If you were to travel back in time forty years and tell people “Astronauts will be the mailmen of the twenty-first century”, those primitive folks would take it to mean something very different than the sophisticated people of today would.
Viewing the present through the past
The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://natstv.wordpress.com/2007/02/14/viewing-the-present-through-the-past/trackback/
OK. Perhaps it’s me (it seems it usually is), but I frankly just don’t understand this post. If there’s a pop culture reference you’re riffing on (a “rifference?”) I just don’t get it. Or maybe there’s a more specific point I’m missing. Does it have anything to do with the Lisa Nowak NASA love triangle incident? (Which I know of, but am not that familiar with other than some of the late night jokes.)
Could you perhaps spell it out a bit more for your more “challenged” readers like myself? Thanks.
Also, nothing to do with this post, but I just stumbled across an old blog entry here (January, 2006) which notes some similarity between Veronica Mars and a movie called Brick (which I’ve never seen). Have you? And, if so, is there anything to what the blogger says? Just curious.
The gag actually would have worked better if I’d said “postal workers” rather than “mailmen”, but yes… my point was that 40 years ago, the statement would have been seen as “in the future, being a space traveler will be a mundane but necessary job”, whereas now, the statement would be seen as “astronauts are dangerously crazy”.
There’s nothing like doing subtitles for jokes!
I know of Brick, meant to see it at some point, but haven’t.
Thanks for the clarification. Now I get it (in a “going postal” context) since I do seem to recall there were some love letters involved somehow. Although to be honest I’ve paid minimal attention to the incident so even if you had used the alternate phrasing I think it likely still would have sailed over my head. It’s not the first time I’ve been uninformed over current events/pop culture and it won’t be the last. It’s a wonder I’m not going bald from the frequent head scratching.
(And people often don’t get my jokes either.)