The Latest Generation: Recent Episodes
Patrick Bowman
The Latest Generation is a discussion on how different generations influence current events, culture, and history.
June 10 to June 16, 1945
This is Summer of Trinity, for the week ending Saturday June 16, 1945.
Sunday, June 10,1945 - 36 Days Before Trinity
It’s the 71st day of the Battle of Okinawa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_William_D._Porter_(DD-579)
Monday, June 11,1945 - 35 Days Before Trinity
It’s the 72nd day of the Battle of Okinawa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Miles_McCool
Tuesday, June 12,1945 - 34 Days Before Trinity
It is the 73rd day of the Battle of Okinawa.
General Eisenhower receives the “Freedom of the City” at London’s Guildhall. This symbolic act, with seven hundred years of history behind it, makes him “a citizen of the city.”
https://www.nps.gov/articles/general-eisenhower.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franck_Report
Wednesday, June 13,1945 - 33 Days Before Trinity
It is the 74th day of the Battle of Okinawa.
Thursday, June 14,1945 - 32 Days Before Trinity
It is the 75th day of the Battle of Okinawa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Inmate
Friday, June 15,1945 - 31 Days Before Trinity
It is the 76th day of the Battle of Okinawa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calutron (How they enriched U-235 for Little Boy)
https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/science-behind-atom-bomb
Saturday, June 16,1945 - 30 Days Before Trinity
It’s the 77th day of the Battle of Okinawa.
The Science Panel, headed by Robert Oppenheimer, and also including Enrico Fermi, Ernest O. Lawrence and Arthur H. Compton, gives the following report, classified Top Secret, to the Interim Committee: The report is titled “RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE IMMEDIATE USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS” and begins as follows:
[Note to self - some emphasis included here to assist in reading as a script, but there’s no font differences in the original.]
You have asked us to comment on the initial use of the new weapon. This use, in our opinion, should be such as to promote a satisfactory adjustment of our international relations. At the same time, we recognize our obligation to our nation to use the weapons to help save American lives in the Japanese war.
(1) To accomplish these ends we recommend that before the weapons are used not only Britain, but also Russia, France, and China be advised that we have made considerable progress in our work on atomic weapons, that these may be ready to use during the present war, and that we would welcome suggestions as to how we can cooperate in making this development contribute to improved international relations.
(2) The opinions of scientific colleagues on the initial use of these weapons are not unanimous; they range from the proposal of a purely technical demonstration to that of the military application best designed to induce surrender. Those who advocate a purely technical demonstration would wish to outlaw the use of atomic weapons, and have feared that if we use the weapons now our position in future negotiations will be prejudiced. Others emphasize the opportunity of saving American lives by immediate military use, and believe that such use will improve the international prospects, in that they are more concerned with the prevention of war than with the elimination of this specific weapon. We find ourselves closer to these latter views; we can propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.
(3) With regard to these general aspects of the use of atomic energy, it is clear that we, as scientific men, have no proprietary rights. It is true that we are among the few citizens who have had occasion to give thoughtful consideration to these problems during the past few years. We have, however, no claim to special competence in solving the political, social, and military problems which are presented by the advent of atomic power.
The report is signed by Robert Oppenheimer, with the note “for the panel”
https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/manhattan-project/interim-committee.html
As this week ends, the Trinity atomic bomb test has not yet been scheduled. However, it is exactly 30 days away.
Summer of Trinity is a part of Mapping History here on The Latest Generation.
Summer of Trinity is a daily look at the summer of 1945, when the Second World War ended.
June 3, 1945. Sunday.
It is the 64th day of the Battle of Okinawa.
June 4, 1945. Monday.
It is the 65th day of the Battle of Okinawa.
Churchill's Gestapo speech
June 5, 1945. Tuesday
It is the 66th day of the Battle of Okinawa.
June 6, 1945. Wednesday
It is the 67th day of the Battle of Okinawa.
It is the one-year anniversary of D-Day, the invasion of Normandy that culminated one month ago in the surrender of Germany.
Dr. Bine's letters can be found at dearfolksies.com
https://www.dearfolksies.com/dachau-concentration-camp-june-6-june-26-1945/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_concentration_camp
June 7, 1945. Thursday
It is the 68th day of the Battle of Okinawa.
Didn't include Robert M. McTureous, Jr, but he has a story of his own.
June 8, 1945. Friday
It is one month since the surrender of Germany.
It is the 69th day of the Battle of Okinawa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Salute_(AM-294)
On Okinawa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Faulkner_Lester dies in combat for actions for which he would posthumously receive the Medal of Honor
June 9, 1945. Saturday
A classified document is created within the United States War department, named “Installations in Japan Not To Be Bombed.”
http://www.mansell.com/pow_resources/recovery/Installations_in_Japan_Not_To_Be_Bombed_1945-06-09.pdf
As this week ends, the Trinity atomic bomb test has not yet been scheduled. However, it is only 37 days away.
Summer of Trinity is a part of Mapping History here on The Latest Generation.
A look at each day between Memorial Day and Labor Day, 1945 - the six weeks on either side of the Trinity test on July 16.
(For future weeks, we'll have an entry for each day, but we already did May 1945 in the previous episode.)
May 30, 1945. Wednesday. Memorial Day. It is the 60th day of the Battle of Okinawa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_Day
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day
May 31, 1945. Thursday. It is the 61st day of the battle of Okinawa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_B._Craft
June 1, 1945 Friday. It is the 62nd day of the Battle of Okinawa.
Times around the world, as the meeting of the Interim Committee starts, 11AM in Washington DC
https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/notes-meeting-interim-committee?documentid=NA&pagenumber=9
The members of the Interim Committee include (not a complete list)
Mr. George H. Bucher, President of Westinghouse - manufacture of equipment for the electromagnetic process.
Mr.Walter S. Carpenter, President of Du Pont Company - construction of the Hanford Project.
Mr. James Rafferty, Vice President of Union Carbide - construction and operation of gas diffusion plant in Clinton.
Mr. James White, President of Tennessee Eastman - production of basic chemicals and construction of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-12_National_Security_Complex
The committee also discussed how difficult it would be for the Soviet Union to replicate the work that had been done on the atomic bomb.
https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/notes-meeting-interim-committee?documentid=NA&pagenumber=4
A introduction to the state of the world in May 1945.
- FDR is dead.
- Truman is President, only three months after he became vice-president.
- The Battle of Okinawa is ongoing - it had started on April 1st.
- USS Indianapolis is in San Francisco for repairs from a kamikaze attack in the waters around Okinawa, just before the invasion began.
- The USSR has just ended its non-agression pact with the Empire of Japan.
- Mussoline is dead, killed on April 28
- Hitler is dead by suicide on April 30.
- Nazi Germany is defeated on May 8.
- The long-term coalition government in the UK ends with the victory over Germany.
- Churchill has requested that elections be held, around the beginning of July.
- In Los Alamos, the Manhattan Project team awaits deliveries of uranium and plutonium to use in their Little Boy and Fat Man designs.
- And although nobody realizes it for certain, the war is nearly over.
Summer of Trinity is a look at the summer of 1945, between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Halfway between those dates, on July 16, was the Trinity atomic weapon test - but a lot was happening all around the world, during the 6 weeks before and after Trinity.
That's what this series will be about.
14 09 27 -- The Battle of Flowers parade was my second parade ever. It was April 27, 1979, in San Antonio, Texas, part of "Fiesta," an annual series of events in San Antonio. I was there with my high school band, on a trip we'd been looking forward to all year.
https://battleofflowers.org/events/
The numbering convention is an adaptation of the method used in Defending Your Life. In the movie its a way to refer to specific days in a lifetime while reviewing events that may cover any day within a life. The first number is my age in years on the day this happened, the second is the month number within that year (i.e. the number of months since my previous birthday), and the third is the day within the month. Because I was born at the end of the month, I’ve simply used the day of that month e.g. for November 11 the month number is 4 and the day number is 11
Although the date is described within the movie as being “Daniels nth year,” the actual year used is his age at that point. This means that, for example, 1/1/1 is his first birthday: the first day of the first month when he turned 1., This is noted as a goof on IMDB ( as described, 1/1/1 would be the first day of his first year I.e. the day he was born) but ... having tried to figure it myself, this method turns out to be easier to calculate and more useful to understand about when events are happening.
Note that 14 09 27 is NOT “14 years, plus 4 months plus 11 days” but “the 27th day of the 9th month after my 14th birthday.”
A Twitter thread from a day I was thinking about the Battle of Flowers.
On WIkipedia, you can find what a Sousaphone looks like.
Repo Man and Plain Wrap according to IMDB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_tower_shooting
Hang On Sloopy is not mentioned here and there was no way for me to have included the relevant anecdote in the episode, but I did want to at least have some reference to it. Suffice it to say that it was a song we frequently played at football games.
Three months later and it's not as bad as it seemed. But it's not really getting better, either. It's been a Redux-heavy month, so planning to do some new episodes of various sorts in April.
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Lucy Hires a Maid
Verna Felton aka Mrs. Porter
WarGames at IMDB
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/
Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy
Professor Falken explain how the world works to David and Jennifer
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104940/
(Not a Nomad, not as frightening a person at 53 as Verna was at 63 - a quite believable member of the Silent generation.)
Statler and Waldorf
This isn’t about Statler and Waldorf, but it is about the Muppet Christmas Carol, which is close enough here in December.
https://www.gq.com/story/michael-caine-muppet-christmas-carol-interview
A random thought on Colonel Dawson - well, two. The first one is that he was named after Cecil Rhodes, which says something about who his parents thought were the good guys in colonial Africa in the late 19th Century. But also that I overheard him saying one time "I thought he was as good a general as he was a President" with an emphatic thumbs-down.
I spent about five minutes searching Twitter for the flame war I mentioned and, I'll be honest, I can't even deal with looking at Musk's timeline for another moment. And the central tweet from him is offensive enough. So, if you want to find it, he posted it on December 27, 2024, at 11:22PM.
(Although it's not a bad example of my thesis, that everyone in a Nomad generation has trouble with their world after midlife.)
When describing how Turnings come about, the Midlife cohort can seem less important than the young adults' exuberant energy or the Elders' wisdom and values. The Nomads (like GenX) are identified as rather uninteresting managers of the Crisis/4th Turning, not much else to do in their role. Perhaps, though, the people in midlife are the key to it all, the real impetus, the ones who push the Crisis towards its peak.
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The tweet that - mostly - got this episode starting up again in my head
https://twitter.com/larisa_a/status/1095350964226281473
A few notes here on how age, fertility, and other ways we suspect that midlife is a specific biological event.
https://www.webmd.com/depression/features/midlife-crisis-opportunity#2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage-crisis_view
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erikson%27s_stages_of_psychosocial_development
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_and_female_fertility
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/01/why-do-killer-whales-go-through-menopause/512783/
Hadn’t found this source when doing that earlier episode on The Third Wave
http://www.thewavehome.com/1991_The-Wave_article.htm
As mentioned, there was an earlier episode on Authoritarianism and Awakenings (Episode 16) that talks about The Third Wave and who was involved.
There's another one on anger, it's effect on people and its impact on the Fourth Turning - episode 20 Why Are You So Angry?
A couple of articles about how people have this drop in happiness around 44 or so.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/happiness-and-the-pursuit-leadership/201804/miserable-and-middle-aged-is-something-wrong-you
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/miserable-in-your-40s-dont-panic-its-perfectly-normal-2018-07-10
A study of 500 chimpanzees and orangutans rated for happiness by their zoo keepers indicated a primate mid-life crisis at around the age of 30 – a finding that led to speculation that some (as yet unidentified) age-related biological influence is at work.
(…in the book Protector, there is speculation that other primates were separate offshoots of breeders, de-volving because of something unexpected like increased radiation.)
https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2015/jun/24/life-happiness-curve-u-shaped-ageing
A description of Protector on Larry Niven's website.
http://news.larryniven.net/biblio/display.asp?key=81ℴ=4&direction=1
But you can search around and you'll find more about it - like here
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/Protector
Marie Kondo was at the Oscars
https://twitter.com/TheAcademy/status/1099797651946491904
https://twitter.com/MarieKondo
“Tidying is contagious”
https://twitter.com/MarieKondo/status/1087735339551244290
This is one of two episodes referenced in "Waiting for the Worms," with respect to the idea that Awakenings (2nd Turnings) are more amenable to authoritarianism than Crisis (2th Turnings). In recent days, we're speed-running towards confirming that is true or...not so much.
Planning to repost the other older referenced one as well: Midlife in the Crisis.
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Taking a contrarian view that authoritarian regimes are likely to be more successful during an Awakening / Second Turning than during a Crisis / Fourth Turning
Here’s where I first ran into Sarah Kendzior on Twitter (October 22, 2016)
https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior/status/790030495568437248
And the more recent, relatively hopeful tweet
https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior/status/890375102126272512
Charles Mann’s 1491 is about the New World before Columbus arrived, and the varied cultures across the continents. Highly recommended. The Mexica history is on pages 130-134 of my paperback copy. And if it wasn’t clear, the Mexica were the people ruling what is now Mexico when Cortez arrived.
You may want to take a look at Episode 15, Unforgivable Dullness, to hear more about Cromwell and the Turnings during the 17th Century.
Some links on the Third Wave, that 1967 high school social experiment.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3559727/The-Wave-the-experiment-that-turned-a-school-into-a-police-state.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave_(experiment)
You can find me on Bluesky: @generationalize and blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com
Prompt the first: You Get what you give
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Get_What_You_Give_(song)
The song was released in November 1998 - Clinton had turned 52 a few months earlier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregg_Alexander (b. 1970)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danielle_Brisebois. (b. 1969)
4:38YouTube • NewRadicalsVEVONew Radicals - You Get What You Give (Official Music Video)
Prompt the 2nd: The Parable of the Sower
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Sower_(novel)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_E._Butler
Prompt the 3rd: What’s next
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_West_Wing
https://crisis.generationalize.com/2016/04/cultivate-patience-and-keep-your-hands.html
Looking back at Solo: A Star Wars Story because someone reminded me of it.
A post on Bluesky said in part
"Please give me control of the Star Wars franchise. My concept is to just remake old war and samurai movies, but Star Wars. The Dirty Dozen but Star Wars. The Great Escape but Star Wars. Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman but Star Wars."
https://bsky.app/profile/revan.social/post/3lggkreqghs2m
I had a couple of ideas
https://bsky.app/profile/generationalize.bsky.social/post/3lggylz3tas2e
https://bsky.app/profile/generationalize.bsky.social/post/3lggz33hats2e
But in any case I had previously proposed that Solo should have been "Casablanca but Star Wars," and this episode goes into detail on that.
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What the generational model might have to say about the commercial success of Solo: A Star Wars Story, and the extent to which it is (or should have been) a remake of Casablanca.
The IMDB pages for Solo
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3778644/
Star Wars (since retitled A New Hope)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/
And Casablanca
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/
Another analysis of why Solo should have emulated Casablanca - no impact on my analysis, incidentally, as I didn't read it until after recording was complete. But it ends up in much the same place and for similar reasons.
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/06/the-key-to-the-young-han-solo-movie-casablanca-of-course/
Not-too-subtle references to Han-Shot-First throughout what I'm looking at.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_shot_first
Here’s my original blog post that summarizes my Generational Stories.
http://stories.generationalize.com/2015/12/four-stories.html
And how Han is a Nomad even at the end:
http://stories.generationalize.com/2016/01/the-force-awakens-han.html
You can find me on Bluesky as @generationalize and blogging at http://stories.generationalize.com
Prompt the First: The Authoritarian Fourth Turning
I’ve asserted multiple times that the Fourth Turning isn’t when autocracy happens: It’s the 2nd.
And here in the United States, we’re about to see if that’s really the case. But why do I think that in the first place?
https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/
— From August 1941
"Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality. It appeals to a certain type of mind."
"It is also, to an immense extent, the disease of a generation—the generation which was either young or unborn at the end of the last war. This is as true of Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Americans as of Germans. It is the disease of the so-called 'lost generation.'"
Prompt the Second: A Transaction Cost Economics Assessment of the Civil War
How the response to the Los Angeles January 2025 wildfires has me thinking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles - where I got those L.A. counts
The entire population in 1790 was just short of 4 million, 700K slaves - 17.8%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_United_States_census
The slave population in 1860 (3.95M) was just about equal to the entire population in 1790 (3.92M)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_census
(Although the percentage had dropped, a bit: From 17.8 to 12.7 in 1860))
In any case, the Confederacy was larger than the Colonies - twice as large considering whites alone
California had been a state for 11 years in 1860, and it was already 379K - the 26th largest state out of 33, well ahead of New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island and Delaware. Sacramento was the 68th largest city…with 13K people.
Prompt the Third: Cassandra
A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved.
Lazurus Long, a character created by Robert A. Heinlein
https://www.baen.com/chapters/W200408/The_Notebooks_of_Lazarus_Long.htm
Some thoughts on how Nomad aka Reactive generations end up being the grumpiest old people ever. And also on how knowing about the past doesn't mean you understand the future.
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Lucy Hires a Maid
Verna Felton aka Mrs. Porter
WarGames at IMDB
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/
Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy
Professor Falken explain how the world works to David and Jennifer
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104940/
(Not a Nomad, not as frightening a person at 53 as Verna was at 63 - a quite believable member of the Silent generation.)
Statler and Waldorf
This isn’t about Statler and Waldorf, but it is about the Muppet Christmas Carol, which is close enough here in December.
https://www.gq.com/story/michael-caine-muppet-christmas-carol-interview
A random thought on Colonel Dawson - well, two. The first one is that he was named after Cecil Rhodes, which says something about who his parents thought were the good guys in colonial Africa in the late 19th Century. But also that I overheard him saying one time "I thought he was as good a general as he was a President" with an emphatic thumbs-down.
I spent about five minutes searching Twitter for the flame war I mentioned and, I'll be honest, I can't even deal with looking at Musk's timeline for another moment. And the central tweet from him is offensive enough. So, if you want to find it, he posted it on December 27, 2024, at 11:22PM.
(Although it's not a bad example of my thesis, that everyone in a Nomad generation has trouble with their world after midlife.)
Between the general sense of disgust with about 50% of my fellow Americans, and unhappiness that the Fourth Turning is, in fact, not yet over, I haven't been in much of a way to do a new episode.
So here's a redux from a few years back,
Wherein a random tweet brings up a quote from Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice, a romantic comedy about dealing with the dangers and temptations of a Crisis period and still liking yourself later.
This is the tweet that started me on this one 6 years ago or thereabouts.
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1022955880197836802
Turns out that the issue at hand in that case is tarriffs. The more things change, the more they stay the same
Considering it’s a story about women trying to find husbands, the word Danger is used remarkably often - twenty times over the course of the novel. For comparison - amazing what a simple word count can help you see - the word Marriage is used 67 times, Happiness 74 times, Joy 42 times, Silly 12, Evil 22 times, pounds 24.
(As I like to say, the importance of arithmetic in history is widely understated.)
Danger, then, is used almost as often as pounds, the standard by which most of the potential husbands are measured.
1984 was a surprisingly good year, and a significant one for Generation X and generational analysis.
This mostly ends up being about music....I may have to come back to more.
Morning in America
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2019/09/how-ric-ocasek-met-paulina-porizkova-and-the-80s-videos
My previous notes on when dystopias seem to end up
https://crisis.generationalize.com/2013/01/tyrell.html
A look at Midnight Cowboy and how an off-the-cuff assessment brought up similarities to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Cowboy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Cowboy_(novel)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Leo_Herlihy
Born 1927 - Silent generation (which starts in 1926)
Midnight Cowboy at IMDB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_in_Las_Vegas
Just because it’s come up while researching, the Robotic Edition of Huck Finn seemed worth including here.
https://www.themarysue.com/huckleberry-finn-robotic-edition/
https://www.dianianddevine.com/store/p/huck
Last week was the anniversary of September 11, which inspired this episode's 9/11 theme.
Prompt the First; The Rising
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rising_(album)
Released July 2002 - not quite a year after the attacks
Prompt the Second: Humor and 9/11
I have a note to myself from soon after the attacks:”Steven Spielberg, around September 12, said that there should be no art about September 11 -- it was too terrible for art. ”
https://www.vox.com/2016/9/9/12814898/pop-culture-response-to-9-11
Schindler’s List - 1993
1941 - 1979
I would like to note that I re-watched 1941 a few years ago, at a point where I had been working in an office building on Hollywood Boulevard. The special effects are impressive, to the point that I couldn't tell for sure if it was only miniatures (as I presume it was) or done via actually flying over that area - an area which (because of the view where I worked) I was very familiar with.
The Onion 9/11 issue
Here's an image of the front page
https://theonion.com/issue-37-34-the-september-11th-issue-1828969352/
That doesn't link to anything, but you can find the articles on the site - like this one
https://theonion.com/talking-to-your-child-about-the-wtc-attack-1819566164/
An Oral History of th 9/11 issue of The Onion
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/onion-911-issue-oral-history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aristocrats_(film)
“Gottfried began his performance with a joke in which he claimed to have to catch a late flight out of town but was worried because his flight "had a connection at the Empire State Building." The joke, a reference to 9/11, was poorly received by the audience, who showered Gottfried with boos and cries of "too soon.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humor_based_on_the_September_11_attacks
Pay it Forward - 2000
Prompt the Third: Was that the Fourth Turning?
Neil Howe talks about Gen X and the attacks
That's from CNN but it's shared by Lifecourse - and on there as well we can see this one, from 1997, in which the prediction is made that the 4th Turning will start "in about 10 years" and continue on to the late 2020s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYW3accapOk
Which matches better with the 2008 starting point.
Re-reduxing this one, because it is again the time of year for football games and field shows, and post-game parties, and (back in the day, anyway) rewatches of Highlander and The Lost Boys.
And because The Lost Boys showed up, all unbidden, in a separate project I was working on today, and immediately started pulling my mind down memory lane.
And a little bit because Highlander showed up last month in the first episode of Reactivities, A Kind of Magic.
And also because it's been five years, already, since the initial events that had me thinking about immortality in the first place.
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Considering whether Gen X views of life, death, and immortality were shaped by two mid-80s films: Highlander (1986) and The Lost Boys (1987)
Yes yes yes, I said Stewart Copeland at about 9:12 and realized soon after that I completely meant Douglas Coupland, who wrote Generation X: Tales For an Accelerated Culture in 1991
https://www.coupland.com/books/generation-x-tales-for-an-accelerated-culture
And my point there is that in 1987 the Lost Boys was certainly depicting Gen X characters with Gen X actors, but nobody called them Gen X at the time.
