Programming note #41: Living like it’s 1979

New York City, April 1979. Via Flashbak.

Next week, from August 2nd to 8th 2020, I am going on vacation – back to the 1970s! Well, okay, a simulation of it that strangely includes this blog:

• Film – I almost never went to the movie theatre back then. But I did see old movies on:
• Television – watch 12 hours of television, which is about how much I watched a week. Television shows must be from before 1980, films from before 1970. I can use Hulu to watch old content.
• News – I will get all my news of 2020 from MAD magazine (do they still sell that?) – and “NBC Nightly News”, because I did watch that in late the 1970s, back when they had that dopey logo (pictured).
• Magazines: The current MAD magazine (see above). Also Ebony and Jet from August 1979 – because I know they are online.
• Books – Must be a printed book that was originally published before 1980, preferably from the library. No Kindle.
• Dictionary –  I will use a Chambers dictionary from 1983 – the closest thing I have to the 1970s.
• Atlas – a Hammond world atlas from 1989 is the closest thing I have. I will use that.
• Encyclopedia  – I have a Columbia Desk Encyclopedia published in 1975. Bingo! Move over Wikipedia!
• Radio – I listened to the radio all the time back then, but have not had a radio since 2009. So I will listen to the radio on the Internet, any New York radio station that was in operation in the 1970s.
• Telephone – I no longer have a land line telephone, so I will allow the use of a mobile phone.
• Mobile phone – only as a telephone, calculator, alarm clock, tape recorder or watch – things I had use of back then.
• Computer – only as a radio or typewriter – things I had back then which my computer has largely replaced.
• Internet – only:
  • this blog,
  • Ebony and Jet from the 1970s,
  • WBLS (New York radio station).
• No:
  • Google,
  • Kindle,
  • video games,
  • music videos,
  • word processor,
  • online banking,
  • cable television,
  • DVDs,
  • email,
  • high fructose corn syrup,
  • in short, anything not in my 1983 dictionary.
• Porn – Nope. They did have porn in the 1970s, but I saw little of it.
• Posts – written and researched without the help of the Internet or even a computer. I will write posts using pen and paper, using only words from 1970s English, no emojis, and then type them into this blog, with only light editing, like I was using a typewriter.

Technology: I can use 2020s technology to simulate 1970s technology or content. Like using the calculator or clock on my mobile phone. Since I am doing this only for a week, it is not worth buying the real things. Likewise:

Fashion: I am not going to change my hair or clothes or anything like that. They have not changed much in any case.

If I get sick, or if there is some kind of emergency (we are in the middle of a pandemic in the US), then of course, all this will come to a screeching halt.

– Abagond, 2020.

Update (August 1st): No YouTube at all. It constitutes video on demand, very un-1979. Hulu is bad enough.

Update (August 2nd): Changed the dictionary from a 1991 American Heritage to a 1983 Chambers.

See also:

• Living like it’s 1979 – my review of this experience
• Virtual Travel: Cape Town to the North Pole
• My 1970s media diet
  • US magazines in the 1970s
  • songs: the 1970s
  • Time Warp Radio: 1979 – top songs in New York on April 17th 1979
  • My adventures in porn
• Not common in the 1970s:
  • Kindle
  • high fructose corn syrup
  • Living a year without the Internet – living in 2012 like it was 1993
  • New words from 1983 to 2012 and since 1949
• 1980s to 2010s
  • The future that was
  • How daily life has changed in the last 30 years – from 1984 to 2014
• a history of the NBC logo
• 1949 media diet review
• The 1900 House
• advice
  • Zadie Smith on writing
  • Reading old books

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