2004. A buzzword lexicon. To ring in the new year this year, I journeyed forth to bonny Salem, Massachusetts, home of witches and shoe-manufacturing in search of a way to divine what is to come in the coming year. Stumbling into "What a Witch!" a small store not far from the Peabody Essex Museum, I gathered the things I needed: a scrying mirror, bloodwort and Roget's Compendium of Political Campaign Follies. Unfortunately, my traveling companion foolishly started playing with the Ye Olde toy flutes while I wasn't looking. The store owner, all 300 Goddess-infused pounds of her, promptly placed a curse on us both. For him, he is accursed to wander the world being mistaken for a relative of Freddie Muniz, for me, like poor Cassandra, I can see the future, but am only able to tell it to you in the form of a short compendium of popular buzzwords, presented here. Antitheory- As I've written about before, the great age of Theory is dying and not a moment too soon. From Theory scion Terry Eagleton's book Beyond Theory to the existence (and popularity) of the Which Post Modern Theorist Are You? Test on Quizilla, even the staunchest proponent of Theory will admit that its time has ended. Theory has left a generation of thinkers unable to speak about the important topics of love, war, peace, virtue and self that are both universal and eternal conditions as well as immediate elements of our political and social landscape. Instead, we've had twenty years of parsing the gender narratives found in McDonalds commercials. 2004 promises to be the year thinking comes back into vogue and posing goes into the rubbish bin it belongs. Neoromantic Postfuturism- I know, I know, big words get me nowhere, but I'm cursed, okay? With the exception of May's The Day After tomorrow, the world is getting over it's millenial apocalypse obsession. Not to be glib, but it takes a good brush with tragedy to remind civilization every once and a while that it's worth saving. While war seems to loom in every valley on this planet and freedom's bell sounds like a tin toy clanking, it seems from my vantage point that humanity is ready to live again. The joyous calls of The Polyphonic Spree for sun is like the sound of saplings blowing in the spring breeze. Unironic spring saplings, you see. A new Romanticism is blooming; it does not look backwards to some glorious lost past like it did in the 19th Century, but to a future that lies beyond postmodern techne. If the mind was the organ of the 1900's and the eye the witness of the 20th Century, it is the hands and heart that must work together to shape the 21st. 1969- Anti-war. Hippies. Politics. The Republican National Convention in NYC. The Do or Die Moment for the Democrats. Will this be the year that the waters spill over and the rising tide of cultural change finally arrives like an army of horsemen to Minis Tirith? Americana- Yeah, it's an election year, but 2004 looks to be a seminal year for the New America that is forming before our eyes. Is America a corporate empire that only serves its Lord and Master, The Marketplace or is it the efforts and struggles of its people? Expect Dolly Parton, apple-pie slingin', the quadrennial recognition that "Oh-Yeah, There's more to America than New York and L.A." and if we're very very lucky, come November, the Supreme Court might allow us to elect our own president. Hipsploitation- After years of Billyburghers whining about how they're not really hipsters, since hey- they only bought half their wardrobe at Beacon's Closet, the poor unwashed mass of faux-hawked Keds wearer's will finally pull off their self-imposed shackles of shame and come out as loud proud Hipsters of the Millennium! Hipsters will "take it to the streets", proudly admitting that their culture is totally appropriated from racial and social classes who, if given the chance, would gladly murder them in their sleep. Their sullen, sallow faces will turn into beaming lighthouses of pride as they'll sing from the rooftops Jack White's new album, "Let's Have an Original Idea, People!" Huzzah!

posted by Japhy at 1/03/2004 10:55:00 PM || #