How hip are you?

By Heidi Stevens
Chicago Tribune

How hip is it to drive an Excursion or Humvee?

Say what? You don't know what fin means? Oh, that's so midtown.

Confused? Fret not. You just need a copy of "The Hipster Handbook" (Anchor Books, $9.95). Written by New Yorker Robert Lanham and hitting stores this week, the handbook is a humorous look at the constant quest to be deck (that's hipster for cool), the discriminating tastes of the hipster class and the pitfalls to avoid if you don't want to be labeled fin (that's hipster for lame).

As any polit hipster who reads Newsweek's Conventional Wisdom section knows (as does any clubber hipster who reads Entertainment Weekly's Shaw Report), people and trends can be all the rage one day and plunge into obscurity the next. So it's no surprise that a handbook is necessary to sort through the types of hipsters and the myriad clothing styles, musical tastes, reading material and social causes they consider cutting edge. Just read it quickly — the advice may be out of date by March.

To give you a taste of the handbook's flavor, not to be confused with flava (see Page 74 of the book), here's our hipness test. If you fail miserably, that's OK. One gets the feeling that it would be fin to take this stuff seriously.

Deck or fin? Find out

1. A night out with friends includes:

1. A vegetarian dinner followed by mojitos.
2. Steaks at Ruth's Chris and dancing at a large club.
3. Nachos at Chili's and a Sandra Bullock flick.
4. A poetry reading and late-night coffee at Starbucks.

2. This best sums up your political leanings:

1. Straight-ticket Republican.
2. Fiscally conservative, but socially liberal.
3. Socially conservative, but fiscally liberal.
4. You have one Republican friend who you always describe as your "one Republican friend."

3. You live (or would like to live) in:

1. A condo near the beach.
2. A studio apartment in a mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly neighborhood.
3. A single-family home with wall-to-wall carpeting, vinyl siding and wood paneling.
4. Your parents' basement.

4. You subscribe to:

1. The New Yorker.
2. Harper's.
3. Entertainment Weekly.
4. All of the above.

5. Your bookshelf contains works by:

1. John Grisham, Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy.
2. Deepak Chopra, Spencer Johnson and Kenneth C. Davis.
3. Ernest Hemingway, Dave Eggers and Nick Hornby.
4. Jan Karon, Anne Rivers Siddons and Catherine Anderson.

6. You drive a:

1. Ford Excursion.
2. Used Vespa.
3. Volvo station wagon.
4. Honda Accord.

7. Midtown is:

1. The name of your tennis club and your bank.
2. The area of Manhattan where the "Today" show is taped.
3. The hipster term for uncultured or unhip.
4. A five-member boy band.

8. You think good '80s music consists of:

1. Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth and Gang of Four.
2. Culture Club, Duran Duran and Soft Cell.
3. The Cars, Crowded House and The Cure.
4. There's no such thing as good '80s music.

9. To you, "bust a moby" means:

1. Listen to an Eminem CD.
2. Finish a lengthy novel.
3. Dance.
4. Beat up a nerdy kid.

10. The following celebrities are deck:

1. Thora Birch and Edward Burns.
2. Reese Witherspoon and Johnny Knoxville.
3. Tyra Banks and the Naked Chef.
4. All of the above.

Hip answers

1. According to the handbook, "a good percentage of hipsters are vegans and vegetarians. ... To them, eating meat is suburban." In addition, hipsters spend much of their leisure time in "bars and restaurants with monosyllabic names such as Plant, Bound and Shine." Large clubs are hipster no-nos, since they tend to "attract girls who wear hair spray and (anger) the disc jockey by requesting 'Who Let the Dogs Out?' " So the answer is "a."

You may have been tempted to choose "d" because of the poetry reading, but you would have been wrong. hipsters never frequent Starbucks, possessing "an innate contempt for franchises."

2. Hipsters tend to be left-leaning and embrace social causes usually eschewed by the right. Conservative-leaning hipsters are Libertarians rather than Republicans. Hence, the only acceptable answer is "d."

3. Living in a deck neighborhood is key to being a hipster. The handbook specifically anoints the Gen-X-centric Wicker Park (as well as the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, Belltown in Seattle and Inner Mission in San Francisco), making "b" the correct answer. Though wall-to-wall carpeting, vinyl siding and wood paneling can all be kitschy.

4. A bit of a trick question. The correct answer is "d," which makes the unlikely Entertainment Weekly an acceptable hipster periodical.

We can explain. No. 4 in the handbook's "11 Clues You Are a Hipster" states, "You have refined taste and consider yourself exceptionally cultured, but have one pop vice (ElimiDATE, Quiet Riot and Entertainment Weekly are popular ones) that helps to define you as well-rounded."

5. Hipsters know the power of a deck book inside their shoulder-strap messenger bag. So while reading Hemingway, Eggers or Hornby is not essential, owner-ship of such books is mandat-ory, making "c" the proper answer. In addition, No. 6 in the handbook's "11 Clues You Are Not a Hipster" states, "You read novels with raised lettering on their covers," knocking "a" and "d" out of the running.

6. The handbook claims hipsters reserve their "sharpest disdain" for SUVs, which they refer to as "smog unleashing vehicles," so "a" is out. Also key to being hipster is distinguishing yourself from the masses, canceling "c" and "d." The answer is "b," as used Vespas help riders avoid looking "ostentatious."

7. While "a" and "b" are tech-nically accurate, "c" is the only correct response for a hipster.

It should be obvious to you by now that hipsters don't join tennis clubs and wouldn't be caught dead watching such mainstream drivel as the "Today" show. If you answered "d," you're both unhip and out of touch, although there is a boy band called O-Town.

8. Any hipster worth his or her salt is open to a wide variety of musical types, so "d" is an unacceptable answer.

But to remain deck, music can't be predictable, canceling out "c," and should possess a sense of irony, dashing the hopes of "b." The correct answer is "a."

9. According the handbook's glossary, "bust a moby" means "c," to dance. The example given alongside the definition is, "Let's go to the Tunnel and bust a moby." The phrase's origin is not given, so it's unknown whether Moby, the electronica artist, deserves credit.

10. The answer is "d," but we're not sure why. All six celebrities in "a," "b" and "c" are listed under the Handbook's "Celebrities Hipsters Have Crushes On," even though Tyra Banks, Reese Witherspoon and Johnny Knoxville seem woefully mainstream.

On the Web:

• See www.hipsterhandbook.com for even more deck info.