“This is odd,” said a well-known writer, looking around and taking a sip of his cocktail. “I barely recognize anyone.” A woman in lavender chiffon beside him smiled, and said with mock outrage: “I know! Who are all these people?”
“Young,” supplied a second woman a little incoherently, tugging ever so slightly self-consciously at the lapels of her brocade jacket. She did not elaborate. Her husband, a white-haired elder statesman, stood a short distance away in a knot of other old bulls, in grave conversation.
Only a few years ago, the writer and his companions seemed to know everyone. If they were not exactly at the center of events, they were close enough to the periphery of the center, and certainly knew people who were in the center, to feel completely au courant. Yet here they were, having bestrode the world, feeling only a short time later like an endangered minority.
Well, it’s the way of Washington; it’s the way of the world. Administrations change, guest lists adjust, and whether openly and shockingly or with inexorable subtlety, age eternally gives way to youth. It’s happening all the time, of course, but it’s especially visible at black-tie, invitation-only events.
Celebrated men and women of the era go from hale to gray to frail; for a few years their spouses keep attending, but eventually they, too, no longer feel like making the effort to endure a cacophonous ballroom.
Into their seats slip another couple, usually a step younger. At the same time, other familiar faces drift away, to London or New York or Dubai or maybe to rusticate in flyover country. Wait a few years, and you may find, as these guests did, that the room is filled with strangers.
Jay Leno joked that politics was show business for ugly people. If that was ever true, it isn’t true now; witness how nicely Washingtonians cleaned up for the White House Correspondents’ dinner, and the other springtime galas that put such stress on the city’s hairdressers!
Still, certain parallels hold. Every year, a fresh tranche of young, gorgeous and inexpensive-to-hire talent arrives in Hollywood. Once there, they try to gain proximity to a much smaller number of older, gorgeous, established (and thus pricey) stars, with the idea of someday, maybe, joining the great constellation. Washington, too, is flooded every year by a fresh supply of young, gorgeous, inexpensive graduates who hope to join — or supplant — the older, more experienced and expensive occupants of powerful positions. The sheer push of so many ambitious young people surely accounts for much of the dynamism of both cities — a dynamism that can clearly be dismaying.
“Younger people used to be the interns or in entry-level positions,” remarked a woman in sapphire blue, who had joined the group of alienated partygoers. Her eyes wandered across the crowd, and she added, wonderingly, “Now they hold positions of authority.”
“At last, some people I know!” cried a jovial voice at that moment. A prominent think tank fellow pushed through the crowd and joined the writer and his friends. They visibly perked up.
“Yes! We were just saying …”
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
