3 hours ago
8
What a lovely piece by Elle Hunt (Can I learn to be cool – even though I am garrulous, swotty and wear no-show socks?, 30 October). Coolness resides in those people who are whole in themselves, who do not stop to question whether they are cool, but simply do, love what they do, and are generally excellent at it. Authenticity is cool. Less is more is cool. By definition you, Elle, are cool (you write for the Guardian).
Celebrities: mostly pseudo-cool. Manicured cool, manufactured cool, is not cool. Miles Davis, for a large chunk of his existence, bathed in cool, personified cool and damn near invented cool.
Cate Blanchett has a fair claim to cool. Billie Eilish, Charli xcx – in-your-face cool. Lorde – quirky cool. Daniel Craig, Brad Pitt, George Clooney – elder cool. Keanu Reeves – woman-of-his-own-age cool. Lewis Hamilton – openness, resilience, aching self-honesty; mega-cool. (Whereas Lando Norris is not cool. Oscar Piastri is cool, but Lando never.) Colson Whitehead is cool.
And cool should not be confused with style. Style might mimic cool, desperately want to be cool, but style is merely a byproduct of cool; the love child of cool. Monty Don and his jacket are cool. Elegance, however – elegance is cool’s defiant lover; understated elegance, its inseparable companion.
Silence can be cool, but not when it is cold. Listening more than speaking is cool.
People who care more about others are cool. People who speak out against injustice are cool. Destroying the planet for financial gain is not cool. Killing civilians is not cool. Invading others’ countries, killing children or enabling the killing of children is not cool. Belief in supremacy is not cool. Hatred is not cool. Love is cool. Forgiveness is cool.
Not everyone can be, but almost everyone could try to be, a little cooler.
Denis Baker
Nyon, Switzerland
The coolest person ever to have existed was, of course, Miles Davis. Capitol Records brought out the album The Birth of the Cool under Davis’s name in 1957. Cool jazz became a thing after the end of the second world war, replacing bebop with a less frenetic sound.
The music for the album was recorded in the late 1940s and arranged by the very cool Gil Evans. Sumptuous sounds of double instruments, singing the tunes. Maybe the music and the title are disconnected, being conceived at different times and amalgamated to fit the emergent cool jazz scene.
I saw Davis perform in London in the 1970s and 80s. He never spoke to the audience; he came on the stage in dark glasses, played (often with his back to the audience), and then left while other musicians continued improvising on the theme. Later on I discovered that he was not a kind human being. Still cool, though.
Robert Barnes
Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire
The research study mentioned by Elle Hunt missed the most important quality: it’s cool to be kind.
David Jeffrey
West Malvern, Worcestershire
Elvis was cool.
Dolly Prenzel
Nashville, Tennessee, US
There is another reason we brown and black people are in the ads Sarah Pochin detests: we’re cool (Nigel Farage defends MP’s complaint about TV adverts as ‘ugly’ but not ‘deliberately’ racist, 27 October). I know that sounds flippant, but she’s attacking the soft power of those who are public-facing (and seen as caring in a time of crisis) in the NHS, and those who entertain. Music, publishing, acting, fine art – we’re there, producing work that appeals to the young – who will be voters very soon.
Roshi Fernando
Avening, Gloucestershire
