Infinitely?
Adam Roberts at the Valve on the Terminator as Death whether the series is fatalistic or hopeful. I say hopeful, to the degree survival after apocalypse is optimism.
1964 would have gotten here without us, I suppose. I may not understand what this post is about.
I have a credit card that expires 2/15. That is some sci-fi shit.
I just like the fact that 1964 is over fifty years ago. Not only did it sure enough arrive, but then time kept going and going and going.
Now that I've gotten used to living in THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, the year that always sounds futuristic to me is 2012, because it makes me think of the science-fictiony Rush album 2112. Yes, I have seen Rush in concert three times. Laydeez.
time kept going and going and going.
But we don't have to just take this sitting down.
I just like the fact that 1964 is over fifty years ago
?
History is Schrodinger's Cat, nothing but a smile in a black box.
"This means that the histories of the Universe depend on what is being measured," Hawking wrote in a recent paper, "contrary to the usual idea that the Universe has an objective, observer-independent history.
When I was a little girl, I read a comic called 2000 A.D. .
It still seems weird to me that this is in the past.
If I'm in the 21st century, where's my jetpack?
Ask your dad if he remembers the Fina ad campaign: Pink Air Coming in 1966.
Or Quantuum leap being set in 1999.
I was born in 1964. Heebie-geebie just made me feel really old.
Oh, and 1984 was twenty-five years ago. Big Brother has been watching you.
11: Or Space: 1999 being set in 1999.
Pandagon has a post up about Purple Rain turning 25 this month. Oof. I remember the general media flipout for Sgt. Pepper's turning 20 -- and that came out like before I was born, man.
Big Brother has been watching you.
re: 15
Yup, the UK is the Orwellian/Benthamite panopticon.
I'm still not sure whether I've yet partied like it's 1999. At the end of the actual 1999, I was avoiding firecrackers on the streets of Hamburg. Biggest fireworks display in Europe was viewed by none, because the streets were so filled with smoke.
I was just thinking this morning that D-Day is 65 years in the past today. And another WWI veteran just died a couple of days ago. Thinking about how the little kids I know are going to be adults when the last few WWII survivors shuffle off. Weird. Of course, I never thought I'd live to be 30, so there you go. I miss the Cold War. It made Vienna so much more romantic. What's Vienna now? Just a bunch of Nazi skinheads and old tourists.
What's Vienna now?
It means nothing to meeeeeee!
re: 18
Yeah, that severing of direct links with the past is interesting. My paternal grandmother remembered Queen Victoria dying and when she was a small child there were men around who'd fought in the Crimean war.
The only WWI survivors left are all British/Commonwealth now (and one US). I presume the catastrophe that was WWII in mainland Europe explains why there are no veterans left from there.
It's weird that my grandparents (and slightly my parents) overlapped with Civil War vets. Anything pre-electricity seems so extremely ancient.
Also, there's a list of surviving Spanish Civil War veterans on Wikipedia, but it doesn't include the fellow I know from Mpls. (Well, really he's originally from Boston, where, as a lad, he would be given a dollar by his father every payday to take down to the anaaahchist center.) I can't find an obituary for him, so maybe he's just slipped between the cracks.
It's weird that my grandparents (and slightly my parents) overlapped with Civil War vets. Anything pre-electricity seems so extremely ancient.
The stock example, good for my social theory classes, is that John Tyler (b. 1790, U.S. President of 1840-1844) has two grandsons who are still alive and well.
I wonder if there's some way to edit Wikipedia?
Upon googling to confirm, I mean 1841-1845.
Prof. Gonerill, what does that example illustrate? Something about collective memory? I ask out of professional interest, by the way, not my usual dickishness.
No more masturbating to, uh, this plumber.
There's now only one WWI vet left who actually served in the trenches, a Brit; the two Americans left were an ambulance driver and a guy who never saw combat. But the fall-off in the past 5 years has been very great; as recently as 2004, most combatants could claim a couple of living veterans. The last French poilu died last year and got an impressive state funeral.
Personally, I was born in the 70s, but my Grandmother was the youngest of a large family, so she had a brother (my great uncle) who was killed in WWI, and her grandfather (who she remembered well) was a colonel in the Civil War.
I was born in the 70s and my maternal grandparents were both born in the early 1880s -- which is somewhat wacky, but more understandable if you know that my mom is the youngest of 9, who in turn had me at like 40.
I ask out of professional interest, by the way, not in addition to my usual dickishness.
26: We read Smith, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, etc, who might as well from fromma dawna time to undergraduates. Moreover, these writers spend a lot of time talking about cataclysmic social change and modernity etc. I just want to convey that things like the American, French and Industrial revolutions weren't that long ago, historically. The other thing I ask them to do (by way of introduction) is to name the earliest major news event they can personally remember.
31: My students this term were talking about 9/11 happening while they were in 8th grade.
Huh, I thought I had long-lived folks (born in early 80s, recently deceased maternal grandmother born in 1905).
I actually think MOST of my great-grandparents were born around 1875. I was born in 1982. Just four generations before me, my great-great-grandfather was in the British Army stationed in Canada pre-independence.
The other thing I ask them to do (by way of introduction) is to name the earliest major news event they can personally remember.
For my students, it's a vague memory of the O.J. trial, these days.
For me, I vaguely remember seeing Mondale/Ferraro bumper stickers, but really it's the Challenger explosion.
See, I practically have no memory of Teo being born.
I remember everyone in the family watching some guy do something important on tv. I assume this was Nixon resigning, but I was way little, so who knows? Other than that, the Bicentennial?
