Zeitgeist

Yesterday I began a list of observations about time. There was only time for one, so today in no particular order I'll muse over nine more, to keep the post length reasonable and complete this in a reasonable amount of time. At some point in the future I may revisit this topic. It will seem soon to me, but actually be later than I think.

2) On Thanksgiving I'm watching a football game with my father and my uncle. At the start of the half-time show, a full-figured African American woman comes out and begins addressing the viewers with regard to some charity. About halfway through the spot, her name ran across the bottom of the screen, but something didn't add up. Raven Symone was the tiny little girl who joined the cast of The Cosby Show when Rudy was too old to be the cute little girl of the show. I had no idea who this grown woman with the same name as that child star was.

3) The Simpsons began in 1989. I was in high school at the time, and I remember all the “cool” kids on the bus talking about it and singing Bart's version of a Christmas classic. By college I too was able to quote the show, only it was somehow not as cool by then. It's now been FIFTEEN years since it began, and I've finished high school, college, and I'm on my second job since college.

4) I remember when a baby on a bad sitcom was played by someone named Mary-Kate Ashley Olsen. Somehow, that one baby is now a pair of 18-year-old twins.

5) Kurt Cobain killed himself ten years ago. I was in college, driving back from a comic book store that's no longer in business when I heard the news. These days, I often hear Nirvana on a classic rock station.

6) As far back as I can remember, shows like 90210 were casting twenty-somethings as high school kids and giving real high school kids insecurities about not having breasts or a five o'clock shadow(or in my case, the unfortunate opposite problem). That tradition continues with many shows today, such as Smallville. And yet, I'm older than Tom Welling. I'm also now older than the demographic the cast of Friends portrayed, and about the age they were supposed to be toward the end of the series.

7) Transformers: The Movie awed me with its portrayal of the sleek modern far future of 2005. That movie came out nearly 19 years ago, and in 29 days it will be 2005.

8) The average life span of a house cat is anywhere from 16-20 years. My mom has always taken great care of her pets and they've all lived close to 18 years. In my lifetime six have passed away, including Munchkin a few years ago whom I not only rescued and took in, but dedicated the first book I ever designed in 4th grade. It was an epic tale entitled “The Battle of the Heros and Villians” because I couldn't spell, and featured Transformers, Voltron and Superfriends, because I didn't know what ”copyright infringement” was. The teacher showed us how to bind the pages and make a laminated hardcover. On the last page I taped a photograph of Munchkin sitting on our back step, opposite a page of “other books by the author”, none of which were by me due to the reason cited two sentences ago. We still have two cats, Chirp and Cubby. I remember when my parents came home from my dad's doctor with what I thought was a little gray squeaking hamster but was in fact a kitten they'd heard in distress in a nearby window well. I have pictures of him next to things like paper bags and laundry baskets for scale. That cat is now about the size of a Thanksgiving turkey.

9) My cousins are all over 40. Most have children. My oldest cousin has four sons, and his oldest boy just graduated college. I remember when that kid was born. Out of my seven closest college friends, five are now married, and two have children, and one is expecting his second child.

10) I watched Westworld tonight. Besides Yul Brynner paying homage to his The Magnificent Seven it starred James Brolin(whom I only really know from Aamco ads and Pee Wee's Big Adventure) looking a bit like a young Scott Bakula. The movie came out in 1973 a year before I was born, and though I've seen The Andromeda Strain, it was a further reminder that Michael Crichton has been writing science fiction with the emphasis on science since before I was born. It's an interesting tale in which, much like a holodeck simulation, something designed for recreation malfunctions and leads to disaster. A tale of survival amid science gone askew in a Crichton tale? What are the odds?!

And, that's all the time I have for this evening.