RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,261
(the drainage ditch of time)
I'm not a fan - at all - of
nostalgia, though I do get
somehow put into that
category, much to my own
consternation : old photos,
and things to remember. The
superfluousness of the modern
day, however, is more what
drives me. Nostalgia is both
weak, and thin. It holds nothing,
and brings nothing new to the
table except maybe gawking
backwards. At that superfluity.
At what has been thrown away.
-
Today's world has to be backed
by something better than that; to
be tolerated or seen for what it
is. It needs steel and education.
Nostalgia, by contrast, is dumb and
soft. Things need to be pushed and
shattered, tossed; not just looked
at. We have somehow lost all the
categories that once brought out
all the glories. Highways through
the middle of country towns, and
overhead ramps and turn-offs for
cheap plazas and junk - it's as
if everyone's gone unconscious
and, zombie-like, just walks about
in a daze unmindful of what's now
around them and where they are.
And no one ever stops to think or
see how and by whom this has
occurred. That's where the nostalgia
racket comes in - the same plotters
who schemed all this crap out are
busy presenting the past as an ideal.
It never truly was, and any notion
of the past becomes their Hallmark
card version of cheesy glamor: the
open hearth, the country lane, the
big trees, the grandma at the stove
anxiously awaiting again her kids'
and grandkids' visit. That's where
the Little Red Riding Hood aspect
of the hidden evil hides: the nostalgic
yen for allowing the bastards with
the sharpened teeth to have their
way.
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True nostalgia, I guess, would be
filth and odor. Carcasses and sick
people. Old timers chopping wood
with aching backs and tired limbs,
and kids with fevers and open sores
eating berries and mushrooms. It
can't be avoided, the taking of
anything to an extreme and the
extent of the falsehood of 'nostalgia'
is that it always picks a most gentle
and comfortable spot to drop you
off into so you can miss the direct
assault of the present on your own
place and time. Councilmen on the
take voting yes for more condos.
Mayors and Town Supervisors
huddling with out-of-state and
corporate developers to flip over
enough money and loose change
so as to betray both their place and
people, substituting instead hideously
perfect glamor palaces of historic
local bullshit and tax-burden old
categories of homes, and houses
as 'History' museums for the local
scum to come and drool about all
they've lost. Like a veterans' home
soldier with a couple of wounds,
each wound gets its own story.
-
It's all sleight-of-hand really; all
that nostalgia crap becomes a
trick, used by professional thieves
to steal the nose from off your face.
I want none of that. None. Everyone's
had a Grandfather who did this or
who did that. So what?
-
I left all that. I live now in a pile
of rubble, a place tripping over its
own ruins and memories - old
and twisted barns, abandoned
homes, unused silos, broken
down trucks and cars, signs that
curse out Presidents and cast out
Devils. The stories of the past here
are of old days and slaughter, the
raids of settlers and Indians upon
each other, unmarked graves and
tales of massacre and woe - fishing
damns, railroad trails, and calamities.
Anyone wishing the make nostalgia
from such a storied past is usually
stopped by the reality of the present.
There's little bullshit out here and
mostly what goes on, mostly, I repeat,
are silent avowals of the current
work of day-today living. The
drainage ditch here is deep, but
it runs out very slowly.
-
I like the world better that way.
Turning the light on to press through
the darkness is only good if that light
illumines not just a nostalgic view of
the past, but a notably realistic view
of the now: a well-darned sock of the
present - reeking with the odor
of toes sticking out and well-worn
heels of betrayal and disquiet.
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