Time Travel

I think the closest thing to time travel we will ever truly experience comes from digging into the archives of things gone by, and experiencing them ourselves for the first time, years later.

Whenever I look at really old pictures, I get that sense of being transported back, and I am always struck more by how similar those people and times are to the present day, than how different they may be. As a child I guess I would have had a harder time relating to these things, but if you look at old pictures, and really search, you can see so much in common. Those people could be friends we meet on the street, co-workers, etc., and all it would take is a different haircut or clothing to bridge the gap. In fact, I have found the most unrelatable aspect of old photos are the formal photos where no one is smiling....it is so false and lacking in personality--those pictures are less prone to the time travel illusion.

And I think in general there is a powerful truth embedded in the idea that the people who went before are not so different than people nowadays. Certainly the technology has changed, our knowledge of science, medicine and the universe has improved, but ultimately people are people. We hold so much in common with them, and that is a great finding. If we have so much in common with people from the past, then we must hold much in common with people today. I think it is an unhealthy mindset to assume that we are some sort of "exception" or what happens to us is "unusual" or "unique" when in reality we all share a very common experience.

I remember my grandmother telling a story of sneaking out in the middle of the night while at nursing school to go ice skating. If they were caught they would surely get in real trouble. At the time it was very hard to juxtapose my retired grandmother into that situation, but as I passed that age myself I found it much easier to visualize, a very common experience.

So I like old things. Old movies, old music, old books. I cannot say I am so cultured as to consistently dwell on these treasures, but on occasion I go mining the past. In fact, I am somewhat a hypocrite in this whimsical posting because I like new things, too. I often display a preference for the ordinary when I could treasure something special. (TV anyone?)

For example, over a year ago I went into a video store and saw a version of Citizen Kane on sale (remastered with a bonus DVD), and immediately grabbed it....but it was 2 for $20 on that rack, so I had to buy something else. I searched for a while but the options were pretty slim. Finally I found something that interested me (at least based on the average cost per film) -- a 3 pack of Jackie Chan movies. Those are great movies from a certain point of view, since they are from the emerging Hong Kong film industry and Jackie Chan is an impressive choreographer and performer, but they are hardly on  par with Citizen Kane, chosen by many as the greatest movie ever made. What's ironic is that I just opened Kane last week and we stopped it with a half-hour to finish because we got too tired, while the Jackie Chan movies were opened and consumed over a year ago. I am so shallow...

BUT--I have been impacted by that movie and I plan to finish it and watch and study it over and over in the next few months. (I will try to blog on the experience sometime soon.) In general, it has defied my expectations. I had been expecting a artsy, esoteric, conceptual piece with a brooding darkness and little that is relateable. But I couldn't be more wrong. It is artistic and innovative and remarkable, but it is very accessible, very human, very relateable. Not so stuffy as I thought.

Now I fear this topic is too broad to do it justice in this sitting. I had started this blog to lay out my thoughts about the value of old works of art, planning an awkward segue into the announcement that I just recently finished reading/scanning the first 139 issues of The Amazing Spider-man plus the original appearance the character in Amazing Fantasy #15, a feat that I sincerely believe has the same time travel experience, in part because of its volume and the immersive experience, but also because it is a valid form of artistic expression in its own right. But to do that justice, I would need to expand more on my thoughts, so I will jot that down as another topic for a future blog (for those who are interested.)

A few years ago I bought Robert Louis Stephenson's Treasure Island to read with Connor someday. He reads Harry Potter and other more contemporary works and they are great, but certainly on our reading list we should have room for some of the classics...if they have lasted all this time, and are studied and admired and printed, then maybe we should pay attention.

Have you ever had that time travel experience? What old treasure have you unearthed that has connected to your own life experience? It's not that uncommon.