The Way Things Used To Look

I am 59 and I have observed that things move in a circle. Fashions and even ideas circle.

even a downward spiral is in circular motion

But bell bottoms or what now...boot cut?

Even blouses, blazers, everything.

I don't know where these wear-pants-below-the-ass come from. hopefully that will die and go to the fashion graveyard.

ANYWAY...house styles go in and out.

everything. accessories may change but still...

I see a circle; but, then I've lived a few years.


Edit: even the earth is trying to continue to assert the natural cycle (circle) of overall weather and eventual but resulting climate change. If one looks at history (LONG history) it claims that even this global warming is part of a natural cycle.

It is coming back to where the family is a very important aspect of one's life. This was an idea "out of vogue" for a while; but, I see the lure of love and familiar ways and reuniting with family/friends circling back into acceptance if not vogue.

 

Indeed, certain periods of time within history recent enough to be remembered by certain generations who are old enough to remember them have their unique features and charm about them. I won't say any decade is better than any of the others, but they definitely have their advantages and nostalgia worth reflecting back on.

I agree a lot of things looked cooler in the 80s like graphic design from TV ads, basketball jerseys, product box art, music videos, and more. Fashion and hairstyles not so much.

 

The 80's really sucked...

 

Happily it had influences from previous decades :-D

 

Yep! Having been around for seven decades, you see the changes in each but have to consider that your own age also changes in each.

Growing up in the '50s there was a naive middle class aspirations and I had the feeling that I could not afford to live in suburbia on my own. The early '60s found me as a male doing 4years in the military since the draft was still around and there was a war going on as usual.

The late '60s and early '70s I was in my twenties and the Sexual Revolution and Counter-Culture were going strong and I thoroly enjoyed the Free Luv, travel and dope.

By the '80s I was in my thirties and settled into a relationship and became sort of an adult. Even got married, kept steady employment and had a teen kid to supervise.

I guess, as with everything it is all relative to your age and experience with other things that determine a good era.

 

My favorite things in the eighties were carried over from the seventies. The first half of the eighties were definitely a lot more fun than the second half.

Cities decline and improve all the time for all kinds of reasons, not all of them economic.

New York City has never been one of my favorites. Among big cities, I wouldn't rank it in my top ten. So much of it looks alike; quite generic, except for lower Manhattan and Central Park.

Here's some North Carolina cities that are better than they've ever been before: Raleigh, Winston-Salem, Salisbury, Wilmington, Mooresville.

Virginia: Alexandria, Roanoke, Winchester. Richmond is the ultimate architectural train wreck, but the nightlife is not bad.

NC cities well past their prime: Charlotte, Greensboro, Durham, Chapel Hill. Asheville has become a victim of its own success, with inflated prices and overcrowding being its worst problems.

 

I think a big problem with the modern city is the lack of affordable housing which leads to a lack of diversity, and diversity in culture, ethnicity, and income, is really what makes a city interesting. Manhattan, as mentioned in the OP, is a great example of this - it is essentially a playground for the rich , who the fuck else can afford to live there nowadays? Whereas the other boroughs that have retained their diversity probably closer resemble what Manhattan looked like 30 years ago.

This is my biggest frustration with my own city - it is very quaint and pleasing to the eye, but anyone who would actually be able to bring a cool factor to it and make it interesting can't afford to live within city limits.

 

It doesn't matter where I go in the world, to me, every city is the same. But I can't say I've notice it drastically change too much other than more and more advertising and more and more run down areas. I look at some cities and wonder how certain building are even standing or to do a renovation, how that must bring entire areas to a stand still.

I think my heart belongs in a time 1300 years ago, but I actually like this modern era. Though I don't like cities, they give an opportunity for a girl like me to basically do whatever I want. There's really nothing I cannot do, and that's a good life for me. I'd hate to be living 40 years ago and having to deal with some "women can't do that" rubbish.

