A springy and lively BBBS lunch

On Tuesdays, I go down to Chinatown to MAT to have lunch with Gou Peng Zhao, my "little" as part of BigBrothersBigSister's school-based program. Today's walk from the City Hall 4/5/6, besides the beautiful weather, was notable for three interesting observations.

• First , I saw a couple who had just married leaving city hall, their friends showered them with flowers, while a sanitation worker grumpily swept up those same flowers.
• Secondly several super musty dusty archive-looking boxes were being brought up a freight elevator. I really wanted to check them out.
  
• Thirdly, on my return, a US marshal's bus was about to enter the court holding building. This notable Blue Bird bus had columns of very narrow slits for windows, indeed, it was prisoner transfer.

Today Gou Peng and I talked about movies, how, in his 13/14 year old mind, King Kong (1933 & 1976) is so cheesy, because the special effects are so bad. It was unconvincing to him that it was state of the art then. I also had to explain what stop animation is.

He was also unswayed by the ideas 1) that story is more important than effects; and 2) that kids 15-30 years from now will be equally unimpressed with special effects of today. It was inconceivable that Donkey Kong, and thus the Mario Bros. franchise was derivative of King Kong. In his mind they are completely original.

It's interesting, telling, and humbling to have to defend your perspectives to a 13/14 year old who doesn't care about before, or back in the day. The present is now, and future is coming. It adds much to my musings on legacy features in terms of technological adoption. Of course, the flip side is ignorance of the past can lead to the same mistakes.