I vividly remember a classmate saying "Isn't that weird that 'Peace in the Middle East' rhymes?" and me being like "No. That doesn't even really rhyme," and getting into an argument.
'84 is also the first year that I have historical memories from. I remember the Olympics happening.
For the Challenger, my second-grade class actually watched it live on TV.
Huh. The Danish starting eleven doesn't have one black haired player.
Nixon-Kennedy debates?
(WTF am I doing hanging around the playground with my dogs, like Chester or something? Where are the ammoniac blogs, the dyspeptic yahtzee players where we sing Don McLean in unison. Umm, these are metaphors. Mostly.)
Yeah, I was also born in the 70s. I think the earliest news event I remember, oddly, is Sid Vicious being arrested for the murder of Nancy Spungen. Why that, I have no idea.
Anything after about 1982-83, I remember really cleary as I was precociously opinionated -- in a non-party-political way -- about politics.
re: 33
My paternal grandparents died in the mid 80s, and were both in their late 80s at the time. My one living grandparent is 95, though, and hale and hearty.
"Huh. The Danish starting eleven doesn't have one black haired player."
Brought to mind an old discussion between Ttam and me.
Hopefully we'll teach the fuckers a lesson about the value of diversity.
Fuck wheres the rest of my pasta? I'm hungry.
My earliest memory is this post.
FUCK FUCK FUCK
You need some of that generous welfare state to give your defender a new job.
David, is this like the scene in Kingdom where the Swedish doctor goes to the roof of the building to look at Sweden and hurl abuse at Denmark (Danskjävlar!)?
Fun fact: Loop Troop doing a takeoff of I shot Reagan was one reason the Topaz crew made their legendary but not that good diss track.
Palme is just one step below Allende for chilean Swedes.
%8: It's National Day in Sweden today, and an important qualifier between Sweden and Denmark that we probably need to win to reach the World Cup, and the Danes just scored. Excuse the self indulgence.
61: OK, I will help: Danskjävlar!
(I lived in the once-Swedish neighborhood of Chicago for a long time and there were many inter-Scandinavian antagonistic bumper stickers, like "You can tell a Norsk -- but not much!")
SMÅ ONDA DJÄVLAR DANSAR I EN RING
DÄR STÅR JAG I MITTEN MEN HAG SÄGER INGENTING
Meanwhile I'm stuck with Serbia-Austria. The Austrians just gave up a penalty on an atrocious clearance from the keeper.
Ireland v Bulgaria here. Fucking wombles.
I kinda wish I could get the Cyprus-Montenegro match.
Crappity crap crap crap. Sally has headlice. Goddamn batting helmets.
We just got done with an infestation. A complete pain.
I recommend mayo+headcap treatments, which suffocate the little fuckers and aren't pesticides-for-your-kid's-head.
Just shave her head and be done with it.
In the 90s, I spoke with a Navajo woman who'd known personally people who were on the Long Walk.
And now I don't know if I have them -- I've certainly used the same brushes as her. My head itches, but it started the second I heard the word 'lice' so it's at least partially psychosomatic.
It's maddening not being able to check my own head, Buck doesn't see anything but dandruff, but his eyes aren't great.
70: We already doused her with poison and nit-combed -- I figure I may do olive-oil/saranwrap tonight.
71: It is Little League -- an email went around a while back, but I thought we'd slipped through. Then I noticed her hairline looking rashy at the back of her neck, and spotted the nits.
74: Have Buck take some photos of your scalp, then post them to the Flickr group. The Mineshaft has some pretty good nitpickers.
74: If you comb your hair with a nit-comb, you should be able to check your own head.
Or you could just shave your own head at the same time you do Sally's.
We already doused her with poison
I would not let CPS read this.
olive-oil/saranwrap tonight
I hope this is not as drastic as this sounds. Are you really going to cover her with olive oil and wrap her in saran wrap? Or yourself?
Don't drug stores sell effective stuff for this?
Don't drug stores sell effective stuff for this?
Yes, but by your own suggestion LB shouldn't let CPS read about it.
She already got a haircut -- midback to chin length. There was no way I would have been able to comb through her mop with a nitcomb. I think I'm going to do the same on Monday. (I'm not sure about the courtesy of telling a salon "I might have lice". Do they want to know that? We told the barber who cut her hair, and he was cool with it.)
Worst National Day ever. The weather was crap too.
Condolences, David.
What sport are you talking about again?
Also condolences to the beliced Breath clan.
This Desert Essence Therapeutic Tea tree oil shampoo is supposed to work well. I'm told that their regular tea tree oil shampoo is good for prevention.
There was one kind which killed the lice but not the nits. When I had lice, my parents always got the prescription stuff that also killed the nits. That may be available OTC.
Awww, poor Sally. The olive oil/saran wrap treatment not only works, but is an excellent conditioner yielding hair as soft as silk. Recommended by my hairstylist for beautiful hair. If that's any consolation.
Recommended by my hairstylist for beautiful hair.
Or perhaps s/he was just trying to tell you something, cootie girl.
Condolences. Get those vile little critters.
According to certain lice-killing experts, you could always use petrol, while standing near very hot machinery.
89: Awww, poor Cala. Be nice, M/tch! Cala and I are curly headed and as such basically need to put handfuls of Vaseline in our hair.
Ahem, the curly-headed do not need to put vaseline in their hair at all.
92: No, just 2 bottles of No More Tangles.
Also, how "in" was publius over at ObWi, because jagoff Ed Wh/lan over at the Corner is bragging about outing him.
