The Lost Generation (i.e, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Fredric March, Zelda Fitzgerald) were young strivers and explorers in the 1920s. But they didn’t stop being born in 1900 — figure more like 1905 or even 1910.
The Greatest Generation (i.e., suffered through the Depression in their teens, fought in WWII…Woody Guthrie, JFK, Burt Lancaster, Tyrone Power, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, Alan Ladd, Frank Sinatra) began to pop out around 1912 and not 1901. Their birth era drew to a close around 1928 or thereabouts.
The name for the so-called “Silent Generation” (born between 1929 and 1945…Woody Allen, Dennis Hopper, Robert Redford, Warren Beatty) is actually the “Baby Bust” generation…born and reared as very young kids during the Depression, mid-teen puberty when WWII ended, young and hungry and fancy-free 20somethings in the ‘50s.
I am not a boomer — I am an existential X-factor Zen samurai jazzcat with no particular ties to the Woodstock generation except for my musical tastes and preferences. Otherwise I’m free of that shit.
Nobody calls them Generation Z —the common default term is Zoomers.
My granddaughter Sutton (DOB: 11.17.21) is a junior Gen Alpha.
