For psychiatric institutions in the 1950s, this doesn't seem that bad.
It somehow seems unbelievable that there are adults walking around for whom the 1990s are as much the remote past as the 1950s were to me. Anyway, the past is a different county and a really bad country to have schizophrenia in.
delusions, in the medical sense, are not simply a case of being mistaken. They are considered to be pathological beliefs, reflecting a warped or broken understanding that is not, by definition, amenable to being reshaped by reality.
The author makes a sensible distinction here, but I have no idea how to apply it in the real world. How can we avoid the conclusion that vast numbers of people are delusional?
I have that same feeling. And it's cousin - how is it possible that during the 80s and 90s, the 50s and 60s were so recent?
My dad always talked about the 30s. And the new 30s are going to start soon.
For some reason I read about this semi-recently. Like, more than a year ago, but I'm certain far more recently than the 2010 publication of the article. Is it possible that there's a movie or TV show that played off of this scenario?
I've got a good delusional Jesus story but it's going to have to wait till I'm back from the bar
how is it possible that during the 80s and 90s, the 50s and 60s were so recent?
For the (late) '60s, a big part of the answer is simply the dominance of Boomer culture--everything between the Beatles and Woodstock was endlessly commemorated and navel-gazed through the end of the '90s.
But IMO the '50s weren't quite like that--almost half of Boomers have literally no memory of any part of the '50s, and none of them were even teens except for 1959. There was an idea about the '50s, and '50s reruns were TV staples well into the '90s, but I think it was much more abstract. My mom was born in '41 and so the '50s were part of her heyday--she literally went to sockhops and listened to late night radio stations playing Black rock n roll--but even so, my feel for that decade was pretty tenuous and I had a lot more to learn about the reality of it than I did about the '60s. Frex, the early '50s were materially poorer than anything I ever experienced*, which can be hard to grasp.
*I saw recently that 1/3 of US homes still had no indoor plumbing in 1946
Decades always lag in reality past when we think of them as being. The early 90s look like the 80s, etc. So the 50s extends into the early 60s, in cultural memory.
But your broader point stands.
My dad's house didn't have indoor plumbing until the 1950s. Grandpa thought it was too expensive even though he was well-off by then. His daughter refused to visit until he got plumbing, so he gave in.
3: That math can't be right. Even the early '90s were only 30 years ago. 30 years after the late '50s, you were in HS, right?
Anyway, Iris graduates HS this year, and "Smaller Like Teen Spirit" for her is like the Day the Music Died for me. Or maybe Chuck Berry's arrest. Actually, better might be: Cobain's suicide is as far away for her as the Beatles' first single is for me. And I was born almost 2 years after they broke up.
Hmm. Hawaii is in 8th grade, and Kurt Cobain's suicide is also the same distance from her as the Beatle's first single is from me. (Almost.)
I conclude that we had kids at the same age.
I was never a huge Nirvana fan. They were fine, but a little gloomy.
It's obviously embarrassing to say, but I do prefer Pearl Jam to Nirvana. All Apologies is a banger though.
I do like when you enter Aberdeen Washington the welcome sign says "come as you are."
14.2: "Smaller Like Teen Spirit" - is that a Randy Newman song?
12: I only just discovered that Philip Larkin's Annus Mirabilis is presumably not autobiographical, not unless he lost his virginity at 40.
I think I assumed he was roughly a contemporary of the Beatles, and so maybe fudging the years a bit for the rhyme/image, but basically speaking for himself. But he's 20 years older than Paul.
Pearl Jam isn't great either. Mostly, except for flannel shirts, I was glad to see grunge go.
20: Good lord, what a mistype. I was so focused on math I didn't proof.
I've never really been of my time musically, but "Smells Like" hit me the very first time I heard it and really did change my perspective.
It's catchy, but it's no "Mr. Brightside ".
4: As the author of the article points out, it's worse than than
Whether scientist or psychiatric patient, we assume others are more likely to be biased or misled than we are, and we take for granted that our own beliefs are based on sound reasoning and observation. This may be the nearest we can get to revelation--the understanding that our most cherished beliefs could be wrong.
