Stupid Tuesday questions, Walt Disney edition
This Christmas, among the presents my mother-in-law gave me was a Mickey Mouse watch. (I’m going to take a moment to savor how enjoyable it is that the “in-law” part refers to an actual law now. The happy effect still hasn’t worn off.)
I haven’t worn a watch in years, but I thought it was a cute gift for a pediatrician. I put a sticker with a cartoon character on my stethoscope ages ago, and kids still get a kick when they see it. Figuring (correctly, it turns out) that they would get a similar small pleasure out of seeing yet another beloved character elsewhere on my person and wanting to honor my MIL’s gift, I decided to wear it.
And now I get annoyed with myself when I forget to put it on.
Friends, wearing a watch is great! Want to know what time it is? Why, by wearing a watch you can find out simply by glancing at your wrist! Worried that you’re running behind schedule? A brief downward flick of the eyes is much more subtle than digging your phone out of a pocket, pressing the button to illuminate the screen and then cramming it back in! The risk of inadvertently communicating “let’s move this along, please” to a patient drops dramatically.
I understand that the ubiquity of mobile phones has rendered the wristwatch redundant in many people’s eyes. It certainly had in mine. And I am delighted to have learned that the device deserves to be rescued from the fate of obsolescence. Or at least until we get information screens implanted in our corneas, which I assume Google is working on at this very minute.
So that’s this week’s Question — what else should be preserved in amber? As progress rolls steadily on, which devices or behaviors would you like to see retain their historic place and shape? What might you have rediscovered that withstands the pitiless scorn of modernity?
I don’t wear a watch because my last attempt at doing so resulted in a rash. I think it was something specific to that watch, as I’ve worn other watches in the past without concern. However, I’m very weird about having things around my wrist. I almost always have my sleeves rolled up, even in very cold weather. It is a weird physical/sensory quirk I have. As such, watches are more or less out for me.
As to what should be preserved in amber… everything intended for young children that iPads and other such devices are attempting to replace. I recognize that technology can take us to new places and new heights, but attempts to replace valuable learning tools like blocks or books or manipulatives because technology misses the entire point of interacting with a physical, tangible medium. When my school decided not to replace our exiting librarian and to turn the library into a “media center” with green screens and LEGO robotics, I shed a little tear. The K teacher and I just ransacked the shelves, rescuing armfuls of books that were simply being ignored and made them available in our classroom libraries.Report
Stick shifts and hard back books.
The stick as it actually allows you to control the vehicle better. You are connected to it, a part of it as opposed to sitting in it.
The book as it lets you drop away from the world for a bit, and enjoy the literature that the author painstakingly crafted.
Any excuse to not have my phone on me makes me happy, asI have worn a mechanical (wind up) watch since I became an adult.Report
Aren’t automatics better nowadays? I thought they finally fixed the tech…Report
No.Report
I was a huge fan of real books, up until the moment I realized I needed either a larger house to fit in more bookshelves OR I needed to start figuring out how to install shelving IN the interior walls.
Now I’m divesting myself of paperbacks (and cursing Amazon for not giving better options to organize books). I’m keeping most of the hardbacks. Especially the signed ones.
OTOH, I’m going to have to figure out how to bequeath my electronic book collection…..:)
Seriously, though, why hasn’t Amazon created something akin to Calibre for their Kindles?Report
@morat20
Have you looked at Swaptree? You can trade books and other media with people. If you’ve got a book you don’t anticipate reading again, you can trade it for a book you want to read with no net influx of books. All you pay is shipping. You have to find people whose wants align with your haves and vice versa but it might help mitigate some of your issue.Report
@kim
For me it’s not about the tech, it’s the winding through the gears, downshifting into turns, accellerating out of them, and upshifting. Additionally, I control when to shift, not some computer, so IF I want to run it up to 8 thousand RPMs, I can. It’s FUN.
I’ll second the real books. Don’t expect to have a e-book ever. I like reading paper and I’ll not wake up to find all my books gone through some DRM change.Report
I sometimes miss having manual, then I remember my former 4-6 hour daily commute and how “fun” it was in stop-and-go traffic.Report
That’s why I take the back roads Hoosegow 🙂Report
A 4-6 hour daily commute?! Good god man, the transmission is not the issue here.Report
Glyph,
if i coudl sleep on a bus for 3 hours straight, maybe I wouldn’t mind the commute..Report
Thankfully those days are over. It’s closer to 10 minutes now.Report
+1 on both hardbacks and sticks.Report
If it was up to me, manual transmission automobiles would be against the law.
No reason for them.Report
I’d say paper books, but once encased in amber I’m not sure what good they’d be.Report
So far the demise of paper books appears to be far from a forgone conclusion.Report
Sure, thanks to the current low market price of amber. But when the inevitable resource shortage hits, what then, my friend? What. Then?Report
I agree but it is a very common mini-culture war debate.
A lot of techie types like to undervalue things that existed before their “disruption” and this includes paper books and non-internet shopping. Such things are quaint and potentially environmentally destructive. I’ve had people argue that e-readers are better for the environment than paper books.
I still cannot imagine a dwelling place without books though.Report
NewDealer,
“Paper books make my eyes hurt” is not devaluing them simply for the sake that they’re old.
