/lit/ - Literature

>>20084137
The way Americans smile is creepy as fuck, showing off their teeth like a bunch of negroes. Europeans never smiled like that before being Americanized.
I'm not going to read the book of any man who smiles like that, eve if it has incredible prose.

Where should I start with the Boomers? Tom Clancy novels? New York Times bestsellers from the 1970s? I don't mean books by Boomers per se, but books for that feel

>>20084644
Americans are very proud of their teeth

>Its striking how relatively safe it was for kids to roam about town.
It still is now, if not even safer. We've just let the media convince us otherwise with ridiculous moralfag fantasies of pedophiles and serial killers and so on.

>>20084712
Careful jumping into boomer /lit/ too early. If you want to start reading, start by studying some cruise brochures. In the meantime, however, you should focus on WW2 movies, Young Sheldon, and Sean Hannity.

Being a boomer is not simply indulgence. It is the killing of one's own personal consciousness to allow for a state of transcendence where maintains the subjective experience of reckless consumption while maintaining a total detachment. As this rapturous emptiness of existence annihilates your original sense of self, allowing your higher consciousness to forge a new vessel to settle its conscious-experience in, your consumption of fast food and whisky will result in a heart attack and you will fall to the ground. In this state, you will have a near-death-experience: a tiger will approach you, but he will not pounce. He will bear his fangs, but not bite. He will tell say

YA TSEN CHOG GI NGÖ DRUB NYE
PEMA JUNG NE ZHE SU DRAG

And you will awaken with the gift of heart disease and diabetes. From here you will be both the God of This World and a humble servant. You will be the man near death, practically dead, yet master of the world. Others will oppose you, but they will fail. For your blessings will be declared in Heaven, and the lesser planes will bow before it. No generations of man will oppose you.

>>20084878
boomer bodhisattva

>>20084878
Reminds me of that story from the golf tournament. Arthur June, the CFO is riding his golf cart around the course with Chris Nast, his VP of Operations. Arthur is concerned that if he wins, he'll have insulted his boss, the CEO. But as Chris explains, all 18 holes are the same for every golfer, and when you swing the right club it can only result in the right stroke. So whether or not Arthur wins the tournament, he is not really competing with his boss at all, he himself is both the golfball and the course. It is not reasonable for any to fear the outcome. Arthur told me this story on his yacht last summer, The Beauty Rita. Named it after his ex-wife I think, before the divorce. But he kept the yacht and she kept his last name so they are square. Heard she moved to Florida with the kids though.

God why are you people so obsessed with America? Please talk about anything else. Jesus Christ >>20084644 Especially this guy. Just pathetic. Your lives revolve around Americans.

>>20084946
I think OP is American and he's commenting on how the country used to be. It's just one guy who brought up Americans smiling and one guy who replied to him.

>>20084137
He kind of looks like the Nightman

The opening to "Coming Apart" by Charles Murray describes how different things were c. 1960 and I found it interesting. That's around when Mike Lindell was born so America had already begun a major transition during his childhood but I'll summarize the opening nonetheless.
>dramatically little variety in music, food, or tv
>near universal marriage with few illegitimate children or divorce
>near universal labor force participation for men
>near universal religious identity, with 50% weekly church attendance
>drinking and smoking were common but other drugs (e.g. cannabis) seem to have been rare and exotic based on arrest data
>TV and movies still were expected to uphold "the American way of life" (the Hollywood Production Code had specific moral instructions) though some movies had begun pushing against this
>about 1/3 of people with TVs watched "The Beverly Hillbillies"
>you could be arrested for sending smut in the mail
>20% of people lived below our modern definition of the poverty line, though this was a great improvement from 40% in 1950
What do you say guys? Better to be born back then, or into today's world?

>>20085066
I think there are some major shortcomings there but it's a moot point, it wasn't a sustainable system that could have gone on indefinitely. You can only claim otherwise if you say it was just a coincidence that it was one of the most short-lived cultural periods of America and 'counter culture' took over with a vengeance right after.