Interview with the Vampire was published in 1976 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interview_with_the_Vampire
Its sequel, The Vampire Lestat, was 1985
The Mystery of Dracula’s Castle - a scooby doo mystery in all but name, with inspiration from Christopher Lee’s Dracula over and over.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068985/
The Hunger
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085701/
The Lost Boys - straight to the tagline
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093437/taglines
Highlander
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091203/
Cocoon
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088933/
Siskel and Ebert - Lost Boys starts at 9:44 -
https://siskelebert.org/?p=2948
Highlander is the first one here, about 1:30 - they both disliked it rather a lot
https://siskelebert.org/?p=1496
First chapter of The Golden Bough - Frazer calls the King a “murderer” rather than a “killer” so I’ll randomly note that A) in the 1536 battler in Highlander, the Macleods are fighting the Frasers and B) “Matador” is literally “killer” in Spanish
The Spirit of Christmas, which spawned South Park, references Highlander’s repeated line “There Can Be Only One”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122264/
When talking about Reactives and the Awakening, probably worth looking at this previous entry on my blog
https://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/01/reactiveness.html
Unrelated but it’s a photo series called Lost Boys - millennials back at home after college or high school or whatever they decided they could do.
https://www.businessinsider.com/liz-calvi-lost-boys-photo-project-2014-9#calvi-started-with-her-good-group-of-guy-friends-but-eventually-branched-out-to-look-for-more-subjects-in-town-nolan-pictured-here-is-currently-studying-graphics-in-college-and-he-lives-with-his-parents-for-the-summer-2
Here’s the archive she set up
https://seulementdanslereve.tumblr.com/archive
And her home page
https://www.lizcalvi.com/commissions
“Vampire of the Mists” (1991) was a few years later, so probably influenced by Anne Rice and The Lost Boys and everything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_of_the_Mists
Wikipedia sayeth that Peter Pan first appeared in a novel in 1902, while the play first appeared in 1904. He’s very much of the Nomad archetype.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pan
Completely unrelated, except insofar as Aiken Drum (the character) is much like Peter Pan and has other Nomad / Reactive archetype indicators
https://manycolored.fandom.com/wiki/Many-Colored_Wiki
Pogonip club house
http://deepbluemoon.com/misc/pogonip/
Other locations - the interiors were on a set at Warner Brothers
https://www.visitcalifornia.com/attraction/lost-boys-santa-cruz-tour
Gregory Widen, screenwriter for Highlander. Born in 1958, he’s a late Boomer. He also wrote Backdraft.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0927074/
Russel Mulcahy - his director credits here include the music videos - which included Video Killed the Radio Star by Buggles, which unfortunately I can't find, so here are some others.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0611683
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Uxc9eFcZyM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyv905Q2omU
Max has mission style outdoor lamps - not too common at the time. (Although it was becoming popular again)
https://casetext.com/case/l-jg-stickley-inc-v-canal-dover-furn
Grandpas house is here (interiors were a set at Warner Bros.) - a very 1900s house
http://www.mobileranger.com/santacruz/pogonip-the-cowell-family-polo-and-a-poltergeist/
CSUN Queen show, 1989 - there will be another episode one day about why this matters….but I didn’t even have a chance to get into, here, how I and Angela and 150 of our closest friends did a field show with two songs from Highlander, plus Bohemian Rhapsody
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjkHl0paHbM
There's reasons for why this one makes sense to look at again, but mostly I thought it was pretty good....Plus No Hard Feelings is going the rounds on streaming (currently on Netflix, as it has been for a little while.)
=========================================
A look at perceptions of modern parenting, specifically how Generation X is seen to be parenting the Homeland generation and young Millennials in the Fourth Turning.
No Hard Feelings at IMDB
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15671028
Jennifer Lawrence
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2225369
Matthew Broderick, Ferris Beuller, and Wargames
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000111
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091042
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567
Andrew Barth Feldman
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10574081/
Free-Range Kids
And on twitter at: https://twitter.com/FreeRangeKids
This was one of the first episodes I put out here, and I'm a little surprised I haven't redone it yet.
The Star Trek (Original Series) episode The Way to Eden is REALLY the one with the space hippies. It's one of the most generally disliked episodes, because of how over-the-top it goes in an attempt to be up-to-date and hip and with-it. But on reviewing from a generational perspective ( and about 50 years after broadcast) it isn't as horrible as it might have looked.
I originally called it "Synthococcus Novae" after a fictional bacterium that's a sub-plot in the episod, and I started thinking of it while watching the recent increase in COVID during the summer, and hearing people talk about how they were affected (and how their kids were affected) by COVID in the year 2020 and 2021
================
A look at how the GI generation (born 1901-1924) viewed the Boomers (born 1943-1960) as shown in the Star Trek Original Series episode "The Way to Eden" - also known as "The One with the Space Hippies." By extension, this suggests how Hero generations, including Millennials (born 1982-~2005) along with the GIs, view Prophet generations (like the Boomers).
Originally started from how people view cleanliness today and how it is likely similar to how people saw it during World War II. It all ties together.
Attributes of the Prophet and Hero archetypes come from Generations (1991), the Peer Personalities chart on p. 365. I use them in my Stories blog (stories.generationalize.com) where I've found them an effective way to identify different generations/archetypes.
Did you know that Skip Homeier, the actor who played Dr. Sevrin, also played Melakon, the villain in the episode "Patterns of Force" (aka "The One With the Nazis")?
Shout-out to Memory Alpha, which had additional useful information about the timing of when the episode was written: http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Way_to_Eden_(episode)
Our first tale from interesting times could've happened in other times - there's nothing specific about that time it happened, except that everyone there was Generation X, and it was just at a point where the mystic allure of the Awakening was giving way to the freedom of the Unraveling.
But don't want to spoil it for you, so just listen.
Not referenced or mentioned or anything here, but there's a character description in Roger Zelazny's This Immortal that includes a situation very like this one.
Okay, now that I've re-read the synopsis on Wikipedia, it has SEVERAL situations very like this one, but I'm specifically thinking of the title character remembering one time where a poet was reading his poetry....It's a classic story, check it out.
(It's not at all clear what Turning that story happens in, and the poetry reading is some time in its past, but I can imagine that these sorts of events are very Third Turning.)
A Kind of Magic is an unofficial soundtrack for Highlander. Most of the songs from the movie are on there, and most of the songs on the album are from the movie. (But the album does not include Theme from New York, New York.)
One might note that that this happened the day after the Berlin Wall fell. Maybe I'll do another episode about that...
Here's a video of the full show. This recording is from a few weeks later in the year. (No magic, this time.) We just called it The Queen Show. Yes, it also has Bohemian Rhapsody.
Introduction to a new series on this podcast - one I've been intending to do for a while.
It's called Reactivities: Tales from Interesting Times.
Strauss & Howe originally called the cohort born between 1961 and 1981 the Thirteenth Generation, but the Coupland's "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" soon made it the preferred moniker. In Strauss & Howe's cyclical view, every fourth generation would have similar attributes, making Generation X similar (for example) to the Lost Generation born at the end of the 19th century.
These generations, which were seen as responding to the changes of the Awakening, were originally called "Reactive." (Later, archetypal representations were used instead, and Gen X became a Nomad generation - although, still, I think we should be either Schemers or Scoundrels, instead.)
This will be about the interesting times that such generations - and especially Generation X - lived through.
Re-duxing to honor Bob Newhart on the occasion of his recent passing.
I had forgotten that some of this - from 6 years ago - inadvertently sounded like Newhart had already passed.
This is done in the style of one of his routines, which were almost always as one side of a conversation - often as if he was on a phone call, sometimes with other gimmicks (a submarine captain's announcement to his men, a driving instructor talking to an unheard driver). In this case, it's Newhart himself in the part of Hamlet, talking to JFK as an unheard Ghost.
I'm a big fan of his routines and his style, and have written up (but not (yet) recorded) one other: My version of The Aristocrats, done similarly as the agent side of the discussion. Maybe someday....In my head I sound just like him, but this is certainly a poor imitation, so I strongly recommend everyone finding his original recordings.
============================================
Looking at Hamlet’s reaction to his father’s ghost by considering some comparable people in the 20th century, Bob Newhart and John F. Kennedy.
This is a way I’ve considered Prince Hamlet for a while, but I was reminded of it by The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, who mentioned Bob Newhart a couple of times. And by Kylo Ren, who often seems to be playing Hamlet himself.
Celebrity voices impersonated…
In this construction, Bob Newhart is Hamlet, although at 33 he’s a bit old for the part. How old is a long-standing debate - the Prince’s situation indicates that he is in his late teens, but one of the gravediggers suggests that he is 30.
For more fun concerning Hamlet’s age and motivations, check out “Hamlet: The Undiscovered Country” by Steve Roth.
Here’s a good article about Bob Newhart’s early career.
https://music.avclub.com/the-surprisingly-subversive-album-that-changed-stand-up-1798238091
As noted there, the “Lincoln” bit was “Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue,” where marketing experts are trying to help the 16th President of the United States work on his message, such as doing focus group testing for the Gettysburg address.
Bob Newhart mentioned that he campaigned for JFK because they were both Catholic:
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/31/entertainment/la-et-mn-clint-eastwood-bob-newhart-rnc
And if you really want to push it, this one references Hamlet as well as JFK
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2002/10/28/hello-this-is-bob/3de12b83-dc7e-40d5-bb3b-e49b23cbb6ce/?utm_term=.1ce6496e7045
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and blogging at http://stories.generationalize.com
Prompt the First: Trump Shooting
- The Dead Zone - 1983 movie, 1979 book eventually a 2002 TV Series
- Bob Roberts - 1992, written and directed by Tim Robbins
Here's the third one - I didn’t bring it up because it’s impossible to do so in this context without sounding completely silly.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow_Bob_Roberts - Simpsons episode 1994
Prompt the Second: Economic Structures
We’re in the same saeculum as the Berlin Wall falling and how that impact economic structures.
Houston Lighting and Power:
https://x.com/josephltrahan/status/1811865686119235724?s=46&t=h3SDrddBzjyl2UOHr9Q3xA
If you have enough food to pass it out to people without a lot of organization to decide WHO should get it, it appears that it can be more efficient (VERY broadly speaking) than the marketplace
https://x.com/fpwellman/status/1812131616300372106?s=46&t=h3SDrddBzjyl2UOHr9Q3xA
(Yes, I mean VERY broadly: The kids aren't getting food they necessarily want, or that their parents might want. There are plenty of inefficiencies in other ways - some food will almost certainily be wasted, for example. But if your goal is to reduce food insecurity and ensure kids aren't getting distracted from their own education by hunger, it's adequate.)
A notice on arbitration, which is a different way from the courts to handle disagreements - another different sort of organization.
https://x.com/kathryntewson/status/1812021083912233105?s=46&t=h3SDrddBzjyl2UOHr9Q3xA
Prompt the Third - Art Today
Looking for art that’s “not just more decline”
https://x.com/HariSel57511397/status/1811602054403510739
The rest of the thread should guide you to items related to what I referenced.
- Jaws
Post on Facebook on June 29th mentioned the Quint speech from Jaws, which, for all it’s wonderful, has the wrong date
"So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.
Anyway, we delivered the bomb."
https://www.history.navy.mil/.../after-action-report-of... BUT...the date is completely wrong. It was July 30, 1945 - just after midnight, local time, right about 2 weeks after Trinity, a week before Hiroshima.
http://www.ussunderhill.org/html/sorryno.htm About a week before Indianapolis was sunk, a destroyer escort USS Underhill, was attacked in the same area. An article about the attack, "Sorry, No Ice Cream," was written by one Nathaniel Benchley....father of Peter Benchley, author.
Some later posts wished Robert Shaw a happy birthday. It's not June 29th, or even July 30 - it's August 9. Born in 1927, he turned 18 the day Nagasaki was bombed, so wasn't actually GI generation nor able to be in the war.
- Brats and and the start of Gen x politics
Heathers - I was off by a year, it was released in 1988, not 1989.
- On the state of the election
On inflation, government efforts, and the end of the Fourth Turning.
Prompt the First: Another Brick in the Wall Part 2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Brick_in_the_Wall
Prompt the Second: Disney Cycles
The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel, Jenny Nicholson’s magnum opus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0CpOYZZZW4
On that pylon thing - this suggests that the original idea was to have a central performance viewable by everyone at every table.
https://x.com/JennyENicholson/status/1797429566535016523
“Wild Mouse” - Mulholland Madness at California Adventure (ater re-themed as Goofy’s Sky School) was this sort of coaster. And this type is and was very generic, with dozens of instances.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_mouse
About Pixar Fest https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2024/03/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-pixar-fest-at-disneyland/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1159961/ - Waking Sleeping Beauty goes over that period of Disney, and how people like Lasseter and Burton stopped working for Disney Animation.
A tweet about changes at Pixar
https://twitter.com/DelaneyLJordan/status/1796635728236982781
Pixar - started technically in 1974, Lassetar hired in 1983, produced Genesis effect animation for Star Trek The Wrath of Khan, and Stained Glass Knight in Young Sherlock Holmes in 1985 - the first fully computer-generated photorealistic animated character,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney - Born 1901 (GI Generation), died 1966
Prompt the Third: The White Clown
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451
Published in 1953, written by Ray Bradbury during the Red Scare. (Solidly 1st Turning, that is.)
For a quickly done episode, this turned out pretty well.
Prompt the first: The First Turning in Set Direction
The article on Variety:
https://variety.com/2021/artisans/news/loki-production-design-blade-runner-1235019744/
The Loki series playlist on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxaFrzRPFngWR4Odhwc8BXfJUNjDCPSVf
A Boy and His Dog - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072730/
Hello Tomorrow
Prompt the Second: The Second Turning in Reality
Repo Man and The Decline of Western Civilization
Ronald Reagan's Morning In America ad (Amusingly enough, right after that YouTube served up the SNL skit Mastermind.)
I said The Best Years of our Lives was 1947 - it was released in 1946. It won the Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 1947
Prompt the third: On Hints of the First
"The First is when the Third is thoroughly left behind." - Again, not saying that's true, but it's where this ended up going.
IBM was active before WWII, but Wikipedia says that their first electromechanical computer was sold in 1952, so if it feels like a First Turning company, it's probably because it was.
I'm trying to replace the Lucas Portrait file with one that isn't twice as long as it needs to be.
That may result in this episode getting re-published, in which case, enjoy an episode that will be redone in a month again, but at least will be four minutes long instead of eight....
Been on my mind for a bit, for two reasons: First, the movies in the sequel trilogy were released in December, so events around them are showing up as anniversaries in various social media. Second, someone I know recently was doing a school assignment on George Lucas. So here it is again.
Yes, I know, there's a cricket in there. I keep meaning to re-record it, but haven't gotten to it yet.
This is just for fun, with no real generational connection except that both Abraham Lincoln and George Lucas are from Prophet generations. (Boom for Lucas, Transcendental for Lincoln.) And, as such, it's not surprising that a similar arrangement works for both of them.
If you like Star Wars and Aaron Copland, you may enjoy it.
Fun fact: George Lucas' birthday is May 14, 1944, which was the two-year anniversary of the premiere of Lincoln Portrait.
Here's where I found the quotations:
The first two are from different sections of a look back at The Phantom Menace:
https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-episode-i-the-phantom-menace-oral-history)
The "barbarians" quote is from testimony before the Senate in March 1988 - here’s the text I used, from Wikisource: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1988_George_Lucas_testimony_before_United_States_Senate
It’s not clear that Lucas every actually said the thing about the sledgehammer, but it turns out the fourth section in Lincoln Portrait isn’t well sourced either. And in both cases, it's certainly something they might have said.
I originally found the last bit here:
https://www.biography.com/news/george-lucas-star-wars-facts
But it turns out it was from a New York Times interview of George Lucas while he was FILMING Star Wars in 1976.
https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/12/archives/from-american-graffiti-to-outer-space.html
It's well worth the read.
Going deep into the archives for a not-previously-reduxed discussion with my wife on a matter important to any generation: What's funny, what's not, and why?
We are Gen X-ers who think Quick Change is brilliant and funny. My mother-in-law thought Where's Poppa was brilliant and funny. You'll have to make up your own mind on which of us was right.
As mentioned, it's one of the first recordings I did, and it's ... rough. But understandable.
Quick Change, with Bill Murray, Geena Davis, Randy Quaid, and Jason Robards, is one of my favorite comedy films.
Where's Poppa, with George Segal and Ruth Gordon, was one of my mother-in-law's favorite comedy films.
My wife and I discuss possibilities for why what we find funny and what our parents find funny is often so different.
Silent and Gen X on Lifecourse
http://www.lifecourse.com/about/method/def/silent-gen.html
http://www.lifecourse.com/about/method/def/13th-gen.html
Quick Change and Where’s Poppa? on IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100449/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066563/
Carl Reiner - born 1922 (G.I.)
Drafted in October 1942, served in the Pacific theater (despite initially learning to be a French interpreter), ending up in Special Services (i.e. entertainment).
Mel Brooks - born 1926 (Silent)
Brooks served in World War II in the European theater starting in 1944, which is very unusual for Silent generation members. (One reason he seems like he should be G.I.)
Quick Change - Floras para los muertos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGj9QkslyE0
Quick Change - Joust
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQNI7q6ABnc
Where’s Poppa - We didn’t discuss this scene, but it fits in a lot of ways.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzT27N2F45Q
If you search for Campfire Scene - with or without “Blazing Saddles” - this comes up early:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPIP9KXdmO0
Which I'd noticed before, in this post about another offensive western
http://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/06/runaway.html
What my wife is doing instead of podcasts: Gift of Music Foundation
http://agiftofmusic.org
You can still find me on Twitter: @generationalize and blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com, but also on bluesky and sometimes on Post, also as @generationalize
Prompt the First: The Crazy World of 2nd Turning Music
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson_Twins - doesn't mention the shaved eyebrow thing,
- SNL: Devo, B-52s, David Bowie
- It wasn’t uncontrollable urge; it was Satisfaction and then Jocko Homo
- And it was between their first two albums - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_Now_for_the_Future came out in 1979 - on
- And during jock homo, they stripped off the radiation suits
- https://www.reddit.com/r/LiveFromNewYork/comments/zf4vwz/devo_performing_jocko_homo_on_snl_in_1978/
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdlU8e9wBIE - Martin Sheen introduces Bowie
-
Elvis Costello and Meatloaf commercials in 1977
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Out_of_Hell
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Aim_Is_True
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Sharp!_(Joe_Jackson_album)(1978) - the shoes!
Prompt the second: Bay of Pigs
- https://www.netflix.com/title/81614129 - Turning Point: The Bomb and The Cold War
- Yes, I somehow missed that The Bomb is right there in the title, so it's not a coincidence that it's focused on the nuclear part of The Cold War.
- https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
Prompt the third: Neutrality
- Neutrality as a very malleable concept: USSR/Japan in WWII, US / Germany, US/UKR/Russia,
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_country
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portugal_during_World_War_II
- Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1373 - used by Churchill to confirm access to the Azores for aircraft.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrality_Acts_of_the_1930s
- The Acts were largely repealed in 1941, in the face of the Lend-Lease Act.
- https://x.com/generationalize/status/1495959705616801795
- https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/trivia/?item=tr6049574
- https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/trivia/?item=tr368170
Prompt the First - Guadalcanal
But also: The Pacific (2010)- last time did Band of Brothers,
Taylor Swift — 1:12:50 in Long Pond sessions - association between Guadalcanal fighting and pandemic trauma. — Epiphany
Available on Disney+ And it was in fact released IN 2020 - before vaccines were available, while effectively lockdown was still ongoing.
And also - just barely related the Ahwanee was initially commissioned for the Navy in 1943. The official website said the the first men sent were veterans of Okinawa….which was two years later. Turns out the actual men sent there were from the naval hospital in Oakland CA - near San Francisco, that is - and were veterans of…Guadalcanal.
Prompt the Second - Waiting on that Welfare Check
From Bruce Springsteen's The River - Point Blank
The P.J. O'Rourke reference can be found in the "Poverty Policy" chapter of "Parliament of Whores." I misremembered a couple of items in it, so:
- It came from a visit to the "loathsome and terrifying" Newark project
- He refers to the idea of "buying" the apartment as "the current conservative wisdom," and "Jack Kemp-style privatization"
- Residents would purchase their apartments, no down payment, mortgage payment no more than what they paid for rent.
- In response to each of his arguments, the lady responds "I'm not going for any of that."
- The final response calls it not a toilet but "this seven-story sewer in the sky that she lived in" and was, again and finally "I'm not going for any of that."
Prompt the Third - Ruined Technology
Xz exploit inserted in open source code
https://twitter.com/nolman/status/1781400531745017966/photo/1
May be notable - perhaps a change in pov
https://x.com/ryxcommar/status/1773082844643934543?s=46&t=h3SDrddBzjyl2UOHr9Q3xA
That it’s becoming a choice (kinda again, kinda) that you ca pay 150K for a junior data engineer, or 200K for a senior, getting much more experience for a nominal increase in salary.
This is a bit of stretch for relevance but: It's Tax Day, and sometimes that's too busy a day to get anything else done. While composing Fanfare for the Common Man, Aaron Copland thought Tax Day was the most common sort of day for modern man, and that it would make a good day for a premiere.
Which this isn't, but it's a decent look at the music that opens this podcast.
Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, the music used for the introduction to this podcast, ties together two previous Fourth Turnings - commissioned after Pearl Harbor and including Civil War quotes from the 16th President - in a way which makes it feel even more relevant as this current Crisis unfolds.
A few relevant Wikipedia links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Portrait
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Copland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Coral_Sea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickett%27s_Charge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-water_mark_of_the_Confederacy
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gertrude_Stein
This site has Kostelnetz commissioning it within 10 days - mid-December 1941- and that copland began writing in late February
https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2007/julyaugust/feature/the-sound-freedom
The different excerpts are from
1) Address to congress 1862: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29503
2) Seventh and final Lincoln-Douglas debate October 15 1858 https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debate7.htm
3) Collected works: https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/onslavery.htm
4) The Gettysburg Address 1863:
https://www.npr.org/programs/specials/copland/coplandstory.html
The NPS site says his slavery quote is from August 1, 1858 - 110 years before this recording.
https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/onslavery.htm
This site says the date is pure conjecture, is from a scrap of paper that Mary Todd Lincoln passed to archivists later, and is signed with a different piece of paper from another document.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln2/1:547?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
Vin Scully, voice of the Dodgers, with the L.A. Philharmonic in 2017
https://www.ocregister.com/2017/07/14/see-vin-scully-narrate-the-words-of-abraham-lincoln-at-the-hollywood-bowl/
A direct link to a Youtube video of that performance https://youtu.be/6qpYwrla0GE
More on the quote about freedom and democracy
https://abrahamlincoln.quora.com/Close-Reading-2-Lincoln’s-Definition-of-Democracy-August-1-1858
The first item there is is a NYTimes piece from 1895 - that would be 30 years after the Civil War - that attributes it to Lincoln by the judge who ….attributes it to him.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1895/09/13/106068178.pdf
Last witness of the assassination of Lincoln, still alive in 1956, 14 years -after- the premiere of Lincoln Portrait
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPoymt3Jx4
Prompt the First - Band of Brothers
September 9, 2001 - Sunday
~ nearly 23 years ago
~ 55-60 years after the events portrayed
WIth regards to people being comforted by the familiarity of battle movies, I was particularly thinking of the use of the Awahanee Hotel in Yosemite Valley as a treatment for shellshock, as PTSD was called at the time. It didn't work very well, because it was TOO quiet and peaceful, and left those affected with only their thoughts.
https://www.nps.gov/articles/yosemitehospitalwwii.htm
The previous episode where World War II items were discussed - such as The Producers - was The Latest for February 10.
