The 1960s are finally over in Madison.

The 1970s are here at last. Hand me my coke spoon.

I was excited to read that hunky Colin Farrell will appear as Alexander the Great in an Oliver Stone biopic. So excited I ran to the other room to tell Ereck. This conversation ensued:

Me: You'll never guess who Colin Farrell's going to play!

Ereck: Give me a hint.

Me: He's ambitious, and fey.

Ereck: David Geffen?

What I just said to Ereck:

"In the Porky's sequel that is my life."

The snarky epidemic

Merriam-Webster's web site defines snarky, adj., as "crotchety, snappish," and dates the word to 1906.

We have had 97 years to get used to this word.

So why is everyone using it all of a sudden? It may be antique, but frankly, I'd scarcely heard of it till the past year or so.

Now it's showing up everywhere. Look at this chart I made, which tracks the frequency of the word's appearance over the last ten years in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Sun-Times.

Why snarky? Why now?

For some reason, in my mind I associate the word with snarky New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, but she apparently has not used it since April 1, 1998: "Perhaps the White House spinners thought the gamy, earthy atmosphere of the bush was just the place to convince puritanical and snarky reporters of the most basic truth: Nature must take its course."

But certainly Dowd's colleagues at the Times are still under the snarky spell. On March 9, 2003, Caryn James wrote of critical reaction to Salman Rushdie's latest book: "The reviews ranged from respectfully disappointed to dismissive, and were followed by a deluge of snarky tabloid stories."

And Times book critic Michiko Kakutani wrote, in a December 29, 2002 look back at the year, "Greeting-card sentimentality and snarky, knee-jerk irony proliferated with abandon this year."

The snarky domain is not limited to the East Coast, of course. Last February, San Francisco Chronicle television columnist Tim Goodman even used snarky in a provocative headline: "The Snarky Pants just won't fit."

And the word has moved out to the heartland. It showed up yesterday in a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article about the Oscars, by Kathy Flanigan: "Tightened security did its best to subdue the always snarky Joan Rivers."

The newest sighting is in a letter by one Sarah Graham Miller to today's Hartford Courant about the scandal surrounding Waterbury, CT's former mayor, Philip Giordano: "Giordano thought he had it in the bag. He was snarky and smarmy in the press, but had nothing to say on the issues."

The last time I can remember something like this happening was in about 1986, when everyone I knew was going around saying, "This is true." But maybe that was just one group of disaffected teenagers in Tennessee.

I've been hoping Elizabeth Smart would start a similar fad with the phrase "Thou sayest" (cf. John 18:37), which is what she said to the cop who asked her if she was who she was. It's a nice, solid-sounding phrase. But so far, no fad.

I predict Donald Rumsfeld will soon amend his dismissal of our friends across the Atlantic to read: Snarky Old Europe.

What I'm doing now, addendum

Boy, I'm really procrastinating. I just organized my sock drawer.

What I'm doing now that the war started

1. Putting off writing articles.
2. Reading the New York Times.
3. Catching up on old New Yorkers.
4. Reading Plato.
5. Reading God's Little Isthmus, the sequel to Madlands.
6. Celebrating my new turntable and receiver by listening to the records of Patty Loveless, Arthur Rubenstein, Al Stewart, Sade, Faron Young, Willie Nelson, Tina Turner, and others.
7. Going to AA meetings.
8. Watching Conte d'�t�, which I enjoyed immensely.
9. Thinking about the Amish, apropos of Devil's Playground, which I watched Before The War (i.e. Tuesday).
10. Reading old aims of education addresses, one of which incoming University of Chicago freshmen hear their first week.
11. Did I mention putting off writing articles?
12. Learning the words to "El Paso."
13. Deciding other songs I'd like to learn (suggestions welcome).
14. Folding laundry.
15. Blogging.

Not long ago I spent the better part of a work week reading e-mail I wrote and received between September 1997 and June 1999.

I have compulsively hung on to all my e-mail. Here is, I hazard, the first e-mail I ever received, from my dear college friend Rachel:

Date: Wed, 23 Oct 91 22:35:37 CDT
From: rachel marie fumia
To: krb1
Subject: jean paul sartre and the fall of rome

dearest kenneth, i have received your messages. you are not much of a talker
but i love you anyway. jackie says hi. jackie's mailfokenneth, this is
totally fucked up for some odd reason. are those bugle boy jeans you're
wearing? love from fumi