u/MenitoBussolini

I ask because I've been reading a little about that time and it is a fascinating topic, especially its presence today. You see a lot of nostalgia for how prosperous it was, but also contestation regarding the pollution, colonial crimes and injustices of the time. The legacy seems mixed.

I know by the later years of the 30G there was plenty of societal contestation: May '68, even the song Hexagone by Renaud being held as a cultural piece that defined the end of an era. But how was this winding down of a "thirty year high" felt by the people and in French culture? Surely a change this monumental was unsettling and left marks on the people?

Bonus points if it comes with a great build-up.

I will always nominate Teenage Wildlife by Bowie for this one. My hairs all stand on end every time.

"The lake narrowed. Over to the right lay the nine-hole golf course (I knew it was there, though I couldn’t see it) with its ramshackle clubhouse and wicker armchairs painted green, its porch swing on creaking chains. Once a month we showed up there late for Sunday supper, our clothes not right, our talk too distant and forthright, the cigar a foul smudge pot set out to ward off the incoming social frost.

Now Dad’s cigar had gone out and he stopped the boat to relight it. From our high windy perch we drifted down. Engine cut to a mild churning. When the exhaust pipe dipped above water level, it blatted rudely. “Boy, I’m soaked!” Peter was screaming in his soprano. “I’m freezing. Gee, you sure let me have it!”

“Too much for you, young fellow?” my father asked, chuckling. He winked at me. The children of visitors (and sometimes their fathers) were usually called “young fellow,” since Dad could never remember their names. Old Boy, who had been squinting into the wind, his head stuck out beyond and around the windshield, was now prancing happily across the cushions to receive a pat from his master. Kevin, sitting just behind my father, said “Those fishermen were mad as hell. I’d’ve been, too, if some guy in a big fat-ass powerboat scared off my fish.”

My father winced, then grumbled something about how they had no business . . . He was hurt.

I was appalled by Kevin’s frankness. At such moments, tears would come to my eyes in impotent compassion for Daddy; this invalid despot, this man who bullied everyone but suffered the consequences with such a tender, uneducated heart! Tears would also well up when I had to correct my father on a matter of fact. Usually I’d avoid the bother and smugly watch him compound his mistakes. But if he asked my opinion point-blank, a euphoria of sadness would overtake me, panicky wings would beat at the corners of the shrinking room and, as quietly and as levelly as possible, I’d supply the correct name or date. For I was a lot more knowledgeable than he about the things that could come up in conversation even in those days, the 1950s. But knowledge wasn’t power. He was the one with the power, the money, the right to read the paper through dinner as my stepmother and I watched him in silence; he was the one with the thirty tailor-made suits, the twenty gleaming pairs of shoes and the starched white dress shirts, the ties from Countess Mara and the two Cadillacs that waited for him in the garage, dripping oil on the concrete in the shape of a black Saturn and its gray blur of moons. It was his power that stupefied me and made me regard my knowledge as nothing more than hired cleverness he might choose to show off at a dinner party (“Ask this young fellow, he reads, he’ll know”). Then why did his occasional faltering bring tears to my eyes? Was I grieving because he didn’t possess everything, absolutely everything, or because I owned nothing? Perhaps, despite my timidity, I was in a struggle against him. Did I want to hurt him because he didn’t love me?”

I get "2000 Miles" by The Pretenders confused with "500 Miles" by The Proclaimers - they are nothing alike but the fact they're both 1980s British songs from bands with similar names and have distances in their title has bugged my brain for years now.

3000 views in 14 years. What in the world is this. I am very confused and disturbed and maybe aroused

Recently I've been reading and researching the impact of the AIDS crisis on the arts, and especially on literature. In my search for new additions to this reading list, someone mentioned The Farewell Symphony, the third part of Edmund White's "Edmund Trilogy" as a fundamental piece of this history. I decided to look into it - but before I did that, I decided to check out the first two books, which are set decades before. I'm about to finish the first.

And I just needed to gush - White writes so well. His prose is astonishing. This man manages to write prose that's pure elegance and flourish without it ever feeling forced or making me wanna drop it. The most delightful part of this book is the way he paints the personalities of his father, his sister, even fleeting characters like his coworker. They're all so intricate and incredibly described, it's all astonishing. I leave you with a paragraph from the first page.