(Note - related stuff in Prompt the 2nd from February 10)
Prompt the Second - The Cultural Revolution as 2nd Turning
Ref 3 body problem, and Mao being an older …nomad? No, probably prophet himself, if (as it appears) China is a bit ahead of the Anglo-American saeculum who gets more than he expected from the Prophet youth.
https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/3-body-problem-the-chinese-cultural-revolution-explained-briefly/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session
https://bsky.app/profile/nicholasgrossman.bsky.social/post/3kpkdznvl3a25
Prompt the Third - free the anxious generation
Concerning a bill posted nearby, and a couple of kids sharing an electric scooter ... without a helmet. And hints to the possible endings of this Fourth Turning.
https://www.anxiousgeneration.com
https://www.freerangekids.com
The Ten Commandments was on, which is set completely in the 19th dynasty, but because it's soon after the 18th it seems relevant enough.
There are a number of candidates for the Pharoah of the Exodus. As the 1956 movie The Ten Commandments shows, one is Ramses II, the third pharaoh of the 19th dynasty. The 18th Dynasty has at least one or two as well, and that Akhenaten attempted to institute monotheism during his reign raises some questions in that regard.
=====================================
A look at the 18th dynasty of ancient Egypt, specifically considering whether we can effectively align it with the generational model.
A listing of the pharaohs of the 18th dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Dynasty_of_Egypt
On the historicity of the Exodus, including mentions of Akhenaten and other 18th Dynasty pharoahs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sources_and_parallels_of_the_Exodus
The breakdown described, moving backwards from 1292 BCE (end of Horemheb's reign, and end of the 18th dynasty).
Starts
Ends
Pharoah at start
Pharaoh at end
Complete
Second
1592
1573
Third
1572
1553
Fourth
1552
1533
Kamose (17th)
Ahmose I
First
1532
1513
Ahmose I
Amenhotep I
Second
1512
1493
Amenhotep I
Thutmose II
Thutmose I
Third
1492
1473
Thutmose II
Hatshepsut
Fourth
1472
1453
Hatshepsut
Thutmose III
First
1452
1433
Thutmose III
Thutmose III
Second
1432
1413
Thutmose III
Amenhotep II
Third
1412
1393
Amenhotep II
Thutmose IV
Fourth
1392
1373
Thutmose IV
Amenhotep III
First
1372
1353
Amenhotep III
Akhenaten
Second
1352
1333
Akhenaten
Tutankhamun
Smenkhkare Neferenefureaten
Third
1332
1313
Tutankhamun
Horemheb
Ay
Fourth
1312
1293
Horemheb
Horembeb
First
1292
Ramses I (19th)
Thoughts on the film Eternals, a Marvel Cinematic Universe film from 2021
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternals_(film)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9032400/ - on IMDB
Here's the Bluesky thread with my initial thoughts, most of which are in here.
https://bsky.app/profile/generationalize.bsky.social/post/3koba7n5kd526
As one of the Story Aside episodes, it begins from the Stories model:
http://stories.generationalize.com
- Prompt the First: Four years later. In the time of Covid.
- It’s four years since COVID lockdowns. That seems significant to me, in a way that the four year anniversary of 9/11 didn’t. But the 1 year anniversary of 9/11 was important, and 4 years wasn’t. What’s the difference?
- Prompt the Second: Saving the MCU with Generational Analysis
- A previous look at one small part: http://stories.generationalize.com/2019/06/
- Iron Man
- Infinity War - Thanos' Snap
- Endgame - the Blip and Attack on Avengers Compound, which (i'd say) should be, really, the end of this 4th Turning.
- "This is the battle of our lives" - Steve Rogers
- The Matrix (1997)
- The initial tweet https://x.com/petreraleigh/status/1768708381064175908?s=46&t=h3SDrddBzjyl2UOHr9Q3xA
- https://x.com/pataphysician/status/1768730842270982520?s=46&t=h3SDrddBzjyl2UOHr9Q3xA “ don’t have the attention span for tv”
Re-upping this one, because I've let it go for a bit and coming back to it now.
Consider this one a reminder of things to come.
============================================
The atomic bomb test on July 16, 1945 - also known as Trinity - occurred only 3 weeks before the bombing of Hiroshima and only 7 weeks before the end of the war. Looking at it as the midpoint of that summer, it was only one of many signficant events in the last three months of World War II.
I've started a project looking at each of those days, to create a view of that time, to better understand what went into the decision to create and use the atomic bomb, and how people around the world reacted to it. Starting from Memorial Day, at the end of May 1945, and continuing through Labor Day- the day after the official Japanese surrender - it will look at every single day, finding something something signifcant, or at least noteworthy.
There's Klaus Fuchs, meeting with Harry Gold in Santa Fe on June 2, to pass atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Or Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, killed on Okinawa on June 18. The first troops returning from Europe on July 1. President Truman leaving for Potsdam on July 7. Clement Atlee winning the election in the United Kingdom on July 26, replacing Churchill as Prime Minister. The bombing of Hiroshima. The August Revolution in Vietnam. The Occupation of Japan starting on August 28. The short ceremony ending the war on September 2nd - a quiet Sunday in a Tokyo Bay, not unlike one four years earlier.
A final episode for the initial Mapping History consolidation, asking the questions "What's Left" and "What Next?"
In Third Turnings we can expect to see
- Less powerful societal structures
- More freedom for individuals to do what they consider worthwhile
- Exciting (if bubbly) economies as individuals explore new opportunities
- Names we still recognize as some individuals make themselves known
1543 - Nicolaus Copernicus publishes "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres" As we draw the final side of our map - the Third Turning, or Unraveling - we'll be looking at people like Nicolaus Copernicus, who suggested that the Earth rotates around the Sun. The Unraveling is a time of individual freedom, when people make discoveries, inventions, or achievements - generally without the assistance of governments, in a way that attaches their own names to what they've done.
1666 - Isaac Newton's Miraculous Year Stuck at home during the plague year of 1666, young Isaac Newton considered important scientific issues of the day, and quickly made amazing advances in mathematics, astronomy, physics, and general understanding of the universe.
1752 - Benjamin Franklin Flies a Kite Benjamin Franklin was well known for a number of reasons, but even today "flying a kite in a thunderstorm" is one of the first that comes to mind.
This is a landmark that everyone knows about, and one reason for having it here is to give a specific date to it (1752, that is). There’s also the concern over how authentic to consider it - the descriptions here are definitely from Franklin and in that year, even if he was neither to first to try it nor confirmed to have actually done it.
1852 - Uncle Tom's Cabin published by Harriet Beecher Stowe Viewing slavery as a moral or economic issue makes it easier to talk about, since it removes people from the conversation, allowing opportunities for compromise, ways to get along, ways to talk past the difficult conccept of people being used. That was often how such discussions of slavery in the Uniited States had gone for a while.
Harriet Beecheer Stowe's story of enslaved people in the South moved the conversation in a less comfortable direction, by making the suffering of slaves personal and specific.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom%27s_Cabin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Northup
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_of_the_Life_of_Frederick_Douglass,_an_American_Slave
1927 - Charles Lindbergh Crosses the Atlantic It's the Roaring '20s, and there are new ways of making money, new technologies, new ways of becoming famous. Charles Lindbergh had learned to fly airplanes, and would use his understanding of this new technology to become rich and one of the most famous people on the planet.
1990 - Tim Berners-Lee Invents the World Wide Web The dot-com era happened when it did because of the invention of the World Wide Web, which made it easier to use the connected network of computer networks we call The Internet.
https://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/WorldWideWeb.html
Prompt the First: Put on Your Sunday Clothes
Hello Dolly: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064418/
Wall*E: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910970/
Prompt the Second: The Young Adult Suicide Chart
Here's the tweet with the initial chart
https://x.com/armanddoma/status/1758375001030627750?s=46&t=h3SDrddBzjyl2UOHr9Q3xA
Shows increase and peak to 1994, sharp drop through 2003, then mostly show increase to 2013, spiking from there to 2017
- CDC says “ ● The suicide rate among people aged 10–24 remained stable from 2001 through 2007 and then increased 62% from 2007 through 2021 (from 6.8 deaths per 100,000 to 11.0) (Figure 1). “
- That’s “in the United States”
- CDC version is 10-24, and peaks at 11/100K in 2021
- There is, incidentally, no noticeable bump from Covid; the recent peak is one the trend
- The chart is really rather misleading, as it shows a change from about 12/100K to 14/100k
Prompt the Third: The Starship Troopers discourse
This tweet appears to have kicked it off this time around
https://x.com/HariSel57511397/status/1758251273617375340?s=20
But this is more my attitude.
https://x.com/hEnereyG/status/1758926167376368089?s=20
Still, not complaining if it works for you. It mostly didn't for the professional film critics who viewed it in 1997.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers_(film)#Reception
Prompt the first: What my dad did in the war
- He was right about 30, with 3 kids, working to make Vietnam the best war possible. So he was Young Adult, G.I. were Midlife/managers, Lost (a few of the younger ones) were Visionaries.
Prompt the Second: The Producers and the limits of acceptable parody
Released in 1967 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063462
The U2 album was Achtung Baby
Prompt The Third: Important Inventions
https://x.com/NateSilver538/status/1753433550148206696?s=20
The memorable and noticeable events in First Turnings particularly include
-
Infrastruture
-
Exploration
-
Seeking out corruption, in whatever form it's expected to exist.
Rebuilding St. Peter's Basilica falls under the first category, especially when it's being rebuilt for the first time in over 1000 years.
Americans learn of the founding of Jamestown as part of their country's history, as the first successful English colony in the New World and the precursor to the Thirteen Colonies that would eventually rebel against the British. It can also be looked at as the start of the British Empire, and as embodying a spirit of exploration in the aftermath of the victory over Spain.
All of which make it an appropriate instance of a First Turning landmark.
In 1714, the British Parliament approved The Longitude Prize, which offered monetary rewards to anyone who could make it possible for ships to effectively determine their longitude. The smallest prize was £10,000 - the equivalent of millions of dollars today.
The Kingdom of Great Britain was created by The Acts of Union in 1707. Before then, one would properly refer to the English Parliament, and after to the British Parliament. This epsode crosses over that point in time between the start and the end, so the incorrect adjective may have slipped in once or twice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union_1707
The Global Positioning System (GPS) might be considered a comparable sort of infrastructure, but it was created over a long enough period that associating it with a specific Turning is difficult. It also required infrastructure (namely rockets that could put satellites in orbit), and was implemented in short order once those were available.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System
In 1804, Lewis and Clark's "Corps of Discovery" heads north and west from where the Missouri and Mississippi rivers meet, attempting to find a way to the Pacific Ocean. The First Turning encourages Exploration, which continues to use the governmental infrastructure set up during the previous Fourth Turning, but avoids the complications of a open warfare....
Expanding infrastructure is one of the key indicators of the First Turning, and the transcontinental railroad was an infrastructure priority for the United States in the 19th Century.
The organizational strengths and focus that enable infrastructure and exploration are not always aimed at such noble pursuits. Sometimes they find internal enemies, or at least try to seek them out. The fear of Communists infilitrating the entertainment industry led the U.S. Government to pursue a group that became known as The Hollywood Ten.
As this hits the edge of the map for the First Turning, we continue on with a short description of our final historical period, the Third Turning, and how we'll be choosing our landmarks there.
Welcome to The latest for January 28, 2024\
Prompt the First: On The Growth of Stranger Danger
https://x.com/_tedks/status/1742610446065000771?s=46&t=h3SDrddBzjyl2UOHr9Q3xA
“Over the 20th century, mass media reporting of child abductions spread the "stranger danger" concept. From the Lindenburg baby, to milk cartons, to satanic ritual abuse, this leads to a curtailment of freedom and an increase in parental surveillance.”
Prompt the Second: Secret Invasion and Director Carter
Why do I think an Agent Carter reboot - a game of cat and mouse between Carter and Zola - would work better than Secret Invasion?
Prompt the Third: On the world passing away according to St. Paul in the first letter to the Corinthians
But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not;
those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Epistle_to_the_Corinthians
https://www.bibleref.com/1-Corinthians/7/1-Corinthians-7-31.html
This episode was originally published 3 years ago, on December 31 2020.
It seems longer.
This is a short summary of that year, and what the Crisis meant at that exact moment, and what we might have considered was going to come next.
And yes, much of that was wrong as well.
==============================
A look back at 2020, what The Crisis of 2020 might have been, and what Crisis really means, here.
Unforced Errors was episode 49, and was posted in April 2020
The Crisis of 2020 was a prediction in the original book, Generations. It was used as a focus of episode 34 ("The Crisis of 2020") in January 2019, and followed up in episode 44 ("When 2020 Came Early") in October 2019.
I really wanted to review this episode and others related to the then-happening Crisis of 2020, because it's far enough out to consider if that really was the start of the peak of this current crisis or, if more is on its way.
An hour or so of reviewing what was happening at that time indicated it was not something I could through together quickly on the last day of 2023, so for now I'm going to simply repost them and let people see what was on my mind at the time.
This was Episode 44, first published in November 2019, and is mostly about the Ukraine Scandal that led to Trump's first impeachment. It seemed clear that this HAD to be what the Crisis of 2020 was going to be about...and, well, no, not really.
==========================
Observing that the Crisis of 2020 appears to have begun, and what it might mean for the events and outcome of this Fourth Turning.
Anzio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Anzio
Eric Fletcher Waters' body was never found, but the location of his death has been determined:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10371269/Found-the-spot-where-Pink-Floyd-musicians-father-died-in-battle.html
Everyone has discussed Turkey and the Kurds, so search it out.
The Glorious Revolution, Charles II and James II and all the rest, is also all out there, including frequent mentions on this podcast.
The “music at the Pentagon gym” tweet:
https://twitter.com/Msummerslowe/status/1188799181386850306
World War II in Real Time on Twitter - finished its first cycle in August 2017 with the surrender of Japan, then started up again two weeks later with the invasion of Poland in 1939
https://twitter.com/RealTimeWWII
FiveThirtyEight impeachment poll tracker.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/impeachment-polls/
And the Republican Strategy podcast episode
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fivethirtyeight-politics/id1077418457?i=1000455331767
“The Crisis of 2020 will be the time when the people of the United States decide what their values really are.” - end of the Crisis of 2020 podcast episode. Not sure if it's still applicable, but worth considering.
I really wanted to review this episode and some followups on the Crisis of 2020, because it's far enough out to consider if that really was the start of the peak of this current crisis or, if more is on its way. An hour or so of reviewing what was happening at that time indicated it was not something I could through together quickly on the last day of 2023, so for now I'm going to simply repost them and let people see what was on my mind at the time.
Spoiler alert: 2020 did, in fact, turn out to be significant, but for almost no reason that was previously expected.
==============================
While Generations, the 1991 book by William Strauss & Neil Howe, was really about a model of history based on how different generations work together, or not, it implied that major events recurred on a regular and predictable basis. They specifically called out The Crisis of 2020, their term for what they expected to happen around that year, based on the age of the Boom generation, Generation X, and Millennials. What is this Crisis? What can we expect from it? Has it already started?
Obviously you would want to read Generations again if hadn’t realized we were up to the Crisis of 2020, almost.
Some Wikipedia links for the possibly comparable historical events mentioned
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sevastopol_(1854–55)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_the_Four_Emperors
I did not mention the possibility that a focus on global warming or other environmental issues could become the main issue of the Crisis. I am cautious about that, though, because it seems likely to happen regardless of generational constellation - IF the effects become too much. Like other Earth-shattering possibilities - alien invasion, supervolcano eruption, meteor impact - that are likely to lead to a crisis period, generational analysis doesn’t tell us anything about them. Still, items such as the Green New Deal do suggest a generational effect.
The Glorious Revolution option still seems the most likely to me - as does a neo-jacobite followup from almost-secessionists who can’t quite deal with the changes in the aftermath.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobitism
Not to be confused with Jacobins, who were involved in the French revolution a century later. (No link for them - I don’t want it to get confused.)
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and occasionally blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com
I was thinking of this one for Christmas, but it was originally done for Easter. Still, I think it's held up well.
Whenever someone asks whether the generational model works outside of modern English-speaking country, one fun example is to look at Rome and Judea in the first century A.D., from the assassination of Julius Caesar to the crucifixion of Jesus to Vespasian taking control of Judea and, then, of Rome.
Most of my research here was using Wikipedia. Here are a few of the relevant articles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiberius
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligula
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudius
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Beth_Horon_(66)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_the_Four_Emperors
The criteria I give for identifying the different turnings are my interpretation of Strauss & Howe theory. My Second and Third Turning criteria were previously discussed here:
http://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/03/second.html
http://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/03/third.html
My blog "Welcome to the Crisis" is at http://crisis.generationalize.com
Twitter: @generationalize
Prompt the first: The end of instagram fame
My Avastars Fashion Dolls
Big (the movie)
Tom Hanks - he was 31 when the movie was released.
Prompt the second ; Into thin air/ into the Wild
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_McCandless
https://www.looper.com/1170434/everything-into-the-wild-doesnt-tell-you-about-the-true-story/
Into Thin Air: Death on Everest
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118949/
Into the Wild
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0758758/
Green Boots died during the same period but was part of a separate expedition that wasn’t included in the movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Boots
Prompt the Third On Blblical Views of Morality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Stephen
https://x.com/ordinarytimemag/status/1732015337007198603?s=46&t=h3SDrddBzjyl2UOHr9Q3xA
Intro
Olivia Rodrigo - Brutal - from Driving Home 2 U
https://youtu.be/zHMpcUojLMU?si=DF7414ecqyM-1XlH
Complete film (currently on Disney Plus)
https://ondisneyplus.disney.com/movie/olivia-rodrigo-driving-home-2-u
Prompt the First
Military Generations in Star Wars - or the Admiral vs Poe Dynamic
AKA Hero is a perjorative in the 2nd turning.
Mark Hammill - born 1951 - looks properly young in return of the Jedi (1983) for a young adult in the military and in a crisis - even if he’s still kinda old at 31 or so
A previous look at other WWII folks as shown 30 years later.
https://x.com/generationalize/status/1676480077234847745?s=46&t=h3SDrddBzjyl2UOHr9Q3xA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars%3A_The_Last_Jedi
The whole “Why aren’t you doing exactly as I asked, that’s what people did when I was your age” - one we expect to see in a Second Turning - perfectly fits the Admiral v Poe dynamic.
My previous thoughts on The Force Awakens - I should do one for The Last Jedi.
http://stories.generationalize.com/2015/12/the-force-awakens-initial.html
Slightly off on that quote from Serenity.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379786/quotes/?item=qt0433147
A random follow-up on that: Forrest Gump is told by Jenny not to be a hero, he only becomes one because he tries to run away,
Prompt the Second
Would excel being available five years earlier have kept the ussr from falling?
A record of the last 30ish years in Russia. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/11/russian-journalists-ukraine-war-wagner-group/676064/
Here's where I got what I found about spreadsheets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreadsheet
https://x.com/13millionplus/status/1728195677883351107?s=46&t=h3SDrddBzjyl2UOHr9Q3xA
The Wikipedia page references what Moore considered the point of departure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_All_Mankind_%28TV_series%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev - the Chief Designer
Prompt the Third
Why is communication - the ability to communicate- fundamental to the generational model
Irish politics are becoming incomprehensible….2nd Turning?
https://twitter.com/search?q=ireland%20free%20speech&src=typed_query&f=top
It involves views of free speech as elated to the murder of a young teacher, Ashling Murphy.
A Thanksgiving episode, in its way.
I thought I had written about this elsewhere, but this appears to be the closest I had done: https://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/06/plague.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osarseph - A possible second view of Exodus involving a priest who became the leader of a band of lepers, who managed to ally with the Hyksos to take over Egypt for a short time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten - Pharaoh of Egypt who temporarily replaced the polytheistic Egyptian religion with a monotheism based around Aten, the “sun disc.” Father of Tutankhamen, whom you may have heard of.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hymn_to_the_Aten -Written by Akhenaten, it bears some resemblance to Psalm 104, indicating at least some cross pollination between Jewish and Egyptian holy writ.
https://thefounding.net/pilgrims-identified-israelites/ - a short essay built around Bradford
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24950/24950-h/24950-h.htm Project Gutenberg version of the History of Plymouth Colony
They called Dutch a strange and uncouth language, which raises the possibility that their attitudes towards “savage” natives might have been similar in Holland…
For no obvious reason, perhaps worth noting that this is contemporaneous with Hamlet, first performed around 1602. (Yes I know he's a Dane, not Dutch.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Colony
http://mayflowerhistory.com/clothing/
https://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/homework-help/what-wear
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and occasionally blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com
On the occassion of President Joseph Biden's 81st birthday, re-upping some observations on the first and last Silent Generation POTUS.
(Even if he only made the Silent cutoff by about 6 weeks.)
=====================================
President Joseph Biden is the first President from the Silent Generation, and presumably the last. Is that going to be a problem, here in the Fourth Turning? Perhaps not, considering how little we understand about how leaders change in the later Elder period of life. His governing style might not be the standard for how the Artist archetype is expected to manifest.
Here's the excerpt again:
“As the forces of history amass under Boom leadership, the Silent can remind Boomers of kindness, 13ers of conscience, Millenials of caution. The danger will lie in any attempt by aging Silent leaders to get too much in the way of the thickening forces of history - for example, if an eightyish President (or Supreme Court) insists on scrupulous process at a moment when younger generations begin to coalesce around the need for decisive action. The last time this happened, during the Presidency of old Compromiser James Buchanan, the foot dragging of elder Adaptives helped foment the most destructive crisis in American History. The same could occur if antiquarian Silent leadership helps usher in the Crisis of 2020.”
