Vineland

[Murthy Yenamandra]

In a previous message Kevin Crosby writes:
> I read Vineland rather quickly soon after it came out, and I haven't
> gone back over it lately, but one thing the book does
> exceptionally well is portray Reagan-era America, esp.
> California, in all its weirdness.  There certainly were lots of goofy
> (to use a technical term) things being said & done by public
> figures as if they made sense.

>From the latest Harper's (June '96) comes this excerpt:

-----
[Movie Reviews]
>From _Baked Potatoes: A Pot Smoker's Guide to Film & Video_, by John Hulme
and Michael Wexler, published by Doubleday.

[...]
Ronald Reagan's 1984 State of the Union Address, 1984.

  Watching this is like watching a videotape of yourself when you were
five. You keep laughing at it nervously, not believing it actually
happened. Then all these strange old people start smiling and waving
at the camera.

  If you're wondering whether it's you who's high or the president, take
heart - it's probably you.
-----

I don't know about the "take heart" part.

Murthy

-- 
Murthy Yenamandra, Dept of CompSci, U of Minnesota. Email: yenamand at cs.umn.edu
   "I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the
    swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the
    wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour  
    to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all ..."