Nostalgia is something we casually prod the movie industry for. A cynical cash grab. A lack of new ideas. A creative void where hapless movie executives molest your childhood. All these are true in their own way. But they do not explain why I violated my longstanding travel policy of never checking a bag. They do not account for the fact that I can count on one hand the new movies I’ve watched this year, but I watched five over the weekend.
There’s a few explanations afoot. First, I love thrifting. Sifting through trash with my keen eyes and deal-seeking heart. I have a champagne taste on a High Life budget. I refuse to pay appropriate prices for the things I love. Any asshole audiophile can drop a month’s salary on a killer system. Un-fucking-interesting. Much like I know for a fact my car drives faster after I wash it, I can hear my system punch above its weight because it was purchased for pennies on the dollar. I love using an otherwise worthless database of knowledge of consumer electronics to service a budget hifi fantasy.
My combo TV/VCR was under $30. But the red push was awful. Consumers react positively to a picture where images are exceedingly bright and tinted red. Manufactures identified this and set their defaults to emphasize red and blow out contrast to stand out in a retail firing-squad shelf. This can easily be remedied with some deft picture adjustments. However, on many small budget sets, only the remote can access the controls. Sadly the remote was lost to the world some time ago. My Logitech Harmony remote was unable to program some of the esoteric functions. I was forced to dig into the service menu options and play reckless god with the settings.
After making the 24-year-old 240P picture shine, I proceeded to dig into my collection. I’ve got a bunch of rare shit I acquired two decades ago. It was rare then, and it’s fucking Rosebud now. But, none of that matters for the purposes of this exercise. What interests me are the 3PM Saturday movies, the ones which litter the Value Village for $1 each. The ones I grew to love not because got me punk points in 2003, but the ones I couldn’t help but stop channel surfing to watch. Even half way through, you’d watch it to the end.
It is here, dear reader, we discover the lifeblood of nostalgia. Mainlining familiarity. A little taste of Saturday’s gone by. I was an angsty little prick growing up. I do not yearn for the halcyon days of yore. Nor do I want to relive them. I yearn for the part of me that dared to fantasize about a better future. At this stage of life, I’ve come to terms with my dead dreams, a relentless unsatisfying career, a series of self-induced icebergs on my romantic cruise.
And let’s not do the, “It’s not too late to turn everything around and fundamentally change your life” song and dance. Let’s just agree that we’re here for the time being. At some point we must all reckon with the death of our potential. Settle for where the dust settled.
Nostalgia lets you live in the rear view. Even if it wasn’t that great. But it is less terrifying than the dead end road ahead. It’s the charm of being close while being far away. It’s a drug that numbs the future. It’s low-risk low-reward, but it’s still better than nothing. But at least now I can recite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from memory. So I got that going for me.
No comments :
Post a Comment