Jake--can I call ya Jake--
That's as good a dissection of the issue Dina's question raised as I've
seen anywhere.
And also something of an excellent defense of something which probably
SHOULDN'T have needed to be defended--an audience's recation to what it
herad, the way it heard it.
Now, I'll wager (hope!) you won't feel generationally pressured or doubt my
word if I say that, tho born in 1950, right dab in the middle of those
years you corrcetly identify as core "boomer" -I think I was always enough
of an ironic type not to fall into the sorts of traps you note many of
about my age have. (At least, I've done a reasonable job of resisting the
impulse.)
I also happen to despise the word boomer--even moreso when used all
smiley cuddley beaming with daisies by somebody who is of that post-war
generation themselves BTW --and just want to note that damn few people my
age have ever felt or had reason to feel that we're arrived at power let
alone hegemony over much of anything. As many of us as there are, and as
intimidating and annoying as the sheer fact of us must often seem, those
sheer numbers have largely reduced the power of most of us as
individuals--and even opportunities.
But enough of that morose stuff. Part of the beauty of all this is that
none of us at all have to abide by the reductive, too dismissive, and
often media-constructed notions of who we're supposed to be based ond when
(or where, BTW) we were born and raised. In many ways--a lot of us around
here seem to avoid falling into sociological stereotypes--one of the charms
of P2--with members from--what did that report just say--18 to 65?
Thanks for some original thinking and unusually potent writing. This sort
of stuff is what made Postcard2 BTW, even if it's almost forgotten now.
Somehow iIt figures that Mr. Cantweell was one of those who got to see this
stuff early. He's no opponent of "Really Long". Fortunately.
Yet Sometimes I also just want to say about our "generations"--"to hell
with all of 'em."There are real differences in experiences, of course--bu
tas for these capital G Generations monumentalized in stone. sometimes,
for the individual, I think they mean about as much as decadesdo --not so
much in the larger scheme of things..
Ol' Barry M.
Peeping out from behind the hegemonies.
