The Old Ways

The Old Ways

This isn’t a very deep post today, just some fun observations.

I am a domesticated creature who typically doesn’t go out very much. Also, I am unemployed, so I don’t have anywhere to go anyway. When everyone else in the household is away at work or at school, I do have one activity for exercise – walking about town, weather permitting (I should go to the gym, but that’s another story).

I live in a shabby little town in Pennsylvania, where there are just enough side streets to create walking circuits through the small neighborhoods that bracket either side of the busy main drag (the traffic is almost all going through town).

The main drag of Morgantown, PA

Most of Pennsylvania is small, dilapidated towns – well, that and forested mountains. That’s because of the state’s irregular geography, and its historical development, which has encouraged small, localized municipalities to spring up everywhere. These patterns have also suppressed economic development, hence the dilapidation. It’s an aesthetic. This is a land that embraces its weathered past.

The myriad muncipalities are typically “townships,” though the town where our address is located is simply a “Census designated area” within a township. Don’t ask me why. I’ve blogged about life here before, which is kind of like being in a liminal space between the DEI city and the MAGA country.

The point I wanted to make with this post is that when I’ve been out walking, multiple times now cars have slowed down, and the drivers have lowered their window to ask me for directions! Like, don’t they have a smartphone for navigational purposes? Apparently, not everyone does.

Not to stereotype here, but invariably the driver will be an older white person – a Boomer, I’m sure. Ok, maybe they could be a Gen Xer since our generation is now entering its early 60s, but I’m pretty sure they are Boomers. They might be looking at a piece of paper, presumably with the directions they were trying to follow written on them, but as often happens with that old fashioned approach, they wrote something down that turned out to be illegible. I’m making up a story here.

Of course, I am happy to help these lost drivers, and I always can, since I have a smartphone. Which the drivers would know, since my phone is always out, because as I walk I play a casual game called Pikmin Bloom. Some of us here embrace the new ways of doing things. I just thought it was interesting that there are still people out there following the old ways.

Reflections at the End of the World

Reflections at the End of the World

Once more I am on the job hunt. So far, it doesn’t seem much different than in the past. There are positions out there for which I am qualified. I have registered successfully for unemployment compensation, as I have many times before in my life.

In my job searches, I am limiting myself to remote work. The convenience of it is too much to give up, if I don’t have to, and so far there have been multiple remote positions to apply for. But obviously, if the search drags on, I will have to cast my net wider and consider going back to commuting – perhaps only on certain days of the week, in the now common “hybrid” mode which combines working from home with working on site. The point is, I might not be so lucky as I was a couple years ago, when I easily transitioned from one remote job to another.

I worry, actually, that I might be really unlucky at this juncture. With insano-fascist-guy upending the American economy via his unhinged policies, the job market is in trouble. Companies facing the uncertainty of the times are freezing hiring. We might even be heading into a recessium. I’m almost 60 years old, not a good age to have my career suddenly stalled.

I recently wrote on my substack about the problem of “gerontocracy” – our political leadership skewing older than the population, and therefore being out of touch with the needs of the American people. I made the point that this is a bigger problem for Democrats than for Republicans, and helps explain the Republican rise to power. Currently my generation, the middle-aged generation, are the primary Trump supporters. Democrats are either the older generations on their way out, or younger Millennials.

A generational shift in power is surely going to be a fallout of this tumultuous social era. I can see – in the long term – MAGA burning out and the Millennials taking over with a more progressive agenda. At that point, Gen-X will be sidelined. With the demographic collapse making Social Security less sustainable, we will probably also be impoverished. There won’t be a lot of sympathy for us, especially if we’re seen as the ones repsonsible for the worst of what is to come.

Those are some depressing thoughts, I know. It’s just where my head is at right now. It would be just like my generation grow old just as the gerontocracy was being eliminated. Another boat missed.

I’m going to take advantage of the time I have been given to do more writing. Maybe some political activism.

And I would appreciate more subscribers to my Substack if you can: https://stevebarrera.substack.com/

Peace out.

Doubt: A Review

Doubt: A Review

Last weekend (August 15-17), I had the privilege of attending performances of Journey Theatric Sanctuary’s production of Doubt: A Parable. This was presented at the Rose Lehrman Arts Center on the HACC community college campus in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Doubt: A Parable is a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning play by John Patrick Shanley, about a nun who is Principal at a Catholic school and suspects a priest of taking liberties with a young boy. She attempts to get to the truth of the matter, enlisting the help of a younger nun, and of the boy’s mother – hindered as she is by the Church’s strict patriarchy, which makes reporting her concerns according to the rules a hopeless cause. It’s a challenging script with a difficult subject matter.

