I'm 26! This is me looking tired this morning:
I have this fear that I've now aged out of the enfant terrible demographic. Jamie Kirchick's even seems to be publishing good articles these days.
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Happy Birthday To Me
18 May 2007 08:43 am
Comments (47)
I like the part where Kirchick discloses that he worked as a summer intern for AEI. Go TNR!
happy birthday matt! and congratulations on all your success.
Enfant terrible?
Announcer: Now it comes to your screens for the first time. Fresh from the leaves of Iceland's history. The terrible 'Njorl's Saga'.
(Cut to Viking)
Viking: It's not that terrible.
(Cut to announcer)
Announcer: No, I meant terribly violent.
(Cut to Viking)
Viking (happily): Oh yeah, yeah.
Happy Birthday!
Unfortunately, 26 actually does mark the beginning of the end.
I have this fear that I've now aged out of the enfant terrible demographic.
Happy birthday! Don't worry, you're still a Young Turk.
You could go from 'enfant terrible' to just sophomoric.
Dude, your apple-cheeked undergrad days are long gone. You should start smoking a pipe and wearing tweed. Go for the whole 'Elder Statesman of Blogosphere' thing.
Happy birthday... 26 is good year.
Frankly, I found the TNR story very peculiar, and probably a sign of some underlying political conflict between Zinsmeister and maybe the neocons rather than anything else.
First, the corruption/nepotism ascribed to Zinsmeister seems exceptionally petty by the standards of today's DC or the especially the conservative movement. And his editorial sins---being lazy, tyrannical, and egotistical---seem almost the norm among the editors of small ideological magazines. For example, the stories I've heard over the years regarding the misbehavior at e.g. TNR are at least an order-of-magnitude more serious.
And AEI...c'mon---we're talking about the home of the people who forged the Niger Papers and thereby enabled the Iraq War. Assuming there's nothing worse in Zinsmeister's background, he probably stood a pretty fair chance of becoming AEI's head, since everyone else more senior than him will eventually be executed for treason.
The whole TNR story reads a little like a Pravda article from 1935 in which Stalin announces that he has just had Zinoviev executed for picking his nose. Now Zinoviev may well have been a notorious nose-picker, but that probably isn't the whole story..
I think 27 marks the official end of Young Turk territory -- "mid-20s" is basically in appropriate at that point. At 26 it's more like you're Elder Statesman of the Young Turks.
Happy Birthday.
-Nick (age 27)
You are so old.
:( No more bouncing little Matt on our knees; no more pinching his little cheeks.
I've always said up to 25 is a kid, 26-45 is young, 46-65 is middle-aged. So now you're young. Enjoy it while it lasts.
because i turn 36 today, i definitely like Gary Sugar's formulation best on the comment thread so far.
all the others are just depressing me. whippersnappers.
To paraphrase someone, now you can drop the "enfant" part and just focus on the "terrible" aspect.
As I remember -- back when I had a car and cared about such things -- 25 was the last birthday in which you got something good for getting older, i.e., your insurance rates went down. From 26 on, each birthday just brings the bleak contemplation of your impending and certain mortality.
Happy Birthday, Matt!
It's bizarre how much younger you seem than me when I read your pop culture stuff, even though I'm 29. Like, the music of the '80s was bigger to my childhood than the music of the '90s. I guess I'm just lucky that way, because growing up to "Appetite for Destruction" is sure better than growing up to "What's the Story, Morning Glory" or some shit. Plus, I remember watching Larry and Magic play.
Anyway, happy birthday, and keep up the good work.
apparently your hairline turned 26 about 5 years ago.
Happy birthday! Perhaps a picture of my breakfast will cheer you up.
Ah.......er, yeah, maybe you should put up more pictures of the girlfriend instead. (Not that we're some kind of pervs who want to see your girlfriend - it's just IF you just MUST put personal pictures up......... ok, we're pervs).
"Announcer: Now it comes to your screens for the first time. Fresh from the leaves of Iceland's history. The terrible 'Njorl's Saga'"
My ears are burning.
apparently your hairline turned 26 about 5 years ago
I think Matthew might look OK as a bald man. If it really starts to go, don't play around - just shave it all off.
You are now in the 26-54 catagory as far as advertisers are concerned, so, you're essentially 54 ...well, you're hairline is, anyway.
"I think Matthew might look OK as a bald man. If it really starts to go, don't play around - just shave it all off."
No way! That beard and those glasses just scream out for a beret!