Neil Howe & William Strauss, Generations, published 1991, page 395 the Silent generation section of “Completing the Millennial Cycle”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_by_age
Reagan's meetings with Gorbachev in the last 18 months of office.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Summit_(1987)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Summit_(1988)
Mitch McConnell was born 2/20/1942, is a more definite silent, if only by a few months.
Nanci Pelosi was born March 26 1940 a solid Silent
Chuck Schumer was born November 23 1950 and is a very solid Boomer…but even he is 70
The generational attributes come from Chapter 12 of Generations, the last two rows of Figure 12-7, Peer Personalities, by Generational Type
Prompt the First: Did The Marvels do poorly because it’s a Hero movie?
My Stories model can be found at http://stories.generationalize.com/
Prompt the Second: Clothing of the 2nd turning
Here's something where I was previously considering the role Clothing in the Second Turning.
Prompt the Third: On the significance of the Paradise Theater
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Theatre_(Chicago)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Theatre_(album)
- “I’ve got faith in my generation" was from "Rockin' the Paradise," conceptually during the early life of the theater.
- A couple of singles, including "The Best of TImes"
- ...not clear how seriously that was meant in 1981
- “Our memories of yesterday will last a lifetime”
- Yes it’s about being with someone, but also about right then being good and important
- The follow up album, "Kilroy Was Here" is also a concept album, with scenes set in the Paradiese Theater (or at least in A Paradise Theater, in some universe.)
A consolidated version of the Mapping History episodes for the Second Turning
- Having completed mapping the Fourth Turning, Looking Back to see how Mapping History ties them all together
- 1534 - Returning to the early 16th century, where the Protestant Reformation has begun. Henry VIII began as a "Defender of the Faith" against Martin Luther, but within a few years is opposing the Church because he's unable to get an annullment of his marriage. It's a good landmark on our map, showing up almost exactly halfway between the Reconquista and the Spanish Armada, while being well-alligned with the spirtual concerns often seen during a Second Turning.
- 1629 - Between Puritans, creeping authoritarianism, breaking of norms of governing and an overall concern about how religion is making itself known in political affairs, the monarchy of Charles I should be a very effective landmark for this history map.
But like some of the others we will come to view in the Awakening periods, the complexity of the political map can make it difficult.
It's still useful for understanding what else is happening in the 17th Century, and seeing some of the connections that join different points in time. * It was July 8 1841, in the middle of a revival, Jonathan Edwards would quietly give a sermon. It's our landmark for the Second Turning that's also known as the Great American Awakening.
That Deuteronomy quote:
https://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/32-35.htm
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Sinners_in_the_Hands_of_an_Angry_God * Twenty-five-year-old William Lloyd Garrison published the anti-slavery weekly newspaper, The Liberator, starting on the first day of 1831.
The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison: I will be heard, 1822-1835 includes in its annotations on page 92 an objective summary of the circumstances of the Todd libel case. * In 1896, at the Democratic National Convention, Williams Jennings Bryan rises to speak about the question of coinage, of money, but also about who was to be represented in the halls of power. Barely old enough even to be President of the United States, he makes a speech, full of religious symbolism, that wins him the party's nomination for that office. * On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in support of a strike of sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. The speech he gave, with biblical imagery and references, especially to the Israelites, their escape from slavery, and what their leader, Moses, was allowed to glimpse before his death, has since become known as the Mountaintop speech.
Video of the speech can be found on Youtube. The brief audio clips used here came from the internet archive.
https://archive.org/details/IHaveBeenToTheMountaintopFullSpeech
In the podcast audio, it might not be quite as clear as intended that "John Brown's Body" being referenced was a marching song of the Union army during the American Civil War. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, which led to John Brown's trial and execution, occurred just a year before the election of Abraham Lincoln as president.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown%27s_Body
Prompt the First - Is the Fourth Turning driving everyone crazy?
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster - 1947, so not technically, but
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Chicago_disaster
- Cleveland East Ohio Gas explosion
- USS Mount Hood
- RAF Fauld explosion
- Futamata Tunnel Explosion
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultana_(steamboat) - 1965, right around Lincoln’s assassination
- “The official cause of the Sultana disaster was determined to be the mismanagement of water levels in the boilers, exacerbated by the fact that the vessel was severely overloaded and top-heavy. “
- A lot of other major explosions as a part of the war, and some incidental to it -
Prompt the Second - Is The Fourth Turning a bad time to be a white collar criminal?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Bankman-Fried
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Madoff
Prompt the Third - How crazy is this current presidential election, really?
Lincoln had a “unity ticket”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_ticket
The only unity ticket to win the [United States] presidency was the National Union Party in the 1864 presidential election, which ran a unity ticket between Abraham Lincoln of the Republican Party and Andrew Johnson of the Democratic Party.
FDR changed his VP a couple of times - Garner, Wallace, Truman (last election, was VP for only a few months before FDRs death)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1940_Democratic_National_Convention
It was mid-July 1940, which also means it was just after the fall of France (June 22) which may have been why FDR changed his mind on running.
Back with another episode of The Latest.
Prompt the 1st 1783 - Highlander and Ukraine
I flipped back and forth on "Ukraine" and "Crimea" in the episode: 1783 was annexing Crimea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_the_Crimean_Khanate_by_the_Russian_Empire
Prompt the 2nd - Can a Gen xer have an opinion on Olivia Rodrigo
On Olivia Rodrigo - bad idea right? Is 3’04” - a properly short radio single
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Idea_Right%3F
From the album Guts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guts_(Olivia_Rodrigo_album)
Vampire, the first single from the album - similar in type, very different in style.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_(Olivia_Rodrigo_song)
"This is supposed to be gen z’s hayley williams/avril lavigne, there’s truly no hope"
https://twitter.com/maryarchived/status/1700621540998488219
"Anyone over the age of 20 doesn’t get to give their opinion on Olivia Rodrigo"
https://x.com/honestpapito/status/1701261920022512014?s=20
A search of "olivia rodrigo over 20"
https://twitter.com/search?q=olivia%20rodrigo%20over%2020&src=typed_query
I mentioned "late '80s glam" by which I really meant "late '80s glam metal" which maybe is better known as "hair metal" because how they wore their hair was seen as a big part of it. Guns n' Roses, that is, and often also represented by Poison, Cinderella, Warrant, Skid Row. (I avoid including Motley Crue because they were one of the first ones who took on such a look, when they started, while a lot of the others were following a style.)
Prompt the Third: October the 7th.
To start, here's what 40 years ago looked like
A civilian 747 shot down by air defense forces of the USSR after flying over restricted space, killing all 269 aboard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007
Military exercises two months later that may have brought the US and USSR very close to nuclear war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83
The Day After, a depiction of what such a nuclear war might have looked like, which ran a few weeks later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After
WarGames, released in June 1983
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames
Red Dawn, released about a year later, in 1984
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dawn
Tracing back through the Ottoman Empire is going to be a bit of a maze but here's some of my links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire
Treaty ending of the Greek War of Independence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Constantinople_(1832)
Austro-Russian–Turkish War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzimat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Ottomans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Constitutional_Era
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turks
The other day I flipped back to the Mapping HIstory episodes done in 2022, and thought they were worth revisiting. This is the first few episodes, which gives an idea of what the goal is, and gives 1492 as an example.
This is from a few years ago, right around this time of year, which is the time of year for football games and field shows, and post-game parties, and (back in the day, anyway) rewatches of Highlander and The Lost Boys.
I'm attempting to put more content in the feed, so it's more consistently available, and people can find other items that perhaps they missed. Hope you like this one.
=================
Considering whether Gen X views of life, death, and immortality were shaped by two mid-80s films: Highlander (1986) and The Lost Boys (1987)
Yes yes yes, I said Stewart Copeland at about 9:12 and realized just moments ago that I completely meant Douglas Coupland, who wrote Generation X: Tales For an Accelerated Culture in 1991
https://www.coupland.com/books/generation-x-tales-for-an-accelerated-culture
And my point there is that in 1987 the Lost Boys was certainly depicting Gen X characters with Gen X actors, but nobody called them Gen X at the time.
Interview with the Vampire was published in 1976 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interview_with_the_Vampire
Its sequel, The Vampire Lestat, was 1985
The Mystery of Dracula’s Castle - a scooby doo mystery in all but name, with inspiration from Christopher Lee’s Dracula over and over.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068985/
The Hunger
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085701/
The Lost Boys - straight to the tagline
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093437/taglines
Highlander
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091203/
Cocoon
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088933/
Siskel and Ebert - Lost Boys starts at 9:44 -
https://siskelebert.org/?p=2948
Highlander is the first one here, about 1:30 - they both disliked it rather a lot
https://siskelebert.org/?p=1496
First chapter of The Golden Bough - Frazer calls the King a “murderer” rather than a “killer” so I’ll randomly note that A) in the 1536 battler in Highlander, the Macleods are fighting the Frasers and B) “Matador” is literally “killer” in Spanish
The Spirit of Christmas, which spawned South Park, references Highlander’s repeated line “There Can Be Only One”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122264/
When talking about Reactives and the Awakening, probably worth looking at this previous entry on my blog
https://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/01/reactiveness.html
Unrelated but it’s a photo series called Lost Boys - millennials back at home after college or high school or whatever they decided they could do.
https://www.businessinsider.com/liz-calvi-lost-boys-photo-project-2014-9#calvi-started-with-her-good-group-of-guy-friends-but-eventually-branched-out-to-look-for-more-subjects-in-town-nolan-pictured-here-is-currently-studying-graphics-in-college-and-he-lives-with-his-parents-for-the-summer-2
Here’s the archive she set up
https://seulementdanslereve.tumblr.com/archive
And her home page
https://www.lizcalvi.com/commissions
“Vampire of the Mists” (1991) was a few years later, so probably influenced by Anne Rice and The Lost Boys and everything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_of_the_Mists
Wikipedia sayeth that Peter Pan first appeared in a novel in 1902, while the play first appeared in 1904. He’s very much of the Nomad archetype.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pan
Completely unrelated, except insofar as Aiken Drum (the character) is much like Peter Pan and has other Nomad / Reactive archetype indicators
https://manycolored.fandom.com/wiki/Many-Colored_Wiki
Pogonip club house
http://deepbluemoon.com/misc/pogonip/
Other locations - the interiors were on a set at Warner Brothers
https://www.visitcalifornia.com/attraction/lost-boys-santa-cruz-tour
Gregory Widen, screenwriter for Highlander. Born in 1958, he’s a late Boomer. He also wrote Backdraft.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0927074/
Russel Mulcahy - his director credits here include the music videos - which included Video Killed the Radio Star by Buggles, which unfortunately I can't find, so here are some others.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0611683
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Uxc9eFcZyM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyv905Q2omU
Max has mission style outdoor lamps - not too common at the time. (Although it was becoming popular again)
https://casetext.com/case/l-jg-stickley-inc-v-canal-dover-furn
Grandpas house is here (interiors were a set at Warner Bros.) - a very 1900s house
http://www.mobileranger.com/santacruz/pogonip-the-cowell-family-polo-and-a-poltergeist/
CSUN Queen show, 1989 - there will be another episode one day about why this matters….but I didn’t even have a chance to get into, here, how I and Angela and 150 of our closest friends did a field show with two songs from Highlander, plus Bohemian Rhapsody
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjkHl0paHbM
- Author : N/A
- Episode Type : N/A
- Episode : N/A
- Rating : Clean
- File Info : audio/mpeg | mp3 | 33MB
Downloads for This Episode IAB IAB Unique Daily Downloads0 Downloads: [bold][/] Last processed 10/08/23 12:35pm Destinations Destination Status Release Expiration Amazon Music/Audible Released Sep 29, 2019 11:47pm NEVER Libsyn Classic Feed Released Sep 29, 2019 11:47pm NEVER Network App Listing Released Sep 29, 2019 11:47pm NEVER Simple Download Released Sep 29, 2019 11:47pm NEVER Web Page (Legacy) Released Sep 29, 2019 11:47pm NEVER Web Player Released Sep 29, 2019 11:47pm NEVER * of1
7 Episode Description Considering whether Gen X views of life, death, and immortality were shaped by two mid-80s films: Highlander (1986) and The Lost Boys (1987)
Yes yes yes, I said Steward Copeland at about 9:12 and realized just moments ago that I completely meant Douglas Coupland, who wrote Generation X: Tales For an Accelerated Culture in 1991
https://www.coupland.com/books/generation-x-tales-for-an-accelerated-culture
And my point there is that in 1987 the Lost Boys was certainly depicting Gen X characters with Gen X actors, but nobody called them Gen X at the time.
Interview with the Vampire was published in 1976 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interview_with_the_Vampire
Its sequel, The Vampire Lestat, was 1985
The Mystery of Dracula’s Castle - a scooby doo mystery in all but name, with inspiration from Christopher Lee’s Dracula over and over.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068985/
The Hunger
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085701/
The Lost Boys - straight to the tagline
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093437/taglines
Highlander
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091203/
Cocoon
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088933/
Siskel and Ebert - Lost Boys starts at 9:44 -
https://siskelebert.org/?p=2948
Highlander is the first one here, about 1:30 - they both disliked it rather a lot
https://siskelebert.org/?p=1496
First chapter of The Golden Bough - Frazer calls the King a “murderer” rather than a “killer” so I’ll randomly note that A) in the 1536 battler in Highlander, the Macleods are fighting the Frasers and B) “Matador” is literally “killer” in Spanish
The Spirit of Christmas, which spawned South Park, references Highlander’s repeated line “There Can Be Only One”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122264/
When talking about Reactives and the Awakening, probably worth looking at this previous entry on my blog
https://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/01/reactiveness.html
Unrelated but it’s a photo series called Lost Boys - millennials back at home after college or high school or whatever they decided they could do.
https://www.businessinsider.com/liz-calvi-lost-boys-photo-project-2014-9#calvi-started-with-her-good-group-of-guy-friends-but-eventually-branched-out-to-look-for-more-subjects-in-town-nolan-pictured-here-is-currently-studying-graphics-in-college-and-he-lives-with-his-parents-for-the-summer-2
Here’s the archive she set up
https://seulementdanslereve.tumblr.com/archive
And her home page
https://www.lizcalvi.com/commissions
“Vampire of the Mists” (1991) was a few years later, so probably influenced by Anne Rice and The Lost Boys and everything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_of_the_Mists
Wikipedia sayeth that Peter Pan first appeared in a novel in 1902, while the play first appeared in 1904. He’s very much of the Nomad archetype.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pan
Completely unrelated, except insofar as Aiken Drum (the character) is much like Peter Pan and has other Nomad / Reactive archetype indicators
https://manycolored.fandom.com/wiki/Many-Colored_Wiki
Pogonip club house
http://deepbluemoon.com/misc/pogonip/
Other locations - the interiors were on a set at Warner Brothers
https://www.visitcalifornia.com/attraction/lost-boys-santa-cruz-tour
Gregory Widen, screenwriter for Highlander. Born in 1958, he’s a late Boomer. He also wrote Backdraft.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0927074/
Russel Mulcahy - his director credits here include the music videos - which included Video Killed the Radio Star by Buggles, which unfortunately I can't find, so here are some others.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0611683
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Uxc9eFcZyM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyv905Q2omU
Max has mission style outdoor lamps - not too common at the time. (Although it was becoming popular again)
https://casetext.com/case/l-jg-stickley-inc-v-canal-dover-furn
Grandpas house is here (interiors were a set at Warner Bros.) - a very 1900s house
http://www.mobileranger.com/santacruz/pogonip-the-cowell-family-polo-and-a-poltergeist/
CSUN Queen show, 1989 - there will be another episode one day about why this matters….but I didn’t even have a chance to get into, here, how I and Angela and 150 of our closest friends did a field show with two songs from Highlander, plus Bohemian Rhapsody
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjkHl0paHbM
Prompt the First - Agreeing with Vivek Ramaswamy
Prompt the Second - The Spiritual Gen-Xer
Somehow I didn't include the actual inspiration for this prompt, which was the previous prompt on Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
And somehow didn't mention how in Pulp Fiction, Jules says he'll wander the Earth "...like Caine in Kung Fu."
Prompt the Third - The New Kids
Probably clear from context, but September 2 1945 at 8:15AM in Tokyo Bay was late afternoon on the 1st in Washington D.C.
The Latest for August 18, 2023.
Prompt 1 - Gen X Parenting
Original episode is : https://traffic.libsyn.com/latest/Ep._67__-_Gen-X_Parenting.mp3
Prompt 2: Disagreeing with Steve Bannon
The earlier episode referenced: https://traffic.libsyn.com/latest/Ep._14_Agreeing_with_Steve_Bannon_-_The_Latest_Generation.mp3
Prompt 3: More of The Fourth Turning is Here
Sorry No Ice Cream http://www.ussunderhill.org/html/sorryno.htm
USS Underhill was one of the last Allied ships sunk in World War II. USS Indianapolis, which brought Littly Boy to Tinian, was sunk in the same area, also by a submarine, a few days later; USS Bullhead, a submarine, did not respond to a call (sent to all submarines on August 13) to return to port. Based on Japanese records, it was almost certainly sunk by Japanese aircraft a week after USS Indianapolis, on August 6.
The Latest is a free-form, unscripted, generational view of current events and what happens and all that. It's not what this podcast has usually been but considering that it might be a better optoin.
This week's prompts:
- Intro - on alternatives to a scripted podcast and What Was I Thinking
- Prompt 1 - Twitter and how it relates to this specific idea, but also generationally
-
Prompt 2 - Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and why it went to ubiquitous to ... not.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_at_the_Greek
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Livingston_Seagull_(film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Livingston_Seagull * Prompt 3 - The Fourth Turning Is Here, the new book by Neil Howe
There isn't as much in common between Oppenheimer and The Monuments Men as might initially be expected, if one expected that Oppenheimer was a World War II movie. But looking at them through the generational story model shows some of what works for one and not for the other.
The Monuments Men
The Battle of Monte Cassino
The Madonna of Bruges
The Ghent Altarpiece
Oppenheimer
USS Indianapolis
Lewis Strauss
The Day After Trinity - 1981 documentary about Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb - about 40 years ago, itself about 35 years after Trinity, at a time when the Cold War had raised concerns about nuclear weapons. Temporarily available through Criterion
A look at perceptions of modern parenting, specifically how Generation X is seen to be parenting the Homeland generation and young Millennials in the Fourth Turning.
No Hard Feelings at IMDB
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15671028
Jennifer Lawrence
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2225369
Matthew Broderick, Ferris Beuller, and Wargames
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000111
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091042
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567
Andrew Barth Feldman
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10574081/
Free-Range Kids
And on twitter at: https://twitter.com/FreeRangeKids
A consolidation of the half-dozen Countdown episodes from 2020, starting in October and ending on Election Day, with an epilogue from Inauguration Day, 2021. There was a lot happening in those couple of weeks. The observations range from the implications of voting, to the elevation of Justice Barrett, the shockingly low number of school shootings that year, and whatever is next.
There's about a five second gap between most of the episodes, but because each episode ends with a few seconds of lead-out too, it can be a 10-20 second gap. Total time is not quite an hour.
Roger Waters recently performed The Wall in Berlin, but this time around he has managed to attract the attention of German police.
"The context of the clothing worn is deemed capable of approving, glorifying, or justifying the violent and arbitrary rule of the Nazi regime in a manner that violates the dignity of the victims and thereby disrupts public peace."
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1662231475687682048
The "clothing worn" is a costume that's part of the portrayal of Pink, a rock star who becomes - in his dreams or reality, it's not clear - a fascist leader, accepting adulation of the crowd and inviting them to choose violence in his name. As the CNN host there notes, the red armband is not a swastika, but two crossed hammers - iconography used going back to the original album.
The singer has posted a response on Twitter
https://twitter.com/rogerwaters/status/1662213373772328961
Re-posting this one in part because its timely, but also because it's a suggestion of the generational skew I see in Germany, which appeared to have been in a Second Turning during World War II, a Fourth Turning around the time The Wall came out (and the Berlin Wall came down) and is back in a Second Turning again. And might follow up with an episode specifically about that.
=============================================
Looking at Authoritarianism and Awakenings, but this time using Pink Floyd's 1979 album The Wall for further insights into how alienation feeds into it as well.
Follow up to the other boomer fascist stuff, w radio ga ha and the fall of the wall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall
Released 30 November 1979 - this recording is from ten years later1990, done at the site of the berlin wall, which had recently fallen after 28 years.
40 years after the invasion of Poland and the start of World War II. Roger water’s father would die at Anzio, and the loss of his father has a notable impact on the ideas of alienation and loss that are the core of the wall.
Roger Waters was born 1943 .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Waters
Gilmour 1946
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Ga_Ga
Released 1984
CSUN Matador Band - The Wall
https://youtu.be/cyzWuzW0BMg
A short essay on the hammers
http://www.feelnumb.com/2012/11/16/pink-floyds-double-crossing-hammer-logo-from-the-wall/
Gohil’s - the source of the Gohil’s Boots referenced at the end of Nobody Home. (It’s a leatherworking shop - they don’t do boots anymore, though.)
http://www.gohils.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/notes/roger-waters/an-open-letter-from-roger-waters/688037331210720/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinhead
An interview with Roger Waters by Jim Ladd on the release of The Wall in 1980
http://www.pink-floyd.org/artint/119.htm
Roger Ebert liked the movie in 1982, and eventually (2010) even gave it a Great Movie review
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-pink-floyd-the-wall-1982
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Flesh_(Pink_Floyd_tour)
https://www.ign.com/articles/top-14-greatest-rock-operasconcept-albums-of-all-time
Couldn’t find another listing, but this shows that number 11 is Jim Morrison, 38 is Live Aid, so 27 of them - fully half - are in the middle of the Awakening.
http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Rolling-Stone%27s-list-of-the-50-Moments-that-Changed-Rock-and-Roll
This version of Waiting for the Worms is from The Wall Live in Berlin, was also intended as a charity concert. Waters had intended to create The Fletcher Memorial Fund, named after his father, whose death in WWII had been a source of the alienation explored in the original album.