Director and Journey Theatric Sanctuary founder Troy Cooper assembled a stellar cast of four actors, each of whom was perfect for their role. Griffin Yeyna opened the show as the priest, Father Brendan Flynn, giving a sermon on the topic of faith and doubt. In a later monologue in the role of teacher, he came across as an easygoing authority figure. But in his scenes with the nuns, he sometimes squirmed under their questioning, and sometimes lashed out with indigant rage.

The main character in the show, the stern and determined Sister Aloysius, was played by veteran actor Aileen Lynch-McCulloch, who brought her experience to bear to bring out the layers in her character. Sister Aloysius was hard-headed and persistent in her pursuit of the truth, adamant in her beliefs on the proper relationship the clergy should have with their parishioners and students. She employed a kind of Socratic method in her probing questions as she recruited the younger nun to her cause, and as she interrogated the priest. She also had a worldly sense of humor that got laughs from the audience at times, breaking the tension in the very taut script.

Her counterpart, Sister James, was a less experienced nun, played by Jess Mooney in just her third role on stage. Mooney brought a sweetness and eager naivete to her character, which made her susceptible to Father Flynn’s charisma, and hesitant to see his potential dark side. Janae Yellock as Mrs. Muller, the young boy’s mother, had only one scene, but she brilliantly portrayed a 1960s era black mother, used to navigating a world of both male and white supremacy. Mrs. Muller’s strategy for guarding her son’s interests was an unsettling and eye-opening surprise for Sister Aloysius.

These four actors did excellent work expressing the subtleties of their characters’ different viewpoints. Each, in their own way, had blinders on that limited their perception of the whole truth of the matter at hand. Each, consequently, faced their own doubts. Caught up in the turmoil of these conflicting perspectives was the fate of one little boy.

The design of the quite beautiful set helped underscore this theme, being split into two sections with starkly different appearances and color palettes.

Journey Theatric Sanctuary’s production of Doubt: A Parable was tense and emotionally powerful, doing justice to the company’s stated mission of demonstrating the transformative power of theatre. I wish it had had a larger audience and/or a longer run, because there was so much talent brought to bear which deserved to be seen.

I note here that Griffin Yeyna and Aileen Lynch-McCulloch have appeared together before, in Reading Theater Project’s November 2023 production of Lauren Gunderson’s Silent Sky. They have great chemistry on stage, and I would love to see them opposite one another again. Also, in the interest of full disclosure I must mention that I have known Aileen for many, many years and she is my dearest friend.

Journey Theatric Sanctuary’s website is here: https://www.journeytheatricsanctuary.com/
I wish this new theatre company the best of luck growing its program and expanding its outreach.

Introducing “Darkest Hour”

Introducing “Darkest Hour”

I’ve had this blog for over eight years now. My posts cover a variety of topics (just look at the list of categories). Some of them are personal, about my own life story, while others focus on my interests and hobbies, which is nerdy stuff like board games, books, film and theater, science fiction. Plus – as you know if you have followed this blog for long – analyzing history and social change, particularly through the lens of theories of historical cycles like generations theory.

Those latter posts can get pretty involved. As it turns out, there is a platform out there where lots of folks are posting the same sort of deeper social analysis, and I’ve decided to shift my own content of that nature over to there. So I have started a Substack publication.

Behold!

Looks pretty cool, huh? A bit ominous, too, I admit.

If you are reading this blog post soon after it was published, you are probably one of my subscribers and got it in an email. If you are interested in my involved social commentary as much as lighter fare like my posts about what’s going on in my life or movie reviews or whatnot, please subscribe on Substack as well. I would appreciate the support. And don’t worry, the lighter fare will continue to go up on this blog.

You can click on the image above to get to my Substack, or go here: https://stevebarrera.substack.com/

That’s all, thanks!

Life in the Blue Zone

Life in the Blue Zone

We live in Berks county, Pennsylvania, just south of Reading, which I have described as living in the purple zone. We’re in a Democratic Congressional district, surrounded by Trump supporters. But right now I’m visiting my Mom in Northern Virginia, near Washington DC, and I gotta say, it is refreshingly blue zone here. By which I mean, clearly liberal Democrat in its political leanings. There are lots of lawns around here with signs like these:

Granted, having four signs in a row is a rarity, but lots of lawns have one or two like this

The neighborhood my Mom lives is a middle class idyll, lush with vegetation and flowers thriving in the summer season. The plant life here loves the heat and humidity, which I am not as used to since I moved up north about ten years ago. I can tell I’m south of the Mason-Dixon line.