E-readers allow more information density to be transmitted than print media… for certain types of printing (less halftoning, for example, you can get better gradients).Report
A properly made hard-bound book with maps, photos, and illustrations can be a work of art though. Something that is not only a pleasure to read but a joy to look at, hold and handle. An e-book doesn’t give you the same experience as a paper book. I also found that deep engagement with the text is easier with a paper book.Report
Lee,
yes, you don’t get newsprint stains either.Report
The physical bookshelf is both a trophy case of accomplishments and a nemesis taunting you with all the things you told yourself you’d read, but haven’t. No online subdirectory can provide such mockery or such consolation.Report
1+Report
No online subdirectory can provide such mockery or such consolation.
But a spouse can! Waka-waka!Report
I used to like books. Then I moved, at which point I cursed every book I ever owned.Report
Man, add LP’s and CD’s to that list. I’ve got teetering stacks of all three that I am going to have to deal with soon.Report
When we moved two months ago, we happily took advantage of my wife’s new employers move reimbursement plan, and got movers.
Best thing ever!Report
The manual potato masher tools. Fuck whipped potatoes and the horse they rode in on.Report
Seconded.Report
I agree. But that’ doesn’t mean it can’t be updated.
I got mine at the ICA Boston. I also use it to break up cans of whole tomatoes; I strain the juice into the sofrito, condense it to a syrup, add then the tomatoes; break them up with the potato masher to your liking as you bring it up to heat and cook just to marry the sofrito and the fresher tomato pieces together. Add fresh basil, a fresh dab of olive oil, and serve.Report
I like stick shifts and books, so I’ll second both.
Film cameras, both still and moving. Because there’s art to using the chemistry of film.
Paper maps and orienteering skills. Because GPS is not a skill, but map-reading and orienteering are very valuable skills.
Hand-written love letters. With a pen, on paper, put in an envelope, and delivered via snail mail. Because thoughtful romance is super romantic.
Analog synthesizers. Because they sound cool.
Mechanical adding machines and typewriters. Because they fascinate me.
My FIL ran a very successful investment company; and invested in (and was friends with) Jim Henson’s businesses. He could afford a Rolex or two or three, probably had some. But he wore a Big Bird watch. So I think this is a great question.
Sadly, there have been few watches I’ve been able to wear; I seem to magnetize them, they stop working on me after a week or two, and start working again a week or two after I stop wearing. I’ve never had an expensive watch, perhaps they don’t? But like orienteering, I’m pretty good at knowing the time, at least while the sun’s out, and when I have worn watches, I notice my ability to know the time degrades.Report
And I forgot:
Actual string sections, with real violins and cellos.Report
Yeah, pretty much all of these things.Report
Horns, too. The more horns, the better.
During the halftime Super Bowl show, when Bruno Mars’s people came out with their instruments, I thought, “This could be cool!” When they proceeded to dance with them for the first 2/3 of the act, I thought, “What the F are they doing? Those are instruments, goddamnit, not props.” They finally put them to their lips but, seriously, if you’ve got a trumpet or a sax or a trombone in your hand, make it work for ya!Report
@kazzy my man breathes through a saxophone. (Several, actually. And it’s a real crowd pleaser when does more then one at a time.)Report
@zic
Wait… he can play multiple saxophones at the same time???Report
@kazzy – it can be done. Go to 14:14 here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VdlIZhzJeQ&feature=youtube_gdata_playerReport
Paper maps and orienteering skills.
Yes, yes, yes.
I’m pretty good at knowing the time, at least while the sun’s out, and when I have worn watches, I notice my ability to know the time degrades.
When I do wilderness canoe trips, I hate that guy who keeps looking at his watch. Look at the sky, man, look at the sky! We just need to get our camp up before dark; we’re not trying to catch the start of Big Ban Theory.Report
For those who don’t know, Big Ban Theory is a libertarian-oriented conspiracy-themed television show. It all starts with Big Gulps in the pilot episode, and by the end of season two we’re all marching in chains down the dusty road to serfdom.Report
@james-hanley
My wife still insists I’m being silly when I say that I can roughly orient myself via the sun. I don’t have any formal training, but a basic understanding that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and moves across the southern sky can be very handy.
Once, we got lost in Central Park after dark. Without the sun to help us, we ended up on 5th Avenue instead of Central Park West! In part because we saw a raccoon in the distance and had to detour. We were really roughin’ it!Report
The question is really how a person can *fail* to be roughly well-oriented in terms of cardinal directions much before or after noon on a sunny day.Report
@james-hanley
I cannot wait until that is on Netflix.Report
@kazzy
In part because we saw a raccoon in the distance and had to detour.
The mind boggles. I can only imagine how you would have reacted if you had been on that moonless midnight hike in Wyoming when we came face to face with a moose on a dark trail.Report
@james-hanley
Related to moose interactions…
While driving on some back country lanes on our way up to Moosehead Lake in Maine, we saw signs informing us that we were traveling in an area that had a “High Frequency of Moose Strikes”. My friend and I — both raised in the suburbs of NYC — had the following exchange…
Him: What qualifies as a ‘high frequency’?
Me: 1. 1 is high. Too high.
I trust @zic might also appreciate that story.
Also related… some sort of animal lives under the shed in my backyard. Is it a gopher? A beaver? A groundhog? Fuck if I know. It’s brown, low to the ground, and — most importantly — has agreed to my general rule that I won’t bother it if it won’t bother me. He is free to do whatever the hell he wants under that shed so long as he never gets close enough for me to actually figure out what he is.Report
Kazzy, check to see if its a snipe.Report
@greginak
A snipe appears to be a bird. I’m no wilderness expert, but I am quite sure this is not a bird.Report
@kazzy it’s not the raccoons you have to worry about in the city. It’s the skunks.Report
OK, city boy, here’s your nature lesson.
Unless you see a big flat tail, it ain’t a beaver.