>>20085066

Something like that is impossible with the internet

>>20084878
If somone put a bullet in your brain they'd be doing the world a favor.

>>20084137
So it doesn't say yet how he got into cocaine. He says it gave him confidence to handle his job. It seems to me that he is a people pleaser. One thing about American culture is the salesmens desperation to please his customers over and beyond. Service is a recognizable strong theme in the book.

>>20084137
So now its a flashback to being a teen dating a lil blonde who worked at the drive in. He got into a crash, slammed a pickup into an Oak tree yet all scans said nothing was broken. Sounds like God intervened. Went to church and rejected it.

>>20085024
No he’s talking about how Europeans always take some pattern and say something like, “that’s so American” in a disparaging tone, and then go on a revisionist ahistorical rant about how no one used to do that thing in Europe before the Americans showed up.

In this case someone’s making the claim that no one showed their teeth while smiling before American influence.

>I've been reading this book
>posts the mypillow guy
?

>>20086974
It's true that many NW European countries did not show their teeth when smiling before American influence. Just look at some classic European paintings. They tend to make a faint smirk.

>>20087395
Isn't that a learned behavior? Seems like most people's naturally smile with their teeth exposed.

>>20087439
>Seems like most people's naturally smile with their teeth exposed.
No, they do not. It is learned behavior from culture. Smiling like that was not common in most European countries.

>>20084747
Not with niggers around.

>>20085066
Sounds nice, if more limited.

>>20087448
I'm going to disagree.

>>20087506
Nope, you're wrong, and your shit-faced grin won't change that.

>>20087518
We both just think the other has it backwards, no need to be hostile.

>>20086898
So his story gets crazier. He is working at a grocery store and gets a gambling addiction. Evsntually the shit MOB gives him money that he ends up owing, putting his family in danger. The way he writes is kinda heart wrenching. His grandma he visited at her farm in summer was bragging on him and had to be stopped because he was now a jailed criminal. A bartender tells him "you'll never live this down, you need to leave town".

>>20087366
Its called "What are the Odds?"

>>20087452
They've always been around, retard.

>>20087395
>Just look at some classic European paintings. They tend to make a faint smirk.
Yes, that's because they've been sitting for many hours, and has nothing to do with custom.

picrel is by seventeenth century painter Frans Hals. He used a camera obscura, which allowed him to capture his subject in a much more rapid and organic way than with previous methods.

The showing of teeth in pictorial representation is a product of technology, and not indicative of American culture specifically.

>>20087395
>>20089415
Here's a random still from some footage of 1909 Stockholm.

>>20084137
Now he meets a girl and gets obsessed but she has a child and is obsessed with the father. His life continues to spiral downward.

>>20089509
>>20089415
>>20089363
>>20087532
>>20087518
>>20087506
>>20087452
>>20087448
>>20087395
>>20087366
>>20085066
>>20085024
>>20084939
>>20084909
>>20084878
https://youtu.be/sDJBhQv85K0

>>20089529
I don't listen to that kind of music.

>>20085658
>If somone put a bullet in your brain they'd be doing the world a favor.

>>20084137
Some girl sat next to him on the couch stark naked but he was still obsessed with Karen and screamed for her to get away.

>>20089542

>>20089646
Why did you post the liberal who shot up a Republican baseball field ?

>>20084137
Another miracle. His wife (Karen) was pregnant when she started to have seizures. The doctors saved the baby and also saved her. But the doctor lived 20 minutes away and had gotten there in five.

>>20085066
If I took a time machine there with all my experiences of today I'd probably be bored out of my mind. I'd kill to be born into it.

>>20089677
shut up retard

>>20084712

>>20089890
Thanks for all the bumps. Mad you didn't get to ruin my thread?
Go
Fuck
Urself

>>20090058
The thread is fine, your autism about miracles is not.

>>20089852
What would bore you about that time and what excites you about the modern world?
I'm bored in the modern world and feel I would be more active in previous eras where there was an ethnic framework to motivate trying harder and contributing to your community. By and large, there aren't even communities now that aren't based on consumption. Even church communities are less spiritual and more based on consumption or posing as a certain type. Maybe I'm naive and America has always been more materialist and racially egalitarian than I thought.

