hello it is my great pleasure to be here
with you who I feel like is my extremely
extended family I couldn't be happier
and I like coming to phoenix every so
often I hadn't been I don't think to
this part of phoenix and tell now and
and when i stepped out of the the
sheraton hotel earlier and i asked how
do i get to the convention center the
guy said well you can't miss it it's
just past the Hooters and then past the
Basilica which I realized I was in
America and I love it um pivot is the
theme it really is in so many ways don't
get me started time and for this country
to pivot I just finished writing this
week actually an essay that's going to
be published in Vanity Fair a couple of
months about this what has become a
hobby horse of mine about what has
happened in in culture and design
generally in the last 20 years more to
the point what hasn't happened during
the last 20 years so I know some of you
aren't that much older than 20 years but
anyway some of the most many of you are
imagine 20 years ago technologically
technologically it was a very different
place time then and now the web was
still this experimental academic obscure
thingamajig personal computers were
essentially fancy standalone typewriters
and calculators that showed only text
and not any newspapers or magazines they
played no video they played no music
they offered no products to buy email
was still was a a recent coinage 20
years ago and was still kind of a rarity
cell phones were rarities personal music
players required CDs or cassettes nobody
had seen a computer animated feature
film DVDs did not exist the human genome
hadn't been decoded genetically modified
food didn't
this this is just 20 years ago amazing
technological change but here is what's
weird to me during those same 20 years
consumer technology aside forget
computers and telephones and TVs the
appearance of the world has changed
hardly at all less than it has during
any other 20-year period in at least a
century for the first time in my
lifetime our parents our grandparents
lifetimes the recent past looks almost
identical to the present think about
picture it rewind any other 20 year
chunk of 20th century time there is no
chance the would mistake an image of
Americans or an American city from let's
say 1972 with the giant sideburns and
the big mustaches and the big collars
and the big bell-bottoms the leisure
suits the cigarettes the AMC javelins
the Matadors the gremlins the dodge
demons all of those cars that if he did
not look like 1992 time travel back
another 20 years tonight from 72 to 1952
when both sexes wore hats all the time
cars were big and bulbous and sort of
late mode Aaron benders and fins were
gigantic again 1952 in 1972
unmistakeably different looking you can
keep doing this and see that they the
characteristic surfaces and sounds that
each historical moment are absolutely
distinct from those 20 years earlier or
20 years later the clothes the hair the
cars the advertising all of it go deeper
20 years used to make all the
differences in all kinds of cultural
output think about buildings New York's
amazing new buildings of the 1930s the
chrysler building the empire state
building they look nothing like the
amazing new buildings from 20 years
before the grand central terminal the
Woolworth Building or from 20 years
after the seagram building the UN un
headquarters movies anybody can say oh
that's a 50s
movie that's on the waterfront bridge
over the bridge on the river kwai that
looks like the 50's vs one from twenty
years before Grand Hotel it happened one
night or 20 years later clute a
clockwork orange 1990s movies go look at
them other than the giant computers and
the giant cell phones and things they
they they are not distinctly different
ditto with pop music ditto with
literature ditto with visual art now the
aeron chair that i sat in this morning
at home is identical to the aeron chair
i sat in almost two decades ago and this
morning i boiled coffee boil water for
my coffee in the groovy Alessi Michael
Graves pot that I bought a quarter
century ago here are pictures of some
cars from 22 and 23 years ago
respectively first a 1990 acura that
does not look so old here's a 1989 saab
there's pretty random pictures of cars
that just do not look so old whoops the
the cars used to date you know imagine a
1990 car versus in 1970 Carver's to the
nineteen fifty car absolutely distinct
here is a New York Times picture of Ian
Schrager and Steve Rubell the restaurant
tours and their staff at in New York
City at morgans which was the first
boutique hotel this picture is from 1985
26 years ago sure Steve Rubell his hat
is a little odd but it was odd then too
I promise you shraeger collarless shirt
and and some of those boys in the
backgrounds fluffiest hairs less
fashionable now sure but nothing no one
in this picture and nothing seems
obviously laughably date and there's
nothing special about this that picture
I picked another one at random off of my
computer this one of the Spy magazine
staff from 25 years ago
me on the background and the right I
look different those people look
different if you knew them but again the
the clothes the hair styles are are
strangely undated now if you passed
people who look like any of these today
you wouldn't turn and stare but if in
1990 you would examine the picture from
nineteen sixty-five or nineteen eighty a
picture from nineteen fifty five or so
on it would be a glimpse back into a
weird distinctly old-fashioned world a
man or woman on the street in any year
of the twentieth century who was groomed
and dressed like someone from
twenty-five years earlier would look
like an actor in costume or a freak but
not anymore look at people on the street
or in malls jeans and sneakers remain
the standard uniform as they did in as
they were in 2001 in 1991 1981 look
through a current fashion magazine or
architecture magazine or listen to ten
random pop songs new pop songs if you
didn't already know that they were
things from 2011 I bet that most of you
could not tell me with any certainty
that most of them were whether they were
from the 2000s or the 1990s or in some
cases even the 1980s this is
unprecedented I have some theories about
why we've entered this cultural ice age
it started I think one of the things
that started was in the 70s and 80s when
suddenly we were reviving and
discovering history and its beauties and
charms coming off the 60 suddenly the
old would look really interesting to us
and hasn't stopped looking really
interesting to us swept through all
realms of culture then in the late 80s
and early 90s there was the rise of what
I call the this this new style
industrial complex the gap target ikea
urban outfitters barnes and noble
starbucks that has something to do as i
explained in this piece with with with
this freezing of culture and and style
and design
also I think for the last 20 years
because of all this radical sometimes
terrifying technological and economic
and geopolitical change we've
experienced in our experiencing I think
it's kind of a comforting refuge for
people because at least everybody and
most things still look the same even
though we have experienced all of this
radical change in the underpinnings of
the world anyhow we have driven into
somehow we've driven into this this
gigantic cultural cul-de-sac and we are
driving around and around a lot in
circles and have been for 20 years or
more so I wonder is this I mean there
was a famous book 20 years ago the end
of history and I wonder is this the end
of cultural history I hope not I tend to
be a big believer in historical pendulum
swings these cycles of American history
that historians say tend to be about 30
years long so maybe maybe we're coming
to the end of this cultural era of the
same old same old that has not happened
as I say for a century or more maybe
we're on the verge of a cascade of the
wildly new and insanely great as in the
early 1900s and 1910s as again in the
1960s and 1970s maybe you all are about
to make this big pivot happen and get us
off this dime that we've been weirdly
stuck on for 20 years I certainly hope
so that is my spiel for this evening and
now on with the show