Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1954
A Popular Science writer spends ten days without technologies more recent than 50 years old.
When friends heard about my foray into the simple life, they were evenly split as to whether the lack of e-mail or cellphone would break me first. Both camps were wrong: It’s the bad coffee that’s killing me. “In 1954, most home coffee drinkers in the U.S. used electric percolators,” explains Gregory Dicum, author with Nina Luttinger of The Coffee Book: Anatomy of an Industry from Crop to the Last Drop, when I called him for input. “And make sure you brew it weakly,” he instructs. “You should be able to see your spoon all the way to the bottom of a ’50s-style coffee cup.”
Chock full of fun info like how Prohibition killed rye and how Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road.
(Via Boing Boing)
Good thing I drink tea....
A few years ago I began to wonder why I could no longer bear to watch those old "I Love Lucy" reruns that I'd seen since I was a tot. I theorized that I was fed up by the outmoded technological situations that made those goofy plots spin: Like how Lucy couldn't get ahold of Ricky to let him know that Charles Boyer was coming over, and wackiness ensues--whereas today, Ricky would certainly be reachable by cellphone, thus killing the wackiness.
Then I realized that the real reason was probably that I'd seen every episode about a hundred times, and was simply sick of it.
Posted by CT on August 6 2004 11:29
What would have annoyed me most about 50-year-old technologies would be the lack of a microwave oven, and the inconvenience of cooking meals for one person. It can be done (I had to deal with that situation as recently as 1993), but it's annoying to have to cook from scratch every night instead of making a double or triple portion one night, and microwaving it the next day or two.
I could adjust to life without the Internet. I'd get a lot more reading done. And without being able to play Civilization on a computer, perhaps I'd use that time to design (non-computer) games of my own.
But one thing still makes me worry: I have absolutely no clue what I'd do for a living without modern technology. Every job I've held since college has been based on computers. One could have made a living in the computer field in 1954. But go ten or twenty years further back and I have no idea what kind of work I'd do.
Posted by Jimcat on August 6 2004 11:59
It's a little harder, Jimcat, but many things can be reheated on the stove or in the oven if you add a little water. The spousal unit did this for two years before the microwave and I moved out to join him. Also, they learned to do different kind of leftovers then -- keeping bit ends for stock or casseroles or sandwiches. All the times in old movies where people are making themselves midnight snack sandwiches, it's mostly because there are leftover baked meats that make decent sandwich fixin's and need to get eaten before they go bad. This doesn't translate very well into modern taste and vegetarian cooking with the sandwiches, but I have a vegetarian friend in the Bay Area who lives alone and eats leftovers at least two nights out of three and has no microwave. (He curries various substances a lot.)
Posted by Mris on August 8 2004 05:45
=v= Surely one could use a 1954-era espresso machine? Or is part of the deal the idea that nobody outside of, say, Italy or Little Italy (or Beatnik coffeehouses) would know what one was?
Posted by Jym on August 11 2004 14:46
The idea seems to have been more use tech commonly available in mainstream America than strictly use tech that existed, Jym.
And until Pocahontas and I bought our house and shacked up, Jimcat, I went several years without a microwave, and was still a leftover frequent flier. Frying pans and toaster ovens are very versatile.
Posted by Zed on August 13 2004 12:21