Baby Boomers Go Bust
So I've been reading Balsamic Dreams: A Short But Self-Important History of the Baby Boomer Generation, by Joe Queenan. I can only take Queenan's brand of sarcastic humor in small doses, but he does have a way with words, and he does have a point. Sometimes.
"Let's get one thing clear about the sixties: It was not a simpler, more innocent time. It was a nightmare. Everyone hated one another. Everyone was shooting at one another. Civil war was in the air. The food was abysmal. There were race riots in almost every major city. Drugs ravaged the underclass. People got lynched. The only good thing about the sixties was the music and the fact that it wasn't the seventies....I wouldn't live through the sixties again if you paid me. Which is pretty amazing, because Baby Boomers will do just about anything if you pay them." (p. 30)
"Baby Boomers have made a systematic attempt to geld the English language through a poisonous mixture of cant, jargon, blather, piffle, balderdash, and mush. Their primary siege engine has been a virulent brand of euphemism....For example, when Baby Boomers use the term 'centered' to describe a child, it can mean anything from 'has scads of grade-A munis in his trust fund' to 'takes less drugs than his peers.' When the term 'high maintenance' is used to describe a woman, it can mean anything from 'sensitive' to 'high-strung' to 'coke-snorting bitch.' And the term 'vulnerable' can mean anything from 'probably gay' to 'read way too much Sylvia Plath in college." (p. 86)
"Let's get one thing clear about the sixties: It was not a simpler, more innocent time. It was a nightmare. Everyone hated one another. Everyone was shooting at one another. Civil war was in the air. The food was abysmal. There were race riots in almost every major city. Drugs ravaged the underclass. People got lynched. The only good thing about the sixties was the music and the fact that it wasn't the seventies....I wouldn't live through the sixties again if you paid me. Which is pretty amazing, because Baby Boomers will do just about anything if you pay them." (p. 30)
"Baby Boomers have made a systematic attempt to geld the English language through a poisonous mixture of cant, jargon, blather, piffle, balderdash, and mush. Their primary siege engine has been a virulent brand of euphemism....For example, when Baby Boomers use the term 'centered' to describe a child, it can mean anything from 'has scads of grade-A munis in his trust fund' to 'takes less drugs than his peers.' When the term 'high maintenance' is used to describe a woman, it can mean anything from 'sensitive' to 'high-strung' to 'coke-snorting bitch.' And the term 'vulnerable' can mean anything from 'probably gay' to 'read way too much Sylvia Plath in college." (p. 86)
posted by Violet at 7:56 PM
2 Comments:
My, my, someone has anger issues...
By the way, I don't know if the author *is* a baby boomer. The phrase, "the sixties were a simpler time," refers to the period PRE-1967 ("summer of love"), or possibly, pre-1964 (pre-Beatles). My own opinion is that the "decade" should be anthropologically defined as 1955-65, and 1965-75 (pre-disco, I don't consider the '70's to include disco. I put that with the "early '80's.")
Just my thoughts.
Sorry, I should have clarified: the author of the book is a Baby Boomer himself, born in 1950. I think when he is talking about the "simpler times," he's referring to all those people who were stoned through the last few years of the decade and thus remember it fondly. "All you need is love," etc. ;-)
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