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From Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen interviews Chuck Klosterman on his book tour for his pop cultural history of The Nineties (which I reviewed at Taki’s Magazine).
KLOSTERMAN: …this guy, Mark Fisher, who’s dead now, had this idea about the slow cancellation of the future. I feel like that’s one of the most profound ideas that I’ve come across in the last 10 years of my life, and it seems so palpable that this is occurring.
An example I will often use is, if you take, say, 10 minutes from an obscure film in 1965 with no major actors, and then you take 10 minutes from an obscure film from 1980 where nobody became famous, and you show anyone these 10-minute clips, they will have no problem whatsoever figuring out which one came first. Even a little kid can look at a movie from 1965 and a movie from 1980 and instantly understand that one predates the other.
But if you do that with a film from 2005 and a film from 2020 — again, an obscure film where you don’t recognize the actors — you’re just looking at it aesthetically and trying to deduce which one came first and which one came second. It’s almost impossible.
This phenomenon just seems to almost be infiltrating every aspect of the culture…
Maybe … One obvious change between 1965 and 1980 is men’s hair length. Everybody except except a classical violinist or members of a British Invasion band had quite short hair in 1965. By 1980, everybody except, say, Joe Strummer had a fuller head of hair. After that, however, men’s hairstyles became less hegemonic and more individualistic, so only experts can do a good job of guessing what year it is from, say, what kind of haircut the local TV news anchorman has.
Or maybe Klosterman’s theory is what every clever ex-young person thinks when arriving at middle age. It’s common when you are young to pay careful attentions to changes in style from one year to the next, but as you get older to lose interest and dismiss it as young people being less innovative than we were back in the good old days.
On the other hand, with period movies, which are generally made by people approaching middle age, the process works the opposite. A 2022 movie set in 2012 will usually only make perfunctory efforts to emphasize that the styles of the time were different. On the other hand, a 2022 movie set in 1992 will likely go all out to visually reflect the 1992ness of it all. For example, if the director and art director are both say 45, then they will have strong, emotion-tinged memories of what was considered cool and uncool in 1992 when they were 15.
Also, by 2022, they will have seen lots of other movies set in the 1990s that have taught them what seems most visually memorable from that decade.
Here’s a big series of changes in the look of the 21st Century that I haven’t yet seen reflected in period movies and TV, but I suspect we eventually will: 2000, 2010, and 2020 looked different indoors because of fundamentally different lightbulbs: first, Edison bulbs with their nice healthy traditional glow, then those weird corkscrew fluorescent bulbs, and now diamond-light LED bulbs. Eventually, moviemakers will pick up on that and have some fun with it when making period films. (In general, we have more sense of what the mid-distant past of 25 or 50 years ago looked like from films than the recent past.)
Hard as it seems to believe, people fell in love for the first time in 2005 in rooms lit by CFLs and that sickly glow will always have romantic associations for them. For others, CFLs remind them of their most awkward, cringe-inducing memories of their adolescence.
Here’s my book review of Klosterman’s The Nineties.
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Someone tell me why people are still buying music from the 60s (which was SIXTY years ago!) while no one from the sixties was buying music from the naughts, 60 years before the 60s.
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Comic relief:
https://archive.is/PHacd
"Twenty years ago today," the Kinks at times, the Stones' Satanic Majesties or Between the Buttons, etc. Related to what John called "Paul's grandfather music" like "When I'm 64." Compare "Strawberry Fields" to "Penny Lane".
In terms of content, there was actually a vogue for mock-Edwardianism in British pop around 1967. Need I cite the most famous example?
Sixties covers from earlier decades:
https://youtu.be/x6bFTVi0hHs
https://youtu.be/FFNoDsOmluA
https://youtu.be/sDyWhgWj7Pc
https://youtu.be/nSAoEf1Ib58
https://youtu.be/ZZ0PZRYin2s
Don't forget Lennon's granny glasses, the 1910 Fruitgum Company, and the scratches built into the Monkees' "Magnolia Simms", Mike Nesmith's best song.
Or the Happenings:
https://youtu.be/oNBS4cVZm_U
https://youtu.be/FK62pW35GIw
Identifying an era isn’t minor details of hair length, etc (though the lighting coloration thing is funny), it’s in attitudes towards others. Who is my brother, my sister? “We”, not isolatory “Me”.
The dividing line then is 11/22. Beatlemania a couple of months later is no more organic than Civil Rights legislation. TV-driven.
New definitions of self to others. To society at large. Enemy-driven.
Since 1964 there’s no real differences. Once authority of fathers destroyed by Vietnam, and divorce incentivized, society going DOWNHILL a given. Gonna mark the curb-hits as cultural markers? Have at it.
11/22 marked a point where the dial got turned up. There’s no anodyne save throwing out all since then as none of it works. None of it is inspiring. Crap is crap.
Hell, it’s not even music. Not if one has an appreciation of the 500-years which precede it. Right down to the last minutes of the era with Nelson Riddle collaborating with Oscar Peterson (“My Prince Will Come”), or Neal Hefti composing for Basie or Harry James.
Once electricity is made a requirement, “music” had a new and terrifically-narrow definition. It’s distortion. That which drives apart. DISCO FOR ALL!!
Ever heard anyone say, “my” music with no irony intended?
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Beards and tattoos will come to define post Great Recession America. Ironically, casting directors will find it increasingly difficult to cast many actors and actresses (am I allowed to use that word?) in movie situations before 2001 because of their extensive ink.
I can almost hear a viewer in 2040 saying, “They must have had really cold summers back in the 70s because everyone is wearing long sleeve shirts and pants. And wasn’t that a time when women wore short skirts?”
No idea in what era it was supposedly set, but Joe vs the Volcano made good use of the nightmarish light from fluorescent fixtures in setting scenes. For some reason, I really liked that movie. Definitely offbeat though.
It’s funny that you say sickly glow because “daylight” fluorescents (the kind that you mean when you say “sickly”) actually are, as the name implies, much closer in color temperature to natural daylight whereas incandescent bulbs produce a strongly yellowish color that resembles candlelight or a bonfire. It’s just that, ever since the invention of fire, we have associated indoor lighting with these “warm” yellowish tones because there was no way to artificially produce light with a color that resembled daylight and we regard such bluish tones as “cold”. So, somehow in our mind, natural daylight (colored artificial light) is the “sickly” color, which is f’ed up.
Now there was a little more too it than that because fluorescents don’t really give off a full spectrum of wavelengths but fundamentally we still prefer fire type colors for nighttime indoor lighting because humans have spent the last 1/2 million years or so around a fire at night.
Daylight in 100 brighter than a typical lamp sized LED light. Having the entire wavelength heavily saturated is different than a blue-biased mild indoor light, even if daylight has a stronger blue peak.
And even for natural sunlight, late day golden hour lighting is more pleasing than blueish midday light.
Nevertheless, when the manufacture of standard-sized incandescent bulbs was about to be banned, I bought ~500 60-watt GE Reveals. I'm bathed in that pleasant light as I write this. The surviving hoard now dwells in our basement in Connecticut, hunkered next to the whole-house battery.Replies: @Jack D
Watching reruns of the 1990s X-files I note how fast white LED technology has changed the world of flashlights from Krypton and Xenon filled incandescent bulbs at their zenith to the current blue-biased white phosphor LEDs.
The best flashlights in the X-files were their trademark High Intensity Discharge Streamlights, the one’s with the coil cords. Saw an episode where they were using them in a foreign country on a ship: they bring their own HID flashlights with them?
You can still pick up a 4 D-cell Maglite with a Xenon bulb for only $22:
https://maglite.com/products/maglite-4-cell-d-xenon-flashlightReplies: @Joe Stalin
While watching “Joe vs. the Volcano,” I kept complaining “This scene is not realistic!” Eventually, I started to get the joke and piped down.
Well, we’ve been living in an age of technological stagnation for the last 20 to 25 years.
Maybe we’ve been living in an age of cultural stagnation as well?
Lights with a yellow tinge are shit unless they’re proper incandescents at 100W or higher.
Fuck ‘mood lighting’ – if you can’t read by it, jam it. I want to see a crisp outline on all shadows cast by any light I have on.
LED ‘Cool daylight’ bulbs (above 19W) and those bulbs designed for draughtsmen are OK – but even better is a high-lumen LED head-torch.
My $21 USB-rechargeable head-torch will blind a motherfucker – and that’s just how I like it. I would wear mine to read in bed if I thought The Lovely wouldn’t arc up.
Just kidding – paper books are for retards: fixed font size on non-white paper? Luddites. Get a 12.9″ iPad and read like a proper technohuman, you paper-loving mutts.
Yeah, I’m pretty blind. Keratoconus. A gigantic pain the the arse. Night-time driving is a crapshoot with all those fucked-out yellow streetlights bleeding down to the right.
In time, we will all have autofocus eye implants.
My understanding is that the text on a printed page is absorbed and processed more deeply than etext. Yes, etext is backlit, can be made larger and smaller, etc., but the human mind seems, somehow, to engage better with the printed word. This typically results in the reader of dead tree text tending to retain more of what he reads.
(This is not to say that etext is inferior to the printed word, merely that the brain treats it differently.)At the risk of thoroughly earning your "luddite" [sic] label, I have been wary of tablets and e-readers since the July 2009 incident when Amazon remotely deleted the ebookfrom Kindles in the US without prior warning (an act, I need hardly point out, with distinctly Orwellian overtones).
I understand that one can use, say, a VPN to get an eBook onto a tablet without a third party being any the wiser. Frankly, however, it would not surprise me to learn that Apple devices (and any other FAANG-manufactured device for that matter) phone home every now and again to let Apple know what you are reading and Apple, et al. "forgot" about this "feature" in much the same way Google "forgot" they had built a microphone into their Nest device.
(You are welcome to call me paranoid, if you wish. I will not argue.)
None of this is to say that eBooks, tablets, etc. have no place in one's learning (I, for one, would be lost without searchable etext for some boooks). However, in the rush to embrace the latest innovations, it's easy to forget that, quite often, older technology may have advantages that the newer, shinier stuff simply cannot duplicate (e.g. paper books can be dropped and still remain functional, do not require batteries/charging, and so forth).
https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/21/health/led-streetlights-ama/index.html
https://images.dailyhive.com/20190719090151/los-angeles-lights.jpg
I did the same thing during Schindler’s List.
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Comic relief:
https://archive.is/PHacdReplies: @Jack D, @J.Ross, @tr, @Cloudswrest, @James J O'Meara, @Joe S.Walker, @jamie b., @Reg Cæsar, @Ganderson, @SteeringWheelHolder
We still play Bach from 300 years ago. Good music is timeless.
What blows my mind is that we are still flying around in 60 year old airplane designs – the 737 is basically a 2 engine cut down version of the 707 of 1957 and flies at the same speed. (With the additional time required for security, door to door times are slower now than they were in 1957).
60 years before 1957 was before the Age of Flight and even the airplanes of 40 years before were crude fabric and wood crates. Based on the rate of progress in the prior 40 years (roughly double ever 20 years), by 1997 we should have been flying at least 2400 mph (and 3600 mph by now). The Concorde flew at 1/2 that speed (but still 2x as fast as a 707) but instead of developing that concept further it was abandoned – again it takes twice as long to fly to London today than it would have in 1976 (if you took the Concorde).
Did anyone here ever take the Concorde? I knew people who did, but I never did personally. But it’s a sad sign of decline that not only are we not making progress with aircraft but we are actually going backward. The Boeing engineers of old would have committed harikiri before they let the 737 Max fly.
I think that attitude leaked from the defense side of Boeing to the commercial side. They seemed to forget that it's only acceptable to have unstable aerodynamics in a military aircraft because a military pilot's job is inherently dangerous.Replies: @Johann Ricke
Solve the fuel problem with modern advancements in engines. Figure out a means to placate the sound NIMBYs and you could probably make a business case for a revival. Provided someone with a very large bag of money has the vision to spend billions in development.Replies: @smetana
The alien hoax is to misdirect the Proles away from the truth.Replies: @James J. O'Meara
I can almost hear a viewer in 2040 saying, “They must have had really cold summers back in the 70s because everyone is wearing long sleeve shirts and pants. And wasn’t that a time when women wore short skirts?”Replies: @Fluesterwitz
I don’t think so. Rather, the tats will be retconned. People always were tattooed, just like Europe always had lots of black inhabitants.