89: Grab that low-hanging fruit of the olive tree! And put it in your hair.
92: Somehow this is different for boys. Shorter hair, manlier oils, I know not what.
How did this turn into the Official Sweden-Denmark World Cup Qualifier Thread? Oh, never mind. We won and that's all that counts. (Strange, I don't recall being on the pitch, but there you go)
No fair, lurkers delurking to gloat over loyal longtime commenters.
96: You're not the Lisa Ekdahl fan from above? (I would put a smiley here to indicate goodnatured ribbing were it not deprecated.)
3: I just like the fact that 1964 is over fifty years ago. Not only did it sure enough arrive, but then time kept going and going and going.
9: 6: Um, heh, whups.
Heebie slipped! She thinksFor her it is 2019 and she's actually come back in time to prevent the marriage of Archie and Veronica!
max
['DR3AD 3V1L11!!']
93.2:Very in, I think.
As p says in comments, these things are best not responded to immediately.
Other than, ya know, fill in a generic eliminationist bobm rant here. Y'all should be able to write them yourselves by now.
93: Oh, how rotten. I don't know publius particularly, but outing someone is a really lousy thing to do. And I say that with a newfound appreciation for the meaning of 'lousy'.
Way back to 22: Frowner informs me that old Joe is, in fact, dead.
100/02: EW is quite the petulant little prick. p was "irresponsible" and had to be exposed. What a sad sack.
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Unscheduled Random Meet-up Edition: this afternoon I ran into Will at a convenience store and he invited me to lunch. Good food (we both had veggie burgers and sweet potato fries), good conversation, and nobody got divorced or naked.
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Good food (we both had veggie burgers and sweet potato fries), good conversation, and nobody got divorced or naked.
Can't win 'em all.
96: Well, that's a nice little Danish Day present for Danish-Americans (for tomorrow).
Back on topic: my oldest great-grandparent was born in 1863. My grandfather, his son, was the last of 13 children. Being a minister, and the wrong age for any wars in the US and Denmark, however, my great-grandfather was not a veteran.
93: It's a despicable thing to do. And he even boasts about it! What a weenie.
@98 Nope. Lisa Ekdahl isn't my cup of tea. (Not that I have anything against Sweden or Swedish singers - I lived there for almost ten years)
@109 Two of my grandfather's older brothers served in the German marine during WW1. (I can't recall ever meeting them, my grandfather was born in 1902 and died in 1975) The tragedy was that they were Danes from North Schleswig, forced to serve for "the wrong side". The family history notes that they were marked for life by their experiences.
92: Somehow this is different for boys. Shorter hair, manlier oils, I know not what.
Hey. I have curly hair, and do not feel the need for vaseline or No More Tangles. Granted, I sport the naturally tangled look. My hair has gotten less curly as time has gone on, as well.
publius was outed? That rat bastard Wh/elan.
My oldest surviving grandparent is pre-electricity (sort of - he's fond of reminding me that he didn't have electricity until he was 17, when the farm got hooked up via the TVA).
Born in 1981, my first political memory is of Dukakis in the tank. Cause, you know, that was pretty ridiculous.
Born in 1982. First political memory: seeing Reagan on TV and learning that he was the president of the country.
1971, and I remember my babysitter explaining to me in 1976 that any decent person would vote for Ford rather than Carter, because Ford was the President and it was disloyal not to vote for the President. I don't remember much else about her, but I do wonder about my parents' hiring skills.
111.2: Yeah, it's one of those situations that must be elided from of a lot of family histories. I don't personally know about any Loyalist, Confederate or other "wrong side" veterans in our genealogy, and my mother's pretty into family histories. But if there were, and nobody in their generation talked about it, it might fall off the radar in as little as 40 or 50 years.
Reminds me of a story: It's the 1840s in a little town in New England, and the town council is planning the 4th of July celebration. Someone mentions that there's an old farmer down the road who actually fought in the Revolutionary War. So they invite him to the celebration, and after the parade, the first selectman stands up at the podium and introduces him to the assembled crowd as a veteran. "So, farmer Schmidt, you were in the War", he starts out, "Ja" comes the reply, "And who did you serve under", the beaming politician continues, "Vell I vus vit General Burgoyne" the farmer happily replies.
115: Later on, the babysitter was dismissed after your parents learned of her "trickle-down" approach to bathing. Pouring a bucket on your head did not, in fact, get the job done.
115: I voted for Ford in the Weekly Reader election! Why? Because he was bald like my dad, duh.
116: The Canadians in my family were all Loyalists; they fled during the war never to return. I'm from the good patriotic bunch, of course.
115: In 4th grade the teacher explained that she was voting for Reagan (1984 election), and she hoped everyone would, because the Soviet Union wanted to blow us up with nuclear weapons, and we needed a president who could stand up to them. And this, to a bunch of kids from liberal SW Minneapolis.
Like I said, sometimes I really miss the Cold War.
My first voting presidential election was the sad affair of 1984: Reagan vs. Mondale. WTF. Oh, well.
Coming of political age under Reagan sucked, I must say. It's embarrassing to admit that I tuned out, being at college and feeling mostly defeated, political-party-wise. Instead we focused on disinvestment from South Africa. That worked out okay. I think.
I don't think Confederates are generally considered to fall into quite the same "wrong side" category as, say, Loyalists.
121: rhymes with my experience. I believe we are both from the 1964 vintage.
Both of my grandfathers served in WWII. One saw combat in Europe, and never spoke of the war. One stayed safely stateside the whole time and wouldn't fucking shut up about it.
