MEMORIAL DAY | ALBANY - N. ADAMS, MA
Monday, May 25, 2009
Traveling with Bob (Durlak) and Lillian (Mulero) to
North Adams, MA to visit MASSMOCA - in particular to
see Guy Ben-Ner's video installations, which the New
York Times Friday ARTS section featured among their
what-to-do-this-weekend picks.
Lillian says, "Memorial Day is not what it used to be."
"What do you mean?" asks Bob.
"Well, it's not really about WWI, or II, or even Vietnam
anymore. They're too far back in history. Now, it's about
celebrating the preservation of our own memories."
"Maybe," I suggest, "they should rename it Alzheimer's Day."
"Good idea," they reply in unison. Bob goes on to suggest that
we are a privledged generation, probably the first in history to have
our nearly complete memory banks preserved in amber on the web.
Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, blogs, email logs, credit history,
medical records, school records, IRS and SS records, IM's, phone
voice mails, Skype calls, supermarket/mall/bank/convenience
store/gas station/and a hundred other surveillance camera records stored,
archived, and instantly accessible. Nothing will be lost of our generation
and each of us should be able to google-up whatever we need, whenever
we want it.