Julia Keller: Nineteen-sixty-eight is all around us
[Julia Keller, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, is cultural critic at the Chicago Tribune.]
Four decades back? Can't be. The year 1968—historically profound, politically momentous, artistically revolutionary—is still going on, still surrounding us, still repeating its crucial notes, like a record on the turntable with a skip in it.
In the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama, on track to be the Democratic presidential nominee for 2008, many people hear distinct echoes of the vigorous idealism of those Kennedy brothers, John and Robert, icons of the 1960s. In the seemingly intractable Iraq war, many people perceive analogues to the quagmire of the Vietnam War, against which public opinion began to turn in 1968, starting with the Tet offensive.
But it's not just politics. In theaters right now, you can catch "Get Smart"—based on the TV show of the same name that won the 1968 Emmy for best comedy. Radio station playlists are chockablock with songs from 1968, such as "Hey Jude" and "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay." And the big movies from that year—"2001: A Space Odyssey," "Planet of the Apes" and "Rosemary's Baby"—are as likely to show up on cable as a film released last spring...
Read entire article at Chicago Tribune
Four decades back? Can't be. The year 1968—historically profound, politically momentous, artistically revolutionary—is still going on, still surrounding us, still repeating its crucial notes, like a record on the turntable with a skip in it.
In the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama, on track to be the Democratic presidential nominee for 2008, many people hear distinct echoes of the vigorous idealism of those Kennedy brothers, John and Robert, icons of the 1960s. In the seemingly intractable Iraq war, many people perceive analogues to the quagmire of the Vietnam War, against which public opinion began to turn in 1968, starting with the Tet offensive.
But it's not just politics. In theaters right now, you can catch "Get Smart"—based on the TV show of the same name that won the 1968 Emmy for best comedy. Radio station playlists are chockablock with songs from 1968, such as "Hey Jude" and "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay." And the big movies from that year—"2001: A Space Odyssey," "Planet of the Apes" and "Rosemary's Baby"—are as likely to show up on cable as a film released last spring...