Writers of internet content are in general unoriginal, pandering, and shamelessly given to formula, so when one particular article becomes a successful and widely shared piece of clickbait, you can bet that other articles in same vein will follow. Was […]
Category: Generation Y
Column, Generation Y
IMDb vs. Oscar
My girlish interest in the Academy Awards is surely fairly obvious to frequent readers of this column, given the truly embarrassing number of times I’ve written here about the Oscars (including last week, in what was, upon reflection, possibly least […]
Column, Generation Y
Oscar for President
Three months have passed since Bernie Sanders infamously remarked that, in order to win future elections, the Democratic Party would have to “move beyond identity politics.” In a response to a young woman who had asked for his advice regarding […]
Column, Generation Y
First tracks
I’ve written here before about the uneasy relationship between my passion for skiing and my longstanding tendency toward early-morning sluggishness. Simply put, skiing is not the sport for lazy people (I think that title may belong to bowling, no offense […]
Column, Generation Y
You might just make it after all
Following the death of the actress Mary Tyler Moore last month at the age of 80, many journalists and critics reexamined the second-wave feminist legacy of her eponymous sitcom, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” which, in the 1970s, normalized the […]
Column, Generation Y
A (belated) inaugural poem for President Trump
Note: the Democrats’ last four presidential inaugurations have included readings by American poets. Poetry has never been featured at a Republican president’s inaugural ceremony. This poem is tremendous. Believe me: poems don’t get any classier than this— The best words, […]
Column, Generation Y
Is “Manchester by the Sea” the best movie about New England?
A couple weeks after the presidential election, I compiled and published here a top-50 movie list in which I selected my favorite film for each U.S. state, based on narrative setting rather than filming location: a sort of cinematic travel […]
Column, Generation Y
The queen is dead
TV catchphrases aren’t meant to live forever. Even the most successful character slogans like “Dy-no-mite!” and “Don’t have a cow, man!”—which made the jump from in-series use to real-world use—gradually faded from the American lexicon except as fond memories of […]
Column, Generation Y
Distant mourning
Celebrity death: Is it stupid to care? The age-old question struck me again at the end of 2016, as George Michael, Carrie Fisher, and Debbie Reynolds all shuffled off this mortal coil in quick succession. All year long, our popular […]
Column, Generation Y
The end of sarcasm
Hey guys, do you remember the 90s? I sure do: the Pogs, the Beanie Babies, the Reebok Pumps, that Sears commercial where the deadbeat suburban husband finally submits to his wife’s entreaties to order a new air conditioner for their […]