A random and unrelated item here: The Killing Star uses We Are The World, another supergroup single, as the first time that the human reace was reasonable unified.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Star
I'm on Twitter @generationalize and can be found also (sometimes) at the blogs Welcome to the Crisis & Stories of the Generations as well.
http://crisis.generationalize.com
http://stories.generationalize.com
Thoughts on the 2012 film the Perks of Being a Wallflower, and how it works within the generational story model, with an associated look at the 1983 Suicidal Tendencies song "Institutionalized" and how each represents (and perceives) Generation X.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perks_of_Being_a_Wallflower_(film)
On IMDB
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1659337/
Music video for Institutionalized
https://youtu.be/LoF_a0-7xVQ
Brad & Lex listening to Institutionalized
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTP_oE6jm1M
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicidal_Tendencies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Muir
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutionalized_(song)
Emma Watson hairstyles (only because I was wondering if I was remembering correctly about why her hair is short in this movie)
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/beauty/hair/g8011/emma-watson-hair/
Episodes like this one, that are primarily about movies or stories, will be under this "A Story Aside" imprint. (Previous ones have simply had "Aside" at the start but that seemed incomplete.)
They'll use the generational stories model described at http://stories.generationalize.com/
Some worthwhile starting points there are Introduction to Generations, the Generational Attributes and the Four Stories.
A look at the 18th dynasty of ancient Egypt, specifically considering whether we ccan effectively align it with the generational model.
A listing of the pharaohs of the 18th dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Dynasty_of_Egypt
On the historicity of the Exodus, including mentions of Akhenaten and other 18th Dynasty pharoahs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sources_and_parallels_of_the_Exodus
The breakdown described, moving backwards from 1292 BCE (end of Horemheb's reign, and end of the 18th dynasty).
Starts
Ends
Pharoah at start
Pharaoh at end
Complete
Second
1592
1573
Third
1572
1553
Fourth
1552
1533
Kamose (17th)
Ahmose I
First
1532
1513
Ahmose I
Amenhotep I
Second
1512
1493
Amenhotep I
Thutmose II
Thutmose I
Third
1492
1473
Thutmose II
Hatshepsut
Fourth
1472
1453
Hatshepsut
Thutmose III
First
1452
1433
Thutmose III
Thutmose III
Second
1432
1413
Thutmose III
Amenhotep II
Third
1412
1393
Amenhotep II
Thutmose IV
Fourth
1392
1373
Thutmose IV
Amenhotep III
First
1372
1353
Amenhotep III
Akhenaten
Second
1352
1333
Akhenaten
Tutankhamun
Smenkhkare Neferenefureaten
Third
1332
1313
Tutankhamun
Horemheb
Ay
Fourth
1312
1293
Horemheb
Horembeb
First
1292
Ramses I (19th)
Inspired by Tom Nichols' thoughts on the Russian invasion of Ukraine; Pink Floyd's The Final Cut; Joe Jackson's Forty Years; the Generational model; and the pre-war dream.
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/02/war-ukraine-soviet-collapse/673197/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
The atomic bomb test on July 16, 1945 - also known as Trinity - occurred only 3 weeks before the bombing of Hiroshima and only 7 weeks before the end of the war. Looking at it as the midpoint of that summer, it was only one of many signficant events in the last three months of World War II.
I've started a project looking at each of those days, to create a view of that time, to better understand what went into the decision to create and use the atomic bomb, and how people around the world reacted to it. Starting from Memorial Day, at the end of May 1945, and continuing through Labor Day- the day after the official Japanese surrender - it will look at every single day, finding something something signifcant, or at least noteworthy.
There's Klaus Fuchs, meeting with Harry Gold in Santa Fe on June 2, to pass atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Or Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, killed on Okinawa on June 18. The first troops returning from Europe on July 1. President Truman leaving for Potsdam on July 7. Clement Atlee winning the election in the United Kingdom on July 26, replacing Churchill as Prime Minister. The bombing of Hiroshima. The August Revolution in Vietnam. The Occupation of Japan starting on August 28. The short ceremony ending the war on September 2nd - a quiet Sunday in a Tokyo Bay, not unlike one four years earlier.
The dot-com era happened when it did because of the invention of the World Wide Web, which made it easier to use the connected network of computer networks we call The Internet.
https://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/WorldWideWeb.html
It's the Roaring '20s, and there are new ways of making money, new technologies, new ways of becoming famous. Charles Lindbergh had learned to fly airplanes, and would use his understanding of this new technology to become rich and one of the most famous people on the planet.
Viewing slavery as a moral or economic issue makes it easier to talk about, since it removes people from the conversation, allowing opportunities for compromise, ways to get along, ways to talk past the difficult conccept of people being used. That was often how such discussions of slavery in the Uniited States had gone for a while.
Harriet Beecheer Stowe's story of enslaved people in the South moved the conversation in a less comfortable direction, by making the suffering of slaves personal and specific.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom%27s_Cabin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Northup
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_of_the_Life_of_Frederick_Douglass,_an_American_Slave
Benjamin Franklin was well known for a number of reasons, but even today "flying a kite in a thunderstorm" is one of the first that comes to mind.
This is a landmark that everyone knows about, and one reason for having it here is to give a specific date to it (1752, that is). There’s also the concern over how authentic to consider it - the descriptions here are definitely from Franklin and in that year, even if he was neither to first to try it nor confirmed to have actually done it.
Stuck at home during the plague year of 1666, young Isaac Newton considered important scientific issues of the day, and quickly made amazing advances in mathematics, astronomy, physics, and general understanding of the universe.
As we draw the final side of our map - the Third Turning, or Unraveling - we'll be looking at people like Nicolaus Copernicus, who suggested that the Earth rotates around the Sun. The Unraveling is a time of individual freedom, when people make discoveries, inventions, or achievements - generally without the assistance of governments, in a way that attaches their own names to what they've done.
The organizational strengths and focus that enable infrastructure and exploration are not always aimed at such noble pursuits. Sometimes they find internal enemies, or at least try to seek them out. The fear of Communists infilitrating the entertainment industry led the U.S. Government to pursue a group that became known as The Hollywood Ten.
As this hits the edge of the map for the First Turning, we continue on with a short description of our final historical period, the Third Turning, and how we'll be choosing our landmarks there.
Expanding infrastructure is one of the key indicators of the First Turning, and the transcontinental railroad was an infrastructure priority for the United States in the 19th Century.
In 1804, Lewis and Clark's "Corps of Discovery" heads north and west from where the Missouri and Mississippi rivers meet, attempting to find a way to the Pacific Ocean. The First Turning encourages Exploration, which continues to use the governmental infrastructure set up during the previous Fourth Turning, but avoids the complications of a open warfare....
In 1714, the British Parliament approved The Longitude Prize, which offered monetary rewards to anyone who could make it possible for ships to effectively determine their longitude. The smallest prize was £10,000 - the equivalent of millions of dollars today.
The Kingdom of Great Britain was created by The Acts of Union in 1707. Before then, one would properly refer to the English Parliament, and after to the British Parliament. This epsode crosses over that point in time between the start and the end, so the incorrect adjective may have slipped in once or twice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union_1707
The Global Positioning System (GPS) might be considered a comparable sort of infrastructure, but it was created over a long enough period that associating it with a specific Turning is difficult. It also required infrastructure (namely rockets that could put satellites in orbit), and was implemented in short order once those were available.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System
Americans learn of the founding of Jamestown as part of their country's history, as the first successful English colony in the New World and the precursor to the Thirteen Colonies that would eventually rebel against the British. It can also be looked at as the start of the British Empire, and as embodying a spirit of exploration in the aftermath of the victory over Spain.
All of which make it an appropriate instance of a First Turning landmark.
The memorable and noticeable events in First Turnings particularly include
-
Infrastruture
-
Exploration
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Seeking out corruption, in whatever form it's expected to exist.
Rebuilding St. Peter's Basilica falls under the first category, especially when it's being rebuilt for the first time in over 1000 years.
With landmarks found for the Fourth and Second turnings, the history map is halfway done - but there's still a good distance to go.
On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in support of a strike of sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. The speech he gave, with biblical imagery and references, especially to the Israelites, their escape from slavery, and what their leader, Moses, was allowed to glimpse before his death, has since become known as the Mountaintop speech.
Video of the speech can be found on Youtube. The brief audio clips used here came from the internet archive.
https://archive.org/details/IHaveBeenToTheMountaintopFullSpeech
In the podcast audio, it might not be quite as clear as intended that "John Brown's Body" being referenced was a marching song of the Union army during the American Civil War. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, which led to John Brown's trial and execution, occurred just a year before the election of Abraham Lincoln as president.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown%27s_Body
In 1896, at the Democratic National Convention, Williams Jennings Bryan rises to speak about the question of coinage, of money, but also about who was to be represented in the halls of power. Barely old enough even to be President of the United States, he makes a speech, full of religious symbolism, that wins him the party's nomination for that office.
Twenty-five-year-old William Lloyd Garrison published the anti-slavery weekly newspaper, The Liberator, starting on the first day of 1831.
The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison: I will be heard, 1822-1835 includes in its annotations on page 92 an objective summary of the circumstances of the Todd libel case.
It was July 8 1841, in the middle of a revival, Jonathan Edwards would quietly give a sermon. It's our landmark for the Second Turning that's also known as the Great American Awakening.
That Deuteronomy quote:
https://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/32-35.htm
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Sinners_in_the_Hands_of_an_Angry_God
Between Puritans, creeping authoritarianism, breaking of norms of governing and an overall concern about how religion is making itself known in political affairs, the monarchy of Charles I should be a very effective landmark for this history map.
But like some of the others we will come to view in the Awakening periods, the complexity of the political map can make it difficult.
It's still useful for understanding what else is happening in the 17th Century, and seeing some of the connections that join different points in time.
Having completed mapping the Fourth Turning, we return to the early 16th century, where the Protestant Reformation has begun. Henry VIII began as a "Defender of the Faith" against Martin Luther, but within a few years is opposing the Church because he's unable to get an annullment of his marriage. It's a good landmark on our map, showing up almost exactly halfway between the Reconquista and the Spanish Armada, while being well-alligned with the spirtual concerns often seen during a Second Turning.
Considering the result of the previous episodes, the outline of thie history map, and the next landmarks to be considered.
The Global Financial Crisis was the start of the first Fourth Turning after Generations (1991) and The Fourth Turning (1997) were published. It brings us to the edge of our "map" since it's the turning we are currently within, for at least another few years. And it's the last Fourth Turning event we'll be looking at on Mapping History - after this, it will be time to go to another set of Turnings and see what they have in common.
A Fourth Turning key event that isn't a battle or war but was a sign of fundamental change in society: Federal legislation for registering financial securities, in order to handle problems not prevented by similar legislation at the state level. Problems such as, for example, the stock market crash of 1929....
Between the election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 and his inauguration in March 1861, seven states seceded from the Union - a key event in the bloodiest war in American history: The American Civil War.
In 1779, Spain took sides in the American Revolution, attacking the English in ways that, incidentally, helped the American colonists. It also marked a point at which the Revolutionary War could reasonably be called an international affair. 1783 is mentioned as an alternative year from this era - a year that is, of course, memorable to fans of the movie Highlander At one point the main character casually muses that "1783 was a very good year," and in a few lines makes it easy to remember what happened,then.
https://youtu.be/T8dVElW3chk
Another century, another Fourth Turning, another war - this time in North America, between native tribes led by "King Philip," and the English colonists.
https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/king-philips-war
https://connecticuthistory.org/americas-most-devastating-conflict-king-philips-war/
https://americanliterature.com/author/nathaniel-hawthorne/short-story/the-gray-champion
https://colonialwarsct.org/1675.htm
https://archive.org/details/historyofkingphi00abbo/page/346/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater
Not quite 100 years after the end of the Reconquista, Spain is facing down a new adversary - England and its Protestant monarch. The Armada will protect ships transporting an invasion fleet onto English soil, unless the English can do someting about it. In this Fourth Turning event, we again see fundamental changes in how nations are organized, and major acts of war involved in those changes.
A summary of the four Turnings, which the history map will use to compare and understand understand different events across history, and so be able to tie different periods together.
The first landmark on our map is 1492: The End of the Reconquista. Within the generational model, it is no coincidence that a key period of exploration begins as the Fourth Turning ends - that the two are closely tied together. It's real use here, of course, is a key date that will easily be remembered, but not in the usual way.
A high level summary of the Plan for our history map 1. Use specific historical events as our landmarks 2. Focus on the year to help define when the event occurred
- Structure within the Strauss & Howe model, particularly looking at events associated with a specific turning.
A series about how to understand history better by setting up a way to recognize relationships between events and how far apart they are - which is to say, a map. This mapping project, like the rest of The Latest Generation, is based on the Strauss & Howe model, with specific historical events described so that the model helps you understand the historical events, and vice versa.
Considering why Austin Powers and Rip Van Winkle see so much change, how it's relevant to the amount of time that passes for each of them, and what it means for countries that are trying to understand what change they might see.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Rip_Van_Winkle_(Irving)
Back to the Future at IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088763/
Blast from the Past is another movie that similarly uses a 35-year time period to show a significant change, in its case from 1962 to 1998: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0124298/
There are a number of Treaties of Paris: I was speaking of the one in 1783: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1783)
The continuation is from the previous episode, The Sebastapol Sketches, about the 1850s Crimean War and the Tolstoy stories set there. Because so much has been happening, it's a ramblling look at a lot of possibilities and how the generational model might make sense of it all.
As such, there's not a lot here for further investigation besides the previous podcast episodes and a few tweets of mine....
On the other hand, it is an an unusually long episode, so be ready for that.
https://twitter.com/generationalize/status/1496139226659840018?s=21
https://twitter.com/generationalize/status/1496016572112158724?s=21
https://twitter.com/generationalize/status/1496006671851986948?s=21
https://twitter.com/generationalize/status/1495223269225484290?s=21
https://twitter.com/generationalize/status/1492255773237284864?s=21
A look at Leo Tolstoy's Sevastopol Sketches, and what we can learn from them about recent activity in Crimea and Ukraine.
Can't say for certain that the Orthodox Church of Ukraine has a lot to do with this, but it is recent enough to raise the question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Church_of_Ukraine
And the Wall Street Journal does just that:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-orthodox-church-and-ukraine-christianization-greek-catholic-prince-vladimir-great-empire-invasion-11643296236
Text of The Sevastopol Sketches https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47197/47197-h/47197-h.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-catherine-great-invaded-crimea-and-put-rest-world-edge-180949969/
Not necessarily the last Normalcy episode, but not necessarily NOT the last one, either. More about thoughts as of the end of the year, and the start of the year, and A Long December.
The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D5PtyrewSs
Courtney Cox had been on Friends for a couple years at this point, and had been acting for a while, and it was over a decade since she'd been in Springsteen's video for Dancing in the Dark.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Long_December
The song is on the album Recovering the Satellites, the band's sophomore effort. It's worth checking out, around this time of year, especially.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovering_the_Satellites
As the Crisis of 2020 evolves, there seem to be a few different ways that the situation could proceed.
On what "dictator" mean to the Romans - although note that in Caesar's time, it had barely been used for about 200 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dictator
That intel thread on Twitter
https://twitter.com/generationalize/status/1434584160786546690
An insight that's less about the generational model of history and more about history itself: Everyone chooses what version of the story they want to hear, and adjust what they include or exclude to fit, as well as they can.
Branagh's: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116477/
Olivier's: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040416/
Someone else’s complaint about the fourth act soliloquy in Branagh
https://www.shakespeareflix.net/2015/04/the-hills-are-alive-and-spur-my-dull.html
Check back to Episode 20: Bob Newhart, JFK, and Hamlet for another version of how Hamlet could be viewed.
Found myself walking home from an errand the other day, and realized how unusual it was in these more normal times.
Getting sick isn't what it used to be, and the true return of Normalcy, no doubt, will be when being sick isn't that big of a deal.
Does normalcy mean thinking, again, about what you really want to do with your life?
Tom Tomorrow's tweet:
https://twitter.com/tomtomorrow/status/1452299137840472064?s=20
The Homeland generation was born starting in 2005 - but what does it mean? Why Homeland? And are they really quite what Strauss & Howe predicted they would be?
It does seem about right.
That tweet I mentioned is here:
https://twitter.com/generationalize/status/1432384151143944197?s=20
There's no separate Wikipedia entry for The Rocket Man, and in fact my copy is in R is For Rocket, but Wikipedia says it was first published in The Illustrated Man
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illustrated_Man
http://afterthemillennials.com/its-official-the-white-house-calls-them-homeland-generation/
Couldn't find a way to include this but: The Rocket Man is set in, well, right about now, since the titular character was “a boy in 1997” and the narrator is mentioned as being fourteen years old, so it’d be quite reasonable to think that he was born about ten years after the father was a boy, and …yeah. It’s not a tumultuous world, so would seem to be after a Crisis like we have now.
Also, the story is only 10 pages long. It fits a lot in there.
Normalcy means returning to the office. Shouldn't be a big deal. But it is, and it's fair to acknowledge it.
Robert Heinlein, b. 1907, of the G.I. generation, frequently looked at gender - perhaps not too deeply, but in a way that may indicate why openness to changing gender roles may be about attributes of Hero generations, like the G.I.s and the Millennials.
Thoughts on twenty years in Afghanistan and other situations where twenty years makes a difference in how one thinks about something.
A look back at the Jacobites of 18th Century England, and potential parallels to the near-future of American politics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobitism
The end of the Jacobite era, almost 60 years after the the Glorious Revolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobite_rising_of_1745
A coincidental parallel: Because of the Rising of 1745, "45" was sometimes one of those subtle symbols used to represent Jacobites.
Bonnie Prince Charlie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Edward_Stuart
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Culloden
So one problem with talking about the Jacobites is that people naturally get them confused with the Jacobins. Two very different groups, different countries, different turnings even. The Jacobins - not at all the subject here - were from the French Revolution. They took their name from the Jacobin of monks So, late 18th century France, not early 18th century England.
This started as an acknowledgement that Normalcy doesn't mean what it used to, and turned into a realization that maybe people talking about how angry they are that mask mandates are back is the first step in ... whatever comes next.
A look at how the generational model might be useful in foreign policy - what interactions with other countries might be most beneficial, given that they are going through generational changes?
Mostly looking at the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia, but finding some options that seem generally useful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Soviet_and_Eastern_Bloc_defectors - fully 45 are in the period between 1959 and 1979.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Stalinization
""noted that his counterparts were obsessed with the historical parallel between 1941 and 1983. " - Able Archer 83
https://www.airspacemag.com/space/apollo-why-the-soviets-lost-180972229/
“While NASA was a centralized, top-down system run by the federal government, the Soviet space program acted more like a socialist version of a competitive market. ”
https://www.space.com/10764-soviet-moon-rocket-secrets-revealed.html
Harvest time was one of the things that became less certain because of COVID, and where normalcy can make it worthwhile to remember what the crop was like in any of the recent years one might remember.
Budgets are a normal way to manage money, and this last week was the first time in a year I managed to go over the household budget.
Thoughts on jobs and not having one and how going from having one to not having one to having one again over the course of COVID-19 maps to how people think about the most recent jobs report.
Some quick thoughts on Taika Waititi's excellent film Jojo Rabbit.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jojo_Rabbit
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2584384/
Story model for The Force Awakens starts here
http://stories.generationalize.com/2015/12/the-force-awakens-initial.html
Thoughts on The Liberals Who Can't Quit Lockdown, an Atlantic article that isn't as bad as the title makes it out to be.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/05/liberals-covid-19-science-denial-lockdown/618780/
The author tweeting about it
https://twitter.com/emmaogreen/status/1389566672789557255
Thoughts on why we do things (like wearing a mask) when we do, or do not, have a really good reason for doing so.
Returning to school is a bit of normalcy, at least when it used to happen at the end of summer. But it's a bigger deal now, as the pandemic is becoming less of a concern, and the Homelanders are returning, in some cases, for the first time in a year.
That Nate Silver tweet: https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1375579929014890498?s=20
(It's also true, though, that children change so much year to year that their lives are already changing frequently, so a year like this might not be as difficult as for adults. Maybe...)
One of the replies:
“Yep. And it has been an absolutely brutal year for teenagers. Brutal. This year will shape them for their entire lives. Pay attention now. Our politics in 20 years will directly reflect the experience of 15 year olds today.”
Arclight Theaters, the upscale movie theater chain that included the Cinerama Dome among its locations, will not be re-opening in the post-covid world. Thoughts on how habits can get ingrained during crisis periods, and other ways even the most perfectly evolved animals can be unable to adapt, enough.
Sigh - yes, 1994 was 27 years ago. Sorry. I will Do Math Better.
This calm period in Jurassic Park - where everyone but Ian Malcolm thinks the situation is getting better - has kept coming to mind over the last year.
Go figure.
Some quick thoughts on a year after the end of the first month where people started taking COVID-19 seriously. And what it may have meant at the start that may be worth considering near the end.
Perhaps not everyone felt this way - perhaps it was simply the thoughts of someone recently out of work, able to afford to think a little differently about the world for a few weeks. Because of course it wouldn't be longer than that...
Almost called this one "Food" but maybe Groceries is a better title, for thoughts concerning what's changed about Costco and Trader Joe's in the almost-post-pandemic era. Or at least, what's changed about going there.
A short-form sub-podcast, planned to have a generational view of the journey back to normalcy in a post-Covid world. Assuming that's where we are....
Jam Handy's Hired! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f0qaau7-Lc
The 8th episode of The Latest Generation is called "Managing the G.I. Generation" but is built around previous notes on Hired!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-latest-generation/id1173004773?i=1000383161486
Eventually you have to make it through to the end.
This is, as it says, the last Gen X Job Seeker episode, because....the search is over.
Going to blame having a job again for not having more to say this month, but working on a more consistent release schedule soon.
https://www.realdefen.se
https://www.iolo.com
Good luck to everyone out there still seeking.
Thoughts on being out of work for a year - 365 days - a milestone that I reached this last week.
That tweet from Anna Kendrick can be found here.
https://twitter.com/AnnaKendrick47/status/1244722648401063938?s=20
March 30, 2020 - about two weeks into the initial pandemic lockdown:
“I guess I’ll never be able to lie to myself again about all the shit I would do if I just had the time.”
I'm on Twitter @generationalize
So that email address you can use is pat AT generationalize DOT com
President Joseph Biden is the first President from the Silent Generation, and presumably the last. Is that going to be a problem, here in the Fourth Turning? Perhaps not, considering how little we understand about how leaders change in the later Elder period of life. His governing style might not be the standard for how the Artist archetype is expected to manifest.
Here's the excerpt again:
“As the forces of history amass under Boom leadership, the Silent can remind Boomers of kindness, 13ers of conscience, Millenials of caution. The danger will lie in any attempt by aging Silent leaders to get too much in the way of the thickening forces of history - for example, if an eightyish President (or Supreme Court) insists on scrupulous process at a moment when younger generations begin to coalesce around the need for decisive action. The last time this happened, during the Presidency of old Compromiser James Buchanan, the foot dragging of elder Adaptives helped foment the most destructive crisis in American History. The same could occur if antiquarian Silent leadership helps usher in the Crisis of 2020.”