The lovely Crepe Myrtle, beautifying Southern neightborhoods since 1790 (per Wikipedia)

The houses were built in the mid-twentieth century, and are a bit crowded together, with well-cared for and nicely decorated lawns. It’s much neater here than where I live; Pennsylvanians are fine with leaving piles of junk in their yards. That’s part of our “pursue your happiness” mentality (we started this whole experiment, you know).

There are birds and butterflies everywhere when I go on my walks, as well as the occasional adorable four-legged creature like a squirrel, rabbit, or chipmunk. It makes sense because the neighborhood is basically a forest filled with houses.

What’s great, and what really reminds me that I’m not in MAGA-land any more, is the ethnic and religious diverity here. I hear a variety of languages when I’m out and about. I see women wearing traditional head coverings. There are loads of Spanish-speaking people, and not just working as contractors on the houses, but living in them. And no signs of the frosty brigades.

It feels like I’ve gone back in time to the Obama administration!

Of course, we could never afford to move here. The low-end prices on the houses is $700K. So we’ll just have to stay on our dirt farm in Pennsylvania, and get along with our Trumpy neighbors. But it’s nice to visit the blue zone from time to time.

A well manicured lawn in the blue zone, with the latest sign of the times
Yes, the Boomers Did That

Yes, the Boomers Did That

I was struck by this post on Thomas P. M. Barnett’s Global Throughlines substack, because of how well if dovetails with generations theory: [POST] Conjoined at birth, separated by death?

Here’s an excerpt so you can see what I mean:

In my reading, the Greatest Generation’s influence peaked around 1965 and began its slow surrender to the whims and desires of the Boomers from that point on. So, yeah, while we can say that the Boomers came of age during a period of immense social change, driving movements such as civil rights, anti-war protests, and shifts in cultural norms (e.g., feminism, environmentalism), they didn’t really dominate the workforce and political elite until the early 1980s (the shift from Hippies to so-called Yuppies).

Again, the Boomers were blessed from the start, growing up in a time of American confidence and expansion. Like most would-be “revolutionary” generations, after the raucous efforts of their youth, the real talent went into business and technology and the leftovers went into politics. As such, the Boomers remade our world with the information revolution but passed very little meaningful legislation, instead succumbing to a bizarrely counter-productive ideological polarization as they aged.

The Boomers accumulated vast wealth, but also presided over growing income inequality. Their consolidation of political power and economic resources created serious barriers for younger generations, and has contributed to a serious decline in our nation’s institutions — almost all of which now are held in low esteem as the Boomers begin to depart.

The Boomers’ long reign likewise distorted America’s perceptions and understanding of the Greatest Generation’s greatest legacy — namely, the international liberal trade order we now call globalization.

I see these parallels all the time with geostrategists like Barnett. They are pattern-seekers and they inevitably detect the same pattern of generational change found in Strauss-Howe generational theory. Barnett doesn’t see it in Strauss-Howe terms (that there are generational archetypes and cycles), but he does get that Boomers (Prophet archetype) grew up in post-war prosperity, and that they attacked the institutions established by the Greatest Generation (Hero archetype) in their youth (1960s), and dismantled them when they came into political power (now).

Different thinkers might come up with different explanations for these kinds of sociological patterns, but the fact that they all see similar ones tells me they are looking at something real.

Barnett laments what Boomers have done to the international liberal trade order, but it’s hardly surprising – they’ve been bitching about it for decades, at least in their right-wing camp. If you read Barnett’s substack posts, you will see that he see some good in this desrtruction, as it is pushes us along to needed reforms in the world order. And, of course, the destruction and recreation of the world order is exactly what Strauss and Howe predict as part of their “Fourth Turning.”

I will conclude this post by noting that I plan to start writing more on substack; I will probably post all my social commentary there, and only post more personal or ligher fare on this blog. Here is my substack link for some teaser posts I already have out there: https://stevebarrera.substack.com/

Come Share a Dream with Alice and the Arts Bubble

Come Share a Dream with Alice and the Arts Bubble

Last night I had the pleasure of watching the preview performance of The Arts Bubble’s Alice by Heart, which opens tonight (July 24) and runs through the weekend. From what I saw, it’s really quite an amazing production that you won’t want to miss. For one thing, it is presented in the round and environmentally (meaning the actors are all around the audience and even interact with them) which I now believe is how this show should always be done. It does a great job of making the story clear, which is hard to do because of all the clever wordplay in the dialogue, in the spirit of the source material. These young actors understand the script, and bring incredible physicality and energy to their performances. Plus, there is a live band!

