Frank Sinatra, a famous crooner of the Pleistocene Era
It was only the other day that I was rejoicing at every reference to Barack Obama as our “youthful” president-elect — after all, he’s four months older than I am, so the younger he gets, the younger I get. But today’s Washington Post Sunday Book World put me firmly back in my walker. To wit:
From a review of 2666 (which I’m dying to read):
The Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño died in 2003 at the relatively young age of 50, but since then a steady stream of English translations has introduced American readers to the Gabriel García Márquez of our time: politically engaged, formally daring and wildly imaginative.
Pardon me, but 50 is a tragically young age at which to die! Also, as my elderly (48) husband asked, “Isn’t Gabriel García Márquez the Gabriel García Márquez of our time?” Guess it depends on whose time you think is our time.
And this, from the usually considerate Jonathan Yardley:
Sinatra came to the movies, of course, because by 1941 he was the idol of countless teen-aged girls — known in those distant days as “bobby-soxers,” for the short socks that were part of their obligatory uniform — as a result of his singing, first with Harry James’s big band, then with Tommy Dorsey’s, then on his own.
Yes, 1941 was quite some time ago — before even my time — but has “bobby soxer” passed so far out of the lexicon that we have to define it for book review readers? Aiee.
Filed under: authors, books, fun, reading Tagged: | geriatric vocabulary