Neil Howe & William Strauss, Generations, published 1991, page 395 the Silent generation section of “Completing the Millennial Cycle”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_by_age
Reagan's meetings with Gorbachev in the last 18 months of office.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Summit_(1987)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Summit_(1988)
Mitch McConnell was born 2/20/1942, is a more definite silent, if only by a few months.
Nanci Pelosi was born March 26 1940 a solid Silent
Chuck Schumer was born November 23 1950 and is a very solid Boomer…but even he is 70
The generational attributes come from Chapter 12 of Generations, the last two rows of Figure 12-7, Peer Personalities, by Generational Type
A few minutes to note the end of the Countdown series, about the 2020 election.
There had been some plan to update/follow-up on it, but we are well past that point, today.
A look back at 2020, what The Crisis of 2020 might have been, and what Crisis really means, here.
Unforced Errors was episode 49, and was posted in April 2020
The Crisis of 2020 was a prediction in the original book, Generations. It was used as a focus of episode 34 ("The Crisis of 2020") in January 2019, and followed up in episode 44 ("When 2020 Came Early") in October 2019.
Unfortunately, this is not the long-awaited final episode of my job search, but simply another one since it has been four months since the last one. Some thoughts on the year gone by, and what I've actually done.
Concerning the election of Joe Biden, born 1942, and the resulting failure of a specific prediction from the 1991 book Generations: That the Silent generation would never hold the office of President of the United States.
Joe Biden’s birthday is November 20 - he turned 78 quite recently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden
Ronald Reagan was born February 6, 1911, was inaugurated January 20 1981 (not quite 70 years old) and departed office January 20 1989, two weeks before his 78th birthday.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan
Dick Morris talking about Clinton’s thought process, the selection of Al Gore as VP - and also the prediction that Silent generations wouldn’t have a president
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/clinton/interviews/morris.html
The "falling ball" scene was written by John August, as described here:
https://johnaugust.com/2009/take-away-the-questions
Twitter: @generationalize
What it means to vote, and what it determines, and whether how we're doing it should be done differently. (Nothing too deep, or really very deep at all.)
An attempt to summarize why the organization of the United States is both dependent on and outside the control of individuals, by looking at how organizations have stayed together in a couple of smaller contexts.
Life Itself (Ebert documentary - evidently there's a completely different drama movie, as well)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2382298/
It's currently available as part of Amazon's Prime Video on Demand offering.
Los Angeles is in Widespread status so churches can only have outdoor services.
Orange County is Substantial, so churches can have indoor services for up to 100 people or 25% capacity, whichever is smaller.
https://covid19.ca.gov/safer-economy/
This was definitely too short to get into transaction cost economics, which is what really drives my view of organization. Here's a starting point:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_cost
You'll probably want to dig into Williamson as well.
This year's Halloween inspires random thoughts tied together by considerations of mortality.
The previously mentioned episode that references Highlander and immortality is Ep. 43 Lost Boys and Golden Girls, recorded in 2019.
(You can imagine, I'm sure, how often I'm double-checking that I've spelled "immortality" correctly here.)
Yes, nine months is the usually accepted length of a human pregnancy, but if you count from the actual date of conception it's really eight and a half months, which is the duration from St. Valentine's Day to Halloween. Don't know if it means anything...
The particular place I heard of Hamlet's calendar setting is Steve Roth's "Hamlet: The Undiscovered Country," which is fine place to understand the Dane better. The associated website is http://princehamlet.com
What is your dream for what the world looks like, after all this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Cut_(album)
“A place to stay, enough to eat, somewhere old heroes shuffle safely down the street
Where you can speak out loud about your doubts and fears
And what’s more
No-one ever disappears
You never hear their standard issue
Kicking in your door
You can relax
On both sides of the tracks
And maniacs
don’t blow holes
In bandsman by remote control
And everyone has recourse to the law
And no-one kills the children anymore.”
Turns out a video was made for it, but let me recommend listening to the song on its own, if not the album, at least the first time or two.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSE7qdjy3Q0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States
Recapitulating how anger is the primary impetus behind the Fourth Turning. Because that's the kind of week it has been.
The downside of trying to do this quickly is that sometimes you don't have time to figure why your laptop is running the fan on full, making your podcast sound fuzzy in a way that can't be avoided because It's Coming From Inside The Computer. Hope to get it fixed by the next episode, thought.
Is time passing by differently than it has in other periods of history .... which is to say, about the same as in other periods like this one?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Chicago_disaster
(My original goal with these quick Countdown mini-casts was maybe 2 minutes per - pretty sure this turned out to be the first one that was less than 3 minutes. Best laid plans...)
Maybe it makes sense to lock up the losers in our election battles, or at least to lock them up more than we do. This one is more partisan than I like to be, but only because the Republicans have more obvious and memorable scandals of government abuse.
This article by Nicholas Grossman had some influence here, primarily because it's an excellent summary of what's been happening in the judicial branch:
https://arcdigital.media/against-the-judicial-wars-26baf22f3994
Everyone sees what they want in the nomination and confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, so here's a Fourth Turning POV on it.
Incidental find on how changing the court is practically a tradition during 4th Turnings. (Note the year...)
https://www.scotusblog.com/2013/07/the-first-court-packing-plan/
The days remaining until the 2020 Presidential Election are in single digits now, but it's been a long time since it started, and it may be worth considering shortening it up a bit.
Bernie Sanders started his presidential campaign on February 19; Elizabeth Warren on February 9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries]
One of my ongoing projects has to do with looking day-by-day at EVERYTHING happening during the months between V-E and V-J day. One of the events was the election in the UK, but there was also Trinity, the departure of the USS Indianapolis with the Hiroshima bomb, the sinking of the USS Indianapolis after it was delivered, the Potsdam conference...and that's just July.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_United_Kingdom_general_election
When ordinary everyday events start becoming indications of how out-of-balance our fundamental governmental structures have become.
The 1790 census:
https://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/fast_facts/1790_fast_facts.html
The 2010 census, although of course the population has grown since then.
https://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/fast_facts/2010_fast_facts.html
Yes, the video in this tweet is at least part of the reason the size of moose is on my mind
https://twitter.com/TeslaChillMode/status/1318394790531141633
Thoughts on a Friday night late in October, when Homecoming should be happening, but isn't.
Concerns about corruption depend on actual instances of corruption, which the Fourth Turning encourages by its nature. (Although people won't really be concerned about it until the First Turning starts - too much else going on.)
Credit Mobilier (1872) is one of the main inspirations for this idea of corruption found during First Turnings that started in the Fourth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crédit_Mobilier_scandal
As are the Valachi hearings (1963)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valachi_hearings
At some level, the McCarthy hearings, along with other investigations into Communist influences, can be seen as concerns about corruption as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army–McCarthy_hearings
Can't really talk about Corruption without mentioning the Bloodguard, for whom the Vow was everything, and anything that was not the Vow was Corruption.
https://unbeliever.fandom.com/wiki/Bloodguard
Big Structural Change was always going to be part of the Fourth Turning. What will election squabbles have to say about what the next big changes might be?
On the 1929 Apportionment act, which has some practical justification, but is still a source of imbalance compared to the original goals for the federal government.
https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-Permanent-Apportionment-Act-of-1929/
The "dogmas of the quiet past" line is from Lincoln's second address to Congress (i.e. the State of the Union) in December 1862.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/second-annual-message-9
An example of plans to limit the pardon power and others.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/506894-pelosi-plans-legislation-to-limit-pardons-commutations-after-roger-stone-move
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/23/pelosi-corruption-reforms-trump-420355
Countdown is a series of short episodes on the state of the world as the 2020 Presidential Election approaches. This first one considers some similarities to the Glorious Revolution and the American Civil War, and their status as markers of major structural change.
Why is Cobra Kai one of the top shows on Netflix? Why does it resonate? What does it say about where we are in this crisis? And how do similar themes show up in The Umbrella Academy as well?
For more on the Kids These Days thing, check out one of the earlier episodes, So You’re a Millennial, which goes into my assessment of why participation awards exist and what they mean for the Millennial and (less so) Homelander generations.)
Perry Ferrell's comments about Jane's Addiction.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/nothings-shocking-meet-l-a-s-wildest-new-band-janes-addiction-101919/
Here’s a reddit thread looking at folks who watch Cobra Kai, and their ages.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cobrakai/comments/c1r3y2/demographics_of_this_group/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsiders_(film)
This exchange from Entourage - specifically the “selling auto insurance in Reseda” - came to me multiple times over the last few weeks, but couldn’t find a way to shoehorn it into the final section.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0572403/quotes/qt0368292
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/duel
The Merriam Webster website defines Duel as:
: a combat between two persons
specifically : a formal combat with weapons fought between two persons in the presence of witnesses
The combats in Cobra Kai, for the most part, are not formal. While they do not include weapons as such, the martial arts training involved makes the distinction between weapon and person insignificant: It’s of note here primarily because dueling appears to be largely a First Turning phenomenon. The duel between Hamilton and Burr and the shootout at the OK corral in 1881 are two well known duels that match this. Hamlet, which also appears set in First Turning, features a duel that's really Laertes trying to kill the title character, and Romeo & Juliet (similarly) has a bunch of kids getting into fights and making trouble.
And by the end, like many duels in fiction and in real life, there are repercussions that go far beyond.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Tyson
As mentioned in Gen X Job Seeker the Seventh, here's a spoken-word rendition of an essay I wrote. It was in response to a complaint about what people had done, or not, during the time of COVID.
Original LinkedIn Article is here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/just-let-you-know-pat-bowman/
If you're looking for a generational perspective on it, well, just consider that this is the start of the peak of this Crisis, the period referred to by Strauss & Howe - when they wrote Generations in 1991 - as the Crisis of 2020
It's been a couple of months, and the job searching hasn't become any easier. Some ideas on why, and what it means and what I'll be trying next.
kaggle.com has solid tutorials on SQL, Python, Machine Learning and other topics.
My post on what's been going on for the last six months: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/just-let-you-know-pat-bowman/
Coalition for Clean Air: https://www.ccair.org
And Purple Air: https://www2.purpleair.com
What the heck - here's my LinkedIn profile
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thatpatbowman/
And again, I'm @generationalize on Twitter
A rambling look at Molly's Game, the 2017 film by Aaron Sorkin, and how it works in the generational stories model.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly%27s_Game
Hadn’t made it clear that this was Based On A True Story, or more precisely based on an autobiographical book by Molly Bloom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Bloom_(author)
Turns out that the prosecutor was Preet Brahara….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preet_Bharara
I said Studio 62 at one point; it is of course Studio 60
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0485842/
This won’t make as much sense unless you take a look at my generational story framework
http://stories.generationalize.com
May need to start from the start, but here works well too
http://stories.generationalize.com/2015/12/four-stories.html
A look back at the sources of our current collective anger and why it is happening and options to consider with your personal anger.
(It seemed longer in my head.)
That old apocalyptic favorite, Yeats’ “The Second Coming”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming
Heinlein’s Future History
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_History_(Heinlein)
Future Shock
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Shock
The frequently alluded to earlier episode is “Ep. 21 - Why So Angry?,” which was posted on the last day of 2017.
This is just for fun, with no real generational connection except that both Abraham Lincoln and George Lucas are from Prophet generations. (Boom for Lucas, Transcendental for Lincoln.) And, as such, it's not surprising that a similar arrangement works for both of them.
If you like Star Wars and Aaron Copland, you may enjoy it.
Fun fact: George Lucas' birthday is May 14, 1944, which was the two-year anniversary of the premiere of Lincoln Portrait.
Here's where I found the quotations:
The first two are from different sections of a look back at The Phantom Menace:
https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-episode-i-the-phantom-menace-oral-history)
The "barbarians" quote is from testimony before the Senate in March 1988 - here’s the text I used, from Wikisource: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1988_George_Lucas_testimony_before_United_States_Senate
It’s not clear that he every actually said the thing about the sledgehammer, but it turns out the fourth section in Lincoln Portrait isn’t well sourced either. And in both cases, it's certainly something they might have said.
I originally found the last bit here:
https://www.biography.com/news/george-lucas-star-wars-facts
But it turns out it was from a New York Times interview of George Lucas while he was FILMING Star Wars in 1976.
https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/12/archives/from-american-graffiti-to-outer-space.html
It's well worth the read.
The Glorious Revolution occurred about three and a half years after James II ascended to the English throne. People had been concerned about how James might change the government, but not enough to do anything significant for several years. Why did it work out that way, how common is such a period (i.e. between a change and its resolution) and what might it tell us about our current political situation?
================
The Diary of John Evelyn includes some up-to-the-minute reactions to the events of 1688 (e.g. “10th June, 1688. A YOUNG PRINCE born, which will cause disputes.”)
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42081/42081-h/42081-h.htm
There’s also a bit in the diary about meeting with an 11-year-old prodigy. Asked if the recent revolution was comparable to anything he had heard of, he gives the example of Constantine the Great and Maxentius - a Roman emperor with a 6 year reign ending in 312.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxentius
The diary also has the specific intended mention of the bishops in England who thought the events of the Revolution were what was foretold in the Revelation of St. John - see 26 April 1689 for details.
Here's the paper that pointed me to John Evelyn and his observations at the time.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4091697
Revelation 13:5 King James Version (KJV)
5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
"The History of England from the Accession of James II" came up in one of my searches. No guarantee of anything except that it may be of use to anyone wanting another view of that period.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2439/2439-h/2439-h.htm
'The King explicitly avowed to the ministers of those continental powers with which he had lately intended to ally himself, that all his views had undergone a change, and that England was still to be, as she had been under his grandfather, his father, and his brother, of no account in Europe. "I am in no condition," he said to the Spanish Ambassador, "to trouble myself about what passes abroad. It is my resolution to let foreign affairs take their course, to establish my authority at home, and to do something for my religion.”'
One of my older tweets on why this next month (July 2020) might be interesting:
https://twitter.com/generationalize/status/1097257156712136706
Included for timeline, although I don't agree with the conclusion, since James II did not appear to be motivated by increased religious freedom.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/glorious-revolution-conservatives-should-not-celebrate-religious-tyranny/
After recording, found that James II's queen was Mary of Modena, which is probably rarely mentioned in narratives of the Revolution because having two different Marys in the story is ... confusing.
The outro is the end of Johnny Cash's The Man Comes Around, the title track from his fourth and final American Records recording. It's quoting from the 6th chapter of Revelation, which seems appropriate given all the rest.
Yes, there's a very obvious edit about 10 minutes in, where I had to insert the word "three" to describe how many centuries since the Glorious Revolution. We regret the error.
I can be found on Twitter @generationalize, and occasionally blogging at crisis.generationalize.com
Four months of job searching. Some jobs are coming back around, some different possibilities are showing up. Plus a bunch of thought about our current Fourth Turning.
A list of companies that have gone bankrupt due to COVID-19. Doesn't mean they'll never come back, but in recessions it often does mean that. https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2020/05/03/coronavirus-bankruptcy-tracker-these-major-companies-are-failing-amid-the-shutdown/
Didn't even touch on restaurants and similar sources of food, for which a few weeks of closure has become permanent, and which also will have wide ranging effects. Here's an article on Stan's Donuts, as a single example.
https://la.eater.com/2020/4/10/21216543/stans-donuts-closed-los-angeles-classic
Jurassic Park droplet scene...which doesn't really do that good a job of describing the issue. What should have happened at the end was Ian Malcolm saying (to the empty jeep) something like "See, I could've predicted that he would jump out of here at some point, but wouldn't have known it was here. Or that anything here was important." [standard Jeff Goldblum pause/stutter] "For example."
https://youtu.be/n-mpifTiPV4
Covid-19 testing in Los Angeles County
https://covid19.lacounty.gov/testing/
A look back at previous episodes that could be of interest these days.
Here are the episodes mentioned in episode order:
Ep. 6 - Synthococcus Novae
Ep. 10 - Unravellings
Ep. 12 - Where’s Poppa v. Quick Change
Ep. 13 - Welcoming Our Female Overlords
Ep. 18 - Forty Years
Ep. 20 - Bob Newhart, JFK, and Hamlet
Ep. 21 - Why So Angry
Ep. 26 - Unions in the Crisis
Ep. 30 - Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait
Ep. 34 - The Crisis of 2020
Ep. 37 - Waiting for the Worms
Ep. 43 - Lost Boys and Golden Girls
Ep. 49 - Unforced Errors
Still seeking a new position, here in the age of COVID-19, and what's new with that.
LA 2028 info can be found at https://la28.org
Here's the Twitter discussion - well, my part of it - on Financial Planning for different generations
https://twitter.com/generationalize/status/1252834711694540802
Since this is a generational analysis, trying to understand how to help the Hero generation led to how it happened last time around, which is how I ended up considering George Bailey and how he dealt with the ups and downs of the 3rd and 4th Turnings that he lived through.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/
The lesson that director Frank Capra took from those crazy times - or at least how he saw the G.I. Generation handle it - was "Keep trying to do right, do better, make the world better for those around you." The scene where the new homeowners get a full ritual welcoming to the "castle" seems much more like George trying to make the world better, not merely making life better for himself. (Though he still needs help from Guardian Angel Clarence to make it through.)
Continuing with the job seeker notes, this time after an April-long break.
My Covid-19 visualizations on Tableau Public. Turns out, though, that the population count is at an odd grain, and that throws off the death rate per 1000 calculation. Improvements in progress.
https://public.tableau.com/profile/patrick.bowman#!/vizhome/CoronavirusCOVID-19Cases_15886328387010/DecentMap
Here's the Imbellus web site: https://www.imbellus.com/
I’m on Twitter: @generationalize
Can we tell the start of a Fourth Turning by noticing the frequency and intensity of nation-level unforced errors? A look at the Soviet Union during the 1980s, when in retrospect the nation was clearly falling apart, and the unforced errors during that decade that might have been good indicators of what was happening.
https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/the-notorious-flight-of-mathias-rust-7101888/
“At about this time, Soviet investigators would later tell Rust, radar controllers realized something was terribly wrong, but it was too late for them to act.”
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration released a publication called “Soviet Military Power” which was frankly intended to make the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics look more powerful than it was. In 1989, someone FINALLY put out a response to it, called Soviet Military Power, Annotated” which pointed out that it was frankly a propaganda document. Unfortunately, the annotations were also frankly propaganda. At one point it alludes to Rust’s flight as having a lot of lucky coincidences that just happened to embarrass the Soviet Union on Border Guard day. It implies, that is, that Mathias Rust’s flight sure looked like an intentional propaganda stunt that must have had direct help from someone who wanted to embarrass the USSR> Anyway, if it was the case that this was anything else, I’m rather confident that Rust would have been “disappeared” a while ago.
Googling us intelligence tracking Mathias Rust leads to a “Secrets of Signals Intelligence During the Cold War” - nothing there, really, that I used here, but it was interesting reading.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Berlin_Wall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Solidarity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Round_Table_Agreement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severomorsk_Disaster
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/11/world/soviet-naval-blast-called-crippling.html
Listing them here for additional clarity and impact.
- 1979 - Afghanistan
- 1980 - Solidarity
- 1983 - KAL 007
- 1985 - Chernenko dies
- 1986 - Chernobyl
- 1987 - Mathias Rust
- 1989 - Berlin Wall Falls
- 1991 - August Coup
HBO’s miniseries on Chernobyl influenced my views of the Chernobyl disaster by making the causes clear enough to be enthralling cinema. It’s a good intro to the disaster, although parts of it are fictionalized.
I could not find the cosmonaut cartoon, but saw it at work every day in 1985-1987. There was another cartoon I remember but also couldn’t find about Solidarity: Polish & Soviet leaders discuss the labor union, and assume that it was engineered by reactionary forces in the West. It then shows a small group of people reading from The Communist Manifest: Workers of the world, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!
That sixth Star Trek film is The Undiscovered Country, released in December 1991, only a few weeks before the official dissolution of the Soviet Union.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102975/
Continuing with the job seeker notes and how it is interacting with these days of COVID-19.
Nothing in particular to add for links here, this week at least. Except perhaps to note that googling "SPY Chart" will get you a decent chart of the S&P 500 SPDR/SPY ETF.
And as ever that it's worthwhile to watch Derry Girls, from which I derived the style of my unexpected purchase of a few hundred S&P ETF shares.
It's a week later and, yes, I'm still out looking for work. The surprising thing is how quickly my situation has gone from Unusual to Standard. Notes on the coronavirus, the Big Reset Button, and everything else going on.
Relativity Space: https://www.relativityspace.com
For California, here's the site for unemployment insurance. You can sign up the day you are let go - and should, since there is a waiting period before benefits start. (Although probably waived due to the masses of people having to stop work because of COVID-19): https://www.edd.ca.gov
After my resume is updated, I'll be starting on my LinkedIn profile as well, so don't expect to much from this right away: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thatpatbowman/
Check earlier episodes of The Latest Generation for notes on The Crisis of 2020, my thoughts on the arrival of that crisis, and impeachment.
Here's a good site on current status of COVID-19
https://ncov2019.live/data
Some thoughts on job-searching in the modern era, and how it might be different for a GenXer in a Crisis/FourthTurning. These thoughts are based, of course, on personal experiences during a current job search. Other episodes based on this job search are expected ....
Every once in a while someone alludes to a specific generation being defined by a specific technology that the cohort grew up with. Why generally does it have issues, and when might it be a good idea?
Here's the article that started it, with the Papaya Pay discussion with CEO Patrick Kanns at the start.
https://www.builtinla.com/2019/10/31/la-fintech-trends
A few results from the search for “Why is Gen Z averse to credit card debt”
https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/research/millennials-and-credit-card-debt-study/
Although it says that Gen X, Millennials, AND gen Z had increases in credit card debt.
This one happens to use a similar definition for Gen Z as we’ve described here but also says they don’t have a real problem with credit cards
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/08/18/credit-cards-report-gen-z-taking-more-debt/2008655001/
As does this one…
https://www.paymentssource.com/list/mobile-first-gen-z-doesnt-fear-credit-cards-debt
and this
https://www.americanbanker.com/articles/gen-z-is-racking-up-card-debt-after-era-of-tightwad-millennials
Some episodes I mention within this one (can also be found on Apple Podcasts, of course):
http://traffic.libsyn.com/latest/Ep._23_There_is_No_Gen_Z_-_The_Latest_Generation.mp3
http://traffic.libsyn.com/latest/Ep._36_-_The_Movie_Prediction_-_The_Latest_Generation_.mp3
http://traffic.libsyn.com/latest/Ep._46_-_Star_Wars_-_The_Latest_Generation.mp3
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize or (occasionally) blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com and http://stories.generationalize.com
On the occasion of President Donald Trump's impeachment and trial, what if anything does the generational model tell us about why this is happening more often (which it is, compared to other past periods)
That the impeachments are happening during different turnings is simple enough to see.
