Collective memory
A current theme in my life appears to be becoming a source of information about stuff that happened a long time ago ... because I am in fact old enough for my memory to reach back that far.
So at work, the founding and early pioneering members of my department have almost all retired now ... but I know about them and their body of work, because I worked with and talked to them for years.
This morning I was chatting about tonic sol-fa (a system of music representation designed to be easy to learn), which you simply don't see around these days. But when I was a young singer in Wales, I sang with several older people who relied on it exclusively. These days it's hard to find anyone who can even use it fluently. It's fun to realise that I encountered the tail end of a living tradition which is more or less defunct now.
Then at lunchtime, the conversation idly turned to 9/11 and the whole "where were you when it happened" discussion. And one guy - here on work experience - chipped in to say that he didn't remember it clearly at all. Because he was five years old at the time.
(I'm sure I'm not the first to notice that 9/11 is the JFK-assassination moment for Gen X.)
This entry crossposted to http://doug.dreamwidth.org/225009.html, where there are
comment(s) not shown here.
So at work, the founding and early pioneering members of my department have almost all retired now ... but I know about them and their body of work, because I worked with and talked to them for years.
This morning I was chatting about tonic sol-fa (a system of music representation designed to be easy to learn), which you simply don't see around these days. But when I was a young singer in Wales, I sang with several older people who relied on it exclusively. These days it's hard to find anyone who can even use it fluently. It's fun to realise that I encountered the tail end of a living tradition which is more or less defunct now.
Then at lunchtime, the conversation idly turned to 9/11 and the whole "where were you when it happened" discussion. And one guy - here on work experience - chipped in to say that he didn't remember it clearly at all. Because he was five years old at the time.
(I'm sure I'm not the first to notice that 9/11 is the JFK-assassination moment for Gen X.)
This entry crossposted to http://doug.dreamwidth.org/225009.html, where there are
comment(s) not shown here.