Things you increasingly don't see anymore

[lucky]

@Hammer....We use to have a chalet in Lyme - many the time i use to wander out the sailing club pissed and nearly fall off the cobb.

[Col. Quisp]

Children who are not on drugs to control what they call ADHD.
Children who don't have so-called ADHD.
Food without high fructose corn syrup.
Non-GMO food.

Connect the dots.

[crikkett]

Remember the After Dark screensavers? I loved the "Starry Nights" module and it's been years since I've seen it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Dark_%28software%29

[JackRiddler]

...

I recently bought some marvellous books from Sanctuary (second hand) Bookstore in Lyme Regis, I'll give 'em a plug.

I got several Dion Fortune, a book on Yoga and the Velikovsky from there, but I could have bought a dozen or more.

I often think paper books are much more convenient and efficient than electronic readers.

Sanctuary.

Hmm.

...

I am reading and genuinely absorbing, at a contemplative pace, an enormous narrative and interstitial history of the Civil War and the dozen years that preceded it. James McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom (1986). He's been my companion. Even in his absence, I've had him as an interlocutor for more than a week through 800 pages of text (I've been doing other stuff too).

If this huge brick (generous font size) had been on an Ipad, it's inconceivable to me that I would have got much past whatever I read on the first sitting. Or that I would have resisted the temptation to conduct searches within the book at every name I'd forgotten, resulting in my reading it in 24 out-of-order sections. Or that I would have resisted looking up alternative views and ended up not knowing who had said what, or why I thought as I did. I'd have never given McPherson a chance to present his history as a whole work, and myself a chance to engage it, deeply and critically, or to later develop whatever alternative views I may develop when I read other works on the subject. Certainly I'd have never resisted the temptation to check e-mail or reload RI at a pause every couple of pages.

No discipline on my part would have changed this -- and as a reader I'm far more disciplined than most, and light-years more disciplined than I am in anything part of my life. For too many other reasons to list just now, for reasons I believe to be universal, deep reading and reflection are supported by the book form and will be deep-sixed by handheld screens. It's not the same. It will never be the same.

[justdrew]

Remember the After Dark screensavers? I loved the "Starry Nights" module and it's been years since I've seen it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Dark_%28software%29

[Project Willow]

I have difficulty getting through any book anymore, my long addiction to the Internet has impacted my ability to stay focused.

On a side note, I've been hired to design and layout a 250 page book containing 100 images. I've been reeducating myself on typography and book design history and best practices. I agree, the experience of using an electronic device will never be the same, but I'm also looking forward to seeing how the new medium lends itself to creating new forms. I am going to experiment with including snippets of video in my own memoir, consider which means of delivering content is most effective for certain components and if these can work together well in creating a cohesive work.

[justdrew]

thinking of After Dark, reminded me of Neko

(look in the upper left corner of this window and click on the kitty )

((( a Neko enabling post )))

[The Consul]

Fountain Pens.

[82_28]

Fountain Pens.

There was an old school pen and stationary store that had been there for decades across from where I used to work. They tore it down some time ago now and it is now a, wait for it, an Apple Store. Progress motherfuckers! Progress.

But it was there for easily two to three generations.

[Elvis]

Did I already talk about these? Weed is legal here now, y'know.

Gentlemen standing up when a lady enters the room.

Maybe that should be in quotes. That's more or less how my mother phrased it.

In fact, the last time I saw that was about ten years ago, at a big party in a restaurant. I was standing at a table where a friend and some others, including his elderly parents, were seated. When a young female friend of his stopped by the table to say hi, his 75-year-old father stood up. As long as she remained standing by the table, he remained standing. You could tell he rather wanted to sit back down to his dinner, but I don't think the young lady realized why he was standing. She was invited to sit down but declined. And for what must have been ten minutes, he did not budge until she moved on.

I suppose this custom has rightly gone to the dustbin, but I still do it sometimes when an elderly lady enters.


People pushing in their chairs when they rise from a table.

I know everyone here performs this simple and thoughtful act, but most people? I have to say no, not any more. I've been responsible for going in after and pushing all the chairs back in. So people aren't doing it. Look at the visual disarray it leaves, not to mention the trip hazards & associated liabilities. People used to push in their chairs, it was just the considerate thing to do. What happened? The other day when some friends and I left a 'food court' I circled the table, pushing in the chairs, glancing back at the neat rows.


People taking off their hats indoors (especially in a theater).

The rule, as it were, was "Always remove your hat indoors." Okay, so that came from the days when men wore hats, like the big fedoras in the 1940s and '50s, and it just wasn't cool to wear a hat indoors. I've finally accepted that no one else has ever heard this before, therefore me wearing a hat indoors isn't going to make anyone uncomfortable. But in a theater, off with the hats!---they further block my view of the proscenium, already obscured a good bit by the wearer's fat head.

[harry ashburn]

...passed an early '50's (i guess) volvo!

[Joe Hillshoist]

my toes

[JackRiddler]

my toes

Heh. That's how I imagine you. But as a far more agile man than me!

[Col. Quisp]

Soap on a rope. Does anyone use bar soap these days? I am having trouble finding it in places like Bath & Body Works or other places like The Body Shop - they used to sell nice bars of soap. I don't like the supermarket soap. The health food store soap is OK but I really miss a nice Crabtree & Evelyn soap. I want a Soap on a Rope for Xmas.

[justdrew]

how about some pope soap on a rope?