Slackonomics

"Despite the fact that I was born during the Eisenhower Administration, I've always felt a more natural kinship with Generation X than with my own cohort [i.e., the Baby Boomers]," claims novelist and journalist Kurt Andersen in a blurb for Lisa Chamberlain's "Slackonomics," which will be published by Da Capo press in July. "And now," he continues, "just as Gen Xers are (ha!) entering middle age, Lisa Chamberlain's smart, enterprising and entertaining book has helped me understand some of the reasons why -- as well as why I tend to be 51 percent hopeful about America, notwithstanding our current collective confusion."

Andersen was born in 1954 -- no wonder he's confused about which generation he belongs to! He's precisely on the cusp between the generations that I've identified as the Baby Boomers (1944-53) and the Original Generation X (1954-63). When Andersen wrote, in a much-discussed 1989 Rolling Stone essay, that his generation was an "ambivalent" one, what he was trying to articulate without realizing it is that he was a member of a lost generation, the OGXers. This is, of course, more evidence of the explanatory power of my generational scheme.

Lisa Chamberlain's "Slackonomics: Generation X in the Age of Creative Destruction" does look very interesting. She writes on her blog, for example, about mobility, pointing out that social networks are more important than ever to advancing one's career, and these networks require people to share social, physical, and virtual space. She also uses Google Trends to show how Boomers continue to dominate the news despite the fact that many more people are googling the term "Generation X" than they are "Baby Boomer."

Just one problem: Chamberlain was born in 1968, which makes her (according to my scheme) a PCer like me, not an Xer. I won't hold that mistake against her, since apparently news of my brilliant theory hasn't percolated out into the culture yet.

MORE IDLENESS: The Idler's Glossary (by Joshua Glenn and Mark Kingwell, published October 08) | Media Diet: Tom Hodgkinson (I interviewed Idler editor Tom Hodgkinson for Utne Reader, 11/1/95) | The Death of a Situationist (I wrote about Guy Debord for Utne Reader, July/August 95) | The Sweetest Hangover (I wrote about hangovers for The Idler in 1996-ish) | Idler Stationery (I wrote a column on idler etiquette for The Idler; these three items on specialized stationery appeared in 1996) | Ludditepalooza (Utne Reader, July/August 96) | Hermenaut of the Month: Oscar Wilde (I wrote about Wilde for Hermenaut in 1997) | Idle Idol: Henry Miller (I wrote about Miller for The Idler in 1997) | Whatever Works, Sucks (I reviewed Meredith Bagby's "Rational Exuberance: The Influence of Generation X on the New Economy" for Hermenaut in 1998) | Hermenaut of the Month: Baudelaire (I wrote about Baudelaire for Hermenaut in 1998) | Lin Yutang (I wrote about Lin Yutang's idler philosophy for Feed in June 1999) | Meet the Hermenauts (Scot McLemee calls Hermenaut the "slacker Salmagundi" in Lingua Franca, July/August 99) | The Idler's Glossary (a preliminary version of the one published in October 2008; this version appeared in The Idler in 1999) | Against Time Clocks (I was a regular contributor to Feed.com; this item appeared in December 1999) | Payload (I reviewed Bruce Tulgan's "Managing Generation X" (Hermenaut.com, 3/28/01) | Our Hives, Ourselves (I wrote about the metaphorization of bee colonies for The Boston Globe, 6/19/05) | Back to Utopia (Boston Globe, 11/20/05) | The Slacktivism of Richard Linklater (Slate, 6/27/07) | Slacker Comedy (Brainiac, 2/21/07) | Slacker vs. Idler (Brainiac, 2/24/07) | Idler Flicks 1 (Brainiac, 2/28/07) | Idler Flicks 2 (Brainiac, 3/1/07) | Idler Lit (Brainiac, 3/2/07) | Salon's Ask the Pilot calls me a slacker Svengali (Salon, 9/28/07) | The Original Generation X: Slackers vs. Idlers (Brainiac, 1/10/08) | Generation PC: Idlers vs. Slackers (Brainiac, 1/22/08) | Drink for Idlers (Brainiac, 6/5/08) | Wordle version of The Idler's Glossary | The Idler's Glossary -- sneak peek at cover by Seth (8/19/08)