add this to the list!

Avenue Q clearly dates itself during the “I wish I could go back to college” number, I just realized. The Princeton character murmurs, as an aside, “I wish I’d taken more pictures…” The line comes at the end of the song, which makes me think it’s a pretty personal statement that the authors wanting to tuck in there. Well, since I have about 40 pictures or so to show for my four years in college, I can definitely relate. Especially considering that a night out or a weekend trip can easily yield twice that many pictures.

Something about it is nice – the half-remembered past, barely documented. It gives some room for your memory to exaggerate, to downplay, to romanticize things. That’s great, and there’s something about my experience now – going through old journals, looking at frayed pictures – that is very comforting to me, while there’s something about my sister’s equivalent – facebook, picasa – that’s a bit disquieting, though I can’t say why.

Well, along with not being able to get ahold of a friend you’re meeting up with (in the post-cellphone age), getting lost and needing to ask for directions (in the post-GPS age) and not having access to vast archives of all sorts of media in a matter of minutes (in the post-internet age), this “I wish I had taken more pictures” bit is clearly dated.

For fun, try watching tv shows from the 1990s and figuring out what would be different today. George leaves Jerry a voicemail and sends him a text message, for insurance: “J – please ansr ph as Vandalay Industries. If they ask, I sell latex. Will explain l8r. Thx.” Or how about getting lost in that mall parking lot, not being able to find the car? Well, there’s an app for that. And as my brother has pointed out, the one time a Seinfeld episode did feature a cell phone – in the first half of the finale – they completely fail to anticipate the fact that we all “walk and talk” these days. (Jerry admonishes Elaine for making a phone call while walking.)

The other problem I have with the song is the “f___ my T.A.” bit. As a student, I never had attractive T.A.’s. And as a T.A., I never had hot freshmen coming on to me. And because this was not part of my immediate experience, I therefore reject it as false or dated. You lie, Avenue Q!