Summary: Titus & James Lileks talk about middlebrow & mid-century America. We've got lots to offer: 1. Cultural archaeology & commercial archaeology--our fascination with what life was like in America before. 2. Hitchcock & the movies as inadvertent documentaries. 3. The great fracturing in the 50s: Freudianism--youthful alienation--smarmy rebels you want to slap the cool out of--The heiress (1949)--Monty Clift--Henry James. 4. The collapse of the culture, as work of the most successful classes, who most should have defended their taste & habits. 5. Middlebrow is inescapable, but inherently unstable. Technology pulls us in the direction of progress, but a sense of taste makes us want to bring back some formalities, mores, & pleasures that depend on us all doing the same thing... We cannot tolerate too much imposition on our freedom, but so soon as we make small concessions to comfort or whim, a deluge follows.
