The Cool Formula

As we live in a post-Enlightenment world (Pop, Locke and Drop it!), I feel that it’s important to address the fundamental question of D.C’s coolness with a sober, scientific mind. Unfortunately, D.C is a boozy town, so this whole sobriety thing just isn’t going to happen. That said I believe that I have come up with a decent scientific formula to determine whether or not a city can be generally deemed “cool” or “loserville”.

         My formula is derived from my love the Travel section of the New York Times. As it comes out every Sunday, the Travel section is the perfect thing to nurse a hangover with (“Wow, these photos of mod Swedish hotel rooms are a perfect escape from the clothing, empty liquor bottles and dead strippers that litter my floor!”). The section’s single best feature is the series called “36 hours”, in which writers pick a city anywhere in the world and tell you such goodies as where the best organic muffins, post-soviet flea market, and poshest cemeteries are.

         The thing about the 36 hours is that it’s not an unbiased institution: at least once a month they pick boring American cities, mostly because it will send all the Jews, Divorced women, and Homosexuals (the New York Times main demographics) who live there into an email frenzy and help the Grey Lady’s financial bottom line. For instance, in the recent 36 hours: Cincinnati, the article starts off by saying “With the quiet momentum of a work in progress, Cincinnati is finding an artsy swagger”. Now let’s look at a 36 hours for a city that, unlike Cincinnati, we all accept as cool: London. That article begins with “There are many different Londons, and they appeal to people with many different passions: museum lovers, theatergoers, opera buffs, devotees of royalty, students of history, people who like to walk in the rain.”

         The critical difference between 36 hours: Cincinnati and 36 hours: London is that while the Cincinnati article starts by trying to prove to its readers that Cincinnati is cool, the London article already assumes that the readers know London has a lot of things to do and it therefore cool. As anyone in the highly dysfunctional world of Public Relations will tell you, London has clearly done a better job branding itself than Cincinnati, unless of course you’re a devotee to 21^st century race riots and the works of hometown hero Nick Lachey. Thus my formula is as follows: Coolness=Generally held assumption of coolness. If a city is truly cool, then it needs no explanation as to its coolness.

         The question now is, how does 36 hours: Washington D.C begin? The Times writes, “Washington, in many ways, is an unsurprising place to visit — an expanse of monuments, symbols and sites familiar to any American who watches the evening news (or, at least, "West Wing"). Which is not to say that Washington can't be, with a little effort, a city of surprises and unfamiliar delights.” So, while it is assumed that the audience knows there’s a lot to do in DC (indicating it’s at least interesting/cool enough to visit), it’s also assumed that the audience doesn’t know D.C is more than a government town. Essentially, D.C breaks my formula and flouts the logic and reason of the Enlightenment.

         With those maddening parameters set, I now feel that I can blog away.