>>20089914
kino

>>20085066
>everyone smoked inside
>"nutritious canned food"
>lead pipes and paint
>leaded gasoline
>no seat belts or airbags, decorative spikes on steering columns in some cars
>criminals were harder to sus out because there were street gangs for white people
>cults and psyops were harder to sus out due to lack of awareness / no internet
>weaker protective equipment for contact sports
>vietnam draft
>three channels on tv
>had to just buy records/movie tickets blind and hope they were good
i'm sure cane sugar made the boxed food and soda pop taste better though i dunno man
maybe if i had a corporate executive job with a mini bar i'd be down

>>20090523
Lib detected

>>20090805
could probably win big on one of those asbestos class action suits though
think about it

>>20084137
We really do need to set back the clock...

>>20085066
The exoticism of narcotics was because they weren't heavily prosecuted yet. They were still everywhere. Heroin was huge in the cities and amphetamines were near ubiquitous. Doctors being loose with their scrip pads was a stereotype for a reason.

>>20090977

Wtf anti reaction bros how will we ever recover

>>20084137
Narrator is getting a bit unstable. He keeps getting in trouble and has his wife now addicted to crack. His company gets stolen by a bunch of scammers and Feds. He is broke again. His best friend is stealing his wife at fifty. His kids are all pissed at him and leaving home.

>>20090977
Yes, right now

>>20090977

>>20084878
This
Boomers look at the past with rose tinted vision no matter where you live, and glorifying the past can cause us to lose sight of how far we have come since.

>>20084137
So I finished it. It took him forever but he joined a Christian addict program and finally kicked it. God had a plan for him. He eventually met with Trump and also started dating a nice Christian woman.

The End

>>20084137
do you think this is an accurate description of a bygone america or an accurate description of a certain mass media fantasy regarding a bygone america?

>>20090977
what chesterton needed to do is to make the jump into realizing that "you can't put the clock back" is actually a specific group of people saying "we won't let you put the clock back"

>>20092481
Don’t you think he was aware of that?

>>20091378
This is an advert though. You know how we are commercials and people are eating a candy bar and doing flips and stuff? It’s all a ruse, an illusion, a farce. We will never know what life was like back then, but let’s not make up vain imaginative utopias that we’re never true. God is with us in Christ, His kingdom is coming. Wait on the Lord, there is so much hope in the future

>>20092540
Not him but I think the fact that it was an ideal is almost good enough; and besides, there were lots of families approaching that ideal, lots more than nowadays at least.

>>20084712
>>20084878
>>20089914
> * https://youtu.be/igvP806798U starts playing *
> Tom Clancy
> Dan Brown
> Herman Hesse
> Hunter S. Thompson
> Henry Miller
> Thomas Pynchon
> Kurt Vonnegut
> Cormac McCarthy
> Don DeLillo
> Stephen King
> Philip Roth
> Ray Bradbury
> Isaac Asimov
> Frank Herbert
> Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
> All the President's Men
> '60s/'70s comic books
> PopSci like almost anything by Carl Sagan or Hawking's A Brief History of Time.
> Some history books on shit like WWII or the Civil War or something.

>>20092540
I am not here to debate Communists. You do not belong in a place where literature is discussed.

>>20092736
He is lying. They want people to forget our history. I think I am done with 4chan soon. They allow too much evil here.

>>20093283
>mixing WW2 history & Ray Bradbury in that filth list

What BOOK you stupid fucking cryptic cunt. you dont ever say what book you're talking about. do you think that will make me curious and click into your thread because it won't so fuck off you little troll cunt

>>20093417
> Filtered this hard and seething this hard
Good job OP :^)

>>20090977
Only G.K. Chesterton could write this and be taken seriously...

>>20084644
Only on 4chan!

>>20084733
Because having fake teeth like the crackhead in OP is a way of flashing money. Probably $50k for them.

>>20085066
>"Coming Apart" by Charles Murray
Would you recommend it?