X Saves the World by Jeff Gordinier

The book takes the argument and draws distinctions quite a bit further between Gen-X and both Boomers and Millennials. Dividing lines: those born before 1960 are boomers, and those born after 1977 are Millennials. Gordinier sees Nirvana as the height of X culture; I'm not sure I agree, but Nirvana's emergence coincides with the point where the alternative rock genre went mainstream. The author disses mostly appropriately in my opinion on both the Beatles and Britney Spears.

Then he talks about the greatness of 90s films, among them none of my particular favorites: Being John Malkovich, Fight Club, Lost in Translation, Office Space and The Matrix. Okay, I did like the Matrix, but the rest is mostly forgettable dross.

He does have a great point about it taking a Gen-Xer to finally put a boomer President, Dubya, in his place: Stephen Colbert and his brain warping, earth shattering performance at the White House Correspondents association dinner. You have to reread the transcript or see the video again to feel its unbelievable righteousness.

And another good point, the current Presidential election is a first between a boomer Silent Gen-er and a Gen-Xer. Interesting that in the end there may only be two boomer Presidents: Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, although the window is 18 years. Still I sort of doubt it will only be two. After 2008/2012, perhaps Hillary or Biden or one of the 2008 Republican primary roster? With X being a window of 17 years, we'll be lucky to have two as President.

Overall, it's an interesting perspective which I do agree with on some points. Like how the sarcastic, cynical, slacker X generation, was the last to have real TV, not the cheap reality knock-off stuff copied from Europe. How Gen X knew to set the bar low for themselves and others, because they'd seen how bad marriages and bad economies can happen.

Note: okay, okay, I changed the dates to make Barack Obama an Xer (post-boomer), but others have done the same.

Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night, MoMA

A number of famous and stunning Van Gogh pieces, many from European museums anchor this presentation. After staring at the paintings for awhile, I realized Van Gogh is pretty big on nature. His most beautiful pieces are dominated by stars, sky, and land. If there are humans in this pictures, excepting portraits, they are often small, dwarfed by their surroundings.

It makes sense then perhaps that his life story seems a bit lonely. Though he developed an attachment to fellow artist, Paul Gauguin, it seems Gauguin didn't really return the favor.

Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam

This longish and data intensive book was quoted in some NYT article, and it sounded interesting and somehow vaguely related to something I've encountered. It's about how Americans have become more disengaged and less social over the generations. Americans now by large measure prefer to spend a quiet evening at home rather than go out and talk or meet with friends or other people. This seems like a bad thing the author points out because we have much less 'social capital' and as well much less desire to interact with points of view differing from our own. There is also less generalized trust.

According to the author there are several main causes: women moving into the workplace (by desire or by necessity) [since women are much more social than men in general, this has a big impact on connectedness], television addiction soaking up everyone's free time, those who are well off working longer, and other reasons.

I haven't finished the book, but I think the observations are generally very relevant even though the book was written in 2000. This is somewhat before online social networking really took off, but online interactions don't seem to have quite the quality of face-to-face friendships. I think it's still a bit unclear whether online social networks will get us all more truly connected in a way that mimics the more social past century where large percentages of people belonged to social clubs or visited weekly or daily with neighbors and friends. One brief observation is that sites like facebook seem to help cultivate so called 'weak' ties, but how many of these put together could ever equal the benefit of even a single more intimate friend?

Stop-Loss (2008)

Seems to be a reasonably even handed treatment of the fictional story of American soldiers coming back from Iraq, despite the unfortunate circumstance of being stop-lossed.

This is small government by the Republicans. Let's not do a draft. Let's not provide appropriate danger pay to encourage people to re-enlist. Let's screw them in the back end of the process when they think they'll be let out. Let the poor bastards mop up our stupid decisions.

My own illiberal thoughts here: it does suck, but it's in the contract, and everyone who signs such a contract should be aware of it's contents, no? They should consult a lawyer if there was a question? Of course, these guys are young and imprudent to sign up, or just wanting to be patriotic. There was never a declaration of war by Congress, but US judges seem to be saying such a declaration is not necessary for the President to invoke the stop-loss clause. Soldier beware.

Overall, I liked this film, not least because of pretty boy Ryan Phillippe.

The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)

Johanssen plays the ingenue and younger sister Mary, and Portman the manipulative and aggressive older sister Anne. (Somehow, I never fail to become alarmed when seeing Portman's eyebrows. Is this why she gets the edgier roles?) I like period pieces, so probably that's why I liked this film. It probably should be obvious, but there are a lot of advantages to being king. You certainly could get a lot of people beheaded.

Where the Light Is: John Mayer

A number of tracks are nicely done acoustic versions of some of Mayer's better songs. Also included is a minimalistic but great sounding cover of Tom Petty's Free Fallin'.

Rainbow Six Vegas (PC)

Another in the first person shooter series. Again the same storyline about going up against criminals and terrorists. I like the interface updates like the ability to look from behind a wall, the ability to scan behind a door and have teammates attack from one side while you go in from the other.

An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

I only just now watched this film. Polished over many years, Gore's line of attack is well reasoned and easy to follow. I was particularly struck by how disinformation campaign driven by the oil companies and the current administration leads people to believe there is an controversy of the possibility of global warming when out of almost 1000 peer reviewed articles in this field there was not a single article which disputed the finding that global warming is happening. It is also stunning how melt from major ice shelves in Greenland and/or Antarctica would raise worldwide sea level by 20 ft. The street my home is on would probably be close to being underwater at that point.