Something for Sunday

I can't believe that you guys are nostalgic about that crap.

It might be crap today, as viewed through the lens of a life well lived, but it wasn't crap then.  Nostalgia is almost the right word, but not quite.  I don't detect any yearning for the "good old days," more like a reflection on how things have changed, slowly, without our noticing it.  It amuses me to see Uncle Ken rhapsodize about his days as a hippy, even as he gazes across the realm from the lofty heights of his not quite ivory, more like cast concrete, tower.

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One trick I use with YouTube is to download the content and view it at my leisure.  Well, not view it, exactly, but listen to it.  Most documentaries are like that, the narrative is the main thing and the images are usually superfluous.  There's a funny word for you: superfluous.  I wonder if there is a regular fluous, as opposed to Super Fluous; something I should find more about. Looks like Latin, but we've had enough of that.

Anyhow, after I'm done with the content I delete it; those hundreds of megabytes add up, don'cha know.  One thing I've learned, more useless information, is that one of the rules of the Inquisition was that blood must not shed.  You could apply red-hot irons, crush their limbs, but don't you dare shed a drop of blood.  Maybe it worked better in theory than in practice and a trip to the Vatican Library would sort out the details.  The Church has been historically very big on rules but enforcement varied, as in many large bureaucracies.  They rigidly adhere to the rules they want to and ignore the rest.

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Some local hoopla in Wittenberg, Germany this year as they observe the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's bit with the church door.  I was listening to a clip about what a vulgar dog ol' Luther was, big on scatalogical terms.  Telling someone to "lick my ass" was a popular form of expression back in the day, at least in that part of Europe.  Mozart was another potty mouth, enthusiastic with anal references.  Maybe the German language lends itself well to that sort of thing, combining words to make new ones.  Any scholars present?

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TV trays, huh?  I was surprised that they are still being made; a big selection on Amazon, but the new ones look a lot sturdier.  They were always flimsy as I recall, and never seemed to be right size for the plates and glasses that we had at home.  But they were fine for snacks.

Ashtrays are another throwback item still being made.  The height of fashion (in my memory) was the pedestal type that stood next to Dad's easy chair.  My uncle had one with a fancy built-in lighter.  Very swank.  In the not so distant future when you describe something as being the size of a pack of cigarettes people won't know what you are talking about.  You don't see people smoking on TV anymore although they do in real life.  More fake media.