan local magazine manufacture
it is left to the twenty year olds to work the retail job, to the humble occupation. these kids are new to the city, who are still finding their place. many have just discovered apartments in the TenderNob, or the Nobberloin, home of modest rents.
icon literature Group music news performance San Francisco Reading writing style short story-ies seventies small business micro travel Thailand underground voyage video
the first of this group is Aelea, a tall exquisitely fine and angular boned young woman who barely speaks. it is difficult, and at the same time easy, to believe that this painfully shy young woman wants to be an actress. her facial features, even her nose has the same particular angular delicacy of her body. she rarely wears anything other than dark or perhaps white slim sleeveless t-shirts with jeans that can only contain a great deal of lycra or spandex, in order to fit that tight. it is difficult to believe that Jitsun, who comes along later in the year, will be capable of wearing even tighter clothing than Aelea, or his girlfriend Iris, who will also work with us. sometimes, I think that Jitsun is wearing children's sizes, his clothes are that tight.
later, I discover Aelea's intriguing psychic work habits. I can just look her in the eye, mumble a few words, and gesture vaguely around the store. she then rearranges the store in the precise detailed manner that i had envisioned but not declared out loud. this is the first and probably the last time I will have the privilege of witnessing someone work like this.
my new staff won't play hip hop or rap; we have moved onto retro Seventies or Seventies-influenced. the "Belle and Sebastian crowd", I dub them. lyrics with more whimsy, lyrics where artists get in touch with their softer side. The Kinks sing, "I'm not the world's most physical guy, but when she squeezed me tight, she nearly broke my spine, oh my Lola, L-O-L-A Lola... I have no choice but to love the Beatles at this point. I even pick up the redoubtable skill of distinguishing at any given moment whether it is Paul, George or John singing. I find suddenly that the staff have loaded more than eight hours of different Beatles songs on the store's 1997 I-Mac. No wonder my computer is barely functioning; it is so loaded down with all that boyish tenor enthusiasm from Liverpool, England. three different versions of Happiness is a Warm Gun. despite the fact that this has become my favorite Beatle's song, three seems excessive. we are too busy being cool to process clothing sales reports...
No wonder my computer is moving so slowly; this is still only 1998.
articles author art journal museum gallery exhibit Book Murakami south east Asia Bangkok crafts ceramics clothing designer film review movie director actress actor Europe France French Paris street-life fashion photographer show mode models graffiti Haight Japan local magazine manufacture icon literature Group music news performance San Francisco Reading writing style short story-ies seventies small business micro travel Thailand underground voyage video
(pages 40 to 41)