GENERATION X

My fave part of this book - the text-box terminology running down the sides of the pages. Re-reading them all recently, I tried to pick out the ones that seemed personally familiar. And then realised I relate to most of them. Which is fine if you're about 22 but in your 30s it's perhaps time to realign your attitudes and make an effort to become less marginalised.

101-ism:
The tendency to pick apart, often in minute detail, all aspects of life using half-understood pop psychology as a tool.

Anti-Sabbatical:
A job taken with the sole intention of staying for a limited period of time (often one year). The intention is usually to raise enough funds to partake in another, more personally meaningful activity, such as watercolor sketching in Crete or designing sweaters in Hong Kong. Employers are rarely informed of intention.

Anti-Victim Device (AVD):
A small fashion accessory worn on an otherwise conformist outfit which announces to the world that one still has a spark of individuality burning inside: 1940s retro ties (on men), feminist buttons (women), and the now-almost-completely-extinct teeny "rattail" haircut (both sexes).

Black Holes:
An X generation subgroup best known for their possession of almost entirely black wardrobes.

Boomer Envy:
Envy of material wealth and long-range material security accrued by older members of the baby boom generation by virtue of fortunate births.

Bradyism:
A multi-sibling sensibility derived from having grown up in large families. A rarity in those born after approximately 1965. Symptoms of Bradyism include a facility for mind games, emotional withdrawal in situations of overcrowding, and a deeply felt need for well-defined personal space.

Brazilification:
The widening gulf between the rich and the poor and the accompanying disappearance of the middle classes.

Bread and Circuits:
The electronic era tendency to view party politics as corny - no longer relevant or meaningful or useful to modern societal issues, and in many cases dangerous.

Celebrity Schadenfreude:
Lurid thrills derived from talking about celebrity deaths.

Chryptotechnophobia:
The secret belief that technology is more of a menace than a boon.

Clique Management:
The need of one generation to see the generation following it as deficient so as to bolster its own collective ego: "Kids today do nothing. They're so apathetic. We used to go out and protest. All they do is shop and complain."

Conspicuous Minimalism:
The non-ownership of goods flaunted as a token of moral and intellectual superiority.

Conversational slumming:
The self-conscious enjoyment of a given conversation precisely for its lack of intellectual rigor.

Cult of Aloneness:
The need for autonomy at all costs, usually at the expense of long-term relationships. Often the result of overly high expectations of others.

Derision Preemption:
A lifestyle tactic; the refusal to go out on any sort of emotional limb so as to avoid mockery from peers.

Diseases from Kisses (Hyperkarma):
The deeply rooted belief that punishment will somehow always be far greater than the crime: eg ozone holes for littering.

Divorce Assumption:
The belief that if marriage doesn't work out then there is no problem because partners can simply seek a divorce.

Dorian Graying:
The unwillingness to gracefully allow one's body to show the signs of aging.

Down-Nesting:
The tendency of parents to move to smaller, guest-room-free houses after their children have moved away so as to avoid children aged 20 to 30 returning home.

Dumpster Clocking:
The tendency when looking at objects to guesstimate the amount of time they will take to eventually decompose: "Ski boots are the worst. Solid plastic. They'll be around til the end of time.”

Earth Tones:
A youthful subgroup interested in vegetarianism, tie-dyed outfits, mild recreational drugs, and good stereo equipment. Earnest, frequently lacking in humour.

Emotional Ketchup Burst:
The bottling up of emotions and opinions so that they explosively burst forth all at once, shocking and confusing employers and friends - most of whom thought things were fine.

Expatriate Solipsism:
On arrival in a foreign travel destination one had hoped was undiscovered (only to find many people just like oneself), the peeved refusal to talk to said people because they had ruined one's elitist travel fantasy.

Fame-Induced Apathy:
The attitude that no activity is worth pursuing unless one can become very famous pursuing it. Fame-Induced Apathy mimics laziness, but its roots are much deeper.

Historical Slumming:
The act of visiting locations such as diners, industrial sites, rural villages - locations where time appears frozen - so as to experience relief when one returns back to "the present."