Since I am good friends with the director, I was there from the ground up watching this production come together. I remember how exciting it was when The Arts Bubble got the rights to Alice by Heart, because it is the kind of show, in my opinion, that fits the project’s pattern of showcasing the more interesting, whimsical yet meaningful musicals that aren’t being done over and over elsewhere. This is, after all, the company that did The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals last year. There were some harrowing weeks when they temporarily lost the rights for admininstrative reasons, but luckily that all worked out. Some perspectives needed to be changed.

In her program note, director Aileen Lynch-McCulloch starts off with some physics, discussing quantum entanglement and relativity, and how reality isn’t fixed or solid. It varies based on frame of reference, like a surrealist painting. Our ability to shift our frame or perspective gives us power over our lives, a message at the heart of this show. Through our dreams and our imaginations, we are all creating this Universe together, and we can choose to create a world defined by love and understanding. This deep spiritual realization is something I’ve always admired in Aileen, and a reason why I am proud to be her friend and love to see her shows.

The opening performance tonight is sold out. There are three more performances: Friday, July 25 at 7 p.m.; Saturday, July 26 at 2 p.m. and Sunday, July 27 at 2 p.m. Reserve your tickets here: https://vagabondgal.wixsite.com/artsbubble/alice-by-heart

A scene from The Arts Bubble production of Alice by Heart
Life, What Is It but a Dream?

Life, What Is It but a Dream?

Having more fun with the goodreads book review “post to your blog” html code. This time I read a children’s literature classic.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In the summer of 2025, I was thrilled to discover a copy of a 2015 Princeton University Press 150th anniversary edition of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” featuring art by Salvador Dali, in a little free library in Arlington, Viriginia. This is a trade version of a limited edition that was first published in 1969, copies of which are rare and pricey. Dali’s thirteen illustrations are fascinating, dark and somewhat abstract, a bit hard at times to connect to the chapters in the book, though elements are there that tie into the story. Dual introductions to this edition, one by editor Mark Burstein and one by mathematician Thomas Banchoff, expose the connection between Dali and Lewis Carroll, who was a mathematician as well as a writer of children’s books. The introductions are far more about Dali than about Alice, touching on his mathematical obsessions, and his artistic technique that focuses on perspective and subjectivity. This edition puts Dali in the center, with Carroll’s story as a kind of filling. If there is a synergy, it is that Alice’s adventures are indeed a dream, where perspective shifts suddenly and unexpectedly, and meaning is always ambiguous, if it’s there at all. As for Lewis Carroll’s story, as I re-read it after I don’t know how many years since the first time, I found it amusing, but sometimes maddening in its refusal to make sense. Carroll’s wordplay and marvellous nonsense verse are certainly delightful. Alice, it struck me, was kind-hearted, and always doing her best to behave as she must have thought a young girl should, under the circumstances. She takes the bizarre events happening to her at face value, at most admitting they are “curious.” As almost all of the denizens of Wonderland are self-involved, incompetent, and utterly irrational, I couldn’t help wondering if this was how children see the adult world, with Alice’s incomprehension at the stupidity of adults being the subconscious source material for her dream reality. How relieved she must have been, upon being attacked by a deck of playing cards, to awaken in the familiar comfort of her sister’s lap, on a lazy summer day, though as the memory fades she only remembers her dream as something wonderful.



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Here is a picture of the copy of the book that I found, in the little free library. Pretty cool, huh?

I was so excited to find it, because Aileen is currently directing Alice by Heart for the Arts Bubble, so Alice’s adventures are prominent in our minds.

Like Dali’s unique illustrations, Alice by Heart interprets Lewis Carroll’s work in its own way. The Alice in the musical is an adolescent, not a child of tender years as in the book, and consequently has a different perspective and different priorities. Lyrics and book are by Steven Slater, who also wrote Spring Awakening, so you can imagine.

Both Dali and Slater manage to find darker, more mature themes than are in the original source material. The book(s), as written by Carroll, are whimsical children’s literature, and it takes an effort to find deeper meaning than that they are a vehicle for playful riddles and word games. But searching for meaning is what makes us human, and is, after all, why we dream.

