The Zeitgeist is a most dismal animal

A sudden outburst has rained stories about loss of culture all over the place, with the National Post getting in a fine article today. I think tonight I will try a little of the old ultra-violence analysis and synthesis on some of the more interesting ones. In the meantime, two good quotations found by the writer:

Not long before she died, Pauline Kael remarked to a friend, "When we championed trash culture we had no idea it would become the only culture."

Rather than rub in her honest admission, here is my own: mid-century American high culture gives me the sense of suffocating in a heavy comforter, so that the low culture of the time still feels like fresh air in comparison. Only Thurber redeems the mid-century literary culture, though Bunny Wilson does his best to entertain onomastically.

In 1933, Aldous Huxley wrote, "The Zeitgeist is a most dismal animal, and I wish to heaven one could escape from its clutches."

Of course it is possible to escape its clutches--it does not even require a shack in Montana--but escaping will deny you a trendy drugged-up life in Hollywood.