Homeowner Envy:
Feelings of jealousy amongst the young and disenfranchised when faced with gruesome housing statistics.

Knee-Jerk Irony:
The tendency to make flippant ironic comments as a reflexive matter of course in everyday conversation.

Lessness:
A philosophy whereby one reconciles oneself with diminishing expectations of material wealth: "I've given up wanting to make a killing or be a bigshot. I just want to find happiness and maybe open up a little roadside cafe in Idaho."

McJob:
A low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, no-future job in the service sector. Frequently considered a satisfying career choice by people who have never held one.

Me-ism:
The search by an individual, in the absence of training or traditional religious tenets, to formulate a personally tailored religion of his own. Frequently a mishmash of reincarnation, personal dialogue with a vaguely defined god figure, naturalism, and karmic eye-for-eye attitudes.

Mental Ground Zero:
The location where one visualizes oneself during the dropping of the atomic bomb; frequently, a shopping mall.

Metaphasia:
The inability to perceive metaphor.

Mid-Twenties Breakdown:
A period of mental collapse occurring in one's twenties, often caused by an inability to function outside of school or structured environments coupled with a realization of one's aloneness in the world. Often marks the induction into the ritual of pharmaceutical usage.

Now Denial:
To tell oneself that the only time worth living in is the past and that the only time that may ever be interesting again is the future.

Nutritional Slumming:
Food whose enjoyment stems not from flavour but from a complex mixture of class connotations, nostalgia signals, and packaging semiotics: (“Walnut Whips - the sort of food an air-force wife stationed in Pensacola back in the early sixties would buy for her husband to celebrate a career promotion.")

Obscurism:
The practice of peppering daily life with obscure references (forgotten films, dead TV stars, unpopular book, defunct countries, etc.) as a subliminal means of showcasing one's education and one's wish to disassociate from the world of mass culture.

Occupational Slumming:
Taking a job beneath one's skills or education level as a means of retreat from adult responsibilities and/or avoiding possible failure in one's true occupation.

O'Propriation:
The inclusion of advertising/packaging/entertainment jargon from earlier eras in everyday speech for ironic and/or comic effect.

Option Paralysis:
The tendency, when given unlimited choices, to make none.

Ozmosis:
The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image.

Paper Rabies:
Hypersensitivity to littering.

Personal Taboo:
A small rule for living, bordering on superstition, that allows one to cope with everyday life in the absence of cultural or religious dictums.

Poorochondria:
Hypochondria derived from not having medical insurance.

Poverty Jet Set:
A group of people given to chronic travelling at the expense of long-term job stability or a permanent residence. Tend to have doomed and extremely expensive phone call relationships with people names Serge or Ilyana. Tend to discuss frequent-flyer programs at parties.

Poverty Lurks:
Financial paranoia instilled in offspring by depression-era parents.

Pull-the-Plug, Slice the Pie:
A fantasy in which an offspring mentally tallies up the net worth of his parents.

Rebellion Postponement:
The tendency in one's youth to avoid traditionally youthful activities and artistic experiences in order to obtain serious career goals. Sometimes results in the mourning for lost youth at about age thirty, followed by silly haircuts and joke wardrobes.

Recreational Slumming:
The practice of participating in recreational activities of a class one perceives as lower than one's own: "Karen! Donald! Let's go bowling tonight! An don't worry about shoes... apparently you can rent them."

Recurving:
Leaving one job to take another that pays less but places one back on the learning curve.

Safety Net-ism:
The belief that there will always be a financial and emotional safety net to buffer life's hurts. Usually parents.

Spectacularism:
A fascination with extreme situations.

Squires:
The most common X generation subgroup and the only subgroup given to breeding. Squires exist almost exclusively in couples and are recognizable by their frantic attempts to recreate a semblance of Eisenhower-era plenitude in the face of exorbitant housing prices and two-job life-styles. Squires tend to be continually exhausted.

Squirming:
Discomfort inflicted by older people, who see no irony in their gestures, upon younger people. "Karen died a thousand deaths as her father made a big show of tasting a recently manufactured bottle of wine before allowing it to be poured as the family sat in Steak Hut."

