Weblog Idylls, Vol 2
can be found here.

We'll see
you there.

Generation Divide V

Fiction has a way
of describing our
relationship with
generations, too.
Anakin to Luke
comprised two
generations, indeed
two eras, but again,
that was set in
the past. In the
future, Kirk to
Picard had a distance
of the better part
of a century, and
both captains
managed to almost
completely dominate
their eras, even as
they were pointedly
marked as generations.
When they met, Kirk
met his final fate,
and what was recently
described as an
illustration of
his legacy was framed
in two words: "Oh my..."

Wizardry might be
divided in three
generations:
Dumbledore to Voldemort
to Harry's family,
though the whole saga
might be understood
best all linked together.
The Justice Society
and the Invaders
marked out WWII times,
though their successors
are forever pegged
in whatever becomes
the modern age, because
creators didn't really
become inspired
until they created
the second generations,
the persisting era,
which everyone may be
agreeing can just about
subside, with the death
of Steve Rogers, the bridge
between traditions.

Times like these,
only Robert Langdon
can unite readers
outside Hogwarts,
but his movie can't,
times like these,
the Columbine Generation,
the 9/11 world where
only America and
the last man in the room
can be bold enough
to envision change,
can look past
"what's well enough alone"
to see things should
and can be improved
not just kept in stasis,
but the new terrorists
breed in the old institutions,
convince us there's
no right to action,
just a will to power,
born into politics
for their own sake,
just out of tradition,
like a mindless march
where ideals are kept
but never lived up to,
promises made because
they sound good and
opposite of your enemies,
while the terror of knowing
persists, for anyone
to bother seeing,
to comprehend.

Ours is a generation
bred for war.

Oh my...

Generation Divide IV

What I like about history
is that the concept
of the divide becomes
that much more blurred.
In our own time, we
seem stuck in with Boomers
and Generation X,
which have less to do
with events than general
understandings, eras.

Yeah, eras, that's
what it used to be
about. But we blurred
that something good,
that was our contribution.

Back in history, it
was far more amusing.
Homer wrote about
the end of the heroic era,
the great war at Troy,
where Nestor fought
in old age, to serenade
Achilles, who became
the most famous warrior
of any era, with tales
of Heracles, Jason,
and such legends.
Who can fathom the leap
from the two extremes?
Not today. Today
there are no legends,
just a sad lot of heroes,
all fiction, all who
struggle to keep
our attention.

In the time of eras,
perhaps before we started
to count world wars,
(and forever imagine
the next ones)
generations were within
families, and not much more.
They were far less abstract.

Generation Divide III

See, now I just
never got why
they put Jackson
on the twenty.

He was the guy
who said he
wanted to kill
the bank, right?
And that's not
even why I don't
like him. But
he posits some
interesting things
about generations,
such as that he
was ten years old
when the US became
a country, and was
thus probably
the first president
to have more of
an interest in 1812,
when Madison sort of
proved the country
was on its own feet,
than in the Revolution.

He also had a lot
to worry about
with the emerging
two-party system,
which has by now
all but declared
a new secession
(but no one
would ever say so!),
back when we
wore wigs, too.

Jackson, for whom
the vague concept
of Jacksonianism
was born (I always
need to research more),
was a sort of
transition, from
(and he had to
defeat Quincy,
the final Adams
of ignominy,
to get there)
a time of Founders
to a gradual
decline, from where
the world would
at last be opened.

You might as well
call Jacksonianism
a generation,
a generation divide,
from which would spring
the new world revolution

Generation Divide II

It's not at all
likely, but had
Lincoln not been
assassinated,
next year he'd be
two hundred,
about two years
from the Confederacy
reaching 150.

Lincoln ended up
being one of those
odd fellows. He
actually made his
name twice on
the issue of
emancipation,
once in debates
he lost to Douglas,
and again when
he actually
proclaimed it.

And yet, today
you can't get
away from the talk
that suggests
he didn't much
care about it.

Today, of course,
there are no
great men, not
since we conjured
one out of the last
guy to be shot dead
(somebody remind
poor Garfield's
ghost that he
lost out in that
lottery, too).

Reagan invented
Reagonomics, but
apparently
that's all he did,
after Nixon went
to China and before
Clinton bathed himself
in primary colors.

Clinton sent us off
into a number
of international
conflicts, but he
still gets no flack,
possibly because
they ended in "ia,"
and that's acceptable.

Bush should've said
he wanted to go to
Arabia.

But Lincoln,
he was one of
those guys
we used to think
a great deal of.

Maybe not so much
anymore. But he'd
no doubt have
something great
to say about it.

Generation Divide

Each man is an island,

which is why
I never understood
the concept
of generations.

A generation
is merely a group
of people
who were born
at the same time,
who thus share
common experiences.

Other than that,
you can never
guarantee a similarlity,
even within a family.

I know,
I've got
two of each,
brothers and sisters,
and things
are not always
the same.

I think
a generation divide
occurs less literally
than people think.
A person who
can be understood
as unique
may be better
understood
in different context,
or your perception
of them
altered.

Some people
are said to be
ahead of their time.
Others may be behind.
Time is the constant
that defines
all our lives,
yet we don't always
understand how.

That's the question
of the generation divide.

Talking to Bullfrogs in the Middle of the Night

The status of the revolution
cannot be quantified.

The status of the revolution
cannot be studied in a lab.

The status of the revolution
cannot be a great concern.

The status of the revolution
cannot be denied.

The status of the revolution
cannot be quite understood.

The status of the revolution
is that we're looking right at it
and it is looking back.