One of the many things I'm appreciating about Davis Square is our totally kick-ass subway buskers.

Now I know there's been some bitching and moaning online about buskers in that very T station, but when I have been there so far I have only heard good ones. Yesterday it was the lovely and talented Gonzalo Silva. There's a little something Jack Johnsony about him—very simple, sweet songs. And he's cute, too.

I don't know what more you could possibly ask for while waiting for your morning train.


I saw this awful person on the T yesterday afternoon. She must have been a student. They are the only ones besides crazy people who go out in their pajamas. And she was too embarrassingly trendily got up to be a crazy: wearing pink Uggs, flesh-colored velour sweats she'd tucked into the Uggs (of course), and a big, pink, puffy Northface jacket. Needless to say, she was plugged into her ipod. Which was hot pink.

I noticed her when I got on at Park Street on my way home, when she started jerking her head around like she was having some kind of petit mal seizure or something. Seriously, this was my first thought. But then I saw the ipod and realized she was just totally jamming out to her itunes.

I could not help but stare at the spectacle of her. She had appallingly poor posture, and almost looked like she had a hunchback in her puffy pink coat. She held her head back on her hump, and jerked her neck spasmodically. Like a mild case of St. Vitus's Dance.

But what was really indescribably horrible about it wasn't the spectacle of her herky-jerky movements (which were only mildly alarming), it was the sense I got, as she gave another rider who had to push past her to get off a downright dirty look, that she was laboring under the crushing illusion that she was the coolest person on the train. (We know who really was, don't we?)

I mean, in order to leave the house like that and then to make an outright spectacle of yourself in public you'd have to be utterly unaware of what a complete and total ass-hat you're acting, because if you had even an inkling you'd be mortified, wouldn't you?

And don't give me any of this, awe shucks, let the kid enjoy herself claptrap, either. A component of her enjoyment, such as it was, was the contempt her unsightliness inspired in all those who were forced into contact with it.


I was somehow reminded of her when I read in this morning's piece in The Globe about Generation Hexed or whatever we're calling the next generation of narcissistic little monsters nowadays.

Apparently some study has confirmed that kids these days are more narcissistic than ever. I have to admit that as much as I would like to believe the absolute worst of anyone younger than me I think this might be another case of Bobo's Revenge. I mean, the Boomer's were the original narcissistas. They were the one's Christopher Lasch nailed in his famous indictment of The Me Generation: The Culture of Narcissism.

The latest installment is by Jean Twenge, a professor at San Diego State University, who's written a book bloviatingly titled Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before, Ha Ha Ha.

Twenge warns that this new generation "tend[s] to lack empathy, react aggressively to criticism, and favor self-promotion over helping others." Sounds about like the last three generations, at least, to me.

As the AP piece reports, representatives of the generation in question are, predictably, reacting aggressively to Twenge's criticism:

[The Unfortunately-named] Hanady Kader, a University of Washington senior, said she worked unpaid last summer helping to resettle refugees, and considers many of her peers to be civic-minded. But she is dismayed by the competitiveness of some students who seem prematurely focused on career status.

"We're encouraged a lot to be individuals and go out there and do what you want, and nobody should stand in your way," Kader said. "I can see goals and ambitions getting in the way of other things like relationships."

Kari Dalane, a University of Vermont sophomore, says most of her contemporaries are politically active and not overly self-centered.

"People want to look their best, have a good time, but it doesn't mean they're not concerned about the rest of the world," she said.

One insight of Lasch's book was that one can be "politically active" and self-centered at the same time (imagine that). Lasch was talking about Clinical Narcissism in his book, and how in examining the culture he could see widespread signs of this severe personality disorder all over the place. In this context empathy is primarily a psychological value, not a political one. He was saying, we can actually engage in social good without ever having to confront the intimate reality of The Other, which is true. The degree to which large-scale politics and intimate psychology are carelessly conflated today is part of the legacy of the original Me Generation. The idea at the time was to make the abstract more intimate, but the result has been the opposite.