If it’s as big as a small dog, it’s a groundhog (aka woodchuck, or in mountainous regions, a marmot).
If its a gopher, you put it in your pocket and tell your wife you’re happy to see her.Report
Wait… a woodchuck is a groundhog? Huh?
No flat tail… it’s low to the ground… and seems to have sort of loose, baggy fur. It looks like someone’s fur hat got run over and ran away.Report
Wait… a woodchuck is a groundhog? Huh?
For true.
No flat tail… it’s low to the ground… and seems to have sort of loose, baggy fur. It looks like someone’s fur hat got run over and ran away.
That’s a groundhog. Now the important question is, did the little fucker see his shadow Sunday? Because I’m getting sick of all this ice on our streets. Go ask; I’ll wait.
And what Zic said. Groundhogs are inoffensive. We used to have one living under our shed; I misss seing him. But skunks…
Coons can be a pain, too. Those bastards have nothing but contempt for humans. We exist solely to provide a steady food supply to them, and they know it.Report
We had raccoons where I grew up but not so much around here. They skew more urban than rural, right? We keep our trash in the garage until garbage day so there is little food for them.
I’m pretty sure the woodchuck is buried too deep in the snow to have seen anything. Roger God-del somehow brought 50-degree temps to NJ for the Super Bowl and then snow storms on the next two days. Oh well.Report
Coons are adaptable. They thrive in rural environments and urban ones. They can fend for themselves just fine in nature, but there is often a heavier concentration in urban areas because of the abundant food supply. The biggest ones I ever saw were in my backyard in San Francisco.
I rathet admire the little bastards, as long as they don’t tear up my campsite (they’re an endemic pest at many state parks).Report
I will second all of these. Especially maps. And film.
Re not being able to wear a watch: I used to have this problem until I got a an expensive watch (Longines). I’ve worn it nearly every day for the last 10+ years. The only other exception is a circa 1910 Elgin pocket watch I used to own.Report
I don’t miss the old days of maps much at all. I just have very, very poor orientation. The lack of GPS’s didn’t really fix that. Though I will grant that I am worse now than I used to be. I still haven’t really mapped out our current town.Report
I’m ok with preserving vinyl as an audio curio/luxury with good cover art presentation possibilities.
good riddance to cassettes, though up with the word “cassingle” as it’s so much fun to say.
anyone who gets all moral imperative on old format fronts probably needs to be slapped in the face with a hard drive filled with pristine flac files, though. or 24bit wav files.Report
I only listen to wax cylinders!Report
Wax recordings of sirens?Report
One of a kind wax cylinder.Report
@hoosegow-flask
I feel bad, but I laughed.Report
Compression.Report
I’ve worn a watch everyday since I was 17. But I was 17 before smartphones became common.
My answer of course are books and live performance.
By books, I mean the physical object on paper with binding. I am not used to e-readers. I enjoy the weight of a book in my hand and the act of turning pages and the smell of paper.
I also love reading an actual newspaper or magazine instead of on-line versions.
Live performance, everyone seems to be getting cranky about this and dislikes going out to see theatre and live music (all genres). I hear people talk about all the pains of going out when you can enjoy everything in the comfort of your own home. The social experience of live performance is great!Report
Live performance, everyone seems to be getting cranky about this and dislikes going out to see theatre and live music (all genres). I hear people talk about all the pains of going out when you can enjoy everything in the comfort of your own home. The social experience of live performance is great!
Applause. Encore. Applause. Louder Applause.Report
Though I do think American audiences award standing ovations too freely. Those should be reserved for truly remarkable performances, not merely just good ones.Report
Are you implying your comment was merely good, not truly great?Report
No, just a riff on how Americans treat live performance. I can’t recall the last time I was at a live performance in America that did not include a standing ovation. In London, standing ovations are very rare even for very famous and talented actors. Americans seem to think that a standing ovations is just what you do at the end of a live performance.
If a famous actor is doing theatre in America like Kristen Scott Thomas, Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, etc., Americans will burst into applause as soon as they appear on stage without doing anything. It makes it worth it to see plays with non-famous actors in some ways.Report
@newdealer
I hate the social pressure that inevitably arises with a standing ovation. If you don’t stand, there seems to be an implicit message sent your way that you are some sort of unappreciative jerk. Even if you are clapping from your seated position.Report
@kazzy
What did you mean by big performances? Do you mean Broadway with big named actors like Patrick Stewart?
Plenty of off-broadway theatres don’t always have known names but they are very good performers. Many that you might recognize from TV (especially random Law and Order episodes) or people who will become household names.Report
@newdealer
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a show with an actor whose name I knew. But I’ve seen big shows… Wicked, Avenue Q (twice), Spamalot, and other Broadway-level shows*. Unless you wait online at TKTS, I don’t think it is possible to get into most productions for under $40/person. And while that might be worth it, I am usually resistant to spending such funds on entertainment (I don’t even attend that many sporting events for similar reasons).
Odds are I can find local productions of high quality… hell, some high schools put on really good work… for much lower costs. It just requires more work. If they don’t immediately present themselves (such as a flier I see at the supermarket), I’m usually unlikely to do the legwork myself. My own fault, I know.
* I’m cognizant that Broadway, Off-Broadway, etc. refer to theater sizes and say nothing of the quality, so when I say “Broadway-level”, I mean the sort of shows you can buy tickets for on TicketMaster and see in midtown Manhattan.Report
Kazzy,
Next time you’re in NYC go to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater.