You might like this, Steve.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/3-contemporary-artists-reclaiming-the-beauty-of-black-hair-2076408?utm_content=from_artnetnews&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=US%20PM%202/24&utm_term=US%20Daily%20Newsletter%20%5BAFTERNOON%5D
I always liked the TV show The Rockford Files (James Garner!) and have a DVD set I’ve watched.
That was mainly 60s.
What is fun is to notice how often he and other cast have to stop and find phone booths to make important calls. Several times each episode usually. Also of course, giant cars.
I think things like ubiquitous cell phones will date things. Now you can either have them (if part of the plot,) or ignore them.
But if you have kids, teens or people standing in line or in waiting rooms, they need to be glued to their magic boxes. Since roughly 2005 or so.
I suspect soon we will see VR sets on people (who aren’t moving) and more people talking to machines and even appliances (“Alexa, order me a martini!”)
Tech is very dating, though clothes and hairstyles do also.
Of course they will usually show people as much better looking than they really are, better dressed and far more glib and intelligent. Only realistic when ignorant dimwits are needed.
Someday even Magic Negroes might disappear. Not very popular in China I think. Even Korean K-pop boys have to look White. Though Chairman Xi doesn’t like soy boys. Teen girls probably don’t pay much attention though.
Of course in the future “Idiocracy 2” will just be a documentary of the Biden era.
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Comic relief:
https://archive.is/PHacdReplies: @Jack D, @J.Ross, @tr, @Cloudswrest, @James J O'Meara, @Joe S.Walker, @jamie b., @Reg Cæsar, @Ganderson, @SteeringWheelHolder
Listening to very old pop music was the cool thing in the late 60s and early 70s, and still is for celebrities from that era like Robert Crumb, Paul Simon and (later) Steve Martin.
Thanks to Pincher Martin for all his good comments on yesterday’s earlier Klosterman thread (also thank you for your service in the First Iraq Attaq). I wanted to say I wholeheartedly agree with his comment about the 90’s totally rockin’, at least from the perspective of someone who lived through the 70’s but was not quite old enough to fully enjoy that decade (had I just been a hair older and able to attend a Zeppelin concert, maybe I’d be singing a different tune).
I was recently for no good reason making my family watch the late 90’s flick BLAST FROM THE PAST. God damn does Brendan Fraser have a goofy-lookin’ clown face! Anyway, at one point Fraser’s sheltered man-child character is dancing with two hotties at a night club (to the musical stylings of SQUIRREL NUT ZIPPERS.- remember that whole late 90’s ironic-swing music fad, out of which also came the movie SWINGERS and Vince Vaughn’s/John Favreau’s respective careers?) Anyway, thought a tame PG-13 flick, Fraser was dancing like in a human sandwich with these 2 girls, naughtily implying he might go home with both tonight.
I felt my interest piquing a bit, but it wasn’t so much for the titillation of an implied hot three-way, as that’s been old hat for a while. And then I realized what it was. These girls were in classy, low-cut, Friday business sexy dresses. They had no tattoos, probably not even hidden ones. They did not have multi-tinted skunk hair, chain wallets, TITANIC structural beam-sized rivets in their acid-washed, ripped jeans. In short, attractive white girls did not look like used-up rap video skank extras yet. Compare the hairstyles, clothes, lack of disgusting & disfiguring tattoos on, say, the female cast of FRIENDS to what’s become the norm since, say, 2003. Rock music died, and so pretty much every eligible white girl got into either rap (and its disgusting, degrading stylings) or military wife country/butt-rock, which also to a good extent takes it sartorial cues from hip-hop, but first launders it through a Kid Rock-owned trailer park.
So what’s different form 2005 to 2020? Bigger, uglier, more expansive tattoos (including ones all over the face and neck now). Wiggerism so unashamed it does not even merit notice (in fact, so pervasive it’s even been adopted by nice Indian-American boys who, even if married, probably never asked a girl for her number in their lives, or dumpy potato-faced Asian broads like Awkafina). Oh yeah, and 20 and 30 year olds who are mental and emotional midgets and whose only cultural frames of reference are HARRY POTTER and comic book movies.
In one scene he appeared nude. (They didn't show the naughty bits, but it was still quite suggestive.) Then they dressed him in women's clothing and had him go prancing through the streets of San Francisco.
I am NOT making this up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttVgQ_ykEBkReplies: @Nathan
Same deal with music. A pop hit from 1945, 55, 65, 75, 85, and 95 can be easily identified with 95% accuracy. A few 65 hits had a throwback 55 sound. And Billy Joel’s many hits and the 80s rockabilly revival can also be misdated. But these are exceptions.
Since about 2000, this is no longer the case. Very similar crap has been dominating pop charts the past 20 years. Black guys bragging about being rich and dangerous plus pop tarts of all races autotune singing about being empowered and sexy. Pop punk and nu metal are also minor but consistent presences on pop charts, and also sound exactly the same the past 20 years.
Two unmentioned aspects of the 1965-1980 vs. 2005-2020 differentiation:
1) Choosing 1965-1980 as a baseline is somewhat cherry-picked. That 15 year interval had an unusually pronounced change in styles: hair, clothing, furniture, architecture, etc., owing perhaps to the Boomers’ outsize demographic effect. If you made the baseline interval 1950-1965 or 1945-1960, uninformed viewers would have a much harder time guessing the years.
2) A big part of our visual perception of past years isn’t so much the subject itself but rather the predominant filmstock and prevailing film development and printing conventions of the era. The sepia tone of old black-and-white film is the most obvious example, but most people, consciously or not, also recognize the bright un-nuanced technicolor of mid-20th century film, then the earthier tones that began seeping in afterwards, followed by the sharpness and re-brightening of late 20th century film improvement.
The last two decades’ visual material have become unrelentingly digital, so the color/saturation/hue/tint palette are now whatever the display wants it to be at that moment, which has its uses, but removes the old visual clues to the source date of the medium.
In other words, digital material is largely dis-intermediated, so the medium is no longer so much of the message.
Generally true but auto design changed alot.
It’s hard to get that Gonzo feel without sounding fake, but you’ve done it. Cazart!
Eh, he always writes like that, it's his natural voice. I always thought it was an Antipodean thing. They have to expend so much effort to cling to the bottom of the earth(all while upside down!)that they need to blow off some steam one way or another.
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Comic relief:
https://archive.is/PHacdReplies: @Jack D, @J.Ross, @tr, @Cloudswrest, @James J O'Meara, @Joe S.Walker, @jamie b., @Reg Cæsar, @Ganderson, @SteeringWheelHolder
I bought my first album around 1973. It featured music from 1903. Anybody care to guess what it was?
2000 – low rise jeans
2010 – high-waisted jeans
2020 – the return of mom jeans
Duh.
The best flashlights in the X-files were their trademark High Intensity Discharge Streamlights, the one's with the coil cords. Saw an episode where they were using them in a foreign country on a ship: they bring their own HID flashlights with them?Replies: @The Wild Geese Howard, @SunBakedSuburb
Relax.
You can still pick up a 4 D-cell Maglite with a Xenon bulb for only $22:
https://maglite.com/products/maglite-4-cell-d-xenon-flashlight
My 4-D Mag bit the dust when one of the alkaline cells leaked, and froze the remaining cells in place.
However, youtube has a video which shows you can remove the switch assembly, so if you did this you most likely could punch out the cells with a dowel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZuwXKRhMpM
No, and not doing so is one of my life’s regrets. I could have afforded it had I better managed my money better in my undergrad years.
Designing any passenger aircraft with unstable flight characteristics that need to be constantly managed by electronic gadgets and buggy code is criminal.
I think that attitude leaked from the defense side of Boeing to the commercial side. They seemed to forget that it’s only acceptable to have unstable aerodynamics in a military aircraft because a military pilot’s job is inherently dangerous.
I don’t know about film depictions, but in real life I’ve noticed changes from when I was in college in 2005 and now.
The fashion was different. In the 2000s, more loose fitting, Abercrombie & Fitch style casual clothing, cargo shorts, board shorts, etc. were popular. Shaggy hair cuts were popular for young men – not super long down to the shoulders, but long and shaggy and not styled. No fades or undercuts like now. Bodybuilding and gym culture (which seems to cycle in popularity) wasn’t as popular as it is now.
Now Abercrombie & Fitch style casual clothing is unpopular. In general you have much more tight fitting clothing, shorter shorts, lots of “athleisure” clothes and sweatpants. Tattoos and piercings and unusual hair dyeing are prevalent now and no longer niche like they used to be. Beards and facial hair in general. Anime and video game derived culture seem to be mainstream and prevalent among young people now, whereas it was niche back in 2005.
And of course smartphones and social media coming out at the end of the 2000s was a major change.
In terms of decor, general aesthetics, architecture, the 2000s were like an extension of 90s suburban postmodernism. Which makes sense since the housing boom of the 2000s was like an extension of 90s era suburban sprawl and development.
More like a seismic shift. From the purely organic to mostly synthetic human controlled by electronic signal. Planet of the Insectoids.
I recall watching the UK series 'Sherlock' some years back. It was very hip and clever, but there's one memorable episode in which the plot revolves around a character's 'camera-phone', which I guess is what Brits (correct me if I'm wrong) called smartphones for a while when they first came out. Or do you still use this term in place of/interchangeably with 'smartphone'?
Even though the episode was only a year or two old by the time I watched it, this little phone technology nomenclature detail already made it feel a bit off and dated.Replies: @James J. O'Meara
Supersonic jet travel was a casualty of the substantial increase in fuel price. Before 1973, oil was $3 a barrel. Afterwards, $12. Layer that on a jet carrying around 100 passengers. Add in US noise abatement restrictions, limiting supersonic travel to coastal cities.
Solve the fuel problem with modern advancements in engines. Figure out a means to placate the sound NIMBYs and you could probably make a business case for a revival. Provided someone with a very large bag of money has the vision to spend billions in development.
https://boomsupersonic.com/partners
Investor Paul Graham explains the economics:
https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1298183787927437312
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Comic relief:
https://archive.is/PHacdReplies: @Jack D, @J.Ross, @tr, @Cloudswrest, @James J O'Meara, @Joe S.Walker, @jamie b., @Reg Cæsar, @Ganderson, @SteeringWheelHolder
I don’t believe there was much oeuvre of recorded music from the early 1900s.
https://playback.fm/charts/top-100-songs/1917
No one in 1967 was singing "Over There."
But people now sing "Come Together" - 1969.
My point is that there was a huge rent in the universe between 1917 and 1969.Replies: @J.Ross
A great spoof on this concept is the TV series ’24’ if it were set in 1994… using old printers and dial-up connections among other old tech. It’s hilarious.
Jack Bauer wept.
Now there was a little more too it than that because fluorescents don't really give off a full spectrum of wavelengths but fundamentally we still prefer fire type colors for nighttime indoor lighting because humans have spent the last 1/2 million years or so around a fire at night.Replies: @Cloudswrest, @Pixo, @slumber_j
It’s more than that. Both incandescent and daylight are continuous thermal spectrums. If you look at fluorescent light through (even a cheap) spectroscope there are discrete bands of light that only simulate daylight. This is not apparent when you look at the light directly but is often very apparent in reflected colors from objects. Once had a pair of socks that were gray under daylight and dark green under “daylight” fluorescent light.
The front end of present day pickup trucks seem larger than what follows behind. Big gangsta grills, too. All domestic pickup truck makers seem to be following this design style. Are they trying to lure in customers from the new overclass of sacred colour? Is this style in anyway connected to George Floyd's Summer of Love like everything else mainstream seems to be?
