"Why do white people love music that black people have abandoned a long time ago?"

This was overheard last night during a particularly spirited karaoke rendention of Baby Got Back.  Feel free to ponder that one for a while.

It's readers like Kenzie who help keep us on our toes. If it weren't for Kenzie, we would have missed this fantastic story out of the UK about the theft of an entire roadside cabin. In the states, our thieves have the gumption for easy crimes like cash register and bank robberies. They'd never think of stealing a whole building. The British, it would seem, have the perseverance to go beyond the expected and the easy. Still, you'd assume it'd be easy to spot a full-size cabin sitting in someone's garden.

"Nostalgia: It's delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek nostalgia literally means 'the pain from an old wound.' It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again."
Don Draper

There are a few bucks in my pocket. I'd be willing to wager all those Benjamins... okay, fine Hamiltons, that more than a few of you suffer from one of my afflictions. That of a fascination with and love of the past. World history, dusty museums, scratchy heartfelt music, black and white films, weathered and rusty relics, Billy the Kid, Humphrey Bogart.

There is a power in the parts of culture that live on, no matter how long it has been. Mozart isn't going anywhere. Neither is Muddy Waters. In nature, species evolve because they can adapt and grow. With history, art and culture, the opposite happens. We adapt to them. The past stays the same. It is constant. That's why we love it.

This is the reason why we're mad for Mad Men. That amazing bit of television inspires so much passion because it perfectly shows a piece of the past. Like a wooly mammoth preserved in ice. Same with Happy Days in the 70's. The public longed for a "simpler time" when the jukebox turned on when you smacked it. That doesn't really happen anymore.

However, over the last few months, there has been a few news stories that have caused me to reevaluate my romanticism of the 40's, 50's and 60's. A handful of annoying sex scandals, some D-list personalities that somehow keep finding a microphone and that damn runaway Jiffy Pop balloon.

Perhaps I don't have this quite right.

So you think you can robot dance?
If this is the future of robot/toy technology, we are all doomed. Doomed to a life of awesome toy dance programs!

Go Manoi! Go Manoi! Go Manoi!

Thanks Jeff W. for the link. More on the robots at ROBOT blog.

If you see something you like and want to promote email Baierman