Status Substitution:
Using an object with intellectual or fashionable kudos to apologise for an object that is merely expensive: "Brian, you left your copy of Camus in your brother's BMW."

Survivulousness:
The tendency to visualize oneself enjoying being the last person on earth. "I'd take a helicopter up and throw microwave ovens down on the Taco Bell."

Tele-Parablising:
Morals used in everyday life that derive from TV sitcom plots: "That's just like the episode where Jan lost her glasses."

Terminal Wanderlust:
A condition common to people of transient middle-class upbringings. Unable to feel rooted in any one environment, they move continually in the hope of finding an idealized sense of community in the next location.

Underdogging:
The tendency to invariably side with the underdog in a given situation. The consumer _expression of this trait is the purchasing of less successful, "sad" or failing products: "I know these Vienna franks are a heart attack on a stick, but they looked so sad against all the other yuppie food items that I had to buy them."

Vaccinated Time Travel:
To fantasize about travelling backward in time, but only with proper vaccinations.

Veal-Fattening Pen:
Small, cramped office workstations built of fabric-covered self-assembly wall partitions and inhabited by junior staff members. Named after the pre-slaughter cubicles used by the cattle industry.

Voter's Block:
The attempt, however futile, to register dissent with the current political system by not voting.

INDIAN ROPE TRICK

Saw a programme about magic last night. The Indian Rope Trick is apparently common to all cultures. This classic feat of magic has somebody throwing one end of a thick, coiled rope skywards. A young, nimble person then shins up the rope (the 'skywards' end is not attached to anything, and the other end is merely lying on the floor). When the person reaches the top they disappear from view - where the person goes and how the disappearing takes place is a mystery. I'd never seen this before, but the TV programme showed lots of old footage of various companies/magicians performing the trick. It was amazing. In our culture we have Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack climbs a vine or creeper that is able to support his weight when it should plausibly fall to the ground. And Jack climbs so high that he disappears from view.

What is the secret of the Indian Rope Trick though? I realise that a proper, sturdy, substantial pole is somehow hidden behind the rope, which allows the climber to ascend. But how is the pole put in place when somebody is seen to casually throw the rope only moments before? And where does the climber disappear to?

CHARLES BUKOWSKI

I've just finished reading Post Office. I was aware of CB's reputation as a misogynist so I wasn't too surprised to discover that his attitudes towards women are vile. But the man has some kind of humanity (yes, I suppose even this word is biased). It was an ambiguity that kept me reading. He - it's safe to assume CB is the narrator - would frequently discuss the various women in his life solely in terms of their flesh, shape and smell. In terms of sex. But he did suffer personally and feel for others. If he didn't, I would've been unable to continue reading the book. Consider the following passages:

The subs themselves made Jonstone possible by obeying his impossible orders. I couldn't see how a man of such obvious cruelty could be allowed to have his position. The regulars didn't care, the union man was worthless, so I filled out a thirty page report on one of my days off, mailed a copy to Jonstone and took the other down to the Federal Building. The clerk told me to wait. I waited and waited and waited, then was taken in to see a little grey-haired man. He didn't even ask me to sit down. He began screaming at me as I entered the door.
"You're a wise son of a bitch, aren't you?"
"I'd rather you didn't curse me, sir!"
"Wise son of a bitch, you're one of those sons of bitches with a vocabularly and you like to lay it around!"
He waved his papers at me. And screamed: "MR JONSTONE IS A FINE MAN!"
"Don't be silly. He's an obvious sadist," I said.
"How long have you been in the post office?"
"3 weeks."
"MR JONSTONE HAS BEEN WITH THE POST OFFICE FOR 30 YEARS!"
"What does that have to do with it?
"I said, MR JONSTONE IS A FINE MAN!"
I believe the poor fellow actually wanted to kill me. He and Jonstone must have slept together.
"All right," I said, "Mr Jonstone is a fine man. Forget the whole thing." Then I walked out and took the next day off. Without pay, of course.

Fine. A likeable narrator who is morally sound. And he sends his girlfriend money for their daughter.