Now there was a little more too it than that because fluorescents don't really give off a full spectrum of wavelengths but fundamentally we still prefer fire type colors for nighttime indoor lighting because humans have spent the last 1/2 million years or so around a fire at night.Replies: @Cloudswrest, @Pixo, @slumber_j
“ So, somehow in our mind, natural daylight (colored artificial light) is the “sickly” color, which is f’ed up.”
Daylight in 100 brighter than a typical lamp sized LED light. Having the entire wavelength heavily saturated is different than a blue-biased mild indoor light, even if daylight has a stronger blue peak.
And even for natural sunlight, late day golden hour lighting is more pleasing than blueish midday light.
Since about 2000, this is no longer the case. Very similar crap has been dominating pop charts the past 20 years. Black guys bragging about being rich and dangerous plus pop tarts of all races autotune singing about being empowered and sexy. Pop punk and nu metal are also minor but consistent presences on pop charts, and also sound exactly the same the past 20 years.Replies: @Barnard, @njguy73
Since the early 2000s there have been radio stations that advertise they play the hits from the 80s, 90s and today. “Today” based on that formula is now a longer time period than the 80s and 90s combined. Can anyone come up with a single song released since 2000 that likely to have an audience 50 years from now? It is the same for fiction and art. Has there ever been another period like this where none of the music or art produced had any long lasting appeal?
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Comic relief:
https://archive.is/PHacdReplies: @Jack D, @J.Ross, @tr, @Cloudswrest, @James J O'Meara, @Joe S.Walker, @jamie b., @Reg Cæsar, @Ganderson, @SteeringWheelHolder
True, but I’ve noticed that when the British began to get into “psychedelia”, for some reason they seemed to think that corny old vaudeville music was suggestive of “mind expansion.” It’s like when they dropped acid the went back to the old music halls.
“Twenty years ago today,” the Kinks at times, the Stones’ Satanic Majesties or Between the Buttons, etc. Related to what John called “Paul’s grandfather music” like “When I’m 64.” Compare “Strawberry Fields” to “Penny Lane”.
The best flashlights in the X-files were their trademark High Intensity Discharge Streamlights, the one's with the coil cords. Saw an episode where they were using them in a foreign country on a ship: they bring their own HID flashlights with them?Replies: @The Wild Geese Howard, @SunBakedSuburb
“The best flashlights in the X-files were trademark High Intensity Discharge …”
Regarding The X-Files, other than the young Gillian Anderson it’s the use of flashlights as a primary light source that left a lasting visual impression. I’m pretty sure X-Files creator Chris Carter, a creative and accomplished dude, mimicked the visual atmosphere of Jennifer 8 (1992), a murky serial-killer yarn with Lance Henriksen. Henriksen, who rivals Willem Dafoe for the most unique visage in film, went on to star in another Chris Carter series titled Millennium, which featured more flashlights probing the darkness in sinister buildings.
Also helped with the illusion of Vancouver as DC.
A couple of legendary MST3k bad films, The Dead Talk Back and Manos: The Hands of Fate, appear to have been shot using only flashlights.
"Hurry up, Merle, I only have two more D batteries!"Replies: @Ray P, @J.Ross
OK. But 1967 – 50 is 1917. Top songs of 1917:
https://playback.fm/charts/top-100-songs/1917
No one in 1967 was singing “Over There.”
But people now sing “Come Together” – 1969.
My point is that there was a huge rent in the universe between 1917 and 1969.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Tt3QSIXXe_M
“The only obvious difference between that and a pickup today is the side mirrors would be larger.”
The front end of present day pickup trucks seem larger than what follows behind. Big gangsta grills, too. All domestic pickup truck makers seem to be following this design style. Are they trying to lure in customers from the new overclass of sacred colour? Is this style in anyway connected to George Floyd’s Summer of Love like everything else mainstream seems to be?
*****
Comic relief:
https://archive.is/PHacdReplies: @Jack D, @J.Ross, @tr, @Cloudswrest, @James J O'Meara, @Joe S.Walker, @jamie b., @Reg Cæsar, @Ganderson, @SteeringWheelHolder
Recordings from the 1960s are far better preserved than those from the 1900s were, for one thing. Indeed it might be claimed that many Sixties records sound better than today’s productions.
In terms of content, there was actually a vogue for mock-Edwardianism in British pop around 1967. Need I cite the most famous example?
The other night I watched an episode of Midnight Caller, a show I hadn’t seen in 30 years. Both the main black male characters had haircuts with straight sides and completely flat tops, making them look as if they had cakes on their heads. Who’s got hair like that nowadays?
“And of course smartphones and social media coming out at the end of the 2ooos was a major change.”
More like a seismic shift. From the purely organic to mostly synthetic human controlled by electronic signal. Planet of the Insectoids.
https://playback.fm/charts/top-100-songs/1917
No one in 1967 was singing "Over There."
But people now sing "Come Together" - 1969.
My point is that there was a huge rent in the universe between 1917 and 1969.Replies: @J.Ross
There was a musical and then a major movie featuring the pop music of the war.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Tt3QSIXXe_M
Scott Joplin piano rags?
Disney’s 1997 live-action George of the Jungle, ostensibly a family flick, starred Fraser in the title role.
In one scene he appeared nude. (They didn’t show the naughty bits, but it was still quite suggestive.) Then they dressed him in women’s clothing and had him go prancing through the streets of San Francisco.
I am NOT making this up:
https://bloodknife.com/everyone-beautiful-no-one-horny/
Ignore the body positivity stuff. They have a point.Replies: @Stan Adams
In the late sixties there was a fad of gilded age music. It’s the reason the line “trip the light fantastic” made it into that one Procol Harem song.
*****
Comic relief:
https://archive.is/PHacdReplies: @Jack D, @J.Ross, @tr, @Cloudswrest, @James J O'Meara, @Joe S.Walker, @jamie b., @Reg Cæsar, @Ganderson, @SteeringWheelHolder
Playing from sheet music was laborious, while wax cylinders didn’t last that long?
The Sting or The Entertainer. Marvin Hamlisch was involved at any rate.
Klosterman is likely wrong about that. What you will notice is which shows and films people thought would be worth re-watching and were shot on quality film and which were shot on tape or cheap film stock. Because 35mm film resolution exceeds even 4K HD, you can watch shows and movies from the past on HD tv sets and they can look surprisingly modern. Probably better than you remember from the first time you saw them on a crappy CRT monitor. Changes in film stock over time also have a lot to do with why films from different eras look so different. Movies that were shot in true Technicolor tend to look great, but the plant that processed Technicolor film closed in the 1970s, and movies went to cheaper film processes and lost some of their… well, they lost something going into the 1980s.
Now, none of that would matter, but I noticed something when I was watching the new Ghostbusters movie the other day. The movie is about two children, but it’s obviously written from the perspective of someone who was a child 30-40 years ago. The kids don’t have smartphones, and they look and act like kids from the 20th Century, not modern ones. The male kid fixes up the broken down Ecto 1 hearse from the first movie so he can drive to his job at a burger stand. A job he gets to impress a cute girl. I don’t think 15-year-old boys do that sort of thing anymore. Anyway, the point is, with movies being made by people that are behind the times culturally, and with old pop culture holding on to relevance longer than ever before, it’s not the future that’s being canceled, it’s the past’s illusion of cultural progress that’s fading away. Time moves forward, and technology and culture usually advance. But both technology and culture can sometimes slide backward or take sideways leaps into new territories. That’s why some movies might look new and impressive but be culturally outdated and why other movies might have the opposite set of characteristics. A gritty movie from the 1980s might not look good but could be given a shot-for-shot remake and work fine today.
(I was born in the mid-'80s, so I was a child about 20-30 years ago.)
I wrote these when I was nine. They were written using Microsoft Word 5.0 for DOS and preserved on a floppy disk. I have not added or deleted anything. I haven't done any editing, aside from replacing my real name with Stan.
The writing is ... bizarre, to say the least. It makes me seem like a schizophrenic sperg.
(I had an obsession with airline travel, probably because my mother took me on so many trips. We flew, on average, at least twice a month. I used to devour timetables and in-flight magazines.)
All of the stories revolve around members of the fictional Johnson family - Mr. and Mrs. Johnson and their kids Joe, Jamie, and baby Natasha.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, a glimpse into the mind of nine-year-old Stan Adams:
NEW HOME
Mrs. Johnson scribbled on a box. She threw in the U-Haul truck and scribbled on another one. Natasha was watching her favorite show. Suddenly, the truck roared. Mrs. Johnson put the last box in, and she jumped in the cab. They started driving to Stan's Town, a new townhouse complex. The old house was being destroyed. Natasha was playing with Jamie's hair. The truck turned. Mr. Johnson said, "I don't think we should have left Uncle..." CRASH! The Celica had crashed! The car swerved around, and landed upside-down, starting to level off. "I knew I should have gone to work today." said Mrs. Johnson. Natasha cried when Mrs. Johnson dropped the bottle she was feeding Natasha with. Mrs. Johnson climbed over Jamie, and opened the door. Joe said to Jamie, "I wonder what our new car will be like." The Celica was ruined. Mr. Johnson said, "How did it happen?" Uncle Billy said, "I was turning and a guy rear-ended me, so I lost control and hit a tree, swerved around, and flipped over. Then, I leveled out and began to settle into the concrete." After getting the stuff out, Mr. Johnson got away from the Celica. It exploded. The next day, Mr. Johnson walked to the Toyota car dealership. He said to a lady, "My Toyota was wrecked. Do you have trade-ins?" The lady said, "Only if you weren't driving the car." Mr. Johnson said, "I wasn't. Do you have any more 1993 Celicas?" "No." said the lady. "How about a 1995 Celica?" said Mr. Johnson. The lady showed him to a nice car, which looked just like their old one. The car sped off. Mr. Johnson got to the complex, and unlocked the security gates. In his driveway, he saw bullys stealing stuff. Mr. Johnson yelled, "I live here!" They left. Mr. Johnson parked the new Celica.
EXERCISE RIDE
Mrs. Johnson loved to ride her bike. She was delighted to hear about "RBFPF" [Riding Bikes For Physical Fitness]. The manager was supposed to be a young lady who was a supermodel. So Mrs. Johnson signed her family up. On Saturday, May 20, with Natasha on her holder, Mrs. Johnson rode out of the driveway. She swerved into the townhouse and hit the recycling bins. Cans flew everywhere. Jamie rode out of the garage. Her basket was stuffed with lunch stuff. Mr. Johnson rode out in his flashing bike. The family followed all the rules. A stop sign was in the middle of the bike lane. Mr. Johnson's pedal got stuck, and he would have to stop for the stop sign. So he turned into Mrs. Johnson. The bike hit Natasha, and she was thrown from the bike. Mrs. Johnson jumped off. The two bikes landing in a swimming pool. The young lady was superskinny. She went faster than every car on the road. The bike made a sharp turn onto the expressway. Mrs. Johnson almost pulled the rope that held Natasha's car seat on. A 18-wheeler sucked Jamie under. She was under the fuel tank. The driver noticed her, and exploded the fuel tank. Her bike hit a motorcycle. The 12 speed bike careened off the road into a speed limit sign. The leader turned off a bend and the rest of the group followed. Jamie saw the neatly wrapped lunch. It had survived. After joining the others, she saw they were turning on a exit. The group turned into a rest area, and lunch started. Natasha was fed squashed carrots. She was a talented baby who could draw. In her picture after lunch she drew a doctor and whined, pointing to it. They rode to the new townhouse.
