salon article: our nostalgia is killing us
“For me, nostalgia almost always feels shameful, even when it also feels good.”
“Still, this kind of retroactive anointment is hardly new — every generation eventually trumpets the superiority of its own relics. Getting older almost always means making lesser investments in art. Our heated affairs with albums and movies and books are eventually — inevitably? — supplanted by dynamic, two-sided relationships with other human beings (bosses, spouses, children, neighbors); that’s both the best and the worst thing about growing up.//So maybe we’re only nostalgic for old things because we can’t relate to new ones in the same way. ”
“In response, those old memories become communal commodities. Instead of chatting about the weather, we relate to each other by talking about something from our childhood that we experienced in tandem.”
A: you’ll never work for the Red Cross if you keep that up
E: commies
A: you’ll never work for the Kriss Kross if you keep that up
E: that’s wikkity wikkity wikkity whack
A: image is nothing but thirst….thirst is everything
E: obey your pepsi
A: yeah but where’s the beef?
E: it’s what’s for dinner
A: the choice of a new generation
E: is the other white meat
etc.