Each week, Val Haller, a music-obsessed baby boomer and the founder of the Web site Valslist.com, matches tracks from her generation to those of her 20-something sons’ generation.
My grandfather would say, “I’m feeling a bit punk.”
My father would say, “That kid is a punk.”
My husband would say, “Remember that punk band the Ramones?”
My son would say, “You’ve been punked.”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition opens to the general public on May 9: “Punk: From Chaos to Couture.”
Punk music is neither my favorite nor my forte. But I would like to chime in on all of the excitement that’s churning around the Met’s long-anticipated punk fashion exhibition that opens this week, and would love your take as well. What is punk? More than a particularly loud and rebellious musical style. A fashion anti-style. A lifestyle. As Nitsuh Abebe wrote recently in New York magazine, "In music, punk remains what the critic Frank Kogan calls a "Superword" — a term whose main purpose is for people to fight over what it should mean," adding, "It's a concept like "freedom" or "the one true Church" or "real Americans": to invoke it is to advance a vision of what it entails, and duke it out with competing visions." My visual is spiked hair, piercings, studs, ripped clothing held together by safety