PETS
Stan's Pet Shop was a little shop two miles from the townhouse. On May 25, 1995 Mrs. Johnson set out on her bike. Natasha was hastilly tied onto her mother's bike. She saw the tiny pet store at the intersection of Main and Johnson Street. She rode out of the bike lane and saw a bar. She hooked her bike up. A tiny puppy came up. Mrs. Johnson saw that it was a golden retriever. She bought it. The puppy played with Natasha. Then, Mrs. Johnson ran into a cage. A paraket said, "I'm Parrot. Parrot wants some Super Duper Hyperactive Corn Flakes." He knocked his food tray over. "Not these hard sunflower seeds." Mrs. Johnson bought him too. A guy gave her dog food and some Super Duper Hyperactive Corn Flakes. He said, "$99.99." She gave him a 100 dollar bill, and got a penny back. The pareket ate it. He said, "Give me some more of these, too." Mrs. Johnson had to tie the pareket's cage on Natasha, and the dog was strapped to the reflector, which swayed and jolted against her weight. Parrot said, "Parrot wants dinner now." He pecked at the box of cereal, but it wouldn't open. Mr. Johnson was bringing plants for the garden outside. He saw the pets and said, "I could never get the hook for Arna's picture out in the middle of the roof. Put the cage there. And I can build a doghouse in three hours." Joe was eating a cookie. He said, "Oh, cool! Who's the dog for?" "Us." said Mrs. Johnson. Joe dropped his glass of milk. Jamie saw the dog go to the bathroom on her bookbag. "There's a big dog next door," said Jamie. "I hope he doesn't get to Golden {that's what they named the dog}." Mrs. Johnson said, "I think that dog ate the mailman's bag. There was a terrific fight. The frog in a box was leaping on the dog's head." "Is that why you found your birthday china broken?" said Joe. Mrs. Johnson was gone. On Saturday, Mr. Johnson went to the hardware shop, and began a project. At 3:42 p.m, he finished building a wonderful doghouse, which was a minature house. There was a front door, bed for him to sleep on, a refrigerator that had his favorite food, and many more. It cost 3 million dollars to build. The pareket had his own house built. By the end of the weekend, two pet houses were finished. He also put ElectroSurge around the house. On Monday, Joe left for school. He went to the middle school where he learned. The dog also saw Jamie leave. Parrot was eating breakfast. Golden went through the door of his house. He noticed Mr. Johnson. Mrs. Johnson said, "That's deep enough." They put pool coating on it. On May 31, the swimming pool was finished. Joe said, "I can't wait until the weekend." On July 3, it was Joe's birthday.
BIRTHDAY PARTY
I'm the lady who ordered that really fancy cake," said Mrs. Johnson. "it's my son's birthday." The man was listening to his girlfriend. Mrs. Johnson yelled, "I'M THE LADY WHO ORDERED THE FANCY CAKE, FOR MY SON'S BIRTHDAY!" The man handed her a box and said, "Have a nice evening." It was Friday night. Mrs. Johnson went home. She arrived in shock. Party streamers were tied to the cabinets. A string of lights was tied to the television attena. When Mrs. Johnson started to watch the evening news, she noticed it was covered with white. So she swung the attena. The string was tied to the telephone lines. The poles flew up and tilted. Mrs. Johnson swung the attena again, and the lines got in a big knot. The houses that were connected to the line moved an inch. A 100 million dollar mansion connected moved very suddenly. After swinging the attena again, Mrs. Johnson saw the poles swing up and down. People were startled when their houses went up and down. The next day, Mrs. Johnson invited the whole family over. They came. Vivian was a little late, because Aunt Erna spilled Coke on the air conditioner. Mrs. Johnson tried to open the cake box. She shook it, and hit it. The cake got into a gooey mess, but the box wouldn't open. Mrs. Johnson got a carving knife, which bounced right off the box. Mr. Johnson pounded it with his fists, and an anvil. It didn't even have a scratch. The whole family tried to cut the box. Mr. Johnson got a chain saw and tried to open the box. It wouldn't open. Mrs. Johnson pounded the box and tried to rip it. She threw it in the air, and it came down. Nothing happened. Mrs. Johnson tried punching in the plastic. She did, and her fist ended up in the cake. Joe said, "What happened to my birthday cake?" It was ruined. The icing was dripping off the counter. Uncle Billy said, "Why don't we eat the Jello mold?" Jamie came out of the kitchen and said, "It's Jello mildew." Mrs. Johnson said, "It's the box. We can eat pounded-in cake, can't we?" The dog jumped on the counter and gobbled down the cake. Parrot said, "Parrot wants some Super Duper Hyperactive Corn Flakes." Mrs. Johnson took the food bowl and scooped some bird seed. Parrot said, "Parrot wants cereal!" Mrs. Johnson then noticed that Golden treated the cake like it was sludge. She noticed him dig the frosting off. And there was dirt underneath!" Vivian went to the bathroom. Jamie dropped a present, and there was a twinkle. Mrs. Johnson kicked the box, and it hit the attena. The attena swung around, and the telephone poles swung through a window! Mrs. Johnson also noticed a branxh over the telephone line. It fell, and the line broke. Everything went dead. The lights outside were okay, however. Mr. Johnson said to Uncle Billy, "I think we better get everybody outside." Vivian took one look at the chesseburgers and smacked her lips. They were outside. Suddenly, a gale force wind came up. The potato chips blew out of the containers, and tree branchs went in the windows. Everybody in the pool was tossed around. At 12:13 p.m, Mrs. Johnson got a hot dog bun and slapped down a patty. The hamburger buns had blown away. Everybody was surprized. At 2:09 p.m, the winds were blowing at 59 miles per hour. aThe townhouse began to sink down. Mrs. Johnson said, "The foundation fell apart!" The house settled when the mud was toe-deep. Mrs. Johnson said, "We have to get some weight off!" She threw the television onto the driveway. A sofa followed. Joe said, "What a birthday!" Suddenly, a strong wind ripped the glass-sliding door to smitherines. All the presents flew out. Joe caught 2. He noticed that they had lost the cards. Everybody looked at the furniture. They went home.
PLANE CRASH
The pilot of Oceanic Airlines flight 1016 knew he was in danger. After plunging a Boeing 737-300 into the Miami River, he was not good flying. But, this Boeing 737-300 looked safe, so what could happen? Jamie was out to report for her school. She was scheduled for flight 607 from Stannyville to Baltimore. She decided to cancel the flight on her brother's broken leg. At 5:35 a.m, the eight-year old plane taxied out at Orange County airport for a flight to Stannyville, via Houston. Jamie was supposed to be aboard flight 1016 instead of flight 607. Mrs. Johnson said, "We're here to see you off." At 3:09 p.m, she boarded the flight. Joe found his seat across the aisle from Jamie. At 3:12 p.m, 132 people were aboard. The plane was filled to capacity. They took off. It was a uneventful flight. At 5:35 p.m, he started to bring the airliner down. Part of the approach was in bad weather, so they would circle around Washington D.C. on approach. People weren't expecting this to happen. Jamie noticed that there was a sudden loss of altidude. The captain had a false reading. The Boeing 737-300 started approach too early. A big ship was on the Potomac River. They saw the jet zoom low over them. The captain yelled, "Ahhh! Traffic emergency! We're in a nosedive!" ATC {Air Traffic Control} said, "Oceanic 1016, maintain 4,000 feet over." The co-pilot said, "Are we cleared to three-eight right?" ATC said, "Yes, that's the runway. You need to pull up." There was no response. Then, the controller heard the captain. "We are going to hit at 299 miles per hour!" Jamie looked out the window. Joe was clutching the armrests. The Boeing 737-300 was like a bomb. The plane hit the water, and windows broke. The pilot screamed, "Climbing into vio..." The controller looked at the radar. Oceanic Airlines flight 1016 was gone. He said, "1016, you're cleared for landing, maintain 4,000 feet." There was no response. He said, "Oceanic 1016?" The plane was in the water. Jamie woke up. Somme 2 people were on her. There was not many people awake. A hole had been torn in the fuseage. She noticed that the water was icy cold. Then she said, "We're on approach to Washington/Baltimore International!" A flight attendent was struggling with an emergency exit. Jamie knocked it open. The air traffic controller said, "1016, there's some scattered clouds at 4,000 feet. I've lost you on radar. Please answer." Then, he ordered a helicoptor to search for the missing plane. It was covered with ice. The chopper picked up Jamie. Survivors were dragged to the front of the aircraft. It was dark. People noticed that the floor lights had broke on impact.
CANOE!
Joe was munching on a big pretzel. He was in the Celica. Jamie was eating one, too. They were reading coloring books. Suddenly, the Celica turned off the road. They parked in a clearing, near the ocean. There was a canoe rental place, and two islands. A man said, "When you get to the fork, take the left fork." Mr. Johnson packed the stuff in the canoe and they set out for an adventure. When they got to the fork, a man denied clearence into the left fork. He forced them on the right. Mrs. Johnson said, "WATERFALL!" The canoe got wedged in the bushes. Mr. Johnson said, "We're in mi..!" The canoe started to fall. They ended up in a jungle river. The canoe started to go fast. There was another fork. One lane was cut off, so they took the other one. Then, a steamroller started to tear apart everything in the water. It went into the ocean. Joe asked, "We have plenty of food, don't we?" The canoe was floating in the water. A cruise ship was heading for them. They were dumping garbage. Jamie threw one of the torchs at the ship. It blew up, not leaving any garbage. Fish ate the remains, which turned into worms. Mr. Johnson said, "We're going to stop in the Bahamas." The tiny canoe sailed out toward the Artic Ocean! Joe said, "More likely Southampton." Jamie dropped her coloring book. There was a radio on board, because Mr. Johnson had brought one. At 5:00 a.m, the next morning, he turned it on, and heard: "This is WIOD, service for Washington D.C! Trans Stan Airlines is expanding it's superhub in Reno, Nevada. The Stannyville-based carrier is the biggest and largest in the world, and the favorite. They are also expected to expand to 20 destinations that feed into us." Mrs. Johnson got a slice of turkey and some bread. "Sandwich?" asked Mrs. Johnson. Jamie raised her hand, reaching for the manyonaise. Mrs. Johnson handed her the sandwich and a bag of popcorn. Jamie said, "How about those mini-cookies?" She slapped some mayonaise on. That spread on the turkey. At 6:32 a.m, on June 30, 1995, they sailed into Chesepeake Bay. Suddenly, a wind came up, and they were blown into the path of a huge cruise ship. Jamie said, "I think we're going to be run over! Suddenly, the ship stopped. They sailed into a canoe rental shop, and flew home.
Important message for girls: No tats is SEXY!
In one scene he appeared nude. (They didn't show the naughty bits, but it was still quite suggestive.) Then they dressed him in women's clothing and had him go prancing through the streets of San Francisco.
I am NOT making this up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttVgQ_ykEBkReplies: @Nathan
Surprisingly heteronormative for Disney. Disney has an anti-sex camera lens, I’m telling you. I’m not the only one who’s noticed:
https://bloodknife.com/everyone-beautiful-no-one-horny/
Ignore the body positivity stuff. They have a point.
It would be interesting to see a movie where the issues described in this essay are addressed in (ahem) explicit fashion:
http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html
OK, here is my second take, for real this time-
* 2005: edge-of-your-seat moment- character’s cell phone/laptop runs out of juice at a critical juncture; 2020: teachable moment- character’s heavy-duty “green” cordless power tools shown completing yardwork with oodles of energy to spare (because electricity comes form unicorn farts)
*2005: plot-point involving complications from whatever creepy sh!t you got yourself into through CraigsList still possible
* 2005: jokes at the expense of (subcontinental) Indians and Indian-Americans (puns on their funny names, comments about how stinky their food can get, not-at-all-flattering imitations of their accents) still allowed
* 2020: Character A walks into Character B’s apartment for the first time where a TV 16X the surface area, 10x the resolution, and 1/25 the price as the best flatscreen money could buy in 2005 and running on static electricity generated by the carpet to boot covers an entire wall and… it is never mentioned
* 2005 – wise, benevolent black lady Senator still serviced by crackerjack team of all-white staffers; 2020- lone, bumbling white intern messes up coffee of all-BIPOC crackerjack staff serving wise, benevolent black lady President
* 2005: lantern jaw of 6’5” Russian mafia enforcer goon still sufficient to shield at least some of the other 5 gopniks behind him from explosive force of 100 lb. butt-kicking babe haymaker
* 2005: possible- lesser beta while male tries to impress cute chick with how much of Wikipedia he’s personally written; 2020: inevitable- lesser beta white male apologizes to cute chick personally for how much of Wikipedia people who look like him have written
* 2005: awkward, out-of-left-field joke is inserted into sitcom about how Character A could be drafted and die soon (… because of Bush’s forever war Iraq quagmire); 2020: awkward, out-of-left-field joke is inserted into sitcom about how we can’t have Thanksgiving anymore (… because Trump’s mean tweets have divided the country worse than in 1863)
* 2005: epic, sitcom buffon-levels of incompetence (think Michael Scott, Homer Simpson) necessary to get in trouble with authority figure for something you said on the Internet; 2020- Wakandan 15 year-old black girl magic cybermancy necessary to avoid Amazon Cloud MinLuv notice for hovering too longer over someone else’s “Let’s go Brandon!” comment
You can still pick up a 4 D-cell Maglite with a Xenon bulb for only $22:
https://maglite.com/products/maglite-4-cell-d-xenon-flashlightReplies: @Joe Stalin
Manufacturers typically amp up the Xenon bulb current in comparison to the normal bulb current, so your battery life suffers.
