(Um, apparently I took the month of November off?)

• Jack Shafer looks at how Boomers dominate the media, and when this might shift: “By sheer force of numbers, boomers quickly toppled the martini-drinking, WW II generation and substituted their cultural references. In recent years they’ve repelled the next generations—let’s call them the post-boomers for lack of a satisfying rubric that encompasses Gens X, Y, and Z—from taking cultural control.”

• Surely the twenty-somethings behind the new Millenials Magazine will weigh in on this eventually.

• In The Washington Post, Kwame Anthony Appiah predicts what future generations will condemn about our time, and finds three handy signs that suggest a practice is destined for the dustbin of history: “people have already heard the arguments against the practice,” “defenders of the custom tend not to offer moral counterarguments but instead invoke tradition, human nature or necessity,” and “supporters engage in what one might call strategic ignorance, avoiding truths that might force them to face the evils in which they’re complicit.”

• “[W]hy the sudden success of political nostalgia?” asks Matt Bai. Well…

“The most obvious explanation has to do with the economic morass. When a moment is as bad as this one, there is probably a tendency among voters to conflate past moments in the life of the country, on one hand, and the politicians who personified them, on the other. If by comparison the 1980s seemed so much easier and more promising to Iowa voters, then why not just go hire the guy who ran the state then? Surely he’ll know what to do.”

“…We tend to think of generational changes as happening all at once, like a door suddenly blowing open. In reality, though, there are probably hesitations at the threshold, brief moments when much of the country, having glimpsed the future, seems inclined to stay exactly where it has been. And perhaps this is that kind of moment, which is why voters and parties in some cases gravitate toward the last era’s politicians, candidates who seem comfortingly knowable and familiar.”

• The heyday of shmancy travel writing is pretty much over, and Ann Patchett loves to think that it might be her fault.

• Jack Shafer has no sympathy for Ted Koppel. “I know of no more sorry a spectacle than the wizened newsman weeping with nostalgia for the golden age of journalism—which just happens to coincide with his own glory days,” he writes.

• Back in October, the Internet freaked out when the news went around that Sony was ceasing production of the Walkman. It later turned out that they were just discontinuing sales of it Japan, but once the gates of reminiscing are opened, they cannot be closed! The LA Times noted that “the Sony site promoting the device, which sells for $29.99, says the player can be used to ‘enjoy your old cassette collection.’” Awww. (According to the company, there’s still “a consistent but small demand” for the device.)

After a dismissive opening–”Talk about ending with a whimper: Who knew that portable cassette players were still being made at all?“–Slate featured what turned out to be a nice obit that pointed out the ways personal listening devices really changed the way we listen to music, ushering in an age when people walk down the street, “enveloped in the self-selected private soundtrack of his or her life.”

• Elsewhere, camera phones are pissing off musicians and killing live rock shows. “Generation gaps are a given in music culture, but age seems to have little bearing on the urge to gather gigabytes of concert footage,” notes the Wall Street Journal.

• And digital movie projection means no more need for projectionists.

• Pontiac is dead, at age 84. “They had a lot of glory years, but from the ’70s on, Pontiac just couldn’t meet the bar,” said Pontiac fan Larry Kummer. “It was always living in the past.”

• Mark Craig saved all his answering machine messages for two decades and compiled them into a pretty amazing video.

• Lane Smith has a great new picture book that introduces the young’uns to the very concept of a B-O-O-K. But somehow, college kids remember what a book is, enough to still prefer them over digital versions in some cases. The Times learns that while they could get digital versions of textbooks, the kids still “cling” to the kind with pages that can give you paper cuts. Comments from students following the article were mixed, but my favorite is: “Yes i Would. I Love To Listen Rather Than Read. But Most Of The Time If Your Listening To Something You Dont Pay Attention In Class…So Idk It Would Be Good In Some Ways But In Others In Not Sure.”

• In this week where everyone on Facebook is creating “beautiful collages” of their statuses from the past year (not to mention looking back on where they were when John Lennon was killed) I learned that Ninuku Archivist can download all your Facebook updates and put them in a book for you to look through later. These things are both ridiculous, but they do point to a real desire to preserve these ephemeral things we do and say online.

• Writing about Amanda Hesser’s Essential New York Times Cookbook, Jennie Yabroff notes, “Food writing is almost always infused with nostalgia. But when it comes to food trends, we have a recurring case of cultural amnesia.” The book “proves that when it comes to what we eat, there’s no such thing as invention, merely reinterpretation” and that “not only have our tastes changed less than we think they have, but food has always been a key indicator of who we think we are—and who we aspire to be.” And of course, “what’s sexy today may be cringeworthy tomorrow.”

• Men in New York love old school barbershops, and “there’s been a surge of interest in vintage shaving, grooming and barbershop paraphernalia” on eBay. According to one customer, though, it doesn’t  make much sense: “They cut great hair at Freemans…But what’s so funny about this illusion of old Main-Street America, where you pop in and get a haircut, is how it just doesn’t jibe with reality. The last time I tried to get one there I was told there was a three-hour-and-20 minute wait. And not only do I think there has not ever been a barbershop on any Main Street that had a three-hour-and-20 minute wait, I don’t know a single New Yorker who can afford to wait that long for a haircut.”

• On the Lower East Side, Max Fish and the Pink Pony are closing. In some ways it’s amazing that they managed to hang on this long.

• “Adult Chocolate Milk”: It exists. Not the most terrible idea, but the story of the company kind of makes my head hurt:

“Just like mom, the original formulas for these drinks were discovered in the home kitchen of Tracy – one of the company’s founders. After updating her Facebook status to “Tracy is enjoying some Adult Chocolate Milk,” friends began inquiring about the recipe and where they could get it.

Among the many thirsty inquirers was NIkki, who reunited with Tracy on Facebook after 18 years. When Nikki tasted Tracy’s recipe, she turned to her and said, “You need to bottle this stuff!” With Nikki’s experience in management and manufacturing and Tracy’s connections, that’s exactly what they did.”