659660 thirty three public displays of nostalgia
May I go back to telling you all about this small life, or has th Internet circus train left that station? I'm going around turning all th television sets off a minute before credits roll in an attempt to commit th world's first suicide by suspense. I cancelled my afternoon appointment so I could hallucinate to my cold medicine in private. I'm taking selfies while throwing paper money all over my face. This Internet diary entry ends w/ Allen Ezail Iverson, 40, whose eyes shoot doom and ghosts -- or does it? In th summer of 2001, Iverson captained his team, th Philadelphia 76ers, to w/in three games of winning an NBA championship, on th heels of a season in which he was voted th league's MVP. In th fall of 2010, he found himself playing for Besiktas, a Turkish Basketball League team on th second tier of European pro basketball. Lost himself, more like. A.I.'s face had long provided television viewers w/ a direct line to his heart; now his face said, "Turkey? We talkin' bout Turkey, man! I'm the turkey." He quit basketball in January of 2011 and mostly disappeared from th spotlight, surfacing for a moment in a Youtube vid sitting in a hotel parking lot looking drunk and joking about being ready to play Russian roulette w/ a fully loaded gun. In March 2014 th Sixers retired his number in a halftime ceremony during which he cupped his hand to his ear, Hulk Hogan style (minus all swagger), and den said,
"I love you, Philadelphia. I love y'all for accepting me and letting me be me, letting me make my mistakes, letting me be human, letting me learn from 'em, just embracing me and making this my home forever."
He was smizeless. What's home, anyhow? It's New Orleans. It's th bar where everybody knows yr name. It's th house you grew up in. It's where everybody judged you aeons ago; where you're taken for granted. It's where you're a bored child. It's th location that makes escape inevitable. It's where you escape to. It's where you're skinny in th past and fat in th future. Wherever yr porch is, you sit there and sip, sweet tea in one hand, mojito in th other, and say hi to neighbours from it. Yr dad sits w/ you and spells out truths that haven't aged a day. How men behave. How women behave. How space aliens and robots behave. Yr son sits w/ you and listens and challenges you. When it's yr time, you crawl under that same porch.
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
-- T.S. Eliot, from "East Coker"
My colleague is sitting in th back seat of 葦絢扱斡梓 艶飴絢宛's car holding hands w/ me. Her fingers are long and slender, and her hand is bigger than mine and nearly as brown. This will never work out, I think. It's like holding a hairless tarantula. She is so nice, though. What does working out mean anyhow ? Not much. Enjoy this. Th car pulls up to th Prytania, which is hosting a one-time screening of Inside Out (Pete Docter & Ronaldo Del Carmen 2015), Rocky Horror style, w/ employees wearing mascot outfits of th Five Emotions, as a fundraiser for autism awareness in New Orleans. Inside, dozens of kids on th spectrum, some of whom I know, are wilding out in a nonviolent way, scripting and flapping, one solipsistic word salad and sensory saturation forcefield @ a time
Th mothers are there, too, talking potty training, communication breakthroughs, and catharses; barely containing their five emotions under a 'field of non-optional magickal optimism, b.k.a. love. Another colleague strokes my chest hair and tells me of a disturbing dream she has had of pied-pipering all of our kiddos off of a cliff in Brighton. This is sexual harassment, I think, I'm going to let it slide this time, but if it happens again I'm going to send a strongly-worded text msg punctuated w/ th Easter Island emoji
Two of my kiddos, 7 and 11, go up to the balcony, each w/ his own unshareable agenda, as autistic kids do. I follow them up there. "You guys know how to slapbox?" Of course they don't. It is an important skill to learn, to defend oneself from th bullies in this world, especially th ones who try to exploit you because you're weird and in yr own unshareable world. Randolph, 11, keeps Riley, 7, @ bay w/ a long slap jab. @ work I have been teaching Randolph th rules (and exceptions) of respect for personal space; his jab is a flawless extension of that lesson. Riley and I have been working on better engagement w/ peers; I want him to slip under th jab and work th body. He ducks into a crouch and den springs up w/ an invisible slap uppercut that sends Randolph cartoon-airborne. "Finish him", I holler. A car alarm sounds in th distance
Just den my wife walks in.
"My work is not this violent usually", I say.
"Mario, that sounds like your car"
I run out to th parking lot. A Filipino man is exiting th driver's side of my car. I run, glancing in th driver's side window as I pass th car. My camera's body is sitting on th front passenger seat; its lens has been removed. I chase th flippy into a storefront across th street, through a shell curtain, and kick open a pair of saloon doors that open into a storage area where four older flippies are sitting around a card table playing mahjong. "Wherrre's dat ffflippy", I growl. One of th four, a fat woman w/ Eskimo hair, answers in Tagalog,
"[He's not here]"
"Oh so you do know him"
"[Of course we know him, he's our nephew]"
"Where is he, don't lie to me, I can see yr soul"
"[We don't know where he went. He comes and goes without kissing our cheeks. He is a disappointing boy. Hooked on dat shabu. People change, but you know some people never do. Now he has fallen in love with a white woman, for whom he steals]"
"He have a telephone ? Gimme his number"
"[1-855-948-7723]"
I dial
"Halo ? Yeah Paolo this is yr worst nightmare speaking. You are a disgrace to yr whole extended family. You have no home anymore. That lens you stole? It is on a wireless network w/ my right eye. I can see yr bae now. She is not that cool or good-looking, which you will realize once you get sober. Yeah I can help you w/ that. I'm a behaviour therapist. You got my number. I don't sleep for long"
Th titas and titos sneak up behind me and dump a tank of icy Gatorade on my back. Tita Eski hands me a Confederate flag towel and offers me her seat @ th table. I protest,
"It has been a while since I played mahjong, Tita, I'd slow everybody down"
She smiles
"[Does it look like we're in a hurry?]"