My 4-D Mag bit the dust when one of the alkaline cells leaked, and froze the remaining cells in place.
However, youtube has a video which shows you can remove the switch assembly, so if you did this you most likely could punch out the cells with a dowel.
I think that attitude leaked from the defense side of Boeing to the commercial side. They seemed to forget that it's only acceptable to have unstable aerodynamics in a military aircraft because a military pilot's job is inherently dangerous.Replies: @Johann Ricke
Also, military pilots are the end products of a highly-selective weeding-out process. That’s not necessarily true of commercial pilots in some of the less developed countries that operate Boeing aircraft.
Possibility that UFOs are advanced aircraft available only to the ultra wealthy.
The alien hoax is to misdirect the Proles away from the truth.
I’ve seen ads for LED flashlights the beam of which will set paper ablaze. Sounds right up your alley!
A-men!
Yes, exactly — you don’t need to try to identify and analyse lighting technology to date movies and TV shows from the late 90s-present; cell/mobile/smart phone models give it away immediately.
I recall watching the UK series ‘Sherlock’ some years back. It was very hip and clever, but there’s one memorable episode in which the plot revolves around a character’s ‘camera-phone’, which I guess is what Brits (correct me if I’m wrong) called smartphones for a while when they first came out. Or do you still use this term in place of/interchangeably with ‘smartphone’?
Even though the episode was only a year or two old by the time I watched it, this little phone technology nomenclature detail already made it feel a bit off and dated.
I honest-to-goodness only learned this existed a couple months ago, but think many of you gentlemen may still be in the same boat I was once in. The ONLY difference between 2005 and 2020 that matters? In 2020 we’re forced to celebrate the bravery and beauty of MTF trannies. In (circa) 2005, a music video like this could still get made (f@ck you THRILLER!)
While I cannot claim a thorough understanding of the matter, I am fairly certain that paper books do convey at least one key advantage over ebooks. It has to do with how the brain processes information from a screen vs. the printed page.
My understanding is that the text on a printed page is absorbed and processed more deeply than etext. Yes, etext is backlit, can be made larger and smaller, etc., but the human mind seems, somehow, to engage better with the printed word. This typically results in the reader of dead tree text tending to retain more of what he reads.
(This is not to say that etext is inferior to the printed word, merely that the brain treats it differently.)
At the risk of thoroughly earning your “luddite” [sic] label, I have been wary of tablets and e-readers since the July 2009 incident when Amazon remotely deleted the ebook
from Kindles in the US without prior warning (an act, I need hardly point out, with distinctly Orwellian overtones).
I understand that one can use, say, a VPN to get an eBook onto a tablet without a third party being any the wiser. Frankly, however, it would not surprise me to learn that Apple devices (and any other FAANG-manufactured device for that matter) phone home every now and again to let Apple know what you are reading and Apple, et al. “forgot” about this “feature” in much the same way Google “forgot” they had built a microphone into their Nest device.
(You are welcome to call me paranoid, if you wish. I will not argue.)
None of this is to say that eBooks, tablets, etc. have no place in one’s learning (I, for one, would be lost without searchable etext for some boooks). However, in the rush to embrace the latest innovations, it’s easy to forget that, quite often, older technology may have advantages that the newer, shinier stuff simply cannot duplicate (e.g. paper books can be dropped and still remain functional, do not require batteries/charging, and so forth).
tldr the collapse of Anerican greatness. I never picked up on the cultural nostalgia in third world countries because I figured it was just poverty — if they had more money, they’d be more modern. Now we are a third world country and we instinctively know to abandon our dreams.
LED streetlights haven’t come to your location? See comparison photo at this link.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/21/health/led-streetlights-ama/index.html
2) A big part of our visual perception of past years isn't so much the subject itself but rather the predominant filmstock and prevailing film development and printing conventions of the era. The sepia tone of old black-and-white film is the most obvious example, but most people, consciously or not, also recognize the bright un-nuanced technicolor of mid-20th century film, then the earthier tones that began seeping in afterwards, followed by the sharpness and re-brightening of late 20th century film improvement. The last two decades' visual material have become unrelentingly digital, so the color/saturation/hue/tint palette are now whatever the display wants it to be at that moment, which has its uses, but removes the old visual clues to the source date of the medium. In other words, digital material is largely dis-intermediated, so the medium is no longer so much of the message.Replies: @kaganovitch
If you made the baseline interval 1950-1965 or 1945-1960, uninformed viewers would have a much harder time guessing the years.
Generally true but auto design changed alot.
In 1981, I was in a bar in Emeryville when Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Hank Bauer walked in. They all looked exactly like they had in 1965 – short hair, turtlenecks, and alpaca sweaters.
Where do you and Busby live that you see all those tattooed women and girls? . I never see any.
It’s hard to get that Gonzo feel without sounding fake, but you’ve done it. Cazart!
Eh, he always writes like that, it’s his natural voice. I always thought it was an Antipodean thing. They have to expend so much effort to cling to the bottom of the earth(all while upside down!)that they need to blow off some steam one way or another.
yep. The Sting soundtrack.
*****
Comic relief:
https://archive.is/PHacdReplies: @Jack D, @J.Ross, @tr, @Cloudswrest, @James J O'Meara, @Joe S.Walker, @jamie b., @Reg Cæsar, @Ganderson, @SteeringWheelHolder
The 1910s were a fairly weak era for American popular songs. They were just warming up for the Golden Age, 1920-60. There wasn’t much to revive. Mods looked to the later years.
Sixties covers from earlier decades:
Don’t forget Lennon’s granny glasses, the 1910 Fruitgum Company, and the scratches built into the Monkees’ “Magnolia Simms”, Mike Nesmith’s best song.
Or the Happenings:
But if you do that with a film from 2005 and a film from 2020 — again, an obscure film where you don’t recognize the actors — you’re just looking at it aesthetically and trying to deduce which one came first and which one came second. It’s almost impossible.
That may be true for most men but I suspect much less so for women. While I can generally tell decades apart, my wife can look at the screen for 3 seconds or so and say within a year or two when it was made. When I ask how she knows, she says stuff like ” the shoulder pads were smaller the next year” or “that little round collar was ‘in’ my second year in grad school.” or dozens of other similar things that I never knew existed let alone remembered.
Rockford files were 70s surely?
My mistake.
This is the biggest change. If you had told me 20 years ago how mainstream tattoos would be now, I would never have believed it. Now I’m pleasantly surprised when a woman has no tattoos.
Yoga pants replacing jeans as the standard casual outfit for women was also a large shift in fashion.
I have noticed that no matter how good the lighting is, I can instantly tell whether an outdoor sporting event is being played during the day or at night
Now, none of that would matter, but I noticed something when I was watching the new Ghostbusters movie the other day. The movie is about two children, but it’s obviously written from the perspective of someone who was a child 30-40 years ago. The kids don’t have smartphones, and they look and act like kids from the 20th Century, not modern ones. The male kid fixes up the broken down Ecto 1 hearse from the first movie so he can drive to his job at a burger stand. A job he gets to impress a cute girl. I don’t think 15-year-old boys do that sort of thing anymore. Anyway, the point is, with movies being made by people that are behind the times culturally, and with old pop culture holding on to relevance longer than ever before, it’s not the future that’s being canceled, it’s the past’s illusion of cultural progress that’s fading away. Time moves forward, and technology and culture usually advance. But both technology and culture can sometimes slide backward or take sideways leaps into new territories. That’s why some movies might look new and impressive but be culturally outdated and why other movies might have the opposite set of characteristics. A gritty movie from the 1980s might not look good but could be given a shot-for-shot remake and work fine today.Replies: @Stan Adams, @James J. O'Meara
Did anyone here write stories as children? I did, and I still have them.
(I was born in the mid-’80s, so I was a child about 20-30 years ago.)
I wrote these when I was nine. They were written using Microsoft Word 5.0 for DOS and preserved on a floppy disk. I have not added or deleted anything. I haven’t done any editing, aside from replacing my real name with Stan.
The writing is … bizarre, to say the least. It makes me seem like a schizophrenic sperg.
(I had an obsession with airline travel, probably because my mother took me on so many trips. We flew, on average, at least twice a month. I used to devour timetables and in-flight magazines.)
All of the stories revolve around members of the fictional Johnson family – Mr. and Mrs. Johnson and their kids Joe, Jamie, and baby Natasha.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, a glimpse into the mind of nine-year-old Stan Adams:
NEW HOME
Mrs. Johnson scribbled on a box. She threw in the U-Haul truck and scribbled on another one. Natasha was watching her favorite show. Suddenly, the truck roared. Mrs. Johnson put the last box in, and she jumped in the cab. They started driving to Stan’s Town, a new townhouse complex. The old house was being destroyed. Natasha was playing with Jamie’s hair. The truck turned. Mr. Johnson said, “I don’t think we should have left Uncle…” CRASH! The Celica had crashed! The car swerved around, and landed upside-down, starting to level off. “I knew I should have gone to work today.” said Mrs. Johnson. Natasha cried when Mrs. Johnson dropped the bottle she was feeding Natasha with. Mrs. Johnson climbed over Jamie, and opened the door. Joe said to Jamie, “I wonder what our new car will be like.” The Celica was ruined. Mr. Johnson said, “How did it happen?” Uncle Billy said, “I was turning and a guy rear-ended me, so I lost control and hit a tree, swerved around, and flipped over. Then, I leveled out and began to settle into the concrete.” After getting the stuff out, Mr. Johnson got away from the Celica. It exploded. The next day, Mr. Johnson walked to the Toyota car dealership. He said to a lady, “My Toyota was wrecked. Do you have trade-ins?” The lady said, “Only if you weren’t driving the car.” Mr. Johnson said, “I wasn’t. Do you have any more 1993 Celicas?” “No.” said the lady. “How about a 1995 Celica?” said Mr. Johnson. The lady showed him to a nice car, which looked just like their old one. The car sped off. Mr. Johnson got to the complex, and unlocked the security gates. In his driveway, he saw bullys stealing stuff. Mr. Johnson yelled, “I live here!” They left. Mr. Johnson parked the new Celica.
EXERCISE RIDE
Mrs. Johnson loved to ride her bike. She was delighted to hear about “RBFPF” [Riding Bikes For Physical Fitness]. The manager was supposed to be a young lady who was a supermodel. So Mrs. Johnson signed her family up. On Saturday, May 20, with Natasha on her holder, Mrs. Johnson rode out of the driveway. She swerved into the townhouse and hit the recycling bins. Cans flew everywhere. Jamie rode out of the garage. Her basket was stuffed with lunch stuff. Mr. Johnson rode out in his flashing bike. The family followed all the rules. A stop sign was in the middle of the bike lane. Mr. Johnson’s pedal got stuck, and he would have to stop for the stop sign. So he turned into Mrs. Johnson. The bike hit Natasha, and she was thrown from the bike. Mrs. Johnson jumped off. The two bikes landing in a swimming pool. The young lady was superskinny. She went faster than every car on the road. The bike made a sharp turn onto the expressway. Mrs. Johnson almost pulled the rope that held Natasha’s car seat on. A 18-wheeler sucked Jamie under. She was under the fuel tank. The driver noticed her, and exploded the fuel tank. Her bike hit a motorcycle. The 12 speed bike careened off the road into a speed limit sign. The leader turned off a bend and the rest of the group followed. Jamie saw the neatly wrapped lunch. It had survived. After joining the others, she saw they were turning on a exit. The group turned into a rest area, and lunch started. Natasha was fed squashed carrots. She was a talented baby who could draw. In her picture after lunch she drew a doctor and whined, pointing to it. They rode to the new townhouse.
