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Older Than Gravity In Bruges: Thoughts from Places

2011-05-27 · documentary visit · John · 2:44 · watch on YouTube

Topic: History & curiosities (also: Personal life, Nerdfighteria) · mode: Personal essay · tags: on location, recurring series

In a Thoughts from Places video John hunts for a toothbrush in Bruges, and argues that living amid such old history reminds us we owe the dead and the not-yet-living the awareness that human life is ours only in trust.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Waking in Bruges after a night of beer; toothbrush left in Amsterdam; Sunday-closed shops; buying Belgian chocolate

  • ★★ John woke up last Sunday (22 May 2011) in Bruges, joking about a night of beer, having left his toothbrush in Amsterdam, and set out to buy a toothbrush and Belgian chocolate. (playful) — 00:00:01 · Amsterdam
  • ★★ Most Bruges shops were closed on Sunday morning; John found chocolate first, then many places without toothbrushes, until a small neighbourhood shop sold him one. (playful) — 00:00:27

00:00:52 — Shops with no toothbrushes (French fry museum, concept store); finding one at a neighbourhood shop; two euros for something he could not build

  • ★★ John reflects that he paid two euros for a toothbrush he could not build from scratch even given a hundred years. — 00:01:13

00:01:20 — Bruges is very old: the belfry from 1240; living amid history is not quaint; what we owe the dead and the unborn; remembered as a collective

  • ★★ John says parts of Bruges's famous belfry date back to 1240. — 00:01:24
  • ★ John jokes that the 1240 belfry is four hundred years older than the idea of gravity. (playful) — 00:01:24
  • ★★ John says that although Bruges felt like an open-air history museum, there is nothing quaint about living amid history and grappling with one's ancestors' gifts and insufficiencies. — 00:01:36

  • ★★★ John argues that living among the past reminds us people came before and will come after; we owe the dead and the not-yet-living the daily awareness that human life is ours only in trust. — 00:01:47

    “the daily awareness that human life is ours only in trust”

  • ★★★ John notes that 700 years on nobody remembers the individuals who built the belfry or dug the canals, only the collective, as we will be remembered for what we did and failed to do together. — 00:02:02

00:02:21 — Meeting Belgian Nerdfighters in a park; grateful to the 13th century but lucky to live in 2011; sign-off

  • ★★ John met Nerdfighters from all over Belgium in a park, grateful to be part of a community that builds friendships while trying to make the world suck less. — 00:02:21 · Nerdfighteria, world suck
  • ★★★ John says he felt grateful to the 13th century but lucky to live in 2011, when with ones and zeros we can build our own relationships and monuments. — 00:02:30

Humor (significant)

  • Admiring his boxed Belgian chocolate, John offers Hank a historical fact about chocolate and bad breath. — 00:00:42

    “is a fact I just made up?”

  • Among shops without toothbrushes John finds a concept store that presumably only sells concepts. — 00:00:52

    “I wanted to buy utilitarianism, but it was closed.”

  • John knows 'winkel' means store and hopes the shop sign's other Dutch word means toothbrush. — 00:01:04

    “I could only hope that "buurt" meant "toothbrush"... and it did.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Bruges

Also: Amsterdam · Belfry of Bruges · Belgium · cumulative culture · Frietmuseum · world suck

Only in the description or credits: Thoughts from Places

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