22: I was way more into dressing grunge than listening to the music. None of it did that much for me, either.
HOWEVER, I will live and die by the pop R&B of that era. SWV 4-evah.
I used to have a copy of that book. It was unpleasant to read because the doctors were such a bunch of assholes. IIRC they made a film out of it a couple years ago. I didn't watch it. It seemed like an ill-advised project.
22: A friend of mine is fond of saying that the sound of the 90s would have been really different had Black Francis looked like Kurt Cobain and vice versa. She taught her six-year-old to play Debaser on the guitar. It's fucking adorable, but also, poor kid, forced to live out his parents' dreams, like every generation before him.
28: word
I like that Black Francis has a real name that includes "the fourth."
29.2: My wife used to dress our son like Ethan Hawke dressed in Reality Bites.
28: Will you ban me from the blog, if I admit to having to google SWV to find out who they are? I probably had heard of them before, but I don't think I know any of their songs.
32: I'm waiting to see if it will come to me.
I'm willing to concede that the poptimists have some sort of point, but I've never enjoyed the pop music of any period of my life. A lot of the '80s stuff sounds better to me in retrospect, but a big part of the reason I disliked it then was the synths and production, and those things still sound like shit.
Mostly, except for flannel shirts, I was glad to see grunge go.
Ditto. Eventually I had to move to New Hampshire so I could wear plaid flannel everywhere and nobody bats an eye.
29.2: I love the Pixies far more than any grunge, but I don't really buy that theory even a little. Francis is/was self-consciously a weirdo (I love that fellow weirdo Kim Deal made fun of his lyrics--"nobody wants to listen to that!"), and I don't think better looks would have gotten people to groove on songs about incest and space aliens.
Meanwhile, I see that they have a new single out, and I should probably get over my refusal to consider a Deal-less Pixies in any way legitimate. But I can't.
re: 33
re: poptimism: I wasn't that into the chart music of the time (late 80s) when I was in my mid teens as I was a metal head, although looking back, a lot of it was pretty good. But I'd definitely be fully behind the claim that a lot of the pop* that was around when I was in my late 20s was legitimately great music _and_ I was aware of it at the time.
I think the fact that I lived through a period when I thought a lot of mainstream pop was pretty great makes it even more depressing now when I think most, but not all, of it is lazily produced shit.
* I'm really thinking mostly of RnB and some dance music and hip hop, I suppose. Anything produced by Timbaland or the Neptunes, or the like. Or, more on the pure pop front, the things that Xenomania or Richard X were doing in the UK.
4: I'm not sure that I believe this, but a I did hear one psychiatrist who studied and treated schizophrenia make a distinction between fixed beliefs that many people are overly attached to ( I forget the name), like false beliefs about vaccines, and the delusions of schizophrenia which could be linked to a dysregulation in dopamine. I don't understand the science, but I think that maybe there is a different flavor to it. I can't really convince myself of this hypothesis though.
After the first album, Pearl Jam settled into bland indistinguishableness, and then the Sirius XM Lithium channel ruined them forever for me through jackhammer repetition. My 14-year-old daughter listens to *tons* of 90s college music, much the same way I did 60s rock when I was 14, except she usually hears of such bands because they are "blowing up on TikTok", a phenomenon I sort of understand but not really.
(Like Neutral Milk Hotel is blowing up on TikTok in 2022? Okay, sure. You could definitely do worse.)
How does it feel to be less hip than a 14-year-old girl, Moby?
Will you ban me from the blog, if I admit to having to google SWV to find out who they are? I probably had heard of them before, but I don't think I know any of their songs.
I intentionally chose a poorly known group to make myself look better, BUT I loved Weak so, so much.
I have absolutely no memory of that video, though.
The Mountain Goats blowing up on tiktok last year truly was one of the strangest things.
I also liked K-Ci and Jojo a lot. I think I really wanted romantic music and the angry or ironic grunge stuff just did not do it.
Also, nineties electronic music-- Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, Prodigy-- and the Fatboy Slim video where Christopher Walken dances (exactly as he acts, phonetic memorization of words he doesn't understand) in an empty nineties hotel. Plus, golden age of house-- Frankie Knuckles, Hurley; maybe more late eighties than nineties.
