Beautifully Broken Issue #29: The Power & Danger Of Nostalgia
Beautifully Broken Issue #29: The Power & Danger Of Nostalgia
IDEAS, ART & WISDOM TO REPAIR OUR BEAUTIFUL WORLD
Happy Saturday! Welcome to Beautifully Broken Issue #29: The Power & Danger of Nostalgia
IDEAS: The Danger & Power of Nostalgia
To see the past with rose-tinted glasses. What a privilege. Nothing beats the good old days.
Even the longest, coldest, hungriest, most humiliating queue of Soviet Russia can be recast through the colored lenses of nostalgia as a happy time, a community experience that brought everyone together. Why even the food tasted better and queueing made it more delicious.
What about the golden era of analog life before we had digital intrusion? That was better, right? Maybe.
It's easy to take problems we have now and imagine a time when they didn't exist and then project ourselves into that imaginary landscape. The memory of how things were is never how the past actually was, it's the gilt-edged version of the past, selective emotional memory.
What's the purpose of nostalgia? Perhaps to help us psychologically deal with getting older? As we get older we need to find meaning in the past and to use the lessons we learned to help guide us towards the future that we want and will best be able to survive. Or does it help to remind us of what was of value, to allow us, with enough life experience, to not throw the baby out with the bathwater as society hurtles forwards into whatever fashionable trend is consuming the next generation?
THE DANGERS OF NOSTALGIA
Nostalgia is dangerous if we lose ourselves in it. An opportunity for growth is lost if we run away from the challenge of the present and seek comfort in the feeling-memories of the past.
On a personal level, we can run away to the Wild West, books and comics, vintage cars and the like, or we can take the lessons that we learn from our passions and hobbies and use them to shape and teach the current generation what it is that we find useful and valuable about the past.
It's also possible to get caught up in a collective nostalgia. For instance, the remembrance of a glorious empire of past days. In the UK the Tories managed to get enough people excited about the good old days that they voted to leave the European Union against their better collective interest. Until recently the far right in France were talking about a Frexit, that France should copy the UK in reclaiming their independence and historical identity. Now that the UK is suffering from a catastrophic failure of its economic and social systems, in part due to its inability to withstand complex global stresses outside of the European Union, the French right have pivoted to focus on immigration and taxes. Marine Le Penn doesn't mention Frexit anymore and the UK has paid a high price for misplaced nostalgia.
THE POSITIVE POWER OF NOSTALGIA
But nostalgia is a powerful force that can be harnessed for good. At its best nostalgia is a great enabler, to recapture something precious and rekindle it before it's lost.
I personally enjoy analog nostalgia—dreaming of the pleasures of a past with no digital footprint or connection. I indulge in this nostalgia when I need to get serious creative work done, when I want some free mental space. Out comes my favorite Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter and Moleskine notebook. I wind up my 70s Seiko travel clock and have a physical book within reach (currently reading Richard Brautigan's Dreaming of Babylon). This practical nostalgia generally improves the quality of my life and my work.
Or what about a nostalgia for reconnection with the environment? The truth about the good old days living close to nature is that it was and still is hard work, a matter of survival. No one tells you that when Thoreaux wrote Walden, his memoir of a year of living in simplicity in the woods, that the woods were on the grounds of his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson and that his mother came to bring him food and collect his washing. Just the same, a collective nostalgia to save the environment might be just what we need to help us out of the consumption-driven, catastrophic environmental mess we've made for ourselves.
So strap on those rose-tinted glasses but make sure you've planned in advance how to wisely harness the powerful energy of nostalgia.
HEADLINE FICTION #14: Family Escapes Mob; Flees To Comicbook Store
Here's a new format for short fiction that I've invented. It's a 70-word story in three panels with a pattern of 7-16-47 words, where the first 7 words form a headline style title, the 16 serve to fill out the headline information a little more and the final 47 contain the meat of the story and resolution. I think I'll call it "headline fiction". These micro stories of mine are based on dreams (and nightmares!).
ART TO MEDITATE UPON
Masterpiece by Roy Lichtenstein, 1962.
