Customer Reviews

Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grown-up

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I read this book over the course of several flights while traveling and I thoroughly enjoyed it. As a cartoonist who likes cupcakes and wearing superhero t-shirts, there should be no surprise why the book peaked my interest. But I was delighted to find that the book was neither an unstructured permission slip for irresponsible behavior, nor a "Harrumphing Codger" treatise on abolishing all forms of fun from life. Rather, it was a well-organized, even-handed, thoughtful and interesting approach on the phenomenon itself. I enjoyed the historical research, and although sometimes overly thourough, offered a lot of interesting background for the rest of the book. I also enjoyed the profiles of the people throughout the book. At times I found myself mentally cheering them on, while with others, I tended to react to with frustration (and sometimes even disgust). So ultimately, the book connected with me on an emotional level, and it made me think. Something all good books do.

When I purchased my new Nikon D2X, a pro level camera, I couldn't wait to get it home and try it out. I went to Central Park even though the weather conditions were crappy for photography. That level of pleasure and enjoyment was the same if not greater than getting that new set of legos when I was ten for my birthday. I'm a rejuvenile. If you've watched the cartoon network with or without children present and enjoyed it then you are one too. Christopher Noxon documents a trend in adults that is much wider spread than you might think. In delightfully well written prose, Noxon documents the various types of rejuvenile and their various activities. You have adults who participate in kickball (the author is one of them and met his wife through that activity), still watch cartoons, collect and . . . yes . . . even play with action figures, read comic books or graphic novels and other such activities shared by ten year olds. Then there are the 32 year old children who move back with their parents, women who diligently collect the very pricey Madame Alexander dolls and other perhaps less obvious examples of rejuvenilia. Noxon ponders on the both the positive and negative aspects of this sociological trend. Clearly he believes it is overall positive and lambasts the critics. There is obviously a spectrum of rejuvenileness and the more extreme certainly gave me reason to pause (the adults playing with action figures and even more outré examples.) It seems to be impacting all levels of society - how adults raise and relate to their children, how those children are maturing and the various industries fed by these trends thus it isn't all fun and games. The book is a very interesting read that I highly recommend it.

Rejuvenile is my new favorite book--smart, funny, wonderfully written. Noxon's forte is finding amazingly quirky people who illustrate his thesis and describing them in delicious detail. The last section, "Into a Rejuvenile Future," ties it all together. "[W]e rejuveniles are attempting to hang on to the part of ourselves that feels most genuinely human," Noxon writes, and we can't help but celebrate our own inner senses of wonder and curiosity and the delightful and thought provoking journey this writer takes us on.

"In Rejuvenile, Christopher Noxon identifies a profound change in what it means to be an adult in the 21st century. He does so with remarkable clarity, gentle humor, exhaustive research, and deep revelations into the transformational power of play. Noxon offers up the hope that some of us, at least, will be able to create a new model of maturity: more functional, and definitely more fun. "

The image of childlike adults, enraptured by a game of tag, is at once compelling and disturbing. Disturbing, because it suggests that something central to our understanding of what it means to be grown-up has changed. Compelling for the very same reason. Are adults becoming more juvenile? Or is the institution of adulthood itself being rejuvenated? In coming up with the term "Rejuvenile," Noxon captures a fundamental ambiguity that has long characterized the "adult" approach to play. By clearly and entertainingly documenting the variety of ways in which adults are commiting themselves to play, he offers up the hope that some of us, at least, will be able to create a new understanding of maturity: more functional, and definitely more fun.

Lime Popsicles were my favorite as a child and now I find I am not alone in my indulgence of such childhood delights as an adult. Rejuvenile is a book that allows us to evaluate our own inner child and desire to recapture childhood along many avenues. Some people have organized activities such as tag and dodgeball. Some express their child through collecting tangible items such as toys. As adults they allow themselves to enjoy Disneyland as much as the children they come with. This is a fun, joyful book-one that I looked forward to reading at the end of a hectic workday.

I picked up this book because the character, Andy, was reading it on the TV show, "Weeds". And it was surprisingly serious. It was humorous, not boring, but it was full of facts, figures, examples and real-life examples. Noxon is a self-proclaimed Rejuvinile, yet his view on rejuvies is pretty un-biased. He touches on the negatives, the positives and everything in-between.