That’s the cheap place in town to see big names. (Granted, they’re
generally writers, so you may not place their Faces…)Report
I enjoy the theater. It is a different visceral experience to see something performed live. However, I am often unwilling to pay the prices required to see a top notch performance. I could probably avail myself of lower-tier performances and still get an approximate experience. But, you are absolutely correct.Report
I used to go to at least one or two live music performances a week. As a function of age, I go less frequently than I used to, but I lament the quasi-death of the local music scene back home because young people (not kids, obviously, but young adults in the non-I-really-mean-older-kids sense) aren’t doing what I did when I was younger (which, as a function of my age, I get grumpy about because those youngsters should do what I did!).Report
God I miss being able to get out to shows. I love that all kinds of stuff is available online, but seeing live music was (in addition to the musical experience itself) very much at the center of my social life – far more than, say, going to the movies – from my teens, until 5 years ago.
“You going to the show? Want to get dinner or a drink beforehand? Should we roadtrip it? That was amazing/awful! Want to get some coffee/food before heading home? How about a nightcap on Steve’s patio?”
Most weeks, the bulk or entirety of our social plans were scheduled around live music.Report
Live performance is only fun when you get to shout things at the stage.
;-P
(yes, I am not exactly being totally serious. Yes, it is still fun to shout things
at the stage.)Report
A live performance and a recording (whatever the media) are two completely different products. I can enjoy a live concert of music that I would never listen to otherwise, just because the experience makes it worthwhille.
On that note, it has been way too long since I have seen live music.Report
This thread should be called antiquarians of the world unite.
Also technicolor as a process. It produces much better color.Report
so, so much better than bicolor!Report
Fog horns. I was raised around one. The windows would shake, the dishes would rattle, then utter silence. Then… from far across the dark foggy sea the echo would come haunting, crying back.Report
I think that watches are still common enough as piece of jewelry that they do not need to preserved in amber. I were a watch because I like how it looks and feel on my arm.Report
The Trivium.
Dead languages.
Old fashioned space, town, and castle LEGO sets.Report
All languages, not reading them off a translation app but actually learning them.Report
@kyle-cupp “Old fashioned space, town, and castle LEGO sets.”
This is a contradiction in terms, and a heresy as well. An “old fashioned” LEGO set was a bunch of different colored & sized square and rectangle blocks. And you were happy with it.Report
Hear, hear.
Kids these days. In my day we used Lincoln Logs, and were happy to have them. Calculated the pivot points and bending moments with slide rules, we did too. I remember how happy I was to get an Erector Set, until I remembered that we couldn’t afford a roof and it was always raining.
Tongue partway out of cheek, it seems like these days the people who use Meccanos are mostly young adults – maker types. So I don’t think they’re exactly being preserved in amber, but I’m glad they’re still around.Report
Actual time spent in proximity to someone, speaking to them directly, making eye contact, perhaps the occasional physical touch.Report
I can do without the touching, unless it is a family member or someone I am dating.Report
I’m off to my knitting circle, so I will credit the computer age and its connectivity with fostering a revival of DIY skills like knitting. Big time.
And I wanted to point out: Nobody’s calling for the salvation of the shopping mall anchored by several big-box stores.Report
Its a bit early to tell if people would mourn the passing of the shopping mall. In a decade or two we might very well see paens to the lost innocense of teenagers hanging out in shopping malls and how wonderful they were as social fora. It took a decade or two for people to start mourning the end of the traditional downtown.
If we do not see a rise in nostaligia for the shopping mall and the strip mall, I predict it would be that the aesthetic of the shopping mall are different than that of the department stores. The department stores in the late 19th and early 20th century were built to be places of beauty. Serious attention was paid their aesthetics. Nobody paid much attention to beauty when they built shopping malls.Report
One of the least diserable effects of the car was a decline in architectural beauty and civic aesthetics. When most travel was done on foot or by rail, a lot of attention was paid to the beauty of buildings regardless of whether or not they were private or government owned. These were buildings that were meant to be seen, admired, and enjoyed. The car seemed to change that. We have a lot of aesthetically famous office buildings in the downtowns of various cities but do how many suburban office parks are known as architectural gems? What shopping malls can comapre the great department stores of the past? What airport to a proper train station like the old Penn Station?Report
Lee,
Plenty of airports stack up nicely.Report
Which ones? What airport looks good from the outside?Report
Lee,
Denver’s. (Portland’s was pretty too).
But a building need not look particularly good from the outside to be an architectural wonder.Report
Bozeman, Montana has a reallycool airport.Report
Heh, I’ve flown into Bozeman a couple times.Report
You’ll appreciate what we planned at the knitting circle.
Most of us are well beyond child-bearing age; some of us are great-great grandmothers.
But some of us are younger, and one’s pregnant with her first baby. So one blanket, wool from the farm’s sheep, hand-dyed in several shades using natural dyes (cochineal, lichen, logwood, onion skins among them; probably no indigo, since it’s a different process), hand knit into squares, we’ll each do three. The yarn will be mordanted tomorrow; we’ll dye it Friday, and next week hand it out at the circle.
The lichen dye bath is mine. I foraged it over a summer, and it’s been fermenting in a jar of ammonia and water for two years. It’s common on the rocks hereabout, though it’s easy to over-forage in small places; you don’t ever want to strip a rock.
If we don’t boil the dye vat, but manage to cook it just below simmer, it will produce an incredible rich purple. This is actually not easy to do, because something about the solution makes it bubble at a lower temp. We’ll re-use the exhausted bath, and produce increasingly lighter shades of pink.
