Cool

a vocab word that is a piece of deceptively simple slang, with many meanings.

“It is sometimes observed how cool, unlike other historic yet transitory names for the indefinable quality of je nais se quoi, appears to persist – so far, at least – as permanently, qu'est-ce que c'est, ‘cool.’”  ~A. Jay Adler

Indeed.

The quote above is from a recent essay (well, re-posted recently) by

A. Jay Adler

, about what constitutes the concept of Cool. It’s so clever and fun to read and devastatingly hip. Er, sorry: devastatingly cool. Go read his piece real quick first, and see why I was inspired by it to write my own ‘hot take on Cool.’ Go ahead, I’ll wait.

So. What does Cool mean to me? I mean, if you’d asked me before reading A. Jay’s essay, I might have thought I knew. Now? Man, I don’t know. Each line of his essay made me rethink the concept of Cool until I felt quite hot. But let me dip my toe into a little of this Musing of Coolth.

Cool Your Jets

🎶Boy, boy, crazy boy / stay cool boy / got a rocket in your pocket / stay cooly cool boy / don’t get hot / cause man you’ve got / some high times ahead… / keep it cool, boy / real cool

This song from West Side Story comes around just after one of the musical's first of many catastrophes that mark the final tragedy. In it, a bunch of Jets are singing to each other in an attempt to stay calm and figure out what to do next, without getting nabbed by the cops. It’s a song about emotional eruption and control—at the song’s close, the dance consists of a group unison movement, with one man at a time popcorning out with a wide gesture and shout, only to be soothed back into quiet cool unison by his compatriots. This song, and especially the choreography accompanying it, illustrates masculine passion. Big sudden explosions of emotion (fear or anger) which then are subsumed by the cool eddies of the group in unison. 

Go man go / but not like a yo-yo school boy / stay cool boy / real cool🎶

As you’ll notice in A. Jay’s piece, he makes interesting lists about what Cool is, and is not. And what it used to be but isn’t anymore. This whole list-poem-like litany created chains of thought in my own mind, begun by wild declarations such as these:

“Cool is not hip, though hip, perennially, fancies itself cool. Hip is self-conscious. Hip strives to be hip. Hip seeks to be joined at the hip with other hip(pies). …

The tragically hip [now] reside in a different neighborhood. The cool can reside anywhere.”  ~A. Jay Adler

If I try and get into hot vs. cool (let alone hip), I’m afraid I’ll get in the weeds. So instead I’ll attempt to stick with the cool. (Stay cool, boy…) But I’m not sure I can stay discussing one without showing the contrast of the other. Am I overthinking this? I am. I’m ‘striving to be hip.’ That’s not cool.

Coolio.

COOL IS

🎶what I got  / say remember that…

Now, A. Jay said fashion isn’t cool, but a look is. I think he’s spot on. So what are the lewks* that are cewl? In my observation.

:click-click-clap: Not sure who’s cooler than Damien Broderick. 

Menswear 

Especially timeless menswear. Particularly when one mixes timeless menswear with other stuff, like newer items or other gendered looks. There’s a few very cool guys who do this sort of thing, and you’ll usually find them on TikTok and Insta, in tandem. I’m thinking about the guy who styles abstract concepts like fonts and countries (what’s his name again? Oh yeah: Wisdom Kaye!), and Irish fashion icon Damien Broderick. Extremely cool. (Or is anything extreme automatically not cool?)

Old Punks

Also, agéd metalheads and goths. When they were young, they were too hot to be cool. Now that they’re old, they’re the epitome of cool. I can think of no better example of this phenomenon than 2024 Judas Priest:

 He may be singing about a ‘Trial By Fire’ but he’s super cool doing it.

Virtuosic talent in general is cool, especially when it’s centered on an analog or acoustic craft (usually, but not always). Lone male genius assholes, however, aren’t cool anymore. The Cumberbatch Sherlock is no longer cool. Steve Jobs = not cool. Postmodern Jukebox = cool.

COOL WAS

Speaking of lewks: stirrup pants used to be cool, now they’re not. But Esprit brand sweaters used to be cool and they’d still be cool if they existed today. Or is that only true because they don’t exist today?

Culture

Shakespeare has always been popular (hot?) but he’s only been cool here and there. Unless he’s never been cool. Maybe he hasn’t—I have to think about this. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings was cool in the ‘70s and it’s cool again right now. It was uncool when he first wrote them, though, as well as in interim times (it was very uncool in the ‘80s when I first read them). I think this must have something to do with Geek Chic, though that aesthetic wasn’t coined or even really a thing till the 20teens. Speaking of:

Batman was cool in the 1960s and again in the 20teens. He was a very different sort of cool in each era, though. One was a stoic cool in the midst of unruly camp. The other was a cool competent ninja type in the midst of chaotic evil. (Are all Batman villains hot and not cool? Even Mr. Freeze?)

James Bond was cool until very recently—I’d say till after the Daniel Craig Casino Royale. Nowadays he’s become fragmented and shattered, but he’s been cool for a while, up till now.

L L Cool J.

COOL IS NOT

Women’s fashion

Now hear me out: Menswear is often eternally cool, as are genderless looks (remember: fashion is not cool but looks are). Women’s fashion is so often uncool, probably because it’s too fluid and changeable to have a lasting cool beyond a couple minutes. OR! Maybe it’s that women’s fashion is too hot to be cool. I think that’s actually it.

Politics

A.Jay  has already put this perfectly:

“Politics are hot. The politics of cool are outside politics: Cool feels outlaw.”

COolCLUSION

Dig it.

*Postscript: Let Us Play With Your Lewk:

 (Remember this? I’ve always found it charming and hilarious.)