In the Economist‘s 2/10/24 issue, early in the piece “Chronicling the past: The present as prologue” (a review of 2020 by Eric Klinenberg, a book treating the Covid pandemic, still unfolding, as a historical event), this passage:
It has been an alarming few years. History — widely assumed to have stopped somewhere around the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Spice Girls’ first record — has got going again, with gusto.
The implicit claim is that any history worth recording came to an end with the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989 (the end of an old political order), and the Spice Girls’ first record, in 1996 (the end of an old pop-cultural order), but sprung back to life with the onset of the pandemic; things are happening again.
Readers with a keen ear, especially if they are British (the Economist is a British publication), might have detected something vaguely familiar in the way that claim has been worded; it’s a distant, glancing allusion to the first verse of a famous (in some circles) poem by British poet Philip Larkin — easy to miss, especially since it contributes nothing of substance to a review of Klinenberg’s book, but is just a little gift to readers who recognize the allusion to a culturally significant text: it’s what I’ve called an Easter egg quotation.
The Larkin poem. From “Annus Mirabilis” (1967):
Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) –
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles’ first LP.
Sexual intercourse began becomes History stopped; the end of the Chatterley ban (1960) becomes the fall of the Berlin wall, sexual freedom paired with political import; and the Beatles’ first LP (1963), which was a landmark in popular culture, becomes the Spice Girls’ first record, sexual freedom paired with pop-cultural import, though the Spice Girls were vastly less significant than the Beatles (so the parallel is strained here). It would be easy to miss these hugely different counterparts, which the Economist reviewer has so carefully assembled in a package for us.
Easter egg quotations. From my 4/13/19 posting “Easter egg quotations”:
in the very last sentence [of an Economist article]: “All this may then eliminate the fear, surprise and ruthless efficiency of unexpected viruses”, a quotation from the Monty Python “Spanish Inquisition” sketch.
If you catch the quotation — not every reader will — that doesn’t contribute substantively to your understanding, but it does provide a kind of side pleasure, not unlike that afforded by Easter eggs in video games and the like. So I’ll refer to them as Easter egg quotations.
For the most part, the Economist deploys allusions ostentatiously, as jokes that are meant to be seen as jokes. The Vaccine X allusion to Monty Python, however, can be read straightforwardly and literally, merely asserting that unexpected viruses elicit fear and surprise and are ruthlessly efficient. It could pass by without your noticing. If you recognize the allusion, that’s a bonus, a little gift to you, and you might even feel a bit of pride in your knowledge of culturally significant texts.
That’s the story for EEQs (Easter Egg quotations). On the Economist‘s more common, blunt-force, quotation strategy, in OPAs, see my 5/18/19 posting “Ostentatiously playful allusions”.
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