Word: boom
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Vile Body has no dues and no agenda, and it does more than just promote chat and nurture. Views and attitudes of 15 of its adherents are on display in a new anthology of essays called Beyond the Boom (Poseidon Press; $18.95), edited by Teachout and with a sprightly introduction by Tom Wolfe. The book is not so much a group manifesto as what Teachout calls a "core sample" of opinions by these right-of-center urban yuppies. Beyond the Boom's contributors can boast of having 14 books produced or in the works...
...essays in Beyond the Boom vary considerably in quality. By far the liveliest is David Brooks' "Portrait of a Washington Policy Wonk," a dead- on, deadpan satire about how legislative aides and assistants to Cabinet secretaries can rise above their lowly station. Johnston, in "Break Glass in Case of Emergency," effectively skewers yuppiedom's jejune New Age spirituality. And Teachout, in "A Farewell to Politics," argues plausibly that the great ideological battles of the '90s will be fought over culture, a word he defines broadly enough to include abortion; family policy; and "sensitivity fascism" in American academia (which he describes...
...that lofty jape suggests, Beyond the Boom's writers are not above a few slap shots and kidney punches. The anthology's contributors, for the most part, are stronger on aphorism and assertion than on analysis. They also indulge in an awful lot of navel gazing, often in a tone of self-satisfied righteousness; witness Dana Mack's account of being brave and lonely as a student at San Francisco's Lowell High School. The book's two essays on film, by Bruce Bawer and John Podhoretz, seem tendentious and repetitive...
...chill in consumer spending this Christmas would come at the worst possible time for a retailing industry that is desperately overbuilt and heavily indebted. While the U.S. population grew only 10% during the 1980s, a building boom expanded retail square footage 75%. As a result, nearly half of all retail space is superfluous, according to Management Horizons, the market- research division of Price Waterhouse. Making matters worse, a frenzy of mergers and acquisitions during the past few years has saddled the 30 largest retail companies with a staggering debt burden of $60 billion. Struggling to meet interest and debt payments...
...auction boom of the '80s, especially for contemporary works, goes pffft...