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living in the slide show
Oct. 23rd, 2010 09:11 amLast night, a friend from college posted two old pictures of "friends from back then," two of which include me.
A day or so earlier, another friend (from more current times), wrote, "Time was, it took a couple of weeks after your vacation before you had your vacation photos to bore all your friends with. Now you can do it while still on your vacation..." (Exhibit B)
Which got me thinking. First, about what might be lost in that transition--the savored lag time and re-celebration of one's experience, digging out the photo album years later and going through the pictures, all that tactile soma that the digital denies us. But, well, nostalgia, eh. Change is. Then I thought about the fact that the old joke--mostly a television trope, I believe--about being trapped in the neighbor/friend/relative's living room for their slide show about their latest vacation or missionary journey or family reunion no longer has any cultural ground. We're living in the slide show. It's a many-streamed slide show, variously shaded, as the Internet, as the world of humans, from brilliant, engage-able, lovely, to pompous, reprehensible, stupid--etc.
A day or so earlier, another friend (from more current times), wrote, "Time was, it took a couple of weeks after your vacation before you had your vacation photos to bore all your friends with. Now you can do it while still on your vacation..." (Exhibit B)
Which got me thinking. First, about what might be lost in that transition--the savored lag time and re-celebration of one's experience, digging out the photo album years later and going through the pictures, all that tactile soma that the digital denies us. But, well, nostalgia, eh. Change is. Then I thought about the fact that the old joke--mostly a television trope, I believe--about being trapped in the neighbor/friend/relative's living room for their slide show about their latest vacation or missionary journey or family reunion no longer has any cultural ground. We're living in the slide show. It's a many-streamed slide show, variously shaded, as the Internet, as the world of humans, from brilliant, engage-able, lovely, to pompous, reprehensible, stupid--etc.