>Now Dad's cigar had gone out and he stopped the boat to relight it. From our high windy perch we drifted down, engine cut to a mild churning. When the exhaust pipe dipped above water level, it blatted rudely. "Boy, I'm soaked!" Peter was screaming in his soprano. "I'm freezing. Gee, you sure let me have it!"

"Too much for you, young fellow?" my father asked, chuckling. He winked at me. The children of visitors (and sometimes their fathers) were usually called "young fellow," since Dad could never remember their names. Old Boy, who had been squinting into the wind, his head stuck out beyond and around the windshield, was now prancing happily across the cushions to receive a pat from his master. Kevin, sitting just behind my father, said, "Those fishermen were mad as hell. I'd've been, too, if some guy in a big fat-ass powerboat scared off my fish."

My father winced, then grumbled something about how they had no business... He was hurt.

I was appalled by Kevin's frankness. At such moments, tears would come to my eyes in impotent compassion for Daddy: this invalid despot, this man who bullied everyone but suffered the consequences with such a tender, uneducated heart! Tears would also well up when I had to correct my father on a matter of fact. Usually I'd avoid the bother and smugly watch him compound his mistakes. But if he asked my opinion point-blank, a euphoria of sadness would overtake me, panicky wings would beat at the corners of the shrinking room and, as quietly and as levelly as possible, I'd supply the correct name or date. For I was a lot more knowledgeable than he about the things that could come up in conversation even in those days, the 1950s.

But knowledge wasn't power. He was the one with the power, the money, the right to read the paper through dinner as my stepmother and I watched him in silence; he was the one with the thirty tailor-made suits, the twenty gleaming pairs of shoes and the starched white dress shirts, the ties from Countess Mara and the two Cadillacs that waited for him in the garage, dripping oil on the concrete in the shape of a black Saturn and its gray blur of moons. It was his power that stupefied me and made me regard my knowledge as nothing more than hired cleverness he might choose to show off at a dinner party ("Ask this young fellow, he reads, he'll know"). Then why did his occasional faltering bring tears to my eyes?

I can not wait to get into the next two, and especially The Farewell Symphony, which is why I got here in the first place. Have you read these? What do you think?

Within maybe 5 to 10 years, which country could have a Golden Generation on their hands? Spain's one, no?

Be it the one that's been making waves the most globally, or the one that's personally defined your summer so far. Seems like it's been another pretty quiet year so far.

I wouldn't say it's "Song of the Summer", but Du Bist Gut Genug has been blowing up worldwide in the past few weeks and it's been very fun to see a completely random song just become an unexpected German meme hit. Plus, it kinda goes hard

I've recently been going on dates with someone who's ended a relationship in the past year. She was cheated on and we've spoken at length about that, and how obviously terrified she is that it would ever happen to her again.

I am the grandson of a man who cheated on his wife and left with a younger woman. My father was intensely defined by the experience as a preteen, and yet went on to do the same thing to my mother. Now, being faced with this wonderful person I am absolutely falling for and her fear, I am just so scared at myself. I have sworn to myself since I was 13 - when I saw my mother be annihilated emotionally by that man - that this cycle would end here, but it is agonising inside to think such a thing just happened twice now, and once by someone who saw it happen just like I did. That makes it way more terrifying, that the pain and hurt didn't stop it.

I don't know why it's tormenting me inside to think it's a possibility or even fated when I would never dare do something like that, especially *because* of precedent, but it is. I don't want to be like my father. I don't want to be like my grandfather. I want to run away from all of them, and I am trying my fucking best, but my God the fear that this runs in the family just takes over me sometimes. It's like a fear I could do something I can not even conceive myself I would ever do, and actively despise.

PS: The way I see it, it's not a "generational curse"; a "curse" implies an exterior force. It's two generations of men doing horrible things from their very own volition and who didn't take accountability for their actions.

PPS: Oh yeah, and they're both dead. My father died 6 months after cheating on my mom. My grandfather died at 85, six years after his son – he lived with his mistress-turned-wife for the rest of his life after leaving my grandmother.