And that is how I finally made frenz in New Orleans
Two years ago, I was afraid of wanting anything. I figured wanting would lead to trying, and trying would lead to failure, but now I find I can't stop wanting. I want to fly somewhere in first-class. I want to travel to Europe on a business trip. I want to get invited to the White House. I want to learn about the world. I want to surprise myself. I want to be important. I want to be the best person I can be. I want to define myself, instead of having others define me. I want to win and have people be happy for me. I want to lose and get over it. I want to not be afraid of the unknown. I want to grow up to be generous and big-hearted, the way that people have been with me. I want an interesting and surprising life. It's not that I think I'm gonna get all these things. I just want the possibility of getting them. College represents possibility. The possibility that things are gonna change. I can't wait.
-- Tyra Colette as written by Elizabeth Heldens, Friday Night Lights, Season 3, Episode 12, "Underdogs"
There's a numerical tipping point. You look @ yr age number; you look @ th age numbers of yr dad's dead brothers. You say, numerically speaking, probabilistically speaking, I got more life behind me than ahead of me. College ain't but hoes and bros. Peggy Lee and Nancy Sinatra get less funny and more like prophets of sad -- enemies of faith. Yup, Lee and Sinatra used to be yr cool, older, truth-spitting sisters. Now that you're their age, you have to murder their truths to stay alive. Is that all there is to a fire? Naw, dat ain't fire; y'ain't seen no fire. Y'want a fire, come @ me, bro
How do you afford your rock'n'roll lifestyle? You pay for it in youth dollars, and as youth gets more expensive, yr splurges on rock'n'roll catharsis become fewer and further between. San Mateo's Th Mummies retired for good, God bless 'em, after a lifetime of acknowledging that they were already dead, which acknowledgment cleared psychic space for them to rock w/ as much abandon as anyone has rocked w/. Ah never saw 'em, and still ah'm gettin' nostalgic. When th rock used to rock, you know. Former prom queens and high school quarterbacks know what I'm talkin' bout. Remember how great el jay was ? People my age and a bit older and a bit younger are dodging nostalgia traps wherever they look, no matter what screen is before them; it's like Mario and his fireball chains and spinning blades -- here come weapons of mad nostalgia to slice th present and future to useless decontextualized ribbons #tbt
“koff koff koff KOFF This cough is outrageous. Ah'm a-get outraged by this cough th way liberals on my news feed get outraged by Chick-fil-A.”
“That cough's crazy. What are you gonna do?”
“Tweet about it.”
“I was gonna say, if it's bothering you that much, maybe you should tweet about it.”
“If this cough keep going th way it's going, ah'm a-have to get on whitehouse.gov and start a petition against it. Did you know, if y'get 100,000 signatures, it has to cross th president's desk.”
“No, it's 100,000.”
“What did I say.”
“I thought you said 1,000.”
“Nah. 100,000.”
“Wouldn't it be funny if it were only 1,000? His desk would be covered with -- ”
“Fedoras. His desk would be covered w/ shitty fedoras.”
“ -- long excerpts from Atlas Shrugged. What if the 'Thanks, Obama' people are right, and President Obama really was born outside of America, and he did this whole thing just so he could have sex w/ Beyoncé?”
“This a crazy world, baby. A lot of crazy things happen in it.”
“I feel like wanting to do it w/ Beyoncé is one of the less crazy things.”
“Yeah you right.”
“Although becoming leader of the free world just to do that might be a bit -- ”
“ -- sociopathic ? Yeah.”
This was on a hot day in August 2005, and the heat exacerbated the musty odor of the glue of old French books bringing on powerful olfactory nostalgia. I usually succeed in repressing such nostalgic excursions, but not when they sneak up on me as music or smell. The odor of Mandelbrot's books was that of French literature, of my parents' library, of the hours spent in bookstores and libraries when I was a teenager when many books around me were (alas) in French, when I thought that Literature was above anything and everything.
-- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: the Impact of the Highly Improbable (253)
Listen w/ one ear to th screen. This planet is in th middle of a nostalgic moment. What are climate change activists but Luddites who ride fixed-gear covered wagons and collect vintage photographs of garbage-free oceans and non-melting ice caps? Th planet was so much cooler back den, wasn't it? What are social justice warriors but foetuses who missed th civil rights movement th first time around and now are determined to remix it w/ tighter beats, nerdier language, less consensus, more powerful tech, and greater corporate sponsorship? Baby boomers are so gross, aren't they? Let's do what they did, except this time let's get it right and do it from our phones. These civil rights reenactors' hearts are in th right places -- on their sleeves. Wanna know how much they hate capitalism? Check their sleeves. How much they love black people and hate cops? Check their record collections. Occupy their browser histories if you want to measure th dimensions of their love and hate. Google only knows. They rent in black neighbourhoods when they're young, broke, and idealistic. Their presence and buying habits drive property values up. They move, and wherever they move, there goes th neighbourhood. They'll be back when they have kids, by which time it'll be a white neighbourhood. W/ enemies like these, white supremacists (who are in th middle of a nostalgic moment of their own) don't need friends.