My first vote was for Jesse Jackson in the Democratic Primaries. It must have been 88, because I was too young in 84. I went to the polls with my mom.
122: Depends rather strongly on who's doing the considering, I'd say.
My dad was in the navy in WWII. He didn't talk about it a whole lot, but wasn't silent on it or anything. My uncle who lied about his age in order to enlist and ended up storming the beaches of Normandy -- he never talked about it.
124: Mine too. One died in the Pacific, the other served his time in Key West. My father is considerably older than most of my contemporaries' parents, and my mother, too - it was a surprise to me to realize that most people of my age had grandparents considerably younger than my own.
122: Around here they do. Damned murdering Copperhead traitors But that may be my personal biases.
125: Certainly, but I think the people who think Confederate-veteran status is neutral to positive vastly outnumber the people who think Confederate veterans are inherently pariahs.
There are probably regional differences, of course.
129: That sounds reasonable.
130: Yeah, I don't think I'd have to throw a stone too far in Central Virginia to find someone who used un-ironically the expression "The War of Northern Agression".
They elide the first G in "aggression". It's very weird.
You know, the next time war or guns or army stuff comes up with my kids (and it does) I'm going to tell them about their great grandparents, because it so illustrates a basic truth.
When that "Greatest Generation" book came out, your great grandfather Berkey was beside himself with self satisfaction. "Look, it's true! We saved the word from EEEEvil! We are so heroic!" Your dad's dad's dad, who actually saw what war was like, didn't say shit.
In fact, I'd say of people in the urban core of the Twin Cities, it would be hard to get many folx riled up about a war that happened 3/4ths of a century before Minnesota became a state. Of course, to our great shame and dismay, there are a lot of yahoos out in the sticks here who like to put on Confederate drag to show their allegiance to white supremacy. Be that as it may, the Johnny Rebs are not getting their battle flag back -- we took it, and we're keeping it.
I don't think Confederates are generally considered to fall into quite the same "wrong side" category as, say, Loyalists.
None of my ancestors were Loyalists (they weren't in Canada early enough to be Loyalists, but I suspect their loyalty to the Crown would not have extended that far, if they had been in Canada at the time). I can't see the Loyalists as being on the "wrong side," though. I guess I can see the merits of both sides (which is wimpy of me, yes, but that's how I see it).
My great-grandfather was born 1892 and was a WWI verteran (so was his wife). Odd that I knew the man. His father was born in 1862, so, not old enough to serve in that war, not that his father would have, being Unionist in Confederate territory. (Which is somewhat odd, since his son (the one born in 1862) named his three sons Robert Lee, Benjamin Franklin and John Henry. But that was during the big revival around the Glorious Lost Cause.)
My first memory of the wider world is watching the Apollo 12 landing, but the first clear political memory is Nixon resigning, since I watched him make the speech on TV. (And I also listened to all the breathless announcing over it.)
max
['The long slow slide of the 70's can be yours for just 29.95$!']
123: It's a good vintage.
Jesus! I tasted a Pinot Gris recently (at a wine tasting) from one Legends Vineyard here in MD, and it was so appealing -- the guy (I guess it was Ashby) importuned me, "You have to try my Pinot Gris, we just won an award! The Silver Medal out of 120 entries, and it's our first year!" He was very excited, I sincerely complimented his wine, I asked for his card. I thought of you.
I really don't know anything about wine, but the man's enthusiasm was infectious.
131.2: Growing up a sheltered northeastern coastal type, the first time I heard that expression (WoNA), I thought the person saying it was kidding. This was when I was a freshman in college and my dorm neighbor was from Stone Mtn, GA. As a child, I didn't "get" the Dukes of Hazard because the Confederate flag clearly marked them as "bad guys." I have zero clue where any of this came from since it's not something that came up at all in my family. Wacky how that stuff works.
I can't see the Loyalists as being on the "wrong side," though. I guess I can see the merits of both sides (which is wimpy of me, yes, but that's how I see it).
I don't see a whole lot of merit to either side, to be honest. But in American public discourse it's very much taken for granted that the Patriots were "right" and the Loyalists were "wrong," and I suspect most Americans reflexively see it that way.
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Hey, you know what are awesome? Block parties! It's a whole block! Full of party!
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133:Your dad's dad's dad, who actually saw what war was like, didn't say shit
Why bother, apparently you, by indication of this comment, didn't absorb the "basic truth."
Most of the combat veterans I knew, and I knew quite a few, didn't talk about war, were not militaristic, but apparently saw little point in opposing war. They had much closer contact with the leadership, the officer corps, the insanity and waste and corruption of war, and understood their position in the food chain. Like most soldiers, they abandoned heroisms and settled for survival.
Let's rename the Civil War the War of Southern Treason.
I went off to college the same year Heebie's dad it. 1964 didn't seem all that far away but the twenty-first century sure did.
My grandmother's life predated he first airplane flight and went on to moon landings, the fall of the Soviet Union, and all that. She made to about 101, there's some doubt as to the exact year of her birth.
My first political memory is of my parents and friends sitting around the radio listening to the UN vote on the partition of Palestine and shushing the assorted kids playing underfoot. The voting was held just about a mile away in Lake Success.
TBH the world is so vastly different than it was as I was growing up I'm sort of amazed I can comprehend even some part of it.
My own dad was a top-rank boxer. By fulfilling his commander's competitive ambitions, he by himself managed to keep his company on base and away from Iwo Jima and Okinawa, but eventually the price had to be paid and they were put on point (or whatever) in New Guinea and the Marshalls. Lost 60%.
