What the kids are wearing now
What the kids were wearing then
Speaking of which, how’s India? A little ironic that you’re there and I’m not, seeing as how I’ve always wanted to go to India, have been fascinated by Indian culture and religion and you — well, let’s just say that historically, you haven’t. Take some pics for me, why dontcha?
Alright already, on to topics of more general interest (“HA!” says the Viennese man who stumbled on our blog while looking for Gerhard Richter jpegs). I agree that we are due to post our various Best Things of the Aughts. I had, in fact, been giving the topic a good thinking over prior to reading your post. I’m trying to take myself back to the dawn of the millennium so I might better recall all the miraculous changes and improvements to my daily life that have since occurred, but it’s all a little hazy. Lots and lots of time in a beautiful, if somewhat dilapidated painting studio at Penn. An obscenely cheap apartment — seriously, I think it was $450 a month — that was sort of collapsing around us, but was on a super-nice block in a great part of town. It really is true that you get a little nostalgic for the shitty places you’ve lived once you start moving up in the world, isn’t it?
OK, so in the spirit of getting with the spirit, I’ll begin by offering up some of my favorite things from the Aughts.
1) TV
OMFG. And I thought that the 90′s were the Golden Age of television, but then this decade came along. Here is just a partial list of TV’s Aught Awesomeness — I’m sure that you have more to add. The Sopranos*, The Wire, Deadwood, Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, Lost, Gilmore Girls, Battlestar Galactica*, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office (both of them), Arrested Development, Veronica Mars, Mad Men, 30 Rock, Mythbusters, Glee… An embarrassment of riches, right, Russ? TV is no longer merely superior to being alone with your thoughts except for the hour or two a week when the show you care about is on — it’s where the action is. Saying “I don’t watch TV” now is like saying, “I don’t read novels”. An amusingly quirky comment when uttered by the right sort of eccentric, but certainly not a sign of intellectual superiority.
(*overrated, but still good.)
2) OBAMA. Frak the haters. We’ve dreamed about electing someone this awesome since we could vote. We thought it would be Clinton. We waited, we canvassed, we went to 2000 Gore “Victory” parties (the memory of which still make us a little teary). We got a health care bill, you lunatic lefties, so just shut up because I LOVE HIM AND STILL CAN’T BELIEVE HE’S OURS.
3) Teleportation. I don’t get it, but I think it’s gotta be good.