"I think Matthew might look OK as a bald man. If it really starts to go, don't play around - just shave it all off."
Or he could convert to Orthodox Judaism for the handy bald-spot-covering yarmulke.
Happy Birthday, punk. Enjoy your 20s while they last.
Happy birthday man.
Here's to your continuing success and happiness.
By the time John Keats was your age, he'd been dead 6 months.
HBD
You are an old fogey. Average human generation time is somewhere between 20 and 25 years -- so you're old enough to be a father.
Weird thing about the US at least is that there are yawning chasms between generations. So, when was the last time you associated with 15 year-olds? I tutor kids (mostly high schoolers, but sometimes middle & elementary schoolers), and that will quickly cure you of any delusions you may still have that you're young or cool.
Most of the elite shelter themselves away from children & adolescents, so they erroneously persist in believing they're "still young," while their outer appearance, disposition, taste in music & movies, etc., all tell another story. This harms females more than males, since when the guy finally wakes up to reality at 35, he's still got plenty of status & prestige, whereas the female isn't anywhere near as physically attractive and pleasant personality-wise as she was in her early 20s.
Jeffrey Davis' comment is much worse than it sounds: almost anyone of eminence had made some major breakthrough by their mid-to-late 20s. Look up a brief biography of any Big Name, and see what they'd accomplished by 26. Pretty sobering -- but also an impetus to stop farting around. You're not getting any younger.
Buncha young whippersnappers, you all are.
Back in my day, 26 meant something! It meant you were no longer prime material for the draft. Just ask Dick Cheney next time you see him.
By the time John Keats was your age, he'd been dead 6 months.
... and Einstein was to write the four papers laying the groundwork for modern physics - so no slacking ;)
happy birthday!
don't sweat the calendar, dude. You have compiled an impressive body of work in the last few years, and you still haven't hit top speed. You've got tons of years coming, just use them as well as you have used the last few.
you've been one of the bright spots during the dark, dark, Bush/Rove years. keep it up--i'm rooting for you!
Happy birthday, Matt! 26 means you're playing with half a deck.
Today is the sixteenth anniversary of the day my wife and I got married - and no, I'm not Kevin Drum; seems that more than one couple decided that your tenth birthday would be an auspicious occasion for nuptials.
You'll always be an enfant terrible, Matt, because you'll always be 20 years younger than I am.
Happy birthday!
Man, commenters are a weird bunch. Happy Birthday.
"... almost anyone of eminence had made some major breakthrough by their mid-to-late 20s. Look up a brief biography of any Big Name, and see what they'd accomplished by 26."
That's generally only true for arts and sciences. I looked up Rousseau, Aristotle, Julius Caeser and by 26, the most impressive accomplishments I saw were escaping apprentiship to a lawyer and getting kidnapped by pirates.
Wow, you are really losing a lot of your hair for being only 26 years old.
I still have all my hair, and I am 47.
I see that you have posted about seven new posts in the three hours since I first checked this post. I do not believe anyone can make seven intelligent observations in 3 hours. Why don't you just give up? Blogging is clearly ruining your intellectual development. Try and do some actual reasoning for a change.
happy birthday
Many happy returns of the day, youngster.
You're ONLY 26?!?!? Life hasn't even begun for you, my friend.
When I was 24, which was in '77, my dad casually noted that 25 is the last birthday you look forward to. But I have found each decade on the whole better than the previous.
the hard part is, when you suddenly realize that you're closer to 50 than 20 - happens faster than you'd think, those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end...
enough whining, happy birthday again!
24 was the beginning of the end for me. I used to be able to eat a medium pizza at midnight, fall immediately asleep, but still lose weight.
Hit the wall at 24. Not that I'm fat, but nobody ever describes me as "that skinny guy" anymore. Sigh. Back to my salad.
Happy birthday kid.
One of these days they're gonna give you a blog at Ollie Holmes' mag or something.
Happy birthday, Mr. Y.
Happy B-Day, Matt. Be sure to drink something better than a Bud to celebrate.
Happy birthday Matt. Here's to many more.
Happy Birthday Matt and Congratulations. It's been great discovering this blog. The intelligent commentary here is refreshing and I like the mix of topic.
Congratulations, you made it to 26 before Cheney's sockpuppet declared war on Iran. No draft for you!
Comments closed June 01, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
And he knows how to use an apostrophe, too! Better watch out, Matt.
Posted by Bloix | May 18, 2007 8:51 AM