Masterpiece is a 1962 pop art painting by Roy Lichtenstein that uses his classic Ben-Day dots and narrative content contained within a speech balloon. In 2017, the painting sold for $165 million.
Masterpiece is regarded as a tongue-in-cheek joke that reflects upon Lichtenstein's own career. In retrospect, the joke is considered "witty and yet eerily prescient" because it portended some of the future turmoil that the
artist would endure. In the painting, the blonde woman's speech bubble, "Why, Brad darling, This painting is a masterpiece! My, soon you'll have all of New York clamoring for your work!" conveys her remark as she gazes at the painting, of which a corner of the back is shown. Silent Brad conveys his agreement by his facial expression. Adrian Searle of The Guardian says that the 1962 work, whose narrative and graphical content were both borrowed, was timely because Lichtenstein had his first exhibition in New York City at Leo Castelli Gallery that year, making the painting aspirational in an ironic way that comments on success and "the socio-sexual status of the hot young artist".
Original comic book artwork by Ted Galindo that “inspired” Lichtenstein
Meditation: When the comic book art of our youth can be reconstituted as high art then what are we really buying for $165 million dollars? An investment? Or do we seek to try to re-buy our youth? Better to invest in the present and enjoy the stage of life you find yourself in, because all too soon that will also become the treasured, golden past.
WISDOM OF OTHERS
Dreaming of Babylon by Richard Brautigan
In Dreaming of Babylon, Richard Brautigan's private investigator protagonist is trying to get his life together to take on a new case but his mind keeps wandering into the fantasy life he's created for himself as a famous warrior and major league ballplayer in ancient Babylon.
Babylon
Uh-oh, I started dreaming of Babylon as I walked back down the stairs to my apartment. It was very important that I not dream of Babylon just as I was starting to get some things worked out. If I got started on Babylon whole hours would pass without my knowing it.
I could sit down in my apartment and suddenly it would be midnight and I would have lost the edge on getting my life back together again whose immediate need was some bullets for my gun.
The last thing in the world that I needed right now was to start dreaming of Babylon.
I had to hold Babylon back for a while, long enough for me to get some bullets. I made an heroic effort as I walked down the stairs of the musty, seedy, tomb-like smelling apartment building to keep Babylon at arm’s reach.
It was touch and go there for a few seconds and then Babylon floated back into the shadows, away from me.
I felt a little sad.
I didn’t want Babylon to go.
The Front Door to Babylon
I guess I should give you a little background about my involvement with Babylon. I was out of high school and looking around for something to do with my life.
I’d been a pretty fair baseball player in high school. I lettered two years in a row and hit ·320 in my senior year, including four home runs, so I decided to try my hand at professional baseball.
I tried out one afternoon for a semi-pro team and figured that it was the beginning of a career that would take me to the New York Yankees. I was a first baseman, so the Yankees would have to get rid of Lou Gehrig who was playing first base for them, then, but I figured that the better man would win out and that was of course me.
When I arrived at the ball park to try out for the team, the first thing the manager said to me was, “You don’t look like a first baseman.”
“Looks are deceiving. Watch me play. I’m the best.”
The manager shook his head.
“I don’t think I’ve even seen a baseball player that looks like you. Are you sure you’ve played first base?”
“Put a bat in my hand and I’ll show you who I am.”
“OK,” the manager said. “But you’d better not waste my time. We’re in second place, just a game out of first.”
I didn’t know what that had to do with me but I pretended that I appreciated the significance of this achievement.
“You’ll be five games in first place after I take over first base,” I said, humoring the son-of-a-bitch.
There were about a dozen halfwit-looking baseball players standing around playing catch and shooting the breeze with each other.
The manager motioned toward one of them.
“Hey, Sam!” he yelled. “Come over here and throw a few balls at this guy. He thinks he’s Lou Gehrig.”
“How’d you know?” I said.
“If you’re wasting my time, I’ll personally toss your ass out of this ball park,” the manager said.
I could see that him and me were never going to be friends, but I’d show the bastard. He’d be eating his own words soon enough.
I picked up a baseball bat and walked up to home plate. I felt very confident.
Sam, the pitcher, took his place on the mound. He was a very unimpressive-looking pitcher. He was about twenty-five and had a slight build hanging awkwardly on a six-foot frame. I don’t think he weighed over a 130 soaking wet with a bowling ball in his lap.
