{"id":80739,"date":"2014-12-11T16:16:51","date_gmt":"2014-12-11T21:16:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=80739"},"modified":"2014-12-11T17:19:16","modified_gmt":"2014-12-11T22:19:16","slug":"time-bandits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/11\/time-bandits\/","title":{"rendered":"Time Bandits"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The New York Historical Society\u2019s underwhelming time capsule. Photo: New York Historical Society<\/p><\/div>\n

If you enter the New York Historical Society by its Seventy-Seventh Street side entrance, you\u2019ll see before you a smallish chest: a time capsule, the plaque explains, created in 1914 by the Lower Wall Street Business Men\u2019s Association. It was supposed to have been opened in 1974, but everyone forgot about it, so the powers that be decided to wait until this year, the\u00a0400th anniversary of the New Netherland charter. In October, they opened it, and the results proved so generally underwhelming and dry\u2014some newspapers, some charters, a few catalogs\u2014that\u00a0the New York Historical Society was inspired to make a better one.<\/p>\n

To ensure that Capsule 2114 would be more hep and happenin\u2019, the society asked high school students to contribute items. These include smartphones, e-readers, a Lady Gaga concert ticket, and a T-shirt that reads, SOME DUDES MARRY DUDES, GET OVER IT<\/small>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The problem with any contemporary time capsule is that so much of what\u2019s truly reflective of our culture is ephemeral, and in the literal sense. For instance, any real memorial to the second decade of this century would need to include Someecards<\/a>. Described by Wired<\/em> as \u201cthe Hallmark of the web<\/a>,\u201d this wildly popular company combines old-time stock images with cheeky, deadpan captions to create commentary for basically any event in modern life. Belated birthday? Cynical Valentine? Pregnancy scare? Someecards has had you covered for the past five years. As the founder told Wired<\/em><\/a>, \u201cWe like to play off the minutiae of life and call attention to it in a funny way. When you\u2019re being honest, stuff comes out that people usually don\u2019t talk about because it\u2019s dark, dirty, or inappropriate.\u201d <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all gotten them, and many of us\u00a0have used them. Recently, I created my first: a seventies-looking couple juxtaposed with the caption \u201cI mean, Christ (is born).\u201d I categorized it under \u201cChristmas.\u201d So far it has failed to become one of the site\u2019s most popular offerings.<\/p>\n

When a friend successfully defended his dissertation last week, I hied to the \u201cCongratulations\u201d section of the site to send him some free, pre-fab acknowledgment of his accomplishment. Someecards did not disappoint. Or, at any rate, they had plenty of topical options. \u201cMy Thesis is ruining my life,\u201d says a card featuring a pensive-looking Victorian maiden at a desk. Another portrays a smiling 1980s woman at a desktop: \u201cI worked on my dissertation today by pinning motivating pins on Pinterest about working on my dissertation,\u201d it reads. Or there\u2019s the etched judge at the bench: \u201cCongratulations on plagiarizing Wikipedia enough times to get a degree.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just for starters.\u00a0Maybe you want to send something more general: \u201cYou\u2019re not as complex as you think.\u201d \u201cI\u2019d blow a pharmacist for 2 mg of Klonopin.\u201d \u201cThe iPhone 6 will have a larger screen for me to repeatedly shatter.\u201d \u201cThe last time I saw you I was hoping it was the last time I saw you.\u201d \u201cI would rather be sitting on a toilet with no toilet paper than no cell phone.\u201d \u201cSomeone asked me if I wanted to have another child and right before I could answer my uterus jumped out of my body, into oncoming traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently, an article in the Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a> touted the therapeutic effects of cooking and baking; the sense of accomplishment and absorption in tasks is helpful for those dealing with depression and anxiety. Now, I\u2019m not a therapist\u2014I\u2019m not even a psychiatrist!\u2014but it seems like if reward neurotransmitters are helpful to troubled folks, looking at hundreds of Someecards in a row is the opposite. You\u2019d need to run a controlled study to really prove it, but from anecdotal evidence I can tell you that what might seem innocuous or even mildly amusing in a vacuum becomes mind numbing, depressing, disheartening in large doses. It is like living in a vat of curdled milk. It is bad for the mind and, I would argue, worse for the soul.<\/p>\n

And yet, this should be in the time capsule. If the point is to capture the Zeitgeist, how better to do so? I have even made a card<\/a> for the purpose. The denizens of 2114 can thank me later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you enter the New York Historical Society by its Seventy-Seventh Street side entrance, you\u2019ll see before you a smallish chest: a time capsule, the plaque explains, created in 1914 by the Lower Wall Street Business Men\u2019s Association. It was supposed to have been opened in 1974, but everyone forgot about it, so the powers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[7165,15184,16346,537,16345,2935,14256,440],"class_list":["post-80739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-ephemera","tag-new-york-historical-society","tag-someecards","tag-the-future","tag-time-capsules","tag-wall-street-journal","tag-websites","tag-wired"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Build a Better Time Capsule<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cThe problem with any contemporary time capsule is that so much of what\u2019s truly reflective of our culture is ephemeral.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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