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Boomer self-love, Nobel nomination, etc.

May 5, 2008, Vol. 13, No. 32
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Still Crazy, After All These Years

Every now and then THE SCRAPBOOK is seized with the thought that the last, best hope of mankind--or at any rate, for our peace of mind--will be the death of the last surviving member of the Baby Boom generation. Of course, life expectancy being what it is these days, we acknowledge that moment is years and years away; but the prospect, no matter how distant, gives us hope.

Case in point: Last week's op-ed essay in the New York Times by 61-year-old novelist Paul Auster commemorating the 40th anniversary of the student strike/sit-in/vandalism/riot at Columbia University. Oh, in the intervening years, you had forgotten about the Columbia strike, which began as a protest over the construction of a gymnasium in Manhattan's Morningside Park? You hadn't realized that the anniversary was now upon us, much less worth four fat newspaper columns of reminiscence and analysis?

Clearly you are either not a Boomer or, in April 1968, were working at a job/studying for exams/raising a family--perhaps even serving your country in South Vietnam.

Anyway, Paul Auster--who "was not a violent person" at the time--was, instead, "a quiet, bookish young man, struggling to teach myself how to become a writer, immersed in my courses in literature and philosophy at Columbia." But when Columbia announced plans to build its new gym with a separate entrance for the general public--"the .  .  . plan was deemed to be both unjust and racist"--the quiet, bookish, nonviolent Paul Auster was suddenly transformed into somebody "crazy, crazy with the poison of Vietnam in my lungs."

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