1984 Wasn’t Like 1984 but What about 2024?

1984 Wasn’t Like 1984 but What about 2024?

This is my review of George Orwell’s 1984, which I published on goodreads, where I review every book I read. I just discovered that after posting a review, the site gives you some HTML code for sharing in a blog so I thought I’d try it out.

1984 by George Orwell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It is a common pattern in speculative fiction for an author to extrapolate the then current state of society indefinitely into the future. Thus the 1984 which Orwell envisions in 1949 is a world permanently locked into the patterns of the World War II era – goods are scarce and rationed, bombs fall on neighborhoods, and propaganda continuously rallies the populace against the enemy. As described in the forbidden book which Winston reads, “THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM,” war has become a perpetual state designed to consume the energy of society, thus preventing any disruptive threat to the hierarchical strucutre that allows a privileged few to live at the expense of the ignorant masses. A dystopian vision, no doubt, which history repudiated in the Consciousness Revolution of the 1960s, so that, as the advertisement went, 1984 wouldn’t be like 1984. Collectivism averted! But the warning remains relevant; the tools of control are still there. The truth is ever malleable, and the boot is ever ready to press down on the face; man can always be reduced to a cog in a machine. This book’s message is pertinent to events today in the 2020s, and will be so again and again, in future ages.

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Not a deep look at the book, I admit, but I didn’t want to give away too many spoilers! There’s a lot that could be said about why its message is pertinent to the 2020s, but I’ll leave most of that for future posts.

I’ll just add this observation: for all the lofty political philosophy expressed in 1984, ultimately the Party depends simply on physical force to maintain its control. It always comes down to the boot pressing on the face – the use of terror to subvert the will of the people. That’s all dystopia ever was and ever is.

ChatGPT Be Good to Me

ChatGPT Be Good to Me

Aileen was dealing for a while with an extremely annoying support issue. It involved access to an account that had been hacked, the details of which I will not go into. Suffice it to say, she was stonewalled by the company’s tech support.

She eventually turned to ChatGPT to try to find a solution, since her repeated efforts were being thwarted. This computer program turned out to be quite helpful. Much of its advice simply confirmed what she had already determined through other kinds of searches. Specifically, this advice was to collect evidence of original ownership of the account and of it being hacked, and persist with contacting the company daily and sharing this information through all possible avenues, even when there was no response or the response was obviously from an automated system.

It certainly all made sense. But what was particularly compelling about the computer program’s responses was how logical and well layed out they were, and that they had a reassuring tone, offering not just practical support, but also moral support. The AI-generated responses read like a pep talk, encouraging her to keep trying, acknowledging how difficult the situation was, and praising her for keeping up the good work. They sounded sympathetic, like ChatGPT was her trusted friend. She showed me one of the responses, and it oozed positivity and compassion. No wonder people are willing to pay for AI girlfriends or boyfriends!

Aileen told me that this was how she wished people would react when she went to them for help, instead of just throwing their hands up and declaring the situation hopeless, as was typical. I was a little nervous; I knew I hadn’t been much help. How could this AI be more supportive than me? I am a lowly human, it’s true, but I am also Aileen’s friend and partner!

Why do humans have so much trouble being supportive of one another? Well, the simple truth is that when you ask for help, you are asking for another person’s time and energy. And people are loath to give that up; humans are always seeking to hold on to and defend their autonomy. This leads to challenging conflicts, but there is reward in overcoming the challenge, and working with someone else for mutual benefit. In this way you build a relationship with another person, in a way you simply can’t with a chat program, however real its texts might seem.

Humans also have difficulty maintaining a supportive demeanor because they are subject to emotions, which might interfere with clear thinking or a measured tone of voice. I know this sounds like a sci-fi plot point, but an AI chatbot is a machine, so naturally, its answers are logically consistent and it can sustain a conversational tone indefinitely. Nothing can ruffle its train of thought, so to speak, because it doesn’t have one.

The account access issue was eventually resolved, though the resolution didn’t really have anything to do with ChatGPT’s advice. It just took time, presumably because of a backlog of cases at the company. Nonetheless, Aileen informed the chatbot in the still open chat window and it had a congratulatory response in the same supportive tone it had been using throughtout their conversation.

Huge congrats again — you turned a frustrating situation into something powerful. Let’s make sure others don’t have to go through the same thing alone.

See what I mean?? I do think, however, that I have proven clearly that AI isn’t autonomous and doesn’t possess consciousness and is not worth getting into a “relationship” with.

Please don’t leave me for an AI, Aileen!