"Rejeuvenile" was a fun read. I'm primarily interested in understanding the niche markets pop culture creates. My reason is because I want to better understand what people want in order to sell it to them. Your interests may be different. Even if my interests were purely for entertainment this would still be a fun read because it's well-written with energetic language and colorful characters. It's not a novel and the only characters that are mentioned recurringly are the author and his wife, who don't come off as very colorful, but the parade of "are they nuts?" people is a bit of a freakshow.

This book doesn't even touch on rejeuvenile things within my own experience like going to dress-up events such Burning Man or Renaissance Faires. The fragmenting of today's culture into a million kaleidoscope prisms makes any sort of detailed survey of rejeuvenile culture impossible; it's simply growing and dividing too fast for anybody to track... and the growth is accelerating.

You can listen to an NPR feature where the author talks about the rejeuvenile phenomenon at [...] . One lady called in and was really pissed about rejeuveniles. I don't think she read the book. I think just hearing about the concept of adults that really enjoy video games and skateboarding and collecting toys and stuff like that really disturbed her. The author calls these people "Harrumphing Codgers" and I'm very thankful my own parents don't feel that way. I know a lot of adults I would classify as rejeuveniles and while their households seem like a sort of funny place to raise children, I see their kids growing up fine.

If anything, rejeuveniles reject the notion that when you grow up you have to progress to "adult" forms of play like golf and boating. Not that these things can't be fun, but can't comic books and video games and skateboarding and kickball be fun too? That's a core question we rejeuveniles ask ourselves.

I concluded I am rejeuvenile by a minor degree but only because my interests shifted away from video games towards playing guitars, which is somehow considered a more adult preoccupation because, well, playing music is understood as a relevant skill to master. The distinction of one activity of play being childish and another being culturally valid is partly just a cultural bias. The other part is music produces a result other people can enjoy, as do most other arts while many rejeuvenile hobbies entertain only the hobbiest. As another example you could look at men collecting model trains, which are definitely fun but the intricacy and age of the hobby have sort of elevated it. In 50 years I have a hard time believing that collecting StarWars models will be considered any less grown up than collecting model trains, so there's an evening-out as time passes, generations mature, and values change.

I and many other are wondering how the current obsession with electronic gizmos and non-skill-building entertainments are distracting our young people and perhaps dumbing them down. Will the younger generation swear-off their toys and embrace literacy and old mastery skills, or will skill at playing real instruments (for instance) become rarer as a whole generation becomes skillful at the much-easier methods of making pseudo-music with software and video games like Guitar Hero.

I could go on and on. If you are at all rejeuvenile you might want to get the book and consider the implications of your own behavior. Are you elevating your culture or bringing it down? How can you do better? There's no correct answer, but eventually most of the harrumphing codgers of today will be gone and either some of us rejeuveniles are going to have to give up our childish things or the world's going to have to run a bit differently. I don't have the answer either.

Well-written and though-provoking... but if you're a harrumphing codger it will probably just piss you off.

Rejuvenile is an excellent book, but is based on a concept that I believe is well-known but rarely written about. That being the case, this book takes some getting used to. Rejuveniles are all over the place today, but it's really something that the average person doesn't think about. Being an "adult kid" is epidemic in this country, though that's not necessarily a bad thing. People collect action figures, baseball cards, still go to the theater to see new Disney movies, play adult games like kickball (St. Louis, MO has an 18+ kickball league with over 100 teams, and many of its players are over 30!), and I still love watching Scooby Doo or Tom & Jerry when it's on TV.

Noxon discusses all these things: the way things are now compared to how things were 50 years ago, "good clean fun" activities to extreme sports, to more disturbing things modern rejuveniles do. To some extent, almost every adult these days is a rejuvenile in some respect. But this is the first book I've read on this subject that sounds, top to bottom, spoken by a true rejuvenile. And that's a good thing.

About: Lives of "rejuveniles" adults who won't "grow up". Grown up kickball leagues, mommies skateboarding groups, doll and toy collectors as well as Disney World aficionados are all profiled.

Pros: Accessibly written, wonderfully varied and thorough profiles of members and subgroups of the rejuveniles. References listed in back.

Cons: I found Noxon's profiles, interviews, and presentation of the rejuvenile culture more interesting than his analysis of it.