"Old men must die; or the world would grow moldy, would only breed the past again."

^Alfred Lord Tennyson

Because I need to add more pictures to my blogs. And because this post could use a little lightness. And because this picture is amazing. My family is awesome. I can't wait to meet the little girl in my sister's belly!
Photo by James Martin

I hate the word "Nowadays."

As in, "Nowadays, kids don't know how to treat people with respect."

"Nowadays, nobody knows how to write proper English."

"Nowadays, movies just aren't as good as they used to be."

"Nowadays." It's always used with the most negative connotation, always to talk about what's wrong with today's society.

What frustrates me about this is that nobody seems to think that there's anything good about the world we live in now. It's always, "My world was so much better."

Well, you know what? Too bad. The world isn't the same as it used to be. Was your world really that much better, or do you just think it was because it was yours?

People have had the same complaints about the state of the world since... well, since there were young people to complain about. Every new development, going back as far as people, sparks the exact same complaints: no one knows how to communicate with each other anymore; we're forgetting the old ways of doing things; this technology will make children stupid; etc., etc., etc. We've seen it all before. Just read some old reviews of the Internet, the television, the radio, the telephone, the telegraph, the printing press. They'll all look familiar to you.

What people seem to forget is that the world that they grew up in was different from the world their parents grew up in, and their parents, and their parents. And their parents complained about the same things then. Society gets used to things when they've been around for a while, so what was once revolutionary and controversial becomes everyday, in as little as a generation.

In effect, if you resist these kinds of changes for long enough, you end up looking like an idiot. You can't be a true purist, because if you were you'd be living in a cave speaking a language nobody understands. The world you think was so perfect was someone else's "nowadays."

A lot of people complain about the way that technology, especially mobile technology, makes us incapable of having real conversations with people. Nobody smiles at other people on the street. Strangers don't strike up conversation. The thing is, though, it's not the technology.

Let's use me as an example. I'm a very introverted and awkward person, so the chances of me starting a conversation with you are basically nil, unless I know you, and even then it's not guaranteed. It's not the technology that's making me incapable of talking to people, it's the fact that I'm just generally incapable of talking to people. Not everyone likes chit chat. The technology has nothing to do with it.

From another angle, there's this weird thing that floats around the Internet a lot: "You're not a real '90s kid!" "This is for real '90s kids only!" "Only real '90s kids will understand!" Well, if you are a real '90s kid, do you really remember the '90s? I was born in 1993, which by Internet standards makes me a "real" '90s kid. I barely remember the '90s. You don't own the '90s because you happened to be born during that decade. Our parents and our older siblings "own" the '90s more than we do.

Just because you miss something about the way your world used to be doesn't mean that the new way of doing things is worse. Yes, I think the shows I used to watch when I was little were amazing, way better than the shows kids are watching now. But they probably weren't actually better. I just think they were better because I watched them. I think they were better because I'm nostalgic. When kids now are my age, they'll have the same complaints about the shows that "kids nowadays are watching." The only reason you feel this way is because you're nostalgic and think that anything that wasn't a part of your childhood is crap.

Which is crap.

I think we have this ridiculous tendency to romanticize the past way beyond what it's worth. We have this idea that, somehow, everything was better way back when: that everyone knew how to write "proper" English, that the world was safer, that movies were better, that the world wasn't so obsessed with sex. All of these things are flat-out false. Literacy rates are higher now than they ever have been. Today's English isn't bad English, it's different English. Crime rates are the lowest they ever have been. Ever. It's true that there were a ton of really great movies decades ago, but there were also an equal number of dreadful ones, and saying that only old movies are good is completely undermining the fantastic work that so many current filmmakers are doing. And sex has always been everywhere. Just check out this Ancient Greek graffiti.

Bottom line is, the world has to change. To think it doesn't is, quite frankly, stupid, and I'll go so far as to say that it's harmful. If an animal doesn't adapt, it dies. If a language doesn't adapt, it dies. If a society doesn't adapt, it dies. Innovation is what makes humans special. To feel that you need to deprive humans of that very thing that makes us a special, successful species just because you don't like it is extremely counter-intuitive and selfish. Maybe you don't like it, but just let the world move on. It's not your world to hold onto.

Appreciate the present and anticipate the future!
~Snooty Crumb

“All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it.”

^Samuel Butler
This is the obligatory New Year post.

