Defying the memory machine

On the 30th anniversary of "Achtung Baby", and the opposite of timelessness

There are times where it feels as though the internet as we know it exists as a structure built only to remind us of things that happened on this day in years past. 

Did you know that Homeland debuted on Showtime 10 years ago today?

It’s been 15 years since Happy Feet arrived in theaters!

Where were you when Ross murdered the other Friends 20 years ago???

These anniversaries often fill me with dread about the merciless march of time, and that’s largely the point of the internet memory machine reminding us of them; it gets a reaction. Finding out that something you remember as though it happened yesterday was actually a decade or two ago is the kind of thing that’ll stop you in your tracks, or at least get you to stop scrolling for a few seconds.

Speaking for myself, a person with a reasonable grasp of mathematics, I can both fully accept that we are living in the year 2021 and also believe in my heart of hearts that 2007 was five years ago. (Six, tops.) It doesn’t have to make sense, an…