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Smugger Than Thou

I just got back from a quick trip -- helped my brother-in-law drive his car up to Seattle on Sunday, flew back down on Monday. My flight was delayed, so I bought a couple of magazines -- a Harper's and a New Yorker. When the folks picked me up from the airport, somehow the subject of the magazines came up. "What, too elitist?" I asked. "Worse, too East Coast elitist," said Mom. Yikes! Of course, the joke's on me and Mom, since the real East Coast elites probably read Granta or The London Review of Books or whatever the hell you read when you sincerely believe that it is only a tribe of 15,000 novel-readers on the Upper West Side that keeps fiction alive in America. Thanks for holding up your end, guys!

Of course, this raises the question -- which magazines would a good West Coast elitist be reading? The only magazine I subscribe to is Newsweek, which is so hopelessly middlebrow^[1] that I can't possibly have any useful insights on the matter. Mom suggested that a West Coast elitist would read People magazine as opposed to Us or In Touch. At first I thought, see, that's a perfect example of the kind of overbaked East Coast smugness^[2] that we West Coast elites should be striving to avoid. But the unfortunate truth is that there's no avoiding smugness, since after all, that's what being an elitist is all about.

In fact, Mom's little dig at People readers (a.k.a. Southern Californians) serves to illustrate the Basic Organizing Principle of West Coast Elitism: Uncoolness is centered in Anaheim, and the further up the coast you go, the cooler you get. Los Angeles feels superior to Anaheim, Santa Barbara feels superior to the greater LA basin, San Jose feels superior to all of Southern California, the Peninsula feels superior to San Jose, San Francisco feels superior to everything south of the Cow Palace, Portland feels superior to all Californians, and Seattle feels superior to everyone in the United States. The strength of the smugness field increases quadratically until eventually you cross the event horizon and slide irretrievably over into Canada; presumably the smugness singularity itself rests somewhere in downtown Vancouver, but this is the point where all modern theories break down, and no probes have ever made it back.

Anyway, given that New York City rules the publishing industry with an iron fist, maybe there is no such thing as a West Coast elitist magazine. But maybe I'm wrong. Any ideas? (Note that the key question is general West Coast elitism -- if you just want to be a plain ol' Silicon Valley Techno-Elitist, it's fairly obvious which blogs you should be reading.)

1. And far worse than that, dull. How many covers of Jesus do we need per year, anyway?

2. Before I read that article, I was only vaguely aware of Death Cab for Cutie inasmuch as it was a sort of hipster insult. (Ex: "Oh yeah? Well, why don't you go home and listen to your Death Cab for Cutie collection!?") But after seeing Death Cab for Cutie disparaged twice on the first page -- dude, where's your editor -- I felt an urgent need to rush out and buy every album they've ever made.

Posted by Evan Goer on Jun. 07, 2006 at 9:58 PM | Comments (14)

Comments

Variety. Any smug west coast elitist found not reading Variety often enough to know their lexicon will be "ankled."

Posted by Jemaleddin on Jun. 08, 2006 at 8:23 AM
Oh, good one, Jemaleddin! Yes, definitely Variety.

I actually had to go look "ankled" up, so I guess I'm not much of a west coast elitist after all. I'm not sure what the equivalent Silicon Valley term would be... "riffed" isn't quite right, since "ankled" implies that maybe the person had a choice.

Posted by Evan on Jun. 08, 2006 at 9:09 AM
I'm too lazy to go find out what "ankled" means.

But I think a smug west coaster should be reading something like Consumer Reports, or the Whole Earth Catalog. We're upwardly mobile consumers, but with an eye towards value and corporate behavior. Stuff like "People" magazine? Pshaw. Who needs celebrities at all, when we've got our own beautiful selves to admire?

Posted by Auros on Jun. 08, 2006 at 2:15 PM
Oh, also, having visited Vancouver, I found it rather laid-back, and not particularly smug. Which is surprising, considering they have at least as much coffee as Seattle.

