{"id":8816,"date":"2017-10-22T11:53:10","date_gmt":"2017-10-22T17:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8816"},"modified":"2017-10-23T22:05:56","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T04:05:56","slug":"hey-baby-whats-your-sign-want-to-check-out-my-van","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8816","title":{"rendered":"Hey, Baby, What’s Your Sign? Want to Check Out my Van?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is a fact in journalism that some things never get old. Stories about today’s young people are evergreen: Are they hopeless screw-ups? Do they possess a brilliant new world-saving vision? Or both? Or neither?<\/p>\n

Live long enough, and everything recycles, like platform shoes (they were popular in the 17th century too, not that I remember that far back). Here is a piece on “Why millennials are ditching religion for witchcraft and astrology<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Astrology has been debunked by numerous academic studies, but Banu Guler, co-founder of artificial intelligence powered astrology app Co\u2014Star<\/a> said the lack of structure in the field is exactly what drives young, educated professionals to invest their time and money in the practice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Take out the word “app,” and that sounds like the early 1970s to me, another “tumultuous political time” (Vietnam War, resignation of President Nixon, etc.)<\/p>\n

And speaking of the Seventies, when I knew people who did it, here is a snarky piece in the New York Post<\/em> titled “Meet the pretentious millennials who romanticize living in\u00a0vans.”<\/a><\/p>\n

Twenty-four years ago, calling your car home was Plan Z. Now it\u2019s a generation\u2019s greatest aspiration.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Copiously illustrated with photos of beautifully restored VW campers, both air-cooled buses and water-cooled Vanagons, the article would produce a predictable result from M., who still laments that we sold the 1984 Vanagon camper that we owned from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s.<\/p>\n

“I could put it up by myself!” she would say. #Vanlife.<\/p>\n

And so she could, but the only mechanic in Nearby Town who would work on fiddly European fuel-injection systems had been about to retire.((He was a treasure, though, and people knew it. I would walk into his shop, where the radio was always on the classical music station, and there would be an Aston-Martin or a Maserati. “I had no idea that anyone in [Blank] County owned one of these!” I would say. “Oh yeah,” he would reply.))<\/p>\n

So I sold the Vanagon to a guy up in Fort Collins, thanks to the Internet, and got something with four-wheel-drive. Volkswagen did make an all-wheel-drive Vanagon, the Synchro, and while fishing in the mountains last June I found a nicely restored example parked at a trailhead.<\/p>\n

I complimented the owner on his van, and he launched into a list of all the systems on it that he had rebuilt. “You have to be a mechanic,” he said.<\/p>\n

No, thanks. On the old VWs, maybe. Nowadays I do some work on my old Jeep CJ-5<\/a>, and everything else goes to the pros.<\/p>\n

If you hanker after an older VW bus or Vanagon, I think the the place to be is New Mexico, where both they and people who will work on them seem to end up.<\/p>\n

And, since you asked, Gemini.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is a fact in journalism that some things never get old. Stories about today’s young people are evergreen: Are they hopeless screw-ups? Do they possess a brilliant new world-saving vision? Or both? Or neither? Live long enough, and everything recycles, like platform shoes (they were popular in the 17th century too, not that I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,80,23,32],"class_list":["post-8816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-astrology","tag-colorado","tag-new-mexico"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2ic","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10979,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10979","url_meta":{"origin":8816,"position":0},"title":"It’s October, and You Know What That Means: Media!","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 26, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"At The New Yorker, they have discovered that astrology is back. In never leaves, actually \u2014 ask the people at Llewellyn \u2014but new media interest is cyclical as the Moon. Maybe it is just astrology's \"growth\" on social media that gets noticed. In July, I was ushered into a glass-enclosed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"astrology\"","block_context":{"text":"astrology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=astrology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/halloween-new-yorker.com_.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13269,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13269","url_meta":{"origin":8816,"position":1},"title":"Astrology and Big Data","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 11, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Stephanie Shea's Rejected Religion((\"Rejected\" here meaning esoteric or occult.)) recently offered an episode, \"Astrology and Data Science,\"\u00a0 on the The Ratio Project and its founder, Katy Bohinc.((Not to be confused with Microsoft's Project Ratio, which is some attempt to categorize and cross-reference All That Is Known.)) Similar to the work\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"astrology\"","block_context":{"text":"astrology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=astrology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8476,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8476","url_meta":{"origin":8816,"position":2},"title":"Remembering Ed Steinbrecher and His Esoteric School","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Looking for something in the bedroom Craft\/astrology\/Tarot\/magick bookshelves this morning, I ran across a copy of Edwin Steinbrecher's The Guide Meditation. (It's still available from Samuel Weiser and it's good.) I checked with Dr. Google and discovered that Steinbrecher, an astrologer and occult teacher, had passed away in 2002 \u2014\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"astrology\"","block_context":{"text":"astrology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=astrology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/steinbrecher.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5759,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5759","url_meta":{"origin":8816,"position":3},"title":"Spica, Online Cultural Astrology Journal, Launched","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 26, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture at the University of Wales Trinity St. David (formerly at Bath Spa University College) now has an online journal, Spica, with work by students in the MA program in cultural astronomy and astrology. Spica is available as a free PDF\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"astrology\"","block_context":{"text":"astrology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=astrology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.astronomy-and-culture.org\/journal\/thumbnails\/2013-1.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3315,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3315","url_meta":{"origin":8816,"position":4},"title":"Astrology Conference Book Available for Preorder","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"From the announcement: The \u2018Astrologies\u2019 conference, organised by the Sophia Centre, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution on 24-25 July 2010 was the first gathering of academics working in the history and culture of modern astrology. The range of topics explored in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"astrology\"","block_context":{"text":"astrology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=astrology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7581,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7581","url_meta":{"origin":8816,"position":5},"title":"The Passing of Carl Weschcke","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"First, the official announcement from Llewellyn, then my comments. It is with profound sadness we share the news of Carl Llewellyn Weschcke\u2019s passing. He passed peacefully on Saturday, November 7 surrounded by family. He was 85. Carl Llewellyn Weschcke was Chairman and the driving force behind Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd., the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"weschcke","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/weschcke-219x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8816"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8828,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8816\/revisions\/8828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}