The Future And You
I was cruising around this afternoon downtown with Marika, and she wanted to check out this antique store down by lulus. After I tuned a spanish guitar that was for sale and while she looked around, I found a rack of old Life magazines, from 1945 to the early 1990's. I found the above issue buried above an issue about the death of Douglas MacArthur, and immediately decided to purchase it ($6), not only because the cover was hilariously tacky/awesome and I wanted to frame it, but because I wanted to see what the article said was to be expected from the year 2000.
Man, people who could read Life magazine in 1989 must be so disappointed with the new millenium. 6 years into it and we don't even have the "dashboard car microwaves" for "vacuum sealed tuna melts for the everyday communter," "extraterrestrial neighbors," or my personal favorite, "birth without women." It kind of makes me sad, because from now on whenever I'll read Popular Science or anything like that about jet cars, anti-gravity boots and womenless birthing chambers and what year it should be feasible, I'll be totally skeptical when usually it would put a spring in my step. It kind of puts life into perspective: a whole bunch of failed expectations.