Books 2014 - The Jazz Age: the 20s
Saturday, 10 May 2014 12:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
byslantedlightI've had a lovely morning doing nothing other than reading, all through the rain on the window, the rushing past of dramatic clouds, and into what is now the sunshine. Although actually I've also been working, because that's what made me pick up this book, and since this is an unpaid part of my job, at least it's an enjoyable part!
And of course the 1920s are one of those interesting ages (well, I think so anyway), particularly in the US where everything seemed for so many to be going so well, except that on any slightly deeper level it really wasn't... So I read about youth rebellion, the boom in radio sales and tabloid newspapers and booze - and the prohibition that fuelled the latter boom - and about Harlem and Scopes and the Piggly Wiggly (which I'd only ever heard of in the film Sweet Home Alabama, but which turns out to have been the first ever supermarket-style shop (or grocetaria, as they were first called) and pole sitting and bootleggers and the talkies, and many other things and people...
I think we're still in that age, really - has anything happened since, that's surpassed the power of flight, the cinema, sports and other celebrities, advertising, the newspapers, supermarkets, and our Anglo-American (American-Anglo?) quest for more entertainment, at almost any cost? Okay, we now have television and the internet and mobile phones and e-readers - but they're really just more of the same, allowing more of the same, more conveniently. Hmmn... maybe fast foreign travel's been added - that's changed our lifestyles. It started out as entertainment, but perhaps it's widened our eyes to humanity - whether or not we individually choose to do anything further with it. But even that really started in the 1920s... What else...?
And of course the 1920s are one of those interesting ages (well, I think so anyway), particularly in the US where everything seemed for so many to be going so well, except that on any slightly deeper level it really wasn't... So I read about youth rebellion, the boom in radio sales and tabloid newspapers and booze - and the prohibition that fuelled the latter boom - and about Harlem and Scopes and the Piggly Wiggly (which I'd only ever heard of in the film Sweet Home Alabama, but which turns out to have been the first ever supermarket-style shop (or grocetaria, as they were first called) and pole sitting and bootleggers and the talkies, and many other things and people...
I think we're still in that age, really - has anything happened since, that's surpassed the power of flight, the cinema, sports and other celebrities, advertising, the newspapers, supermarkets, and our Anglo-American (American-Anglo?) quest for more entertainment, at almost any cost? Okay, we now have television and the internet and mobile phones and e-readers - but they're really just more of the same, allowing more of the same, more conveniently. Hmmn... maybe fast foreign travel's been added - that's changed our lifestyles. It started out as entertainment, but perhaps it's widened our eyes to humanity - whether or not we individually choose to do anything further with it. But even that really started in the 1920s... What else...?