But then there are passages like this:

One day I was at the bar between races and I saw this woman. God or somebody keeps creating women and tossing them out on the streets, and this one's ass is too big and that one's tits are too small and this one is mad and that one is crazy and that one is a religionist and that one reads tea leaves and this one can't control her farts, and that one has this big nose, and that one has boney legs....
But now and then, a woman walks up, full blossom, a woman just bursting out of her dress... a sex creature, a curse, the end of it all.

Morally bankrupt. Somebody you'd avoid.

Anyway, it was a quick, simple read (one day). "Beat writing" attempts to make a virtue out of its shortcomings. A pared down vocabularly and the inability to vary the pace/create tension/develop a plot, etc, are not the hallmarks of great literature. On the Road is one of the most overrated 'books' (for I don't know quite what else it is) ever.

BLYTON

The 1970s equivalent of Britney Spears, Kate Moss and Jade Goody didn’t people my thoughts when I was young (in ‘the olden days’). It’s sad to think of today’s pre-pubescent girls running around thinking of celebrity marriage break-ups (if this is what they do). The characters on my mental map were from stories. In truth, they’ve never really been away.

Hence, it’s still very easy to recall the Naughtiest Girl in the School, who couldn’t live without a record called “The Sea Piece” and who ordered a beautiful birthday cake for her friend, Joan (whose parents appeared to have forgotten about her). The delighted Joan then wrote to her folks to thank them for the lavish cake, which uncovered the deceit. In a fit of pique at being sent away from home to boarding school, Elizabeth the Naughtiest Girl defiantly poured a bottle of black ink over her white rug in an effort to get expelled. (She wasn’t, of course. In the best tradition of Enid Blyton, she realised the error of her unruly ways, made good, and went on to become head girl).

(Nostalgic sigh). Then there’s Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School. He was forever waiting for a postal order, and whenever his family sent him a cake he would cut a modest slice, replace it, and then eat the rest of the cake.

Malory Towers was a classic boarding school series. It had a swimming pool that could only be used when the tide was in, a French teacher who was unable to master English idioms, (she thought pebbles were a unit of weight), and a boy whose fingers resembled a bunch of bananas when he played the piano.

For me though, the pair that first kicked off Reading For Pleasure were Noddy and Big Ears. Unforgettable – their trip to the seaside, and illustrations of the two of them wearing ‘bathing costumes’. Unfortunately, Noddy and Big Ears’s maiden voyage to the coast was an unmitigated disaster. On the drive down, a suitcase parted company with the back of Noddy’s car. The day after, a giant crab bit Noddy on his big toe while he was paddling. They pitched their tent on the wrong part of the beach and, in the manner of King Cnut, spent a long time shouting “Go away!” at the incoming tide. The tide didn’t turn but in the end this was irrelevant – shortly afterwards a fierce gale ripped the tent from its pegs and carried it away into the starry night sky. I can recall the two of them returning home and remarking that, while holidays are nice, nothing beats getting home again.

It’s sad, but I’ll probably never enjoy another writer quite so much.

REASON FOR BEING

This blog came about during the tail end of winter because everybody else was doing it. It was supposed to be a place to record all the better passages from books and print journalism (in common with a lot of people, I read often but then promptly forget everything). So, with this in mind and a new name, here's a poem I found recently. It's brimming with pathos. I loved the 'nerve' metaphor:

Death of an old woman
She lived too much alone to be aware of it,
In a cottage on a stretch of moor,
Built before the distant road was built
And shunned by everything built since.
Her croft had faded through the years
For lack of drainage and proper food,
Bled of its green until the eye
Could hardly tell where it began or ended.
Her house had a hold in the thatch
To let the smoke out - when there was any -
And the rain in, and three small openings
In the salls, two for light and one for charity.
And all about the size she was accustomed to.
The man who found her dead was drawn
In that direction by the movement.
That was the door of her empty henhouse
Flapping in the wind, a nerve continuing to twitch.
She herself was lying in her bed,
Causing a slight ripple in the blankets.
She had an English bible in her hands,
Upside down. The doctor who examined her
Stated that her mouth was full of raw potato.

