I know who Sharon Tate is because of the Manson murders but I have no idea what she was famous for or what the Ziegfeld Follies are.
I know a whole lot of factual stuff in general but I can be shockingly ignorant when it comes to pop culture even today. There are probably some superstars that I have never heard of. That isn’t some hipster bragging either. I don’t do it on purpose and I am sure I have seen it somewhere but it never hits my relevance meter. I couldn’t name two movies made in the last year let alone who played in them or any popular shows on TV. I have never seen American Idol, Survivor, CSI, or Law and Order but those are probably dated examples that I learned out second-hand and I don’t even know what replaced them.
In 1982, on a lark, I bet some friends of mine that we could ask 10 random people at Rogers Park Beach in Chicago if they knew who Archimedes was and not more than 2 would answer correctly. I won.
I worked in a hotel in New Orleans in college. I heard a newscast during work that said a very high percentage of local students didn’t even know what countries were directly North an South of the United States. I refused to believe it so I went into the kitchen where we happened to have a number of high school students working after school. I asked them. They hesitated, collaborated, and then came back with ‘Europe’ and ‘Latin America’.
When I lived in Spain, my three Spanish roommates and their boyfriends and I were watching “Saving Private Ryan.” I mentioned that one of my grandfathers had served in France during WWII and the other had served in Japan. Not a single one of them knew that Japan had been involved in WWII, and furthermore I had a tough time trying to convince them! I mean, I know Spain didn’t participate in WWII, but it was only one of the biggest events of the 20th century, people!
I’ve come to realise that people who possess the kind of intelligence I admire don’t tend to expend any effort or energy “remembering” details of things that are painfully, painfully easy to reference check.
My Mom felt that the power cord for her laptop should be more than sufficient to connect to the internet. The fact that she had to plug in the ethernet cable was quite ridiculous to her.
I had a friend who didn’t know that the Moon revolved around the Earth.
I also argued for a full minute with another friend whether or not Christmas was on the 25th. He was quite convinced it was on the 24th.
The ignorance at geography really blows my mind. I don’t expect people to be able to point out every single small country in a region, but I just assume people have at least a rough idea of where things are! I knew someone in high school who thought Alaska was “somewhere out in the ocean.”
My wife and I were driving home one day, and just to make conversation, I mentioned that I had read an article that said something like 40% of people in a poll did not know that a year was the time it took the earth to go around the sun.
I didn’t get the expected chuckle, so I glanced over at her, and she was seething! Apparently, she had not known it, either.
Knowing the length of her fuse, I would never have brought it up if I thought for a second she might not know that, but she had an MBA, and worked for a high-tech company.
We were divorced not long after that. Not because of that. Mostly because of the length of her fuse.
I knew a very well regarded history professor in Britain whose field is primarily 19th century European history. He somehow ended up lecturing a class that was discussing the beginning of WW2. He insisted that Pearl Harbor was such a shock to the American people because of the distance between Hawaii and the West Coast. When American students were puzzled, he explained that it is only 400 miles or so, meaning that it if the Japanes could strike at Hawaii, Los Angeles and San Francisco were similarly vulnerable.
On an early date with one girl, I mentioned something either about David Broder or George Will (can’t remember which). The girl had no idea who that was. I was speechless. I’m not exactly sure why that was so surprising to me, but upon reflection, those aren particularly famous people.
I didn’t know birds could lay unfertilized eggs. I never thought about it.
I had a Wal-Mart cashier who didn’t know that 2 hrs = 120 minutes. I requested to add 2 hours to my calling card. The cashier looked at the keypad and got all confused.
She (approx age 40) said, “I can’t do that.”
Me: But I always add 2 hours at a time.
Her: But you said 2 hours. I have to do it in minutes. How many minutes would that be?
Me, sarcastically: Well, let’s see. There are 60 minutes in an hour, so I guess two hours would be 120 minutes.
Her, oblivious to my sarcasm: Oh, thanks. That worked.
I had a friend from uni who came to stay in my house for a few months. We once had the following conversation, the outcome of which was probably indicative of a greater problem in our friendship:
Me: …so the poor guy lost an eye, and didn’t feel confident to drive any more.
Her: Why on earth not?
Me: Because he couldn’t see in 3D any more.
Her: You don’t need two eyes to see in 3D.
Me: Well you do. With one eye you can certainly function well, and parallax will help, but you definitely need two eyes for your brain to get a full 3D image of stuff.
Her: You are so full of shit.
Me: Hold on. You have two eyes for a reason. Each eye gives you a slightly different view. Your brain puts them together and builds up a three-dimensional view of the world around you.
Her: Excuse me, I studied set design and I know that’s not true.
Me: Why do we have two eyes then?
Her: To help you see better!
Me: Close one eye and then try to pick up that pencil.
Her: Fuck off, I’m not a performing monkey.
Me: Goes to the shelf with the Encyclopedia Brittanica and hands her the relevant article.
Her: Slamming book shut without reading it. Oh you’re so fucking full of yourself!
This was the same girl who, when we learned of an unspeakable tragedy in another friend’s life, said she felt guilty because she wasn’t there for him with her aromatherapy bottles. I kept my mouth shut at that one.
Go to Wikipedia and spend a good half hour’s reading about Charles Manson. Roman Polanski’s wife was a victim, one of the Beach Boys was an unwitting accessory, the Beatles were an inspiration. He got pretty young girls to carve swastikas in their foreheads and kill a pregnant woman. He’s inspired many artworks of many forms. And he didn’t physically murder anyone (regarding the murder for which he was convicted).
So much more glamorous and… entertaining than our parochial little monster.
I have been amazed, truly amazed, at the number of people I have met over the years who have been shocked and surprised when they witnessed me picking up and crossing my paralyzed legs; with my hands and arms of course. They thought, assumed, that a paralyzed limb was more akin to a petrified limb, so any sort of movement like what they saw from me made them think that I wasn’t actually paralyzed; rather just hurt in some other more temporary way. “Oh, so can you walk then?”, would be a typical question in such situations when someone would see me pick up and move my legs with my hands.
I’ve been shocked that some people don’t know that paralyzed doesn’t mean petrified.
About a week before the last presidential election, Sarah Palin made an appearance here in my city. It was a fairly big deal here. There was a bunch of us standing at the time clock at work waiting for it to click over so we could leave. One woman says to another “Heather, you going to see Sarah Palin tonight?” It was a joke really, no one would have seriously thought Heather (mid thirties) would go to a political rally. But I was kind of shocked that Heather had absolutely no clue who Sarah Palin was. Nothing. I don’t think she had ever heard the name. Two days before the election. She was not kidding…not a clue.
A few years ago I had a conversation with a female person. (That in itself is an infrequent thing.) She is just 2 years younger than me, meaning about 56 at the time. This is in somewhat-ritzy Northern California area, where she lived all her life. In the conversation, somehow the Cold War came up. She didn’t know what that was. As I began to explain, it became clear that she knew essentially NOTHING about it.
Maybe I just have supervision, but the world doesn’t turn to 2D if I close one eye. I can even pick up pencils that are the table in front of me.
I’ve heard the 2D/3D thing a ton of times and the person/article explaining it always uses the “close one eye” example. But there has to be more to it because closing one eye doesn’t hamper the vision in my remaining open eye.
