Living in the Past

If it hasn't become obvious by now, I have a particular afinity for technology. I love technology, not just the new, bleeding edge stuff, but older technology too, like those 70s amplifiers I mentioned last week. If you ever find a good thrift store, walk around and look at there sheer amount of stuff laying around. When I look at this old junk, say and old computer or an old radio it strikes me that these objects are portals into another time. I mean, you can't look at a Zenith Transoceanic without imagining some child huddled around that tube-driven reciever listening to a now classic baseball game in the 1950s. Similarly, it's one thing to read Insanely Great and read about the original Macintosh, and it's another thing to actually use one.

Ever since the industrial revolution, technology has increasingly shaped people's lives. In Salmon of Doubt Douglas Adams speaks of pressing his ear against his hi-fi set, secretly listening to The Beatles at bording school. This is a memory that is completely defined by technology. Speaking of The Beatles, can you imagine how Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band would sound different if they hadn't been forced to use now primitve 4-Track recorders? Did the limits of that technology inspire their creativity?

The popularity of "retrogaming" is evidence of the pull of old technology. A whole generation who grew up with videogames suddenly wants to revisit the 8-bit past. Atari, a company long drawn and quartered is now a pop-culture status symbol. Old NES's are now popular items.

Which brings me back to thrift stores...Unlike the fashion and fad obsessed retail world, these merchants embrace the past. What's more, you never quite know what you'll find at these places. Walking into a thrift store is like pulling the arm on a One-Armed-Bandit, you never know what piece of history will pop up.