As for the looks, it is starting to look a lot more plastic and alluminium. But we've complaining that they don't make it like they used to since I was born, so I'm not sure that's going to get any better. All I can say is my Tonka trucks were steel beasts. My matchbox cars were also steel. I shake my head at toys these days, they're terrible. The guns are boring, they're dorky space things with lame laser noises. Kid across street got a little motorbike for Xmas. Right on! I'm sure that'll start to annoy me in a few days but for now it takes me back to a time not all that different than I remember. And through all the changes for good or for worse, somethings just don't change.

 

I also prefer the look and feel of older cities. And prefer to emerge myself in how they developed instead of focussing on the architecture of the last few decades. I prefer wooden window frames above plastic ones anyday, I don't give a shit how convenient the latter are... But yeah, where it comes to living I can't say I appreciate the modern city for all it has to offer And even can appreciate how they look. As a kid I used to shit on any modern building (not literally). I now look with a less convicting mind and have to say overall cities did not got worse here since the 80's. On the contrary. But my fav cities are my favs basically because they managed to keep that original atmosphere and look from far before the 80's

I think I had one of those 25 years ago as well. Shitty plastic toys were basically invented in the 80's

 

I remember look a like ak57 and m16. They may have had big orange noses though and of course the 6-12 cap steel six shooters. And I remember like Rambo kits at the fairs and show bags had the real beretta style slide the top of gun back to lock and load darts.

Now it's all nerf lameness.

 

I remember the ak like toy guns as well, and also the revolver/six shooter toy guns of course. But I think those kind of toy guns are still available as well? I know some toy guns, or rather replicas of real guns were taken out of the stores because they looked too much like real guns and were used in robberies and to intimidate people.

As a kid I always tried to remove those red and orange buttons from the barrel :-D (cared about realistic details )

 

There were some good Grateful Dead shows in the 80's too.

 

I think most of the way things look though is the way we perceive things when we're young. Once you get to be 30+ I don't think things seem as new anymore.

 

the more people there are, and the more focused they are on symbolic value instead of the surrounding they create for everyone, of course the less gratifying they're going to look.
most of what we build is no improvement on what nature put there before we did.
but we can build in ways that detract from it least. we seldom do, but we could.
i like the way some kinds of infrastructure look. and the stranger structures look, the more they look like something that belongs there.
but big is not an attraction to me. so cities, sometimes you can find one or two odd little corners in them that look ok,
but mostly, over time, i don't think they look better or worse. they just almost never look that good at all.

if we used intellegently the technologies we now have, we wouldn't need most cities at all.
a spaceport, a university, a government center, cities might grow up around these,
but there's really no other point in there being cities at all.

one thing that makes cities look bad is the automobile, that really doesn't belong in them at all.
but they did find ways of being ugly before it was common there too.
when they did have more reason to exist because we didn't have the infrastructure technologies we have now.

 

Germany before the world wars in color

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-m9A8mY-U0

 

there has never been a time nor place, to my knowledge, where things that looked wonderful, or at least interesting, did not exist, side by side, with things that looked like crap.
and certainly we do not live in one now. though we do live in one, where people who call themselves conservative, are the first to destroy anything that looks odd or interesting.

(sure different things look wonderful and different things look like crap to different people, but there still hasn't been a time when there hasn't been both. nor will there likely ever be. maybe before there were humans? but even that is a maybe. even cats have an aesthetic sense, and maybe giant lizards did too.)

 

"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times..." -- Charles Dickens, first page of A Tale of Two Cities

 

yes. all of them.

 

looks like crap to me. for that era, visually at least, i would prefer china, japan or france. or of course switzerland in almost any era.
conspicuous epicness, just tends, to me, to look like crap generally. all those giant ugly buildings with gratuitously mundane rectangularity.

now early developments in transportation infrastructure, those were interesting. and what was to become germany, was, after britain, one of the early leaders of that.

 

Healthy white teeth are a sure sign of a decline in individuality :-D