Twee

November 3, 2014
With his characteristic ingenuity, razor-sharp cultural insights, and cunning humor, Spitz (Poseur) chronicles the history of the ever-growing aesthetic called Twee. Spitz's utterly engaging history from the 1950s to the present finds Twee alive and well not only in literary figures like J.D. Salinger, but also Judy Blume, Sylvia Plath, and Dave Eggers; musicians such as The Buzzcocks, Morrissey, and Belle and Sebastian; movie directors including Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach, and Walt Disney; and television shows such as Gilmore Girls and Girls. Members of the Twee tribe embrace an approach to life that includes a focus on "beauty over ugliness," "a tether to childhood and its attendant innocence and lack of greed," and a lust for knowledge. Thus, for example, Salinger becomes "the greatest and most beloved Twee Tribe godfather of them all" because Salinger creates characters in both Holden Caulfield and Seymour Glass in whom we can see our "ideal selves as physically attractive and troubledâ¦pop-savvy, all versed in magazines, jazz, and movies even as they remain haunted." In an appendix, Spitz includes lists of music, books, and movies and television shows that can help answer the question, âAm I Twee?'

June 15, 2014
Salinger to Seuss and beyond: a flattering assessment of Pop Culture's Division of Arrested Development, with some intriguing stops along the way.As rock biographer and scribe Spitz (Poseur: A Memoir of Downtown New York in the '90s, 2013, etc.) sees it, America is in the warm and loving grip of a revolution that worships all things small, geeky and outsider. Twee no longer means insufferable cuteness; now, it's a kinder, gentler form of punk that fights oppression (bullying, meanness, etc.) in its own quiet, sensitive way. Historic touchstones range from icons of doomed sensitivity (Anne Frank, Sylvia Plath, James Dean) to introspective troubadours like Jonathan Richman, Nick Drake, Morrissey and Kurt Cobain. The twee aesthetic fetishizes childhood and fears growing up (Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, the kids in The Breakfast Club, everyone in Wes Anderson's movies) and manifests a progressive, do-it-yourself sensibility. "Twee rebels don't want to destroy everything around them," writes the author. "Rather, they want to fix it." Spitz astutely shows the Tweeing of America, offers some sharp insights (the Smiths and They Might Be Giants are the Beatles and Stones of Twee) and delivers a substantial history of indie cinema's mumblecore movement. He's too twee himself to be really critical, however; he's a veritable Prophet of Portlandia, proclaiming that "the new culture of kindness is helping us improve as Americans." He dodges the question he unintentionally raises: If tumultuous times create art, do peace, serenity and kindness really do anything substantial?For those who get twee, the book is a soothing, self-justifying enabler; for those who don't, it's an amiable guide for the perplexed.

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June 1, 2014
In an entertaining, well-told look at what makes us who we aresuch children's books as Where the Wild Things Are (and even the Eloise series), music (e.g., punk), cinema (e.g., Heathers, Clueless), TV, and much moreSpitz liberally applies the gentle and softly scented appellation, twee, to the chapped lips of contemporary culture. Spitz states that the word twee is derived from the sound of a small child attempting to say the word sweet, and then he is off and running (well, probably more like skipping while humming). He posits that J. D. Salinger is the most beloved Twee Tribe godfather of them all, Truman Capote is a Twee touchstone, Charlie Brown is a Twee hero but also proto-Twee, and Buddy Holly is a Twee Tribe forefather. Here, in 16 chapters ranging from The Mean Reds to Culture Teasing and covering the years from 1945 to the present, Spitz colors in the Twee movement with quotes, interviews, and commentary, all delivered in energetic, engaging prose marking, perhaps, a slow evolution toward a better, kinder, humbler, more politicized . . . human race. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)