Who could forget the decade that brought us AIDS, Milli Vanilli, teen slasher movies and a sitting president with an advanced case of Alzheimer's disease? By James DiGiovanna Totally Awesome '80s by Matthew Rettenmund. Paper, $15.95 WHO COULD FORGET the decade that brought us AIDS, Milli Vanilli, teen slasher movies and a sitting president with an advanced case of Alzheimer's disease? Well, I guess that question answers itself; but for those who wish to remember, no finer source can be found than Totally Awesome '80s, by Matthew Rettenmund, the author of Encyclopedia Madonnica and Queer Baby Names. Essentially a collection of lists (Best Band Names of the '80s; Quintessentially '80s Movies; Idioms of '80s Speech, etc.), the book nevertheless manages to bring out some interesting leitmotifs of the last decade. A subtle connectedness can be found between the War on Drugs, the preponderance of benefit concerts, Political Correctness, and the Milli Vanilli lip-synching scandal: They were all about appearances. Sure, every era has its less-than-sincere side, but there's something about the neatly combed ponytail dangling over the collar of a stock-broker's $1,600 Armani suit that marks the depth of '80s shallowness. It was a decade that made Cool, Hip, and Caring into neat commercial commodities. In keeping with its subject, this loving but ironic catalog of the most important cultural events of the '80s is fittingly slim, flashy and shallow, covering mostly the poppiest movies, songs and political actions of the era that told us, "Greed is good."

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