After the first use, the readily-available colors are no longer present, so it’s called an exhausted bath. In the case of lichen, the blue tones that make for a rich purple exhaust quickly, but there is still color in it, and it’s frequently used over and over, producing lighter and lighter shades of pink.
I read a research paper once about the lichen populations in Scotland, which claimed to measure health of the lichen population over time by the presence of purple and pink in Tartans; I thought that silly; a very short time to consider the health of lichen populations.
Each square to a design of our choosing done in the correct dimensions.Report
Hand tools, of all types. I’m a hobbyist metalworker and learning some woodworking and damn is it hard to find good hand tools. Not everything needs to have a freaking plug and pre-sets or laser sighting. Also manual cooking tools. For instance, it’s one of my pet peeves that many recipes these days assume you have a stand mixer and tell you the time and speed setting to use to mix something, but no information on what the consistency and color the food should be to proceed to the next step. Rather useless for those that like to cook but don’t have a stand mixer.
I still wear a watch every day. And own (in my brother’s words) too many books. And clearly everyone needs to get off my lawn.Report
Hey, Bluefoot… haven’t seen ya ’round these parts before. But do a favor and stay awhile, will ya? And, should you be moved to share recipes complete with instructions on how things should look and fee… well, that’d be dope.Report
I read here a lot (for the last couple of years, actually), comment not so much.
I admit I am kind of a luddite when it comes to cooking. e.g. I have a food processor, but I prefer my Henckels Pro S knives and a cutting board, or my pastry cutter rather than “processing” the dry with the fat. Hell, I’ve been known to grate cheese by hand for souffle or rarebit. Perhaps it’s my unhealthy liking for nice knives, or the fact I really enjoy the process of cooking. And I completely agree with you re potato mashers.
Damn, now I’m getting hungry.Report
I use the stand mixer for some and not for others. Likewise with the food processor. My knife set leaves much to be desired. There are some things for which the machines are better… if only because they are quicker or more consistent (my knife skills need work). But some times I like things a bit more rustic. My cole slaw (no mayo!) is much better when it has a rustic hand cut.Report
Any money spent on good knives is money well spent. And good knives don’t have to be expensive. My mother has a *perfect* paring knife that cost $5. Alas, she doesn’t remember where she got it and there’s no brand marking on it. But I do recommend trying out knives in the store to see what works for you. And if you’re left handed, you have to be careful purchasing any Japanese knives because a good percentage of those come right-handed only.Report
@bluefoot For good tools at good prices, I have been hitting my local swap meet, and filling up on Proto and Starrrett, as well as other famous US brands.Report
Of course you can get ahold of vintage cookbooks. (amazon has several on sale such as the 1931 joy of cooking) I suspect further that online sites might have pre 1920 cookbooks around as well.Report
I know, those kids on the lawn, running about like they own the place…Report
I’m all-in on the watch-wearing. Who cares if I can get the time from my smartphone? My watch is more convenient and that’s despite the fact that I keep my phone in an easy-to-access holster instead of my pocket.
I’ve actually been having a bit of a problem lately because my wrist is having a reaction to my favorite watch. It breaks out into something icky when I put it on. So I’ve been wearing my watch on my right wrist. It’s a real pain because I keep looking at my wrong wrist and the configuration of the buttons.
I’m trying to think of an answer to the question, but questions are escaping me at the moment.
Wait… phone holsters! They used to be there in part because phones were too big to fit comfortably in the pocket. These days they are thin enough to fit into pockets. But even so, phone holsters are much more practical and utilitarian.Report
You’re outside and need to know what time it is, while it’s below freezing, your phone is buried under at least 2 layers, the wind is blowing hard, and there’s a little bit of rain. Without a watch? Take off your gloves, open your nice and warm top layer 2 layers, reach in, take it out, get the touch screen wet, find out the time, then put it back in the two layers, zip up, and put your now wet and frozen hands back in their gloves. With a watch? slide back the layers just enough to get the watch between the layers and the gloves, look at the time, cover that tiny sliver of skin up again. Which is better?Report
You’re outside and need to know what time it is, while it’s below freezing
Time to go inside? Sheesh, academics and common sense. 😉Report
Or, of course, you can move to Texas.
I almost never wear gloves. Though an advantage of the ecigarettes is that I can puff with gloves on. Ten-below combined with extremity-bloodflow-reduction effects of cigarettes was not fun.Report
My hands get cold when the temperature drops below 75.Report
@chris, do you have Reynaud’s Syndrome?
Santa Cruz, man.Report
zic, no, I’m just being hyperbolic. I live in Austin, Texas, a place where people wear parkas to walk their dogs when the temperature drops below 60 (this is not hyperbole).
Seriously, the forecast today was for a high in the mid-70s, but it never got out of the low 60s. I kept running into people talking about how cold it was outside… in the low-60s. And on the bus-ride home, students were piling on with scarves and knit caps on… in the low-60s. I’m fixin’ to get up and walk over to the grocery store (maybe a block and a half away), and I’m trying to decide whether to put on my heavy hooded sweatshirt or my heavy jacket (that I ordered online, ’cause you can’t get jackets this heavy here). We are, collectively, cold weather lightweights.Report
@chris Nice problem.
I’ve just reached the point where I can be outside in 20? without glove for a 10 or 15 minute walk without it bothering me. By the end of the winter, I’ll be wearing a teeshirt when it reaches 40.
And next fall, when it reaches 40 again, I’ll be bundled up like I am now at 20.
Funny how we adapt.Report
zic, we pay for it in the summer. Boy do we pay for it.Report
@chris @zic
San Franciscans will also put on winter gear and bubble jackets when it gets below 60. In San Francisco, this is most of the year. It is always cold in San Francisco after 4 PM.
