It has now been over 23 years since Wallace penned the inimitable words: “Sentiment equals naïveté on this continent [and] cynicism and naïveté are mutually exclusive.” He explained, “What passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human (at least as conceptualized) […]
Memories from the Future: A Word on Abandoned Houses, Nostalgia, and the Hope of the World
Grateful for this incredible piece by Nate Mills: When I was 3 or 4 I had an apocalyptic vision. It may not have been as otherworldly as the Ancient of Days appearing in resplendent glory like in Daniel 7, but it was unmistakably surreal. My family was taking a road trip from our home in […]
Another Week Ends: Mandating Happiness, Facetuning Your Face, The Never-Ever Golden Age, and The Shining Star of Losers Everywhere
Click here to listen to this week’s episode of The Mockingcast, which features an interview with psychologist and ‘experimental theologian’ Richard Beck, author of Reviving Old Scratch: Demons and the Devil for Doubters and the Disenchanted. 1. The New Yorker asked last week whether or not you can mandate happiness? Looking specifically at workplaces—workplaces that […]
The Magnetism of the Exiled Soul to Stranger Things
The most succinct way to describe Stranger Things is to say that it’s Steven Spielberg meets Stephen King — meets Netflix. At eight episodes, it’s very watchable in one week, or one night, depending on how willing you are to sacrifice your REMs. (Be warned: You’ll find it hard to finish one episode and resist […]
Giving Up the Ghost Dance
This Advent I’m going Southern and weird for my daily devotional. I’ll be standing in this season of anticipation and light with a copy of Rodger Lyle Brown’s Ghost Dancing on the Cracker Circuit placed firmly in my hand. In the early 1990’s Brown traveled the southeastern United States visiting Mayberry Days, hillbilly festivals, and […]
Idols of Nostalgia and the Downfall of Doc Huxtable
It’s hard to cross the Internet these days without reading an update on Bill Cosby’s falling star. As of this writing, a planned NBC comeback sitcom has been cancelled, and other new initiatives (like an ill-conceived social media meme push) have been met with anger and sarcasm. Perhaps most salient: TV Land has quietly stopped airing reruns […]
Aphex Twin’s Syro and the Joy of Forgetting (and Remembering)
Enigmatic and revered electronic artist Aphex Twin (real name Richard D. James) released his long awaited new album, Syro, last week, ending a 13-year hiatus that followed his previous album, Drukqs. The new album is–in true Aphex Twin form–a colossally dense and impeccably composed piece of electronic music that morphs, warps, and toils considerably for […]
Mama Liked the Roses (And So Did T.S. Eliot): Deciphering “Burnt Norton” – Part 1
Eliot’s Four Quartets remain among his most critically acclaimed and notoriously inscrutable works. Although there’s no established consensus on the precise meaning of these poems, they’ve all been viewed as meditations on time, each focusing on a particular aspect of this central reality of human life. Constantly going back to the Quartets and always enjoying […]
Cartoon Nostalgia, Cartoon Revolution, Part 3: Cartoon Morality in Transformers
With Transformers 3 less than a week away, we present the third installment of Jeremiah Lawson’s excellent four-part series on Cartoon Nostalgia, in which our hero takes a hard look at moral undercurrents in the Transformers universe. And speaking of nostalgia (and golden ageism), if you haven’t yet seen Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, it’s […]
Cartoon Nostalgia, Cartoon Revolution, Part 1: Blasts From the Past Keep on Blasting
We are very excited to present the first installment of our new four-part series from resident animation expert/philosopher Jeremiah Lawson aka Wenatchee the Hatchet, this time exploring the roots of Hollywood’s increasingly absurd obsession with 80s cartoons (Transformers, Alvin & The Chipmunks, GI Joe, etc etc etc). “Say not, ‘Why were the former days better […]
Nostalgia and Spiritual Longing
From Svetlana Boym’s The Future of Nostalgia:
Modern nostalgia is a mourning for the impossibility of mythical return, for the loss of an enchanted world with clear borders and values; it could be a secular expression of a spiritual longing, a nostalgia for an absolute, a home that is both physical and spiritual, the edenic unity of time and space before entry into history. The nostalgic is looking for a spiritual addressee. Encountering silence, he looks for memorable signs, desperately misreading them.
