This prompt asks you to peruse the internets to find the biggest news story from the year you were born, and how it would have shaped your life.
Top of the list: Nixon in China (Spurs minimalist opera: Nixon in China), Britain assumes direct control of N. Ireland (Sunday, Bloody Sunday), Nixon (again) orders the Christmas Bombings (lots of protest songs), Black September seizes the Olympic Games in Munchen (couple of movies, no music springs to mind), George Wallace is shot (great song by DBT), 1st scientific hand-held calculator (HP-35) introduced $395 (Operator of my Calculator, Kraftwerk?), Neil Young releases Harvest (cool), French Connection is in theaters, HBO is broadcast for the first time, Apollo XVII lands on the moon, our last moon landing, caftans and denim are de rigueur and all over the damn place, first video game, pong, is released, Joy of Sex is published, Deep Throat penetrates the masses.
What a year. One of the best ever, no doubt. End of the Viet Nam war for America, so the war image in film and music has had a big influence on my development and outlook. Lots of great pop culture. Think about it. The first ever commercial video game is released. I wonder how many total hours I’ve spent playing games. I mean just pop culture alone. The introduction of a porn movie to mainstream audiences is such a shift in culture. How little any of them would have known where we would be 46 years later with the pornification of culture.
I really like the meme that has a picture of an iPhone with a caption reading something about your parents telling you you would never have a calculator in your pocket in real life. A $395 dollar calculator would have made a good case for that attitude back then. It’s really difficult to see where things will go when you only have one level of technology in the palm of your hand. I can see how they could never have predicted what tech development is capable of.
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