Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By
by Anna Jane Grossman
Warning: this book will make you feel old. It's a look back at many things and concepts that were taken for granted in the 80s and 90s, but are fading from use and from memory now.
Think about it: it's extremely likely that our kids will not use encyclopedias. They won't use payphones or check the time on their watches. They'll never write a check or take a picture with a friend in a photo booth. They'll never know a mixtape.
Things become obsolete all the time. But these are our things. I kept quarters in my purse so I could always call home. Counting Crows' Mr Jones will always be followed by the opening bars of Big Mountain's reggae version of Baby I Love Your Way. Seriously, every time I get to the end of Mr Jones, I sing "Ooooh, baby I love your wayyy" under my breath. Watch me sometime, you'll see my lips moving.
Some things are totally unnecessary now, because they've been replaced by better things, and I'm not one to stand against progress. I can do without manual car windows and short-shorts on basketball players, for example, but I do mourn the death of the encyclopedia and the newspaper.
I liked the trip down memory lane, but it left me feeling old and possibly approaching obsolescence myself!
by Anna Jane Grossman
Warning: this book will make you feel old. It's a look back at many things and concepts that were taken for granted in the 80s and 90s, but are fading from use and from memory now.
Think about it: it's extremely likely that our kids will not use encyclopedias. They won't use payphones or check the time on their watches. They'll never write a check or take a picture with a friend in a photo booth. They'll never know a mixtape.
Things become obsolete all the time. But these are our things. I kept quarters in my purse so I could always call home. Counting Crows' Mr Jones will always be followed by the opening bars of Big Mountain's reggae version of Baby I Love Your Way. Seriously, every time I get to the end of Mr Jones, I sing "Ooooh, baby I love your wayyy" under my breath. Watch me sometime, you'll see my lips moving.
Some things are totally unnecessary now, because they've been replaced by better things, and I'm not one to stand against progress. I can do without manual car windows and short-shorts on basketball players, for example, but I do mourn the death of the encyclopedia and the newspaper.
I liked the trip down memory lane, but it left me feeling old and possibly approaching obsolescence myself!
I think you're wrong about the photo booth. Maybe not; cell phone cameras are the way of the future now. However, I still see people selling and buying time in those booths.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, YOU'RE not approaching obsolescence. You're just gaining wisdom rapidly. (Or maybe that's just what I tell myself.)
I should really get on back to my own blog and work on the entry I've kinda started, eh?