Shamelessly lifted from the Onion A V Club
This is among the awesomest things produced by the AVC.
I wanted to post my comment somewhere other than the AVC comment boards, where it would be swallowed into a sea of douchetardery, so I figured I’d put it here and hit up you fine people for your awesome answers.
Here are the rules for Patton Oswalt’s awesome little brain game:
Where and when would you most want to live for five years, restricted to a five-mile radius?
Everyone says things like “Oh man, how cool would it be to be in Dealey Plaza during the JFK assassination, or see The Beatles during one of their Cavern Club concerts, or witness ancient Rome?” Well, what if you were given the chance?
Here are the conditions. You’ve been granted a hypothetical ticket to live, in comfort and coherence, during one five-year time period. Maybe you want to be in New York in Chicago during Prohibition, or Victorian London, or France right before the Revolution. (Or during-no judgments.) You’ll be able to understand and speak the language (if needed), have enough disposable cash to live at leisure, and experience whatever you want, with no need for a job. You’ll have a comfy apartment or house to return to, full period wardrobe, and as much time as you need before making this trip to study up on the period you’ll live in.
But you must stay within a five-mile radius of where/whenever you choose to live. Thus you can’t go see the Kennedy assassination, then go zipping around the world to London to watch the birth of the British Invasion, or New York for the early years of Greenwich Village. Want to see the Kennedy assassination? Fine. But then you’re stuck in Dallas for the next five years.
What historical period (and place), in your opinion, offers the most enticing experiences in one five-year period?
And some sub-rules posted as an addendum:
• No, you can't change your gender, race, age, etc. to accommodate where and you want to travel. Sorry.
• You do not automatically get to be friends/lovers/bandmates etc. with anyone from your chosen era just because you go there. Even if you go to the 60s just to hang out with John Lennon, you have to actually approach him and try to befriend him like a normal person. And if he decides you're a dick and he hates you, you're still stuck there with John Lennon hating you. Sorry.
• You are not immune to getting eaten by a dinosaur or thrown to the lions for being Christian or whatever other peril awaits in your chosen time. But we do presume your knowledge of modern hygiene and medicine will protect you from a lot of the disease problems.
Me? I’m gonna go with London, England from…let’s say 1964-1968. The theatre at that time was astounding. I’d get to catch the original productions of Shaffer’s The Royal Hunt of the Sun, a few of Pinter’s “comedies of menace”, particularly The Homecoming, and pretty much all of Joe Orton’s output. There’d be a chance of running into Diana Rigg at the height of her smoking-ness, and really how could she resist? And I could probably get personally sneered at by Patrick McGoohan if I ran into him in a pub. Plus the Monty Python boys would be kicking around by then, though not as a group yet… Any major cultural centre in the mid-late 60s was probably pretty awesome, plus I’ve always had this irrational love for London. Or, really I guess the concept of London, since I know nothing of the cities themselves. And oh, everybody was dressed so fine…
How ‘bout you guys???
I wanted to post my comment somewhere other than the AVC comment boards, where it would be swallowed into a sea of douchetardery, so I figured I’d put it here and hit up you fine people for your awesome answers.
Here are the rules for Patton Oswalt’s awesome little brain game:
Where and when would you most want to live for five years, restricted to a five-mile radius?
Everyone says things like “Oh man, how cool would it be to be in Dealey Plaza during the JFK assassination, or see The Beatles during one of their Cavern Club concerts, or witness ancient Rome?” Well, what if you were given the chance?
Here are the conditions. You’ve been granted a hypothetical ticket to live, in comfort and coherence, during one five-year time period. Maybe you want to be in New York in Chicago during Prohibition, or Victorian London, or France right before the Revolution. (Or during-no judgments.) You’ll be able to understand and speak the language (if needed), have enough disposable cash to live at leisure, and experience whatever you want, with no need for a job. You’ll have a comfy apartment or house to return to, full period wardrobe, and as much time as you need before making this trip to study up on the period you’ll live in.
But you must stay within a five-mile radius of where/whenever you choose to live. Thus you can’t go see the Kennedy assassination, then go zipping around the world to London to watch the birth of the British Invasion, or New York for the early years of Greenwich Village. Want to see the Kennedy assassination? Fine. But then you’re stuck in Dallas for the next five years.
What historical period (and place), in your opinion, offers the most enticing experiences in one five-year period?
And some sub-rules posted as an addendum:
• No, you can't change your gender, race, age, etc. to accommodate where and you want to travel. Sorry.
• You do not automatically get to be friends/lovers/bandmates etc. with anyone from your chosen era just because you go there. Even if you go to the 60s just to hang out with John Lennon, you have to actually approach him and try to befriend him like a normal person. And if he decides you're a dick and he hates you, you're still stuck there with John Lennon hating you. Sorry.
• You are not immune to getting eaten by a dinosaur or thrown to the lions for being Christian or whatever other peril awaits in your chosen time. But we do presume your knowledge of modern hygiene and medicine will protect you from a lot of the disease problems.
Me? I’m gonna go with London, England from…let’s say 1964-1968. The theatre at that time was astounding. I’d get to catch the original productions of Shaffer’s The Royal Hunt of the Sun, a few of Pinter’s “comedies of menace”, particularly The Homecoming, and pretty much all of Joe Orton’s output. There’d be a chance of running into Diana Rigg at the height of her smoking-ness, and really how could she resist? And I could probably get personally sneered at by Patrick McGoohan if I ran into him in a pub. Plus the Monty Python boys would be kicking around by then, though not as a group yet… Any major cultural centre in the mid-late 60s was probably pretty awesome, plus I’ve always had this irrational love for London. Or, really I guess the concept of London, since I know nothing of the cities themselves. And oh, everybody was dressed so fine…
How ‘bout you guys???