What money can't buy

[elfs]

Kids develop odd tastes as they grow up, and one of Kouryou-chan's was, for a brief while, the Red Robin restaurant chain. (Yamaraashi-chan, in contrast, is fond of hibachi-style Japanese food.) The food's okay there in an American "family restaurant chain" sort of way, although the place is loud and tries to hard to appeal to manly men, but it's tolerable.

There are photographs on the walls of the place, kitschy appeals to history, famous photos from Life magazine like Einstein with his tongue hanging out or John Lennon and Yoko Ono in bed. There are two there that I suppose I should be familiar with but which I found fascinating the last time I saw them.

The first is J.R. Eyerman's famous at the movies photograph from 1952. What intrigues me about this picture is that everyone is wearing a tie and jacket or an evening gown. I can't imagine people getting dressed up this way for such an experience, especially when the presentation is insensate: the movie doesn't care how you're dressed. If it were a play or a concert, perhaps your mode of dress would be important, but not a movie.

The other, equally interesting photograph (I can't find a copy on-line, sorry) shows Clark Gable behind the wheel of his car in 1940, when he was at the top of his career in the old studio-star system Hollywood. As I looked at the photo I became more impressed by what Gable didn't have than what he did: he didn't have a radio, an automatic transmission, a breakaway steering wheel. This man could have had damn near anything he wanted, but he didn't know to want some of the things we now have, and even if he wanted them, they wouldn't have been available to him.

Both of these things prick at the writer in me: what kinds of events create dress codes? What wants do we have at each setting of our day (the work computer, the personal computer, the car, the kitchen, the bus, the bathroom, the family room, the television set) that we can't have? Are there any we can think of that we've never wanted before, but now make sense in context?

Comments

[blackcoat.livejournal.com]

Remember, however, that this was a big deal. This was not only a premier, but a premier of 3D movies at all. It would be rather like going to the first opening of an IMAX movie EVER. A good chunk of them were probably Somebody in hollywood. And people *still* get dressed up for movie premiers.

[orcaarrow.livejournal.com]

Another lace where things have changed is the Airplane. People used to treat Air travel as an event.

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

It was also such a new thing. Movie theaters weren't as commonplace, and as somebody else mentioned, it was probably as much of a social scene for the common person then then as the premieres for the glitterati at Mann's chinese theatre are now.

It was still new enough to be special. Nowadays, it's ripped jeans, stained t-shirt, and a squalling four-year old in the next row who wanted to watch something else.

[erisiansaint]

I mush, (Multi User Shared Hallucination, it's basically an online RPG that uses text only,) and I read that last paragraph and started laughing, because the major combat scenes are usually called events, and obviously, the program has all kinds of codes, so I read that in a completely wrong manner.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[shunra.livejournal.com]

Think of the kings and emperors.

The big ones.

Like Solomon. Ceaser. Alexander the Great. Napoleon.

Not one of them could have the variety and quality that you take for granted in transportation, nutrition, attire, even education (please imagine Alexander trying to learn Japanese... ...while conquering the Near East? With his horse's on-board DVD-player, perhaps?)

Whenever I think of the poverty in which the historical greats lived (as compared to, oh, just about anyone I know) - my cognition experiences some loud dissonance.

[fallenpegasus]

A lot of that is regional. There are places in the US still that are almost as "dressy" culturally as they were 50 years ago.

[fallenpegasus]

Compare "the poor" in the US today, to just about anyone else at any other place at any other time.

[shunra.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

Or compare the risks of death through pregnancy and childbirth (both to the mother and child) nowadays with the risks, say, 119 years ago when my great grandfather was born.

It seems to me that reducing the risks - and the poverty, despite its relative opulence to what "poverty" would have meant only a few decades ago - are the biggest thing the human race can do to make the world a more worthwhile place to live in.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[norincraft.livejournal.com]

Let's take a stab at 'em

Both of these things prick at the writer in me: what kinds of events create dress codes?

Formality engendered by:

1. novelty & prestige [as you noted -- less common, but I bet people would dress for a ride to the moon]
2. custom [priests' robes]
3. regulation [airline pilot/steward(ess) & business attire to varying degrees].

Now to the interesting one..

What wants do we have at each setting of our day (the work computer, the personal computer, the car, the kitchen, the bus, the bathroom, the family room, the television set) that we can't have? Are there any we can think of that we've never wanted before, but now make sense in context?

I'm not really sure where I saw it, but I think it was Ray Kurtzweil who mentioned that around Jules Vern's time writer's could project well over 100 years into the future with ease -- technologically speaking. But as our scientific advances accelerate, our ability to project the far cutting edge is brought closer.

Personally I think it a consequence of the Jumping Jesus Phenomenon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_Where_You_Are_Sitting_Now) but others like to call it call it by the more polite accelerating change (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_change).

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Back before they reformed the Belltown Concrete Park into the Belltown Animal Park, there was a bizarre gradation of homeless as one headed east through downtown Seattle: those around the Belltown park were generally thin and wiry, but as you got closer to Pioneer Square and the courts district the homeless would get fatter and fatter until in Justice Park you'd have nearly spherical men rattling their tins for beer money.

It was later explained to me that the reason Concrete Park was rebuilt as a pet-friendly park was that the middle class had pets, and attracting them to a dog-run park was a key ingredient to driving out the methheads.

It still amazes me that homeless people get fat.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

A common phrase among those SF writers who think about the Singularity is The Wall, that place past which thinking is damnably hard.

[bldrnrpdx.livejournal.com]

Something else about dressing up for the movie theater: People weren't just dressing up for the movie. People were also dressing up for the people around them. They probably would've cared a lot more about what other people thought than people typically do now.

fat homeless...amazing?

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I might guess
1. in our society the cheapest food (that's readily available to someone with limited transport and no adequate kitchen) is more effective at delivering calories than at making a person feel full for a good long while.
2. A homeless person's fat, unlike money saved to buy more food next week, is not attractive target for the homeless-rollers to steal.
3. I wonder if our bodies actively try to put on more fat if we're stuck out in the homeless weather in winter?
4. Ethanol is calorically dense? Or so I've been told.

[norincraft.livejournal.com]

I was looking through the 'friends' link briefly, of which about 80% of the posts are yours, and about 10% are from LJ. Anyway, this article (http://reason.com/news/show/119237.html) was referenced and it was appropriate to the topic.