He recommended I enlist for Vietnam. He wasn't really a hawk, just a hard & cruel man in what he saw as a hard and cruel world. The older I get, the more I understand and forgive him.
My great aunt lived to be 93. One day it occurred to me that she could remember before women had the vote, so I asked her about it. The main thing she remembered was her dead telling her that voting was a very serious responsibility, and she should take it seriously. She also remembered the swine flu epidemic of 1919 -- her mother got it, and they treated it by giving her brandy. Apparently it worked, because she survived.
144: My oldest brother was a year or two too young for the last lottery. I have no idea what my dad's view was on his ever serving. I'll have to ask my brother.
CA's dad however was so convinced that Reagan was going to get the war he was looking for that he became a Quaker in order to boost any future CO status that CA might require. CA had triple (!) citizenship (US/UK/Canada), unlike his younger brother who was UK/Canada.
One of the few other stories my dad told of the war was about doing Douglas MacArthur's lawn with fingernail clippers.
A war is disillusioning, teaches you about biology, about the food chain.
Kill or be killed, at your master's pleasure.
The older I get, the more I understand and forgive him.
I understand this. When I was a kid (teens, twenties), I had a hard time understanding my father, in fact was hateful to him, or withholding of my affection, every once in a while -- a military man, in intelligence in Vietnam, a believer in Peace Through Strength, plaques about which we had on our walls in the home. They were awards my dad had received.
He didn't pontificate around the house, or any such thing, and was a blue-collar democrat, but man. The Peace through Strength thing I was too immature to try to understand. I forgive him.
Bob, you're talking about something else. I'm just talking about forgiving the man who was my father.
None of my direct ancestors fought in either WW1 or WWII.
A cousin on my mother's side (James Michael McTragedy, not to be confused with his first cousin once removed, Michael James McTragedy, who was killed in a train wreck in Kansas in 1897) died in the field in Belgium in 1944. He is buried in Belgium, but with a grave marker also in Canada.
In Stanley's "how to interview the grandparents" thread, I mentioned an elderly cousin (on my father's side) who gave me lots of family history information. He served with the RCAF in WWII, along with his brother. His brother was shot down by the Germans and spent time in a POW camp. Apparently, and not surprisingly, it did scar him (emotionally, but also physically, as he had some broken bones that never set properly, which plagued him for the rest of his life). A few months before he died (about a year and a half ago), I visited this cousin (whose brother had been in the POW camp) and he told me about going (at the end of the war, or shortly thereafter, I guess) to look for his brother in military hospitals in England until he finally found him. When his brother was well enough to travel, they went up to Edinburgh by train to celebrate, and then shipped home to Canada. My cousin didn't tell me much (no real details), but I felt that he had told me something.
143: TBH the world is so vastly different than it was as I was growing up I'm sort of amazed I can comprehend even some part of it.
Biohazard, can I ask you something? To what extent do you feel an obligation to keep on trying to comprehend it?
I mean just that the kids these days are so into all these things, and many of them just seem stupid, or not particularly an improvement but just a change in technology, and yet I am aware that I will begin to sound stubborn if I decline to bring myself up to date.
I like listening to the radio! I imagine at some point I'll give the kids the finger or something. That's the point at which one becomes officially old, isn't it? I'm not awfully stressed about this, but I see it coming, and I'm sure it happens to every one of us eventually.
Also -- Biohazard, how's Domineditrix doing?
150:Well, yeah. There is so much I can't comprehend enough at a basic emotional level that I hesitate to accept, admire, or condemn. So there is a part of me that says 50 cent must be as good as Otis Redding; comic book movies an exact artistic subsitute for Truffaut and Bergman; Obama better than FDR.
This isn't completely sarcasm, it is an article of faith that people in aggregate don't get stupider across generations or centuries. We can't devolve this fast, can we? So as I look for the brilliance of the Medieval as different but not less than the brilliance of Rome, so I believe I must be missing the point of Zac Braff.
Born in the Year of Teo, first thing I remember is a huge newspaper headline circa 1991, "WAR ENDS."
My first domestic-political memory is seeing an article about Clinton in the primaries and being mildly impressed (purely based on image, I'm sure).
153.1 is misleadingly phrased. First political thing.
152: There is so much I can't comprehend enough at a basic emotional level that I hesitate to accept, admire, or condemn.
Yes, right. Thanks -- my question really had to do with how much one should try to rearrange one's emotional radar (substitute some more apt term) in order to find today's romantic comedies, say, or online dating, or the instantaneity of ever-connected webitude, interesting.
There's some good writing about the ironic state of being out there, and it's helped a bit; but I really didn't mean or want this to be a critique of contemporary culture. Just a question about the extent to which one feels compelled to try to get it when one loses track of why one should.
Hmm. Roman comedy, you know, is all wacky mistaken identity ZOMG a secret twin type stuff. Sons seeking to live lives out of the Roman norm are taught the error of their ways and magically have their current situations fixed to live appropriately. Zach Braff really isn't far off.
comic book movies an exact artistic subsitute for Truffaut and Bergman
"Exact artistic substitute" is way too strong. But note that many comic book movies these days have learned lessons from Godard, who is at least of the same vintage.
but I see it coming, and I'm sure it happens to every one of us eventually.
As my (then 4 or 5 years old) son told me about a couple of years ago, "When I'm an old man, you'll live under a gravestone." I believe he then added something about bringing me flowers.