None of this has anything to do w/ you and me, though. You're no SJW. I'm no white supremacist. Those are words explainers use to simplify an inscrutable causal chain that reaches back to before anybody walked on two legs. If we're not mothers and fathers, we're sons and daughters of mothers and fathers; and this is th loop in which we have all been caught. Th South does not exist. White people do not exist. Filipinos do not exist. Capitalism itself does not exist. We're pixels on God's Game Boy, and th game is to be, or not to be. Do suicide, or do not suicide. Make an imperfect copy of yrself, or make no copy of yrself. Build a monument to yrself that will last 1,000 years; 400 years; 100 years; no years; or until yr hosting service expires. Upload yr consciousness to heaven, or drag it to th recycle bin -- no backups, no nothin'. Th Buddhists look like tools for trying to flip th script on th cycle of suffering and desire. 3D-print some babbies, or don't. There is no try. We don't have children for any reason that's not make-believe. We don't love for a reason or make friends for a reason, not real friends. Pixels form shapes; shapes make games; and nothing worth doing has a reason behind it. There's no such thing as good old days or bad old days. It's chaotic old days all th way home. To admit that is to discover th antidote for nostalgia -- that and having children
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
-- Khalil Gibran, from Th Prophet (17)
Yup, Mum and Pop traded nostalgia for a diff brand of suffering: worrying bout their kiddos' futures. My brothers and I were great content providers for that worry, too: between hilarious (in retrospect) psychotic breaks w/ consensus reality; lesser manic depressive episodes; extended bouts of unemployment; totalled family autos; an interminable bachelorhood (by flippy standards); one nasty head injury; one near-death of a spouse; some dating choices of questionable wisdom (and their resulting soap operatic outcomes); a bottomless supply of harsh confrontations from Son #1 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯; sudden decisions to pick up and move to other states, coasts, and a famous Pacific island; bad haircuts; and th usual potpourri of adolescent horseshit all parents have to negotiate; we served 'em a solid menu of classic child-parent entrées. Not that Mum and Pop had much choice in th matter, but they lived to tell bout it; and we never got one atom of an impression that they found any of th three of us less than loveable. If people have to go to therapy for accumulating too much unconditional love as a child, sign me up
If I had th bread I'd do like Allen Iverson did and buy my mama a house. Did you know that Iverson's mama claimed he was born from no sexual intercourse whatsoever? Second virgin birth in history, and it didn't end in an NBA Championship. My own mother nearly became a nun as a teenager and reportedly wept when my grandfather and grandmother disallowed it. Their reason? Two of her older sisters had become nuns already. My existence dodged a bullet there; it's good to remember such things when faced w/ th temptation to wallow in good ol' days. There are innumerable good ol' days in th multiverse, and I'm not there to enjoy most of 'em
It's this day before us now that you can touch & explore & appreciate & mourn. This screen. This city. This friend. This podcast. This love. A different segment of you is back there loving a different city. That city. That love. All nostalgia is is failed time travel. You're back there, and you're up ahead. Let th you that's there mourn and exalt that day. Trust th you that's there. It's his day. You got yr own
A lot of things done changed since last we liaised, el jay. I'm getting divorced and have been separated from my wife for 10 months. Probably why I haven't written -- too much reason to. Mebbe why I'm typing bout nostalgia now, if you need a reason. I don't, not today, and that's what makes it a pleasure rather than a job. Oh, I got a job. Now I work w/ autistic children -- names & details have been altered here to comply w/ th professional ethical code. My own personal code prevents me from dissecting too hard what it is I enjoy so much bout this job; should you meet me for a drink I'll take a stab @ it, though
Speaking of time travel, a couple summers ago I officiated my BFF's wedding. It was around this time that my own marriage seemed to be reaching for new lows, rockier rocks, and meaner things-already-said. It's peculiar, then, now, how hopeful and steadfast and stable my faith in love appears to be, as if it is a force acting from w/o, impervious to internal valleys, internal rocks, internal meanness:
Dearly beloved, it's nice to see you. It's especially nice to join forces w/ you in order to recognize, bless, admire, and announce to Planet Earth th union of two of its most loveable inhabitants: Jacob and Shannon. Today is a one-of-a-kind day. Shannon and Jacob, although you aren't th first two people in th universe to get married, you are th only people ever to get married today in this house. Think about that. This location in spacetime -- powered by Jacob's love for Shannon past, present, and future; Shannon's love for Jacob past, present, and future; amplified by y'all, their home court of friends and family; filtered through th ritual magick we call “a wedding” -- this location becomes th vessel for all that has been, is, and will be good and holy throughout history. Visualize this room as a record player spinning nothing but th hit singles & selected b-sides of our collective experience of love & family. Th most heroic rescues made possible by love & family; th timely shoves out of th way of th speeding bus of human sadness & meaninglessness and into th arms of love & family; th funniest, stupidest jokes generated by love & family; th underappreciated quiet interludes of love & family -- all of these are present today in this room, reminders that we didn't come into this world under our own power, and that we need one another. In other words, for those who like to get emotional @ weddings: pick any angle. Hell, pick all of 'em. There's a surplus.
Of course, a marriage is not a sacred thing, and thank God for that. A marriage throws itself into cloud after cloud of everyday life's dirt -- money & sex; strange moods; telepathy gone awry; th aftermath of loss; th news -- but that's all right. A marriage gets dirty, and it takes a hot bath. A marriage spits a string of strong words that may or may not get spelled out w/ pound signs, dollar signs, percent symbols, & exclamation marks -- and afterwards all is calm because yr husband knows as close to everything about you as anyone ever will, and you don't faze him. Th hot bath is togetherness. It's admitting that even if you could walk th dog by yrself if you wanted to, you don't want to. It's visualizing a futuristic person who's half you and half yr wife, and thinking, “Hmm hmm, all right.” Th hot bath is being freaked out about not being freaked out about it.
But that's th meal, and for th most part Shannon and Jacob have to consume that meal, as all married couples do, in private. Today's about saying grace before th meal. Today we're in here, and th dirt & crime & smallness of mind & th news are out there, locked out, so that we may pay attention to this moment and allow this moment to stretch out to th right and to th left of us, as in Michael Burns' poem, into an indefinite distance. Visualize two figures, one w/ long hair and one w/ short hair, and two empty speech balloons emanating from their respective heads. Draw a rectangle around th two figures. Th figures aren't saying anything @ th moment because they're listening because this is th part of th ceremony where th minister's talking. Now picture another panel to th right of that one, containing th same two figures, moments from now. One is saying, “I do” or something to that effect. Th other is saying, “I do, too”. Picture another panel *here* in th near distance containing two figures and a third smaller figure whose face is a synthesis of th two bigger figures' faces. Behold, miles beyond that panel, another panel in which th two figures have grown old together, and beyond that, panels in which first one figure and then th other go off-panel for one last time. Th story doesn't end there. Zipping back in th opposite direction, th figures grow young together and eventually separate. They haven't met yet. One is snail-mailing a letter to th other. And what we're doing today is squeezing every scene into this scene, this moment, like an accordion, and also pulling this moment apart, like paper dolls, such that what we see before us are not only one Shannon and one Jacob, but all of them. What we see are giant forces @ work upon us. Whether they be natural, social, divine, or magickal forces, they're bigger and stronger than all of us. We see that in light of giant chaotic forces, our love has no choice but to be whole-hearted, supernatural, and timeless. Jacob and Shannon, it's gonna be a good day. It is a good day. It was a good day. Do you get loved? ******SPOILER******: you do.
