The Future Is The Past, Hopefully
by Your Diva, Robin Pastorio-Newman

Happy New Year on a happy New Year’s Day! Your Darling, Your Diva, Your One True Love wishes you all the peace and prosperity you can eat, second helpings permissible, so long as you’ve got the time. Time’s a big question on New Year’s Day; for instance: do you have enough of it to gobble AlkaSeltzer, nod at the in-laws, feed the tykes, and get three days’ sleep before work tomorrow morning? So, really, you’re reading this later. Happy New Year! Let me be the last to wish it while you’re resting up for Flag Day.
 
Speaking of the past, what could be more intriguing than a glimpse of the future? Biologists speculate, CGI figures rampage, dinosaurs wear white after Labor Day: Animal Planet’s The Future Is Wild has it all. Of course, this broadcasts at 8 p.m. New Year’s Day ... which was, like, in the middle of your hangover ... so take a gander at the molto interesante site, with more rampaging and speculating, and is all filmstrippy, like when you were in A-V Club. As an added bonus: imagine the conniptions this show must give Jerry Falwell.
 
Imagine ... or remember ... yourself struggling with home movies of your grandparents traveling with Moses, and suddenly the film breaks and burns up. Your one and only record of the your now elderly parents as young, fit and deserting Egypt turns to dust, and that’s that. You’re left with nothing. Your children are left with nothing. Your grandchildren think you’re a schmuck. Hey! Guess what? We’re all in this exact situation right now.
 
Save Our Sounds is a joint project of the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress and ... if you read the whole list ... everyone who ever stood in front of a microphone. Save Our Sounds is intended to guarantee our grandchildren don’t think we’re idiots for letting their heritage turn to dust, which is to say SOS is a massive sound preservation project, a History Channel special, and a widely-recognized necessity. Despite all this inspiration and moral support, the project still needs your help. There’s an ongoing Ebay auction, should you need additional stuff after the holidays and a donations site, should you have all the stuff you need, thanks zillions! The important tidbit is the funding’s all matchy-matchy, so you’re far more generous than you knew!
 
Happy New Year. If biologists and preservationists are right, we may sprout feathers and sing Woody Guthrie songs. Now those home movies should be preserved for posterity.
 

©2002 Robin Pastorio-Newman