What was once shocking becomes quaint: That’s how it goes. The Charleston now looks like a silly dance, Elvis is just a sweaty guy, nobody’s fainting while watching screenings of “The Exorcist” anymore and jazz is now the province of turtlenecked nerds. We’re assured there was a time when van Gogh’s paintings horrified audiences, but today reproductions of them hang in college dorm rooms. This process is not tragic; as these things lose their power to shock, they reveal new virtues. Nothing stays boundary-pushing forever. …

— “The Greatest Love Story of All Time Is Also the Strangest,” By B.D. McClay, The New York Times, February 14,  2026

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Very true. Clever.

As my wife put it — very well, I thought — there are defining moments in popular culture.

I once though Jefferson Airplane was cool.

I am not sure what I thought about the Doors, but I listened repeatedly to “Shana Light My Fire.”

I bought Dylan LPs and played them over and over again.

I thought Pat Boone was cool once, and wished I could become another Elvis.

I read The Cather in the Rye and absorbed its social criticisms.

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

  March 2026