Today

Jun. 26th, 2009 10:17 am
meirwen_1988: (flashback)
[personal profile] meirwen_1988
...started with a thunder bumper and the exit of the Bartlett administration.

I find myself missing the rain--the grey wet is depressing--the rain was like a wonderful blanket insulating me from the world.

Soon it is to grade papers I go, let the puppies run for a few hours before they go to the kennel, then pack for Pax.

Apropos of nothing, this morning I saw a headline that claimed that the two celebrity deaths yesterday marked "A Sad Day for Generation X." The headline puzzled me then, as it does now. I have lived for almost 2 decades in a house where the birth years are separated by 7--the elder from the tail end of the Baby Boom, the younger from the beginning of the Gen X era. Actually, more of my friends are Gen X than BB. And I have a hefty group that are Gen Y (but don't tell my students--it would ruin my old-foggy cred). And I've talked to them about art, and pop culture, and and and...

Michael and Farrah were Boomers, so I'm not sure why this is particularly a Gen X loss. Maybe it's the whole "older sib" thing. Maybe. But frankly, I'm at a loss to understand it. And yes, I listened compulsively to MJ's Off the Wall and Thriller, and loved Farrah's seasons of Angels. Yes, in Michael we lost a talent of amazing ability (flaws and all), and it shakes the foundations of certainty any time an iconic figure (oh, go ahead, tell me that Farrah wasn't iconic) dies, let alone two in one day. But I'm really having trouble with that headline.

Of course, all the ruminating could just be trying to avoid grading. *Sigh*

Yeah, yeah, I'm going.

Date: 2009-06-26 03:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] keastree.livejournal.com
I think they are counting on the basis of the age of the people whose formative years were shaped by the two. MJ and FF had a powerful effect on the youth of the 70's and 80's--They all wanted to dance like Michael and the girls wanted to look like Farrah(and the boys wanted to be seen with a girl who looked like Farrah).

You had every high school and junior high school full of kids talking about Michael Jackson. He got played at dances. When I got to BYU, he was considered acceptable for play by school standards--wasn't potty mouthed and vulgar.

So yeah, I think everyone is going to feel this loss. I don't think that he belongs to a single generation, tho.

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