The Vancouver Public Library (www.vpl.ca) keeps amazing me. Walked in and right up to a book, just standing there on a display shelf, that shocked me off my feet. For a moment it looked like my book had already been written! An American professor, Philip Jenkins (http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/j/p/jpj1/), has written a book about the drastic changes in American culture between the sixties and the mid-eighties. And just like me, he illustrates it with examples from popular culture. His premise: how shocked would someone be, getting out of a coma in 1985, having missed developments since 1969? And then again, if he would wake up in 2006? If you compare 1969 with Reagan in 1985 and Bush in 2006.. In between so much has happened, but the moral absolutism of Reagan and Bush is strikingly similar. Of course, Americans do everything a lot more extreme than we Dutch, but we have our moral government now too, with CDA and CHU in power. It's that time of the season, I would say. A new spring that will link to the liberation of the sixties (and beginning of the nineties) will soon emerge.
Interesting book, I will tell more about. Will certainly be able to use some of his examples, I guess.
And I have found a new apartment, starting May. Signing the lease tomorrow. Why not change if the noise doesn't suit you? My new one is in the same street, but closer to the library. Jottem!
Have even had a look at an apartment in Kitsilano, which is near to the beach. A bit too residential, though it had two bedrooms and a backyard. But who wants visitors anyway...!!? The thought of having to take the bus everywhere didn't do it for me. Knowing myself, I'd probably lie awake from hearing birds sing..!
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