Also, nineties electronic music-- Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, Prodigy-- and the Fatboy Slim video where Christopher Walken dances (exactly as he acts, phonetic memorization of words he doesn't understand) in an empty nineties hotel. Plus, golden age of house-- Frankie Knuckles, Hurley; maybe more late eighties than nineties.
I lost track of new music in the 90s, probably largely as a result of going to live overseas in Egypt and (mostly) Morocco followed by grad school where I had no time for it. What I heard that I loved was mostly shoegaze and triphop and the like. I was sneaking into punk clubs in NYC in my mid-teens so grunge sounded like I'd heard it all before and it was much better the first time around.
Speaking of Psyches, Graeme Wood has an article on MBS in The Atlantic which has a lot off odd aspects. Bu this line stood out:
The crown prince left his tunic unbuttoned at the collar, in a casual style now favored by young Saudi men, and he gave relaxed, nonpsychopathic answers to questions about his personal habits.
To be a bit fair this bitis more Wood's weirdness than MBS's necessarily. He' had earlier mentioned how MBS is viewed by many as a psychopath.
Oh damn I'm home but a bit drunk so here goes. As an undergrad I was studying religious studies and philosophy, before I got into Sufism the professor I was most drawn to was Thomas J.J. Altizer, the radical death of god guy (widely rumored to have sent Paul Tillich to his death by telling him that Tillich was the true father of radical death of god theology). Dude was one of the wildest characters I've ever met -- first day of his contemporary theology class he announces: "fair warning, real theology is grounded in CHAOS and DARKNESS whose name is SATAN!" Everyone else in the class was shocked and taken aback, I leaned forward in my seat and was like this is gonna be great! And it was. His books are no less trippy. Total presence and all that. Anyway one time I was in his office and we were talking and he tells me that once he had a student had a bad problem, he thought he was Jesus only he'd been reborn Jewish so he didn't know what he should do and could Altizer clue him in. I thought to myself oh boy, this is going to be good and asked him, well, what did you do? And he matter of factly replied, I took him to the mental health clinic on campus of course. Which at the time I felt was at once anticlimactic but also totally the correct thing to do.
I think it's fine to be drunk, but I'm amazed at how you got that way since comment 49.
thank you for the twist ending, Barry!
This thread is now making me think of that poor schizophrenic commenter on CT who was constantly posting about various indie artists writing songs about her and stealing her ideas. I rarely read the posts there now, let alone the comments, but I guess there must have been a point when I saw a lot of them? I don't know what happened, obviously, but hope it ended okay.
53 lol, since a little before comment 9 actually
Using person-first language, it's cruel to refer to someone as a "commenter on CT."
In my defense, I only saw the comments, not the person. I'm inferring a whole lot.
Listening to the song in 43. all I can think is how 2:45 used to be long for a pop song.
Get in, get out, stop fucking about.
It always seems trivial until you have a family member who comments on Crooked Timber.
41: Aren't 14-year-old girls the hippest of all? What should make Moby feel bad is that he is less hip than a 58-year old male librarian in Columbus, Ohio.
61: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that at no point in my life have I been as hip as a 14-year-old girl. And certainly not when I was a 14-year-old boy.
I mostly bad taste in music. It's never been a problem.
Aren't 14-year-old girls the hippest of all?
I think they're blowing up on TikTok.
43: I was surprised you chose SWV instead of TLC or En Vogue. Weak is a great song though.
From the comments on the YouTube link:
I was 13 when this came out . Jr high school prom , my date and I played this in the limo the whole night . Shortly after we had our first child (yes we was 14). 27 years and 5 kids later this song takes my wife and I back to prom night 93! Love you Baby couldn't see my life without you ❤️
Such a beautiful story/terrifying cautionary tale.
I think I'm a criminal if I do go back there and an accessory to a crime if I don't.
What a beautiful comment number/comment combo.
I cannot get over 67. What the everloving fuck. Literally.
We're sure YouTube comments are carefully verified?
66: "Aren't 14-year-old girls the hippest of all?"
67: "Shortly after we had our first child (yes we was 14)."
I guess you can't argue with science.