What I sometimes find astonishing, and sometimes even find incomprehensible, about the past 10-15 years is the sheer pace of change. Almost nothing now is presumed to be permanent (or even just assumed to be designed to last a generation or so); and the presumption nowadays is very much in favour of change and novelty and newness as the obviously best, or at least next-best, thing. Which, in some cases, yes, of course. But in other cases, well, maybe not so much. I sometimes suspect there may actually be something new under the sun in this relentless orientation toward the future. As Gonerill mentions above, a lot of undergrads (but it's not just undergraduates, of course) tend to think the latter half of the nineteenth century (well within the parameters of the modern age, according to historians) is as distant from us as is the Age of Charlemagne, if not even farther situated back in the mists of time, for all intents and purposes.
Not to play at being Christopher Lasch on the internets, but there's something about that break in the sense of continuity between past, present and future generations that really does interest (but occasionally does disturb) me.
||
Am Becks style. Made my first venture into making movies of my lectures for online courses. No one would mistake the product for something professionally edited and lit. My family is away and I've got a big empty house.
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Further to 155: I understand your last, bob. I tend to assume I must be missing the point of Zac Braff. (I actually don't know who that is off the top of my head.) But should I try to understand the point?
This would ultimately be a personal decision -- duh -- but we have an awful lot of loss of understanding between generations as it stands.
What I sometimes find astonishing, and sometimes even find incomprehensible, about the past 10-15 years is the sheer pace of change.
Yeah, but how much of this is same shit different package. Yes, you can listen to podcasts on your ipod now along with all the other podpeople. But the stories you're listening to haven't changed.
Were I not late for bed, that would be
Yeah, but how much of this same-shit-different-package?
I think comment 158 could have been written anytime after about 1789, and definitely after 1900.
Future-orientation, rapid pace of change, lack of permanence pretty much=modernity, not just the past 15 years.
155:Perhaps I still don't get what you mean, but I was mentioning just a few areas of age-based alienation. There are many more:twitter, facebook, I am sure the rest of you are commenting naked in front of webcams, stuff that old fogies don't understand.
Except for the music, I actually think I feel more at home in 1900 culture;Languidly lounging in taffeta on a wooden porch, drinking tea, plotting to assassinate somebody.
something professionally edited and lit.
robert, dear, i guess "lit" is the operative word!
160:I am mostly trying to be funny.
That isn't to say I don't fret over the death of the newspaper or that I don't peak at the post-modern but mostly I have given up and don't care.
164: It sounds like you understand me completely, bob. I might be more of a hippie than you are. The lounging on the wooden porch wouldn't be in taffeta, and we would probably just be plotting to undermine the establishment.
152:So there is a part of me that says 50 cent must be as good as Otis Redding; comic book movies an exact artistic subsitute for Truffaut and Bergman; Obama better than FDR.
I don't think they are exact: there's so much more stuff generated that there is going to be a much larger amount of crap in absolute terms. On the other hand, the crap from the past gets forgotten and washed away, while the good stuff survives.
For example, I was wandering past the TV and there was The Spirit on TV. I watched it. For a comic movie that was fun. (But then, my ex- and myself plus another couple we did not know were the only ones in the theatre for a showing of American Psycho. I thought the movie was funny as hell; the other couple went out bitching that it was the worst movie they'd ever seen.) Weirdly enough, Miller stayed more or less true to the comic, as far as I could tell. Then again, I know where the B&W and red motif originates, and Miller has always been all about the big guns and the cartoony fascism thing. Would I have better off not having seen it? No. Was I better off having seen it? No. Just a movie and I've seen enough movies and read enough comics to know how the whole game is played. I was just looking for the Samuel Jackson-brand overacting. Would I be better off swapping out for Airport or The Posidon Adventure? No. It might be hard to swap for the original B&W DOA, and I'd prefer to keep the Thin Man (which is also full of overdone motifs, just 30's style).
Mostly I think I've learned all how all the stories in the basic formats and all their variants, so it's just a question of how much time I'm willing to waste on something rehashed.
['Toilets are ALWAYS funny!']
167: I can't bring myself to fret over the death of the newspaper. Over the death of local, community news, yes. But all those dead trees??
Born in the Year of Teo
This just keeps getting weirder.
online dating
I just took a look at OkCupid for the first time in months. It's all... different. Not in content, at least perceptibly, but definitely in style. I mostly found it confusing.
You're going to be 80 before you know it, Teo. That's 90 in heebie-years.
163 gets it right. I'm only a year or two older than Ned (the Challenger disaster was in first grade for me; I remember the whole school being sent home early, but that can't possibly be right), but I'm a fogey at heart, and I'm always getting thrown by how now now is, if that makes sense. It feels as though a culture that produces such huge piles of transitory stuff can't possibly be equipped to make anything that lasts. But then I remember Laura Ingalls Wilder writing about her family's waiting impatiently for the newest Godey's Ladies' Book and knowing miserably (Pa presumably excepted) that they would always be a good six months out of fashion. And of course when I was reading the Little House books, Laura Ingalls Wilder seemed to be pretty much from the dawn of time.
172: Excellent attitude! I'm teasing, you know. You're an old soul -- which is a compliment. You have grace.
I have just recently been introduced to Laura Ingalls Wilder, thanks to my six year old. I found Wilder surprisingly compelling. What was most interesting to me was the amount of time she spends describing the processes and tools they used to survive. Really, it was an almost sci-fi level interest in technology, only with the time direction reversed.
150: I don't know about "compelled" but I'm curious enough to check out new stuff enough to see if it makes an improvement in my life or is, as Max said, just something rehashed.
