The End of a Decade, The Start of Another

I have a hard time sometimes summing up the movies I watch. It’s not the best quality to work with for a wanna be movie critic, no matter how minor of a movie critic I want to be. So I can’t imagine how hard it is to sum up an entire decade. Time magazine did a few lists of their top ten television shows, political moments, people, etc. of the year. They didn’t try the decade. It’s just interesting to think that a review of any of these things will always be of pop culture, obviously. But then we read them and every one of these moments or gadgets and other cultural epiphanies has a deeply personal affect on our own lives. We can’t sum up a decade without including the ten years of our lives that went with it. I remember what a big deal the iPod was on my college campus. I joined Facebook that very first year it came out only because I was stalling the completion of an essay I had due the next day. I voted for Kerry in my very first presidential election, if an absentee vote counts as an actual vote.

I was a child in the 90s though I consider myself as growing up for the most part in this decade. Childhood for most everyone I think is often culturally protected. After the things that our society specifically creates for children, for me pogs, Power Rangers, and Sailor Moon, a child can remember the big things. I remember when Clinton was elected, the Oklahoma City bombings they erroneously blamed on ‘Muslim’ terrorists, and the O.J. Simpson trial. They’re just glimpses of the decade I was simply in, not involved with. But I entered this decade at 13, literally less than two months into my teenage years. I went through all of high school and college in this decade. I invented myself in this decade and became an adult in this decade. And in the same way, I feel it was my generation that made this decade. Texting, the rise of the social internet, green as the new black, movies with ridiculous special effects, youtube. That’s what I’m going to remember about this decade. That I helped make these things happen, good or bad. That we all did.

I think what’s more important though at a time like this is not summing up the last decade but looking forward to the next one. I admit I’m not completely on the cutting edge of technology and the like. In fact, just yesterday we bought our very first cordless phone. (How do you hang one of those up by the way?) And I know it’s totally counter intuitive to a sci-fi mind like mine but it’s not technology that makes the future. It’s the thinking of great minds and the doing of great doers. In this decade to come, I hope to be one of those great something or others and even if the rest of the world decides to fight me on that, I still know I’ll be something special.

So have fun these last ten days of the year. It’s the best way to start a new one.

By the way, if you’re interested there’s a great article in the LA Times last Sunday about the decade using wizards and vampires. It’s the best review of the 2000s I’ve read yet. It’s called ‘This Vampirism is Made in America’ by Michael Tolkin. I understand now why I like werewolves so much. It turns out it’s not just my love for the awesome character that is Rahne Sinclair or the morbid teenage wit of ‘Ginger Snaps.’ I think I might just be one of Tolkin’s werewolves.