What would you--returned to your boyhood enthusiasms--want/be able to get in 2008?
I mean, it's not just comparing our past with our present; to test periods we need to imagine
--ourselves as we were, but brought up now. Would life be better? Worse? The same? (Part of this is also imagining growing up in different circumstances, how the society reacts with the family, now one school differs from another, etc..)
--ourselves as we are now, but moved to that past epoch: does life back then for a person of your age now compare favourably or unfavourably re: type of work, type of accomodation, state interference in your daily activities, health services etc.
For me:
--I think I would like it now, where I am, if I were growing up again. School seems more interesting, less clumping together around one social model (there are other reasons, too); there are more things to do--so assuming I had the same interests and energy levels etc. I could get a wider range of experiences.
Of course, this new-young-me would be influenced in different ways; would I want an ipod, would I want the latest game console, which youth tribe would I belong to and how would that condition me?
--If I were placed as the adult I am now in the environment where I grew up, I think I'd be worse off. A suburb, culture free, roads and roads--nature yes, but for an adult not so enjoyable (lots of parks and sports fields--
Heh, here's a conversation I heard between a 92 year old woman and a 35 year old woman. I was pushing the 92 year old along the sea front. We stopped to get an ice cream. The 35 year old served us. It was sunny (the first warm-enough-not-to-need-a-jacket day), there were no other customers, so we got chatting and, as they do, out came the various opinions. The 92 year old and the 35 year old were sure things were worse now, more dangerous ("I remember skinheads, punks, mods, and heavy metallers," I said, "every weekend, fights and more fights."); then the 92 year old said,
"And those girls now getting drunk all the time! It can't be good for them."
35 year old (sudden grin): "Oh well, I admit I did a bit of that when I was younger..."
To your lego example, there seem to be lots of science DIY kits around now, I don't know how flexible they are in their creativity (Migeru might know more about this), but....I suppose a question is: How influenced were you (or was I) by our relative peer groups, and what choices did we have--if we didn't want to be (or couldn't be) part of one group, how many others were there? Also, how did child-adult interaction work back then compared to now?
Ah, that's all badly expressed. Two things I notice about the current crop of youth are:
For 2) -- A quick search through our old photo albums will no doubt demonstrate that attractiveness of male fashion, and female appreciation of said male fashion have ever been thus. When I was, say, ten, it was Bermington Bags and Beatlecrusher shoes that were all the rage. I'm sure I've spelled Bermington wrong--it's a word that came to my brain (along with the shoes) out of nowhere, stored in my brain all these years so I could mis-type it this afternoon-- Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
The boys with their trousers sliding off their hips (and exposing in some cases not just underwear!) are sort of saying "Fuck you" to society, a bit, but they're really saying to their peers, "Look! I'm saying 'Fuck you' to society! How cool am I?" We who were boys in the 1960s thought we were being similarly rebellious (and cool) by wearing our trousers just perched on our hipbones, instead of belted near the navel like our fathers. Parents and teachers of that day were scandalized! Or at least, we thought they were.
But it became cool and everyone emmulated it. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
later someone turned me on the french phrase 'epater les bourgeois', (turn the straights into paste, or noodles?!?), and i got that this was probably generational...
the fetishising of appearance at that age seems transcultural, as far as i can see.
i distinctly remember walking down ken high st at 14, making a mental checklist of all i was wearing, the shoes are cool, the carnaby st trousers cool, shirt not so much etc etc...
pathetic! total product of my environment...
just like the kids today...adolescence is temporary insanity, even in animals, it sure had its fun moments though! The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it. Chinese Proverb.
My recollection of cars from the 60's and 70's at least, is that they were much louder than they are today. Further, I think we searched for ways to turn up the volume, but were technologically primitive-I think of Jagger's quote "if we don't we're gonna blow a 50 amp fuse", hell, I've got an amp now that puts out more than that.
I work with kids, and the prison look-the baggy pants and underwear showing-is deplorable, but I retain this image of myself in 1969 strolling down the street in bell bottom jeans, with the seam cut along the calf and a wide swatch of paisley fabric sewn in, Ho Chi Minh sandals strapped to my feet and a Beau Brummel frilled shirt in electric blue with a striped railroad engineer cap adorning my Prince Valiant haircut. With all that firmly in mind I try to keep my mouth shut. "I said, 'Wait a minute, Chester, You know I'm a peaceful man...'" Robbie Robertson
The last paragraph, uh, reminds me of me, 1969. For the jeans swap royal blue velvet flares, then a beige satin shirt with kind of mutton sleeves and a huge collar, a shaggy goatskin (? maybe) sleeveless jacket I bought second-hand, shoulder-length hair and beard. Keeping one's mouth shut is good policy. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
The next day I came back, opened the door to find not just my mother, but also my grandmother sitting there. "Oh shit", I thought, and my mother turned to my grannie and said "What do you think of what he's done to his hair" and my grandmother replied "Well I remember you with a beehive hairdo, it's no worse than that" How to instantly become favourite elderly relative. Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.
y recollection of cars from the 60's and 70's at least, is that they were much louder than they are today.
And as for planes.....
We tend to forget the absolutely mind-buggering noise of a 707 taking off....
no link, sorry! The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it. Chinese Proverb.
is one of loads of video's...
When I was an eighties teen later in the eighties, what was all the rage in dressing was "farmer" - that's Hungarian for jeans, from the brand name of the first fakes available. That's what the cool kinds wore (the kids of the Party members for sure). However, when I turned a teen in then West Germany, it was no more cool but the default, with specific style and brands of jeans being cool. (And I was the poor ugly furriner until I got jeans.) *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