I like techie stuff and tend to stay reasonably current on it but I avoid the bleeding edge. Someone else can take their lumps with that now, I've been there and did it for decades.
Facebook was worth signing up for 'cause it keeps me in contact with the extended family even if I don't write much of anything on it except the occasional "Congratulations". Twitter is, near as I can tell, a complete waste of time, the signal to noise ratio is far too low for me to bother with it.
Generally I love the internet and the ability to dig into and learn about something on the spur of the moment.
Most current music is wasted on me, there are only so many ways one can say "I have zits and the world shits" or its converse and I learned those in the Fifties and Sixties. It's not that I think the current stuff is all that terrible, it's that I don't care about those concerns any more enough to find out who might be good modernly.
If it weren't for bad luck the DE wouldn't have any luck at all. The knee replacement went fine. Then she came down with galloping gastritis from the NSAIDs and we did the whole 911, paramedic, and ER schick for a week at Cedars. Then last Friday at 2:30 am she managed to trip on the edge of the bed and fell, resulting in a repeat of the whole 911+ bit but with a cracked pelvis this time. She's in rehab trying to get the pain level down to the point where she can come home. The prediction is June 17th. She's making progress but it's not any fun at all.
And now you know more than you or anyone else really wanted to know.
176: Oh no no no! Please give DE our best wishes. Oy. Does she need anything? Cheezy novels?
Rob, you might look up Flora Thompson's books (collected as Lark Rise to Candleford) when you exhaust the various Little Houses. Quite like Wilder in the focus on daily life and tools, but in a country village in late Victorian England.
And good lord, all best to Domineditrix. Yow.
177: Some volunteer at the hospital gave her a JA Jance mystery and she liked that one well enough to ask me for more. There are over thirty of those so even at her 1/day rate we're good for a while. Our two local libraries have yards of them. Thanks.
I'm sending more good mojo Domineditrix's way. The Unfoggedetariat is routing for her.
176: Oh no. Pass along caring wishes to her! I hope she (and you) can stay calm and breathe* through this.
* That's from a line from some band: "Don't forget to breathe." It tends to make sense in its silly way.
176: A pelvic fracture? Damn. Best wishes to her.
I meant to say we were poking in the dirt with our snouts to find her. Is that "routing" or "rooting"?
Twitter is, near as I can tell, a complete waste of time, the signal to noise ratio is far too low for me to bother with it.
I generally feel this way about it, but then the other day I found the Twitter feed of the chef at a restaurant Magpie and I went to in Chicago, and reading back through his tweets you could see him coming up with some of the dishes we ate, which was pretty cool. It probably helps that he doesn't tweet very often.
186: The more I stare at "rooting" the more I think it looks wrong. This may be a function of staring at a word for too long -- you know how that works sometimes.
We would, though, be rooting the dirt to find her.
Is that "routing" or "rooting"?
Still "rooting." "Routing" would be if we were, like, laying out highways for her or something.
176: "Don't forget to breathe." is what the PT people keep telling her.
According to the docs, the nurses, and the PTs, and verified by the screams from the DE when she moves the wrong way or a bit too much, cracking/fracturing a pelvis is one of the more painful things one can do to oneself. There are lots of nerves that can get clobbered in and through that area.
I'm okay. I've been here and far beyond here several times before, know how to deal with it.
I shall relay the good wishes in the morning. Thanks again.
It probably helps that he doesn't tweet very often.
Seriously? I guess tweet-frequency is a relative measure -- he seems to tweet at least once a day, which seems frequent enough.
I should have figured you'd be following Achatz's Twitter feed, Di. I don't actually look at Twitter very often; I just happened to come across his feed and read back to March very quickly.
Kind of amusing to see him come up with the idea of the pigeonneau, though. He was right, it made for quite the contrast in the middle of the meal, when they replaced all the tableware with classic china and cut crystal, and put down this old-school dish. It was (unsurprisingly) delicious.
Yowch. Belated best wishes to DE. I'll save the tasteless "maybe she needs a good power bottom" joke for a more appropriate oh wait I just made it. Seriously, though, hope she pulls out of the shit sooner rather than later, she'd one of the good ones.
On an "up" note, I'm here to tell all you bachelors to acquire yourselves a niece immediately (assuming you have siblings willing to put in the work). Totally fun to take to the movies, plus they get you the heady "wow, you're a responsible man who's good with kids" looks from all the single MILFs at the mall without actually having to have kids of your own. It's like being obnoxiously ChildFree and not, all at once.
(I suppose I may yet become the Will Ferrell character from Wedding Crashers, with an additional Black Power gimmick. Will keep the Unfoggedtariat updated on my progress.)
On the topic of the thread: I was born in '75 and envisaged 2010 as the unreachable future. Now I'm planning fundraising campaigns into that year. The future is a motherfucker.
Wait, I'm older than DS? That shit's not right.
Oh man -- my sympathies and best wishes to DE. Ouch!
I don't have clear early political memories. I'm dimly aware of seeing Reagan and Gorbachev on TV a lot. The first really clear thing is 3rd grade, thinking the Gulf War trading cards that most of the kids in the class were so excited about were pretty dumb. (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trading cards, on the other hand, were awesome.)
Yeah, I haven't really taken the Twitter plunge -- so far I follow my brother, his wife, and Achatz. It is fascinating to "watch" him think out loud about new culinary ideas.
Rob: I'm sending more good mojo Domineditrix's way. The Unfoggedetariat is routing for her.
