Every era has its fascinations, zeigeists that intrigue and often confuse. The most complex or enigmatic of these will persist in popular interest as the ages progress, placing time’s most enduring allurements in fraternity with today’s spurious obsessions.
And therefore we see our fellow man searching for an explanation for the defining strengths of our great nation (or is it?), da Vinci’s beguiling brunette and the whole of Christianity, while also probing the cloud for explanations of the buzziest of current concerns: Facebook, Twitter and Twilight, for instance.
Will Avatar be our generation’s Mona Lisa? When time o
bscures the context in which the movie represents a monumental step forward for technology and industry, will Googlers of Christmas Future wonder what so ensnared the collective imagination? Will James Cameron’s perplexing smirk make the coming generations wonder what he knows that they don’t? Or will they be too busy downloading pictures of Robert Pattinson to care?
I’m willing to wager, in any event, that Windows 7 will be long-replaced, BluRay gone the way of the laser disc, Twitter and Faceboook reduced to prominent points on an internet time line. And the iPhone will probably be made in America — a great place for cheap labor and manufacturing outsourcing — and shipped to China.
No Happy Medium 