Neo-bohemian rhapsody

November 17, 2005

My cousin-in-law Andrew O'Hehir has written a fascinating take on Richard Lloyd's new book Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City, a piercing critique of the popular mythology surrounding American urban bohemias like the Mission, Greenwich Village, and Chicago's Wicker Park.

Neo-bohemia is always contaminated by nostalgia, by the belief that the scene is over, and has been over since the yuppies moved in, the old bookstore closed, the Starbucks opened and so on. Lloyd writes that bohemia dies a thousand deaths and is always reborn, and that "bohemia is always already over because it always already falls short of its adherents' fantasies of social autonomy." During my own stint in San Francisco, I can't begin to remember how many conversations turned on this theme of bygone Bohemia. Anyone who had lived in town more than about three years seemed automatically qualified to reminisce about how the city had changed since "they" came to town ("they" being variously dotcommers, marina chicks, nouveau hipsters, or most anyone who had arrived after themselves). Rarely would you hear anyone even begin to admit the possibility that the enemy, if there was one, was surely us.

That old bohemia never really existed, except in our dreams. But those dreams hold a cultural mythology far more potent than any actual Bohemia. Just a few weeks ago, a friend from Brooklyn was telling me how Williamsburg is "over" now that the yuppies are moving in. Turns out it was over the moment it began.

Tags: bohemians, andrew_o'hehir, richard_lloyd, san_francisco