I am still amused about how I can drive to the Caldecott tunnel (approximately 20 minutes or so) and have the temperature raise by 20-30 degrees (or more during the summer) as soon as I pass the tunnel. 60 degrees in SF, 97 degrees in Walnut Creek.Report
I dunno, phones are once again too big for pockets if’n you ask me (they are thin, but large, due to screen real estate). It’s one reason I hung onto my old RAZR for so long. There’s some perks to having a smartphone finally, but I dread putting it into my pocket and always take it out at the earliest opportunity.
But a holster? Only if I can get a Han-Solo-thigh-blaster one. (Han phoned first!)Report
Which kinda defeats the purpose! A cell phone is meant to be on you and not on a table across the room. Holsters solve both the pocket problem and the phone-across-the-room problem.Report
Also, the “thin” aspect is pretty huge. If you are a late adopter, you may not fully appreciate how thick smartphones used to be. Less screen real estate, but they definitely constituted a bulge and in some jeans simply wouldn’t fit at all.
Also, if we had adopted holsters as a norm, smartphones might still have slide-out keyboards. Which is another answer to Russell’s question, maybe.Report
Remember when we laughed at people for having big phones? And now we laugh at people for having small phones? WE’RE BEING WORKED, PEOPLE!Report
Cute weathergirls.Report
One thing that should be preserved in amber is formal dress. The fanciest piece of clothing most people are going to wear is a suit and tie for men and some variety of the little black dress for women. People will not wear fancier unless they are at a black tie wedding, awards shoe, state dinner, or certain horse races. There was something to be said about having occassionally dress elegantly and formally.Report
+1Report
Yeah, +1 for me too.Report
Thank you Will and Tod. What really made me appreciate formal dress was partner dancing, where formal dress is still an important part of competitons if you do them. I’m only at the bronze level so my uniform is a pair of black slacks, a white shirt, black tie, and cardigan but when I reach silver I’ll need to get something much more formal. It actually feels nice to have put on something more schmancy than a suit.* It feels that your marking the occassion and that its out of ordinary. Most people seem to like the informality of modern dress codes but there should be room for something out of the ordinary to mark special occassions.
*I am very happy that you can get long-tie formal wear these days though. I hate bowties.Report
@leeesq
Why do you hate bowties? I love bowties.Report
The space they create is not aesthetically pleasing. Also, most men who wear bowties end up looking like knitwits. People trying to pass as intellectuals. Only Churchill could pull off the look.Report
@leeesq
A million bridesmaids would beg to differ.Report
“Also, most men who wear bowties end up looking like knitwits.”
if this was purposeful, bravo!Report
Tod, I’m sure that they had an urge to sucker punch the guys in the punchable whole created by the bow-tie.Report
Formal hats. (Thanks a lot, JFK!)Report
It’s not preserved in amber though – it’s constantly evolving.
Now, if the worldwide standard of formal dress took an unexpected turn toward 18th C. Europe, or 17th C. Japan, that would be a lot of fun. 1st C. BC Rome would be alright too…Report
+1 on the 17th Century Japan, though I might have to make some exceptions for women’s footwear (or go total fembot and demand the right to men’s formal dress).Report
I consider 18th century Europe or really Europe from the reign of Louis XIV to the time they got rid of those stupid wigs one of the worst periods of human fashion. The clothing wasn’t that bad but the haircuts were horrendous.Report
Just about everything traditional about food is great. Just about everything very recent about food is crap. Except fusion, which is fun, but on the macro scale it’s probably a fad.
And by “traditional” I mean from the mid-nineteenth century. Very little has improved since then, and many things have gotten worse, harder to obtain, or both.Report
Other than “processed food,” what food is new?
I think of all non-processed food as being very old, just from varying distances away.Report
New cultivars of pre-existing crops are coming along all the time. I don’t know how much real culinary novelty that represents, as they’re largely centered around agricultural or nutritional goals.
I’m pretty happy about the apple and cherry trees in our yard – varieties that could produce in our climate zone were much less inspiring even a decade or two ago.
Purple cauliflower turned up as a random mutation in the 80s. Triticale is from the late 19th Century. Folks seem to be constantly developing ever more insanely hot varieties of chili peppers, because of reasons…Report
@dragonfrog I would clasp on to the notion of new cultivars as an ancient tradition. But I grew up farming; eating the beans my grandmother grew and saved seed for year after year.
And I’d include food processing; fermentation being a good example. And embrace the notion that places have distinctive flavors. Terrior; there’s no good English equivalent, and I find that a huge problem.Report
Let me take a moment to talk about what e-readers are good for and what they’re bad for.
For anybody who has a tendency to drop things, an e-reader is bad.
For anybody who has a tendency to read multiple things at once, an e-reader is useful.
For anybody who has Too Many Damn Books, an e-reader is good, if it’s used to replace volume and not quality (see morat’s comment.
For anybody who has to have a lot of reference material, an e-reader is good*
For anybody taking classes with a mandatory reading list, an e-reader is good*
*
What would actually make e-readers *great*, as opposed to *good*, would be if they didn’t come loaded down with DRM stuff that makes it well-nigh impossible to use fairly stupidly fucking simple tools to copy and cite references, that integrates with an actual desktop computer, running open source software. Also: you need an e-reader that can consume PDFs and multiple ebook formats and produce copyable text. Clipping images out of ebooks would also be very useful.
Period. These are necessary features.
