LHS
Friday, March 17, 2017
A Nostalgic Voice from 1991...
I was watching a video yesterday that I had taken 26 years ago in March 1991, when an old acquaintance appeared on the screen who was talking to me - to the me holding the video camera in 1991 that is - and then suddenly, time-machine-like - to the me in 2017.
Although I hadn't thought about her, or recalled her voice for at least two decades, hearing her voice again (while watching her face as she spoke) immediately took me back to that moment in 1991.
A photograph can bring back a lot of memories, but a video with stereo sound is so much more! It's truly amazing how sounds, not unlike smells, can take you back in an instant, even after not being experienced for quite a long while.
Back in 2007, when I first began looking back at 1990-93 via Video Time Machine, that power of sound to be seemingly forgotten but instantly recalled when heard again was quite striking and surprising. After ten years of looking back though, I’ve become fairly used to the phenomenon of old sounds returning so clearly, so that alone wouldn’t have prompted me to be writing now.
What made meeting that 1991 person via Video Time Machine again a truly emotional experience, was the way she talked to me. You know how it is with most people you interact with - you have different conversations, sometimes feeling friendly towards them, sometimes irritated, etc., but generally there's some kind of barrier between you. So when you meet the rare person who talks to you open-heartedly, without that barrier, it's such a great thing - and such a nostalgic / melancholy thing when there’s a time machine in the middle conveying it, but you can’t go back....
That moment... that voice... those open-hearted words and friendly face... a 26-year barrier... the ravages of time... the more worrisome era that 2017 is.... etc. etc. etc.....
LHS
LHS
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2 comments:
I know this sensation. The other day, I was looking through some of my old books at my mothers place. She was cooking downstairs. I opened one book to a page I'd marked a long time ago. Suddenly a combination of smells, what I was reading, even the piece of magazine that I'd ripped to use as a bookmark; all of these elements came together and I was transported completely back to that time, why I'd wanted to remember that passage in the book - everything. A very profound experience. And proof that time travel already exists in a way, if you can combine the disparate parts of a moment into a wholly new vision.
I follow your work on Youtube, thanks for the videos!
Thanks for commenting (and watching). It really is amazing how quickly one can be taken back...
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