Monday, April 03, 2006
Records and the Past
I don’t know what triggered this memory, but damn it came all vivid and inexorable like. The kind of nostalgia that damn near knocks you down.
I had these books when I was bitty. Well, I had at least one of this type. And in addition to being a compelling story about how Mickey, Goofy, and Donald hunted Ghosts (and Stamped out VD…see the previous post for info on that), it had technology™.
Specifically, it had these records built into each page. They weren’t full size, only a few inches across. And there was this record player of sorts. You put a spindle of it into the hole on the record and pressed a button and it played. Man that was the coolest thing in the world to me. Here’s a hazy rendition of what it looked like.
Here is the apparatus that played stuff; see a spindle, and a needle.
I know, it’s not that big of a deal nowadays, what with some hyped up children’s books having more computing horse-power in them than all of the Apollo missions combined. I still thought it was cool though. Ahh, Nostalgia.
Some other Nostalgia news: I’m doing digital backgrounds for Tommy. The Who musical. I have fond memories of listening to that Albulm with my mom. It was really good. Better than the currently playing Mr. Roboto.
Shortly after we got a VCR (Video Recording Device of a type before mpeg-2 compression was all the rave with the kids these days), My mom Triumphantly rushed in with the movie version of Tommy. She had only seen it once (very, very, stoned apparently) and this was like a holy grail to her. We popped it in, amped. I vividly and distinctly remember waiting for it to get good. It never happened. Though, the Anne Margaret in Pork and Beans scene was kind of fun in a kinky way. We were both so disappointed. If you live your whole life without seeing Jack Nicholson sing, you’ve done good.
But, let’s forget the movie. I have gotten a cool assignment from the folks at NAT. I’m doing digital backgrounds for their play version of Tommy. It is radically different from the movie: no pork and beans.
I had these books when I was bitty. Well, I had at least one of this type. And in addition to being a compelling story about how Mickey, Goofy, and Donald hunted Ghosts (and Stamped out VD…see the previous post for info on that), it had technology™.
Specifically, it had these records built into each page. They weren’t full size, only a few inches across. And there was this record player of sorts. You put a spindle of it into the hole on the record and pressed a button and it played. Man that was the coolest thing in the world to me. Here’s a hazy rendition of what it looked like.
Here is the apparatus that played stuff; see a spindle, and a needle.
I know, it’s not that big of a deal nowadays, what with some hyped up children’s books having more computing horse-power in them than all of the Apollo missions combined. I still thought it was cool though. Ahh, Nostalgia.
Some other Nostalgia news: I’m doing digital backgrounds for Tommy. The Who musical. I have fond memories of listening to that Albulm with my mom. It was really good. Better than the currently playing Mr. Roboto.
Shortly after we got a VCR (Video Recording Device of a type before mpeg-2 compression was all the rave with the kids these days), My mom Triumphantly rushed in with the movie version of Tommy. She had only seen it once (very, very, stoned apparently) and this was like a holy grail to her. We popped it in, amped. I vividly and distinctly remember waiting for it to get good. It never happened. Though, the Anne Margaret in Pork and Beans scene was kind of fun in a kinky way. We were both so disappointed. If you live your whole life without seeing Jack Nicholson sing, you’ve done good.
But, let’s forget the movie. I have gotten a cool assignment from the folks at NAT. I’m doing digital backgrounds for their play version of Tommy. It is radically different from the movie: no pork and beans.
// posted by Tim @ 9:23 PM 