PETS
Stan’s Pet Shop was a little shop two miles from the townhouse. On May 25, 1995 Mrs. Johnson set out on her bike. Natasha was hastilly tied onto her mother’s bike. She saw the tiny pet store at the intersection of Main and Johnson Street. She rode out of the bike lane and saw a bar. She hooked her bike up. A tiny puppy came up. Mrs. Johnson saw that it was a golden retriever. She bought it. The puppy played with Natasha. Then, Mrs. Johnson ran into a cage. A paraket said, “I’m Parrot. Parrot wants some Super Duper Hyperactive Corn Flakes.” He knocked his food tray over. “Not these hard sunflower seeds.” Mrs. Johnson bought him too. A guy gave her dog food and some Super Duper Hyperactive Corn Flakes. He said, “$99.99.” She gave him a 100 dollar bill, and got a penny back. The pareket ate it. He said, “Give me some more of these, too.” Mrs. Johnson had to tie the pareket’s cage on Natasha, and the dog was strapped to the reflector, which swayed and jolted against her weight. Parrot said, “Parrot wants dinner now.” He pecked at the box of cereal, but it wouldn’t open. Mr. Johnson was bringing plants for the garden outside. He saw the pets and said, “I could never get the hook for Arna’s picture out in the middle of the roof. Put the cage there. And I can build a doghouse in three hours.” Joe was eating a cookie. He said, “Oh, cool! Who’s the dog for?” “Us.” said Mrs. Johnson. Joe dropped his glass of milk. Jamie saw the dog go to the bathroom on her bookbag. “There’s a big dog next door,” said Jamie. “I hope he doesn’t get to Golden {that’s what they named the dog}.” Mrs. Johnson said, “I think that dog ate the mailman’s bag. There was a terrific fight. The frog in a box was leaping on the dog’s head.” “Is that why you found your birthday china broken?” said Joe. Mrs. Johnson was gone. On Saturday, Mr. Johnson went to the hardware shop, and began a project. At 3:42 p.m, he finished building a wonderful doghouse, which was a minature house. There was a front door, bed for him to sleep on, a refrigerator that had his favorite food, and many more. It cost 3 million dollars to build. The pareket had his own house built. By the end of the weekend, two pet houses were finished. He also put ElectroSurge around the house. On Monday, Joe left for school. He went to the middle school where he learned. The dog also saw Jamie leave. Parrot was eating breakfast. Golden went through the door of his house. He noticed Mr. Johnson. Mrs. Johnson said, “That’s deep enough.” They put pool coating on it. On May 31, the swimming pool was finished. Joe said, “I can’t wait until the weekend.” On July 3, it was Joe’s birthday.
BIRTHDAY PARTY
I’m the lady who ordered that really fancy cake,” said Mrs. Johnson. “it’s my son’s birthday.” The man was listening to his girlfriend. Mrs. Johnson yelled, “I’M THE LADY WHO ORDERED THE FANCY CAKE, FOR MY SON’S BIRTHDAY!” The man handed her a box and said, “Have a nice evening.” It was Friday night. Mrs. Johnson went home. She arrived in shock. Party streamers were tied to the cabinets. A string of lights was tied to the television attena. When Mrs. Johnson started to watch the evening news, she noticed it was covered with white. So she swung the attena. The string was tied to the telephone lines. The poles flew up and tilted. Mrs. Johnson swung the attena again, and the lines got in a big knot. The houses that were connected to the line moved an inch. A 100 million dollar mansion connected moved very suddenly. After swinging the attena again, Mrs. Johnson saw the poles swing up and down. People were startled when their houses went up and down. The next day, Mrs. Johnson invited the whole family over. They came. Vivian was a little late, because Aunt Erna spilled Coke on the air conditioner. Mrs. Johnson tried to open the cake box. She shook it, and hit it. The cake got into a gooey mess, but the box wouldn’t open. Mrs. Johnson got a carving knife, which bounced right off the box. Mr. Johnson pounded it with his fists, and an anvil. It didn’t even have a scratch. The whole family tried to cut the box. Mr. Johnson got a chain saw and tried to open the box. It wouldn’t open. Mrs. Johnson pounded the box and tried to rip it. She threw it in the air, and it came down. Nothing happened. Mrs. Johnson tried punching in the plastic. She did, and her fist ended up in the cake. Joe said, “What happened to my birthday cake?” It was ruined. The icing was dripping off the counter. Uncle Billy said, “Why don’t we eat the Jello mold?” Jamie came out of the kitchen and said, “It’s Jello mildew.” Mrs. Johnson said, “It’s the box. We can eat pounded-in cake, can’t we?” The dog jumped on the counter and gobbled down the cake. Parrot said, “Parrot wants some Super Duper Hyperactive Corn Flakes.” Mrs. Johnson took the food bowl and scooped some bird seed. Parrot said, “Parrot wants cereal!” Mrs. Johnson then noticed that Golden treated the cake like it was sludge. She noticed him dig the frosting off. And there was dirt underneath!” Vivian went to the bathroom. Jamie dropped a present, and there was a twinkle. Mrs. Johnson kicked the box, and it hit the attena. The attena swung around, and the telephone poles swung through a window! Mrs. Johnson also noticed a branxh over the telephone line. It fell, and the line broke. Everything went dead. The lights outside were okay, however. Mr. Johnson said to Uncle Billy, “I think we better get everybody outside.” Vivian took one look at the chesseburgers and smacked her lips. They were outside. Suddenly, a gale force wind came up. The potato chips blew out of the containers, and tree branchs went in the windows. Everybody in the pool was tossed around. At 12:13 p.m, Mrs. Johnson got a hot dog bun and slapped down a patty. The hamburger buns had blown away. Everybody was surprized. At 2:09 p.m, the winds were blowing at 59 miles per hour. aThe townhouse began to sink down. Mrs. Johnson said, “The foundation fell apart!” The house settled when the mud was toe-deep. Mrs. Johnson said, “We have to get some weight off!” She threw the television onto the driveway. A sofa followed. Joe said, “What a birthday!” Suddenly, a strong wind ripped the glass-sliding door to smitherines. All the presents flew out. Joe caught 2. He noticed that they had lost the cards. Everybody looked at the furniture. They went home.
PLANE CRASH
The pilot of Oceanic Airlines flight 1016 knew he was in danger. After plunging a Boeing 737-300 into the Miami River, he was not good flying. But, this Boeing 737-300 looked safe, so what could happen? Jamie was out to report for her school. She was scheduled for flight 607 from Stannyville to Baltimore. She decided to cancel the flight on her brother’s broken leg. At 5:35 a.m, the eight-year old plane taxied out at Orange County airport for a flight to Stannyville, via Houston. Jamie was supposed to be aboard flight 1016 instead of flight 607. Mrs. Johnson said, “We’re here to see you off.” At 3:09 p.m, she boarded the flight. Joe found his seat across the aisle from Jamie. At 3:12 p.m, 132 people were aboard. The plane was filled to capacity. They took off. It was a uneventful flight. At 5:35 p.m, he started to bring the airliner down. Part of the approach was in bad weather, so they would circle around Washington D.C. on approach. People weren’t expecting this to happen. Jamie noticed that there was a sudden loss of altidude. The captain had a false reading. The Boeing 737-300 started approach too early. A big ship was on the Potomac River. They saw the jet zoom low over them. The captain yelled, “Ahhh! Traffic emergency! We’re in a nosedive!” ATC {Air Traffic Control} said, “Oceanic 1016, maintain 4,000 feet over.” The co-pilot said, “Are we cleared to three-eight right?” ATC said, “Yes, that’s the runway. You need to pull up.” There was no response. Then, the controller heard the captain. “We are going to hit at 299 miles per hour!” Jamie looked out the window. Joe was clutching the armrests. The Boeing 737-300 was like a bomb. The plane hit the water, and windows broke. The pilot screamed, “Climbing into vio…” The controller looked at the radar. Oceanic Airlines flight 1016 was gone. He said, “1016, you’re cleared for landing, maintain 4,000 feet.” There was no response. He said, “Oceanic 1016?” The plane was in the water. Jamie woke up. Somme 2 people were on her. There was not many people awake. A hole had been torn in the fuseage. She noticed that the water was icy cold. Then she said, “We’re on approach to Washington/Baltimore International!” A flight attendent was struggling with an emergency exit. Jamie knocked it open. The air traffic controller said, “1016, there’s some scattered clouds at 4,000 feet. I’ve lost you on radar. Please answer.” Then, he ordered a helicoptor to search for the missing plane. It was covered with ice. The chopper picked up Jamie. Survivors were dragged to the front of the aircraft. It was dark. People noticed that the floor lights had broke on impact.
CANOE!
Joe was munching on a big pretzel. He was in the Celica. Jamie was eating one, too. They were reading coloring books. Suddenly, the Celica turned off the road. They parked in a clearing, near the ocean. There was a canoe rental place, and two islands. A man said, “When you get to the fork, take the left fork.” Mr. Johnson packed the stuff in the canoe and they set out for an adventure. When they got to the fork, a man denied clearence into the left fork. He forced them on the right. Mrs. Johnson said, “WATERFALL!” The canoe got wedged in the bushes. Mr. Johnson said, “We’re in mi..!” The canoe started to fall. They ended up in a jungle river. The canoe started to go fast. There was another fork. One lane was cut off, so they took the other one. Then, a steamroller started to tear apart everything in the water. It went into the ocean. Joe asked, “We have plenty of food, don’t we?” The canoe was floating in the water. A cruise ship was heading for them. They were dumping garbage. Jamie threw one of the torchs at the ship. It blew up, not leaving any garbage. Fish ate the remains, which turned into worms. Mr. Johnson said, “We’re going to stop in the Bahamas.” The tiny canoe sailed out toward the Artic Ocean! Joe said, “More likely Southampton.” Jamie dropped her coloring book. There was a radio on board, because Mr. Johnson had brought one. At 5:00 a.m, the next morning, he turned it on, and heard: “This is WIOD, service for Washington D.C! Trans Stan Airlines is expanding it’s superhub in Reno, Nevada. The Stannyville-based carrier is the biggest and largest in the world, and the favorite. They are also expected to expand to 20 destinations that feed into us.” Mrs. Johnson got a slice of turkey and some bread. “Sandwich?” asked Mrs. Johnson. Jamie raised her hand, reaching for the manyonaise. Mrs. Johnson handed her the sandwich and a bag of popcorn. Jamie said, “How about those mini-cookies?” She slapped some mayonaise on. That spread on the turkey. At 6:32 a.m, on June 30, 1995, they sailed into Chesepeake Bay. Suddenly, a wind came up, and they were blown into the path of a huge cruise ship. Jamie said, “I think we’re going to be run over! Suddenly, the ship stopped. They sailed into a canoe rental shop, and flew home.
Directors and editors mess around with the colour balance of movie scenes all the time. Most people only pick it up subliminally.
Blue shift is used to create cold lighting, and engender an ambiance of threat, danger and evil. Rather too often with a pastiche crow squawking menacingly as background noise.
Warmer tones are used in romantic and ‘feel good’ scenes.
Daylight colour temperature of 6,000 — 6,500 kelvin scenes, are used to create a modern, tech feel.
Of course this is not usually done with lighting during the shoot, rather they shoot everything in daylight colour temperature, which gives the recorded file the editor works on the full gambit of colour to manipulate on his computer’s editing suite later to help create whatever mood is appropriate for the scene.
