Can we laugh about that yet?
I agree with almost all of your points except one: that the 90's isn't getting re-articulated in pop-culture. Think, for example, of the "surreal life" on VH1 whose cast is a veritable cornucopia of boy-band members, has-been rappers/rockers, old-models and wwf wrestlers (sure, there are 80's folk in there too!).
I think the decade will be remembered as the grunge/gangsta rap/boyband/desert storm/Clinton scandal/big dollar movie budget era (ah the good ole' days). In fact, I think there is plenty already circulating in the datasphere to suggest that the 90's is in play and ready to be appropriated.
I guess I should confess, too, that I am not inclined to read power the same way you are - referring to it as "the hierarchy" - its a little too base/superstructure for my taste, but I take your point if by hierarchy you are referring to the monopolization of the media, which I suspect you are.
Anyway, its nice to have you around to argue with again, I miss you sorely. Hope all is well!
KJ
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My friend Lauren Weedman has made a wad of money being the randon GenX artist on I Love the 90s and such.
But, even look how you try to describe the decade, ending up with a fracturing. They couldn't even be called subcultures, the way you could have talked about rap in much of the 80s. If the 90s were anything, they were a marker for the fracturing of media, the beginning or return of the many tribes and the death of a ten-year gestalt, a zeit with no geist.
And, yes, being of soggy academic brain from disuse (think your abs by the end of first quarter), I was playing fast and loose with "the heirarchy." But I think nostalgia as I was descrbing it is always a tool of heirarchical interests.
When individuals look forward, they can see further than a controlling interest would rather they would. Turn their heads around, and you can forge the future behind their backs.
And miss you sorer. See flabby brain comment above.
You know how it is. How good would you be at hoops if you did nothing but play me for a year?
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