Alasdair Maclean

OFFICES

The powers-that-be in the office where I currently work have given me a permanent contract. Which is a pleasant, unexpected surprise, although I don't think I'll be collecting the gold watch. The worst thing about admin/anything vaguely secretarial, is - without exception, it seems - the other secretaries. Fortunately, there's only one other seccy here in this office - I sit next to her and she's great.

The woman who's now gone on maternity leave was fond of telling us she was leaving early - ie before the rush hour, and that someone else would be making dinner. Hell, she may've got wind of this url as we shared the same computer for a while... Anyway, she once said, as she was going through the door at 3.55, "Think of me at 5.30 when you're leaving. I'll be home by then". To which the sharper and (in my opinion) more likeable woman said, quick as a flash (and in exactly the same spirit - ie without any real malice), "Well, when you're lying on your back screaming your head off having your baby, think of me. I'll be sipping a glass of wine. And then we'll see who's having the last laugh".

Fantastic.

HARD WINTER

LONDON (Reuters) - Get out your woollies - forecasters who accurately predicted a wet summer say it's going to be extra chilly in Britain this winter.

Metcheck.com, which gives long range seasonal forecasts, said it predicted an end to the recent mild winters, with cold snaps and snowfall on the way. "Metcheck.com is now advising the UK to ditch the wellies for woollies as computer models now indicate the UK can expect a colder than average winter this year," the agency's senior forecaster Andrew Bond said.
November should see average temperatures but December and January will be colder than usual with more snowfall than in the last few years. But Bond said it was unlikely there would be a repeat of the UK's famously bleak winters of 1947 or 1963 which almost brought the country to a standstill.

However, he said the first blast of icy weather could begin as early as next week. Britain's Meteorological Office said long-range forecasts were experimental and it was difficult to give accurate predictions so far in advance: "We think it will be colder than average in Christmas week but you can't give an accurate view until three or four weeks beforehand."
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Hmm, but every bleedin' year there are reports of an especially cold/mild winter, wet/hot summer, etc. One thing though: if there's anything in the folklore-ish wisdom that says berries in Autumn signify an especially cold winter, then perhaps it really will be freezing in December and January. Berries are everywhere at the moment. Why this should portend a cold winter I'm not sure. Perhaps it is to do with providing nourishment for birds?

RECIPE

Jean Britton describes a visit from her mother, for whom she tried a new recipe. It seemed to go down well with everyone, so she asked her Mum what she thought. “It was very nice dear, but next time you make it I’ll have a boiled egg.”

That was 20 years ago, but now not only my family but many of my friends still use the phrase.

From The Guardian.

BICYCLE FASCISTS

"Rail bosses have been criticised (I hate this passive-construction lazy journalism. Criticised by whom?!) after banning bicycles from rush-hour commuter services to make more room for people. South West Trains, which serves London, Surrey, Berkshire and Hampshire, siad its priority was paying passengers. A spokesperson for the London Cycling Campaign called for guard's vans to be reintroduced to store bicycles." (TODAY'S METRO)

If the only "critics" were the LCC then I would imagine this to be the equivalent of being mauled by a lamb. Cyclists don't have a proper political lobbying group that is recognised or listened to, although the LCC is better than nothing. Banning bikes from rush-hour trains you can kind of understand, given that it's often impossible to find space to turn over a newspaper, but guard's vans have never been away! They are still there, at the front of trains. So why not let cyclists put their bikes in there? Well, it would be too much bother, evidently. It's only cyclists that are being inconvenienced.

At 10pm, say, after a film or a meal, there is no good or compelling reason to forbid bikes from trains. What this does is ensure that the only way to complete a convenient, door-to-door journey is by car.

One way of reducing road-traffic congestion would be to make other methods more attractive and more flexible. But alternatives - in the form of cycling, buses and trains - seem to become less attractive, less affordable and less flexible with every day that passes. Why?

UN/COUNTABLE NOUNS

A quick one. Just returned from M&S. Hanging above an aisle was a sign reading "Fruits, Vegetables and Salads". No! Wrong! Stop it!

Since when did "fruit" cease to be a sufficiently descriptive/articulate word to describe bananas apples and pears? Only thing I could think of was that the sign-writer made it plural for the sake of remaining consistent with "vegetables" and "salads". But I still think it sucks.