I’ll add something I’ve been noticing for a while. During romantic scenes or when the director is trying to maximise the attractiveness of individuals, often you’ll see the actor’s pupils fully dilated. I’m convinced Tropicamide eye drops are administered prior to the shoot in the actor’s eyes. This drug is used prior to cataract operations to fully dilate pupils to supress the natural light and emotion sensitive reflexes that control our pupils so as to make it easier to perform the op to replace your foggy cataract ridden natural lens with a new, crystal clear artificial Intra Ocular lens.
Something for Steve to look forward to when he has his cataract ops!
Several states,such as Texas, have a loophole in the minimum tattoo age statutes. With his parents’ okay, a teen can have his existing tattoos– usually gang-related– modified to make them unrecognizable. The pain of getting a tattoo is purportedly nothing compared to the pain of having it removed.
Several states, such as Texas, have a loophole in the minimum tattoo age statutes. With his parents’ okay, a teen can have his existing tattoos– usually gang-related– modified to make them unrecognizable. The pain of getting a tattoo is purportedly nothing compared to the pain of having it removed.
Pooh doesn’t like Christopher Robin?
Yes, but there is an episode in the first three years of the series when Phoebe drags Rachel to a tattoo parlor in order to get done although, typically, Phoebe faints dead when the needle-gun appears since she hadn’t realized what was involved and Rachel gets a small, discreet tat (a smiley face?) Rachel forces Phoebe to go through with it though she ends up with a black dot which is barely visible. This was the mid-nineties so the show was acknowledging that women getting tattooed was becoming a fashion thing (now like ear piercing) and that reluctance and fear of the pain was also a thing.
Writing songs about very old pop music was also very hip. Paul Williams wrote a big hit for Three Dog Night, “Old Fashioned Love Song”. Also, writing songs in the style of old pop was hip, such as the Beatles’ “When I’m Sixty Four”. And Scott Joplin was virtually resurrected by “The Sting”. Those were the days, my friend.
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Comic relief:
https://archive.is/PHacdReplies: @Jack D, @J.Ross, @tr, @Cloudswrest, @James J O'Meara, @Joe S.Walker, @jamie b., @Reg Cæsar, @Ganderson, @SteeringWheelHolder
The technical quality of the recordings has a lot to do with it. I was in high school in the late 60s and early 70s, and when we did listen to old time music, for example Benny Goodman or Artie Shaw, or Bob Wills for that matter, it was on crappy scratchy old records. Today’s kids listening to stuff from the 1960s hears pretty clean recordings.
In my opinion the pop music of the 30s and 40s is among the best ever recorded. I don’t know to what extent anyone is going back and trying to clean up those recordings, but it would be a wonderful project to do. As the world falls down around us, at least I could listen to a nice version of Begin the Beguine.
The composing was powerful in the era. Sinatra going back and reviving something nearly forgotten from a Broadway show once he was back on his feet at Capitol past 1953 had a salutary effect. The same song might have been recorded a half-dozen times over twenty years, yet, in the right hands, was always new. The song arrangers for singers — Riddle, May, etc — and those for instrumentalists found beauty at the core sometimes not heard originally. A new recording could literally make an old song brand-new.
Dance. Social dance, for couples. Where one can “see” it (swing) one is on the American path. No one else ever does it so well.
Theme (and mood) was in play, exploratory, circa 1960. So much so that to this day the sounds are still those used to bolster institutional advertising (when impressions matter most), and next to nothing in Hollywood has ever replaced it (John Williams is derivative).
One can “hear” every important influence of TV & Radio advertising (as well as show themes) of the next fifteen years in the Sinatra/Riddle, “Swinging Session” if he cares to listen for it.
History (time) stopped at Dealey Plaza.
Music is where that’s most evident.
.Replies: @Ganderson
My wife flew Concorde to Heathrow and back in the Before Time. She found it impressive and disorienting.
Now there was a little more too it than that because fluorescents don't really give off a full spectrum of wavelengths but fundamentally we still prefer fire type colors for nighttime indoor lighting because humans have spent the last 1/2 million years or so around a fire at night.Replies: @Cloudswrest, @Pixo, @slumber_j
Not only that, but the old old fluorescents had a perceptible flicker that was prone to giving me alarming headaches. I think by the time of CFLs they had maybe put the flickers out of phase between two elements per bulb or something? Anyway, CFLs were a lot better in that department–or less bad anyway.
Nevertheless, when the manufacture of standard-sized incandescent bulbs was about to be banned, I bought ~500 60-watt GE Reveals. I’m bathed in that pleasant light as I write this. The surviving hoard now dwells in our basement in Connecticut, hunkered next to the whole-house battery.
I seem to remember an old tv episode in which a reformed ex-gang member punishes himself by undergoing an MRI scan. The idea being that the magnetic field would by acting on the iron particles in his tattoos inflict enormous pain.
Two LED streetlights near me are now putting out blue light. Does this mean they’re going to fail soon? Aren’t they supposed to be long lasting?
It’s true that both of the Max crashes were in 3rd world countries but the design was so fundamentally bad that it would have only been a matter of time before there was some US pilot who couldn’t solve the puzzle in time. Not every US pilot is Sully either.
Designing a plane with faulty software reliant on a single sensor that seizes control of the elevator (and THEN keeping it secret from the pilot) and relying on the pilots to figure it out before the plane flew itself along with hundreds of innocents into the ocean was not a plan. Even more remarkably, they allowed this to happen TWICE and didn’t fix it after the 1st time that hundreds died. And the FAA should never have approved such a design or allowed Boeing to police itself. The FAA should have been able to overrule the Boeing engineers and the engineers should have been able to overrule the sales people, but at Boeing this was all flipped on its head so that safety was subordinated to marketing considerations. Safety last.
And the irony is that the end result was TERRIBLE for sales – they tried to save millions and it ended up costing them billions. But the execs got their annual bonuses up front – that’s all they cared about.
Apparently, when Boeing took over McDonnell Douglas it was really the other way around – the McDonnell people (basically oriented toward military work) ended up in charge and they didn’t have Boeing’s passenger jet safety culture.
No one seems interested in explaining how the Ethiopian captain accumulated over 8000 flight hours at age 29. That idiot kept his throttles firewalled during his short final flight into the ground.
Boeing is not blameless and certainly lost in the court of public opinion, but those interested in the full story should seek out William Langewiesche’s article in the NYT. I won’t link to it here, but it’s easily found.Replies: @Jack D
Nevertheless, when the manufacture of standard-sized incandescent bulbs was about to be banned, I bought ~500 60-watt GE Reveals. I'm bathed in that pleasant light as I write this. The surviving hoard now dwells in our basement in Connecticut, hunkered next to the whole-house battery.Replies: @Jack D
Incandescents give a lovely natural full spectrum light (though halogens do too and are slightly more efficient) but 90% of the energy is wasted as heat and only 10% is turned into light. A light bulb is basically an electric heater that incidentally gives off a bit of light. So having that pleasant light comes at a high price, especially in the summer where you not only have to pay for the power consumed by the bulb but also for the extra air conditioning to remove the waste heat. And your whole house battery is going to run a much shorter time when used to drive incandescent lights.
The best modern LEDs are available in warm white (if that’s what you like) and with a very high color rendering index (CRI) meaning that colors look the same as they would under incandescent. An the equivalent of a 60W bulb uses maybe 9W. Edison was brilliant but it’s time to move forward.
AFAIK, those curly CFLs only had one element – it was just a single fluorescent tube but the tube was bent into a double spiral that curled upward and reversed and came back down.
*****
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Radio helped create a market for recordings.
Identifying an era isn’t minor details of hair length, etc (though the lighting coloration thing is funny), it’s in attitudes towards others. Who is my brother, my sister? “We”, not isolatory “Me”.
The dividing line then is 11/22. Beatlemania a couple of months later is no more organic than Civil Rights legislation. TV-driven.
New definitions of self to others. To society at large. Enemy-driven.
Since 1964 there’s no real differences. Once authority of fathers destroyed by Vietnam, and divorce incentivized, society going DOWNHILL a given. Gonna mark the curb-hits as cultural markers? Have at it.
11/22 marked a point where the dial got turned up. There’s no anodyne save throwing out all since then as none of it works. None of it is inspiring. Crap is crap.
Hell, it’s not even music. Not if one has an appreciation of the 500-years which precede it. Right down to the last minutes of the era with Nelson Riddle collaborating with Oscar Peterson (“My Prince Will Come”), or Neal Hefti composing for Basie or Harry James.
Once electricity is made a requirement, “music” had a new and terrifically-narrow definition. It’s distortion. That which drives apart. DISCO FOR ALL!!
Ever heard anyone say, “my” music with no irony intended?
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One big change between 65 and 80 — Sometime around 1970 cinematographers fell in love with the built-in fluorescent lighting common to newsrooms and corporate offices. Shots were constantly angled upward into these ceiling panels, I think to create a feeling of modern technocracy. Sometimes sinister (countless evil corporations) or occasionally reassuring (All the President’s Men, the inference being that we’ve reached some wonderful new era in journalism)
Watch The Parallax View, the ultimate conspiracy movie, and note the difference between the nice old guy’s old-fashioned newsroom (dim brownish light) and the sinister fluorescent lighting as Warren Beatty infiltrates the bad guys’ organization
— As far as 1965 – 1980 I also always look at men’s burgeoning lapel widths and tailoring along with hair length. It’s sad that Mannix only lasted through 1975 because Joe’s jackets were becoming increasingly outlandish – a tradition carried on a few years further by TV baseball announcer Lindsey Nelson. Men’s fashions now are much harder to date
— And obviously there are vast stylistic differences in rock music between 1965 and 1980, compared to any 15-year span in the 21st century
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=don+cherry+jackets&atb=v1-1&iax=images&ia=imagesReplies: @Known Fact
One thing I notice about cars in old TV shows and movies is that the driver will often enter by the curbside passenger door and slide across the bench seat to the driver’s position. Can’t do that today.
I imagine flashlights helped keep down costs as well (no lighting, no or little scenery).
Also helped with the illusion of Vancouver as DC.
A couple of legendary MST3k bad films, The Dead Talk Back and Manos: The Hands of Fate, appear to have been shot using only flashlights.
“Hurry up, Merle, I only have two more D batteries!”
And “Winchester Cathedral,” with its megaphone “vo-de-o-doe” bit. Poor Rudy Vallee thought he was popular again. Though he did show up on Night Gallery soon after (with Robert Morse, a “How to Succeed in Business” reunion).
Okay, turns out modern fluorescents have electronic ballasts that refresh them thousands of times per second, thus eliminating the 60Hz. flicker of old.
As far as heat production goes, it’s winter here in NYC, and I’ll take all I can get. And the CT house is in the absolutely coldest place in the state. We’re there all summer, and there’s no air conditioning involved. Anyway, I do use LEDs for some applications, and I’m pretty fanatical about turning off lights when I’m not using them.
Now, none of that would matter, but I noticed something when I was watching the new Ghostbusters movie the other day. The movie is about two children, but it’s obviously written from the perspective of someone who was a child 30-40 years ago. The kids don’t have smartphones, and they look and act like kids from the 20th Century, not modern ones. The male kid fixes up the broken down Ecto 1 hearse from the first movie so he can drive to his job at a burger stand. A job he gets to impress a cute girl. I don’t think 15-year-old boys do that sort of thing anymore. Anyway, the point is, with movies being made by people that are behind the times culturally, and with old pop culture holding on to relevance longer than ever before, it’s not the future that’s being canceled, it’s the past’s illusion of cultural progress that’s fading away. Time moves forward, and technology and culture usually advance. But both technology and culture can sometimes slide backward or take sideways leaps into new territories. That’s why some movies might look new and impressive but be culturally outdated and why other movies might have the opposite set of characteristics. A gritty movie from the 1980s might not look good but could be given a shot-for-shot remake and work fine today.Replies: @Stan Adams, @James J. O'Meara
If I understand your point, I’ve heard the same about music. The most primitive recording technique, gouging a groove into a lacquer disc, actually encoded lots more information than the equally primitive reproduction techniques could, well, reproduce. So when a 78 is remastered for CD, ill that information can be retrieved, and it will sound better than ever before, at least in terms of frequency response — some will still talk about the “warmth” and other intangibles of the original.