“Is that the best you’ve got!” I yelled at the manager.
“Sam!” the manager yelled. “Put some smoke on it for this kid!”
Sam smiled.
He was never going to make it in the movies.
He had a pair of buckteeth that made him look like the first cousin of a walrus.
I took some practice swings. Then Sam very slowly wound up. He took the longest time to wind up. He was like a snake uncoiling. The smile never left his face.
That’s the last thing I remembered before being in Babylon.
Nebuchadnezzar
When we arrived at the ball park, there were fifty thousand people waiting for me. They all stood up and started cheering when they saw me come into the park.
Nebuchadnezzar had three extra units of cavalry there to keep the fans under control. There had been a near riot the day before and some people had been injured, so old “Neb” was taking no chances with today’s game.
The cavalry looked very smart in their armor.
I think they were glad to be at the ball game watching me hit home runs. It certainly was a lot better than going to war.
I went down to the locker room and the girl went with me. Her name was Nana-dirat. When I walked into the locker room all the players stopped talking and watched as I walked through and went into my own private dressing room. There was hushed silence. Nobody knew what to say. I don’t blame them. After all, what do you say to somebody who has hit twenty-three home runs in their last twenty-three times at bat?
The team and I had gone far beyond small talk.
I was like a god to them.
They worshiped at the shrine of my bat.
The 596 B.C. Baseball Season
The walls of my dressing room were covered with tapestries of my baseball feats woven in gold and covered with precious stones.
There was a tapestry of me beheading a pitcher with a line drive. Another tapestry showed a group of opposing players standing around a huge hole in the infield between second and third base. They never did find that ball. Still another tapestry showed me accepting a bowlful of jewels from Nebuchadnezzar for finishing the 596 B.C. season with an ·890 batting average.
Nana-dirat took off my clothes and I lay down upon a solid gold dressing table and she gave me a pre-game massage with rare and“exotic oils. Her hands were so gentle they felt like swans making love on a full moon night.
After massaging me Nana-dirat dressed me in my baseball uniform. It took her five minutes to put the uniform on. She did it very sensually. I had an erection by the time she finished with the uniform and I almost came when she put my shoes on. She ended by giving my spikes a delicate and loving caress.
Ah, paradise! There can be paradise on earth if you’re a Babylonian baseball star.
First Base Hotel
“OK, asshole, wake up!” a voice came grinding into my ears like somebody deliberately stepping on an old lady’s glasses. “You’ve had your beauty sleep! Wake up! This isn’t a hotel! It’s a baseball team!” the voice kept grinding.
My head felt as if a safe had dropped on it.
I opened my eyes and there was the manager and Sam standing above me, staring down. The manager really looked pissed off. Sam was smiling like a puppy with his buckteeth leading the way. I was lying on the grass beside first base.
The team was having batting practice. They kept looking over at me and making jokes. Everybody was having a good time except the manager and me.
“I knew you weren’t a baseball player,” he said. “You don’t look like a baseball player. I don’t think you ever saw a baseball before.”
“What happened?” I said.
“Listen to that, Sam,” the manager said. “Did you get that? This punk asked me what happened. What in the fuck do you think happened? Run down the possibilities and then tell me what you think might have happened. What could have happened?” Then he started yelling again…
Excerpt From Dreaming of Babylon by Richard Brautigan
PHOTO HAIKU
Capture the bright past,
but not so bright that it blinds-
just enough, warm heart.
Photo: Street art to transform the carpark ramp in Grasse by Seth.
Ideas To Live By In The Coming Week
Looking into the past, do we see the answers to all our questions? A comfort that helps us deal with change? Nostalgia is powerful and feels good but like anything that's good, too much of the things transforms into its opposite and becomes unhealthy. Too much time indulging in nostalgia and we become like the hero in Richard Brautigan's Dreaming of Babylon—always lost somewhere other than now.
Let nostalgia empower you to run at the present—draw on the power of what you remember as being good and use that to positively remake the world as it is now.
Share what you love to communicate its value to a new generation.
Peace Now,
5th October, 2024