If people could highlight a block of text, or click on an image, and hit a “citation” button and have the e-reader be able to copy the text, the source bibliography information, and a tag cloud of meta information composed by the reader, and then sync that with a decent reference utility on a computer, the ability to do research would be enhanced greatly.
Until that exists, e-readers are toys and not tools.Report
I’ll just say, I wish-wish-wish-wish I could find a pretty, fashionable woman’s watch that would fit around my tree-trunk thick wrists. Something graceful and lovely. But alas.
What to preserve in amber: nothing, let it all go, bring on our brave new world.Report
What sort of band do you prefer? If it is a metal band, I know that segments can be removed, so I would assume they could just as easily be added. A leather band may present more difficulty.Report
I dunno. Metal, I guess, as I tend to go kinda sporty-sleek in my style, more than classic. But still, the slender, lovely sort of things that catch my eye often look terrible on me.Report
I can’t help you on style issues, unfortunately; I can barely help myself. But should you find a watch that looks great save for the size, talker to a local jeweler or — better yet — the place you purchase it from about getting it resized up. It’s common for them to remove links to size it down. the original seller may keep these removed pieces on hand to facilitate just such a move.Report
I see you belong to the Whiggish/Messianic school of history. I’m a bit too much of an antiquarian to not mourn some of the past. We shouldn’t get rid of the good parts of the past if possible.Report
I’m pretty sure I don’t know what “Whiggish” actually means in any precise sense. (And I’m pretty sure explaining won’t help.)
“Messianic”? WTF?Report
In historical terms, its a school of history that argues that the past sucked and the best times are in the present or yet to come. Whiggish historians were a school of 19th century scholars that had no love with the idealization of the past that existed in the Romanitc movement. They were all for the changes bering brought by the industrial revolution.Report
What’s wrong with books?Report
I would pick out a watch face I like, and have a band custom made by an artist.Report
Bars that feature jazz combos that are meant to be listened to and not just provide “date atmosphere,” symphonies that play new works that aren’t attached to movie soundtracks, and music programs in public schools that can help ensure the continuation of both. Rice cooked in a pan instead of a rice cooker, and vodka made from actual potatoes. The title “Poet Laureate” actually meaning something special to people. Sports stars that spend their entire careers playing for a single franchise.
Coffee brewed in presses, and young men and women knowing how to cork a bottle of sparking wine, pour a draft of beer, and free-pour cocktails. Parents teaching their children how to properly carve a turkey, and having stuffing be thing that is actually stuffed inside of it as opposed to cooked the day before and reheated. Knowing how to tie at least a full and half Windsor, as well as a bowtie; French cuffs and cufflinks.
Bars and taverns where different kinds of people gather and figure out how to get along splendidly, rather than ones that serve a certain type of person who thinks, dresses and behaves exactly like everyone else in the joint. Disc jockeys who play different genres of music on their shows. Journalists who care more about telling compelling stories than seeing their byline, pundits who can admit to not knowing everything there is to know ever, and news anchors who care more about being intelligent than provocative. American science programs that care more about discovery than the ability to draw private venture capital. Face-to-face customer service, and neighborhood stores that really specialize in one thing.
My sons, young and still growing, living under my roof awaiting manhood.Report
If I go to a bar where “different kinds of people gather,” I’ll get beat up.Report
I’m with Veronica on this. Bars and taverns were never really shared spaces in the United States. During the days before Prohibition, each saloon catered to a particularly group and God help you if you walked into the wrong bar by mistake even for differences we see as minor these days like German and Polish. American drinking culture always had a rough edge to it and we never had an institution like the village pub.
I’m with you on a lot of the other stuff you mentioned though.Report
Rice cooked in pan? You cook rice in a pot.Report
Symphonies that play forgotten old works. Or, only if necessary, symphonies that play forgotten old works and new non-soundtrack works, but not on the same night.Report
symphonies that play new works that aren’t attached to movie soundtracks
The radio kinda killed this off, I think. You went from a position where if you wanted to listen to music, you had to either play it at home (and there are all kinds of barriers to entry for that) or you went out to listen to someone skilled do it… to being able to listen to a full symphony in your own hovel (some googling tells me that it was possible to get cheaper radios for around $25 in the 1920’s, and, while that ain’t chickenfeed, it’s certainly in the budget of the middle class).
By the time that the whole “call the radio station and tell them to play a certain song” took off (and I have no idea when that would have been), it seems like “the song goes ‘there’s a warm wind blowing, the stars are out, and I’d really love to see you tonight” would result in more success than “it goes dun, duh-na-nah, bah bah bah bah! Dun, duh-na-nuh.”
And then transfer that to the record store and Katie bar the door.Report
Have you read “The 85 Ways to Tie a Tie”? I found it a fun read (though the blurb does rather oversell it – they didn’t discover for the first time 81 previously unknown tie knots – rather, their formula for what makes an aesthetic tie knot is validated by the fact that in each case they are find the knot described by the formula is in fact a knot used in practice, even if less commonly than the four most common ones.)Report
My first summer in Boston, I was 16. Fresh off the farm. Drinking age was still 18, and most places didn’t card too hard.
I saw dozens of shows at the Jazz Workshop. Pooh’s Pub. Michaels.
Sometimes, a good education requires acts of civil disobedience, and experiencing what you’re describing is one I’m very proud to have done. It was worth it, to see Oscar Peterson. To have Wayne Shorter smile at me dancing in my seat (I was sitting in the front row), turn to his band, and say, “Take it out.” To see the Elvin Jones turn his trap set into a textile mill weaving this amazing tapestry of sound.
