Screaming

I think I'm gonna be the balding virile type, you know, as opposed to say, the um distinguished gray, for instance, you know, unless I'm neither of those two. Unless I'm one of those guys with saliva dribbling out of his mouth who wanders into a cafeteria with a shopping bag screaming about socialism. Woody Allen (or Alvy Singer....), Annie Hall

There are times when the biggest concern about blogging is how soon the witty posts are going to devolve into screaming about socialism. And if anyone would then be able to tell the difference.

When Annie Hall came out in 1977, an older man like the one Mr. Allen fears becoming could easily be in his late 70s - which is to say, born in 1900 or earlier, solid Lost Generation. Which is less about being an acquiantance of Hemingway than a contemporary, growing up when Williams Jennings Bryant was traveling the country to speak to adoring crowds;  old enough to fight in The Great War, but a little too old by the time WWII came around; ending up in a world that didn't quite fit them after the fighting stopped. Similar folks are seen in popular culture all around the postwar era. Mr. Wilson, Mrs. Porter, Statler & Waldorf: Grumpy, cynical, virtually -  sometimes literally - yelling at the kids to get off their lawn.

And that phrase - "You kids, get off my lawn!" - is a popular enough sentiment among my generation, meant ironically or not. The Lost were the previous generation of the Reactive archetype - previous to GenX, that is - and we can expect to follow in their footsteps.