"Nostalgia: It's delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek nostalgia literally means 'the pain from an old wound.' It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again."
Don Draper
There are a few bucks in my pocket. I'd be willing to wager all those Benjamins... okay, fine Hamiltons, that more than a few of you suffer from one of my afflictions. That of a fascination with and love of the past. World history, dusty museums, scratchy heartfelt music, black and white films, weathered and rusty relics, Billy the Kid, Humphrey Bogart.
There is a power in the parts of culture that live on, no matter how long it has been. Mozart isn't going anywhere. Neither is
Muddy Waters. In nature, species evolve because they can adapt and grow. With history, art and culture, the opposite happens. We adapt to them. The past stays the same. It is constant. That's why we love it.
This is the reason why we're mad for
Mad Men. That amazing bit of television inspires so much passion because it perfectly shows a piece of the past. Like a wooly mammoth preserved in ice. Same with
Happy Days in the 70's. The public longed for a "simpler time" when the jukebox turned on when you smacked it. That doesn't really happen anymore.
However, over the last few months, there has been a few news stories that have caused me to reevaluate my romanticism of the 40's, 50's and 60's. A handful of annoying sex scandals, some D-list personalities that somehow keep finding a microphone and that damn runaway Jiffy Pop balloon.
Perhaps I don't have this quite right.