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Boomer Bible quarter century
Instapunk announces that the Boomer Bible has celebrated its quarter century mark.
I'd like to describe the book -- a huge one, BTW -- and have quite given up. The boomer part is of course the self-absorbed baby boomers. It's written in the style of the bible, complete to concordances in the margin. Its equivalent of the old testament consists of histories of prior civilizations, up to our own, written in verse and hiliarious. The book of the Greeks, the Book of the Romans (Otherwise Known As the Second Book of the Greeks), etc. right up to the Book of the Yanks. Then come the Boomers, led by Harry, and try to take over and turn everything into a whining, self-centered, cocaine-driven pseudo religion (in which coke is the sacrament of consolation). At length a band of Phillie punks strikes back to restore civilization (after settling each issue, including what type of literature they will create, in the only way they know -- by fighting).
Beyond that' it's impossible to describe. It's Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West, set to verse, with humor and hope and action. I think Neitzsche, who did have a sense of humor, would have been rolling on the ground, while Spengler himself was sitting there trying to figure out what was going on. The first time I skimmed it I thought it nonsense. But the person who had recommended it was highly intelligent, so I read it again and found it absolutely great. I've kept a copy for twenty years now, and re-read it from time to time.
One entry toward the end may give you a flavor. One of Harry's disciples -- excuse me, vice presidents -- confronts the punks and tells them everything they believe is nonsense, the self is everything, and nothing, not country or family or cause, is worth dying for because death ends all.
They respond they have heard him out. But their view is that a man who believes nothing is worth dying for has not earned the right to live. Therefore they will kill him now for the insults he has offered, unless he can prove that what he lives for is worth dying for. He has one minute.
They add -- only in some wierd French novel would a man who says nothing is worth dying for be asked to prove that belief is worthy dying for. We hope that gives you some consultation because, by our watches, your minute is up.
He tries to make the argument. He fails. They carry through.
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