Americaphiles

There's also a sizeable world of c'n'w obsessives too, with their confederate flag belt buckles and their bootlace ties and often extravagant sideburns. (I saw a fellow who had his hair and sideburns done in an exact 1978 George Jones style the other day... it was all I could do not to go over and thank him for being so cool).

I'm sure there are other good examples.

America is like the Britney or Oasis of the world and if we presume the reason people become Anglophiles in America is out of a desire for some new cultural identity, we can see it doesn't work in reverse really.

This homogenity does not exist within America - Tim's two Ameriphile's above would probably be classed as hip-hop fans and country & western fans. Too much stuff comes out of the States for someone to uniformly love it all.

(hippy culture = acidopholus heheheh)

Okay, now how can I make a joke using the phrase "brawny man-sex" without being offensive...?

My beef has always been with mainland Europeans (esp. Germans - Master P is top 10 in Germany at the moment, enough said) who mock British people for being obsessively Americaphile AS IF THEY WEREN'T EQUALLY AMERICAPHILIC THEMSELVES, and the British "liberal" hacks who slavishly follow them.

Whoever it was who said that Brits/Europeans are americaphiles whether they like it or not was OTM. Regardless of all the shit that spews from its fetid pores, there is just as much that is subconsciously associated, from childhood movies, toys, etc., with the ideal.

Meanwhile, the 'cool' ones were dreaming of Berlin, or trying to be Oscar Wilde, or dressing like characters in Kafka, or carrying Peter Handke novels in their pockets, or talking about this new Edinburgh band called Josef K...

How I despised Mike! I wonder what happened to him? He's probably a photocopier salesman in Iowa now.

Of course, when I went to live in the US, it was love hate all the way. I lived in NY Chinatown, not a Starbucks in sight, lots of Buddhist associations and Judaic esoterica shops. And I hung out a lot in Williamsburg, which IS Berlin! How Mike would have hated it!

In fact, if you're free on June 20th come and see me live in concert with the American artists I signed to my American Patchwork label -- Phiiliip, an American who lives in the real Berlin, Super Madrigal Brothers, Americans who remake Italian renaissance madrigals using the sounds of Nintendo, etc -- a mere stone's throw from Brooklyn- Mitte, at Warsaw (Polish National Home) on Driggs Street, Greenpoint.

Now, I'm inclined to think that the American take on the Japanese take on American Pop culture is a really really distorted one. The obsession goes through 2 prisms - one as the original american clothes and records and movies enter Japanese consciousness and another when their versions of the same enter America's consciousness.

There's a shop in Covent Garden called J. Simon which sells almostly exclusively classic American menswear - Bass Weejuns, Rockport, London Fog, Timberland, Woolrich etc. It enjoyed a brief period of trendiness in the 80s when Paul Weller and others went there for their Bass Weejuns (I had a couple of pairs myself - beautiful shoes) and it's still going. It seems to appeal mainly to middle-aged gay men now - former Mods probably. The whole thing is a bit like the American taste for Burberries and Church brogues - but in reverse.

Sometimes in the US this happens. I knew one guy--er, bloke--in college (in North Carolina) who spoke claimed to be from England and spoke with a strong English accent. I had no reason to doubt him, but I later learned found out that he was born and raised in a small town in central NC.

There have been various others jerks who put on moderate Englishy accents, but then claimed that it was just that they were enunciating properly, like the English do, or that they had just always spoken that way, etc.

http://www.gcann.com/EventCalendar/photos/hires/Flash%20&%20Tim%20Westwood%20-%20London%2005.gif

YO DERE

i wondered, in the disappeared post, if the NC person and the article person, had mackem accents, or whether it was more of a boltonian affair