Posted by Auros on Jun. 08, 2006 at 2:17 PM
My God, he's returned from the Event Horizon!! We can only surmise that the real Auros fell into the singularity and was crushed. Which means that <em>you</em> must have been spawned by some random quantum fluctuation at the boundary, and are therefore not to be trusted.

<cite>The Whole Earth Catalog</cite> is good. But <cite>Consumer Reports</cite>? That's about as middlebrow as it gets outside of <cite>Reader's Digest</cite>.

Posted by Evan on Jun. 08, 2006 at 2:38 PM
I would put forth "Sunset" is a West Coast Elitist Mag. It may not cover West Coast culture (it admits to it's existence, unlike any East Coast Elitist) but it definately captures the ambience of California smugness. Which, can be summed up as follows: You know those beautiful New York days that happen on "Sex in the City" all the time, but rarely in real life? It's like that here every day.

Posted by a;lex72 on Jun. 12, 2006 at 5:38 PM
But it IS like that here every day! Actually not so much today, today was more of a "June Gloom" kind of day.

I just don't get why readers would be interested in the concept of Very Wealthy People showing off Interiors of Houses That You Will Never Afford. I can understand the appeal of the home decorating shows on TV, since they at least give you the illusion that, "Hey, with a little paint and fabric and elbow grease, I could do this too!" But the flat-out extreme house porn, that just doesn't make any sense to me.

Sunset does have some kickass recipes, though.

Posted by Evan on Jun. 12, 2006 at 6:29 PM
I guess all we've proven is that I'm not particularly smug about the things eastcoasters are often smug about.

But I'm definitely smug about our weather. When Boston/Cambridge/Somerville people tell me I should move there, I point out that the delta between their average winter and summer temperatures is about three times ours.

Posted by Auros on Jun. 13, 2006 at 4:04 PM
Damn right. And it's not just the temperature, don't forget that our humidity is awesome too. If you break it down across the entire planet by land area, you basically get: 70% Florida / 25% Colorado / 5% California Coast. Who designed this crazy planet anyway? Sheesh.

Posted by Evan on Jun. 13, 2006 at 4:44 PM
Going up the peninsula does in fact increase the elitism felt by the inhabitants. I have friends in San Mateo that refer to the South Bay as "Marmo", referring to the land the orcs live in a D&D campaign from their childhood. Once you know where it comes from its hard to still call them elitist, but there you go.

Posted by Patrick on Jul. 05, 2006 at 11:53 PM
You people suck at being West Coast elitists. I herby and forthwith look down my Birks and Vespa at you all.

UTNE, Mother Jones, and without apology, The Economist (ne'er a rag written with less genuine concern for the human person as such;let's face it, elite is elite. Only the material of selfishness changes, not its form.)

Posted by Damon on Sep. 14, 2007 at 10:56 AM
Damon, I think you have indeed created the definitive list (for a West Coast elitist NOT in the entertainment biz). Excellent, thank you!

Posted by Evan on Sep. 14, 2007 at 11:16 AM
This was very funny. I was answering a survey for the New Yorker that asked me to align them with a brand that was not another non-publication, so I Googled "East Coast smugness" and this is what came up.

Re your post, I was also going to suggest Sunset. I think West Coast smug is about different things, so I'd have to give them a subscription to Backpacker magazine or something similar as well.

Silicon Valley types would need to supplement their work reading with a few repetitive issues of Triathlete.

I have a friend in SF who will drive 5 hours to go backwoods camping in the Sierras, but will not drive 45 minutes to come to my house on the Peninsula for a party.

Posted by tasterspoon on May. 08, 2008 at 2:40 PM
These are excellent suggestions tasterspoon, thanks!

And wow, looks like this post is #1 for "East Coast smugness" and "West Coast smugness" too. I guess that's a reason to be smug!

Reading the original post again, I think it's worth mentioning that I don't subscribe to Newsweek anymore. That horrible Rabbi Gellman of theirs managed to piss me off for the last time.

Posted by Evan on May. 08, 2008 at 3:46 PM

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This entry was posted on June 7, 2006 by Evan Goer.

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