Naturally, against my judgment, I feel nostalgick for that wedding day, th last day all of my closest friends were in one room. I allow myself to feel feelings bout th closeness and distance of th Internet in its legion of demonic shapes -- Instagram, Twitter, godforsaken FB, as far as th eye can see. My telephone becomes th true ball & chain. Every Internet embrace slips away, one by one, as images replace memories
Th center does not host. Th dive bars redecorate
Th West, th Midwest, and th East merge into one undifferentiated North, relative to New Orleans
Th sweethearts stay sweet, unburdened by forgotten soap operatics, attaining narrative symmetry via minimalist fiction
High fives are denied ...... forever
Pop culture has entered into a nostalgic malaise. Online culture is dominated by trivial mashups of the culture that existed before the onset of mashups, and by fandom responding to the dwindling outposts of centralized mass media. It is a culture of reaction without action.
-- Jaron Lanier, from You Are Not a Gadget (20)
A game of continuous self-distraction threatens to replace conscious creation of meaning. If religion is anything we permit ourselves not to question, everyone's religious. No one's losing their religion. One barters one religion for another. Trauma echoes from coast to coast as if by wormhole, each manifestation unaware of its remote twin: I am getting divorced; unbeknownst to me, you are getting divorced in a different city @ th same time. Or you're making imperfect, hella cute copies of yrself. I'm updating my Internet diary for th first time in two years
You're still dead, and I'm still making flawless make-believe copies of you that move & speak exactly like you, because that was how you decided to reproduce
Allen Iverson gets a year closer to his trust fund, which his lawyer set up to prevent A.I. from launching his millions all @ once into th black hole that is his need to get loved. This Earth is doomed;
and I live in th most nostalgic, most backward-facing city in America; a town that recycles its own traditions w/ unquestioning, irrational overconfidence; whose citizens permit themselves to forget that these traditions are th walking dead; where babbies learn to play Dixieland, and Dixieland dodges collection by th Grim Reaper one babby @ a time;
where we can never not remember how close we are to being underwater, th new Atlantis -- thanks, global warming -- thanks, Obama -- thanks, Allen Iverson -- we sittin' here, and there's a disappearing coastline, and we in here talkin' bout practice;
and mebbe I'll still be here as an old man on my boathouse waxing nostalgic w/ my old roommate liamtheruiner bout a NOLA that was on land; and mermaids will march in Mardi Gras; only locals will be able to tell th diff between them and th scuba divers in mermaid costumes
Good ol' A.I. will be on his deathbed practicing saying th names of his many children and his children's children, as an incantation against narcissism, nostalgia, & humanity's extinction. We were smart enough to invent language, and we were smart enough to use it to make poems & science fiction. Nobody has been smart enough to harness language's magickal properties to reverse our habitat's destruction or facilitate an FTL exodus to another habitable planet. Th suspense is uninhabitable
⚡⚡⚡ Messiah Lauren Iverson, Isaiah Rahsaan Iverson, Allen Iverson II, Tiaura Iverson, Dream Alijha Iverson, Allen Iverson III, Éamon Blaze Iverson, Skully Mulder Iverson, Walden Klark Kent Iverson, Dikembe Usain Almigh-T Bolt Iverson, Sergeballu LaMu Sayonga Loom Walahas Jonas Hugo Iverson, Björk Vondecarlo Perla Chascarillo Iversdóttir, Gilbert George Herriman Iverson, Sir Charles Shuttlesworth Iverson, Alice Practice Morticia "Tish" Iverson, Summer Olivia Bae Iverson ⚡⚡⚡
+ + +
THE COUNTDOWN:
33. AISLERS SET "Mary's Song" (7.3 MB)
32. YOU AM I "Heavy Heart" (4.4 MB)
31. RADIOACTIVE SAGO PROJECT "Astro" (5.3 MB)
30. BIG STAR "Thirteen" (3.5 MB)
29. DE KIFT "Nauwe Mijter" (5.0 MB)
28. TH CLEAN "Anything Could Happen" (2.5 MB)
27. JOHN FAHEY "Jaya Shiva Shankarah" (7.0 MB)
26. FEELIES "Forces @ Work" (9.8 MB)
25. LIFE W/O BUILDINGS "Sorrow" (9.5 MB)
24. TEENAGE FANCLUB "Broken" (7.3 MB)
23. PHYLLIS DILLON "Don't Stay Away" (3.7 MB)
22. MATUMBI "Wipe Them Out" (4.0 MB)
21. SISTER NANCY "Bam Bam" (4.5 MB)
20. FENWYCK "Mindrocker" (4.2 MB)
19. ADRIANO CELENTANO "Stai Lontana Da Me" (2.0 MB)
18. SHUGGIE OTIS "Strawberry Letter 23" (5.5 MB)
17. LEE MOSES "Time and Place" (2.8 MB)
16. FUNKADELIC "You and Yr Folks, Me and My Folks" (5.0 MB)
15. LISA "Rocket to Yr Heart" (17.5 MB)
14. MEDICAL MISSIONARIES OF MARY CHORAL GROUP "Angels Watching over Me" (3.0 MB)
13. TIM BUCKLEY "Song to th Siren" (7.6 MB)
12. KARA "We're w/ You" (7.8 MB)
11. ERNIE K-DOE "Here Come th Girls" (4.3 MB)
10. DONNY HATHAWAY "What's Goin' On" (7.9 MB)
09. NANCY SINATRA "You Only Live Twice" (5.4 MB)
08. DENNIS BROWN "Sitting & Watching" (8.0 MB)
07. PATRICE O'NEAL "Race War" (7.6 MB)
06. NINA SIMONE "Why Keep On Breaking My Heart" (3.6 MB)
05. IDA "Little Things" (6.0 MB)
04. YOSHIYUKI OSAWA "(I Am) At a Loss" (15.2 MB)
03. RAYMOND SCOTT "Powerhouse" (6.8 MB)
02. KINKS "Days" (4.0 MB) -- One of Earth's top if not th top nostalgic song(s). Listened to 10,000x on a beat-up cassette.
