I don’t get to look at pictures of Abby and me together half as much as I’d like. For Abby, I think that number’s more like a fifth, or a tenth as much as she’d like. But I don’t see many friends who have a habit of making pictures. I don’t see many people in general. 

It’s a rare treat, and I think it’s pretty cool. 

The person who took these pictures today asked me how I’d determine what made something cool. I didn’t have a good answer at the time and I don’t have a good answer now.

As my professional life has come to orbit more closely the vague and quantum nexus of cool, my understanding of it has gone similarly non-neutonian (strange, and strangely religious). 

Cool’s like love, you can’t buy it with money, I think that’s first. If somebody’s trying to sell you cool, it ain’t. 

More than attempts at marketing, if something can be bought at all, it ain’t cool.

For something to be well and truly cool it has got to be niche, so niche it’s personal, so personal it’s almost alienating.

I don’t think anything that’s easily understood can be cool. I don’t think anything that’s accessible can be cool.

That’s not to say gate keeping is cool, it’s not.
Here’s an example: my relationship with Abby is not accessible to anyone but me and her. Even if we were seeing other people that would still be true. People outside of this relationship (read: everyone) just cannot get the pictures or derive as much pleasure from them as I do, thanks to my context. I simply have another level of niche access to the coolness of those images. I am a mega-nerd for these pictures, a storied academic, the president, treasurer, and cheerleader of the fan club.

For that reason I feel like attempting to share art is almost hopeless. The best art, to me, is about stuff so personal that it’s meaningless to a larger audience. The more meaningless the better.

Sure, some art is universal or worthy on a technical or academic level. But honestly, that’s stuffy and annoying.