It’s that time again. This week, John Oliver discusses inflation. It turns out to be a complex problem with no single cause and not necessarily an obvious right solution. Who knew?
Left of center and lover of photography, music, pop culture, and life.
Favorite quote - "There are no innocents. There are, however, different degrees of responsibility" (Lisbeth Salander, from Stieg Larsson's original Millennium Trilogy).
Here’s one account about why the 1970s were so weird. Admittedly my lived memory of the decade is sketchy until about the mid-1970s. There was definitely some “state of the art weirdness” as Frank Zappa might say. I suppose framing the 1970s in the context of radical movements that had gone off the rails makes some sense. Hunter S. Thompson was sounding the alarms about the a return to something more reactionary in the wake of the idealism that he might have remembered. The popular culture I remember seemed to be geared toward nostalgia for any decade that was not the 1970s (or the 1960s, just to play it safe). There was a sense of disillusionment or nihilism as the decade wore on (it was a decade that brought us disaster movies and a fresh wave of zombie and Cronenberg films, and some post-apocalyptic films), although sometimes countered with some wonder and curiosity of a revitalized sci-fi genre. And there was plenty of pure escapism, but every decade seems to have its version of that. What I do know is that the 1970s seemed to hit differently, depending whether you’re looking at the start of the decade, the middle part of the decade, or near the end of the decade. You can tell from the music, film and TV of the decade, as well as any fiction or non-fiction you check out. There was a lot of cool stuff going on even if there was an undercurrent of fear and loathing, although the fear and loathing, and self-indulgent excess seemed to set the stage for the decades I’ve lived through since.
It is so quiet here that you can hear a pin drop.
Here’s one account about why the 1970s were so weird. Admittedly my lived memory of the decade is sketchy until about the mid-1970s. There was definitely some “state of the art weirdness” as Frank Zappa might say. I suppose framing the 1970s in the context of radical movements that had gone off the rails makes some sense. Hunter S. Thompson was sounding the alarms about the a return to something more reactionary in the wake of the idealism that he might have remembered. The popular culture I remember seemed to be geared toward nostalgia for any decade that was not the 1970s (or the 1960s, just to play it safe). There was a sense of disillusionment or nihilism as the decade wore on (it was a decade that brought us disaster movies and a fresh wave of zombie and Cronenberg films, and some post-apocalyptic films), although sometimes countered with some wonder and curiosity of a revitalized sci-fi genre. And there was plenty of pure escapism, but every decade seems to have its version of that. What I do know is that the 1970s seemed to hit differently, depending whether you’re looking at the start of the decade, the middle part of the decade, or near the end of the decade. You can tell from the music, film and TV of the decade, as well as any fiction or non-fiction you check out. There was a lot of cool stuff going on even if there was an undercurrent of fear and loathing, although the fear and loathing, and self-indulgent excess seemed to set the stage for the decades I’ve lived through since.