Remember arguments?
The Wife and I are watching Across the Universe, last night - "meh" film, basically Hair with a Lennon/McCartney soundtrack, or a really long episode of American Dreams - and got into a discussion about our favorite Beatles albums. Hers is Rubber Soul, meanwhile I hemmed and hawed on mine.
There's one decent disc in The White Album, I offered. But I could find merit in everything from Meet the Beatles to Abbey Road. In fact, I said, the second half of the latter album, which features "Here Comes the Sun" and that medley including "Mean Mr. Mustard," "Golden Slumbers," and "Carry That Weight," is one of my favorite album sides of all time.
The Wife: "What else is on the album?"
Pete:"...Uh, 'Come Together'...'Maxwell's Silver Hammer'...I don't think 'Get Back' was on it, was it?"
TW: "What album is 'Paperback Writer' on?"
Pete: "Uh, maybe A Hard Day's Night?"
TW: "No it wasn't."
And so on. Now, in the old days - say for example my '80s college years - a vigorous debate would've ensued, culminating with a 3 AM trek to our Beatlemaniac friend Mike's dorm room to rouse him from his slumber and settle things once and for all by making him produce the album in question. Last night, as is mostly the case these days, I simply turned on the computer and looked online; Wikipedia, to be specific. We learned two things: that "Get Back" was on Let It Be, and "Paperback Writer" was never released on an original album, though it was featured on several compilations.
I realize that debating such easily determined questions is pretty much a waste of time when the answers to all life's questions can be found on the internets, but it used to be kind of fun. To name two other examples:
1. We had a game during college called, creatively enough, The Movie Game. This was pre-Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, so the rules involved giving someone the name of two actors and having them find the shortest distance movie-wise between them (Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. to Tura Satana, for example). Names would be proffered at breakfast, and solutions discussed at dinner. Needless to say, the arrival of the IMDB rendered that game about as entertaining as cheating on the New York Times crossword puzzle.
2. I spent three weeks suffering the insults of a contingent of UT theater folk who refused to acknowledge the existence of a non-Richard Harris version of Camelot (that would be the official Broadway recording, with Richard Burton as Arthur and Julie Andrews as Guinevere). I had to endure their effete mudslinging for almost an entire month before I could return home to secure my parents' copy of the album. Even then, I had to play them Roddy McDowell singing "The Seven Deadly Virtues" to convince them it wasn't an elaborate sham.
I guess my point is that arguing used to be more fun when not everything could be resolved. Or maybe we're just more efficient now, though I'm not convinced that's a good thing. Now all The Wife and I really argue about is money, and unlike the Movie Game, I never win.
I remember when there was the original buzz about Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, and I thought, Pete and I played that game years before, all year (sitting in our lush apartment, perched on leather settees, sipping aperitifs), and we didn’t have to link back to lame-ass Kevin Bacon every time. But I digress.
I was thinking about this “the internet knows everything” phenomenon, and I think it’s great for those naturally curious types out there, and it might encourage a few more folks to be curious. (By the way, I think this is why people don’t have encyclopedias and almanacs around as much anymore.)
For example, a few years back (during a gap in our internet service, which seems unfathomable now) I was watching something about the Middle East on the news, and I realized I wanted to know a little bit more about the history of the region. So I went to Half Priced Books, perused their History section, and came home with a handful of books. I must confess I didn’t read them all, but that was never my intent anyway. My intent was to learn a bit more, which I did do, but I had to maintain my spark of interest long enough to act on it, then had to manhandle several books to get at what I wanted to know.
Then last year when I was teaching The Odyssey to my 9th-graders, we got on the subject of pre-Christian era calendars, and so I came home and got on the internet, and learned more in a few hours then if I’d taken History of Calendars 101. After reading about the gradual conversion to our present calendar, and of course all the while opening multiple windows to follow stray bits of knowledge, I went on a tangent and read in detail about the conversion from paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire, and so on and so on for several days. How can I say this plainly? If you dig learning shit, the internet rocks. (Thanks, Al Gore?)
I’ll confess that one of my favorite spots in Across the Universe was seeing my old dormitory. Other than that? Meh, indeed.
Yeah, my wife and I were having this same debate over which was the best Boz Scaggs album and it always comes down to Silk Degrees vs. Middle Man. We can literally kill moments maybe even minutes debating the musical magic that is Boz. Good times.
Yeah, my wife and I were having this same debate over which was the best Boz Scaggs album
No you weren’t.
Don’t make me drive past your house with the mad beats of “Lido Shuffle” and “Breakdown” thumping out of my Prius.
There’s not much that hasn’t already been said about the findings from Pew on how young people are getting their news not so much directly from the source but from friends - through the filters of email, social networks and…...
| --Posted to Open The Dialogue on Apr 3, 2008 2:03 PM:. |
I realize I’m quite late on this, but your wife is absolutely correct. Rubber Soul is the best Beatles album.
I have spoken.
Great discussion on a question that recently came up in a conversation…
Google handles 5 billion questions per month. Who did we ask before Google?