Bonus tracks:
KINKS "I'll Remember" (3.4 MB) -- Not th literal B-side of "Days", th psychic one.
JOHN PARISH & PJ HARVEY "Is That All There Is?" (7.1 MB) -- No sense of humour, this one.
BUZZCOCKS "Nostalgia" (4.0 MB) -- Synopsis of complex feelings bout Captain Picard.
"I love you, Philadelphia. I love y'all for accepting me and letting me be me, letting me make my mistakes, letting me be human, letting me learn from 'em, just embracing me and making this my home forever."
He was smizeless. What's home, anyhow? It's New Orleans. It's th bar where everybody knows yr name. It's th house you grew up in. It's where everybody judged you aeons ago; where you're taken for granted. It's where you're a bored child. It's th location that makes escape inevitable. It's where you escape to. It's where you're skinny in th past and fat in th future. Wherever yr porch is, you sit there and sip, sweet tea in one hand, mojito in th other, and say hi to neighbours from it. Yr dad sits w/ you and spells out truths that haven't aged a day. How men behave. How women behave. How space aliens and robots behave. Yr son sits w/ you and listens and challenges you. When it's yr time, you crawl under that same porch.
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
-- T.S. Eliot, from "East Coker"
My colleague is sitting in th back seat of 葦絢扱斡梓 艶飴絢宛's car holding hands w/ me. Her fingers are long and slender, and her hand is bigger than mine and nearly as brown. This will never work out, I think. It's like holding a hairless tarantula. She is so nice, though. What does working out mean anyhow ? Not much. Enjoy this. Th car pulls up to th Prytania, which is hosting a one-time screening of Inside Out (Pete Docter & Ronaldo Del Carmen 2015), Rocky Horror style, w/ employees wearing mascot outfits of th Five Emotions, as a fundraiser for autism awareness in New Orleans. Inside, dozens of kids on th spectrum, some of whom I know, are wilding out in a nonviolent way, scripting and flapping, one solipsistic word salad and sensory saturation forcefield @ a time
Th mothers are there, too, talking potty training, communication breakthroughs, and catharses; barely containing their five emotions under a 'field of non-optional magickal optimism, b.k.a. love. Another colleague strokes my chest hair and tells me of a disturbing dream she has had of pied-pipering all of our kiddos off of a cliff in Brighton. This is sexual harassment, I think, I'm going to let it slide this time, but if it happens again I'm going to send a strongly-worded text msg punctuated w/ th Easter Island emoji
Two of my kiddos, 7 and 11, go up to the balcony, each w/ his own unshareable agenda, as autistic kids do. I follow them up there. "You guys know how to slapbox?" Of course they don't. It is an important skill to learn, to defend oneself from th bullies in this world, especially th ones who try to exploit you because you're weird and in yr own unshareable world. Randolph, 11, keeps Riley, 7, @ bay w/ a long slap jab. @ work I have been teaching Randolph th rules (and exceptions) of respect for personal space; his jab is a flawless extension of that lesson. Riley and I have been working on better engagement w/ peers; I want him to slip under th jab and work th body. He ducks into a crouch and den springs up w/ an invisible slap uppercut that sends Randolph cartoon-airborne. "Finish him", I holler. A car alarm sounds in th distance
Just den my wife walks in.
"My work is not this violent usually", I say.
"Mario, that sounds like your car"
I run out to th parking lot. A Filipino man is exiting th driver's side of my car. I run, glancing in th driver's side window as I pass th car. My camera's body is sitting on th front passenger seat; its lens has been removed. I chase th flippy into a storefront across th street, through a shell curtain, and kick open a pair of saloon doors that open into a storage area where four older flippies are sitting around a card table playing mahjong. "Wherrre's dat ffflippy", I growl. One of th four, a fat woman w/ Eskimo hair, answers in Tagalog,
"[He's not here]"
"Oh so you do know him"
"[Of course we know him, he's our nephew]"
"Where is he, don't lie to me, I can see yr soul"
"[We don't know where he went. He comes and goes without kissing our cheeks. He is a disappointing boy. Hooked on dat shabu. People change, but you know some people never do. Now he has fallen in love with a white woman, for whom he steals]"
"He have a telephone ? Gimme his number"
"[1-855-948-7723]"
I dial
"Halo ? Yeah Paolo this is yr worst nightmare speaking. You are a disgrace to yr whole extended family. You have no home anymore. That lens you stole? It is on a wireless network w/ my right eye. I can see yr bae now. She is not that cool or good-looking, which you will realize once you get sober. Yeah I can help you w/ that. I'm a behaviour therapist. You got my number. I don't sleep for long"
Th titas and titos sneak up behind me and dump a tank of icy Gatorade on my back. Tita Eski hands me a Confederate flag towel and offers me her seat @ th table. I protest,
"It has been a while since I played mahjong, Tita, I'd slow everybody down"
She smiles
"[Does it look like we're in a hurry?]"
And that is how I finally made frenz in New Orleans
Two years ago, I was afraid of wanting anything. I figured wanting would lead to trying, and trying would lead to failure, but now I find I can't stop wanting. I want to fly somewhere in first-class. I want to travel to Europe on a business trip. I want to get invited to the White House. I want to learn about the world. I want to surprise myself. I want to be important. I want to be the best person I can be. I want to define myself, instead of having others define me. I want to win and have people be happy for me. I want to lose and get over it. I want to not be afraid of the unknown. I want to grow up to be generous and big-hearted, the way that people have been with me. I want an interesting and surprising life. It's not that I think I'm gonna get all these things. I just want the possibility of getting them. College represents possibility. The possibility that things are gonna change. I can't wait.
