'This is what you guys have come up with?'

In the March 2 New Yorker, Ariel Levy turns in a massively entertaining portrait of a group of lesbian separatists of the 1960s and 70s, the "Van Dykes," so called because they all bought vans and went on the road, and because they all took "Van Dyke" as a last name. A now sixty-ish protagonist, whom the reporter calls "the last of the Van Dykes," reminds the reporter not once but twice that she is disappointed in her, the reporter's, generation and their version of what it means to be a lesbian.

"I don't want a wife," she told me. "I want sometbody that I can run around with, like Batman and Robin, you know? ... Your generation wants to fit in," she told me for the second time. "Gays in the military and gay marriage? This is what you guys have come up with?" There was no contempt in her voice; it was something else -- an almost incredulous maternal disappointment. "We didn't sit around looking at our phone or looking at our computer or looking at the television -- we didn't sit around looking at screens," she said. "We didn't wait for a screen to give us a signal to do something. We were off doing whatever we wanted."

That is the end of the article, but at the bottom of the column is printed in small type:

NEWYORKER.COM
An audio interview with Ariel Levy

I haven't listened to it, but I get the palpable sense that after that scolding, the reporter -- born in 1974 -- will be only too happy to put in her two cents. That being said, she is a staff writer for the New Yorker -- it's not like she's some housewife with deferred dreams who hasn't done anything with her life.

But I do sympathize with the article's subject. Though I was much more one who, in the 1970s and 80s, did "sit around waiting for a screen to give a signal to do something" than I was a bold actor, I've shared the sense that the goals of generations X, Y and Z are somewhat paltry compared to the dreams of mine. We really did believe that by the time we reached our parents' age (i.e. now) we would see viable alternatives to capitalist institutions. Instead, we're splitting hairs over digital copyright issues, pretend "carbon offset credits," and even more ephemeral things like online identities and whether our airline frequent flier miles will ever be worth anything.

To sum up my generation's pitiful state, I offer this squib from another magazine, the back page of The Atlantic for March, where a columnist asks people to coin neologisms -- that's the whole conceit of the column. A reader writes in:

Often my wife and I will decide to watch a DVD, and then she will delay coming to sit down, thereby subjecting me to the repeat-loop sounds and visuals of the DVD's main menu. What the word or phrase for this interminable experience?" -- David K. Prince, Lansdowne, Pa.

I have only two words for you, Mr. Prince, the epitome of a man who "sits around waiting for a screen to give you the signal to do something": kill yourself. Preferably in the Grand Canyon, at Niagara Falls, or in some other way that your wife won't have to clean it up.

Karaoke crowd freaks when actual rock singer shows up

Mickey Dolenz, who sang many of the Monkees' hits, was having dinner at Elaine's in New York when someone realized that people in a karaoke club a few doors away were all singing along to one of his hits, "I'm a Believer." Dolenz was summoned, entered the karaoke bar, and the result was pandemonium.

The best part of the story was that it was a coincidence that Dolenz was nearby when the song -- which was repopularized in the 2001 film Shrek (YouTube clip here) -- was chosen by the under-20s at the karaoke club; they didn't know he was near.

British band "shoots" video by performing for surveillance cameras

This is so awesome! Instead of shooting a video the old-fashioned way, a British band performed in front of their city's ubiquitous surveillance cameras, requested the footage from cops and private companies using the British equivalent of a Freedom of Information Act request, then edited the footage to produce the finished product. Courtesy BoingBoing.

The finished video, viewable at that link, shows the band performing in crosswalks, taxicabs, public plazas, and the entrance ramp to a parking garage.

technorati: surveillance, music

Guilty pleasure: Kay Hanley and her band Letters to Cleo

One day in the mid-90s, at a Tower Records listening station, I discovered the band Letters to Cleo and their LP Wholesale Meats and Fish. I totally dug the technique of the lead singer, Kay Hanley, her kickass songwriting, and the way the band rocked. They never made it big, exactly, and broke up around 1999. Hanley went on to write songs for, and sing for, Hollywood movies; she and her Letters to Cleo lead guitarist husband were the sound behind Josie and the Pussycats, the lead single from which, "3 Small Words," freaking rocks.

Yesterday she was featured on fishbowlLA.com, with the news that she and hubby have done another Hollywood project -- music for a Care Bears video, believe it or not. Given how great the music for Josie and the Pussycats was, I'd suspend judgement on her music for Care Bears until I hear it.

technorati: Letters to Cleo, Kay Hanley, indie rock