Just another "reaction to the hyper-capitalist, sped-up 21st century"

The Boston Globe, which is always on top of "it" (whatever "it" is), had an article the other day on how some Millennials are turning their backs on the pursuits most likely to be associated (if everything we read is true!) with their fellow twenty-somethings. You know, pursuits like selfie-taking, contracting STD's from Tinder hookups, playing Call of Duty in their parents' basements, figuring out how to pay off college debt, or starting out their careers hoping to claw their way to the top by trashing all the old Boomer workplace fogeys, You know, those pension-less geezers trying to hang on but whio may not survive because they don't selfie-take, hook up on Tinder, have a parents' basement to retreat to, or have any college debt because a) college used to be a lot cheaper - dorms used to be cement-block rooms that could easily have been found in a minimum security prison, and the meal-plan was whatever ghastly, unrecognizable mush that got tossed on your tray by a fellow student who didn't have a fancy internship anywhere; and b) that was a long time ago. 

No, at least some of the rising gen is going retro, staying put, content to make double-crust pies while their peers are out clubbing. They're dubbed (yawn!), Generation Yawn. 

Generation Yawn isn’t strictly a domestic movement. Instead, it fuses the hobbies of the past with today’s love of nostalgia.

“I think a lot of this is a reaction to the hyper-capitalist, sped-up 21st century,” says Emily Matchar, author of “Homeward Bound: Why Women Embrace the New Domesticity.” “I think the pendulum swings back and forth when it comes to what’s fashionable. What our parents liked is uncool, what our grandparents did is cool.” (Source: Boston Globe) 

Well, you can hardly blame a gen for reacting to "the hyper-capitalist, sped-up 21st century". 

But generations are fluid and overlapping, and at least some of the Millennial grandparents are only in their sixties, and if you're doing what folks now in their sixties were doing in the 60's (when they were in their twenties), it could include toking up and heading over to the nearest supermarket for a pan of frozen Sara Lee Brownies. (Remove cardboard and plastic before gnawing.) It could involve drinking copious amounts of Gallo Mountain Chablis. Sometimes all of the above was set to the tune of someone strumming a guitar and everyone singing along, even if the strumming guitarist only knew the C and G chords.

And then there was mucking around in the muck at Woodstock. 

After all, there was no such thing as clubbing in the 60's and early 70's. Young folks had to make their own fun.

Of course, that fun could also involve domestic pursuits like throwing really bad, shapeless pots and glazing them with murky, ugly colors. Making macrame plant holders. Tie-dying tee-shirts. (Oh, wow!) 

If we were going to throw back to the prior so-called Greatest Generation, a fun weekend evening involved putting on a suit (even if you were a blue collar guy during the week) or a Sunday dress and heading over to some friends to drink high-balls and play cards. And you can forget double pie crusts. You snacked on Mister Salty pretzel sticks, Velveeta on a Ritz, and chips and sour-cream-and-onion-soup-mix dip. If dinner were served, it no doubt included a Jell-o mold.

Anyway, some of what's coming back is vinyl instead of CD. (If you need some help figuring out how to keep a record from skipping, just put a penny or a nickel on the head of the arm.).They're playing the ukulele. (Where's Big Brother Bob Emery when we need him?)   

One of the pastimes that has seen a comeback is shuffleboard, which is played in a variety of Boston-area bars like State Park and Brass Union. Sarah Kate Ragsdale, 29, frequently heads to Brass Union in Somerville’s Union Square to play the game, one often associated with Florida retirement communities.

Before you can say "hipster":

“I think there’s a very clear distinction between ‘hipster’ and ‘vintage,’” she says. “Something that’s hip doesn’t have nostalgia or longevity behind it. ‘Hipster’ can be very momentary and flash in the pan. And when you’re playing the game, it feels very nostalgic.”

Oh, I see. Next thing you know, the kids will be churning their own butter and playing horseshoes. 

In any case, you can't blame them for trying to slow things down a bit. Shuffleboard trumps an STD-inducing Tinder hook-up.... 

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Wondering why the formatting's a bit different. Well, the other day, Google pulled the rug out from under those of us who use Microsoft Live Writer to create blog content, leaving us to use the native Blogger application which is clunky and just horrific to use. Fixing the formatting would have involved mucking around with HTML. Now I'm perfectly capable of doing this, but life is just too short... So I found another template to replace the old clunker that was screwing up paragraph separation, etc. Futzing around with this stuff definitely sucks some of the joy out of blogging. Live Writer is/was a dream to use...

Meanwhile, Google and Microsoft are jacking Live Writer users around, or so I see from the forum I'm now on. It doesn't help that while Microsoft still makes Live Writer available, but they're not doing any updates to it. So they didn't bother to make sure it would work with Google's new API, which was put in place with no warning to us pedestrian app user. It's rumored that Live Writer making its way to Open Source, which would be great. Meanwhile, I'm stuck with the hideous Blogger native application. Blechhh.....