-- Tyra Colette as written by Elizabeth Heldens, Friday Night Lights, Season 3, Episode 12, "Underdogs"
There's a numerical tipping point. You look @ yr age number; you look @ th age numbers of yr dad's dead brothers. You say, numerically speaking, probabilistically speaking, I got more life behind me than ahead of me. College ain't but hoes and bros. Peggy Lee and Nancy Sinatra get less funny and more like prophets of sad -- enemies of faith. Yup, Lee and Sinatra used to be yr cool, older, truth-spitting sisters. Now that you're their age, you have to murder their truths to stay alive. Is that all there is to a fire? Naw, dat ain't fire; y'ain't seen no fire. Y'want a fire, come @ me, bro
How do you afford your rock'n'roll lifestyle? You pay for it in youth dollars, and as youth gets more expensive, yr splurges on rock'n'roll catharsis become fewer and further between. San Mateo's Th Mummies retired for good, God bless 'em, after a lifetime of acknowledging that they were already dead, which acknowledgment cleared psychic space for them to rock w/ as much abandon as anyone has rocked w/. Ah never saw 'em, and still ah'm gettin' nostalgic. When th rock used to rock, you know. Former prom queens and high school quarterbacks know what I'm talkin' bout. Remember how great el jay was ? People my age and a bit older and a bit younger are dodging nostalgia traps wherever they look, no matter what screen is before them; it's like Mario and his fireball chains and spinning blades -- here come weapons of mad nostalgia to slice th present and future to useless decontextualized ribbons #tbt
“koff koff koff KOFF This cough is outrageous. Ah'm a-get outraged by this cough th way liberals on my news feed get outraged by Chick-fil-A.”
“That cough's crazy. What are you gonna do?”
“Tweet about it.”
“I was gonna say, if it's bothering you that much, maybe you should tweet about it.”
“If this cough keep going th way it's going, ah'm a-have to get on whitehouse.gov and start a petition against it. Did you know, if y'get 100,000 signatures, it has to cross th president's desk.”
“No, it's 100,000.”
“What did I say.”
“I thought you said 1,000.”
“Nah. 100,000.”
“Wouldn't it be funny if it were only 1,000? His desk would be covered with -- ”
“Fedoras. His desk would be covered w/ shitty fedoras.”
“ -- long excerpts from Atlas Shrugged. What if the 'Thanks, Obama' people are right, and President Obama really was born outside of America, and he did this whole thing just so he could have sex w/ Beyoncé?”
“This a crazy world, baby. A lot of crazy things happen in it.”
“I feel like wanting to do it w/ Beyoncé is one of the less crazy things.”
“Yeah you right.”
“Although becoming leader of the free world just to do that might be a bit -- ”
“ -- sociopathic ? Yeah.”
This was on a hot day in August 2005, and the heat exacerbated the musty odor of the glue of old French books bringing on powerful olfactory nostalgia. I usually succeed in repressing such nostalgic excursions, but not when they sneak up on me as music or smell. The odor of Mandelbrot's books was that of French literature, of my parents' library, of the hours spent in bookstores and libraries when I was a teenager when many books around me were (alas) in French, when I thought that Literature was above anything and everything.
-- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: the Impact of the Highly Improbable (253)
Listen w/ one ear to th screen. This planet is in th middle of a nostalgic moment. What are climate change activists but Luddites who ride fixed-gear covered wagons and collect vintage photographs of garbage-free oceans and non-melting ice caps? Th planet was so much cooler back den, wasn't it? What are social justice warriors but foetuses who missed th civil rights movement th first time around and now are determined to remix it w/ tighter beats, nerdier language, less consensus, more powerful tech, and greater corporate sponsorship? Baby boomers are so gross, aren't they? Let's do what they did, except this time let's get it right and do it from our phones. These civil rights reenactors' hearts are in th right places -- on their sleeves. Wanna know how much they hate capitalism? Check their sleeves. How much they love black people and hate cops? Check their record collections. Occupy their browser histories if you want to measure th dimensions of their love and hate. Google only knows. They rent in black neighbourhoods when they're young, broke, and idealistic. Their presence and buying habits drive property values up. They move, and wherever they move, there goes th neighbourhood. They'll be back when they have kids, by which time it'll be a white neighbourhood. W/ enemies like these, white supremacists (who are in th middle of a nostalgic moment of their own) don't need friends.
None of this has anything to do w/ you and me, though. You're no SJW. I'm no white supremacist. Those are words explainers use to simplify an inscrutable causal chain that reaches back to before anybody walked on two legs. If we're not mothers and fathers, we're sons and daughters of mothers and fathers; and this is th loop in which we have all been caught. Th South does not exist. White people do not exist. Filipinos do not exist. Capitalism itself does not exist. We're pixels on God's Game Boy, and th game is to be, or not to be. Do suicide, or do not suicide. Make an imperfect copy of yrself, or make no copy of yrself. Build a monument to yrself that will last 1,000 years; 400 years; 100 years; no years; or until yr hosting service expires. Upload yr consciousness to heaven, or drag it to th recycle bin -- no backups, no nothin'. Th Buddhists look like tools for trying to flip th script on th cycle of suffering and desire. 3D-print some babbies, or don't. There is no try. We don't have children for any reason that's not make-believe. We don't love for a reason or make friends for a reason, not real friends. Pixels form shapes; shapes make games; and nothing worth doing has a reason behind it. There's no such thing as good old days or bad old days. It's chaotic old days all th way home. To admit that is to discover th antidote for nostalgia -- that and having children
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
-- Khalil Gibran, from Th Prophet (17)
Yup, Mum and Pop traded nostalgia for a diff brand of suffering: worrying bout their kiddos' futures. My brothers and I were great content providers for that worry, too: between hilarious (in retrospect) psychotic breaks w/ consensus reality; lesser manic depressive episodes; extended bouts of unemployment; totalled family autos; an interminable bachelorhood (by flippy standards); one nasty head injury; one near-death of a spouse; some dating choices of questionable wisdom (and their resulting soap operatic outcomes); a bottomless supply of harsh confrontations from Son #1 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯; sudden decisions to pick up and move to other states, coasts, and a famous Pacific island; bad haircuts; and th usual potpourri of adolescent horseshit all parents have to negotiate; we served 'em a solid menu of classic child-parent entrées. Not that Mum and Pop had much choice in th matter, but they lived to tell bout it; and we never got one atom of an impression that they found any of th three of us less than loveable. If people have to go to therapy for accumulating too much unconditional love as a child, sign me up