I really hate one thing about it, however: the solo applause. Someone gets up, plays a solo, and everyone claps. Then the next solo. It turns the music into a progression of egos, and that just sucks. It’s what’s wrong with jazz. Jazz is a conversation between the musicians and the audience. Applause is totally awesome in jazz, don’t get me wrong, when they’re on fire, you should be rocking in your seat and bursting out with joy. The end-of-the-solo placement disrupts the conversation, the flow of energy. It’s often insincere. It sucks.Report
Very interesting point, and one I’ve never heard before.Report
@pinky, it extends from thinking about what’s the piece of art?
Is it the solo? It can be, I admit; a good solo in an otherwise bad song is a breath of fresh air.
Is it the form? The 16 bars over certain rhythm and/or progression, the bridge? They’re just parts of something else.
It’s the song, the tune. The composition. Clapping between solos is worse then clapping between movements in a symphony.Report
I second cufflinks.Report
I love my cuff links. And collar stays. I’m doing full Windsors these days.Report
i’m with you on stays and links, but why the full windsor? do you have a giant head? (i have a giant head, but i don’t rock the windsor)Report
Mechanical (not electric) coin sorters.
It’d be nice to get wooden Lincoln Logs back, but I guess they’re gone.Report
It’d be nice to get wooden Lincoln Logs back, but I guess they’re gone.
They’ve been gone for at least four score and seven years.Report
@boegiboe
I have them in my classroom. Look here: http://www.discountschoolsupply.com/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?product=30490&keyword=lincoln%20logs&scategoryid=0&CategorySearch=&Brand=&Price=
You do not need to be a school to order from there.Report
Oh neat, thanks! I had seen only the plastic version in stores, so I figured the wooden ones weren’t around anymore.Report
Yeah, we have Lincoln Logs.
You can even get Tinkertoys, check out eBay.Report
Business travel.Report
@leeesq
The TWA building at JFK is considered iconic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_Center
Though you seem biased against any building made after 1920 if not 1900.Report
Its really in the post-WWII era that architecture started to suffer. Several very good buildings like the Guggenheim were designed and built in the post-war period but not as many as before hand.
When department stores were built in late 19th and first half of the 20th century, there owners commissioned buildings that were supposed to be impressive. Did anybody pay attention to the exterior look of a shopping mall?Report
Inner harbor seems built to be “impressive”Report
their ownersReport
False. Brutalism is one of the best styles, and it didn’t even really reach its apex until a couple decades after WW2.
(Also, the best kind of bear is the black bear.)Report
“Brutalism is one of the best styles,”
[triumph] For me to poop on [/triumph]*
Brutalism has not aged well because it does not weather well. Brownish concrete looks even dingier after several decades of exterior mold growth. Light colored concrete, like on the DC Metro, would look fine, except nobody bothers to ever spend the money to keep it clean.
*and that’s not entirely a joke, the style gives plenty of hidey places to puka homeless folksReport
ND, thats the point. The great department stores were developed by individual businesspeople more than corporations and they wanted their stores to look great and impressive. Thats why they turned them into things of beauty. The same is true of the early skyscrapers. Office parks and shopping malls are developed and built by corporations and they aren’t paying that much attention to exterior beauty. The insides can be attractive but not the exteriors.Report
@leeesq I think it’s a combo of survivorship bias and Sturgeon’s Law. Lots of old buildings look nice because people are far less likely to tear down the good looking buildings. If you do, you end up with the Penn Station backlash. Lots of companies still build beautiful complexes, even in the suburbs and even recently. A couple good examples near me are the IBM Somers complex and the MasterCard HQ (originally Nestle US HQ).Report
Lee,
Also: environmental laws.
Fewer Potemkin Villages like Oakland (that’s the neighborhood in Pittsburgh. Fabulous, but a total fake).Report
For the past few years I’ve had a length of bike chain on my left wrist. I was putting a new chain on, and the excess length was just right for a bracelet, so there it went.
I hadn’t worn a watch in a long while by that point, and still the weight immediately tricked me into thinking I had one – it took quite a while for me to stop looking at my wrist for the time, when all it could tell me was “featureless metal chain o’clock”.
I keep forgetting to take the thing off when I head to the airport. It can’t be removed without a chain breaker tool; I always seem to remember the tool sitting in my garage when I’m standing in the security line…Report
The 1010 WINS theme song and the telex foley they still use (at least as of 2010), despite those machines now likely absent from the studio for at least a decade.Report
Looking a wikipedia, apparently they still do have that sound, (w00t) and it’s been almost a quarter of century since they had teletype machines in the studio.Report
it is one of the best sounds.Report
Yes, I would be shocked if there was still a teletype machine in the WINS newsroom.
But it is so associated with WINS (for NYCDMAers) that to get rid of it would be folly.Report
I don’t know if it’s made the watch redundant or just classier. I tend to take notice in a good way when I see someone wearing a watch now.Report
Handkerchiefs. My dad always carried one. I almost always carry one. People look at you weird when you pull one out to blow your nose these days. Offer one to someone crying and you just became the most gentlemanly person they have ever met.Report
I always carry a handkerchief. I have had times when my nose would run non-stop, and Kleenex would not suffice. Now, I never have to worry about it.Report
I’m sorry, but I’ve never understood “Here, wipe your eyes with this thing I just blew my nose in.”Report
Mike – a gentleman never offers a used handkerchief.Report
Then do you carry two, one to use and one to offer? Or are damsels in distress out of luck during allergy season?Report
I have two in my pocket as we speak.Report
That makes sense, then. (Seriously)Report