TIME NAMES
Every generation, it seems, is faced with a problem of naming itself and, so often, the name that is chosen , or comes to be used, is not one which sets the era apart as being noble and worthy of respect. At times, it seems the names are too critical of events of the era.
What about the time known, generally spoken of as “The Gay Nineties?” It would seem they rather drab times for many, and gaiety was evident in only in the frivolous margins of social life where money smoothed away troubles for a time. In a decorative sense, the time was given to oversize, overstuffed household clutter and life itself was what we would call stuffy and staid. Dictatorial styles play a strong role in just about anything anyone undertook to do and Freedom of expression was derided. The Gay Nineties” were a time when the rich played and the poor worked hard to see that their betters lived comfortably and in keeping with others of their kind. I often get the feeling that some of the less admirable characters devised by novelist Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackery were but caricatures or genuine characters who peopled the world during the l850' plus. Other than excessive accounts of the playfulness of the idle rich of the time, we seem to find little genuine gaiety among the general populace of the nineties end of the century. Yes, there was some grand music in the era for the late of the day, but the popular songs were deary with guitar, mandolin and violin discretely appended to coalface with moralistic lyrics.
What about the “Flapper Era?” I knew some young ladies who might have qualified for such a strange title, but they were not a generally known group. The idea of having fun and enjoying life to the fullest, which the name of “gay” nineties suggested, seems to have welled over into the first two decades of the new century. “We”...and I can say I had a part in it even though I was just an impressionable youngster at the time. I joined them in playing the ukulele. I can remember quite vividly the kielodoscopic swirl of short skirts, silk stocking, myriads of bright color and loud, tensely clipped music miss-named , I say, as “jazz”. The music was alert and alive; the mood for men and women was more of “trial and error” than and it culminated in a thing and time called “Prohibition” and subsequent days of the “Bootlegger” and “Speakeasy “ eras. Much or the world, I would say, most of the world, went along ignorant of this theme of such non-conformity. Some work at being different; others did not, and we survived it all in time. Once again, notice, our music changed for the better with the transitions we attempted.
There was “The Great Depression” but we do not look at that world-wide abberation in the same way we respect “eras”, “ages”, or “times.” The, following the years of want and need, can the Era of Recovery. This phase has been pillioned by having far too many cots of political and social veneer
applied; to it until none can say for sure that it was properly or ill-conceived. It did seems to be an improvement and we went for it in at big way.
We left the times of the business “tycoons”, “robber barons”and other such political and social scoundrels behind us and proceeding to happy times for -no, not “all” - but for many who found a better world.
We went through the celebrated Nast cartoon cleansing phase, and we have seen nations rise and fall attempting aggression one upon the other. Modern history is much too complex to assign names to parts of it and we admit to be living in a time of curious Terror which threatens it all. Little chunks of history become apparent to us ...often “colorized” without any claim to originality. We've got a real one this time - a corker ...a lulu ...a wild one ...a confused, mutilated and miss-managed one -
What will we, eventually, call the era in which we are living today?
A.L.M. August 12, 2004 [c706wds]