Amen. I will route my good wishes directly through the either where they result in an immediate but small pain reduction, because I can do cool shit like that.
max
['Packets of huggles!']
Holy smokes, I'm so sorry to hear about DE. Best wishes, indeed. And if she makes it through JA Jance, there's always Wendy Hornsby.
I'm here to tell all you bachelors to acquire yourselves a niece immediately
There is nothing so amusing as watching my brothers-in-law on the loose with their infants. But babies are people-magnets in general; I was meandering around with a four-month-old today and got a rather startling amount of comment.
I will team up with max and route my good wishes through the Or, which is even cooler.
Doctor Slack
[...and additional "yayyyy wiggles!"]
Biohazard, sorry to hear about DominEditrix's troubles. Please relay to her my sympathies and very best wishes.
199: Is that what Norm Coleman was trying to say the other day? Republicans need to compete on the Either Net?
Also, my sympathy to DE through any available medium. (Pour it through a series of tubes.)
Ah. Interesting. Apparently morphine doesn't give one a high if there's lots of pain but does so once it starts to subside. I have just relayed all your good wishes to a fairly loopy DE, who thanks you one and all.
205: Ah crap, I missed getting my best wishes in time.
Hopefully DE was too woozy to notice and take it as a slight.
And anyway, best wishes for a speedy recovery, DE!
Is that "routing" or "rooting"?
Oh, wait. I've been rooting for DE, but I've also been routing. Now I'm covered in sawdust, and I have all this moulding I don't know what to do with.
Sending DE vibes for a fast recovery.
176: Sympathies and best wishes to DE. My mom discovered after she cracked her pelvis that one can walk unbelievably early, and in fact DE may be encouraged to do so because walking will ensure the bones set right. Which is good news if you hate to be bed-rid. Wishing her the best of painkillers, and all other good things, and you.
173/175: Disturbing news about Charles Ingalls, a hundred and forty years later:
The Ingalls family left Kansas a few weeks later. Mrs. Wilder claimed that a cavalry troop rode in one day and warned Pa to vacate or be evicted, since the house was located just inside the Osages' diminished reservation. But that could not have been the reason the Ingallses left Kansas and moved back to Wisconsin. The U.S. Army had not moved one squatter off the Osages' land when it was their reservation, so why would that happen when there no longer was an Osage reservation in Kansas?
The Ingallses' neighbors were not through with the Osages yet. Nearly twenty mixed-blood Osages had decided to remain on farms they had developed and improved over the years, and to formally enter the white man's world by becoming U.S. citizens. They secured a special treaty with the good citizens of Independence to allow them to stay. But in the weeks after the main body of Osages left Kansas, the mixed-bloods' farmhouses, one after another, were burned down.
One night, the white neighbors of Joseph Mosher broke into his house--a mile or two from the Little House on the Prairie--dragged him, his wife and children out of their beds and into the yard, where they beat them and torched the house.
Then they took the Osage man to the nearby woods, and pistol-whipped him to death.
The last three paragraphs of 209 should also have been blockquoted. I don't know why that didn't work.
Yow, poor DE, and best bone-knitting wishes.
Best wishes to DE. That's the sort of shit you couldn't make up.
there's so much more stuff generated that there is going to be a much larger amount of crap in absolute terms. On the other hand, the crap from the past gets forgotten and washed away, while the good stuff survives. This.
Both my grandfathers were in the army in WWI. Paternal was over 40 in 1914, so he flew a desk. Maternal got a nice little blighty in 1916, which he thanked god for, although he was in quite a bit of pain in old age. My father was in the next round. He spent most of it as a POW.
Oh, poor DE, that's fucking horrible! I'm sending good mojo her way from around the world. it's true about the morphine. it's one of the insidious things about evil US undertreatment of pain that the poor bastards aren't even getting high (which seems to be the worry). pain just eats up all the high, even when people are getting massive doses. so the loopiness probably is a good sign. all best wishes!
Holy crap, poor DE. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.
Born in 1982, same general era as a few others here. I don't know what my earliest political memory is. I tell the story about reading in a comic book about the fall of the Berlin Wall so often that it's become my earliest political memory, but I probably have an original memory of Reagan or the Challenger or something that I'd recognize if only reminded.
I tell that story so often to make the same "changing times" point as upthread. Eligible voters in 2008 were born after German reunification. Also, Back to the Future Part 2 was set in 2015. Why don't I have a flying car yet?
Also, best wishes to DE. That sounds horrible.
195: Wait, I'm older than DS? That shit's not right.
No kidding. That means he's too young for me. (Of course I already knew that.)
Hey hey hey! Age ain't nothin' but a number, and all that!
218: Hm, well, you're very far away, also.
All in good fun.
My earliest memory of anything political was learning that the POTUS was named Ford, though for some reason I was convinced that his first name was "Karate."
My earliest memory of a political event is the ERA campaign, but I didn't follow it at all, I just knew that the US constitution was being substantially improved with some good common sense. I was really proud of my country for a few of years there until I learned that it hadn't passed, which was sometime in 1983. Talk about disappointment.
And best wishes to DE! I'm sending positive thoughts in her direction.
I don't have clear early political memories.
I remember the Ford-Carter election, because so many of my 2nd-grade classmates were sent to school with pins for one or the other. I also remember that our classroom had pictures of all the presidents on the wall and that I picked Eisenhower as my favorite because he looked like my grandfather.
...because he looked like my grandfather.
A lot of people voted for Reagan based on this reasoning.
223: I really think he looks like my grandfather too. What is it with that guy?
Apo's grandfather: unexpectedly beloved.