If I had th bread I'd do like Allen Iverson did and buy my mama a house. Did you know that Iverson's mama claimed he was born from no sexual intercourse whatsoever? Second virgin birth in history, and it didn't end in an NBA Championship. My own mother nearly became a nun as a teenager and reportedly wept when my grandfather and grandmother disallowed it. Their reason? Two of her older sisters had become nuns already. My existence dodged a bullet there; it's good to remember such things when faced w/ th temptation to wallow in good ol' days. There are innumerable good ol' days in th multiverse, and I'm not there to enjoy most of 'em
It's this day before us now that you can touch & explore & appreciate & mourn. This screen. This city. This friend. This podcast. This love. A different segment of you is back there loving a different city. That city. That love. All nostalgia is is failed time travel. You're back there, and you're up ahead. Let th you that's there mourn and exalt that day. Trust th you that's there. It's his day. You got yr own
A lot of things done changed since last we liaised, el jay. I'm getting divorced and have been separated from my wife for 10 months. Probably why I haven't written -- too much reason to. Mebbe why I'm typing bout nostalgia now, if you need a reason. I don't, not today, and that's what makes it a pleasure rather than a job. Oh, I got a job. Now I work w/ autistic children -- names & details have been altered here to comply w/ th professional ethical code. My own personal code prevents me from dissecting too hard what it is I enjoy so much bout this job; should you meet me for a drink I'll take a stab @ it, though
Speaking of time travel, a couple summers ago I officiated my BFF's wedding. It was around this time that my own marriage seemed to be reaching for new lows, rockier rocks, and meaner things-already-said. It's peculiar, then, now, how hopeful and steadfast and stable my faith in love appears to be, as if it is a force acting from w/o, impervious to internal valleys, internal rocks, internal meanness:
Dearly beloved, it's nice to see you. It's especially nice to join forces w/ you in order to recognize, bless, admire, and announce to Planet Earth th union of two of its most loveable inhabitants: Jacob and Shannon. Today is a one-of-a-kind day. Shannon and Jacob, although you aren't th first two people in th universe to get married, you are th only people ever to get married today in this house. Think about that. This location in spacetime -- powered by Jacob's love for Shannon past, present, and future; Shannon's love for Jacob past, present, and future; amplified by y'all, their home court of friends and family; filtered through th ritual magick we call “a wedding” -- this location becomes th vessel for all that has been, is, and will be good and holy throughout history. Visualize this room as a record player spinning nothing but th hit singles & selected b-sides of our collective experience of love & family. Th most heroic rescues made possible by love & family; th timely shoves out of th way of th speeding bus of human sadness & meaninglessness and into th arms of love & family; th funniest, stupidest jokes generated by love & family; th underappreciated quiet interludes of love & family -- all of these are present today in this room, reminders that we didn't come into this world under our own power, and that we need one another. In other words, for those who like to get emotional @ weddings: pick any angle. Hell, pick all of 'em. There's a surplus.
Of course, a marriage is not a sacred thing, and thank God for that. A marriage throws itself into cloud after cloud of everyday life's dirt -- money & sex; strange moods; telepathy gone awry; th aftermath of loss; th news -- but that's all right. A marriage gets dirty, and it takes a hot bath. A marriage spits a string of strong words that may or may not get spelled out w/ pound signs, dollar signs, percent symbols, & exclamation marks -- and afterwards all is calm because yr husband knows as close to everything about you as anyone ever will, and you don't faze him. Th hot bath is togetherness. It's admitting that even if you could walk th dog by yrself if you wanted to, you don't want to. It's visualizing a futuristic person who's half you and half yr wife, and thinking, “Hmm hmm, all right.” Th hot bath is being freaked out about not being freaked out about it.
But that's th meal, and for th most part Shannon and Jacob have to consume that meal, as all married couples do, in private. Today's about saying grace before th meal. Today we're in here, and th dirt & crime & smallness of mind & th news are out there, locked out, so that we may pay attention to this moment and allow this moment to stretch out to th right and to th left of us, as in Michael Burns' poem, into an indefinite distance. Visualize two figures, one w/ long hair and one w/ short hair, and two empty speech balloons emanating from their respective heads. Draw a rectangle around th two figures. Th figures aren't saying anything @ th moment because they're listening because this is th part of th ceremony where th minister's talking. Now picture another panel to th right of that one, containing th same two figures, moments from now. One is saying, “I do” or something to that effect. Th other is saying, “I do, too”. Picture another panel *here* in th near distance containing two figures and a third smaller figure whose face is a synthesis of th two bigger figures' faces. Behold, miles beyond that panel, another panel in which th two figures have grown old together, and beyond that, panels in which first one figure and then th other go off-panel for one last time. Th story doesn't end there. Zipping back in th opposite direction, th figures grow young together and eventually separate. They haven't met yet. One is snail-mailing a letter to th other. And what we're doing today is squeezing every scene into this scene, this moment, like an accordion, and also pulling this moment apart, like paper dolls, such that what we see before us are not only one Shannon and one Jacob, but all of them. What we see are giant forces @ work upon us. Whether they be natural, social, divine, or magickal forces, they're bigger and stronger than all of us. We see that in light of giant chaotic forces, our love has no choice but to be whole-hearted, supernatural, and timeless. Jacob and Shannon, it's gonna be a good day. It is a good day. It was a good day. Do you get loved? ******SPOILER******: you do.