Let me start the post with a disclaimer that I am very sleep deprived at this particular moment because I was up until 4:30 this morning having a learly-norning (late-night/early-morning) deep conversation with a friend--as one does at the New Year, obviously. So I apologize in advance for anything weird. Like Learly-Norning.

I don't know, I kind of like that one.

Anyway, the obligatory New Year post must contain the obligatory look back on the past year. Still being a student, time for me is segmented into semesters. I have a really hard time imagining a year as an uninterrupted series of 12 months, so thinking back on 2013 requires a bit of a stretch on the mind. When I think first of 2013, I think, "Wow, this year couldn't have ended fast enough." This most recent semester was extremely difficult, both personally and academically.

But then I remember that the Fall semester wasn't the whole year (boy, did it feel like it), and I remember that it wasn't even close to being all bad.

I lived in London for a month and a half, for one thing. I took a few really cool classes. I made a documentary. I wrote a screenplay. I won free movie tickets. I found out that I can graduate a semester early.

I learned a lot about a lot of things: about science and language and history and television, but also about myself and about other people. 2013 was a year of self-assessment.

That said, I still can't say I'm too sorry to see 2013 go. Exciting things are coming in 2014, some that I'm expecting, and hopefully some that I'm not. And there are some things I discovered during my 2013 self-assessment that now I can take the next year (and beyond) to work on.

This time next year, I'll be done with school. I'll be an aunt. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll have a job in my sights. Everything will be different, which is both hugely exciting and unbelievably terrifying. So I guess for me, 2014 is kind of the last year of my life as I know it. How strange.

Thanks for a good year, world. Here's to the next one.

Happy New Year,
~ Snooty Crumb

"By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show."

^Samuel Johnson
I don't really even know where to start. I just got back from living in London for a month and a half, and there are so many things to say about it that I'm not sure how to say them.

I've wanted to go to London for as long as I can remember, mostly because a ton of my favorite things from throughout my life are based there. But I was completely unprepared for how much I would actually find there. I am blown away by how much of my life I found in a place I'd never even been.

I sat on the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral, where the bird woman sat in Mary Poppins. I lived just down the street from the church where Beatrix Potter got married. I went shopping on Portobello Road, just like Angela Lansbury in Bedknobs & Broomsticks. I walked on the street where Elton John, Jimi Hendrix, and Jimmy Page lived and worked. I took a train out of Paddington Station, home of Paddington Bear. I saw George Orwell's house. I took a picture at Abbey Road on the 44th anniversary of The Beatles's famous photo. And I stood on the place where the piano played by Elton John, Freddie Mercury, Harry Nilsson, Supertramp, and Paul McCartney stood, on the 45th anniversary of the recording of "Hey Jude."

And that's just the pop culture. The incredible amount of history alone could fill hundreds of posts. I mean, I attended an Evensong service at Westminster Abbey, an 800-year-old building where every monarch since William the Conqueror has been coronated. I could go on for ages about the amazing footsteps in which I walked during my time in London.

I think the most remarkable thing about the trip, though--and forgive me for being hideously cliche--is the people I got to meet and get to know. I don't make friends easily. I get anxious about meeting a lot of new people at once. I don't often have very much in common with my peers, and I admit I was worried about not getting along with the other people in my group. I have never been so happy to be wrong.

The 26 people in this group were some of the most wonderful people I've had the pleasure of spending 6 weeks with, especially my lovely roommates. I was a little worried about having three roommates, but it ended up being the best thing that could have happened. The three of them were immediately warm and welcoming, and I couldn't have been happier with the way things turned out. Thanks, guys.

What was amazing about the whole thing was that most of us would never have hung out with each other in any other context, but finding ourselves in the same situation as newcomers to a huge city broke any barriers we may have otherwise had. And I think all of us came away much more open-minded about people we might be hesitant to want to talk to. At least I did.

The greatest group in the most fitting Tube Station

I learned so much over the last month and a half, not just about media and history and culture, but about myself and about other people. Perhaps the most important thing, though, is that there's no way I can not go back to London. And I know I'll make it back someday. (I can has visa?)

Now that I'm home, all that remains is to shake this jet lag and try to feel less sad about not being in London anymore. Well, maybe the first one.

P.S. The Teddy you see in the picture of St. Paul's has a Tumblr! Follow him at http://teddydoesthings.tumblr.com/

"Put on Your Red Shoes and Dance the Blues"

I had never really thought about just how influential British music was to American music. I was brought up listening to '70s prog rock--Pink Floyd, Yes, Moody Blues, Cream, all the good ones--and both of my sisters have always been really into Bowie, but I never really thought much about the importance of any of it. I just always thought it was cool music to listen to.

