I'm one. President-Elect Obama and his wife both are. So is Alaka governor Sarah Palin. But have you heard of Generation Jones, aka "The Jonesers?"
I first heard about them in 2000, in the midst of "Baby Boomer this" and "Gen X" that. "You're a Boomer," said my coworkers and the pundits. "You were born between 1946 and 1964 - Woodstock, Vietnam." "Are you kidding?" I'd think. "I was just a kid then." I didn't know from Woodstock, except as a Peanuts character.
Then I read an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about Jonathan Pontell, who coined the term, and now has a Generation Jones website. Generation Jones are the people born between 1954 and 1965: the end of the Boomers and the beginning of Generation X. Why Jones? There are several definitions: it embodies the idea of a large, unknown, invisible generation, or a generation longing for its own identity (or "keeping up with the Joneses" and conspicuous consumption.) We are the generation of shag carpets, avocado appliances, the Brady Bunch, and Watergate. We are one quarter of the adult U.S. population. (Interestingly enough, the article disappeared from electronic sources for awhile after the Tasini court decision, so I was glad I'd printed it off.)
The president-elect will be the first Joneser in the White House. I heard Garrison Keillor last week on A Prairie Home Companion noting the end of the Booners in the White House, and I was intrigued to see on the Generation Jones website a section on its impact on the Presidential election. We've hit the big time, with coverage in Newseek, the Chicago Tribune, and YouTube. Obama's older daughter is the same age as my daughter, just as my brother and I were about the same ages as President Kennedy's kids. In my quiet, Midwestern way, I'm celebrating. My people have arrived.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Friday, November 7, 2008
Ups and Downs of the Long Tail
The Long Tail (in recent popular parlance) is the string of unique items, sold in small quantities, which are more "findable" in the online age. It's cool in a lot of ways, making all sorts of things float to the attention of possibly interested people ("if you like Doctor Who, maybe you'll like Diana Wynne Jones!") But for me, there's a downside. I keep finding all of these out-of-print, not-at-my-local-library, hardly-anyone-on-the-planet-seems-to-have THINGS that I get interested in. The local public radio station used to play a particular version of the Marseillaise (French national anthem) every July 14, Bastille Day. Out of print. One of my favorite writing blogs has a "what books do you read again and again?" posting, and someone mentions some intriguing books I've never heard of. Out of print, and copies of area public libraries are missing, withdrawn, or in storage.
Now back in the day (ah, my misspent youth), if something was out of print, that was it. My favorite author as a child was E. Nesbit, a British author from the early 1900s who wrote books about children and magic (magic cities, magical creatures, mermaids) and name-dropped some of her favorite authors in her works. E. Nesbit was born in 1858, and in the 1950s there was a British publisher who republished most of her books in a somewhat uniform edition, a few of which managed to make their way to the children's section of my downtown public library (while we lived in the suburbs, my parents worked downtown, so I was there a lot.) Of course I read and reread them, and wanted them for my own. But they were British books, and for some reason it was almost impossible back then to get a British book through an American bookstore. So I managed to get a few, found others in American editions, and hoped that some day, I could find them all.
Flash forward many years, and online bookstores make it possible for me to use my disposable income to find them used in various locations (I even found some at used booksales, which is a story in itself.) I have over the years picked up copies of nearly all of E. Nesbit's children's books (and ran out of shelf space in the process.) So I'm tempted to do the same when I want that recording of the Mareillaise, or those historical novels that the public libraries don't carry. You can even buy things online from British bookstores now - how cool is that? The Long Tail makes it so easy to spend our money, darn it. I have to reign in my desires and be fiscally prudent, especially these days. I make my little lists, and allow myself a few at a time.
But I do have to commend the Long Tail effect of that popular author, J. K. Rowling. With the popularity of Harry Potter, publishers looked around and said, "who else writes books about kids and magic? What do we have on our backlist?" So the great author Edward Eager comes back in print, the writer whose book Half Magic I found in fourth grade, which led me to E. Nesbit and so many other writers years ago. So I can flesh out my Edward Eager collection, and buy my daughter her own copies (in print!) I guess I can't complain too much.
Now back in the day (ah, my misspent youth), if something was out of print, that was it. My favorite author as a child was E. Nesbit, a British author from the early 1900s who wrote books about children and magic (magic cities, magical creatures, mermaids) and name-dropped some of her favorite authors in her works. E. Nesbit was born in 1858, and in the 1950s there was a British publisher who republished most of her books in a somewhat uniform edition, a few of which managed to make their way to the children's section of my downtown public library (while we lived in the suburbs, my parents worked downtown, so I was there a lot.) Of course I read and reread them, and wanted them for my own. But they were British books, and for some reason it was almost impossible back then to get a British book through an American bookstore. So I managed to get a few, found others in American editions, and hoped that some day, I could find them all.
Flash forward many years, and online bookstores make it possible for me to use my disposable income to find them used in various locations (I even found some at used booksales, which is a story in itself.) I have over the years picked up copies of nearly all of E. Nesbit's children's books (and ran out of shelf space in the process.) So I'm tempted to do the same when I want that recording of the Mareillaise, or those historical novels that the public libraries don't carry. You can even buy things online from British bookstores now - how cool is that? The Long Tail makes it so easy to spend our money, darn it. I have to reign in my desires and be fiscally prudent, especially these days. I make my little lists, and allow myself a few at a time.
But I do have to commend the Long Tail effect of that popular author, J. K. Rowling. With the popularity of Harry Potter, publishers looked around and said, "who else writes books about kids and magic? What do we have on our backlist?" So the great author Edward Eager comes back in print, the writer whose book Half Magic I found in fourth grade, which led me to E. Nesbit and so many other writers years ago. So I can flesh out my Edward Eager collection, and buy my daughter her own copies (in print!) I guess I can't complain too much.
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