Naturally, against my judgment, I feel nostalgick for that wedding day, th last day all of my closest friends were in one room. I allow myself to feel feelings bout th closeness and distance of th Internet in its legion of demonic shapes -- Instagram, Twitter, godforsaken FB, as far as th eye can see. My telephone becomes th true ball & chain. Every Internet embrace slips away, one by one, as images replace memories
Th center does not host. Th dive bars redecorate
Th West, th Midwest, and th East merge into one undifferentiated North, relative to New Orleans
Th sweethearts stay sweet, unburdened by forgotten soap operatics, attaining narrative symmetry via minimalist fiction
High fives are denied ...... forever
Pop culture has entered into a nostalgic malaise. Online culture is dominated by trivial mashups of the culture that existed before the onset of mashups, and by fandom responding to the dwindling outposts of centralized mass media. It is a culture of reaction without action.
-- Jaron Lanier, from You Are Not a Gadget (20)
A game of continuous self-distraction threatens to replace conscious creation of meaning. If religion is anything we permit ourselves not to question, everyone's religious. No one's losing their religion. One barters one religion for another. Trauma echoes from coast to coast as if by wormhole, each manifestation unaware of its remote twin: I am getting divorced; unbeknownst to me, you are getting divorced in a different city @ th same time. Or you're making imperfect, hella cute copies of yrself. I'm updating my Internet diary for th first time in two years
You're still dead, and I'm still making flawless make-believe copies of you that move & speak exactly like you, because that was how you decided to reproduce
Allen Iverson gets a year closer to his trust fund, which his lawyer set up to prevent A.I. from launching his millions all @ once into th black hole that is his need to get loved. This Earth is doomed;
and I live in th most nostalgic, most backward-facing city in America; a town that recycles its own traditions w/ unquestioning, irrational overconfidence; whose citizens permit themselves to forget that these traditions are th walking dead; where babbies learn to play Dixieland, and Dixieland dodges collection by th Grim Reaper one babby @ a time;
where we can never not remember how close we are to being underwater, th new Atlantis -- thanks, global warming -- thanks, Obama -- thanks, Allen Iverson -- we sittin' here, and there's a disappearing coastline, and we in here talkin' bout practice;
and mebbe I'll still be here as an old man on my boathouse waxing nostalgic w/ my old roommate liamtheruiner bout a NOLA that was on land; and mermaids will march in Mardi Gras; only locals will be able to tell th diff between them and th scuba divers in mermaid costumes
Good ol' A.I. will be on his deathbed practicing saying th names of his many children and his children's children, as an incantation against narcissism, nostalgia, & humanity's extinction. We were smart enough to invent language, and we were smart enough to use it to make poems & science fiction. Nobody has been smart enough to harness language's magickal properties to reverse our habitat's destruction or facilitate an FTL exodus to another habitable planet. Th suspense is uninhabitable
⚡⚡⚡ Messiah Lauren Iverson, Isaiah Rahsaan Iverson, Allen Iverson II, Tiaura Iverson, Dream Alijha Iverson, Allen Iverson III, Éamon Blaze Iverson, Skully Mulder Iverson, Walden Klark Kent Iverson, Dikembe Usain Almigh-T Bolt Iverson, Sergeballu LaMu Sayonga Loom Walahas Jonas Hugo Iverson, Björk Vondecarlo Perla Chascarillo Iversdóttir, Gilbert George Herriman Iverson, Sir Charles Shuttlesworth Iverson, Alice Practice Morticia "Tish" Iverson, Summer Olivia Bae Iverson ⚡⚡⚡
+ + +
THE COUNTDOWN:
33. AISLERS SET "Mary's Song" (7.3 MB)
32. YOU AM I "Heavy Heart" (4.4 MB)
31. RADIOACTIVE SAGO PROJECT "Astro" (5.3 MB)
30. BIG STAR "Thirteen" (3.5 MB)
29. DE KIFT "Nauwe Mijter" (5.0 MB)
28. TH CLEAN "Anything Could Happen" (2.5 MB)
27. JOHN FAHEY "Jaya Shiva Shankarah" (7.0 MB)
26. FEELIES "Forces @ Work" (9.8 MB)
25. LIFE W/O BUILDINGS "Sorrow" (9.5 MB)
24. TEENAGE FANCLUB "Broken" (7.3 MB)
23. PHYLLIS DILLON "Don't Stay Away" (3.7 MB)
22. MATUMBI "Wipe Them Out" (4.0 MB)
21. SISTER NANCY "Bam Bam" (4.5 MB)
20. FENWYCK "Mindrocker" (4.2 MB)
19. ADRIANO CELENTANO "Stai Lontana Da Me" (2.0 MB)
18. SHUGGIE OTIS "Strawberry Letter 23" (5.5 MB)
17. LEE MOSES "Time and Place" (2.8 MB)
16. FUNKADELIC "You and Yr Folks, Me and My Folks" (5.0 MB)
15. LISA "Rocket to Yr Heart" (17.5 MB)
14. MEDICAL MISSIONARIES OF MARY CHORAL GROUP "Angels Watching over Me" (3.0 MB)
13. TIM BUCKLEY "Song to th Siren" (7.6 MB)
12. KARA "We're w/ You" (7.8 MB)
11. ERNIE K-DOE "Here Come th Girls" (4.3 MB)
10. DONNY HATHAWAY "What's Goin' On" (7.9 MB)
09. NANCY SINATRA "You Only Live Twice" (5.4 MB)
08. DENNIS BROWN "Sitting & Watching" (8.0 MB)
07. PATRICE O'NEAL "Race War" (7.6 MB)
06. NINA SIMONE "Why Keep On Breaking My Heart" (3.6 MB)
05. IDA "Little Things" (6.0 MB)
04. YOSHIYUKI OSAWA "(I Am) At a Loss" (15.2 MB)
03. RAYMOND SCOTT "Powerhouse" (6.8 MB)
02. KINKS "Days" (4.0 MB) -- One of Earth's top if not th top nostalgic song(s). Listened to 10,000x on a beat-up cassette.
Bonus tracks:
KINKS "I'll Remember" (3.4 MB) -- Not th literal B-side of "Days", th psychic one.
JOHN PARISH & PJ HARVEY "Is That All There Is?" (7.1 MB) -- No sense of humour, this one.
BUZZCOCKS "Nostalgia" (4.0 MB) -- Synopsis of complex feelings bout Captain Picard.