I mentioned my grandparents, but I guess I ought to mention myself, too. I got hooked on Scott Joplin at an early age (that’s why I play piano today). I also got introduced to the Marx Brothers, on videotape. I guess this has cultivated in me an appreciation that the things which came before me are also good, and funny. Maybe it’s because I grew up in the world of recordable cassette tapes, disk drives (ahh, the old 1541, how I have missed you!), VCRs, and now DVD-RW and the Internet—all the stuff from yesteryear is available to us now in a way that wasn’t when our grandparents grew up.
If I want to go down and rent some Buster Keaton, I can (if I look in the right place). Or I could turn on Nick at Nite (if I had a TV, that is) and watch retro television.
Fifty years ago, if you missed the Vitameatavegamin episode of Lucy then you missed it completely. If you didn’t see The Maltese Falcon in the theaters then you couldn’t just wait for it to come out on video.
Classical music has been mentioned by a few on this thread, but as that’s written down, much surviving music from those eras (classical, romantic, baroque, whatever) has been preserved for us to appreciate. I wonder if, two hundred years from now, “I Want To Hold Your Hand” will be played in concert halls by sober-faced cellists.
I can already see myself starting to get “stuck.” When I was growing up my mom would control the radio in the car, and she listened to the oldies station, so that’s the music I hear the most. At school I remember people talking about New Kids On The Block and Vanilla Ice, but I didn’t know who they were for a long time.
Now I listen to the music I listened to growing up (oldies) and from when I was in high school. When I start listening to something new (i.e. something I didn’t listen to before) it’s not anything that’s recently come out. I’ll listen to different older music, or music I wasn’t around in the early 90’s, and late 80’s. I am stuck in my ways a bit with pop culture, but not as much as my Grandpa or other older people that I know, at least not yet (if only because my pop culture has happened more recently).
That depends upon how you define elderly, and what you define as “the past”. I think people of all ages can tend, from time to time, to live(or LOVE :D) in the past.
Without going into a long boring story, I’ve been known to do that myself, with my own history. A lost love, the one that “got away” to simplify the story. There was a time when I definitely lived, and loved in the past regarding my own history. Same with HS, I had a pretty great time in HS, so for a few years after, I kinda “lived in the past”.
Luckily better things, and just plain old maturity, and a healing of my broken heart in the case of "the one that got away’ prompted me to look forward again. I’d wager it’s similar for a lot of people.
That is, they “live” where it is most comfortable and enjoyable for them at the time. If people who are elderly (I’m thinking you mean 80s and older?) tend to “glorify” their heydays, well it’s likely that that’s when things made more sense to them. Leading them to find it easier to relate to the past in which they had more control and understood things better. At least that’s my take on it.
Wow. I really hate Lloyd’s stuff. Even the stuff I don’t hate I’m not fond of. There’s something in his stuff that still looks inorganic and “futuristic”. I have a theory that there’s something in our evolutionary development that makes us relate to classis architicture, the types of things that have lasted for hundreds and thousands of years.
They aren’t living in the past. It’s just their “present” goes back further than yours. You’d think that’d be looked on as an asset, having a greater frame of reference.
You’ll find that as you get older your concept of time contracts. When you’re 20; 10 years ago is ancient history. When you’re 70; it’s just yesterday.
I’m pushing 46 and I couldn’t possibly agree more. I’m starved for a good movie. ANY TOPIC. It’s interesting you used Britney Spears as a catch-all for crappy music because I do the same thing. I go to see live musicians every week. I’ve told more than 1 musician how much it sucks that Britney Spears (ironic initials) gets a million dollars for pop-light crap while musicians with real skill are playing to crowds of 20.
Fortunately, Miss or Mrs Spears (not sure how many days this post will be viewed) does not represent all modern musicians. I find myself enjoying a lot of the new music today although I can no longer name the bands. I use to listen to Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Hendrix until I realized it was the blues rifts that I really liked within the music. Now I kick myself for missing the opportunity to hear John Lee Hooker or Little Walter live.
TV is almost pure garbage. Today’s biggest draws are “reality shows” where people are pitted against each other in the most back-stabbing socially abhorrent way possible. It represents the exact opposite of how my parents taught me to treat others. When I watch 20 seconds of “Elimidate” it makes me want hurl my TV out of the nose of the Statue of Liberty on to the head of the assumed 12-year-old who produces the show (death by techno-bugger).
One of the reasons my parent’s generation did so well is because they were forced to grow up (figuratively and literally) during the Great Depression. They were emotionally mature adults by age 18. My parents never went beyond a high school education but I would stand their knowledge of English, Math, and Science against any 4 year degree. My father built his first house from scratch without any formal construction skills. He used what he learned in school along with common sense.
So give me my History Channel, my blues songs, and call me old. For I shall think of my Mother and Father and smile contently.
