Generation Ecch

In their provocative blend of satire and cultural caviling, the authors assert that the age cohort in question (Ecch-ers are between 15 and 29) is ``ascribing significance to meaninglessness.'' However, the same charge can be levied against their cultural, literary and political deconstruction a go-go. Not that journalists Cohen and Krugman don't make compelling provacateurs; as self-styled ``Debunkers of the Realm'' their keen insights and biting humor hit close to home in a half-dozen or so particularly good sections. While they are quick to finger the cultural culprits of mediocrity--MTV's Real World , the films of John Hughes, Antioch College's dating guidelines--they romanticize the recent past (while oddly rejecting Hudsucker Proxy , which does just that). If Cohen and Krugman fail as zeitgeist-busters, it is because they claim the X zeitgeist doesn't exist at the same time they skewer it through their often resonant, sometimes facetious observations about the reemergence of marijuana, the vapidity of Rave, the shallowness of culture. Still as pure humor, Cohen and Krugman are often cattily funny and comic strips from Milk and Cheese 's Dorkin always are. (Sept.)