- Johnson 1868
- Nixon 1974
- Clinton 1998
- Trump 2019
Population over time
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_the_United_States
Initial tweet on the theory of the apportionment act being the reason for more impeachments
https://mobile.twitter.com/generationalize/status/1207339275907239937
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_Act_of_1911
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reapportionment_Act_of_1929
Why does Star Wars matter so much to Generation X? How did it's release become such a world-changing event? Even if you were there at the time, understanding the difference between the world Before and the world After.
This episode certainly won't have all the answers, but it will look at what was happening at that moment in movies.
Space Con 4 - or IV or whatever
https://fanlore.org/wiki/Space-Con_(Star_Trek_and_Science_Fiction_convention)
I remember that program book - had a copy. Worked as a Gopher on the second day - no experience required, it was my first time at a con, they didn't care, they needed people.
An original Star Wars Trailer, to refresh your memory, if needed.
https://youtu.be/XHk5kCIiGoM
It was only ten years after the START of Star Trek, barely 8 after its last episode aired on NBC, and there was talk by the guests about What Might Happen Next - what these days is referred to as Phase II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Phase_II
It quickly turned into
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Motion_Picture
(No doubt, in part because of Star Wars.)
I could put an image or a link on here for the lobby book that we had, but I'll just say instead to do an internet search for "original star wars 1977 theater book"
And while we're at it, "fantasia psychedelic poster" will let you see what I saw in the foyer of that theater, a young boy who was very excited that there was a movie with dinosaurs in it.
Star Wars actually made "highest grossing movie" a thing that mattered. That was probably because Gone With The Wind had been The Big One for nearly 40 years at that point - before Star Wars, well, who could feasibly dethrone the Biggest Movie Ever?
Anyway, if you want to play that game, here's a place to go
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_the_United_States_and_Canada#Adjusted_for_ticket-price_inflation
Hey, I messed up on Julia: It won 3 Oscars. And it's about fighting Nazis, but not the Holocaust itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_(1977_film)
Couldn't hurt to take a look at my previous analysis of The Force Awakens
http://stories.generationalize.com/2015/12/the-force-awakens-initial.html
There's a reason for this link to be included, but it would be too much work to explain why.
https://www.vulture.com/2019/12/what-we-lost-not-having-carrie-fisher-in-rise-of-skywalker.html
For all of those Disney family films, I'm going to point out Charley and the Angel because a)it has Harry Morgan as The Angel and b) the title appears to be the first thing like "Charlie's Angels"
(I remember that I saw this movie at some point, probably thought it a decent one, but don't remember anything about it.)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069866
And my favorite of the Dexter Riley films, Now You See Him Now You Don't.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069031
And let's throw a bone to Arnold, since it's easily lost otherwise and it's a film I remember seeing and...yeah, I couldn't have been even a teenager at the time.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069732/
Oh heck - how did I miss The Bad News Bears, which came out a year before Star Wars and is the first time you really SEE Generation X in a movie?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074174/
(I could've used Bugsy Malone but sadly I've never seen it, and it seems to be trying to be a kids movie itself.)
Here's a list of other Gen X films for comparison and edification.
http://stories.generationalize.com/2016/03/movies-of-generation-x.html
In addition to the Stories blog, I'm on Twitter at @generationalize.
Opening fanfare from the original Star Wars soundtrack, as is the closing - Princess Leia's theme. (Which John Williams played at one of his Hollywood Bowl performances, and noted was originally intended as a love theme for, um, her and Luke, since, well, nobody really expected changes, and, um, yeah.)
What if my frequently-repeated no-problem scenario for this Fourth Turning - the Glorious Revolution redux, that is, mostly bloodless and quickly resolved - is an overly optimistic best-case? What else could happen here?
General assumptions:
-
Peak is already arriving, so there aren't a lot of major flips or revelations happening
-
Direction of movement is related to generally known events, as that is what moves people along their paths
-
No conspiracies that will reveal large numbers of people supporting or opposing actions beyond what can reasonably be foreseen.
Very roughly, there are 3 million square miles in the United States, so 3 million votes mean one extra vote fo every single square mile. If you want ed to compare how many people who voted for Clinton versus Trump there would be in a potential Civil War v2.
Jade Helm was a military exercise that inspired no end of conspiracy theories, which you can look into here if you like that sort of thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Helm_15_conspiracy_theories
"What's past is prologue" is from The Tempest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_past_is_prologue
It's also an opening quote from the Babylon 5 episode "Z'ha'dum" - here's the ending quote, which seems apropos as well:
All around us, it was as if the Universe were holding its breath, waiting. All of life can be broken down into moments of transition, or moments of revelation. This had the feeling of both. G’Quon wrote, “There is a greater darkness than the one we fight, it is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way." The war we fight is not against powers or principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sinking_of_the_Reuben_James?wprov=sfti1
Written by Woody Guthrie - published 1942 so hard on it. My assumption (which I was unable to confirm) is that "This machine kills fascists" Guthrie was paying attention to the actions of Nazi Germany and focusing attempt where he could.
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/a_people_at_war/prelude_to_war/uss_reuben_james.html
Info about the song and the ship and entry into war
http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/PSAFB084.html
"Rueful memories of the U. S. entry into World War One, driven by the same drip-drip-drip of torpedoed ships sinking beneath the Atlantic waves, muted the public outcry for revenge. As with the Panay on the Yangtze, many Americans continued to fault their own nation for having placed American ships in harm's way."
Observing that the Crisis of 2020 appears to have begun, and what it might mean for the events and outcome of this Fourth Turning.
Anzio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Anzio
Eric Fletcher Waters' body was never found, but the location of his death has been determined:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10371269/Found-the-spot-where-Pink-Floyd-musicians-father-died-in-battle.html
Everyone has discussed Turkey and the Kurds, so search it out.
The Glorious Revolution, Charles II and James II and all the rest, is also all out there, including frequent mentions on this podcast.
The “music at the Pentagon gym” tweet:
https://twitter.com/Msummerslowe/status/1188799181386850306
World War II in Real Time on Twitter - finished its first cycle in August 2017 with the surrender of Japan, then started up again two weeks later with the invasion of Poland in 1939
https://twitter.com/RealTimeWWII
FiveThirtyEight impeachment poll tracker.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/impeachment-polls/
And the Republican Strategy podcast episode
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fivethirtyeight-politics/id1077418457?i=1000455331767
“The Crisis of 2020 will be the time when the people of the United States decide what their values really are.” - end of the Crisis of 2020 podcast episode. Not sure if it's still applicable, but worth considering.
Considering whether Gen X views of life, death, and immortality were shaped by two mid-80s films: Highlander (1986) and The Lost Boys (1987)
Yes yes yes, I said Steward Copeland at about 9:12 and realized just moments ago that I completely meant Douglas Coupland, who wrote Generation X: Tales For an Accelerated Culture in 1991
https://www.coupland.com/books/generation-x-tales-for-an-accelerated-culture
And my point there is that in 1987 the Lost Boys was certainly depicting Gen X characters with Gen X actors, but nobody called them Gen X at the time.
Interview with the Vampire was published in 1976 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interview_with_the_Vampire
Its sequel, The Vampire Lestat, was 1985
The Mystery of Dracula’s Castle - a scooby doo mystery in all but name, with inspiration from Christopher Lee’s Dracula over and over.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068985/
The Hunger
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085701/
The Lost Boys - straight to the tagline
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093437/taglines
Highlander
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091203/
Cocoon
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088933/
Siskel and Ebert - Lost Boys starts at 9:44 -
https://siskelebert.org/?p=2948
Highlander is the first one here, about 1:30 - they both disliked it rather a lot
https://siskelebert.org/?p=1496
First chapter of The Golden Bough - Frazer calls the King a “murderer” rather than a “killer” so I’ll randomly note that A) in the 1536 battler in Highlander, the Macleods are fighting the Frasers and B) “Matador” is literally “killer” in Spanish
The Spirit of Christmas, which spawned South Park, references Highlander’s repeated line “There Can Be Only One”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122264/
When talking about Reactives and the Awakening, probably worth looking at this previous entry on my blog
https://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/01/reactiveness.html
Unrelated but it’s a photo series called Lost Boys - millennials back at home after college or high school or whatever they decided they could do.
https://www.businessinsider.com/liz-calvi-lost-boys-photo-project-2014-9#calvi-started-with-her-good-group-of-guy-friends-but-eventually-branched-out-to-look-for-more-subjects-in-town-nolan-pictured-here-is-currently-studying-graphics-in-college-and-he-lives-with-his-parents-for-the-summer-2
Here’s the archive she set up
https://seulementdanslereve.tumblr.com/archive
And her home page
https://www.lizcalvi.com/commissions
“Vampire of the Mists” (1991) was a few years later, so probably influenced by Anne Rice and The Lost Boys and everything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_of_the_Mists
Wikipedia sayeth that Peter Pan first appeared in a novel in 1902, while the play first appeared in 1904. He’s very much of the Nomad archetype.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pan
Completely unrelated, except insofar as Aiken Drum (the character) is much like Peter Pan and has other Nomad / Reactive archetype indicators
https://manycolored.fandom.com/wiki/Many-Colored_Wiki
Pogonip club house
http://deepbluemoon.com/misc/pogonip/
Other locations - the interiors were on a set at Warner Brothers
https://www.visitcalifornia.com/attraction/lost-boys-santa-cruz-tour
Gregory Widen, screenwriter for Highlander. Born in 1958, he’s a late Boomer. He also wrote Backdraft.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0927074/
Russel Mulcahy - his director credits here include the music videos - which included Video Killed the Radio Star by Buggles, which unfortunately I can't find, so here are some others.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0611683
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Uxc9eFcZyM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyv905Q2omU
Max has mission style outdoor lamps - not too common at the time. (Although it was becoming popular again)
https://casetext.com/case/l-jg-stickley-inc-v-canal-dover-furn
Grandpas house is here (interiors were a set at Warner Bros.) - a very 1900s house
http://www.mobileranger.com/santacruz/pogonip-the-cowell-family-polo-and-a-poltergeist/
CSUN Queen show, 1989 - there will be another episode one day about why this matters….but I didn’t even have a chance to get into, here, how I and Angela and 150 of our closest friends did a field show with two songs from Highlander, plus Bohemian Rhapsody
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjkHl0paHbM
What is this actually about? What should you be getting out of this - what should I?
This article goes into some possibilities for previous speculation that there's a literal physical change around 44-50, one as notable as puberty if not quite so obvious.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/work-peak-professional-decline/590650/
Denis Leary released "No Cure for Cancer in 1993. It's in some ways a quintessential Baby Boomer view of the world, such as how his first memory starts "with a shooting on November 22 1963 and ends a few days later after a wake, a funeral, and another shooting."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Cure_for_Cancer
The title, he notes in the book of the stage play of the DVD of the film, is a swipe at Baby Boomers, who spent so much time in hedonistic pursuits that the big items - like a cure for cancer - were never as important as they should have been.
Although I would also point out that I know several cancer survivors, and that even if a single absolute eternal cure for cancer hasn't been found, the Boom generation and its fellow cohorts are not doing as bad as it seemed 30 years ago, or so.
A companion of sorts to the Apollo 11 episode from a few weeks back, this quick look at the Damien Chazelle movie First Man examines its subject, story, and historical viewpoint through a generational perspective.
Fewer links this time around - most of what is discussed is easily found.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1213641/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Armstrong - 39 in 1969
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shatner - one year younger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kubrick - two years older than Armstrong
An initial look at characters in general, and a matrix for what sort of attributes different archetypes can be expected to have:
http://stories.generationalize.com/2016/01/the-force-awakens-characters.html
Some thoughts on the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing, looking forward and looking back.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_plaque#/media/File:Apollo_11_plaque_closeup_on_Moon.jpg
We still have time…barely:
https://xkcd.com/893/
Some previous thoughts
https://twitter.com/generationalize/status/1151400733637431296
https://twitter.com/generationalize/status/1122948286359322624
And on Gingrich and his moon base
https://crisis.generationalize.com/2012/02/moonbase.html
An excursion to Northern Ireland, and how it ended up separate from the rest of Ireland, and how Derry Girls ended up in Londonderry in the middle of the Troubles.
Or, if you prefer, a look at how Ireland ended up Catholic, how Northern Ireland ended up Protestant, and how Derry ... Londonderry for Loyalists ... ended up in a Catholic outpost there.
The song at the end is Dreams by The Cranberries, used as the opening and closing of the Derry Girls pilot episode. The band's Irish, it was the mid-90s, it all fits.
(And of course that opening has local hooligans painting over the "London" part of "Londonderry" and yes I know that there's controversy over the name.)
De Courcy build Carrickfergus in 1177, so that’s about how long issues have been going on.
Henry VIII - Much of what I have, which isn't much I'll agree, came from here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tudor_conquest_of_Ireland
Grace o’Malley is worth checking into more – I heard about here on Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls – because she was supporting the rebellions in the 9 years war that led in part to the defeats causing the flight of the Earls that [deep breath] allowed James I to send settlers to Northern Ireland.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/grace-omalley-read-by-allison-mosshart/id1350594046?i=1000412035835
Turns out the red hand of Ulster was used by the O’Neills ….while fighting for a free Ireland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Ulster
And guess what, there’s no agreement on what it means, either, although it appears to go back to pagan times.
Considering the assumption that events in the Second Turning inform the Fourth Turning, looking into how recent abortion-related events may tie in to our current Crisis.
The quotes from Executive Orders are from page 235 in my hardback copy; page 367 on google books — search for abortion to find them there.
Some sources on Roe v. Wade, which decision was announced on January 22, 1973
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade
http://landmarkcases.c-span.org/Case/12/Roe-V-Wade
Text of decision, Library of Congress: http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep410/usrep410113/usrep410113.pdf
1973 was a busy year. A lot happened on January 22 alone, including the death of former president Lyndon Johnson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973
The Munich Olympics were in September 1972, roughly four months before Roe v. Wade
https://www.olympic.org/munich-1972
Apollo 17 was one month before the decision was announced
https://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-learn/topics/apollo/apollo-program/landing-missions/apollo17.cfm
https://www.thecut.com/2019/05/how-extreme-abortion-bans-in-alabama-and-georgia-happened.html?utm_campaign=thecut&utm_medium=s1&utm_source=tw
Note: Rage, anger, fury are key words in this.
Again looking at Authoritarianism and Awakenings, but this time using Pink Floyd's 1979 album The Wall for further insights into how alienation feeds into it as well.
Follow up to the other boomer fascist stuff, w radio ga ha and the fall of the wall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall
Released 30 November 1979 - this recording is from ten years later1990, done at the site of the berlin wall, which had recently fallen after 28 years.
40 years after the invasion of Poland and the start of World War II. Roger water’s father would die at Anzio, and the loss of his father has a notable impact on the ideas of alienation and loss that are the core of the wall.
And this year makes 40 years since it was released.
Roger Waters was born 1943 .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Waters
Gilmour 1946
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Ga_Ga
Released 1984
CSUN Matador Band - The Wall
https://youtu.be/cyzWuzW0BMg
A short essay on the hammers
http://www.feelnumb.com/2012/11/16/pink-floyds-double-crossing-hammer-logo-from-the-wall/
Gohil’s - the source of the Gohil’s Boots referenced at the end of Nobody Home. (It’s a leatherworking shop - they don’t do boots anymore, though.)
http://www.gohils.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/notes/roger-waters/an-open-letter-from-roger-waters/688037331210720/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinhead
An interview with Roger Waters by Jim Ladd on the release of The Wall in 1980
http://www.pink-floyd.org/artint/119.htm
Roger Ebert liked the movie in 1982, and eventually (2010) even gave it a Great Movie review
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-pink-floyd-the-wall-1982
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Flesh_(Pink_Floyd_tour)
https://www.ign.com/articles/top-14-greatest-rock-operasconcept-albums-of-all-time
Couldn’t find another listing, but this shows that number 11 is Jim Morrison, 38 is Live Aid, so 27 of them - fully half - are in the middle of the Awakening.
http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Rolling-Stone%27s-list-of-the-50-Moments-that-Changed-Rock-and-Roll
This version of Waiting for the Worms is from The Wall Live in Berlin, was also intended as a charity concert. Waters had intended to create The Fletcher Memorial Fund, named after his father, whose death in WWII had been a source of the alienation explored in the original album.
A random and unrelated item here: The Killing Star uses We Are The World, another supergroup single, as the first time that the human reace was reasonable unified.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Star
I'm on Twitter @generationalize and can be found also (sometimes) at the blogs Welcome to the Crisis & Stories of the Generations as well.
http://crisis.generationalize.com
http://stories.generationalize.com
Where I consider the results of a generational prediction I made in 2014, concerning A New Generation of Filmmakers.
Here's the prediction
"No later than 2016, we will see the first films with a true Millennial view, written and directed by people born after 1982, which will unstoppably influence movies for the following twenty years, possibly more. The first indications will be a young auteur, probably not yet 30, who is noticed for a film that is just not like what is out there now."
It's from this blog post, January 25, 2014:
https://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/01/influences.html
Quick note that there are some audio issues at points around here - I was trying a new setup for recording.
Some of those significant films:
Spielberg
Jaws: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073195/
(The first movie I was thinking of, Duel, was a TV movie. Sugarland Express was his first big motion picture directing job.
Stallone
Rocky: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075148/
Lucas
Star Wars: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/?
American Graffiti: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069704/
His first studio film was THX-1138: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066434/
Tarantino
Pulp Fiction: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110912/
Smith
Clerks: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109445/
Favreau
Swingers: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117802/
I think of it as Favreau's film, since it's written by him and about his experiences in L.A. (sound familiar...), though director Doug Liman (also GenX, b. 1965) also managed to do something with Swingers as a starting point
Go: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139239/
The Bourne Identity: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258463/
Mr. & Mrs. Smith https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356910/
And Bourne reminded me that Good Will Hunting
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119217/
was written by Ben Affleck & Matt Damon, and brought to the attention of Miramax by ... Kevin Smith, who had cast Affleck as the lead in Chasing Amy.
Damien Chazelle
La La Land: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3783958/
Whiplash: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2582802/
Ryan Coogler
Black Panther: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/
Not sure this is statistically sound but: For many of these folks, that Big Film was their third or close to it.
Another blog post, not really related, but about GenX films. http://stories.generationalize.com/2016/03/movies-of-generation-x.html
And yet another, going back as far as I do with it
http://stories.generationalize.com/2015/12/a-new-generation-of-filmmakers.html
Disney discussing the multiplane camera - it appears to be from the Wonderful World of Disney television show, so it's about 30 years after the camera was invented and used in Snow White.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN-eCBAOw60
Some random YouTubers that I've heard of
Odd 1s Out: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo8bcnLyZH8tBIH9V1mLgqQ
Jaiden Animations
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGwu0nbY2wSkW8N-cghnLpA
Moosecraft & Unspeakable
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV7lBBz6G20d87WoKFPjsPw
https://www.youtube.com/user/UnspeakableGaming
I did not know that Machinima (the company) had gone through some changes, and don't really know what they are are were, but here's their channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/machinima/featured
I'm on Twitter @generationalize and can be found also (sometimes) at the above blogs (Welcome to the Crisis & Stories of the Generations) as well.
When describing how Turnings come about, the Midlife cohort can seem less important than the young adults' exuberant energy or the Elders' wisdom and values. The Nomads (like GenX) are identified as rather uninteresting managers of the Crisis/4th Turning, not much else to do in their role. Perhaps, though, the people in midlife are the key to it all, the real impetus, the ones who push the Crisis towards its peak.
================================
The tweet that - mostly - got this episode starting up again in my head
https://twitter.com/larisa_a/status/1095350964226281473
A few notes here on how age, fertility, and other ways we suspect that midlife is a specific biological event.
https://www.webmd.com/depression/features/midlife-crisis-opportunity#2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage-crisis_view
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erikson%27s_stages_of_psychosocial_development
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_and_female_fertility
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/01/why-do-killer-whales-go-through-menopause/512783/
Hadn’t found this source when doing that earlier episode on The Third Wave
http://www.thewavehome.com/1991_The-Wave_article.htm
As mentioned, there was an earlier episode on Authoritarianism and Awakenings (Episode 16) that talks about The Third Wave and who was involved.
There's another one on anger, it's effect on people and its impact on the Fourth Turning - episode 20 Why Are You So Angry?
A couple of articles about how people have this drop in happiness around 44 or so.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/happiness-and-the-pursuit-leadership/201804/miserable-and-middle-aged-is-something-wrong-you
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/miserable-in-your-40s-dont-panic-its-perfectly-normal-2018-07-10
A study of 500 chimpanzees and orangutans rated for happiness by their zoo keepers indicated a primate mid-life crisis at around the age of 30 – a finding that led to speculation that some (as yet unidentified) age-related biological influence is at work.
(…in the book Protector, there is speculation that other primates were separate offshoots of breeders, de-volving because of something unexpected like increased radiation.)
https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2015/jun/24/life-happiness-curve-u-shaped-ageing
A description of Protector on Larry Niven's website.
http://news.larryniven.net/biblio/display.asp?key=81ℴ=4&direction=1
But you can search around and you'll find more about it - like here
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/Protector
Marie Kondo was at the Oscars
https://twitter.com/TheAcademy/status/1099797651946491904
https://twitter.com/MarieKondo
“Tidying is contagious”
https://twitter.com/MarieKondo/status/1087735339551244290
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and occasionally blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com
While Generations, the 1991 book by William Strauss & Neil Howe, was really about a model of history based on how different generations work together, or not, it implied that major events recurred on a regular and predictable basis. They specifically called out The Crisis of 2020, their term for what they expected to happen around that year, based on the age of the Boom generation, Generation X, and Millennials. What is this Crisis? What can we expect from it? Has it already started?
Obviously you would want to read Generations again if hadn’t realized we were up to the Crisis of 2020, almost.
Some Wikipedia links for the possibly comparable historical events mentioned
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sevastopol_(1854–55)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_the_Four_Emperors
I did not mention the possibility that a focus on global warming or other environmental issues could become the main issue of the Crisis. I am cautious about that, though, because it seems likely to happen regardless of generational constellation - IF the effects become too much. Like other Earth-shattering possibilities - alien invasion, supervolcano eruption, meteor impact - that are likely to lead to a crisis period, generational analysis doesn’t tell us anything about them. Still, items such as the Green New Deal do suggest a generational effect.
