On the bus home yesterday, I sat down with a good book (actually, a book that is by a former Salon columnist, but I'm not brown-nosing, just telling the truth for once), and next to an attractive woman. Behind us, and I'm not sure how far behind us, but perhaps two rows, there was a young woman on the phone. And the young woman proceeded to tell someone on her phone, and by extension everyone on the bus, all about this wonderful job opportunity she had, where these people would have her temping somewhere for about 50 days and then she'd have two weeks paid vacation, and they'd pay for her transportation, and an apartment (a "corporate apartment", which she made sound so enticing) and a rental car, and wasn't this the perfect thing for her to be doing right now?

And I have to admit, I was sorry to get off the bus, even though it was my spot, because I thought it was a pretty interesting opportunity myself. And I wanted to hear more, but to hear more I'd have had to stay on the bus. Or perhaps get the cellphone number of the attractive woman next to me, and have her give me updates. But I couldn't get the number because she was so engrossed in the other woman's conversation I couldn't get her attention. Plus, how could she listen properly if she'd have to give me the equivalent of simultaneous translation. And of course bus etiquette now is that you have to talk at the top of your lungs, so the rest of the bus could hear, but then the rest of the bus would have told her to pipe down, they were listening to the woman with the great job opportunity. And anyway, the job would have been taken, if not by the woman on the phone, then by any of the twenty or so others listening raptly to her conversation.

Welcome to the 21st century, everyone. In the 20th century, everybody knew your name. In the 21st, everybody knows your business. So I guess it's all right if the government does, too.

Since the new Salon policy is about quantity over quality (and in spite of the first commenter's well-written piece) I just want to say that I enjoy Garrison Keillor's column. Every time I log on, I'm hopeful to see that beige line-drawing that means an oasis from the comparatively bland, brutal modern writing in the rest of the site.

I look forward to Wednesdays at Salon. (The same with Sundays when there's a new HBO series on.) I've got my Tivo all set, and of course, how could you watch Rome or the Sopranos without a home theatre setup? I've got a newer cell phone too. This one works better and has a lot of neat features.

But I remember a time when you'd walk around with nothing but thoughts in your head. And in NY, the option to phone home from a working pay phone was pretty much non-existent. Back then, we had President Nixon and I always had lots of company on the crowded sidewalks of New York. Unfortunately for me, the faces never changed on some of that company, and they worked for President Nixon. The FBI agents weren't tailing me; they were tailing my friend. But as long as I hung out with my friend they probably figured they might as well take a few more notes. It made life interesting. Mornings were always interesting. A bunch of us lived on the Lower East Side in a Spanish neighborhood and when I'd look out on the street below sipping my coffee, a guy in a suit in the 5th floor apartment across the street was always there to greet me with a camera on a tripod.

It didn't really come back to haunt me until a few years later when, desperate for work, I applied at the printing department of Honeywell. They sent me a letter saying something about "unfortunate....FBI files...." So how dangerous was my friend that it required an FBI contingent to keep track of him? Was he a terrorist? Uh, not exactly. Like me, he was in the antiwar movement, and like me, he never did anything illegal except maybe to speak his mind about government wrongs. Oh, he raised a little money for peace groups. Neither of us was ever charged with anything.

So yeah, I'm with Garrison. I'm a little sensitive about Big Brother. But hey, I was in a focus group on the next generation of cell phones and you won't believe all the new features! Might as well have fun while it lasts! (but I do look forward to Wednesdays at Salon).

I always enjoy reading/listening to Garrison Keillor.

His article today reminds me of a conversation I had, a mini-argument, really, with a professor of mine. The scene: I am the graduate teaching assistant for a Film Appreciation class taught by Arnost Lustig, Czech writer, ex-dissident and Holocaust Survivor (he was in Auschwitz). I had assigned the movie Blade Runner, and wanted to talk about simulacra and religious imagery. I lead what I thought was a good discussion and then Arnost, who sounds to some like Count Dracula with his low, slightly rough voice and Eastern European accent, says “The scenes with all the peoples look like a horrific nightmare, and I’m only glad that you will have to face that future while I can live in my past.”

I thought he was joking, so I say “An over-crowded noodle carts is worse than being thrown in a Czechoslovakian jail?” And he says “I made friends of life in that jail.” (Then he told this joke: two men meet in jail. One man says, what are you in for? He says, I stole a loaf of bread. The first man asks, How long did you get? The second answers, 5 years. Then the second asks, What are you in for? The first answers I did nothing! And they gave me 10 years! The second says, You are lying. For doing nothing, they give you life!)

The class laughed, but I was not satisfied. I thought he was being glib, so I pulled out what I thought was the trump card. “Arnost, are you really telling me that living in a time of rain and robots is really worse than Auschwitz? I mean, it’s Auschwitz!” This is what Arnost said, and I’m not kidding: “There were some very beautiful women in Auschwitz.”

And that was it. Arnost would tell me later that he was 16 when he was there, and that at 16, no matter where you are, you find beautiful women. (Or maybe you simply find women beautiful.) But I was stunned.

Maybe, getting back to Keillor, that’s just way people are when they get old. They tell themselves that, compared to today, their danger wasn’t really dangerous, their drugs weren’t quite so intoxicating, that their technologies weren’t as immersive, that their sex wasn’t prurient, that their politics weren’t as dirty, their music wasn’t as base or insipid, their parents not as oppressive as they themselves have become.

But the truth, I imagine, is somewhat different. The young never change, and neither do the old, and each prefers to live in their own time. Each spits out what they think is a curse, but what the listener takes as a blessing: may you live in your own time.

There is a poem by Khalil Gibran, written to parents about their children. “Your children dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.” And this is true. But the reverse is also true: that children cannot visit the house of their parents. The best we can hope for is to be good neighbors.

Garrison? I’ve got a basket of muffins with your name on it.