DECISIONS

Why are decisions difficult? In John Garner's novel, Grendl, the protagonist, confounded by life's mysteries, consults a wise priest who utters two simple phrases, four terrifying words: Everything fades and alternatives exclude.

"Alternatives exclude" - that concept lies at the heart of so many decisional difficulties. For every "yes" there must be a "no". Decisions are expensive because they demand renunciation. This phenomenon has attracted great minds throughout the ages. Aristotle imagined a hungry dog unable to choose between two equally attractive portions of food, and the medieval scholastics wrote of Burridan's ass, which starved to death between two equally sweet-smelling bales of hay.

Death is a boundary experience capable of moving an individual from an everyday state of mind to an ontological state (a state of being in which we are aware of being) in which change is more possible. Decision is another boundary experience. It not only confronts us with the degree to which we create ourselves but also to the limits of possibilities. Making a decision cuts us off from other possibilities. Choosing one woman, or one career, or one school, means relinquishing the possibility of others. The more we face our limits, the more we have to relinquish our myth of personal specialness, unlimited potential, imperishability, and immunity to the laws of biological destiny. It is for these reasons that Heidegger referred to death as the impossibility of further possibility. The path to decision may be hard because it leads into the territory of both finiteness and groundlessness - domains soaked in anxiety. Everything fades and alternatives exclude.

Irvin Yalom

THE COST OF LOVING

"Coitus is the price we pay for being together"

WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE?

No, no, no. I'm not watching it. It's just on. Anyway, the last question ran as follows:

"Which of the following means a place you visit frequently?"

a) Hang dog
b) Hang out
c) Hang something else (I've forgotten)
d) Hang up

But you could argue that D is valid here. Some people are forever visiting their hang-ups.

PHIL TUFNELL

He's so cool and funny and, um, attractive. I sat through hours upon hours of "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here" because of him. How I laughed when he told the story of how the manager of the English cricket team rebuffed him when he expressed an interest in captaining the side ("I don't think it's your cup of tea, is it son?")/

Every week on 'They Think It's All Over', Jonathan Ross feeds PT cryptic allusions until PT produces the name of a sportsperson. For example, 'shaft of sunlight' (ray), 'back of' (rear), professor ('don'), you get the idea, but anyway, last night Jonathan Ross said, 'the small boy who never grew up' and Phil Tufnell said 'Tom Thumb'. (I fear I am gushing a bit here). In my opinion, this demonstrates completely brilliant lateral thinking. Tom Thumb didn't grow upWARDS because he was three inches tall, but he wasn't ageless. The correct answer, of course, was Peter Pan.

Anyway, Phil Tufnell. There's someone who it'd be fun to be stuck in the jungle (or pub) with. Yeeeaaah.

GOOD NEWS / BAD NEWS

The good news: the album I've been waiting for, (scheduled for a 1967 release, it became available last Monday 27th September - 37 years late) is every bit as startling, original and wonderful as I imagined. The bad news: on my discman, it will not play past track 10. It's like waiting ages for a bus which then terminates before the stop you wanted.

FIVE YEARS...
A black day. Five years ago someone was busy dying in A&E. Incredible! Amazing! Even the day has come round again - Friday morning, rush-hour. Dates are arbitrary and ultimately they don't matter, but even so they remind and measure it, like it or not.

Then,
And if you should leave me
I would say that the ghost
Of Casandra
Has passed through
My eyes
I would say that the stars
In their malice
Merely light up the sky
To stretch my torments
And that the waves crash
On the shore
To bring salt-stings
On my face:
For you reconnect me with
All the lights of the sky
And the salt of the waves
And the myths in the air
And with your passing
The evening would become too dark
To dream in
And the morning
Too bright

BEN ORKI


and now,
The dead are always looking down on us, they say,
While we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,
They are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven
As they row themselves slowly through eternity.

They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth
And when we lie down in a field or on a couch
Drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon
They think we are looking back at them

Which makes them lift their oars and fall silent
And wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.

BILLY COLLINS