Thursday, September 15, 2011

Defining Childhood Moments of My Life


Now I'm old and withered

As a special treat, I thought I should share with you some of those special occasions that have made me the man that I am today and I strongly remember even though it was long ago...
  • Going to the Museum of Natural History with my father and brother at age 4 or so and standing fascinated staring at the collection of mutated specimens pickled in formaldehyde, the siamese twin baby and the two headed snake I strongly remembered and how I wondered why they didn't just make the whole museum about that stuff (I do still wonder actually
  • Reading a Moomin comic at age six or so and realizing that I had my first pre-pubescent crush on the Snork Maiden (that has passed, the later crush on the Smurfette remains a little)
  • Around the same age when Dad brought home our first computer (a ZX81 home computer) and letting us play a video game where you were hunted by an invisible monster in an invisible labyrinth (yeah, no graphics at all) but I've been hooked on games ever since
  • When my brother played a tape with a Pet Shop Boys song that he had recorded from the coolest radioshow at the time (we only had three channels in Sweden, one played classical music, the other was all boring talk and the third one sometimes played pop) and getting so fascinated by the sound of electronic music (that never really let up either)
  • Going with Mom to her local Japanese foods shop in Stockholm at age 9 or so and walking around bored, looking into their freezer with frozen food and being freaked out when I realize that they had a huge Octopus in there (don't eat the stuff, I take it out of the takoyaki)
  • Reading the last Superman Story "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" before they rebooted the whole DC universe at age ten or so and feeling oddly emotionally moved by the story (this was the time when no one died, the girls didn't have huge boobs and Superman mostly fought with a cowboy on a winged horse or some gay looking guy with thigh-high boots, and hardly carried any emotional weight). It remained with me so much that once when I was visiting home from University I spent the better half of a day digging through the childhood comic collection to try and find it and see if it really was as moving as I remembered it. A few years later I found it and realized that it was written by Alan Moore who I had been a long time fan of, so all the pieces came together
  • Visiting Japan for the first time with my mom at the age of 15 and almost immediately getting the odd feeling that I had somehow came home, in a place I hardly knew
Ok, maybe I should have included marrying Mrs. Sunshine, having Toddler Sunshine and getting my iPad (in no particular order) but those are not really childhood moments, so I leave them out. But there you have it, everything you need to know about me comes from these moments (but no, Mrs. Sunshine doesn't look anything like the Snork Maiden)!

8 comments:

The Purple Room said...

Not that this matters, but the other day I was in a bar in Ikebukuro and suddenly I heard "West End Girls" on the speaker system. It sounded so good and so random.

West. End. Girls...

April said...

Have you heard of Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, PA? They have the conjoined liver from the famous Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker; a piece of tissue removed from the thorax of Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth; and a section of the brain of Charles J. Guiteau who assassinated U.S. President James A. Garfield. Plus much much more. http://www.collphyphil.org/site/mutter_museum.html

Martin said...

You could use Dr Phils formula and develope this post a bit more.

http://www.drphil.com/articles/article/74

Chris said...

(don't eat the stuff, I take it out of the takoyaki)

My soulmate!!!

Me too!! If I gotta sit and eat that shit I'm diggin that rubbery tasteless shit out and I don't care who's offended.

Mr Political Advisor said...

So, what about "Archon"? What about "Knopis"? And what about your first taste of "Green Pearl"?

Not meaning to question your own analysis here - but you seem like a guy that should put them in as part of the subconscious appendix...

TheOctopus said...

Your progressive attitude towards the consumption of my octopus brethren has been positively acknowledged and steps are afoot to have your name taken off the list of individuals who will be up against the wall when the revolution comes.

Also, bro-fist for the ZX81, sorry to hear you later defected to the C64 but I suppose those dark Nordic winters clouded your judgement. Was the game 3D Monster Maze by any chance? Unfortunately we were too poor to afford professionally produced games and had to type them in from magazines, but that was one I remember lusting after.

drich said...

How can you take the tako out of the takoyaki! You're talking about one of my favorite street foods here.... (and one that I can't find very many places here in the US).

Mr. Salaryman said...

MJC - It's an old classic indeed! Their early stuff is timeless!

April - No, I haven't, but it does sound like a place that I would find amusing if I came across it! Thanks for the tip!

Martin - Dr. Phil knows what it's all about, I should listen to him more!

Chris - High Five! They really should offer more Tako-less Takoyaki, if they remove that piece of rubber in it it would be so much better!

Political Advisor - Well, those things were important indeed, perhaps something for the Dr.Phil analysis that Martin suggested to me later on!

Octopus - Hmmm... That Monster Maze game seem to be a lot more advanced than the game that I recall playing... I think it was actually completely graphic-less, but it's hard to really remember as the memory of the feeling is much stronger than the memory of the actual game...

Drich - I dunno, I've really never been able to stomach the Octopus, part of it is the actual octopus itself, but part is the rubbery consistence of it...

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