Every single airliner has software that controls the elevator. It’s called the autopilot, for simplicity’s sake. Every single airline pilot has been trained to disconnect the autopilot at the first sign of a runaway trim condition. Neither of the accident crews did so properly. Had they just disconnected the autopilot and hand flown the plane, no crash. It happened to multiple US. Reed who responded properly to the situation.
No one seems interested in explaining how the Ethiopian captain accumulated over 8000 flight hours at age 29. That idiot kept his throttles firewalled during his short final flight into the ground.
Boeing is not blameless and certainly lost in the court of public opinion, but those interested in the full story should seek out William Langewiesche’s article in the NYT. I won’t link to it here, but it’s easily found.
If the Ethiopian plane hadn't crashed it would have only been a matter of time before a US plane did - the Max was a ticking time bomb. Not everyone can figure out in time that you should cut the red wire. Maybe 9 times out of 10 a good pilot can but the 10th time, 150 people die. All so Boeing could save a few pennies.Replies: @JMcG
The alien hoax is to misdirect the Proles away from the truth.Replies: @James J. O'Meara
They won’t make the same mistake they did with automobiles, letting all the city proles and rural crackers get their hands on one. Or two.
I recall watching the UK series 'Sherlock' some years back. It was very hip and clever, but there's one memorable episode in which the plot revolves around a character's 'camera-phone', which I guess is what Brits (correct me if I'm wrong) called smartphones for a while when they first came out. Or do you still use this term in place of/interchangeably with 'smartphone'?
Even though the episode was only a year or two old by the time I watched it, this little phone technology nomenclature detail already made it feel a bit off and dated.Replies: @James J. O'Meara
The MST3k gang liked to speculate how many miles of celluloid were wasted filming characters dialing rotary phones.
(Cultural not technological: time spent looking for cigs, lighting up, inhaling/exhaling, then the next line of dialog)
How many movie plots are completely dependent on obsolete technology, or the absence thereof?
“Why doesn’t he just call her?” Oh.
Is there a way to make Dial M for Murder today? Not just the big rotary dial (Hitchcock used a prop, with a big prop index finger as well, not Ray Milland’s finger), but the whole “how to make a call and no one knows who or when” business. And the house keys “that all look alike”. And the suitcase full of untraceable 5 pound notes. And (cultural note), the “key” point that the front door of an apartment building in London’s swanky Maida Vale borough “is never locked” anyway. Essentially a time capsule of life without domestic technology. (No one has a car, and God only knows what’s in that tiny kitchen we never see; people take boats from NY to London).
Cue Men of Unz: “They’re dogs!” “They’re trannies!”
You are correct. Began in 1974.
My mistake.
Since about 2000, this is no longer the case. Very similar crap has been dominating pop charts the past 20 years. Black guys bragging about being rich and dangerous plus pop tarts of all races autotune singing about being empowered and sexy. Pop punk and nu metal are also minor but consistent presences on pop charts, and also sound exactly the same the past 20 years.Replies: @Barnard, @njguy73
The big thing in pop now is producing singles with a distinctively retro sound. “Save Your Tears” by The Weeknd, “Levitating” by Dua Lipa, and “Say So” by Doja Cat all are ’80s-sounding on purpose.
Also helped with the illusion of Vancouver as DC.
A couple of legendary MST3k bad films, The Dead Talk Back and Manos: The Hands of Fate, appear to have been shot using only flashlights.
"Hurry up, Merle, I only have two more D batteries!"Replies: @Ray P, @J.Ross
The X-Files set records for the amount of money spent on episodes of a television series in the nineties and the high budget must have bought an unlimited supply of D-cells. I wonder whether the staff had a dedicated flashlight wrangler.
Also helped with the illusion of Vancouver as DC.
A couple of legendary MST3k bad films, The Dead Talk Back and Manos: The Hands of Fate, appear to have been shot using only flashlights.
"Hurry up, Merle, I only have two more D batteries!"Replies: @Ray P, @J.Ross
There’s actually a scene in Manos which is accidentally good-looking because it’s just a man in the darkness with a revolver and a flashlight, in the middle of nowhere.
If Raymond Chandler had written Manos.
I completely forgot about that one, and it was so unapologetic that there were blacks complaining about it. The first time I heard it, I thought, how did this even get recorded? It got recorded because kids in the late 60s were nuts over para-nostalgia.
Ironically, I was at a bar a couple nights ago and the X Files was on the TV (sound off). It looked like a generic TV show, and I only knew what it was because I saw G. Anderson and Duchovny together. It might even have been the reboot for all I know. Seemed like one of the episodes involving a small town cult and high school girls. Anyhow, what could they have spent all that money on (other than batteries). The whole point of shooting in Vancouver was to save money; the monster effects were not that elaborate, G & D weren’t big stars (at first). Um, cocaine?
“it’s just a man in the darkness with a revolver and a flashlight, in the middle of nowhere”
If Raymond Chandler had written Manos.
Not only cleaned up to CD typical remaster quality, but sometimes beyond. (Bear Family and Bob Wills, for example). Wav. and Flac. files just point out one should ditch TV sound system and step back to older definitions of High Fidelity (Klipsch Cornwalls will change your life).
The composing was powerful in the era. Sinatra going back and reviving something nearly forgotten from a Broadway show once he was back on his feet at Capitol past 1953 had a salutary effect. The same song might have been recorded a half-dozen times over twenty years, yet, in the right hands, was always new. The song arrangers for singers — Riddle, May, etc — and those for instrumentalists found beauty at the core sometimes not heard originally. A new recording could literally make an old song brand-new.
Dance. Social dance, for couples. Where one can “see” it (swing) one is on the American path. No one else ever does it so well.
Theme (and mood) was in play, exploratory, circa 1960. So much so that to this day the sounds are still those used to bolster institutional advertising (when impressions matter most), and next to nothing in Hollywood has ever replaced it (John Williams is derivative).
One can “hear” every important influence of TV & Radio advertising (as well as show themes) of the next fifteen years in the Sinatra/Riddle, “Swinging Session” if he cares to listen for it.
History (time) stopped at Dealey Plaza.
Music is where that’s most evident.
.
I’m a melody guy, and I love those swing era songs. Of course I also love the Grateful Dead, mainly for their, especially Garcia’s, gift for melody.
X-Files, along with Moonlighting and the Rigg-era Avengers, formed a trinity of perfect chemistry shows, where the monster or spy was just an excuse to have the leads bounce off each other.
No one seems interested in explaining how the Ethiopian captain accumulated over 8000 flight hours at age 29. That idiot kept his throttles firewalled during his short final flight into the ground.
Boeing is not blameless and certainly lost in the court of public opinion, but those interested in the full story should seek out William Langewiesche’s article in the NYT. I won’t link to it here, but it’s easily found.Replies: @Jack D
They tried turning off the electric trim but there was too much force and the elevator was too far out of trim to manually put the plane back into trim. In simulator tests of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 flight scenario, the trim wheel was impossible to move when one of the pilots would instinctively pull up from the nosedives. It takes 15 turns to manually trim the aircraft one degree, and up to 40 turns to bring the trim back to neutral from the nose down position caused by MCAS. Then when he turned the electric trim back on, the MCAS immediately kicked in again. The MCAS as originally designed only had command over a few degrees of elevator pitch but at some point in the design process they gave it much more authority and forgot to tell the FAA. Langewiesche’s article was Boeing planted BS.
If the Ethiopian plane hadn’t crashed it would have only been a matter of time before a US plane did – the Max was a ticking time bomb. Not everyone can figure out in time that you should cut the red wire. Maybe 9 times out of 10 a good pilot can but the 10th time, 150 people die. All so Boeing could save a few pennies.
The response to a runaway trim episode is what’s called a memory item. It has to be performed instantly, without recourse to the manual, and correctly. These items are suppose to be drilled and tested in recurrent training.
Let’s look at revealed preference. I don’t imagine you’ll be availing yourself of the fine services of Ethiopian Airlines for any of your future travel needs.
Mr. Langewiesche’s article is very good, as I stated previously.
Outlandish?
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=don+cherry+jackets&atb=v1-1&iax=images&ia=images
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=don+cherry+jackets&atb=v1-1&iax=images&ia=imagesReplies: @Known Fact
Yes I was also thinking of Don Cherry when I wrote that — but Cherry’s “style” is, uh, personal and ageless and does not reflect the wider zeitgeist. Joe Mannix was the ultimate middle-of-the-road meat and potatoes white guy so he did reflect the fashion evolution of the 70s, e.g, jacket lapels wider than an LAX runway. Like when Robert Brady Bunch Reed showed up with a perm.
FASHION ALERT: An upscale catalog I get monthly shows the cover model sporting a drop-waist dress the likes of which I have not seen since … (cue ominous music) the Carter Administration. What is this telling us?
If the Ethiopian plane hadn't crashed it would have only been a matter of time before a US plane did - the Max was a ticking time bomb. Not everyone can figure out in time that you should cut the red wire. Maybe 9 times out of 10 a good pilot can but the 10th time, 150 people die. All so Boeing could save a few pennies.Replies: @JMcG
Jack, I’m not going to beat this to death again, but the reasons the Ethiopian plane was harder to recover from the runaway trim situation were twofold. First, the idiot pilot kept reengaging the electric trim. Every time he did so, he made the situation worse. That’s why you don’t reengage it when it runs away. Second, as I pointed out, he left the throttles set at takeoff power, which is incomprehensible. Just a your car steering wheel becomes more effective at higher speeds, so do the control surfaces on an airplane. I think that clown actually exceeded the never exceed speed for the 737.
The response to a runaway trim episode is what’s called a memory item. It has to be performed instantly, without recourse to the manual, and correctly. These items are suppose to be drilled and tested in recurrent training.
Let’s look at revealed preference. I don’t imagine you’ll be availing yourself of the fine services of Ethiopian Airlines for any of your future travel needs.
Mr. Langewiesche’s article is very good, as I stated previously.
Solve the fuel problem with modern advancements in engines. Figure out a means to placate the sound NIMBYs and you could probably make a business case for a revival. Provided someone with a very large bag of money has the vision to spend billions in development.Replies: @smetana
Already in development in Colorado, Boom Technologies with JAL and United on board.
https://boomsupersonic.com/partners
Investor Paul Graham explains the economics:
https://bloodknife.com/everyone-beautiful-no-one-horny/
Ignore the body positivity stuff. They have a point.Replies: @Stan Adams
Yes, they do.
It would be interesting to see a movie where the issues described in this essay are addressed in (ahem) explicit fashion:
http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html
The composing was powerful in the era. Sinatra going back and reviving something nearly forgotten from a Broadway show once he was back on his feet at Capitol past 1953 had a salutary effect. The same song might have been recorded a half-dozen times over twenty years, yet, in the right hands, was always new. The song arrangers for singers — Riddle, May, etc — and those for instrumentalists found beauty at the core sometimes not heard originally. A new recording could literally make an old song brand-new.
Dance. Social dance, for couples. Where one can “see” it (swing) one is on the American path. No one else ever does it so well.
Theme (and mood) was in play, exploratory, circa 1960. So much so that to this day the sounds are still those used to bolster institutional advertising (when impressions matter most), and next to nothing in Hollywood has ever replaced it (John Williams is derivative).
One can “hear” every important influence of TV & Radio advertising (as well as show themes) of the next fifteen years in the Sinatra/Riddle, “Swinging Session” if he cares to listen for it.
History (time) stopped at Dealey Plaza.
Music is where that’s most evident.
.Replies: @Ganderson
Thanks for that. Right now I’m listening to a Bill Evans mix courtesy of Alexa- I know she’s spying on me, but at least I get some good “chunes”, as Roger Daltrey would put it.
I’m a melody guy, and I love those swing era songs. Of course I also love the Grateful Dead, mainly for their, especially Garcia’s, gift for melody.