Of course I knew about the British Invasion, but that always just meant The Beatles to me. The '60s, to me, always seemed to belong to America. Apparently, though, the British music scene was where it all really came from in the '60s and '70s.

The British Music Experience was a really interesting way to put my life-long history of listening to British music into perspective. Having everything compiled in one place like that was astounding, just because there was so much influence there in that one compact space. With everything in chronological order it was easy to see how each band, each sound, influenced the next, and the next, and so on, into the future.

It was kind of surprising to see which bands were shown more than others. I was very surprised how little Pink Floyd there was, because I had always thought that they were one of the more influential bands of the time and even of today. I don't remember seeing any Pink Floyd artifacts at all; they were only shown on videos or on the big wall at the ends of the rooms. There was also very little about Elton John, which surprised me, because of his popularity, for one thing, and because of how important he was to piano rock/pop, which wasn't really a thing until Elton John came along. Despite that, though, it was absolutely amazing to see so much influence all contained in that space.

I went to the Bowie exhibit at the Victoria & Albert, too. Again, Bowie was always music that I had listened to growing up and it wasn't ever that significant to me. From what I understand, though, Bowie is much bigger here in the UK than in the US. I don't know how influential he was to American pop through the '70s, but, especially highlighted by the V&A exhibit, it's obvious that there are few individuals in British music history as important as David Bowie. He did things that no one had ever seen before, and he made it okay for other people to do the same.

In Every Blog, There is a Post That Goes Like This

^This makes sense if you've seen Spamalot. Which you should do.
I grew up watching Monty Python. I loved the hilarious ridiculousness of it. But it wasn’t until I took a class called “The Films of Terry Gilliam” last semester (I know. Be jealous) that I really understood the significance of Python and what they set out to do.

Python is always kind of what I think of when people talk about “English humor.” I guess even here it’s a little more of a niche thing than entirely popular culture, but I think the irreverence of it is quintessentially English. A lot of new movements came from the anti-establishment sentiments of Python, and, especially in a place that is so astoundingly old, it made it okay to make fun of…well, everything. Gilliam’s animations—taking classics like the Mona Lisa and the Statue of David and cutting them apart and making them do stupid things—made sure that nothing was sacred anymore, not even God. I think Americans are a lot of times too afraid to offend anyone to really catch onto humor like that in Monty Python, and I think that’s the one of the biggest differences between us and the UK and also why Monty Python is popular with a smaller, cult crowd in the States. I think the fact that there is so much history here is why the English are okay with making fun of it. It’s nothing to them that a building is 800 years old. I guess Americans still feel that they have to prove themselves, because we’re relatively new on the block, while the English are long established and can just sit back and revel in that.

Okay. To the point. Finally. I had always wanted to see Spamalot, and it seemed perfect that we were going to see it, having grown up believing in its English-ness.

I certainly wasn’t disappointed. I loved it. What made it so wonderful was the fact that turning it into a musical gave Eric Idle a whole new layer of societal norms to make fun of. There are new cultural things that couldn’t have been taken on in the movie because of the format and the time period. Musicals just can’t be left alone—there are so many things to latch onto with them. I was a little hesitant just because it’s so hard to beat the original cast members, but once Eric Idle appeared as God it was made for me. I mean, Eric Idle is like Monty Python God, and he wrote the play, so it was just too perfect. The play was so current, too; I imagine that the song with all the pop culture references is constantly rewritten to keep up, which is very smart.

I loved when the actors broke character and the fourth wall, because it really continued the tradition of tearing things apart. In any other circumstance it would be very unprofessional, but when Python does it it makes a fantastic statement about the structure of musicals and how we so willingly suspend our disbelief over these silly, formulaic shows. The songs, the dancing, the sets, the lights, are always the same, and it takes something like Monty Python to so publicly point it out. The movie poked fun at musicals a little bit with the scene with the Prince who just wanted to sing, but Spamalot did it to the point that it was overdone, which was on purpose, of course, and was perfect.

It was interesting watching the show with other Americans, especially Americans who may not have seen or liked Monty Python. A few people I talked to before the show didn’t really want to go and weren’t particularly excited about it, but the impression I got afterward was that everyone seemed to really like it. Even if people don’t get the deeper anti-establishment meaning they can still enjoy the silliness.

"Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul."

^Samuel Ullman
Guys, I'm Twenty. Venti. Zwanzig. Vignt. And all the other languages that have a word for twenty.

I'M SO OLD.

Please don't give me that But-I'm-X-years-older-than-you-you-are-so-not-old thing. I know that 20 isn't old at all. But it feels old. It's weird to be 20. There's no more "teen" in my age, which implies real adulthood.

Which is absolutely terrifying.

I found that as I got closer to turning 20 I was (and still am) caught in this weird contradictory place between nostalgia and anticipation. On one hand, I want time to stop, go backwards, even, so I can keep being a kid. But on the other hand, I am so terribly excited for what is to come in my future.

As a whole, I'm proud of where I've come as a person in my twenty years. And I think the last couple of years have made a huge difference. The year between graduating from high school and starting sophomore year in college is evidently the most important year for these kinds of things, because when I started sophomore year and watched the new freshmen coming in, it made me wonder, "Was I like that a year ago??" I find I'm more compassionate, more understanding, more well-rounded, generally more mature than I was just two years ago. I've still got loads of work to do, but, hey, so does everyone.

I guess that's all I have to say about it. Just that it's weird. I don't know if this is a thing that happens every decade, but for now I think I can safely say that 20 is the strangest birthday to date.

I have two decades of amazing things behind me. I can't wait to see what kinds of things are ahead.

~Snooty Crumb

I went to Belgium for my birthday. This was my first taste, and it just kept getting cooler.

"First impressions are often the truest"

^William Hazlitt
First impressions are weird things. Some people say there's nothing more important, some people say they should never be trusted. As for me, I usually find that my first impressions are reasonably accurate, but I'm not sure I've made up my mind. Surprising, I know.

My first impressions of the United Kingdom came on the airplane, I suppose, where my brain made up its mind about what I would find on the ground the other side of the Atlantic. I should have been sleeping, of course, but you know how plane sleep is. I hunched myself into a semi-comfortable position with my head on the tray table while the lady in front of me repeatedly sat roughly back into her seat, smashing the tray lock into my skull. Comfy. I let my thoughts of tea and rain join with the turbulence in lulling (maybe "lulling" isn't the right word. More like "I-didn't-have-much-choice-but-to-go-with-it-ing") me into awkward plane sleep.

How right was I? I guess I could be considered something of an Anglophile. I suppose I know a fair bit more about England than the average American. So I guess this is the time I get to find out, once and for all, whether all those things I've seen on TV my entire life are actually what Americans (or TV Brits) say they are.

Here's a list of interesting things I've run into since the plane hit the ground a week and a half ago. Oh, a list. I'm just full of surprises today.

• I am SO excited to find out that people actually do say "Cheers" and that Scottish people actually say "wee." I was entirely convinced that we had just made that up in the US.
• What on earth is the deal with having 800 doors to everything? It's a good thing I'm not claustrophobic is all I have to say.
• The Tube is pretty awesome. And they do actually say "Mind the Gap."
• British coins are confusing. I hate to be that person who's like, "I don't understand the money!" But really. Why are 10p coins so enormous?
• Apparently the UK has yet to figure out plumbing.
• Another astoundingly American observation: IT'S SO OLD. Seriously. I already made this discovery in other continental countries, but I'm living in the middle of a city that was started 1000 years ago. I mean, really, I have a hard time even imagining that much time passing consecutively. It's insane. 17th century is new here, instead of being the absolute oldest thing possible like in the US.
• Scooters are totally a thing here. Especially little plastic ones for little kids.
• Wine Gums. They are candies labelled with different kinds of wine. They're candies. Of wine.
• TV is definitely not a central thing here. There's pretty much nothing on most of the time except news, particularly during the afternoon. A lot of channels (even BBC4!) don't have anything on them until certain times of the day.
• The drinking schedule makes a lot more sense here. Start drinking early, after work, and then everything's closed by 11. Normal nights' sleep, right? I'm not much of a drinker, but the pub life is wonderful. Bumming with friends (or friendly strangers, maybe) over a pint at 8pm is way better to my mind than doing shots and getting sloshed at 1 in the morning.

Maybe this list turned into something more of a "things I noticed" than first impressions. But you know what? It's not that important, is it?

Cheers!

~Snooty Crumb

P.S. I have to write blogs (or make vlogs) for class, so if I end up writing some of them, they'll be here. Feel free to read them if you'd like.