The Glorious Revolution option still seems the most likely to me - as does a neo-jacobite followup from almost-secessionists who can’t quite deal with the changes in the aftermath.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobitism
Not to be confused with Jacobins, who were involved in the French revolution a century later. (No link for them - I don’t want it to get confused.)
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and occasionally blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com
Wherein I go through my @generationalize twitter feed to get into more detail about what has been on my mind and how those short tweets work in generational terms
Reinventing the Bazaar - A Natural History of Markets by John McMillan
https://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Bazaar-Natural-History-Markets/dp/0393323714
Joanne Freeman’s American Revolution videos:
https://oyc.yale.edu/history/hist-116
And her latest book
https://www.amazon.com/Field-Blood-Violence-Congress-Civil/dp/0374
Here’s what I had about Zelazny and the Blindspin phenomenon, presumably during a First Turning
https://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/10/blindspin.html
Emma Stone was NOT mentioned in that Sorkin/Goldman interview- she hadn’t really made a name yet, although she was in this new show called Drive...
https://vimeo.com/136222751
Today, though, she does fit pretty well as a person who can sell a movie by being in it.
For more about B5, check out The Lurkers Guide to Babylon 5
http://midwinter.com/lurk/lurker.html
My blogs, referenced at various points here.
http://stories.generationalize.com
https://crisis.generationalize.com
And again the twitter feed that this episode was from is @generationalize
A sort of Thanksgiving episode compares similarities between the Pilgrims on the Mayflower and the Israelites a few thousand years previously.
I thought I had written about this elsewhere, but this appears to be the closest I had done: https://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/06/plague.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osarseph - A possible second view of Exodus involving a priest who became the leader of a band of lepers, who managed to ally with the Hyksos to take over Egypt for a short time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten - Pharaoh of Egypt who temporarily replaced the polytheistic Egyptian religion with a monotheism based around Aten, the “sun disc.” Father of Tutankhamen, whom you may have heard of.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hymn_to_the_Aten -Written by Akhenaten, it bears some resemblance to Psalm 104, indicating at least some cross pollination between Jewish and Egyptian holy writ.
https://thefounding.net/pilgrims-identified-israelites/ - a short essay built around Bradford
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24950/24950-h/24950-h.htm Project Gutenberg version of the History of Plymouth Colony
They called Dutch a strange and uncouth language, which raises the possibility that their attitudes towards “savage” natives might have been similar in Holland…
For no obvious reason, perhaps worth noting that this is contemporaneous with Hamlet, first performed around 1602. (Yes I know he's a Dane, not Dutch.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Colony
http://mayflowerhistory.com/clothing/
https://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/homework-help/what-wear
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and occasionally blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com
In which I read through my twitter feed in an attempt to talk about some of the random usually-generational thoughts that float through my head over the course of the month.
Most of what's there can be found on the Twitter feed. A few specific links here, though:
Blog post about the Wild Card series:
http://stories.generationalize.com/2016/08/wild-cards.html
A not-too-related one on Coriolanus
http://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/11/coriolanus.html
My "job" with Titanic was some incidental help on a CD-i (Compact Disc Interactive) called "Titanic: An Interactive Exploration" which was narrated by Patrick Stewart. Look around and you should be able to find it.
"Better in the original Klingon" was in the 6th Star Trek movie, The Undiscovered Country - not, as I said, the 5th. Just to be precise, here.
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com
Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, the music used for the introduction to this podcast, ties together two previous Fourth Turnings - commissioned after Pearl Harbor and including Civil War quotes from the 16th President - in a way which makes it feel even more relevant as this current Crisis unfolds.
A few relevant Wikipedia links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Portrait
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Copland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Coral_Sea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickett%27s_Charge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-water_mark_of_the_Confederacy
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gertrude_Stein
This site has Kostelnetz commissioning it within 10 days - mid-December 1941- and that copland began writing in late February
https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2007/julyaugust/feature/the-sound-freedom
The different excerpts are from
1) Address to congress 1862: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29503
2) Seventh and final Lincoln-Douglas debate October 15 1858 https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debate7.htm
3) Collected works: https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/onslavery.htm
4) The Gettysburg Address 1863:
https://www.npr.org/programs/specials/copland/coplandstory.html
The NPS site says his slavery quote is from August 1, 1858 - 110 years before this recording.
https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/onslavery.htm
This site says the date is pure conjecture, is from a scrap of paper that Mary Todd Lincoln passed to archivists later, and is signed with a different piece of paper from another document.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln2/1:547?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
Vin Scully, voice of the Dodgers, with the L.A. Philharmonic in 2017
https://www.ocregister.com/2017/07/14/see-vin-scully-narrate-the-words-of-abraham-lincoln-at-the-hollywood-bowl/
A direct link to a Youtube video of that performance https://youtu.be/6qpYwrla0GE
More on the quote about freedom and democracy
https://abrahamlincoln.quora.com/Close-Reading-2-Lincoln’s-Definition-of-Democracy-August-1-1858
The first item there is is a NYTimes piece from 1895 - that would be 30 years after the Civil War - that attributes it to Lincoln by the judge who ….attributes it to him.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1895/09/13/106068178.pdf
Last witness of the assassination of Lincoln, still alive in 1956, 14 years -after- the premiere of Lincoln Portrait
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPoymt3Jx4
Wherein a random tweet brings up a quote from Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice, a romantic comedy about dealing with the dangers and temptations of a Crisis period and still liking yourself later.
This is the tweet that started me on this one
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1022955880197836802
“You shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to persuade yourself or me, that selfishness is prudence, and insensibility of danger security for happiness.”
An image of Charlotte and Mr. Collins, from the Colin Firth Pride & Prejudice
https://www.facebook.com/426294907495000/photos/a.485050068286150.1073741839.426294907495000/485050404952783/?type=3&theater
A random thought that I feel no need to prove or disprove: Is practical pecuniary Charlotte the Reactive generation to the others’ Hero? Mr. Darcy is 28, so in that case he would be, too, which might just explain a bit.…Mr. Bingley is 23. (But they were all born somewhere after the start of the American Revolution and before the end of the French, which isn't consistent with even the oldest being Reactive/Nomad)
http://www.rc.umd.edu/pedagogies/commons/novel/favret.html
Considering it’s a story about women trying to find husbands, the word Danger is used remarkably often - twenty times over the course of the novel. For comparison - amazing what a simple word count can do - the word Marriage is used 67 times, Happiness 74 times, Joy 42 times, Silly 12, Evil 22 times, pounds 24.
(As I like to say, the importance of arithmetic in history is widely understated.)
Danger, then, is used almost as often as pounds, the standard by which most of the potential husbands are measured ...
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com
Sometimes a lot happens in a single month, as it did in July 1945. Sometimes multiple events happen across time but still on the same date, as with Disneyland in 1955 and the Apollo 11 launch in 1969. Sometimes it's hard to tell how much of each of these is coincidence and how much really makes a difference.
Quick note that I generally did NOT attempt to match up time zones with dates for this episode. I’m using dates as given on the sites listed, expecting that usually it’s going to be in local time, which may or may not represent the same period of time in a simultaneous sense.
Information on Walt Disney and Disneyland is easy enough to find…He was born in December 1901, making him 53 when Disneyland opened in July 1955
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/may/05/news/wk-disney5
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-warcrimes-bosnia/bosnian-croat-war-crimes-convict-dies-after-taking-poison-in-u-n-court-idUSKBN1DT1E7
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_Suit_Riots
An image of the surrender aboard the Missouri. At the USAF page, even though the Air Force didn’t exist for another two years….
https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/196195/japan-surrenders/
Quint’s speech in Jaws. Thursday would have been August 2, which is when they were found again. And the ship was sunk in July, not June.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9S41Kplsbs
U.S. Navy site “Documents Relating to Loss of [USS] Indianapolis
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/loss-of-uss-indianapolis-ca-35/investigation-and-court-martial/court-martial.html
Pictures of survivors of Indianapolis, six days since their ship sank, three days after they had been located, one day before Hiroshima.
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/loss-of-uss-indianapolis-ca-35/album-of-survivors.html
Potsdam Conference
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/potsdam-confwhe
Fun fact: The distance from Tinian to Japan is roughly the distance from Los Angeles or New York to Kansas.
What the generational model might have to say about the commercial success of Solo: A Star Wars Story, and the extent to which it is (or should have been) a remake of Casablanca.
The IMDB pages for Solo
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3778644/
Star Wars (since retitled A New Hope)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/
And Casablanca
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/
Another analysis of why Solo should have emulated Casablanca - no impact on my analysis, incidentally, as I didn't read it until after recording was complete. But it ends up in much the same place and for similar reasons.
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/06/the-key-to-the-young-han-solo-movie-casablanca-of-course/
Not-too-subtle references to Han-Shot-First throughout what I'm looking at.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_shot_first
Here’s my original blog post that summarizes my Generational Stories.
http://stories.generationalize.com/2015/12/four-stories.html
And how Han is a Nomad even at the end:
http://stories.generationalize.com/2016/01/the-force-awakens-han.html
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and blogging at http://stories.generationalize.com
Recent union efforts, such as striking teachers in traditionally conservative states, suggested that it might be worthwhile to look again at previous predictions that union activity might be more common during Crisis periods.
https://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/11/uber.html
https://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/12/mcdonalds.html
https://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/12/poverty.html
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/30/most-americans-see-labor-unions-corporations-favorably/
2017 statistics on union membership
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm
Source for older history and peak membership in 1954
https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://en.wikipedia.org/&httpsredir=1&article=1176&context=key_workplace
Rosanne answers the door
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrectdcH81U
That was from 1992, a season 4 episode, “Aliens”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0688730/
https://abcnews.go.com/US/teachers-frustration-decade-cuts-education-fueling-nationwide-revolt/story?id=54813981
https://abcnews.go.com/US/striking-arizona-teachers-cover-capitol-red/story?id=54826629
https://www.workdayminnesota.org/articles/face-janus-afl-cio-launches-nationwide-ad-campaign-calling-working-people-organize
https://pocan.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/pocan-and-sanders-lead-democrats-in-introducing-workplace-democracy-act
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/05/09/bernie-sanders-has-a-new-plan-to-raise-wages-save-the-unions/
This page on the AFL-CIO site mentions organizing wins, although some of them have since had issues.
https://aflcio.org/formaunion/union-organizing-wins
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com
The Fourth Turning is a time when changes occur, when issues are resolved and societal structures reorganized. What reorganizations might possibly happen to the United States government in our current Crisis period?
Some thoughts on public goods in the United States
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/04/public-goods-are-an-american-value-but-our-stock-is-declining/523899/?utm_source=SFFB
The John Locke entry on Wikipedia specifies that while he had made his consent of the governed concept known by the Glorious Revolution, nobody took it seriously at that time…but a century later, it was included in the Declaration of Independence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke#Ideas
Is it England or Great Britain, particularly between 1649 and 1792?
The Acts of Union in 1707 created the United Kingdom. Before that there were separate kingdoms of England and Scotland, even though they shared the same monarch (the Union of Crowns) starting with James I in 1603, which itself was due to the marriage in 1502 of James IV of Scotland to Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII.
BUT James I created the Union Jack, combining the crosses of St. Andrew and St. George in a flag that is still used today by the UK. Evidently it wasn’t in common use until the Interregnum, which is to say that in 1688 there was a shared monarch, using a common flag, but still not actually the same country.
(Makes me wonder if that might have affected the view of the colonists on the feasibility of creating a single nation from many states.)
James I styled himself (in the official meaning of the term) as King of Great Britain i.e. the entire island comprising England, Scotland, and Wales. James II, though, was evidently king of “England and Ireland” and separately James of Scotland
https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/legislativescrutiny/act-of-union-1707/overview/union-of-the-crowns/
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com
Where I attempt to respond at too much length to a twitter comment about propaganda in the USSR, and probably have just made it worse, because that’s the nature of online communication. Also, I think they did a pretty good job in only losing diplomatic relations for about 16 years, during most of which the government of the USSR was still a-borning.
Here are some of the tweets:
Tom: https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/975203926965399552
Me: https://twitter.com/generationalize/status/975178087879995392
https://twitter.com/SevaUT/status/975180510287814656
A separate example of how safe it might be to call someone a Trump Voter
https://twitter.com/generationalize/status/978894181509853184
The DPRK has never had diplomatic relations with the United States since its formation in 1948.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea–United_States_relations
Iranian diplomatic relations were broken off in 1979 and have remained the same since then.
Cuban relations were absent starting in 1961 until 2014
Two weeks after a rampage killer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida killed 17 people, several of the surviving students have been eloquently pushing for stronger gun control. It's inspired a common refrain about how Generation Z is coming of age, ready to make a difference. Allow me to resist this temptation in this simplest possible way: There is no Generation Z.
Listen along to find out more, and how this appears to have more to do with these particular kids, at this particular school, at this particular time, then with whatever generation they comprise.
Atari wave Xers remember the Video Game Crash; Nintendo wave were probably a bit too young
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983
Currently for sale in Parkland, Florida: https://www.zillow.com/homes/Parkland-FL_rb/
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/kirklandcitywashington,mountainviewcitycalifornia,beverlyhillscitycalifornia,losangelescitycalifornia,parklandcityflorida/PST045217
Easy comparison of Parkland with other cities around the United States.
http://enr.electionsfl.org/BRO/1642/Precincts/ - Parkland is basiclly the Q040, QO42, and QO45 precincts
https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/16/us/20-deadliest-mass-shootings-in-u-s-history-fast-facts/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Arena_bombing - in June 2017, this al Qaeda bombing killed 22 and injured more than 500.
https://twitter.com/CharleneCac/status/966124262254960641 A too-reasonable complaint that Oprah and Clooney didn’t give the same sort of support to Black Lives Matter.
If we accept, as proposed last time, that the problem in the 4th Turning is people angry because of a lack of social structures, what does that imply about what will happen next? What social structures might be built up, and what defines what would be left behind?
Another bit of research about work and corporations, historically.
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/riseind/work/
Part of investigation into the history of jobs and large companies.
https://www.marketplace.org/2014/01/22/business/sears-roebuck-19th-centurys-amazon
Research on the recent history of the American Family
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/17/1-the-american-family-today/
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com
Finishing off 2017 by looking at people getting angry, why they might be angry, and what part it may have in the Fourth Turning.
This appears to be the original tweet concerning the party in 2040 (it was reused often):
https://twitter.com/ktrestifo/status/940824076842651649
What the heck, it’s short:
me, getting ready for a dinner party in 2040, sipping champagne while putting on my cartier diamond earrings in front of my vanity: what’d you learn at school today, honey?
my future child: in history we talked about 2017. do you remember it?
me: drops my crystalline wineglass
A pre-Election opinion piece that points out that, yep, people were angry Already.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/calm-down-well-be-fine-no-matter-who-wins/2016/11/04/e5ca3c32-a2d3-11e6-a44d-cc2898cfab06_story.html?utm_term=.0c6c029ed55b
The text of the Infamy or Pearl Harbor speech
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pearl_Harbor_speech
Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond is about how technology, cities, and geographic luck enabled Western Europeans to overcome other cultures around the world. The example from that book is at the start of chapter 14, From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy, which goes into the change from (generally democratic) bands & tribes to centrally-led chiefdoms and larger organizations.
Some specific polls on the less-religious American populace
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/u-s-public-becoming-less-religious/
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com
Looking at Hamlet’s reaction to his father’s ghost by considering some comparable people in the 20th century, Bob Newhart and John F. Kennedy.
This is a way I’ve considered Prince Hamlet for a while, but I was reminded of it by The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, who mentioned Bob Newhart a couple of times. And by Kylo Ren, who often seems to be playing Hamlet himself.
Celebrity voices impersonated…Some of how Newhart is described here sounds like he’s passed away. As of release, though, he is still quite alive, 88 years old.
In this construction, Bob Newhart is Hamlet, although at 33 he’s a bit old for the part. How old is a long-standing debate - the Prince’s situation indicates that he is in his late teens, but one of the gravediggers suggests that he is 30.
For more fun concerning Hamlet’s age and motivations, check out “Hamlet: The Undiscovered Country” by Steve Roth.
Here’s a good article about Bob Newhart’s early career.
https://music.avclub.com/the-surprisingly-subversive-album-that-changed-stand-up-1798238091
As noted there, the “Lincoln” bit was “Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue,” where marketing experts are trying to help the 16th President of the United States work on his message, such as doing focus group testing for the Gettysburg address.
Bob Newhart mentioned that he campaigned for JFK because they were both Catholic:
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/31/entertainment/la-et-mn-clint-eastwood-bob-newhart-rnc
And if you really want to push it, this one references Hamlet as well as JFK
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2002/10/28/hello-this-is-bob/3de12b83-dc7e-40d5-bb3b-e49b23cbb6ce/?utm_term=.1ce6496e7045
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and blogging at http://stories.generationalize.com
A look at applying a generational model to storytelling, comparing HBO’s Silicon Valley and Amazon’s Betas, both about software developers in the San Francisco Bay area, and identifying a generational difference between them.
Betas and Silicon Valley on IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3012184/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2575988/
and on Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_(TV_series)
Here’s my original blog post that summarizes my Generational Stories.
http://stories.generationalize.com/2015/12/four-stories.html
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and blogging at http://stories.generationalize.com
Starting from a 1986 song about how attitudes had changed in the time since World War II, a look at the passage of time, and how it affects the way people think about history.
You can listen to Big World on Joe Jackson's site - "Forty Years" is track 9: http://joejackson.com/music&album_id=36852
Information about the album, including recording date (January 1986) and release date (March 1986)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_World
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_v._John_Brown
Charlestown, Va. 2nd December, 1859. I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land: will never be purged away; but with Blood. I had as I now think: vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed; it might be done.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1860
Evidently in the mid-19th century, it was not common for candidates to campaign. They sent out activists but mostly stayed home themselves, with Stephen Douglas being the one breaking tradition in 1860.
https://millercenter.org/president/lincoln/campaigns-and-elections
https://www.sethkaller.com/item/1583-23646-Lincoln-Tops-the-Field-in-1860-Presidential-Election-Currier-&-Ives
This essay from Locke is dated 1690…so nearly fifty years after Gallileo's death, 60 after his trial.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_Concerning_Human_Understanding
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei
I had to look up how long Elizabeth and Victoria reigned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabethan_era
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_I_of_England
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Victoria
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com
The presidency of Donald Trump has similarities to these 17th century monarchs who did not complete their their reigns as expected. What might we learn from such comparisons?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_II_of_England
While James II did have a Catholic wife when he abdicated, his first wife Anne had passed away in 1671. His son's mother was James' second wife, Mary of Modena.
Today I learned that the Liberator, which stopped publication in 1865 with the abolition of slavery, was succeeded by The Nation, which is still published today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Liberator_(newspaper)
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com
Taking a contrarian view that authoritarian regimes are likely to be more successful during an Awakening / Second Turning than during a Crisis / Fourth Turning
Here’s where I first ran into Sarah Kendzior on Twitter (October 22, 2016)
https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior/status/790030495568437248
And the more recent, relatively hopeful tweet
https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior/status/890375102126272512
Charles Mann’s 1491 is about the New World before Columbus arrived, and the varied cultures across the continents. Highly recommended. The Mexica history is on pages 130-134 of my paperback copy. And if it wasn’t clear, the Mexica were the people ruling what is now Mexico when Cortez arrived.
You may want to take a look at Episode 15, Unforgivable Dullness, to hear more about Cromwell and the Turnings during the 17th Century.
Some links on the Third Wave, that 1967 high school social experiment.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3559727/The-Wave-the-experiment-that-turned-a-school-into-a-police-state.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave_(experiment)
You can find me on Twitter: @generationalize and blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com
A generational view of the 17th Century and how our current situation looks remarkably similar to the events of those four Turnings between 1600 and 1700.
I previously referred to Unforgivable Dullness here, although I was looking at the start of the 18th Century, a First Turning that really was unexpectedly dull. (Which could mean we can expect a similarly unexciting follow-on to this current Fourth Turning.)
http://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/11/research.html
If you aren't getting your daily level of confusion and incomprehensibility, here's Wikipedia on The Spanish Match:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Match
A previous look at Charles I dissolving Parliament
http://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/09/1629.html
And a previous look at Sir Isaac Newton
http://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/12/1666.html
And while we're heading in that direction, a more complete look at King Philips War
http://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/08/1675.html
That the Founding Fathers wanted, among other things, to be treated more like landed gentry back in England came from Professor Joanne Freeman's excellent class on the American Revolution available on Open Yale courses:
http://oyc.yale.edu/history/hist-116
John Cleese's quip on The Divine Right of Presidents on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnCleese/status/889206863576911873
You can still find me on Twitter: @generationalize and blogging at http://crisis.generationalize.com
An earlier episode discussed Steve Bannon's extreme view of this Fourth Turning. Here is an acknowledgement of what might be right: Why allowing parts of society to be torn down is perhaps the only way to enable improvements - preferably not as Bannon defines them - to go forward.
Some previous notes on Carmageddon
http://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/04/carmageddon.html
And the impact of the 1938 flood
http://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/05/rivers.html
How the fugitive slave act is like the travel ban
http://time.com/4659391/sanctuary-cities-fugitive-slave-act/
Status of government appointments as of June 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/06/05/trump-is-courting-disaster-by-not-fully-staffing-the-government/
Steve Bannon , Boom generation, born 1953
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Bannon
The Wonder Woman movie had the most successful debut of a D.C. Comics film in years. The women's march the day after President Trump's inauguration gathered hundreds of thousands of women in Washington D.C. and more around the world. Is there a connection? Will this Crisis result in large changes in how women are involved in politics? Have Hero generations encouraged such shifts in the past?
Somehow I missed that Wonder Woman was originally created during the last Fourth Turning, in 1941, first published just before the Pearl Harbor attack. An example of an openness to changing perceptions of women although Marston (b. 1893) is Lost generation rather than G.I.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Woman
Some estimates on crowd sizes for the Women's March. Newspaper accounts I read appeared to interview a Millennial, GenXee, and Boomer suggesting what could be an equivalent number of each, or a desire to report on all of them equally.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xa0iLqYKz8x9Yc_rfhtmSOJQ2EGgeUVjvV4A8LsIaxY/htmlview?sle=true#
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-la-ln-womens-march-20170121-story.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Women%27s_March
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/hundreds-voted-stickers-left-susan-b-anthonys-grave/
Gene Roddenberry created a couple of related television pilots in the 1970s that depicted women in positions of power, although as villains.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_II_(film)
Margaret Sanger's paper on war and population
https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=236531.xml
Heinlein having a view of women as superior to men has, often attributed to the influence - or existence- of his wife Virginia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Heinlein